Hmm, mines. There's an idea for a side of a pyra. Harpoon and mines.
Won't work, trust me on this one.
And I too thing that the reload time is just too devastating. Especially when you want to harpoon from a longer range, the chance to miss is high enough already, especially on Junker's hull and against Squids manouverbility.
Also, from a logical point of view: Why would you want to harpoon somebody to close the distance between the two of you, if your target already IS close to you?
Ramming pyra aside (which is literally every pyra in the game, harpoon or not), a shorter reload time would allow this gun to be used against medium/long range ships without the already high risk of falling prey to the endless sniping and ultimately dying on the spot, since you have to expose yourself and yada yada. If you could hit with the harpoon, it could render the longer range ship either useless or helpless against your own close range barrage. And it wouldn't even be too powerful either, since you still have to hit and gun disable through artemis or merc isn't rare either.
Currently the harpoon is not even a utility weapon. It's even less worth than that. It's a gun that has only 2 scenarios:
- Miss with the harpoon and fail, which might end in ship destruction
- Hit with the harpoon and ram, which might end in ship destruction
I tryed using this gun on a Spire, I really did try to reel the enemy in. What happened was that the weird pyhsics kicked in instantly, turned me the wrong way, thus losing some gun arc and moving towards the enemy instead of the enemy moving towards me.
What am I supposed to do with this? I can't hit from long range and in close range it's less usefull than a beacon flare, because I know that 10 stacks of fire don't throw my ship around.
Next thing is, I don't get the fear of "harpoon abuse". What about the carronade? It can shred a balloon and keep an entire ship disabled without too much trouble if the carronade pilot has the ship and the skill for it. Neither drouge chute or impact bumpers will save you from that either. How is harpoon worse? You push the enemy around and have him be 1m away from your face, congratz. And Mines are utility weapons too, you know? Like the beacon flare, it can be used offensively, only with more effect, if executed succesfully.
TD;DR
- The Harpoon is the best weapon for suicide bombers
- The Harpoon was never fixed and, personally, less fun than before