1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

[Wundsalz]

it does.

[vyew]

My opinions 

Extinguisher is useless unless it is used as a backup to a chem sprayer. This is because the 3 seconds of fireproofing means that if you leave a component to repair another component, the one you just left gets tons of fire stacks 

I'm not sure how this could be fixed, maybe extending the fireproofing to 5 seconds? Maybe 5-7 seconds of fireproofing would allow an engineer to fireproof a ship under flamed attack by constantly running around (although surely that would make chem obsolete?) To be honest I haven't used an extinguisher for literally months (except the 3 days of pre-hotfix flames) and I have internalized the idea that extinguisher is the "inferior tool" because it is reactionary, versus the perfect immunity of preventative chem spray. Is this intentional?

As far as I can tell, the extinguisher has 2 advantages over chem spray: a 3 second cool down, and the removal of all fire stacks. Since the latter can't be increased, maybe the cool down could be reduced too?

Newbies can't deal with flame throwers, because ANTE (All Newbies Take Extinguishers) and they often get distracted or react too slow. Maybe add a section to the tutorial just for firefighting techniques? Firefighting requires some more thinking than just repairing due to figuring out when to extinguish, when to just save time and smack it with a mallet, and sometimes even when to let the component burn down. Of course newbies are not a big concern of everyone who reads this forum, ha ha 


In terms of balance, perfect chem spray=perfect immunity, so damage through chem spray is fixed. However perfect chem spray is apparently a lot to ask for (depends on ship IMHO), so the way I see it, this entire forum thread boils down to one question:


How harshly should engineers be punished for missing a Chem spray against 1 or more flamers?

So this thread has two extreme opinions:

Sammy and co: Combining a flamer with a Gatling/Carronade to overload the engineers sharply increases the chance of an engineer missing their Chem spray, so the punishment should be less harsh than now. This means lowering the amount of fire stacks applied per second, and lowering the damage of flames.


Cake and Janeway llc: It's easy to do perfect chem spraying, and the flamethrower has such low range (insert high risk/reward, use range to counter, pilot your way out of the flamer and related arguments), the flaming ship should be rewarded by having the enemy engineers really harshly punished for missing chem sprays.


Can we not compromise?


Armchair balancing: Make it so that 1 flamer applies 9 fire stacks to a component in 5 seconds. 9 stacks because it disables guns and requires 3 chem sprays. 1 second for the poor overworked engineer (remember that they are shooting or repairing something else at this time) to realize that they missed a chem spray, 4 seconds to get there and spray it once, which allows guns to shoot again. Chem spray cool down is 5 seconds (am I right? It sure feels that way xD) so that is 15 seconds of chem spray cooldown.

I suppose there could also be some math shenanigans so that a full health balloon can be saved with at least a sliver of HP after the 20 seconds of on-fire time.

[-Mad Maverick-]

If you don't do anything to prevent a ship from cheming then your flamer should fail spectacularly.

that mechanic already went live a while ago

[Dementio]

I have my crew always take fire ext on mobula and sometimes even squid. Sometimes chem on squid is nice but if there is a flamer I am going to get the hell away from it, since massive engine and armor damage from tools and gatlings does not work well with fire, so fire ext is my only hero.
Another thing would be environments like desert scrap where you have to deal with sandstorms where could components die rather quickly and enemy losing you in the middle of it. Chem is rather inefficient 'cause you have to repair rather often in sandstorms which gets rid of fire immunity and then you would be forced to let the component die.

Also, if your general preferance is fire power instead of survivability you might as well bring flamer and just extinguish the guns and some other components if you have the time. If you manage to kill the enemy ship or disable the flamer quickly with your guns, it might be worth considering having your engis extinguish rather than re-chem everything just before impact.

[awkm]

There are some tweaks on dev app.  Please go look at them and post your thoughts in the stickied dev app thread.

[-Mad Maverick-]

tbh I am always hesitant to test things in the dev app because I don't feel like you get a good feel for things until it goes live... I know that's annoying but I'm not sure there has ever been a major change implemented without a subsequent hot fix

[Richard LeMoon]

That would be because too many people are hesitant to test in dev app.

[-Mad Maverick-]

it is a sick cycle I agree; and yet...

[WafflesToo]

Ha, finally a greenhorn voicing his opinion - thanks XtremeNameX!

This... is such a different reception than I witnessed from World of T... some other game's forums that I'm pleasantly shocked to see it.  I thank you.

I suppose there's a reason I'm playing this game and not that one anymore XD

Anyway, back OT.  My first experiences with the flamethrower were truly terrifying.  Everything's on fire, the captain is screaming at me, I can't get things under control fast enough... boom 

Maybe it's because I knew already that I was going to be terrible for my first few matches that I didn't let it bother me and back into the flames I went again and again and slowly (probably too slowly for some teams, my apologies to those I doomed to being roasted to a delicious golden brown) I learned my firefighting techniques and how the equipment actually works (AND THE TUTORIAL IS A BIG FAT LIAR!  It specifically states that the fire extinguisher does not start a cooldown).  Now I've swapped the FE out for a chemical sprayer and you better believe I keep my boots worn down sprinting through the ship making sure everything's sprayed down once enemy contact is immanent.  Things go so much better for us these days, I can only think of one incident in recent times when fire was a deciding factor in an engagement (20 stacks on our hwatcha kind of put us out of the fight... lucky our teammate was right there and on the ball.)

My personal feelings is that while the flamethrower is indeed terrifying to new players I don't think it's OP...  but I do think it's a great tool for making sure those engineers stay in top physical shape

take it for what it's worth

[Dementio]

AND THE TUTORIAL IS A BIG FAT LIAR!  It specifically states that the fire extinguisher does not start a cooldown

I knew the tutorial could need some tweaking, but are they really this outdated? Oh my, oh my...

[Richard LeMoon]

Maybe it is not outdated, but predated foreshadowing, and the next update will remove cooldown for the extinguisher again. Very clever, Muse. I fully support this.

[Farfanuggen]

I think it says something about the state of the flamethrower when you're running into pyramidions using 3 of them and a mortar. The damage needs to be toned down a little more, range needs to be set to 250 and with no way to increase it via ammo types, and fire starting percentage needs to be toned down to maybe 15%.

18%....it doesn't seem like it's even that low when you barely get sprayed by a flamer for less than 2 seconds and have 3 stacks on the balloon/hull.

[Dutch Vanya]

Most matches i played today were with pyramidions ignoring both front guns and only fighting with their side flamethrower and galleons also getting the most done with a single rear flamethrower. It may not be overpowered but it is certainly too easy, and not fun to counter. Running "chem cycles" as you call them is not enjoyable.

[pandatopia]

Hmm, on the one hand the Squid is now much better at the disable assassin role it is meant to fill.

On the other hand, I have found zero way to get away from a flamer+any gun close range.

If a flamer ship ever gets close, unless the captain has no idea what she is doing with the ship's arcs, you will never escape.

It is simply not feasible to get hull, balloon, engines up to even attempt to escape with a flamethrower on you.

Even so, with a squid on you its not like you can outrun it either.

I'm torn here, on the one hand I love using the flamer. On the other I find fighting against it incredibly frustrating.

I think the baseline range is great, just remove the ability for lesmok to modify its range and you have a great high risk high reward weapon that wins point blank, but cannot be used from nearly gatling gun ranges.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I feel chem spray is a suitable counter to the flamer.

The goal of chem spray is not to keep your ship going for a long, minutes long brawl.

Flamer damage is -okay- but certainly does not compare to any of the major ship killing builds, and my understanding is that should you see a flamer ship coming, you will destroy/disable it before it can train a flamer on you for an extended time. The 20 second fire immunity from chem spray should be long enough for you to empty your clips and for all your components to stay up for that.

[Omniraptor]

protip: burning engines can be safely ignored, or in general get lowest priority.