Make Classes more Unique (and prevent 3 man hull tanking)

[Kinesis]

Im sure anyone who has played gets annoyed how a 3 man engineer team with the 1 gunner skill needed to man the main guns can easily outgun and crazyily out-tank everyone. On top of that the gunner feels very trivial usually only needing one type of ammo to compensate for their main gun. My suggestion is to make the classes more unique.

For the captain, No engineer slot, or gunner slot, 5 captain slots.

For the Engineer, One Captain slot (for sightglass), 4 engineer slots, 0 gunner slots

For the Gunner, One Captain slot (again sightglass), 3 Gunner slots, and only a choice between a weak all around repair item (not the wrench its too good at rebuild), hammer, or fire extinguisher.
On top of that make the gunner abilities considerably better than the default ammo. Since only the gunner can use it, it makes a reason to not have all engineers.

As it stands right now firefights against teams who either drop guns and go full repairs on retreat or already have multiple engineers are considerably hard to take down if not impossible at times without the Pyramidian win combo. The problem stems from too many people working together to instant rebuild hull, making it so they constantly tank the next volley even if they loose the armor seconds later. Since with two people either pipe+pipe or pipe+wrench takes around 2-3 seconds to rebuild. The cooldown system works wonders but the rebuild system is making games infuriatingly long if after 6+ volleys of double rocket launcher barrages they still look like they havent take a hit of worth of hull damage it feels rather underpowered compared to the repair capabilities of multiple engineers/people with the tools.

[Shinkurex]

Hey! first off I don't think I've welcomed you to the forums yet, so welcome! Secondly, there are two things that I would like to say regarding this.

First, if you have all 3 crew tanking the hull, then you have absolutely no dps cranking out of your ship... this allows you to maneuver anywhere you want around the enemy (excluding tar of course) to get the most optimal killing power. Secondly, even with the hull down for 2 seconds, you can easily kill the enemy faster than what you think, but this takes coordination. If we're talking a metamidion (Gat/flak pyra for those unfamiliar with the term) you should always have whoever is on the flak wait until they see that the armor is down in the upper left hand corner. I typically like to put greased in there on those occasions as well, so I can get some more dps. if we're talking hwachafish or something similar, I would stick a gat on the sides, and bring phoenix claw gunner would always sit on the hwacha, and the engies would grab a gat when available to widdle down the armor... once the armor is down, phoenix claw fast to bring the front gun in range and wipe them out .... I hope that helps

[Arthem White]

I agree with the sentiment but I'm not sure that's the right way to do it. I think part of the beauty of GOIO is that anyone can do anything in a pinch. By having engineers unable to shoot, you would be undermining the possibility of pulling off clutch victories by having certain classes do what they're not initially supposed to.

My way to look at the issue is the following: Both Pilots and Engineers have tools that are of extreme importance in different situations of the same match. It is guaranteed that all three engineer tools will be useful through a challenging match, and so are the pilot tools. However, whether or not the gunner ammo is useful depends on how well the ship dictates the engagement. A ship that plays optimally (staying in their best range) or one that is simply based on a specific, non-flexible strategy has little use for multiple types of ammo.

My proposal to fix this would be to diversify the sort of stuff a Gunner can do, besides different types of ammo, so that a 3 gunner tool set is more or less guaranteed to be useful through a match. For instance, I would give the Gunner a tool to boost reload times, or a superstition based "phoenix claw-like" booster that greatly increases damage when the ship is damaged.

Other way to go at it would be (and I might make a post about this later on to see what people think) to completely eliminate "standard ammo". If, in order to fire a gun, you needed to load a specific gunner ammo in it, I think it would be much better for the gunners, because engineers would be quite constrained in what they can do.

[GrimWinter]

We would never see the end of tar barrels that way! I think gunner just needs more perks as a class, I feel removing the cross class tool slots would hurt the game more than help

[Bauldr]

Could we do something like the pilot tools? For example we could have a tool that increases the turn radius of the weapon or the angle it can be aimed?

[Moo]

Here.

[N-Sunderland]

As previously stated, getting all three crew on the hull is a pretty good way to make sure you're going to lose the fight. You'll get the hull up quickly, sure, but you'll never do any damage to the other ship. It's a terrible strategy. You only need one person on the hull, maybe two if you're in dire trouble. The DPS that the gunners/gungineers put out is far more useful than the repairs they can do.

Engineers having four repair tools would ruin the role completely. There'd only be two viable setups: mallet/spanner/extinguisher(or chem)/buff.  You wouldn't even have to spend any time thinking about what tools to bring. Same goes for pilot. Three is a perfect amount in that it gives you a lot of options, but leaves you wanting a little bit more from time to time. It's important that you come a little short of getting everything you want, because then you actually have to make a choice.

And what's wrong with gunners having a wrench? They already repair pitifully compared to engineers, they don't need to be nerfed anymore. If anything, your suggestion sounds more like a great way to buff engineers and pilots while doing little to actually help the gunner. Sure, the gunner would be able to use specialized ammo while the engi can't, but the gunner wouldn't be able to maintain their gun properly. And the engi would get to buff, too.

While I agree that something has to be done to make the gunner more viable, I don't think this is the best way to do so.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

Pilot is fine where it is, the sole reason gunners are barely used anymore is becouse they nerfed flamers. That's it. In 1.1.3 meta was 1 pilot 2 engineers and 1 gunner. Engineers only packed heatsink ammo back then, becouse flamers instantly made weapons useless (1 stack of flame = was weapon dissabled). Gunners could actualy pack usefull ammo types in adittion to heatsink ammo (heatsink ammo still inreases weapon turning speed, but imunity to being set on fire is useless nowdays, got chemspray for that). All they have to do is to make flamers instantly dissable (not destroy just dissable) with 1st stack of fire and nerf chem spray to confer no more than 3sec protection against flames.

[Arthem White]

Pilot is fine where it is, the sole reason gunners are barely used anymore is becouse they nerfed flamers. That's it. In 1.1.3 meta was 1 pilot 2 engineers and 1 gunner. Engineers only packed heatsink ammo back then, becouse flamers instantly made weapons useless (1 stack of flame = was weapon dissabled). Gunners could actualy pack usefull ammo types in adittion to heatsink ammo (heatsink ammo still inreases weapon turning speed, but imunity to being set on fire is useless nowdays, got chemspray for that). All they have to do is to make flamers instantly dissable (not destroy just dissable) with 1st stack of fire and nerf chem spray to confer no more than 3sec protection against flames.

I think this is a corollary to my previous post. Gunners are useful insofar their skill set can cover different scenarios of a single match. The issue right now is that you generally just need 1 type of ammo to make your build work through most of the match.

If gunners had ammo types (or other skills) geared towards utility in different situations other than straight offense they would be more appealing, I think.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

With exception of Lochnegar and Heatsink ammo, all the other types are usefull. Just need to make flamer back to where it was before it was remade into something most captains laugh off. Where old flamer used to make guns instantly unsusable and you needed heatsink ammo as engineer, meaning they were much less usefull at gunning, than they are now.

[Shinkurex]

I find loch very useful in a hellhound

[JaegerDelta]

if your gunner is only using one type of ammo the whole time your gunner is not landing the most shots possible with the arcing weps or not boosting the damage when you need to to get the kill quicker. Gunning gameplay is different from engineering and piloting, in that it is more subtle.  using one ammo type is good enough, you will get the kills. but a gunner that can identify when to do a damage boost, or when to boost the AOE, etc. (not to mention knowing where to hit each ship) will get the kills a few enemy hull cycles quicker.  In a game where you are not taking too much damage it doesnt really matter. However, a gunner clinching a kill as quick as possible saves your ass just as much as an engineer repairing your ship.

[Skrimskraw]

3 man tanking hull?
shoot their balloon, then 2 man is tanking the hull.
then proceed to make it hell for those 2 guys.

[Kinesis]

Ok from what im seeing alot of people are missing how 3 man hull tanking works and its effectiveness.

Yes, there is no damage output on a 3 man hull tank, but it is also nearly impossible to destroy without a well made anti-armor anti-hull combo. So many a times youll find them sitting on the sand just hull tanking for a solid 10 minutes and unable to be killed even with a Galleon on broad side hitting it with both guns non-stop. Ive heard more tales but ive seen it myself a good 10 times in my short carrier. So dont think the "shoot the engines/balloon" works because they can easily sit in the sand and tank till you get bored.

As for gunner I still find the versatility of the ammos to be moot at best. Most builds have the Chinese rocket launcher, a chaingun, or a flak involved. The rocket typically only needs the heavy ammo to be effective at actually hitting, sure its not "max damage" at point plank but every shot hitting is a good compensation. The chaingun is the same with heavy rounds being the most useful and charge rounds being usefull when you are close enough to make every shot hit. But still heavy rounds is the universal here. Flak is amost the same with explosive rounds being the more annoying round to use. But still heavy rounds will do you good to remove the spread. So any good engineer will carry heavy rounds and be nearly as good as a gunner.

[HamsterIV]

There is already a thread about the general utility of gunners or lack there of:
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,410.0.html

I can understand the frustration of facing a ship with an incredibly competent engineering crew. Especially when you hit level 3 and are no longer eligible for the newbie games. As others say it is possible to destroy a ship that has gone turtle mode, it just requires a bit of coordination. Try flying with high level captains and watch how they tackle these situations, or watch the COG's replays if none are online. It would be easier on everyone if you learn the existing meta instead of asking the developers to do such a drastic change to the game's mechanics.

Also if you can't crack a ship by your self. Cripple it as much as possible and move on to its team mate. There is a reason why there are no 1v1 maps (anymore). Captains who try and 1v1 ships instead of working with their teammate tend to loose the moment they face a coordinated team regardless of how good their piloting skill and crew are.