Remove Flamethrower

[Richard LeMoon]

I was being a bit facetious there. The Steam discussions are a good place to not get heard.

[BlackenedPies]

The Flamethrower sucks.  It changes the combat in the game for the worse.  The game is better off without it.

2/3 of this is accurate.

The flamethrower shoots a straight stream of particles with no physics attached. Each particle has a fire chance to catch everything it touches on fire. The particles fly through the ship and one particle could catch an entire ship on fire.

Oh, and there are hundreds of particles and hardly any reload. The hwatcha has a long reload because of its high disable power. The flame has a short reload because screw noobs?

On paper the flamethrower has great specs making it superior to every other weapon. It dumbs down combat to the point of being magic. It's lazy. One gun one kill.

A flamethrower makes sense in this game but this weapon makes no sense. Chem spray like a pro or one gun will kill you. If you don't have or use chem no amount of skill will save you from a single weapon. Be pro or die a boring death.

This is what the whole thread is saying. We don't care it's unfair, you just aren't good enough. It's balanced because chem. Reread the original post guys. Chem is not as advertised.

Jaraxlle I apologize for the behaviour of the people on this thread towards our new community. The mention of taking away the win gun puts them up in arms. This topic makes me angry.

My longest win streak was in an all AI ship with flamethrowers. It was ridiculously easy even against full chem spray ships.
It earned me my 43 win streak. How can an all AI ship with a crappy squid pilot be so successful. I guess all AI squids are just OP.

[Lanliss]

Screw you and your OP squid. How is anyone supposed to handle that speed+ the AI accuracy?

[Kestril]

I agree the flamethrower needs to be looked at again. Due to it's binary win/lose nature.

Or more concessions should be made to it's arcs or range or ammo to balance it's current power out.   

[Wundsalz]

While flamers yield devastating results against less experienced players, they don't really pose a threat to experienced crews (flamers are barely ever used in competitive goi matches). The trick is to deal with flamer ships before you slide into a flamer lockdown. Flamer builds generally lack raw damage output and hence can be outgunned before they turn into a serious threat. To pull this off three things need to be done:
1.) chem sprayed hull, balloon (and weapons)
2.) focused and well timed gun fire
3.) if a component is set on fire and gets damaged by another source (e.g. a gatling or carronade) it's usually a futile attempt to extinguish the fires during the engagements. The better call is often to buy some additional time to deal with the ship by malleting the component instead.

That's quite some coordination and team work which is needed to counter a tactic that's as simple as "gunner, point that thing into their general direction and left click!". That's the key problem of the flame-thrower balance. Countering flamers requires an unproportionally high level of coordination.

Overall I think the flamer is balanced horribly right now. It's devastating when fielded against inexperienced crews to a point where some consider to quit playing the game over it. At the same time it's way too unreliable when used against experienced crews - to a degree barely anyone dares to use it as a primary weapon.

[Dementio]

All that has to be done is make Fire Extinguisher a bit more usable, that way even the inexperienced will be able to handle it.

[ZnC]

Overall I think the flamer is balanced horribly right now. It's devastating when fielded against inexperienced crews to a point where some consider to quit playing the game over it. At the same time it's way too unreliable when used against experienced crews - to a degree barely anyone dares to use it as a primary weapon.

This is a problem that Muse is also trying to solve because the flamer is really difficult to handle for newer crews.

Aside from disabling ships that don't have active chem cycles, a viable flamer use against experienced crews is as a disable follow-up. This is notably on a Hwachafish, the flamer to buys time for a Hwacha reload and ship repositioning for a better second volley.

I've decided to study the sequence and numbers:
Hwacha reload: 14s
*Flamer suppression*
Light gun rebuild: spanner 6s, wrench 7.3s (assuming 1 person rebuilding)
Forced chem spray: 5s
(Return fire: 3s or 1.7s)

The force on chem spray means the light guns don't get fully repaired for a full 5s; they work at less than 40% efficiency with very poor turn speed. In a common Hwachafish vs Pyra scenario - without the flamer follow-up, the Pyra's light guns will easily get fully repaired and overpower the Hwachafish. Executed well, a Hwachafish can completely disable most ships in 2 volleys, and quickly leave the engagement to help with other ships.

[Mezhu]

Oh it's this thread again :'D

[Kamoba]

Oh it's this thread again :'D

Yup and I think the majority agree, flamer is OP against newbies and UP against "vets"


I think flamer range (lesmok op) nerf and Ext buff would help balance things out a lot:)

[Indreams]

Don't forget. A part of fire fighting is the pilot too.
Don't fly into a fire. Especially when you know your crew is fresh.

[BlackenedPies]

Don't forget. A part of fire fighting is the pilot too.
Don't fly into a fire. Especially when you know your crew is fresh.

Not an option. They bring the flames to you.

[Kestril]

Don't forget. A part of fire fighting is the pilot too.
Don't fly into a fire. Especially when you know your crew is fresh.

That's not an option. Ships can't backpedal fast enough to escape a pyra, nor can they outrun a squid.

I agree about not flying into flamers on galleons, spires and other static ships, but "just don't fly into the flames" isn't an argument to be made against the flamer's noob-slaying power.

[Schwalbe]

"Use the Chemical Spray Luke"

[ mashes the "Salute" button ]

[Kamoba]

Don't forget. A part of fire fighting is the pilot too.
Don't fly into a fire. Especially when you know your crew is fresh.

That's not an option. Ships can't backpedal fast enough to escape a pyra, nor can they outrun a squid.

I agree about not flying into flamers on galleons, spires and other static ships, but "just don't fly into the flames" isn't an argument to be made against the flamer's noob-slaying power.

I have to agree with kestril here, not only for the reasons given but the the expectations of new players to play so tactically....

Many (not all) new players are just "in it for the fun" without any thought on how they engage the enemy beyond "front guns" "side guns" or "give up"
Because of this frame of mind, expecting the players who this effects most to not only engage in the right manner (and know what they're up against) is not the case...

[Dutch Vanya]

Oh it's this thread again :'D

Yup and I think the majority agree, flamer is OP against newbies and UP against "vets"

Doesn't this mean it's badly balanced?