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Junker viability and builds
Sammy B. T.:
The Junker trifecta is not great because of gun placement but instead because of crew placement. The difference between all guns firing and full repairs (engines balloon and hull) is very small and well balanced between crew. The junker trifecta is therefore less costly in terms of repairs than other ships. Spires, Mobulas, and Galleons have much easier and more powerful trifectas, however they don't have the seamless transition from repairs to trifecta that the Junker does.
Having the main engineer for the trifecta on the junker is the safest third gunner on any ship.
Basic Junker main has just the armor and front gun
Basic galleon main engineer has armor, balloon and side gun
Spire is gnerally weird but none are terribly close to armor
Mobula main has gun (sometimes 2) armor and engine none of which are close
Pyramidion has armor, 3 engines, and 2 guns with terrible arcs.
Kain Phalanx:
The difference of response time from gun to hull on Mobula and Spire compared to Junker is less than a second. The Galleon is faster. That time is important, sure. The increased responsibilities on those ships also makes the hull engineer a less reliable third gunner, yes, but all you've done on the Junker is shift those responsibilities to the top deck engineer. So your hull engineer is less a third gunner, and more the second gunner. This limits your kill zone to the diagonals where the gun arcs overlap, making your turning engines more critical and pinning your captain to the helm more. This means your ship is more likely to be reduced to one, ineffective gunner in a firefight than a normal setup.
Kestril:
--- Quote from: Kain Phalanx on February 01, 2015, 01:20:20 am ---The difference of response time from gun to hull on Mobula and Spire compared to Junker is less than a second. The Galleon is faster. That time is important, sure. The increased responsibilities on those ships also makes the hull engineer a less reliable third gunner, yes, but all you've done on the Junker is shift those responsibilities to the top deck engineer. So your hull engineer is less a third gunner, and more the second gunner. This limits your kill zone to the diagonals where the gun arcs overlap, making your turning engines more critical and pinning your captain to the helm more. This means your ship is more likely to be reduced to one, ineffective gunner in a firefight than a normal setup.
--- End quote ---
I don't follow.
For the sake of comparison, A mobula is reduced from a trifecta to a single gun with hadies, lumberjack, or carronade (weapons the put stress on the balloon and (eventually) hull) since the areas are so spread out. On a junker, the engineers overlapping is good because one engie can bounce between hull and balloon, leaving the other to fire.
While not quite as drastic as the mobula, the spire has this as well, the balloon and hull are at different locations. There is no flexibility in roles. If the hull armor is stripped, the balloon engine can't climb the spire to fix it in a timely manner. Most galleons as well, because the gungineer may be on the bottom deck shooting away from the balloon/hull.
With the junker, the small deck space allows the engineers to be more flexible. If the balloon gets hit and an engie sees the gungie and pilot already on it, they can feel free to step on a gun and return fire. Out of all the ships I'd say the junker is the hardest (aside from maybe the pyra), to reduce to only one gun shooting through pubby engineer stress.
But perhaps I misunderstood your point?
Lieutenant Noir:
Junkers have very concentrated work stations in terms of engineering
The distance from the front gun-> (sweet spot) hull is very short allowing the hull engineer to quickly react when the hull is damaged
The distance from the top deck guns -> (sweet spot) balloon is very short allowing the main engineer to quickly react when the balloon is damaged
Engines are always next to a crew member and so can always be maintained
The ship components on a junker are very easy to maintain and thus allow for a reliable trifecta
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Mobula
Distance to the balloon and engines from the guns will force an engineer off the guns for an extended period of time if tanking is in effect
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Spire
Distance to balloon and turning engines from the bottom deck guns are a bit of a trek.
Not to mention, the hull breaks so fast (due to low armor health and so much of that armor is exposed on a spire) that the main engi is probably gonna be off the guns for an extended period of time.
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Galleon
The distance from the hull and balloon is about the same as a junker but you only have one engineer on it,
due to the big guns needing a lot of maintenance and the vitally important turning engines (and main engine if sweet spotted)
In tanking situations the bottom deck engi will probably come help repair the hull if the balloon is taking damage,
thus taking them off the guns for an extended period of time.
In that time, the big guns would be heavily damaged because the gunner doesn't have a fire fighting tool, and so the big guns need to be rebuilt to shoot.
Kain Phalanx:
I was comparing two different Junker crewing positions, not only other ships. Of course most ships will be reduced to one gun if both balloon and hull are taking heavy damage. Galleons and Junkers are exceptions because the pilots are expected to help on balloon. I'm not disputing it's a strength/weakness of the ship. I have not heard the other side (hull engineer on front gun) advocating the top deck engineer to repair the hull. That is not particularly compact and would be a strength/weakness of my side (hull engineer on top deck).
The Mobula/Spire components are not so far from the guns as to be substantially worse than the Junker, and are better protected, needing to be repaired less. If you're arguing that the Junker has a better trifecta than the Mobula which is made specifically to have a trifecta, then you are arguing that the Mobula is just a bad ship. This is a disaster design-wise and I'm not interested in abusing ship mechanisms to this degree, playing an unbalanced game. Sounds like the Junker needs a nerf, such as removing hull repair from bottom deck completely.
Overlap is bad, it creates confusion and is inefficient. Notice how in your scenario a gunner is repairing something and an engineer is shooting.
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