It's The Clawwwwwww!

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

I think the problem lies in that the claw is great for stopping and turning, but not good for ships on the move.  Therefore, ships can use the claw to turn their guns onto another ship, but they cannot use the claw to outmaneuver other ships because it slows their forward momentum.  My proposition is two-fold: Make the claw do a bit more damage to engines, but also give the evasive ships their own tool to evade gun arcs.  In fact, that tool is already in existence, it's just not good enough yet.

Phoenix Claw:
17 damage/sec to engines (up from 13)

Kerosene:
13 damage/sec to engines (up from 10)
+50% angular drag (down from 300%)

This allows evasive ships to put on a speed boost without losing all their turning capability.  We already have Moonshine for the ships that just want raw speed for ramming.  This will give Kerosene its own unique home as a speed boost that keeps your agility and give fast ships with naturally high steering stats a way to move quickly out of gun arcs.

[Sammy B. T.]

1. As long as it gives angular drag turning it off or turning on kerosene for the turns, would still probably be faster.
2. The increased angular drag is actually used by a lot of my captains for ship straightening so an angular drag reduction is could be seen as a bit of a nerf to the tool, not a buff.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

1. As long as it gives angular drag turning it off or turning on kerosene for the turns, would still probably be faster.
2. The increased angular drag is actually used by a lot of my captains for ship straightening so an angular drag reduction is could be seen as a bit of a nerf to the tool, not a buff.

if you want to straighten the ship, use moonshine instead in that case.

[AbbyTheRat]

Using Moonshine to straighten the ships is not worth the damage honestly.

[Dutch Vanya]

Using Moonshine to straighten the ships is not worth the damage honestly.

It is. You only need to tap it for the shortest time possible.

[AbbyTheRat]

Still does more damage then tapping Kero.

[Dutch Vanya]

But it doesn't have anywhere near the same effect when it comes to straightening the ship.

[Dementio]

For the amount of time you have moonshine active to straighten your ship, the damage is almost non-existent.
In some cases pilots go for moonshine because of X and sometimes for Kerosene because of Y. You don't or you can't use moonshine for Y, but you would still like to straighten your ship somewhat easier, get it?

But this thread is not about moonshine or kerosene...

[GreyTea]

This Post never happened

[RearAdmiralZill]

Isn't the angular drag the stat that would effect turning as opposed to longitudinal?

[GreyTea]

Start Again haha

Angular Drag-65%
Longitudinal Drag+300%
Thrust+50%
DPS to Engines-13

Base numbers

If we increase the damage output to engines by 50% and reduce turning effectiveness by 3rd we should get

Angular Drag-43%
Longitudinal Drag+300%
Thrust+50%
DPS to Turning Engines-26

Longitundinal Drag would be effected as well not sure how much though, maybe dependent on thrust.

Point being would the nerf help?

[RearAdmiralZill]

I think that's the worry with galleons becoming a little rough to turn with both an increase to damage and a decrease to effectiveness.

This brings me to a new point though of the fact we can then perhaps buff a galleon's turning speed slightly to compensate. Like ammo for guns, pilot tools shouldn't be required to make a ship usable in a balanced world.

Would that change stop claw being spammed? Yea. Would it also make it undesirable enough to toss it in the useless bin, maybe. It still needs to be able to be useful when compared to just buffing turning engines.

I wouldn't mind claw's effectiveness as much (in theory) if it wasn't an "always on" option. One clutch turn to save a bad situation is what tools are for.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

Phoenix Claw gives a thrust boost?  It doesn't have that in the tooltip in-game.

[Crafeksterty]

The nerf to the benefitt of the pheonix claw would not help, a nerf to the allready drawback to the pheonix claw Would help.

I remember the time when the damage to pheonix claw wasnt doing damage. We constantly used it.
Today, with the damage fixed, we still use it. It damages the engines, but does not force us to take care.

More damage to the pheonix claw will make the claw, LESS used, but not chosen over other tool.

[Ayetach]

Just a random newbie suggestion here so feel free to ignore, but what if it also/instead damaged hull armor?  You are turning the ship harder than it was designed to do so the body should be under a lot of stress so it does make sense.  Would that help offset the bonuses you get from it?

This seems like a very reasonable solution to the debate of its use.