Please Make Gunners Useful

[HamsterIV]

Actually the "Get inline and obey the captain" is one of the things most of us will agree on. There is no time for democracy on a ship. Captaining is difficult enough without random variables like crewmen bringing the wrong equipment/going the wrong class.

If you truly must be gunner switch to spectate and ask all the captains of the lobby who wants/needs a gunner. Do not force your decision to be gunner upon a captain who is unwilling.

[Letonator]

Actually the "Get inline and obey the captain" is one of the things most of us will agree on. There is no time for democracy on a ship. Captaining is difficult enough without random variables like crewmen bringing the wrong equipment/going the wrong class.

If you truly must be gunner switch to spectate and ask all the captains of the lobby who wants/needs a gunner. Do not force your decision to be gunner upon a captain who is unwilling.

That's actually a really good point, and I don't think I worded myself right at all.

I'm absolutely gonna do what the captain asks of me, I'll switch out ammo selections and use specific guns and even keep an eye on a part or two when I'm asked to get off the guns a moment. Absolutely. I've flown under Zill before and I think he can attest I can be reasonable.

I will not switch to engineer. If there's already one gunner then I'm more than happy to find another team or sideline myself. No questions asked. Maybe a captain wants multiple gunners and that's great and I would be even happier, but that never happens. The majority of the time it's either a captain already has a favorite gunner or just wants three engineers, and I'm getting yelled at again.

[The Djinn]

Although I like the idea of having to bring standard ammo. That's a really good idea.

I'd go the opposite way and say that it's a very poor idea, for the following reason: when you get on a gun that doesn't use your ammo type, the gun reloads. This means that "Normal" ammo is the default for a reason: if you don't know who is next on the gun and you aren't wielding the same ammo type, you default to Normal rounds so that gun is not user-specific for the next engagement. I feel that losing that removes the "normal" from Normal rounds, to the game's overall detriment.

All in all I have to agree with Hamster IV here: "Get in line and obey the Captain" may be a little harsh, but the reality is fairly close to that. If I have a guy who wants to play gunner then I'll damn well try to accommodate him, but if I feel my team will benefit most from a Pyramidion and my Pyramidion set-up prefers three Engineers to a 2-Engie\1-Gunner set-up, then yes I will request him to switch to Engineer and I will further expect him to trust that, as the captain and pilot of the ship, I know what my ship needs to stay alive and function at peak efficiency.

Overall, I think the Gunner is in a fine place: I use a Gunner on every ship in the game save for highly-specific Squid and Pyramidion loadouts (and maybe a Mobula loadout or two, merely because that ship is a bear to try to navigate and repair quickly). I want a gunner on every ship in the game save for those highly specific loadouts. Why? Because he has the tools to allow me to function at peak capacity with weapons that otherwise might not. For example: Heavy Clip + Burst makes a Hwacha devastating at almost any range, and an Engineer can't bring that sort of firepower to the table. So I don't think the Gunner needs much more than he has: he's already very strong on the right ships, and useless on next to no ships.

[-Mad Maverick-]

i have never desired a gunner on any ship i have ever piloted.  i do not feel like any other feedback is necessary.  do something to make them more useful than triple engi please. 

[Zenark]

This is currently like the American Government; no matter how many people want Gunners to have a welcomed place on all ships, those who think they are useless will NEVER accept the thought of them being more useful. Any change made will have them frothing at the mouth screaming 'GUNNERS OVERPOWERD'. That being said, the same goes for the opposite, leaving the Gunner as is will have us all yelling 'GUNNER UNDERPOWERD'.

We, as a community will continue to argue about this topic and gain no ground because we are humans; stubborn as hell. In fact, I've never seen someone change their opinion on this topic. Everyone may listen, but they've made up their minds and no valid argument will convince them otherwise.

(Note when I say 'they' I mean 'most everyone'.)

please continue these arguments, not because we'll possibly get somewhere, but because it's brought entertainment since the beginning.

[Echoez]

This is currently like the American Government; no matter how many people want Gunners to have a welcomed place on all ships, those who think they are useless will NEVER accept the thought of them being more useful. Any change made will have them frothing at the mouth screaming 'GUNNERS OVERPOWERD'. That being said, the same goes for the opposite, leaving the Gunner as is will have us all yelling 'GUNNER UNDERPOWERD'.

We, as a community will continue to argue about this topic and gain no ground because we are humans; stubborn as hell. In fact, I've never seen someone change their opinion on this topic. Everyone may listen, but they've made up their minds and no valid argument will convince them otherwise.

(Note when I say 'they' I mean 'most everyone'.)

please continue these arguments, not because we'll possibly get somewhere, but because it's brought entertainment since the beginning.

You speak the truth dear sir, salutations to you

[N-Sunderland]

Who was it who mentioned that ammo types don't work together in the same way that engineering tools do? I can't seem to find the post, but I think they hit the nail on the head. Let's look at a light mortar, for example, which is a pretty popular gun to stick gunners on.

A gunner will take something like lesmok (for the range), greased (for the DPS), and heatsink (for fire prevention). This gives them some strong versatility, but...

An engineer can take lesmok, but then also have a buff hammer and chem spray. On paper this gives them the same abilities as the gunner (range, power and fire prevention), but the key difference is that all three of these can be acting at once. If I want to protect my gun from fire as a gunner, I can't do so at longer ranges because of heatsink's projectile speed reduction. Similar story with greased. The biggest draw of the gungineer is that they can stack all of their abilities together.

Of course, there are guns that work rather differently. The lumberjack, for example, pretty much requires a gunner (the one situation where I might disagree with that is on the lumberspire, due to how isolated the front gun is from engineers, and if the enemy gets close to your Spire, something's gone terribly wrong anyways). Still, I don't see arming time being a solution for most guns...

I guess we'll have to wait and see what Muse comes up with.


@Zenark: Actually most of the people who don't use gunners now have been asking for them to get buffed for a long time. What do you think the whole purpose of that massive thread was?

[Zenark]

A gunner on a mortar? Really? If I used a Meta setup, I'd prefer my gunner on the gatling so he could keep firing and the engie on the mortar could do stuff while waiting for the enemy hull to go down. 

And if the pro-engie side wanted a change, they'd be more open to the ideas we present instead of tearing them apart.

[Alistair MacBain]

If you want to take a light gun designed for gunners use the hades and not the friggin mortar.
THe mortars job is instagib the permahull when the armor is dead. It can instagib the hull even with the 11 shots from lesmok loaded so you dont need anything else.
A Hades is designed for a gunner. It needs lesmok on longer ranges and you actually get sth when hes close. So you take greased to increase the piercing dmg to drop down the hull.
I still say rather than change gunner class you would have to adjust the guns itself. Most guns are just not designed for a gunner.

[N-Sunderland]

A gunner on a mortar? Really? If I used a Meta setup, I'd prefer my gunner on the gatling so he could keep firing and the engie on the mortar could do stuff while waiting for the enemy hull to go down. 

Right. I agree 100%. I was just taking an example of a gun that a lot of people like putting a gunner on.

And if the pro-engie side wanted a change, they'd be more open to the ideas we present instead of tearing them apart.

Both sides of the argument seem to be putting in an equal amount of criticism. And as far as I can tell, most of the suggestions are being brought up by people in favour of engies.

But let's not argue over such an irrelevant point. It has no real bearing on the actual topic here.

[RearAdmiralZill]

And as far as I can tell, most of the suggestions are being brought up by people in favour of engies.

Because we who use gunners see no need to change them to make them "better" so we just look at you with a blank stare.

I'm pretty much done here though, much like the other thread.

[N-Sunderland]

Because we who use gunners see no need to change them to make them "better" so we just look at you with a blank stare.

Exactly. You're taking the stance of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" on this (a point of view which I see as perfectly fine even though I don't agree with it), which is why the vast majority of suggestions are coming from people who don't usually run gunners.

But once again, that isn't really important with regards to the actual topic here.

[Zenark]

For only one crew slot a round, you could help a Captainless Gunner have a ship and crew to call his own.

Think of the Gunners

[Cid Ferringer]

Although I like the idea of having to bring standard ammo. That's a really good idea.

I'd go the opposite way and say that it's a very poor idea, for the following reason: when you get on a gun that doesn't use your ammo type, the gun reloads. This means that "Normal" ammo is the default for a reason: if you don't know who is next on the gun and you aren't wielding the same ammo type, you default to Normal rounds so that gun is not user-specific for the next engagement. I feel that losing that removes the "normal" from Normal rounds, to the game's overall detriment.

Yeah, but that makes the guns the gunners territory, just like a gunner won't go around messing with the hull or engines. Well, he can to a limited amount, just like an engineer could use one type of bullet.

But why keep the mechanic where the gun reloads when you do not have the same bullets equipped?
I still think guns should start without any bullets at all, making the gunner more important as he can load the right bullets.
(the problem is if it forces gunners to do reloading instead of shooting...)

Who was it who mentioned that ammo types don't work together in the same way that engineering tools do? I can't seem to find the post, but I think they hit the nail on the head.

That's why I think gunners should have stuff that isn't ammo, gadgets and tricks you can use while shooting, like tracers, special shots, scope, etc.
Because if you have something that stacks, then all of a sudden having 3 gunnery item slots will be much more useful.

---------------

Zenark, using such an image as a joke, where is your heart? :/

[Sgt. Spoon]

Zenark you probably only meant that as a joke, but it could be seen as quite crude and distastefull. It won't get moderated this time, but please consider how your posts might affect people the next time you want to pull something humorous.