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Fleeing the scene

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HamsterIV:
Balloon shielding is already a thing. I have flown with many pilots who use their balloon to absorb gat/mortar fire while their crew got the hull armor back. On of the main advantages of low level flying is that most ships don't have very good downward visibility for the helm. You can sometimes get an inexperienced pilot to bounce off terrain if you position yourself well enough.

Wundsalz:
most of the commonly used guns do a better job at killing stuff from above than from below. Also it's often possible to 'sit' on ships, damaging their balloon or even killing them if they're close to terrain. Hence it's usually advantageous to literally stay on top of your enemies. Still moving low has got its advantages as well. Most importantly flying low can grant an advantage in the initial positioning. The vast majority of ships heavily constrains the downward field of view - from the steering wheel in particular. If you see them first you can also act first. Also In general there's more structure to work with on the ground which not only can support you with the initial positioning, but can also be used for evasive maneuvers (Here I got myself into a hairy 2vs1 situation due to a communication error with my co-pilot).
Bottom-line: staying above your foes is usually the better choice, but diving below them has got advantageous niche-uses as well. I think the situation is fine as it is.

Sammy B. T.:
Hamster mentioned balloon shielding, I would like to elaborate on that. Most weapons are ineffective when hitting the balloon, and with the exception of the long ranged lumberjack, weapons that are good at destroying the balloon can't look down. Utilizing balloon blocks is vital to using that low level terrain when facing a high altitude opponent. Granted some ships like the pyra can't balloon block as well due to the fact that their one of their strengths is their partially hull covered balloon, however, generally speaking less damage can be done to lower enemies.

However, in a world with gravity and airship combat, height advantage will probably always be a thing. Instead of suggesting weapons not being able to shoot down as much however, I would suggest adding a gun that shoots an incredibly vertical shot which could be super fun, basically an aerial torpedo that rises or a high shooting mortar.

Wundsalz:
I'm really not a fan of balloon shielding as it's a very risky maneuver. It's rather easy for your enemies to push you further down while damaging your balloon if you dive underneath/next to them. Also, as said before - the most commonly used guns got a wider gun arc downwards than upwards. Personally I dislike using this maneuver on any ships but the goldie, squid and junker. The former two can usually evade 'sits' due to their high mobility. On the junker it's usually a quite desperate move - if the hull is (about to go) down something needs to be done to prevent explosive damage to finish you off.

Edit:

--- Quote from: HamsterIV on April 29, 2014, 06:55:32 pm ---On of the main advantages of low level flying is that most ships don't have very good downward visibility for the helm.

--- End quote ---
A very fine example for this is the galleon. Galleon pilots don't see SHIT below them and even the crew will have a hard time to spot you if you approach them from below. A relatively reliable way to kill a Galleon which is floating high in the sky is approaching it low, so they don't see you, then gain just enough altitude to hit the outer edge of the fin underneath it, which counts as hull, with gat/mortar. Their captain can't see you, their guns don't have an arc to fire at you - perfect.

Squidslinger Gilder:
Balloon shielding works better against noob players cause they tend to blow ammo on the balloons. Against vets it can be risky. But given circumstances it is still the best option. When chance of death doing nothing is for certain then balloon shielding is a good move as you do have a chance of surviving if you do it. Never can tell if lag or bad aim might come into play suddenly and then those shots are hitting balloon and not hull.

Wund, it depends on if the Galleon pilot is an actual pilot and not an engineer without options other than to turret. Even if a ship is unmarked, I can track it and then it comes down to a best guess as to the enemy's position under my ship. Which means, goomba time. So yeah you can't see, but vet pilots can predict paths and possible counters for something under them. There is only so many angles an attacker can approach a Galleon from underneath to get positioning. Unless they come from a cover advantage one chute can turn that attack around. Cover advantage say on maps like Rumble, yeah Galleon has very few options.

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