Final Defining Spire Buff

[vyew]

+1 for more acceleration and turning, so it gets the defining aspect of sideways dodging.

[pandatopia]

Another thing that bothered me about the spire is that I think while it is extremely slow at accelerating - it doesn't have the mass to match.

If we made it closer to the galleon in mass, i think that would make it less instantly dead if anything rams it, esp in that it won't get rammed out of arc as easily or into terrain and can at least try to fire back after a ram if it isn't immediately dead.

[Alistair MacBain]

After another rather dissapointing skrimmage with a spire on our side i still dont know bout the spire.
For me it just doesnt have a real niche.
It cant snipe cause its big as hell so it cant effectivly use cover.
Vertical cover is just not possible due to front facing gun. Horizontal cover doesnt work well either due to the spire being so tall and having its guns on the middle of that.
The enemy can just shoot you earlier thus getting the upper hand.
It cant stay out in the open aswell cause the spire is thin as paper.

So what is it good at?
Midrange? Yes it can work at that ranges but again ... Its thin as paper. If you're not getting the instakill right at the start you will most likely end up dead.
Closerange/Brawl? Its slow, its clunky ... Its a hell to made work on such ranges.

It can made work in a few situations. But usually you find a different ship doing better.
The only thing where i dont see a ship being able to do the same is the pure amount of killing (2xhades/gats+1hflak). But due to its other issues its hard to make it work.
It is easy to disable aswell.

Id say make it tankier by either giving it more permahull or moving the hull to the old balloon location.
More mobility would help aswell. then id see the Spire as a good mid to closerange ship which can do quite good.

[Mean Machine]

I don't know about increasing the hull. I mean, yes it's kinda the most obvious choice I guess, but it's so straightforward and I think it would make it more like "meh now it's just another ship with decent armour/hull" feeling. I like Spire because it's glass cannon, it's high risk/high reward(arguable since it's easy countered) kinda thing. It's challenging and fun to use it. So I would like to see it stay glass cannon and I would add something else that would make Spire shine at.

Here are some of my silly ideas, I am never good at giving ideas about balancing, but here we go... Maybe someone can make something of it and improve on it...

1.) Make reversing a lot faster. Maybe that could be a Spire thing. Spire and Mobula both have good firepower and front facing guns. Mobula can dodge vertically, let the Spire "dodge" horizontally, but maybe only in reverse, leaving acceleration forward the same. In addition turning speed could also be increased, so Spire could outrun other ships with reversing back and turning fast and losing the opponent behind obstacles/walls (canyon ambush for example).

2.) Make armor on the sides stronger. So maybe Spire could have reinforced sides, so it would take maybe 50% less damage when hit to sides? This could for some tactical dodging. Fire guns, turn ship to the side while reloading guns, so you will take less damage from weapon fire and ramming. If you want to take risk and keep firing, you would be weak, like now, so it would require good communication and teamwork to decide when it's good to use sides to "tank" or when it's better to take a risk and keep shooting. Back of the Spire would stay the same, so flanking would still be possible on spire.

3.) Buffed Armor on Spire could recieve 75% instead of 30% increase?

4.) Maybe make it somewhat that when Spire would use tar, that something would lead/push tar in front, so Spire would always leave tar in front of itself, thus making opponents think twice when charging or for medium/longe range for losing spots?

[Omniraptor]

The squishiness of the spire comes not only from armor/hull values, but also from the geometry- the armor on the balloon and the 'spike' below the ship are easy to hit with ballistic weapons, and clustered together hardpoints that are easy to disable.

[Crafeksterty]

@Swiftpaw

Those suggestions change up too much on the core gameplay of the spire and the core of ships in general.
No ship has a unique diffrence when it comes to function.

The reason the mobula is so fast at going up and down because its STATS are different.

Your number 1 can be accomplished with "Double Acceleration". Did you read what it is meant to do?
None of my suggestions invent anything new but rather change value.

Only inventive one is the hitbox placements suggestion. But that wasnt actually my suggestion.

[Sprayer]

I wonder what would happen if the steering engines faced 90° to the left or right respectively. The ship would probably turn slower and at the same time drift making it a hybrid of what it's now and a junker/galleon gunarc wise. Just guessing though. Maybe angled engines are not something the (game-)engine consideres in calculating the thrust.