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Pilot Skills - Chute Vent/Hydrogen

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Thomas:
Redria brought up some great points, although I'm going to flip them around for my side, because I can. Lag time I'm less concerned about, although it's still a big problem, as Ariden re-emphasized. (chute vent makes you fall faster, drogue chute makes you fall slower. Interestingly I almost got them mixed up when I started the thread. xD).

Anyway, lets imagine a situation where the damage to balloon is reduced, and the lag time is gone. Ships are quite a bit more maneuverable now. Combat becomes a lot more dynamic. In the early matches, new pilots may or may not overtly abuse these tools to the frustration of their crew and enemies. Already they can use the kero/shine and phoenix claw to make their our crew miss too much. Suddenly you have more playstyles opening up, different tactics being employed. Currently those tools aren't used a lot, so learning pilots don't bother with them. It just enforces the khanian mentality. You could say that more experienced pilots use the tools for greater effect and make good use of the vertical space; but how often do you really see that happen?

Take a look at some competitive play. Most of the time is spent fairly level, trying to keep their enemy dead ahead. They may duck down behind cover or try to rise into/above clouds, but combat occurs head to head. Even when using guns with great downward arcs, they will have their ship follow the sinking enemy and try to keep level.


Does the delay make sense? Not particularly. Especially when you look at moonshine, kerosene and the phoenix claw. How do these tools start and stop instantly? In fact, how does the phoenix claw work at all? If you dump fuel into your system, how long should it really take to take effect? How long will it persist after you stop? I can see hydrogen damaging the balloon by over-inflation/pressure build up/whatever, but why would a chute vent do that? You're just letting air escape in a controlled fashion. Or is the character actually cutting holes in the balloon? Shouldn't balloon damage in general help you descend faster in that situation?


At a certain point reality has to take a back seat to gameplay. From my perspective, hydrogen and chute vent are highly specific tools that deal an excessive amount of balloon damage (just around 1/3 of the total balloon hp at minimum); limiting their use dramatically. I'd like to have them be viable options in more situations, and there's not a lot of reasons to avoid giving it a buff (as in a reduction of the negative side effects as opposed to increasing the power).

RearAdmiralZill:
Im not quite sure why you guys keep comparing x to y tools in posts that equate to books.


--- Quote ---Anyway, lets imagine a situation where the damage to balloon is reduced, and the lag time is gone. Ships are quite a bit more maneuverable now. Combat becomes a lot more dynamic.
--- End quote ---

No, you just make those tools more spammy, and risk breaking the balanced stats that each ship has in relation to vertical movement. If you want to ask why kero/moonshine get to be left on, my theory would be that maps are much more horizontally large than vertically.



--- Quote ---Take a look at some competitive play. Most of the time is spent fairly level, trying to keep their enemy dead ahead. They may duck down behind cover or try to rise into/above clouds, but combat occurs head to head. Even when using guns with great downward arcs, they will have their ship follow the sinking enemy and try to keep level.
--- End quote ---

Because to counter the use of vertical tools, its best to keep level with your enemy until its no longer advantageous to you, which you then look for altitude advantages.


--- Quote --- I'd like to have them be viable options in more situations, and there's not a lot of reasons to avoid giving it a buff (as in a reduction of the negative side effects as opposed to increasing the power).
--- End quote ---

They each do one thing respectively, so all you change is how often they are used, which just makes them spammy.

Thomas:
It depends on how you tweak it. If it did itsy bitsy damage like the kero or claw, it could be spammed. If you tone it down, or at the very least make not last as long, it can be used more effectively without being spammed. It's a balancing act, and these tools -do- need some love.

I can't see how it would break the balance between ships at all. All we're looking for is less damage/more control. Not for an increase in power. Even now it's not as powerful as some people think, especially at the higher levels of play. They would function exactly as they do now in terms of drag and acceleration changes. Making them less devastating to use will not break the game.

The goal is make them more usable, which will likely increase their frequency in use. Other helm tools that are spammable: kerosene, phoenix claw, tar barrel, drogue chute, and impact bumpers. Which is everything -but- moonshine, hydrogen, and chute vent. Although moonshine made it onto your spammable list. I can see it being spammed under the right conditions, but not as frequently as the rest.


Don't be afraid of the Y axis, embrace it!

RearAdmiralZill:
All you're proposing there is less damage and less activation, but any ship short of a squid (that's being generous) doesn't even move if you leave it for < 3 seconds. The control is honestly in the 3 second activation.


--- Quote ---The goal is make them more usable, which will likely increase their frequency in use.
--- End quote ---

Current ship movement/mass wont just let you break physics. It takes time for the tool's effect to really do much of anything short of damaging your balloon for movement that you could of done not using the tool. If you're imagining airships dancing around at various altitudes, then that is our disagreement. These tools are for the extreme cases that you need a burst of up/down for the sake of positioning, not something to be used constantly.

Thomas:
The tools exist for whatever purpose the pilots can use them for, just look at kerosene and moonshine.

As for them not activating if you try to use the tool for less than a second, I would recommend more testing with the tool. You can definitely see results instantly. If you are trying to avoid a sticky situation, then yes, you probably need at least 3 seconds or so to get out of their arc. Probably more. If I'm burning kerosene and I might clip some terrain if I don't slow down, it's nice to use hydrogen to pop up over it a smidgeon. But then you're forced to continue rising and have a difficult time going back down.

And of course the sheer damage it does to the balloon (almost 1/3 of the health) with even the most brief activation. Maybe you want to try bobbing up and down as you close the distance to a sniper. Maybe you want to get out of your ally's way when he's trying to shoot the hwacha. There's a lot of situations where a light touch is desired, but not obtainable. It's not always wanted to have it last as long as it does. Having it be more controllable allows for long bursts of use and short taps.

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