Please Make Gunners Useful

[Imagine]

The point of this thread wasn't to make 2 gunners viable, I don't think that's something that needs to happen. The point was to show that 3 engies is not always > 2 engies 1 gunner.

[Nidh]

Err... I thought it was about people getting harassed for wanting to play gunner, and that's because most people think the gunner is not very viable. My idea for the solution was to make 2 gunners just as viable as 2 engineers on a crew. I haven't seen any other solutions being presented.

[Imagine]

Err... I thought it was about people getting harassed for wanting to play gunner, and that's because most people think the gunner is not very viable. My idea for the solution was to make 2 gunners just as viable as 2 engineers on a crew. I haven't seen any other solutions being presented.

...

Once again, get people to realize that 3 engies is not > 2 engie 1 gunner.

[Echoez]

This pointless discussion needs to stop seriously.

Dear OP, you should seriously consider playing for your team and ship and cut out on the "But I want to do this!" attitude, just like in games like DotA or LoL you don't get to play the role you want all the time, you won't be able to play whatever you want on this game either, it's a team game and you have co-operate with your team, the captain of your ship and meet their needs.

Gunners have uses, Engineers have uses, play whatever you are asked to and enjoy the game, you will get to shoot and you will get to repair and who knows, you might even wanna fly at some point, then you might understand why I'm saying this right now.

If you can't accept that, no change to the gunner will make you like this game, I'm sorry.




To everyone else: Stop arguing cause it will never end, you are entitled to your opinions, but this discussion is seriously getting nowhere. Cut it out

[Cid Ferringer]

Echoez, why do you come in here and tell us what to think and do, isn't that just a tad bit arrogant?
You're basically saying, don't question the Meta and I think this is pointless so you should all stop..

I don't even play as a gunner, so this is not some sort of personal crusade.
It's just the idea that the gunner should be viable and have something important/unique to contribute that I want to promote..

[N-Sunderland]

Echo's not saying that the meta shouldn't be questioned or anything. His point is that when you join somebody's ship, you should be prepared to do what they ask of you. If they ask you to switch to engi, then you should do so. If they ask you to switch to gunner, then you should also do it. I'm in favour of three engis myself, but if my captain wants a gunner (or even two), then that's fine. It's their choice.

And once again, changes to the gunner (as suggested by the OP) are already in the works.

[Echoez]

Echoez, why do you come in here and tell us what to think and do, isn't that just a tad bit arrogant?
You're basically saying, don't question the Meta and I think this is pointless so you should all stop..

I don't even play as a gunner, so this is not some sort of personal crusade.
It's just the idea that the gunner should be viable and have something important to contribute that I want to promote..

I don't see any problem with the Gunner, they have a clear advantage over the engineer for the purposes that they can be used for thereby I don't see why this argument has any point what so ever.

Changes are on the way already since this debate has been discussed to DEATH already over a million times that it's very frustrating to even look at people going at it again.

I'm not saying don't question the Meta, the OP was complaining about harassment because he refused to go Engineer and insisted on staying Gunner, well I'm sorry but in this game, just like the other examples I brought (and sorry but I will have to repeat myself) you can't play whatever you want all the time, if the pilot wants a third engineer go engineer and if they want a gunner, stay gunner, the haressment is more of a result of the OP's stubborness to play what THEY want instead of complying to his captain's requests, not because he was a gunner per se.

Call me arrogant if you want, but I'm tired of this happening again and again when people just refuse to agree to disagree.

[HamsterIV]

Come on Echoez, pointless arguments are the bread and butter of the internet. So long as we don't devolve in to flame wars I look at this as a net positive.

Here are some more ideas I don't think would work for introducing a 2nd gunner into the meta:

Make a new Ship:
One that can be repaired/extinguished by one engineer and have enough guns to support two gunners. This ship would be very hard to balance for and would either be OP or too much of a glass cannon.

Make pilots irrelevant:
If the new meta was 2 gunners 2 engineers, we could keep the current ship designs which still require two engineers while allowing for two gunners.

Buff the Gunner class:
Give the gunner class passive bonuses to reload or damage. Could lead to exploits where the two engineer meta is still better than two gunners if the gunner does the gun prep and the engineer still shoots or vise versa. It would lead to a higher skill ceiling with people who are able to exploit the meta having an even more significant advantage over those who don't understand it.

[Echoez]

Come on Echoez, pointless arguments are the bread and butter of the internet. So long as we don't devolve in to flame wars I look at this as a net positive.

Here are some more ideas I don't think would work for introducing a 2nd gunner into the meta:

Make a new Ship:
One that can be repaired/extinguished by one engineer and have enough guns to support two gunners. This ship would be very hard to balance for and would either be OP or too much of a glass cannon.

Make pilots irrelevant:
If the new meta was 2 gunners 2 engineers, we could keep the current ship designs which still require two engineers while allowing for two gunners.

Buff the Gunner class:
Give the gunner class passive bonuses to reload or damage. Could lead to exploits where the two engineer meta is still better than two gunners if the gunner does the gun prep and the engineer still shoots or vise versa. It would lead to a higher skill ceiling with people who are able to exploit the meta having an even more significant advantage over those who don't understand it.

You want a suggestion? Here's a good one.

Make more Ammo types like Lochnagar, which is an ammo type that by itself, is mostly not a good choice for an Engineer, but a gunner that can afford multiple ammo types can take advantage of it much better, pretty much like the Engineer can make much better use of the Spanner and the Mallet.

[Cid Ferringer]

Yeah, but you argue about the OP being selfish, yet you still demand everyone to stop this discussion based on your opinion and your annoyance of the topic..

In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of new (myself included) and old players here, who want to discuss this..
If we're too annoying for you, there's nothing keeping you from saying "I respectfully disagree with you guys" and leave instead of demanding that everyone should stop posting because you don't think it will lead anywhere..

And what is there to agree to disagree?
The thread is based on the premise that the gunner is "useless" or less useful than the engineer, so I think the discussion should center about what can be done to improve the gunner..
If you disagree, no one is forcing you to participate.

[HamsterIV]

Loghnagar requires an engineer following the gunner to clean up their mess. Having more specialized ammo won't make gunners any more useful if they still require the support of an engineer to use them effectively. You can still get engineers to swap out on guns as a means of trading ammo. I have gotten a 3 engineer manti-fish to work fantastically. One engineer buffs the front gun and hull, one engineer shoots heavy clip and does hull repair at close range, and the last engineer shoots burst at close range, and does hull repair at long range.

I guess my main point is implementing radical changes to the game dynamics will produce unforeseen consequences, that and arguing on the internet is fun.

[Echoez]

Loghnagar requires an engineer following the gunner to clean up their mess. Having more specialized ammo won't make gunners any more useful if they still require the support of an engineer to use them effectively. You can still get engineers to swap out on guns as a means of trading ammo. I have gotten a 3 engineer manti-fish to work fantastically. One engineer buffs the front gun and hull, one engineer shoots heavy clip and does hull repair at close range, and the last engineer shoots burst at close range, and does hull repair at long range.

I guess my main point is implementing radical changes to the game dynamics will produce unforeseen consequences, that and arguing on the internet is fun.

It isn't something the engineer himself can use to great effect though and I don't mind the reliance on good crew teamwork to make a powerful ammo type work. This is the main idea, not everything has to damage your gun anyway.

Changing ammo types on the go with 3 engineers is not as effective as just having a guy focus on the gun on a Goldfish, plus your engineers would be better off using an ammo type that is useful for your sideguns, the example you present might work for the front gun but you are limiting the ammo usage on your side guns by a large margin, plus it's very demanding of the crew.

And what is there to agree to disagree?
The thread is based on the premise that the gunner is "useless" or less useful than the engineer, so I think the discussion should center about what can be done to improve the gunner..

That is entirely opnionated, there's many people that don't think the same and hence people that will disagree exist and they have a solid opinion on the matter, hence nothing will be achieved by barking at each other.

I personaly think the Gunner just needs more ammo types as I stated in my post earlier, nothing on the Gunner is broken at the moment, they bring versatility at the cost of possible specialization with extra firepower (Buff hammer comes to mind). Some people will prefer the versatility, some won't, that's the beauty of it. I can't see any way to make the Gunner more viable without making him mandatory.

[Richard LeMoon]

Curious, what are thoughts on an all gunner chat (while on a gun)? That would make them more useful, as they could coordinate volleys and ammo types between ships. Though, that would make the captain a little less useful. That is if you have a captain that actually talks.

Other options would be to allow the gunners to fix their guns 10% faster than engineers, or to let them reload ammo types while leaving the gun without defaulting to basic ammo.

I guess those would be passive buffs, but really, there is no difference in class right now other than what you can carry. Captains already have one 'passive' skill the others don't, which is the ship to ship chat. I would support the right passive for each class. Other than the tools you can carry, and the Capchat, all the classes are a bit.... same-y.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Chill out guys, it's all good.

[Cid Ferringer]

That is entirely opnionated, there's many people that don't think the same and hence people that will disagree exist and they have a solid opinion on the matter, hence nothing will be achieved by barking at each other.

I personaly think the Gunner just needs more ammo types as I stated in my post earlier, nothing on the Gunner is broken at the moment, they bring versatility at the cost of possible specialization with extra firepower (Buff hammer comes to mind). Some people will prefer the versatility, some won't, that's the beauty of it. I can't see any way to make the Gunner more viable without making him mandatory.

Yeah, but if we're going to discuss the premise itself, then as you said it will just go back and forth since you can't convince everyone.

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

The main problem is that you have to give the gunner something that the engineer won't just take for himself instead of ammo.
So what if we add something that is used while you're on a gun, that doesn't require reloading.
Maybe make lochnagar into something that isn't ammunition, but works best when combined with special ammunition.

(I'll just start throwing around crazy ideas)

- Lochnagar that isn't ammo
So you can activate lochnagar, but it damages the gun per second. Then you can combine it by loading the gun with an special ammo type that reduces damage taken.
(maybe some kind of overheat, overclock explanation to this)

- Tracers
Activate and you will fire a tracer round each 5nd shot. Useful for aiming.
(yes tracers usually are ammo, but you could make it a tracer muzzle or some kind of gadget)

- Flaregun
A pocket sized gun that fires flares, will keep ships nearby spotted automatically for X time.
Can cause fires, very long reload time.

- Scope
Use a scope with the weapon to get some form of aim assist and zoom in ability. Not something you attach to the weapon, but rather a gadget of sorts.

- Weapon specific buff tool
The buff could stack up to 5 times, but would disable the gun for 9-15 sec when you apply it, to keep you from doing it in-combat.
 Firing the weapon would wear out the buff, but special ammo could make it last much longer. (which means it's pretty useless unless you bring both the tool and right ammo)
This also gives the gunner something to do while not in combat.


I really think the key is having things that become very useful when combined with ammo.
The engineer has mallet and spanner, you need both tools. Applying the same principle to ammo makes it more worthwhile with a class with more gunnery item slots.