Squid Buff Suggestion

[HamsterIV]

I think increasing the light mortar's horizontal field of fire would make the squid a more viable ship now that flame disabling has been weakened and explosive damage needs to be paired with piercing to effectively bring down a ship.

Ever since the 1.1.4 patch I have not been able to use the squid effectively. I have tried a variety of different weapon configurations, and the only one that is remotely useful is front and side cannonade. That build becomes less usefull when your target's ally decides to come to the rescue. Also the cannonade's field of fire is much narrower than my old favorite the flame thrower. So bringing double guns to play is much more difficult.

The banshee is the only gun with sufficient field of fire to effective overlap beyond the 45 degree mark. Yet I find it's killing power somewhat lacking. The squid needs a gun with a wide field of fire that can put out high dps explosive or shatter damage that benefits from extreamly short ranges, some thing like the light mortar.

A Gatling gun squid is pretty effective when teamed up with a ship that boasts a lot of explosive damage, but allone it is not seen as much of a danger. Since the enemy ships no longer need to worry about getting flame locked if they let a squid run around their flanks they are free to focus on the ship that is an actual threat. No amount of speed or armor buffing will make the squid more of a threat, but giving it another weapon that can shoot past the 45 degree mark will.

[Captain Smollett]

Hamster, first of all, I think this is a good idea and I apologize for hijacking this thread but I think the light mortar needs a bit more of a buff.

The mortar was really powerful in 1.13 since it could break the armor with it's first 8 shots and continue smashing the hull to oblivion once the armor was down. The problem is that now explosive weapons are required to be precision weapons making all their hits when armor is down.

I think it would be awesome to see the mortar arc increased since it's meant to be a close range brawling weapon. In addition to this though I think the bullet spread should be reduced and maybe even the bullet drop decreased slightly. It's tough enough to get the range of the mortar as it is, the bullet spread makes it almost impossible to use as a precision weapon.

The mortar is a very powerful weapon. I love it's concept and design, I'd just like to see it back in the meta.

[HamsterIV]

As I see it the Pyramiddion isn't fast enough to consistently get into effective range with the mortar and the mortar doesn't turn wide enough to compliment the Gatling on the squid. I actually like the Nerf to explosive damage since it makes ships more survivable and encourages team play by forcing captains to consider multiple damage types. Unfortunately the squid has suffered the most from this balance change since it can no longer rely on one gun to take down another ship and the double gun options that overlap are not very effective.

I miss the days of fire kiting, as much as the newbies probably appreciate the new 8 stack rule.

[urm]

I think, the best way to buff squid (it's required, obviously) is to move gun from back or side to the front (on the right bottom baloon or in a new hole in front of the ship, near the Hull).
Now Squid can be used only in races, but we haven't (sadly) this game type, so buff it finally

[-Muse- Cullen]

I'm all for making the mortar better- its one of my favorite guns, but there's a stigma for having one on a ship. A stigma should never exist because of a deviation from normal loadouts(Except when using a utility gun like flares or harpoon). If the rotation speed was higher, its use would go through the roof, imo, cos I use it / shoot it on broadsides, but the turning/positioning of both ships make it a little too difficult to keep the mortar's arc in effective range with the current slow rotation.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

Pyramidion with double greased mortars just evaporated other ships it came in close enough in 1.1.3 TBH.  Mortar should get better turning speed and better arc of fire tho.
Once 1.1.6 comes out, squid should have much easier time with changes to thrust simulation. Other ships will accelerate much slower - we might even see Pyra start fallin out of favour. Current model does not take ship's mass into the account (Pyra is with 300t second heaviest ship, just asfter the Galleon with 400t - Squid on the other hand has only 50t) - and it should.

[Saull]

any hopes for the mine launcher maybe giving the squid some extra utility?