Please Make Gunners Useful

[Alistair MacBain]

Well that fulltankmode is ur emergency button to get time till your ally comes close.
And still a third engi can shoot back aswell.

[Cid Ferringer]

Maybe if longrange engagements were more viable we'd see more focus on gunners..

[Imagine]

With less efficiency possibility than if a gunner was shooting back.

[RearAdmiralZill]

And still a third engi can shoot back aswell.

With less ammo at his disposal, and your tools are worthless while on a gun.

Maybe if longrange engagements were more viable we'd see more focus on gunners..

This argument has lasted way longer than the changes to long range gameplay ;p

[Nidh]

I don't see how any of this solves the  how to make 2 gunners viable problem. Unless you guys have completely tossed that idea out.

[Alistair MacBain]

As i already stated the less ammo is just a valid argument on some guns.
5 guns can be utilized way better by gunners thats true.
We could say 7 guns are ok with a gunner.
But the rest just doesnt get much from a gunner so i rather have another engineer on my ship.


Before you make 2 gunners viable you would have to make 1 gunner viable.
Thats at least for me still a thing. You currently dont need a gunner on many ships.
Lets take the good old metamidion.
You have a gat mortar combination.
The mortars job is to instagib the permahull when the armor is down which he can do even with lesmok rounds. So you dont need a gunner for this gun.
Leaving us with the gatling. It needs heavy clip at longer ranges to hit constantly. This leaves us with a closerange and i mean rly closerange ammo type.
And for me it doesnt matter what ammo type a gunner could add at this point cause i can still use normal rounds as gunner, get a clip of 60 bullets and still do my job getting the armor of the enemy down. I can stay at my gun the whole time, extinguish a fire i may get on it, rebuild it faster as an engineer with my spanner.
Or i could use a buffsetup, still getting and extinguisher in it and still having the same good rebuild/repair as a gunner would have. But with a higher dmg even at longer ranges cause of my buffkit and a decent closerange.
So yes a gunner is useless on certain ships. Just accept it.

[HamsterIV]

I think the OP is missing a large part of the game which is tragic since he claims to be a game reviewer. Guns of Icarus is actually two games the Captain game and the Crew game.

The Captain game is where the macro decisions are made:
What ship should I bring?
What should my crew take?
Where do I position my self?
Should I burn the balloon in hopes of saving the hull?

The Crew game is where the micro decisions are made:
Do I fix the balloon or hull first?
Extinguish or Mallet?
Leave the hull to get engines or stay?
Do I aim for a component or hull?
Should I wait for hull armor to drop or shoot now?

Sadly as a crew member this means your decisions in the lobby don't matter beyond "Am I going to listen to my captain or not?" This is why GOI isn't for every one. You have to accept the team focused nature of the game to get the most out of it. Even as a captain you need to fly to the limits of your crew and your team.

To focus on what you as an individual want to do regardless of the needs of the rest of the crew will result in poor performance, bad feelings, and ultimately a negative experience.

[Imagine]

Before you make 2 gunners viable you would have to make 1 gunner viable.
Thats at least for me still a thing. You currently dont need a gunner on many ships.
Lets take the good old metamidion.
You have a gat mortar combination.

So yes a gunner is useless on certain ships. Just accept it.

Grats, you've got one build for one ship which three engineers can... kindof be beneficial (though quite frankly I still question that as do you really need three engineer tools to fix pretty much a single gun). However, that ship and gun loadout is just one in the vast arsenal of the game.

As you yourself so aptly put it: Yes, a gunner is only (semi)useless on certain ships with certain guns. Just accept it.

[Cid Ferringer]

So yes a gunner is useless on certain ships. Just accept it.

I thought the point of the thread was that it's unacceptable?

There aren't any ships or builds where an engineer is useless..

[Alistair MacBain]

Well your problem is you dont want to accept this and want a gunner on any ship. Others say it is ok how it is and explain it.

[Nidh]

Yeah, I think you guys have missed the point. We're trying to make gunners less of a stigma to the general population. It's already established that 1 gunner can be useful but isn't always needed. I think that if there is a way to make 2 gunners useful, that will solve the problem of people getting harassed for wanting to play the gunner class.

[Cid Ferringer]

Well your problem is you dont want to accept this and want a gunner on any ship. Others say it is ok how it is and explain it.

Yes, that is the problem we are discussing in the thread..
And yes, others have stated their opinions on the matter.

Why do you feel the need to point that out?

[HamsterIV]

@ Nidh
While it is possible to make 2 gunners viable it would probably involve upsetting the balance of the game so much that the engineer class would be come trivial. The way the ships are setup one engineer can't cover all areas in a reasonable time. So either all the ships have to be redesigned to that one engineer can do all engineering tasks or the value of some engineering tasks have to be lessened to the point that it can be safely ignored. I would love to see a third option, I just can't think of it.

[Nidh]

@ Nidh
While it is possible to make 2 gunners viable it would probably involve upsetting the balance of the game so much that the engineer class would be come trivial.

Maybe, maybe not. But just because you or I can't think of a solution that doesn't upset the balance, doesn't mean there isn't someone creative who might think of something more fitting and less-balance altering.

Sorry, didn't see your edit in time Hamster, but yes I would love to hear more ideas about solving the problem, rather than people pointing out what the problem is.

[N-Sunderland]

Muse already plans to implement some new mechanics for the gunner class (and potentially, but not necessarily, for engi too) which will help solidify its role.

Please, let's not argue about this anymore.

(though I'm surprised that the buff hammer's hardly been mentioned. In my experience that's the biggest asset of the gungineer vs. the gunner)