Simple moderate Incendiary ammo buff

[Daft Loon]

Add +15% damage.

Solves its problem of losing more raw damage than its worth without complicated interactions with gun stats or unneeded buffs to the flamethrower.

Goes from 70% damage per second to 80.5% and 75% damage per clip to 86.25%

[BlackenedPies]

Agreed

[Richard LeMoon]

What about tacking on another 5% velocity reduction to bring it to 35% velocity reduction? We could even test 40% reduction with some other buff. making it a pretty good very close range ammo. This would be a good call if Greased is given the -30% slot that Incendiary now holds. I would also reduce the burst radius a bit.

You would then have Heatsink at -20%, Greased at -30%, and Incend at -35% or -40%. The range reduction would allow the buff while making it more desirable for arming changes.

[BlackenedPies]

Keep the mine launcher in mind. Straight buffs to the damage and reduced arm range would make it overpowered. Reduced burst radius would help, but the mine has a huge radius of 60m so it'd need a sizable cut of at least -50%. This radius nerf wouldn't significantly affect other guns where it has potential use

[Richard LeMoon]

I would be fine with 50% or more burst radius reduction. Sounds fair to me. That would nerf the Lumberjack as well.

[BlackenedPies]

True, but at close range shots land pretty accurately. It's only a nerf at further ranges when you switch ammo preemptively, or with a poor position, but that seems fair to me. You're dealing extra damage (albeit slowly), starting fires on hull + balloon, and engaging to 143m. The downside is that accuracy becomes more important and enemy positioning plays a bigger role

I don't want a large reduction in burst radius, but it seems necessary to balance the mine launcher

[Daft Loon]

Had another look at the numbers which reminded me that it still won't fill its most obvious niche - more fires, less damage on hades/banshee. Greased still sets more fires so the damage buff only really helps the already adequate carronades and mines.

[BlackenedPies]

It would be interesting to see the mine's burst radius compared to the ships, but I just remembered that in reality the burst radius is 40m because mines detonate 20m away. It's possible to land a mine inside the 20m proximity range, which leads to more damage - damage decays linearly to 20% dmg after reaching 50% of the radius. With -50% burst radius the effective radius is only 10m - leading to little/no component damage

What's your opinion Richard? A diagram showing 60m vs 30m on a couple ships would be helpful, if you're inclined. It's possible -40% would be more balanced, but then again the extra damage means more at the edge of the radius as well as on hull/balloon

@Daft
I still think it's worth a shot because it's progress and better than nothing. I prefer ROF tweaks but apparently that's not happening. At this point I think anything new is good

[Atruejedi]

You guys are nerds, which I appreciate. I'm just dropping in to mention that I think this should also fall into the recent discussion I started about Greased, Burst, Charged, and Lochnager (found here, but you've already probably seen it: https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,7462.msg132602.html#msg132602 ). I don't have a big problem with Incendiary, but I agree it's not functioning exactly as it should; case in point, Incendiary on a Flamer sets less fires than Greased on a Flamer. So is Incendiary the problem, or is Greased the problem? Does one need a tweak, or both?

I'll let the number nerds get to work

P.S. Muse agreed to have a "weird testing week" in the dev app where we could dick around and experiment with trying to make things better or more interesting. This all started because I asked why Burst Flares weren't a thing. Since Flares don't have any AoE Burst won't affect them, but perhaps they should have a TINY AoE instead of doing double fire damage. This would allow more "skilled" flare usage where, when you're within arming time, you set, say, 8 stacks of fire, but without arming time you set an additional 7. Seems more dynamic to me. Thoughts?

[Richard LeMoon]

Loch is currently 50% for ref.

[Huskarr]

more ... flare usage

I only saw this. I agree though

[BlackenedPies]

A hypothetical incendiary mine with -50% radius detonating at 20m away would deal about 73% damage to the nearest component. +15% dmg buff brings that to 85%. If it lands within the 20m proximity range, then anything under 15m deals the full damage (115% with dmg buff). I think anything from -30% to -50% radius is okay. It's not the simplest solution (hint: ROF and clip), but it works

@Jedi
Greased can handle tweaks to range and jitter (spread), but balancing the DPS variables is more effective (ROF/clip/dmg). Here's a couple current examples: Lesmok gat -12.6% dps, lesmok hades -12.3% dps; Greased gat +14.7%, hades +11.1%, and on light carro greased is only +5.3%! Greased dps across guns is inconsistent due to the three dps variables (ROF, clip, dmg) vs one for lesmok (clip). Charged is the only other ammo with three dps variables, and is likewise inconsistent albeit more balanced due to its role on 2-shot guns (not that it couldn't be reworked)

Increasing incendiary ROF from -30% to -15% would make it start 1.4% more fires per second than greased (at -20m range). This is an example why my vote for incendiary is ROF tweaks, which I tried explaining multiple times to Keyvias and Howard, but at this point I'm more than happy with the proposed increased damage @ reduced radius

With burst flares keep in mind that with a 'TINY' radius, burst won't have much effect either. 1 to 1.5 or even 2 to 3m is hardly noticeable and would come down to luck due to spread. It wouldn't hurt, and might be fun, but I don't think skill would play much role or that burst would become preferred over the accuracy of heavy clip

[Atruejedi]

And on light carro greased is only +5.3%!

MY LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE! Well, shit. This is why, when I fly a Junker with a Carro/Mine bottom, I encourage my gunner to use Incendiary/Lochnager in that Carro (and Lesmok in the Mines when needed; and, unfortunately, that top deck engineer is firing a Carro/Banshee with Greased, which I now find offensive). OR HAVE I BEEN DECEIVED HERE AS WELL?

...which I tried explaining multiple times[emphasis added] to Keyvias and Howard, but at this point I'm more than happy with the proposed increased damage @ reduced radius

lolz good luck. I thought I was going to get banned yesterday during the dev testing session for asking Howard for a legitimate reason why we couldn't have both New Heavy Flak and Old Heavy Flak while we were flying around with Richard in Alliance. He said I was baiting him... but I just wanted a legit, logical reason. If that gun existed in the game for over 75% of the game's lifespan, why is it suddenly anathema to the devs? Sigh. I just want options for players. I want a reason to keep playing when I get bored. I say this all the time, but I will never forget flying a Flakspider with Letheliah on Paritan the week before the Loch/Heavy Flak changes were pushed into Skirmish. We spent that weekend Loch-Flakking everything in sight and it was glorious. We knew we'd likely never have that experience again, so we took advantage... and that sucks.

With burst flares keep in mind that with a 'TINY' radius, burst won't have much effect either. 1 to 1.5 or even 2 to 3m is hardly noticeable and would come down to luck due to spread. It wouldn't hurt anything but I don't think skill would play much role or that burst would become preferred over the accuracy of heavy clip

Like I said, options. I like making tactical choices. Heavy clip Flares are great, obviously, but I also like Heatsink in some situations (Scrap comes to mind)... and I want to like Burst in some situations as well! It should be a big decision weather I take Burst Flares to try to light up a Junker's entire gunning pit, for example... or if I take Heavy to snipe that Goldfish's main gun!

And maybe Incendiary? Or Loch? You get my point. Options.

[BlackenedPies]

Yeah, +5.3% for carro and 7.8% for banshee, while a gun buff is a straight +20% dps. Good luck with greased carro vs buffed regular, but greased gat is much closer at +14.7% - which can out-dps buffed regular over one cycle with stamina

I forgot the flare has a burst radius of 3m, so you're suggesting that a 100% fire chance be added to the secondary damage as well. For example, 10 primary and 5 secondary. Hitting a gun would put 15 fire stacks on it and 5 on the hull. Using burst increases that to 4.5m and could potentially start 25 total fires on the hull and two nearby components (assuming there exists two components within 4.5m of each other)

[Unarmed Civilian]

Like I said, options. I like making tactical choices. Heavy clip Flares are great, obviously, but I also like Heatsink in some situations (Scrap comes to mind)... and I want to like Burst in some situations as well! It should be a big decision whether I take Burst Flares to try to light up a Junker's entire gunning pit, for example... or if I take Heavy to snipe that Goldfish's main gun!

And maybe Incendiary? Or Loch? You get my point. Options.

I personally am fine with most ammos being garbage on a gun, as long as the optimal ammos on different guns is sufficiently varied. The main issue with greased is that it is optimal (Mortar, Banshee, Gatling(close), Hades(close), L Flak) or at least beneficial (L Carro, Lumberjack, H Flak, Artemis, Mine Spammer) on so many guns. This is why greased is basically the default ammo for engineers, and why other ammos get drowned out. Incendiary has no gun where it is optimal and a bunch where it is beneficial (L Carro, H Carro, Lumberjack, Mines, H Flak, Gatling(barely)), of which only one of them could get away with running it full-time (L Carro) but is drowned out by other powerful ammos (Heavy Clip, Greased).

By comparison, here are the other ammos and most of the guns they are optimal on (and notable beneficial):

• Lesmok: Hades(long), Lumberjack(long), Gatling(long), H Flak(long), Mines(long), Harpoon(lol); (situational on Mortar, Artemis, Merc, Banshee, Flares)
• Heavy Clip: H Carro, L Carro(mid), Flares(mid/long), Minotaur (situational on Hwacha, Gatling(though unused), Banshee)
• Burst: Hwacha, Artemis, H Flak(DPS/DPC), Lumberjack(DPS/DPC), L Flak(DPC), (beneficial to Banshee)
• Lochnagar: H Carro(initiating), Gatling(DPS), Lumberjack(damage per shot/close), Mines(DPC/close) Minotaur(DPS)
• Heatsink: Flares(mid/close), Merc(disable), (situatonal on all for fires, beneficial on Hades, H Carro, H Flak, L Flak, Lumberjack, Mines)
• Charged: Merc, Mines(DPS), Lumberjack(damage per shot), H Carro(DPS)

Also, greased carronade is about burst damage up front with little change in overall DPS (when counting for reloads). Heavy clip is superior for surgical applications, incendiary is top tier at point blank range due to the synergy with damage type but outranged by greased/heavy.

Currently Incendiary and Charged (especially charged) are the two ammos I see complaints about most often for being terrible or unused in general, while there are complaints about the ubiquity of Burst and Greased.

One thing they could do is nerf Greased to Incendiary's range to give people a reason to use it over greased (Incendiary becomes optimal close range for L Carro, competes more with greased Gatling), though that might end up with Greased taking Incendiary's place in range reduction due to its greater versatility.

Charged definitely needs a buff to compete with the other ammos, as it is not even notably beneficial to a wide variety of guns, and good on only a few. A couple changes could be to give it a partial jitter reduction to make it more of a sidegrade in certain applications (sniping with gat, possible use over heavy for H Carro), which may compete too much with Heavy Clip, or make it the dedicated DPC ammo (remove clip size penalty, slightly larger RoF penalty) so it can push Burst out of the applications that aren't even related to burst radius and make it a potent option on guns with long reloads but high rates of fire (Hwacha, Minotaur, Mortar, Gatling(arguably)). The rate of fire reduction should be enough to lower DPS compared to standard by at least 10%, as currently its DPS is actually a hair under normal in a gatling (not counting for reloads).

Hopefully it's not rude of me to put all of this in an incendiary thread.