Buff the Junker

[Captain Smollett]

If im not mistaken, the Hull/Armor values changed with 1.1.4, as well as the speed. (I could be wrong though and need to look at numbers again.) It used to be 200/800 and now its 400/700, which is technically a buff. I was also under the impression that the Spire was slower than a Junker. Apart from the blueprints, I dont really look that hard into numbers and go by "feel."

As long as I've played the Junker had 700/400 Armor/Permahull, though I'm sure it was different at some point.  Also according to the blueprints the Spire and Junker are the same speed however the Spire accelerates faster.

3. Its a tank. Yes, your guns break like they are made of chinese metal, but if you have an engie camping the hull and the pilot is keeping good eyes on his balloon, you can work through the damage you are going to take. I always plan for my junker to have no guns or engines working after a fight. But i'll still be alive, tanking dps.

I agree that the Junker can tank pretty well.  Unfortunately a Pyra does it better, and it just seems that the Junker "should" be better at tanking.

A really terrible idea buff which I would love is changing its gun layout. Why should it be symmetrical? It's a Junker. What if you replaced the two light guns on the right side with a single medium gun?

That would be freakin' cool.  Not sure we can convince Muse to remake the whole ship, but it would be interesting.

Fun fact: The Junker was the first ship to be overpowered in GoIO
The more you know~

I'd be curious to hear what it was like.  Tell me more.

Thanks again for all the great comments.  I can feel the Muse gods presence getting nearer.  Maybe they'll hear my plea.  The more I think about the Junker the more I like it due to it's high skill level required.  I just wish it was a tad better so a crew could be rewarded for it's efforts by being able to hang with the big dogs of GOI.

[RearAdmiralZill]

To update, the current stat is 500/700 hull/armor. I was off a touch.

[Captain Smollett]

To update, the current stat is 500/700 hull/armor. I was off a touch.

Zill you even had me confused for a second.  500/700 for as long as I've been playing is what I meant.  Good catch.

[Sgt. Spoon]

Fun fact: The Junker was the first ship to be overpowered in GoIO
The more you know~

I'd be curious to hear what it was like.  Tell me more.

Hrm, let's see if I can remember correctly. Well we had the Goldfish (called Small Warship at the time) which was rather decent, a rather squishy but rather good squid (which I can't remember the name for) and a horribly weak Galleon (or Medium Warship). Ugh, the Galleon was at that stage the worst ship, being completely immobile while the medium flaks (the only medium weapon at the time) was quite weak as well.

The junker, which was called Small Freigher if I remember correctly, on the other hand one was able to keep 3 guns at the same time at a ship which was rather devastating at times. This combined with the fact that it kept a rather serious amount of hull at the time made it really fun to play with, stacking it fully with medium flaks and an occasional gatling, hurling volleys of small thin white lines at the enemy. The speed might have been faster than now, but I can't really remember.

The things I really do remember are substainable full out flak-broadsides, hammering each other till death. This as the Junker was more of a tank than it is today.

EDIT:

A really terrible idea buff which I would love is changing its gun layout. Why should it be symmetrical? It's a Junker. What if you replaced the two light guns on the right side with a single medium gun?

why does that idea sound so cool

It'd look ridiculously grotesque. Maybe you should do one of your famous Photoshops to show us how it would look

aww man, I should be spending my time on that instead of writing on the forums and my essays.
Way funnier

[Captain Smollett]

Wow, it's interesting to see how much the game has evolved since beta; and people thought 1.14 was a big change!

[Mr Arrow Captl Fello]

Let me put this into perspective though…Without divulging Paddling secretes (meaning I’ll keep to sharing only the previous patch’s calculations)
Under continuous heavy flak fire utilizing charged rounds…assuming no missed shots to the hull, no fire damage is sustained and the engineer is on the hull the entire time armed with mallet/spanner/buff

The Galleon dies in 40 seconds
The Goldfish dies in 25 seconds
The Pyramidion dies in 25 seconds
The Junker dies in 15 seconds
The spire dies in 10 seconds
The Squid dies in 10 seconds

You can take my calculations at face value or if you would like to repeat the results you’ll need to have utilized a stop watch on the rebuild times for each ship prior to the patch (also, the times are rounded up to the next nearest 5th second to again mask some results)

Anyhow, with that said the Junker in my mind is the “light” Galleon and should be thought of as such...I base this on its utilization style, maneuverability and load out…I believe that it is at a unfair disadvantage when paired up against a Pyramidion or Goldfish (again, previous patch) and should outlive or at least be tied with faster, more functional or more maneuverable ships.

And for those people who feel the Junker is fine the way it is…why do you think that the most experienced pilots won’t fly this ship in a serious game?

When you go shot for shot against almost any other ship in the game, you will lose.

The other ships can “naturally” (no captains tools) out maneuver, and or outlive the Junker in nearly every matchup

Again, I invite naysayers to check the DPS on different gun combo’s, pick the most advantageous and match them up against an equally well armed Junker and see if mathematically the Junker can ever win…

(the answer is that it can’t except against a squid…and that is only if the squid doesn’t cause the Junker to miss any shots)


Which is what leads me to conclude that the Junker *Needs* to be buffed if it is ever going to receive serious consideration for utilization in tournament style or other forms of serious game-play

-Mr Arrow
First mate to Captain Smollett
and indeed a Capital Fellow

[Captain Smollett]

And for those people who feel the Junker is fine the way it is…why do you think that the most experienced pilots won’t fly this ship in a serious game?

When you go shot for shot against almost any other ship in the game, you will lose.

The other ships can “naturally” (no captains tools) out maneuver, and or outlive the Junker in nearly every matchup

Again, I invite naysayers to check the DPS on different gun combo’s, pick the most advantageous and match them up against an equally well armed Junker and see if mathematically the Junker can ever win…

(the answer is that it can’t except against a squid…and that is only if the squid doesn’t cause the Junker to miss any shots)


Which is what leads me to conclude that the Junker *Needs* to be buffed if it is ever going to receive serious consideration for utilization in tournament style or other forms of serious game-play

Well said Mr. Arrow.  You always have a way of putting things so succinctly.  It took me an entire page to try to make this point you made in under 10 sentences.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Well, Mr Arrow that about concludes the discussion I believe.

[Phoebe]

I was very dissapointed with the Junker myself - and I'm relatively new without any veteran experience.

After piloting for two days I've immediately noticed two things that greatly stand out:

1) The pyramidion seems way too powerful with too many pro's against con's compared to other ships
2) The junker seems way too weak with too many con's against pro's compared to other ships

These also translate to my observations that:

1) 90% of all matches I've played contained at least 2 pyramidions in them, about 25% of my matches have 3 pyramidions and one other ship.
2) about 5-10% of my matches I've played I'm seeing a Junker.

* These observations might differ per person and perspective

Now;- I don't know any of the maths; the fine details on the guns and I don't know all the hp/armor values by head so bare with me.  This is just observation feedback on my behalf.

The pyramidion can decide to tear ships apart close range with their front 2 guns;- or snipe from a distance with two devastating mercuries either on the front or on it's port side.   To me it seems this versatility and immense power should come with a massive drawback.   I don't see a massive drawback.

The pyramidion is the whole package - it excels in rams; has decent speed; a forgiveable turning radius; enough guns to stand it's own and seems incredibly sturdy. To top it off;- the lower pyramidion deck is extremely favoreable to a hull engineer who can quickly reach the engines and the side guns;- and the top deck left side engineer/gunner only has to do a quick 180 to repair the ballon.  It was no suprise to me that this was the goto ships for pretty much any serious Play to Win crew. 

From this perspective;- when I look at the Junker - it's basically a Pyramidion that is weaker; worse manouvrability; only has one gun on the front; has a lower deck battle station where its impossible to assist on repairing a hull or balloon anytime soon; has a balloon that sceams, "please pop me" that is a real pain to get to..... but it can fire on it's starboard.

I totally understand people would much rather win their battles and just take into account they can't fire from their starboard than put themselves in a serious disadvantage just to gain the ability to fire at a ship on that flank before meeting their doom.

[N-Sunderland]

Phoebe, the Junker's balloon is really easy to get to. You can hit it from underneath.

That being said, I agree with all the above about the Junker being seriously underpowered. It's got good broadsides, but why would you go for that if you can choose a Galleon with more power and speed? It can handle targets at long and short range, but the Pyra can do that too, and the Pyra does it better. A lot better. So something needs to be done.

[Helmic]

With that gigantic balloon and tiny hull you'd think it be able to gain altitude ridiculously fast.  I only ever see the Spire try to make use of superior vertical movement, maybe that's something the Junker should be capable of as well?

[Pickle]

From this perspective;- when I look at the Junker - it's basically a Pyramidion that is weaker; worse manouvrability; only has one gun on the front; has a lower deck battle station where its impossible to assist on repairing a hull or balloon anytime soon; has a balloon that sceams, "please pop me" that is a real pain to get to..... but it can fire on it's starboard.

The lower deck Gunner on a Junker (as well as fixing his own guns) can look after the main engine, and there is a trick for hitting the hull from below.

The Pyra really needs two people on the upper gun deck to be effective at dealong damage, whilst one is usually a Gungineer looking after the balloon, he's poorly placed for helping the main engineer without leaving his gun.  And the Gunner on the upper right position is left with nothing useful to do to contribute to the engineering on-ship.


Someone hit the nail on the head when they described the Junker as a Galleron-lite, this is the role it's born to.. but it's both slower and less heavily armed than the Galleon.  A speed boost to take it to at least the speed of the Galleon (or slightly faster) would better define its role and purpose.

The reason that those of us who do fly a Junker take it out, is because it's the most fun of all the ships to fly.  The Junker has soul/character in excess of all the other classes of ship.  And if you want a truly memorable match, go JFC and have all-Junker teams fighting against each other.  I've only done that as deathmatch, but surely Desert Scrap with all-Junker teams has to be worth a try at least once?

(and if I thought I'd get it, I'd request a "JFC" switch when creating a game to only allow Junkers to be selected)

[Phoebe]

(and if I thought I'd get it, I'd request a "JFC" switch when creating a game to only allow Junkers to be selected)

Just to add to that particular line I think it would be quite neat to have some lobby customisation;- such as checkboxes to disallow ships and weapons;- create "Squid only Harpoon only" games and other player customised game rules -  but for anything of such to be substantial we first need to see a growth in players and that's where I'm currently putting my energy

[RearAdmiralZill]

The pyramidion is the whole package - it excels in rams; has decent speed; a forgiveable turning radius; enough guns to stand it's own and seems incredibly sturdy. To top it off;- the lower pyramidion deck is extremely favoreable to a hull engineer who can quickly reach the engines and the side guns;- and the top deck left side engineer/gunner only has to do a quick 180 to repair the ballon.  It was no suprise to me that this was the goto ships for pretty much any serious Play to Win crew

I will try to counter here with come weaknesses of the pyra, not to go too far off topic. First, its missing starboard guns entirely. Second, you have one engie down there to man two guns. Youre only going to effectively get one gun working down there. Swapping from front to side is pretty time consuming and not worth the time invested to do it. This is a weakness that is arguable, and that is the hull armor surrounds the balloon. It shields your balloon, but it also makes your hull armor one of the biggest targets out there under sustained fire.

In a Junker, you have a starboard broadside. Its also very easy to change sides. If youre using the front gun for anything besides support/chasing/tri-gun, then you need to rethink your junker tactics. That my opinion though.

I do agree that it should be faster, and only slightly, than a galleon.

[awkm]

Fun fact: The Junker was the first ship to be overpowered in GoIO
The more you know~

The leading reason why I am extremely unwilling to touch the Junker.  I've been both absolutely dominated by the Junker as well completely obliterating them in my own play in the past few weeks.  It's not the type of ship I like to fly but nor is the Galleon or Spire.

And pretty much what Zill said.  Look at the armor and the types of weapons you can load onto it and you'll understand what it was meant for.