I don't wanna keep repeating the same things but I want to make sure people aren't mislead. All ships provide many different builds, crew combos, and strategies. All ships have unique designs and strengths and weaknesses. The mob's unique design of having an underbelly balloon is strictly an advantage - same with its thin profile and spread out components. This doesn't mean it's well balanced. Take the junker for example which performs a similar role that's worse in practically every way except more armor. This doesn't necessarily mean the junker isn't balanced compared to the other ships, it just means the mob is better
With that logic we can say that pyra having balloon protected by armor is strictly advantage (which it is and I don't mind it). Also we could say that junker and galleon having guns on both side is strictly advantage, since if they get one side disabled, they can turn and shoot again with other guns. They are also a lot more resiliant to getting flanked like I already mentioned in one of my posts. Or that galleon can carry FOUR heavy guns! Yes, that's all advantage, but you make it sound like it's a bad thing. That's exactly what I like about ships, they have different qualities about them. But everyone picks on stuff that mobula does better than other ships in order to prove their points, but they forget about what other ships do better than mobula (chasing enemy, being faster to engage and disengage, easier to repair, easier to keep chem spray up, easier to keep buffs up, easier to tank, easier to get to the components, easier to maneuver around terrain, easier to track target, easier to catch up with ally or follow, strong rams, more resistant to rams, easier to hide, having privilige of heavy guns etc.. Talking about heavy guns, I think they are big deal. Seriously, mobula doesn't have an access to OP lion gun or lumberjack, which is arguably also OP, but of course who would say that at this time? Maybe next year when they nerf all the ships and people might start using lumberjack more and learn how to shoot it and then we will ses topics on forum "OMG lj OP!" It's not a problem now of course, because you rarely see lumberjack, let alone with a gunner who can handle it, just like metamobula was not a big deal a while ago, but it is now, when more people fly it. The difference is, I actually believe that lumberjack is closer to being OP than mobula.
I'm a bit confused about what you're saying about balloon, you have to explain that a bit more. In your post above you said that mobulas's balloon is underneath so it's resistant to being popped. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Carronade can hit balloon even if you're a bit above mobula, especially with stamina. Lumberjack definetly shouldn't have a problem and the rest of the guns that are decent also have great arcs like banshee, flamers and hades.
The fact that the mob is good against everything doesn't mean it's balanced and that's not how games work. The test is to put the other ships excluding mob up against eachother and see if they're balanced. The truth is that they're relatively balanced to eachother with the possible exception of pyra, but today I flew a mortar-gat pyra against a vet kill squid to prove a point and barely scratched the hull under my buffed armor. No ship is "only useful with one build or one situation", but the mob is good in all. There's no other ship where you can simply swap out loadouts and fight anything without worry. Mobula is the least risky ship to bring (which is ok but it's OP!!)
I have a hard time believing that people think mobula is best against all ships and possibly that it's the only ship in game that is good against all ships. Let's take an example here and say we're flying mobula without artemises, just for the sake of argument, since it looks like you and some other people believe that mobula itself is OP and it's not due to that particular build like OP mentioned, hades+double arty. How many ships in the game wouldn't handle mobula without artmemises? So, let's see then how OP mobula would handle other ships if we take artemises away from it.
- Squid would obviously stand a very good chance, it can even handle meta mob.
- Goldfish if it's fighting close range has a very solid chance to handle mobula, without artemises even a lot more so.
Hwacha in short range is still very good against mobula, no one will tell me otherwise, sorry. If I can hit and disable at least two guns on mobula with hwacha and I'm seriously bad gunner, no exaggerating, then I just won't be convinced otherwise, sorry, anyone can try to convince me, but good luck
And even two disable guns on mobula is good enough to put them in position where they they need to dodge and likely use pilot tools and damage their balloon and engines, while goldfish can press on and continue attack.
Carronade fish can still do good job at blending mobula, it's just not as easy mode as it was, it requires a tiny bit more of thinking ahead.
- Junker should not have much of a problem, metajunker should actually have quite an easy time if fighting at range because mobula will have hard time hitting that slim hull without artemises. Merc on mobula could help, but I can't see that being nearly enough. In close range junker has a very good chance against mobula, we've seen enough of that I believe.
- Galleon should annihilate mobula at long range. Galleon is even strong against metamobula at long ranges and I described why I think so in one of my previous posts.
- Spire I believe, would have pretty good chance against no arty mob at both ranges. Lumberjack spire with hades, flak or arty support or the spire you see everywhere now - hwacha+double gat+banshe would be very strong in close engagement, like it is against all ships.
- We obviously won't talk about pyra, but ofc pyra would also stand a chance, but not at long range.
Of course I'm not saying mobula would suck in these situations, I'm saying that both, mobula and any enemy ship would have good chances of taking out each other. In case if anyone would agree to that, then that would mean arty is OP, not mobula itself. And arty can't be OP just on mobula, but not on the other ships. If it's OP, it's OP on everything. I personally still don't really care about metamobula and don't think it's OP, but I wouldn't oppose to artemis nerf in order to nerf metamobula or just because of gun itself.
Again, how would you propose that muse buff the other ships and keep balance? Saying that the mobula is balanced and all the other ships aren't isn't how balance works. Mob has an advantageous design with an underside balloon and thin spread out profile, great stats with excellent maneuvering and good armor/hull, and nearly the best possible light gun setup. This puts it steps above the other ships and is why it's not balanced. It's fine to have a good easy jack of all trades ship and that's why I only want to touch the hull value!
I can't imagine how you'd buff the other ships to balance the mob so you need to explain it. I'm a numbers guy with over 2700 hours so I'll understand it if you can describe it
Heh, well I'm the opposite of numbers guy and I'm not very good at coming up with balancing changes, it's not my job to balance game after all. I just don't like to see nerfs, unless it's seriously obvious that something is OP, which I can't see for mobula. But in general I don't like nerfs. Probably because I've seen plenty games that were ruined because of it and stopped being fun. And often developers tend to go too far and actually totally break whatever they are nerfing.
But, Jamini above seem to have pretty good idea of what could be done. I especially like spire turnings buff, I'm not sure about buffing armor though. I also agree on galleon top speed buff and I also very much like squid idea. I would just like to add that junker needs better vertical acceleration, which you already said yourself and I support the idea.. So, these could be good start. Sorry, can't give you better examples, like I said, I'm not much into balancing.
