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Fellow Ex-Gunners Of Icarus Lend Me Your Ears!
Moriarty:
How can a brother gunner who seems to have an understanding of the game talk such nonsense, its enough to drive one into despair.
I am in despair.
Although at the same time i thank you for fighting the good fight and trying to salvage our good name!
Helmic:
--- Quote from: Shinkurex on March 28, 2013, 12:30:04 am ---
--- Quote from: Helmic on March 28, 2013, 12:20:42 am ---
--- Quote from: Squash on March 25, 2013, 08:56:00 pm ---But hold on, saying "most ships still use a gunner" isn't relevant. The fact is gunners are strictly worse than engineers in almost every scenario. The only time I'd ever consider a gunner more valuable than an engineer is MAYBE on the front of a Manticore Goldfish. MAYBE.
--- End quote ---
The truth. A lot of people want to BE gunner, but not a lot of people WANT gunners. There's plenty of reason to shoot, not a lot of reason to switch out ammo compared to the need to maintain their own gun and help out with repairs.
--- End quote ---
Well here's how I look at it. You can have another engineer if you would like to help you rebuild when things get critical, but what is there to stop another captain from following you down and just keep hammering you so that all your engies are busy? Your ship is essentially useless at that point in time, b/c you are not putting out any DPS. The moment your gungineer hops off the guns to help, is the moment your ship is doomed to die (IMO of course). The gunner role gives you extra ammo so that you can hit your enemy fast, and provide more DPS. As a side note, gunners are becoming more important for guns with arming time, if you get into a close quarters engagement (lesmok for long range, Heavy or Incendiary for short)
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Except in your situation, all that the engineer needs to do is keep gunning. Nothing is forcing him to jump off and help with repairs, he just CAN if he doesn't have anything to shoot. The only weapons with an arming time are the Lumberjack and Heavy Flak, and only three of the six ships available can even them; and even then those guns can work at near-optimal conditions with a single ammo type as three engineers on a ship with a heavy gun is just as viable as two engineers and a gunner. There's a difference between someone whose job it is to shoot and someone who's taken the Gunner role mechanically. Ammo switching just isn't as useful as the extra gun uptime and repairs you get from a gungineer most of the time.
Why are so many light guns only really good with one type of ammo? Why isn't there enough of a difference between ammo types to make switching between them more worthwhile than just switching back to vanilla if the one you brought isn't useful at the moment?
Captain Smollett:
--- Quote from: Shinkurex on March 28, 2013, 12:30:04 am ---
--- Quote from: Helmic on March 28, 2013, 12:20:42 am ---
--- Quote from: Squash on March 25, 2013, 08:56:00 pm ---But hold on, saying "most ships still use a gunner" isn't relevant. The fact is gunners are strictly worse than engineers in almost every scenario. The only time I'd ever consider a gunner more valuable than an engineer is MAYBE on the front of a Manticore Goldfish. MAYBE.
--- End quote ---
The truth. A lot of people want to BE gunner, but not a lot of people WANT gunners. There's plenty of reason to shoot, not a lot of reason to switch out ammo compared to the need to maintain their own gun and help out with repairs.
--- End quote ---
Well here's how I look at it. You can have another engineer if you would like to help you rebuild when things get critical, but what is there to stop another captain from following you down and just keep hammering you so that all your engies are busy? Your ship is essentially useless at that point in time, b/c you are not putting out any DPS. The moment your gungineer hops off the guns to help, is the moment your ship is doomed to die (IMO of course). The gunner role gives you extra ammo so that you can hit your enemy fast, and provide more DPS. As a side note, gunners are becoming more important for guns with arming time, if you get into a close quarters engagement (lesmok for long range, Heavy or Incendiary for short)
--- End quote ---
The idea for the third gungineer is not to leave the gun to repair the ship. It's to have the proper tools to keep his own gun operational. Something that has a much more direct relationship to DPS than ammo type currently.
RearAdmiralZill:
Well its pretty obvious that we arent going to convince either side of the other's opinions.
I dont care what the updates have changed. It hasnt changed my opinion that unless you have a very specialized situation where only one ammo type is useful on the entire boat (Like a Squid build), a gunner will always be better suited for that last crew slot. The added variety in ammo can make a disable gun into both a disable and kill gun. It can get you first strike over an opponent, and give you an advantage when they get too close. I dont need to call an engineer repairing the engines up to the front gun cause he's got the proper ammo for a 3-5 second window of opportunity.
Helmic:
That having a gunner at all is controversial is an issue. It should be indisputable that having one of every role is optimal, and that's just not how it is right now. I don't know how you manage your crew, but on my ships everyone stays near their battlestations, my engineers aren't wandering off far from their guns or relying on each other to trade places on their guns for different situations.
It's just so situational. Everyone can always use a full repair kit, it's situational when you can use different ammo types. Proper planning can drastically reduce the needed ammo - carronades can get away with just having charged, burst on Manticores so long you fly with teammates so you're not trying to fight another Manticore in which case you bring heavy (the extra uptime and selfbuffing is a REAL help as you have time to buff EVERY shot). I really look for excuses to use a gunner whenever possible but I'm responsible for all three of my crewmembers having fun and that often means actually winning those close matches, I hate having to tell someone that they need to switch roles. If the light guns could benefit more from different ammos, then having even two gunners could be very competitive rather than the near death sentence it is now.
I think a lot of the problem is that there's very few ammo types that can work on any gun. Ammo choice, as it is right now, is commonly dictated by the captain or just inferred when the gunner looks at the loadout. There's one, two, possibly three ammos that work well with the guns they'll be using. There's not a lot of room for variety, and ammo variety is the gunner's one strength. It's not fun just taking what the captain tells you to take, you should be able to mix and match to your preference without impacting the captain's plans at all. I should be able to say something like "take something for accuracy, hull damage, and disabling" and just let the gunner choose based on comfort and his own skill.
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