Making engagements last longer is not breaking more things. I think the way things currently work is "broken" - a good crew on a pyra can kill every ship except the Galleon in 1 pass. Maybe this is just a fundamental difference between us, but I think the disabling weapons work just fine.
I'm sorry, they don't.. but let's continue.
Could some use a few tweaks? Yes. Flamethrowers are a little weak imo, and the Hwacha might need a tweak. However, you can drop a ship out of the sky with 1 clip of the light carronade up close (or blow out the engines/gun), knock out the guns of any ship at range with the artemis, and drop/kill a ship with the lumberjack.
I already stated that they only acceptable 'disabler' is the Lumberjack and by itself still takes a long time to kill, hence why it's balanced.
The carronade is a very close range weapon, the pilot will have to struggle to bring them close to the enemy in a match with equally skilled players without getting shreded at range, yet, the weapon repays the pilot with an extreme innability to shoot at an enemy balloon from above unless you are fighting a Galleon, hence, forcing you to get within a killing weapon's arcs. That's horribly inefficient as you basically offer yourself to the enemy in a tight wrapped package unless you don't keep the pressure on, which nullifies the effect of your disable since the balloon can be up and running realy fast again.
The Mercury is much more proficient at taking down both guns and engines at range and does so instantly and if you miss, well, you still get the armor piercing, the Artemis' only upside is that it makes an explosion, which isn't all that big unless you bring Burst, in which case you give up a lot of range. Again, not that efficient since if you miss, you basically are wasting your time since it's Explosive/Shatter does nothing to armor.
What makes these awesome weapons not work in a build is that killing is too effective. Disabling ship can already knock out engines and guns and pop balloons with relative ease. The only way to buff disablers is to make them basically be able to "lock down" an enemy so they can't do anything (Heavy Carronade can basically do this, though there are ways to get away from blenderfish). To be honest with you, thats never going to happen because its such a terrible experience for the team on the receiving end. Its bad gameplay.
It promotes teamwork even moreso that nerfing what already works fine, I'm not favoring the carronades being able to aim straight down, I'm favoring reasonable buffs to all disablers. Unless a disable can keep you locked so your allies have to come to rescue, there is no point in going for that disable in the first place, just arm yourself to kill said person, that locks them out of the fight for some time, neat huh?
You say you want to make disabling ships able to operate with relative safety by themselves? The answer to that is to make it so they have a chance to disable before being killed!
They already have that chance, it just doesn't work cause no matter what, the enemy can still kill you faster than you can kill them and if you are left alone, you are basically helpless. Disablers promote teamwork, straight out kill builds while still requiring teamplay, have absolutely no counter-play to them, all enemy ships can kill and since disablers force you into their arcs are are simply not efficient enough to keep them at bay, you end dying anyway at some point.
People make a huge deal out of stun-locks while it realy isn't as bad, I don't see anyone complaining when a Lumberjack has them pinned down on the ground, that's basically stun locking, so what gives, a weapon can already do it, why not the other ones as well?
Yes people will still use piercing explosive. They always will. It is the most direct, brute force way to get kills. However, if you make it mildly less effective then disabling has a chance. Not only that, but if killing is nerfed then teamwork is buffed. One of the key strategies of the disabler is 'disable one, help ally with other'. But thats not needed at the moment because killing is just so effective - the ally is either dead or won by the time you have disabled.
Focus fire is buffed if anything, the more it requires to kill, the more you force people into kill builds that specialize in that, just killing, so they can take you down faster than you can.
The reason I gave you piercing-explosive builds is because that was how you seemed to be judging a ship playable. I personally fly a carronade/mortar/carronade squid because I find it more fun. As to the Mobula... it is not a weak ship. At all. It is very hard to crew on, requires a different philosophy (kill now, repair later), and is very weapon placement sensitive. However, in probably 30 matches crewing the above build, only once did it lose in a 1v1 situation (and is even better at long range support).
Fun? Sure, balanced? No.
I fly a double carronade Pyramidion with Moonshine when I want to have 'fun', doesn't mean it's half effective when you are playing against opponents that are equally skilled as you. That's where balance matters.
No matter how you look at it, you are were still crewing on a ship with Piercing-Explosive as it's basis. FlakSpire can kill too you know, it's pretty good against thick headed opponents that think charging you is a clever idea, yeah, a Mobula can work in those circumstances as well, now I'm not saying those were the types of enemies you were flying against, but from my experience, Mobulas are weaksause, along with a Spire it's probably the only two ships you can simply point an LJ or a Carronade at them and expect them to break the moment they touch the ground, don't even get me started on how easy it is to rid of them with Gat/Mortar.
