@Skrim: yes, it is possible to use the sideguns. Balance is a precise thing and the fact that something is possible or sometimes works does not mean it is in the state it should be in. If the gun positions were adjusted to allow certain bifectas and trifectas, the goldfish would be able to lay down enough long range DPS to be even worth considering for sniping, and gain a fair amount of DPS in brawling that would put it on a better par with comparable ships. I have argued a number of other weaknesses that would, in my opinion, mitigate the effects of this buff and leave the Goldfish reliant on what are still quite situational tactics. I feel there is a certain amount of contempt being displayed in this thread as some people neglect to read others' arguments for the buff and assume that the people who favour this change don't understand the most basic and intuitive principles of flying certain goldfish builds. I am not wailing about the ineffectiveness of this ship, I am offering my thoughts about why I think it isn't a great ship right now and suggesting a specific change that will bring it into a better state of balance without significantly changing the character of how the ship is flown.
@Nidh
I contend that a gat/hwacha is not as powerful as a gat mortar. Firstly, the pyra is much better equipped to deploy both weapons simultaneously. I am not proposing fully forward facing side guns so the bifecta of those guns would not be usable whilst charging. The permahull DPS of a hwacha is lower than a mortar and I feel the hwacha is actually weaker to gat disable than the gat is to hwacha disable. I don't think it's been suggested that a hades or merc bifecta should ever be viable on a fish.
@Crafeksterty and Redria
I disagree with your apparent belief that the people whoa re unhappy with the current Goldfish have been flying it incorrectly. I don't think any poster in this thread is an inexperienced player, and while I can believe that you are better pilots than me, I don't think the skill differential is great enough to explain why so many people feel the Goldfish is ineffective. A lot of us have flown the goldfish before, even used it in competitive play in the past. The further issue with your experiences of noncompetitive play is that all of you are good players even if not always playing competitively. This means that, at least in pubs, your own skill is significant enough to tip the balance of the game even with an ineffective ship, and there are so many variable factors of crew and team variation that pretty much any build will get some success, particularly in the hands of experienced pilots. While not always a great representation, competitive matches are the least affected by factors such as disorganisation or huge skill differentials and therefore I think very important for assessing balance. And judging by the dearth of competitively flown Goldfishes, the current balance isn't very good for this ship, and rather than making a sweeping change with unwanted side effects like nerfing the art or buffing heavy guns I think the balance change should be one specific to the Goldfish that makes it more fun as well as more powerful.
I'd like to repeat my first post as it seems some missed it - I don't feel the guns should all point straight forward; there should be the edge of an overlap between 2 arts on the side slots. Not entirely sure about the numbers here, but I think that would lead to an acceptable overlap between a gat and hwacha and one that is too narrow to be viable, or nonexistent, when trying to use hades or merc on the side. When a galleon can field a perfect overlap between a light gun and 2 heavies as well as having significantly superior durability to a goldfish, I don't see how anyone can complain about OP firepower here. At long range, I can imagine double art + lumberjack would become viable, which would be pretty strong but be highly mitigated by the fact that the Goldfish's manoeuvrability doesn't help greatly in a snipe-out, its big, weak hull and front gun would be highly vulnerable to the normal sniping meta and it has to totally sacrifice its brawling ability to get this moderate longrange capability.
Something combining carousels or flamethrowers with a carronade would be nasty (and extremely fun!) but still would go down in seconds to good gatmortar, not effective versus efficient chemspray techniques and unlike a Pyra, reliance on 3 guns and the Goldfish's long engineering walks mean that it's impossible to lay down full DPS while getting any maintenance in - meaning this build would be highly reliant on excellent crew coordination and using your disable to avoid taking damage. Seems like a dangerous but not OP build requiring skilled play to utilise effectively; exactly what GOIO needs more of.
The gathwacha builds would be slightly buffed by this change but not excessively. The gats narrower angle means you would get no trifectas so it basically means slightly less steering is need to get the correct angles and that it's actually possible to achieve significant permahull against a team that are tanking hull properly. It'll still take more than 1 reload to down most ships meaning that the gathwachafish is in the same old situation of having to compensate for a slower kill with clever use of disable.
