Author Topic: The Spire.  (Read 67969 times)

Offline Echoez

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #60 on: October 10, 2013, 09:51:43 am »
Quote
you need to have either a Banshee or an Artemis and that's a very depressing number of choices.

Wooooaaat?!?!?!

OOooh Hold on, imma make a vid now. And i will show you. (Dont take this hard, i wanted to do this anyway :P  )

If it includes akward angling and or ship jiggling to bring the gun in arc I don't consider it a normal choice. I imply that as a sniper your front gun will be a Merc, which has a very limited arc to begin with.

Though I have to say that with the current configuration of the Spire I've come to prefer a Lumberjack + Flak(front)/Artemis(right) combo

Just as a note btw, I know that you can arc a frontal Merc and right Flak with the current weapon angles on the top deck, the arc is JUST at both weapons' limit, making it extremely hard to keep up with an enemy. It also means the pilot is needed on the helm to keep these arcs for more than a second on target which comes with known downsides.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2013, 10:06:13 am by Echoez »

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #61 on: October 10, 2013, 10:37:37 am »
Nope, you are wrong. The flak and gattling angles have large ammount of space with little to the right of the front aiming. Aiming the guns should not be akward if you have that much space.
The merc will still be able to aim with another flak or gat, the heavy weapon (depends)and still works nicely, but only then it gets akward because the merc is where it gets difficult.

There is no problem in having the spire turning a little to the left, i mean it has incredible turning speed and you dont need all 3 crew on the guns.

Ships arent designed to aim forward, that is why i said that turning the lower left weapon 45 degrees could potentially break or not do much at all for the spire as it has other concerns.
That is also why i said this suggestion feels like the squid post some time ago.

And a merc with flak is not ideal, you should know this if youve flown the spire for long enough. In the video even if my voice quality is shit, i talk about you can bifecta hadez cannons but it is too difficult because the gun itself is hard to use and could potentially make you even more squishy just because then you would have to leave the main engineer to gun a hadez. If you were to try and jump on one of the hadez guns to aim, it would because of momentum start turning away from the bifecta arc.

But there are allready enough choice of guns that you can use in combinations.

hold on... its rendering... yeah its about 20 minutes long,  its just me talking and changing loadouts for demonstration of different gun combination possibilities +  why changing the angle of one of the two suggested slots would break or not affect the spire. (And now it is uploading... takes its time)
« Last Edit: October 10, 2013, 10:59:14 am by Crafeksterty »

Offline Spud Nick

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #62 on: October 10, 2013, 11:07:50 am »
Sounds like most of us agree on turning the other two guns forward a bit. I would love to see what load outs players come up with.

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #63 on: October 10, 2013, 11:24:23 am »
I give up on the vid, takes too long to upload.

I dont know what turning the guns forward does for the spire, if you call it a sniper ship you basically then take away 50% or more weapons away from its arsenal.
Turning the guns forward will lead to that, a ship that can only act from long range, it will still be this weak ship that it is.

Omniraptor gave a good perspective.

My problem with the spire is that it can't actually use all its strong sides well in combat.

Things the spire is good at:
  • Turning
  • Vertical movement
  • Sniping/concentrated fire. It's pretty easy to set up and maintain a light-light-medium gun trifecta because of good turning speed and slim horizontal profile (unlikely to crash into anything).
Now, here is what it's actually bad at:
  • Brawling and horizontal dodging because it's so slow and squishy and can't maneuver while firing.
  • Vertical dodging because it has a HUGE vertical profile.
  • Sniping because it can't strafe or backpedal quickly, so it's really easy for an enemy to take out its guns.


The guns will not answer this, these cons will still be there.

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #64 on: October 10, 2013, 11:39:53 am »
Just because turning the guns would help out with long range builds doesn't mean it would also take away from the shorter ranges. I mean, that bottom gun can then be manned by your hull engie so he's closer to it once fire starts going in.

Offline Zenark

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #65 on: October 10, 2013, 11:54:33 am »
Sounds like a way to get a good Quadfecta to me. It actually sounds a tad bit overpowered since the only other ship that can get four guns on target is a Mobula, and those are all light weapons.

Imagine a Spire with a Gatling top right, gatling bottom left, mortar top, and a medium carronade... That thing would rip through armor, blast apart the balloon, and rain a hell storm of mortars. Scary.

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #66 on: October 10, 2013, 11:58:02 am »
Right, until someone decided to stop ignoring it and started shooting on them, lol.

Offline Zenark

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #67 on: October 10, 2013, 12:01:44 pm »
Squishy thing.

Offline Echoez

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #68 on: October 10, 2013, 12:12:55 pm »
Nope, you are wrong. The flak and gattling angles have large ammount of space with little to the right of the front aiming. Aiming the guns should not be akward if you have that much space.
The merc will still be able to aim with another flak or gat, the heavy weapon (depends)and still works nicely, but only then it gets akward because the merc is where it gets difficult.

I just tested it on the Sandbox, the arc for both guns is on both guns arc limit with very little freedom for leading the target so I insist that I am right.

Merc is the only truly long range piercing gun, the Hades is mostly mid range due to the arc making it near impossible to hit or lead very long range targets. What the hell do you use on a long range Spire, Gatlings?


There is no problem in having the spire turning a little to the left, i mean it has incredible turning speed and you dont need all 3 crew on the guns.

If you wish to match a Galleon's firepower then you need three people on guns, sorry, that's a fact, if the arc is very limited, then that means you have to steer so the others can shoot.

And a merc with flak is not ideal, you should know this if you've flown the spire for long enough.

Along with an LJ it's practically a Mini-Galleon, what's not so ideal about that firepower? It gives the LJ Spire some much needed finishing power on top of its utility. I don't understand. The only reason I can see why it's not ideal now is because of the crappy angle on the top right gun that allows for little freedom of movement to the Flak on the right.


In the video even if my voice quality is shit, i talk about you can bifecta hades cannons but it is too difficult because the gun itself is hard to use and could potentially make you even more squishy just because then you would have to leave the main engineer to gun a hades. If you were to try and jump on one of the hades guns to aim, it would because of momentum start turning away from the bifecta arc.

Bifecta Hades is possible and you would need 2 people that can shoot the damned thing, not in a million years, it's also not nearly as effective cause you lose out on the utility of the Merc, it's simply not versatile and very range limited due to the Hades' projectile arc.


But there are allready enough choice of guns that you can use in combinations.

Implying you don't use a Merc in the front and also implying your main gun has the firing arc to make it possible, sure you can fit a lot of weapons and at that point you stop being long range, I can't fanthom what would you bring on a long range Spire other than a Merc, Flak or Artemis. If you go anywhere closer than long range you start getting hit or the enemy simply charges into you and you know what that means, which is why Trifectas with mid range guns are pointless to me.

What are you gonna use? Light carronades? Gatling? Flamers or maybe a Mortar? What else is there?


Just to get this out of the way,  the Spire is a long range ship by definition of stats and health pools. You don't want enemies close to you so I consider what's viable only under these standards. (I do consider the Hwacha a long range utility gun yes, at least on a Spire where you don't have the speed of the Goldfish to make effective use of its close range abilities unless the enemy gets close first.)

I also consider that you will have to go against players of the same experience level, which means they know they can crap on your ship very easily the moment you start getting hit, which is why I agreed that the Spire could maybe use an Acceleration buff, my only other drag is that its turning accelerates so fast, but for some reason it doesn't turn as fast as people think, it's actually still slower than a Junker's max turning speed and I think the Goldfish has a higher max turning speed as well.

Offline Echoez

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #69 on: October 10, 2013, 12:18:35 pm »
Imagine a Spire with a Gatling top right, gatling bottom left, mortar top, and a medium carronade... That thing would rip through armor, blast apart the balloon, and rain a hell storm of mortars. Scary.

Only if the upper gun got an arc increase as well, if only the bottom got it, then you wouldn't be able to point both gatlings on the same target, their arcs wouldn't overlap.

The top right Gatling can't aim directly in front of the ship, it can AIM at the front, but not the front of the ship itself (aka the middle), just forward.

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #70 on: October 10, 2013, 12:57:48 pm »
I am allready fairing very well with the spire versus many ships and im not using JUST the merc, i use all sorts of guns.
I do manage to escape lots of damage and if its guns get a degree buff, itl go sniper and not be chosen on close range maps defeating the choice of ships on every map.

I just dont see why having more guns pointing forward is an answer. Of every stat that there is, i truly do believe the acceleration needs a boost to help itself out in positioning for sniper reasons and escapeing for close range reasons.
And i honestly dont need more than that.

I still want an answer to how the 45 degree buff will change the spire versus other snipers or close range encounters or even helping itself out.



Im saying this again and again, the spire is good if done right as it is, the weapons will not change anything about how easy it is to fail with the spire.




I had this theory once before the mercury nerf, i used the spire versus sniper galleon and junkers. So i put a mercury on the lower left. Because i knew we had trouble versus them before of how damn powerfull sniping was then.
This worked, until we got hit. We did dodge a few shots until they did get a LJ shot in, then i tried going the other direction just by going backwards, but the time of it going forward to backwards was too long even with moonshine to be considered "dodging".

Quote
Implying you don't use a Merc in the front and also implying your main gun has the firing arc to make it possible, sure you can fit a lot of weapons and at that point you stop being long range, I can't fanthom what would you bring on a long range Spire other than a Merc, Flak or Artemis. If you go anywhere closer than long range you start getting hit or the enemy simply charges into you and you know what that means, which is why Trifectas with mid range guns are pointless to me.

So then it is your oppinion? Ive fought with close range and long range weapons, if you just see the power of close ranges, AI  Mortar with Twin Carronade. Hadez with Hwacha and flak or mines. Lumberjack with flak front with gat side (This is FROM long to mid range).

Offline Zenark

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #71 on: October 10, 2013, 01:01:10 pm »
That's what I meant, 'if the bottom left gun faced farther forward.'

I haven't used a gatling on my Spire as a valid build so I don't know it's arcs, just a creepy thought.

I think the Spire fills its niche well. Went up against a standard merc/flak build a week or so ago that had such an in-sync crew that me and my ally with our pub crews stood no chance, we couldn't get close because of his Blenderfish ally, and since they were camping our spawn in Canyon Ambush, we'd always respawn far apart where they could pick one of us off as soon as we spawned in.

Those two rounds were so disheartening that I had to quit playing for the day since it left such a bad taste in my mouth.

Spire is fine.

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #72 on: October 10, 2013, 01:14:08 pm »
Dont know if your talking about your crew versus theirs and the carronade or the actuality that is within a spire.

Offline Echoez

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #73 on: October 10, 2013, 03:12:39 pm »
I am allready fairing very well with the spire versus many ships and im not using JUST the merc, i use all sorts of guns.
I do manage to escape lots of damage and if its guns get a degree buff, itl go sniper and not be chosen on close range maps defeating the choice of ships on every map.

I'm not using JUST the Merc either, but that doesn't mean you can win against a seasoned opponent with a Carronade Spire, I can fuck around in pubs too you know, yet the moment it gets remotely serious, builds that seem to work suddenly turn useless.


I still want an answer to how the 45 degree buff will change the spire versus other snipers or close range encounters or even helping itself out.

Im saying this again and again, the spire is good if done right as it is, the weapons will not change anything about how easy it is to fail with the spire.

More concetrated fire power, more room for manuvering and leading targets, more choices for a longer range game with the Spire. It won't help it in close combat cause no matter how much help you get, against a true brawler you will go down in seconds no matter how hard you try.



So then it is your oppinion? Ive fought with close range and long range weapons, if you just see the power of close ranges, AI  Mortar with Twin Carronade. Hadez with Hwacha and flak or mines. Lumberjack with flak front with gat side (This is FROM long to mid range).

I see you using your opinion just as freely for starters.

I just dont see why having more guns pointing forward is an answer. Of every stat that there is, i truly do believe the acceleration needs a boost to help itself out in positioning for sniper reasons and escapeing for close range reasons.
And i honestly dont need more than that.

Now, I'm not trying to pick a fight or sound offensive, just pointing out the fact that this is all opinionated, just want to be clear, how to buff a ship doesn't have a certain way of going about it, everyone is probably gonna point out what they feel the ship could use without screwing it over big time. Just like you did and just like everyone else, inclusing me, did.

Secondly, I have used the close range builds myself, many a time, I've found them to be a crap ton of fun against newbies and clueless players, against players that know how to aim even an Artemis, not so much. Let alone an other carronade from a faster ship can just as easily disable yours and procceed to have an intimate time with your rear, especially since you can only approach with your weapon exposed and you are VERY slow, second slowest in the game I think, only the Junker must be slower (correct me if I'm wrong).

I just want to have fun with this beautiful ship against people that will provide me with a decent challenge as well and as it stands right now, it's neigh impossible even if you go long range.


I'm not trying to say that by turning the top or lower gun more is the be-all-end-all buffs to this ship that will make it uber viable, in all honestly I would much prefer the Spire have around 1200 hull health and better acceleration in order to be able to stand in point like a true sentinel and leave the gun slots alone, but I have to compromise cause most people here will probably jump on me saying this is OP.

I've tested the Spire during the 3x Hull health event and while 1600 health was a bit too much, I think this ship was the only one that could use such a buff, in my head, it made it what I was hoping it would be. A man can dream right?

Oh well, back to reality where the Spire still sucks against decent opposition. Go on.

Offline Captain Smollett

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Re: The Spire.
« Reply #74 on: October 10, 2013, 08:05:53 pm »
I've actually never seen the Spire as just a long range ship, since I think t performs best as a mid range ship due to it's ability to change ranges while shooting.   The problem with the Spire is that it struggles so much in close range combat that people fear to use it at mid range now. 

With a good crew I can often do a good amount of damage mid range to a charging pyra then give the spire a quick twist and finish off the pyra with the right gun to save my ship from its impending doom. The problem with this is that it's ver difficult and inconsistent to pull it off.

If the right gun was turned farther forward and the lower left gun were turned forward a bit it would give the pilot a much more reliable opportunity to have the gun in arc when he makes it to his weapon as well as giving a trifecta opportunity to the engineer if the ship isn't being pummled (like junkers mobulas pyramidions and galleons have).  This will finally make the Spire a glass cannon and engagements will become a race between a ship with high firepower and low health against ships with moderate firepower and moderate health.

Currently Spires don't put out enough dps to ever win that race so most pilots choose to use them at long range where they win the dps race since opponents are too far to shoot back.