Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: awkm on August 12, 2013, 02:16:12 pm
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For Field Gun flame wars, please put it in the other thread.
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2006.new.html#new
FYI. Lesmok changes ARE in. Text has not been updated yet. Will happen soon.
For Lesmok specific complaints go here (thanks zill)
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2012.0.html
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Lesmok changes ARE in.
Already saved you some headache.
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2012.0.html
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What about the gunner role itself, and the balance between roles? For someone who wants to play as a gunner, sometimes you have to "prove" to the crew you know what you are doing or that you are accurate enough a shot. Lots of captains would rather have all engineers than even one gunner that isn't very accurate because it "isn't worth it".
It seems that the general consensus for anyone playing this game longer than a week is to have no more than one gunner max on a ship. My thought is there are 3 roles in the game and 4 positions on a ship to man, so at least one role will be chosen by twice. But does it always have to be the engineer?
There is a good reason behind this; gunners only have more ammo types (and you can only load one ammo type at a time anyways), but if you pick engineer there is more equipment you can put to use for ship survival, fire management or buffing guns for damage.
I mostly play captain/pilot, and most of the time I do want two engineers for their tools. But other ship builds leave me wanting two gunners, and I have to constantly argue with others why two gunners could work. In particular, I enjoy piloting a long range galleon with flak on the port side and carronade on starboard. If I can get two skilled gunners below with explosive for the short-range side and lesmok for the flak, switching out either for incendiary now and then, we can take out the enemy before stopping for repairs (also the pilot can help mid-battle with balloon and hull). Having extra ammo types for my gunners to choose depending on the situation can be exciting, but is it enough to justify loosing ship-maintenance tools?
My point is there should be room for more mix-and-matching of crew roles. There will only ever be a need for one pilot, but pilots affect the entire ship, after all. So sacrificing tools for pilot skills can be justified. It just seems to me that engineers are a bit too commonplace (I've seen plenty of all 4 engineers!). There could be more reason to choose gunner than settle for 2-3 engineers because its "a safe bet".
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Now how could this be achieved? A couple of thoughts come to mind. My first idea would be to redistribute gunner skills among the roles. Maybe pilots and engineers cannot use other ammo types? Or maybe gunners can choose up to four? This would certainly change things up, although I am not too sure how I feel about such a big leap (I am usually one in favor of small, incremental changes over time). One thing is for sure this would make players rethink the role of gunners on a ship.
Perhaps a more subtle way would be for gunners to naturally have better accuracy. Heavy rounds could be an ammo choice for others, but gunners have it by default (maybe as their "normal" ammo type, maybe it stacks with other skills?). Maybe even Add accuracy without the smaller clip penalty. Or if that is too much, just add 50% more accuracy to shots.
It doesn't need to be a large change, just enough to make gunners feel more special. And that's what it comes down to, currently gunners feel like engineers without the tools. Just my opinion.
Any thoughts/ideas? I would love to hear what other have to say about this!
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Someone proposed giving gunners the ability to preload ammunition types for other crewmen. I'm not sure how much that would change things but it definitely seems like something a gunner "could" do and would go into the teamplay aspect of the game.
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@Elendu @Smollett
We have a variety of designs waiting to be implemented in the coming months. Stuff is coming down the pipe for sure.
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Awesome, looking forward to what you guys come up with.
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loading a gun with an ammo type then getting off and letting it reload, then comming back and having that ammo in the gun ready to use was something i really liked before it got taken away.
giving gunners the ability to do that would be a way to make them slightly more desireable since they can help out with repairs or something instead of having to wait on the gun for it to reload, or being abel to quickly run along a ship and set the guns up with different ammo types quickly.
either that or give an option to drop the 3rd ammo slot for a second tool slot, though that would probbly be unbalanced as hell
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Thats a great idea imo. Giiving that feature back for gunners only would make them pretty useful again.
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tbh most of the arguments I've heard against gunners vs buffgineer, which is what I feel is the subtext of this thread to be, seem to revolve around accepting the ammo limitation of the engineer for the chance of using the buff hammer to boost all the ship's components including the gun.
In other words reducing the ability of the buff hammer on guns, so that the DPS shows on a spread sheet as negligable would probably be enough.
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Someone proposed giving gunners the ability to preload ammunition types for other crewmen. I'm not sure how much that would change things but it definitely seems like something a gunner "could" do and would go into the teamplay aspect of the game.
I like the way you think-- with teamwork! After all, isn't that what this game is about?
loading a gun with an ammo type then getting off and letting it reload, then comming back and having that ammo in the gun ready to use was something i really liked before it got taken away.
I started playing more recently so I wouldn't know, but it does sound useful, especially for guns that take a long time to reload (Hwacha, why you gotta be so slow, bro?)
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I think it'd be cool to give the gunners back the ability to preload guns, or something tangental to actually doing damage.
The problem being, even with two engineers I can barely keep up with both the component damage and hull damage at the same time. On a Galleon, I could see having two gunners some day.
Thing is, I don't think the classes need to be that important. The only distinction right now is the tools they carry. I love that. It means to play to your skill and the class is a title more than anything else. There is no reason why I can't gun primarily as an engineer (other than the fact that I'd be limited by ammo selection). I'd hate to see the classes get any more or less specialized then they already are. I think this a good example of something that works and should be kept incredibly simple.
I don't think the classes need to be balanced, cause really, there isn't much to balance (and I like that). The preloading thing is an excellent idea though.
But this is my opinion, obviously, and I never gun.
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I'll often reload guns at the same time, especially on a Galleon. Jump on and start the reload for two Hwachas, reload the lumberjack, and by the time is done, hop into one hwacha and load in your ammo right as the reload animation finishes, then do the same with the other. With practice, you can reload all four guns about 30 seconds.
Being a gunner allows you to focus primarily on gunning, therefore giving you a superior advantage over engineers through experience alone.
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There's alot of things that could be changed to ONLY the guns numbers and stats to make things alot more understandable (and fun) for new players, while also (hopefully) increasing the competitive choices available for guns.
Let's start by having a look at the current guns we have, and what roles they fill:
Medium Guns:
Balloon damage:
Heavy Carronade (Short range)
Heavy Mortar (long range)
Armour damage:
Heavy Carronade (short range)
Heavy Mortar (Long range)
Hull damage:
Heavy Hwacha (Short range)
Heavy Flak (Long Range)
Component damage:
Heavy Hwacha (Short range)
Heavy Carronade (Short range)
Other:
And yes, hwacha has (significantly) longer effective range than the carronade, the mortar has longer range than the flak as well, and none of the guns do piercing damage so technically they aren't the best armour killers. There is a bit of generalization for the sake of brevity here, don't worry, the actual range is taking into account in the discussion.
Light Guns:
Balloon Damage:
Carronade (short range)
Flamethrower (short range)
Armour Damage:
Gatling gun(short range)
Mercury gun(long range)
Flamethrower(short range) (not the greatest, but fire has a decent armour damage ratio. and it's easy to get alot of stacks on it)
Hull Damage:
Scylla double mortar(short range)
Light flak (short range)
Artemis rocket launcher(long range)
Banshee (long range) (not a ton of damage but hey, it's all explosive)
Flamethrower (short range)
Component Damage:
Carronade(short range)
Mercury gun (long range)
Artemis (long range)
Gatling gun(short range)
Flamethrower (short range) (not so much damage but still disables them so eh)
Other:
Harpoon Gun(short range)
Mine Launcher (kinda counts as short range I guess?)
Flare Gun (short range (mostly due to inaccuracy))
So let's start making observations. First off there is no medium gun with long range component disabling ability (hwacha is medium effective range at best and even then can be dodged). There is also no medium gun that both does good damage vs. armour AND hull, but there are both long and short range versions for each seperate role. Ignoring for the moment how well each gun does at performing it's given role, these guns seem pretty balanced.
The first thing one may notice with light guns is that flamethrowers *seem* pretty much good against everything. Having used flamethrowers however, besides their range being prohibitive, I also find it questionable how much damage it actually does or does not do, as it does not seem to kill things (besides the balloon) nearly as quickly as it's damage ratio's would indicate. In short the flamethrower is probably not broken despite doing good damage to everything.
The second thing is that all balloon and component damaging skills are short range besides the Artemis, Mercury, and in medium the heavy mortar. Let's take a closer look at those guns.
The heavy mortar disables the balloon and damages the armour, the Mercury disables components and damages the armour, and the artemis damages the hull and disables components.
The mortar, while hard to use for new players, is problematic because it runs the enemy ship into the ground WHILE removing their armour. The Artemis won't do much damage besides disabling components until the armour is down, so that seems balanced. The Mercury on the other hand disables components (such as the engines and guns) AND removes the armour, and is thus also problematic.
The reason why these two guns are problematic is because they don't require as much teamplay (meaning combination with other guns/ships) as other guns do, because they essentially fill the role of two guns at once (a disabling gun and a damaging gun) without paying enough of a penalty at one of the two roles. The artemis is a good counter example of how a double role gun should work. It's nowhere near as good as the specialized guns in it's area, but it has the advantage that, when one of it's roles is no longer required, it's less of a waste of a firing arc compared to the more specialized guns.
Essentially, if a gun fullfills multiple roles with it's damage, it should pay a price for that, either being very ineffective at one of the roles, or being significantly less powerful (though obviously not useless) at both.
The banshee and flamethrower could be put in a seperate category for "firespreaders" short and long range, but the banshee is so ineffective at doing, well, anything at current, that it'd be inaccurate. Changing banshee to do a bit more explosive damage and having a slightly higher fire-starting chance would make it a great hybrid purpose gun for long range engagements, an alternative to the artemis, perhaps.
Speaking of the artemis, it is currently used only for it's very large firing arc (the exact firing arcs of the different guns should be more easily available information, since it's as important as the amount and type of damage being done when fitting a ship) as the mercury does it's job better at disabling and damaging ships at long range, and it's explosive damage doesn't come into play untill the hull armour is down. Add to that that the sniper and heavy mortar are the only guns good at removing armour from a long distance, and most armour damage has at least a "long" short range, getting that sniper on a ship is simply required for a long-range setup.
So how do we change the artemis/mercury to be more used/less frustrating? well quite simply we can look at the roles and what is required. Currently there are 2 light guns fullfilling the long range component disabling role (3 if you count the banshee), and only 1 fullfilling the armour removing role. I'd suggest specializing the mercury to taking out armour, and the artemis a bit more to taking out components at long range. Not only does the artemis have more counterplay as it's a missile and thus easier to see coming and dodge, you will have to make choices when making a long-range build whether or not you're going for more damage, or more disable, rather than just having both (fairly similiar to short range, though short range should always be more damage as it's more dangerous and harder to keep multiple guns on target)
As for the heavy mortar... I'd say just straight up reduce the flechette damage a bit (or the size of the aoe), or reduces the ammo/fire-rate of the gun, it's not as much of an issue that it can damage the armour as well as the balloon, as the speed at which it can do it (and damage both at the same time).
I'd also make a case for the gatling gun to be more focussed on armour damage, as it's the only short ranged gun that's much good at it, and trying to hit specific components with it is just silly(besides we have the carronade for short range component disabling).
Heavy flak just needs to be more accurate, it feels like it's a long-range gun(and the arming time supports this), but it seems to have unnecesarilly high jitter as well as relatively slow missile speed and high drop-off (it's damage is fine, just trying to hit things with it could be less of a bitch with the lesmok being nerfed now)
Anyway I could probably keep going all day but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on what I've had to say.
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Very well thought out post.
The one thing I agree with strongly is that the banshee needs a buff. Increasing the fire rate and damage would likely be welcome changes.
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@Captain McFaceSmashy
yes, very well through out post. I'd make those changes right now but the fact of the matter is that there are more guns coming that will change the situation. There's a tension between what players are accustomed to now and how much that can change, and what is on the horizon. Although many players would say that my changes are drastic, my thought is that they aren't as drastic as when new guns come into play. Mine Launcher is not a good example because it is niche, but what about another piercer? Another disabler? I can't rebalance everything against itself now, as you suggest, when I know everything will have to change again in a month.
So for now... there are definitely some flaws and some gaps. However, there are things in the pipe that will slowly rectify the situation while still making the game feel familiar.
Heavy Flak also has no jitter. Just drop.
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@AWKM
Ah, good to know there's still stuff coming out gunwise, hopefully one of those gun will be the famous junker-sized heavy gun? (I can always hold out hope <3)
I'm not too familiar with firing the heavy flak myself, but from what I've heard my gunner say it feels like both bullets don't go to the same spot, or at least don't originate from the same spot (though this may in fact just be because of slight ship movement in between shots).
Now back to the meta of the guns. While I agree making drastic changes with new guns just on the doorstep isn't the best idea, I do have to point a few things out.
With guns not being so much a rock-paper-scissors as they are a choice of tactics (none of the guns can directly counter each other, it's just not designed that way) adding new guns will open up more tactical options, and possibly invalidate old ones in some of their current roles if some of the new guns are clearly superior in that role to current ones.
However! This will only increase, not decrease the amount of guns competing for a certain firing arc on the ship. All of the guns that are currently being outclassed for a certain role (whether disabler or armour piercer or w/ever) at a certain range, will STILL be outclassed if you add in more guns, they won't suddenly become a viable option.
With all the guns competing for their spots on a ship they MUST have a clear role and function, even if that function is: average at most things. Currently we have 2 guns (artemis and mercury) competing for the role of long range disabler, with the mercury both being better at disabling AND having the additional function of piercing damage (which you want to have because there's plenty of options for explosive damage).
Let's say you add another (long range) armour piercer into the game, which is better at the mercury at piercing armour, but doesn't do a good job at disabling ships (it's full piercing damage, for example). The choice now becomes: do I want the mercury for both piercing and disabling, but a bit less piercing than I could have, or do I want the full damage piercing gun?
Now let's say you add another (long range) disabler into the game, which is better at the mercury at disabling components (yeah, OP, I know, but follow with me here). The choice now becomes: do I want the mercury for piercing armour and disabling, but less disabling than I could have, or do I want the full disabling gun?
If the new gun is better at both then there isn't any choice, you take the new gun, period.
As you may notice, in ALL of those cases there is no reason to pick the artemis. It's only other attribute is it's explosive damage, which you can get alot more of elsewhere, thus it isn't in a viable position for any slot *unless* it's firing arc allows you to shoot from that slot when you otherwise couldn't (and for the vast majority of ships that's not an issue anyway, only the Spire comes to mind) That wide firing arc is just too ship-specific of a feature to be considered a viable role, when every other gun can be part of a build in most positions with a bit of creative tactics.
Let's not even get started on the banshee if you add in another long-range fire-starter that's better at starting fires at long range. What does it's niche become then, it's explosive damage? Most everything with explosive damage has decent range on it(and a ton more damage).
The point is that adding more guns competing for roles (unless all of the guns added are very niche) won't in any way solve the current problems. At best it remains at the status quo with only empty gaps being filled in (like a medium piercing gun) but at worst the new guns are either useless or outclass one or more of the other guns in their role as described above. Guns that are currently useless will remain useless regardless, and as such you can probably get away with fixing those sooner rather than later.
Edit:
I just realized that if you DID add in a medium piercing gun which has the kind of range and accuracy of the mercury then it *might* be viable to replace the usual mercury slots with artemis slots(on a spire/galleon), to have a very long-range damage-disabling build, though I would still argue at most practical ranges (e.g. there's clouds in the way now, alot of them in fact) the light flak or scylla with lesmok rounds would outperform it when it comes to destroying ships, and the mercury would still out perform it for disabling them.
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@Captain McFaceSmashy
Due to the recent changes in the Mercury and Lesmok ammunition, the Mercury doesn't heavily outclass the Artemis as a disabler anymore. Try out the Artemis with Lesmok at long range and Burst at close range. It can really wreak havoc on enemy systems.
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@ Captain Smollet
Yes with burst rounds at close range it can do better than a mercury. At close range however, a carronade does it's job better anyway so if that's your plan, why bring an artemis?
At long range the lack of anywhere near as good of a zoom as the mercury, a slow fire rate, as well the fact it takes 2 direct hits to take out a component compared to the 1 of a mercury AND that if you miss with the mercury you will likely hit the hull and STILL do a crapton of damage.... it's just inferior on the whole.
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@ Captain Smollet
Yes with burst rounds at close range it can do better than a mercury. At close range however, a carronade does it's job better anyway so if that's your plan, why bring an artemis?
At long range the lack of anywhere near as good of a zoom as the mercury, a slow fire rate, as well the fact it takes 2 direct hits to take out a component compared to the 1 of a mercury AND that if you miss with the mercury you will likely hit the hull and STILL do a crapton of damage.... it's just inferior on the whole.
You have to consider other variables. What are you using the gun in combination with? What's your style of flying? Depending on the answers to those questions, the small arc of the mercury will make essentially useless. You need a very particular style of play to give the mercury its maximum effectiveness. Also if you're using another piercer, you probably would rather have an artemis for its explosive damage rather than more piercing in the mercury. Two different guns for two different strategies. You can't just claim it's inferior because they don't fulfill the same purpose, you can't compare the two except for the fact that they're both longer range.
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I hope you've read the entirety of my first post, because if you didn't this does indeed not seem as obvious as it should be. (I'm asuming you didn't so let me re-iterate)
We're not JUST comparing the artemis directly with the mercury. We're comparing it with ALL other guns you could want to have in that slot.
at long range the smaller firing arc of the mercury isn't a problem, you're at long range, they aren't about to speed past you and out of your firing arc. Explosive damage at long range is available in larger quantities from the flak cannon and mortar. While, yes, they aren't AS long range as the artemis, the artemis explosive damage isn't anywhere near as high, and with the damage mattering most when the armour is down, it's slow fire-rate makes it an inferior choice there as well.
Short range the other explosive damage guns outperform it even more, and the carronade is superior for disabling components.
The problem with the artemis is that, yes, you indeed load out a ship with a certain flying style and tactics in mind. Since for any given role the artemis is outperformed by a different gun, the only time you put on the artemis in a slot is if the answer to "Can I fire any other gun with a smaller firing arc from this position" is no. Not only is that too ship specific for a gun's role (imho), it's just a shitty feeling for a gun to have. It should feel good to put a certain gun on a certain position, with the intention to actually use it as part of your tactics as such. Not "Well I can't really put anything better there".
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Don't forget the Artemis's big AoE with burst. Disabling multiple components at once is where a big part of its value comes from.
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@ N-Sunderland
Yes that's definitely true, I suppose you could define it as the "long range" "AoE" Disabling gun, which would give it a niche, but the AoE really just gets calculated into the "Disabling" part.
I will concede the point though that (with some tweaks to numbers and such) having it be the "Spam for disabling enemy ship at range" gun, while having the sniper be the "take out specific targets like medium guns" gun is a viable niche, perhaps not the best place to be in still, but viable.
I'm not convinced however, that this is currently, effectively, the case.
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The Artemis IS a disabling gun, and one that you can get in a trifecta-bifecta with, making it VERY powerful if used correctly. I think of it as a close-mid range mini-hwacha. It allows you to have disabling capabilities that are harder to use, but are more flexible in a close range situation than the merc. The other disabling weapons are the Flamethrower and Banshee, which are great if you want to pressure the enemies balloon, but are slower in actually disabling guns. The Carronade can disable weapons as well, but good luck hitting anything that's not a heavy gun on the enemy ship. The Artemis's AOE makes it a better disabler imo.
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Some good feedback there Nidh.
Would you say that the ability to more easily get three guns aimed at the enemy on certain ships warrants it being somewhat weaker overall? If so do you think it should stay that way, possibly restricting the usage of the gun to very specific slots on certain ships as more of a niche weapon, or should it be made more powerful while removing some of it's edge-case uses? (like allowing the top level side gun on the spire to fire directly ahead)
Personally I'm of the opinion that if you only use the gun because it happens to be the only gun with a wide enough angle to let you shoot 1 more gun simultaneously, there's either something fundamentally wrong with the gun, or the ship's design that allows it to be used that way (e.g. either the gun is OP for letting you fire one more gun at an angle you weren't supposed to, or the ship's design is wonky for not letting you fire any other gun in that direction)
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The Artemis is my favorite gun - I think it is perfect as is and needs no changes. Its not the most powerful and certainly not overpowered, but I think many people vastly underestimate its effectiveness. Its AOE lets you take out several components at once (the whole engine cluster on a Pyramidion will go down with 1 clip) and its explosive is a perfect long range complement to the mercury. Yes its biggest weakness is its poor zoom, but I can hit targets with burst at 1km (good conditions, to be fair).
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Personally I'm of the opinion that if you only use the gun because it happens to be the only gun with a wide enough angle to let you shoot 1 more gun simultaneously, there's either something fundamentally wrong with the gun, or the ship's design that allows it to be used that way (e.g. either the gun is OP for letting you fire one more gun at an angle you weren't supposed to, or the ship's design is wonky for not letting you fire any other gun in that direction)
Ah - your not using it because its the only gun that will do in the slot. You're using it for the specific purpose of coordinated, long range support fire. The side gun slots on a Mobula for example make excellent spots for carronades to pop harassers - however, the carronades can't hit the same target. Artemis' on the other hand can, and you can use them in those slots to great effect with a third gun... but you also lose the close range potential. Its just a design choice and strength of the gun, no more and no less. I think the wide arc is entirely appropriate on the Artemis because it is in essence a support gun.
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The Gatling gun and the Banshee have turning arcs that can allow a trifecta so the Artemis isn't the only weapon that can add a little extra dps to a ship. Just depends on what you want out of the third gun.
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@Thaago
Good to hear there's people that are extensively using the artemis in combat, that's useful for feedback to be sure. Indeed part of the weakness of the Artemis is that it's maximum range potential is rarely used, especially with the added cloud coverage on most maps now(which hurts all long-range guns, to be fair), leaving the shorter range guns to out-class it damagewise in more common situations.
The case you present on the mobula's side-most guns is somewhat similar to what I said about the spire's top-side gun, where it's essentially the only gun you can put there to allow you to keep firing in the same direction as the rest of your guns (though to be fair, on the mobula you have 5 possibly guns and only 3 people to shoot them, so some running around or turning is going to be required regardless).
In any case I have to agree with you that the artemis is far from useless as a gun in and of itself, and nowhere near as much in need of some love as the banshee is. Still, it's worth discussing whether or not it performs well enough in it's given role to warrant a slot over other guns. I've heard from multiple people now that, yes, it is, because it's more forgiving with it's high turning angle and range, thus giving it versatility in where and how you engage compared to the more specialized guns. Quite frankly this is a perfectly valid use of a gun-slot, and I rest my case in regards to that.
@ Nidh
Considering you're mentioning some specific guns I'm going to have to asume you're talking about either the junker or the mobula, and yes they do have some choice in that regard, you can even fit a flamer on the junker if you're up for some close-range tri-gunning (though maintaining the right distance AND angle on that can be a bit tricky).
Some other questions for all of you then.
If you have the choice between a heavy mortar and a heavy flak (asuming your gunner is competent with either) for a long-range build, would any of you go for the heavy flak? Personally I quite like the heavy flak, but objectively speaking the heavy mortar seems superior. It takes out the balloon and armour at the same time (possibly damaging quite a few components along the way) and can keep a ship permanently grounded(and eventually dying as a result of damage from the gun and being run into the ground) by itself, where-as the heavy flak only deals damage worth mentioning when the armour is down (granted it's a ton when it is down) thus making it entirely reliant on using mercuries or allies to take down the armour first. (Goldfish with only a heavy flak is pretty bad for this reason tbh).
My first instinct would be that a slight nerf to the mortar, and a slight buff to the flak are in order, but I'd like to hear other people's counter-arguments. Are there situations or load-outs that simply require the heavy flak over the mortar? So far I haven't been able to think of any where you'd be better off (unless your enemy closes in on you, but with a long-range build that somewhat indicates you've allready failed)
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If you're going for a long range build, and intend to fly a Goldfish, then the Heavy Mortar far surpasses the Heavy Flak, simply because the Heavy Mortar is much less reliant on a supporting gun. If however, you are on a Galleon or Spire, which has easier access to supporting weaponry at longer ranges, then the Heavy Flak can be a dangerous finishing weapon, if you can get the timing correct. Do either need a buff or nerf? I think the Heavy Mortar is at a good place right now, it's very powerful, but can be countered. The Heavy Flak however, I'm not as familiar with so I couldn't say if it needs a nerf or buff.
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I think a good question to ask would be, what is the role of a Sniper in terms of GoIO? Or, what is the Developer's vision for sniping? Should you be able to annihilate a ship at extreme ranges? Or should sniping be more of a supporting role, that only aids with disables and counters? Not sure if this is the right place to post these questions, but I suppose it pertains to the role of weapons and balance. If the goal is to make sniping more of a supporting role, then I think the Flak should be changed to a close-mid range weapon since the role of finisher doesn't fit the support style.
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i think sniping should be more about chipping away at the enemy before they close in, so you have a slight upper hand when the battle starts
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Just going back a bit in the thread, but if you really wanted to buff the artemis, and increase its usage and effectiveness; increase its zoom. Giving the gun a slight boost in zoom would let average gunners make component hits at medium range and expert gunners make component hits at long ranges.
I'd recommend boosting the zoom power a small amount and seeing how it feels. Right now the gun is quite good, though a bit underutilized. A slight boost to the zoom power wouldn't change the balance of the weapon, but would ease in its precision.
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Having a boosted zoom would be a wonderful thing for the Artemis. As it stands right now it fires so quickly that it becomes hard to gauge where the shot is and what it could possibly hit at increased range. Since it's so rarely used it's hard to get accustomed to it in order to use it at it's full potential due to most shots missing due to the negligible zoom power.
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@Nidh
Sniping could be changed to be a purely supporting role, but let's not forget that, at current, fighting from Very long range isn't as common as it used to be (them added clouds really hurt in that respect) and in some maps just isn't viable (I'm looking at that derelict city). As such I don't see the problem with using long-range guns to damage/kill enemies so long as they are outclassed by thier short-ranged versions when the distance is closed (and any short range ship can use kerosine to close that distance within approximately a single round of fire)
When it comes to coordinated (competitive) team-based battles though, as in 3v3 or such, having killing power on long ranged ships may just be too good, as they can (potentially, depending on the map or objective) sit in a firing range and just focus down 1 - 2 targets before they can even get in range (by kiting backwards, most likely) thereby making the close-range play-style irrelevant entirely.
This may be in part because of long-range guns not paying enough of a price in damage for their range, or the faster, close ranged ships being too squishy in general. Making all the long-ranged guns "support" would probably be an easy solution for competitive play, but it wouldn't make them any less frustrating to fight against, nor fix the general range-superiority problem.
@Ccrack
that's probably a bad idea, as this guarantees the battle will come to short range where you will still have a large part of your firing arcs going "Plink, Plink" to the opponents "Boom, Boom"
@Captain Smollett
Yes, if the artemis was supposed to be used as a long-range disabler I would agree that a bigger zoom is in order. I think at the moment however that isn't going to happen, out of fear that the mercury will lose it's niche as a pinpoint disabling gun for long range.
@dasfoxx
yes its combination of traveltime and semi-slow firing rate can make it a bit awkward to gauge your next shot from your previous one, but it's still better (imo) than the guns that just fire without any indication of where your shots went unless you hit something (I'm looking at you carronades)
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I think making sniping purely support would fix a lot of problems though. Just because sniping is less common, doesn't mean getting killed from a ridiculous range is any less aggravating. You said yourself, even if it's made to be purely support it'd still be annoying. At least you could have a bit of breathing room if you knew that your close-range ship will be just as hard a kill for the sniper as they are to you.
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As far as sniping and what the different ranges mean: since 1.3.1 with the Field Gun + cloud changes, we're obviously moving away from hyper long range engagements (1500m+). Some players vocally disagree with this move but I don't think hyper long range combat differentiates GoIO from other FPS nor does it take advantage of the unique characteristics of the game. GoIO really shines from close to mid-range combat when ships are evading each other, broadsiding, etc... It's where the game becomes beautiful with the depth of teamwork and tactically decision making.
The main distinction between support (chipping away etc) and finishers is that finishers at long range (700m to 1200m) are acceptable. With skills, support weapons may edge into hyper long range but should not be reliable to kill. The Heavy Flak, after a coming hot fix, will be able to again fulfill its role as a long range finisher. It's a hard gun to use and requires the right support to be useful so it should remain niche.
Competitive is hard to balance because the metas in competitive will always be conservative. Conservative in this game is at range. However, I hope that the added clouds and perhaps will future skills will allow players to stealth their way to use more high risk high reward metas. That's the biggest challenge for me right now, which is a good problem to have. It means a lot of core balance issues like guns are more or less settling.
Definitely took some time but I think we're all in agreement that things are looking relatively good in a lot of areas.
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I agree, things seem to be evening out with the addition of clouds and the Mercury nerf. 700-1200 meters will be a good range to allow finishing to occur, that's almost mid-range imo. 700 meters can be closed rather quickly.
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Re-post of something I said in the Heavy Flak thread.
More ways are being added to allow ships to approach long range ships. I've added additional cloud cover and reduced the effectiveness and easy of use of the Field Gun. They're small steps but I think are important ones. Hyper long range (1500m or more) engagements (with killing at those ranges) doesn't really differentiate GoIO from other shooters. This game really shines at close to mid range combat when you see ships moving tactically, broadsiding, etc... Long range is still pretty interesting though but there are fewer options for those engagements to take place (Heavy Flak after the coming hot patch). In general, yes I want to bring combat closer.
The way guns behave (damage, damage types, etc...) will need to be changed in order to facilitate the move in this direction. Things aren't going to change drastically, that's not what I want either. Gentle nudges and realignments. Some potential changes and effects are regrettably missed, but sometimes it reveals other issues (like Lesmok + Heavy Flak crutch). Also, we'll need to implements new mechanics as well to ensure that these engagement ranges are possible and can be pulled off not easily but with medium amount of effort. A cloud creation skill is in the works, we have the hooks for it so it just needs some tweaking (Tar Barrel). Other ideas include the addition of impulse force (like when you hit a mine you get pushed a little) to weapons or specialize it to a single weapon so that you can deny angles to some extent. This will also be important as we reexamine CP maps and how they do and don't work for us.
Some ideas I've mentioned are very experimental so take what I've said with a grain of salt. This is just to give everyone an idea of where the game is going and what things we're working on to improve it.
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Guns are really coming in to balance now for sure. With the Flaks already under consideration the only weapons that I feel need a look these days are certainly already known by you awkm, the banshee is a bit underpowered and..........
The Harpoon!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that you've got the game in a pretty good state of balance, after the rebalance for the new weapon, maybe we can finally get the harpoon we've always wanted. That gun really has so much potential for awesomeness, just give it more piercing and more tow power and people are going to be like, don't get too close to that Junker, he's going to tow you into his broadsides and tear you apart.
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Just made sure harpoon was in our backlog.
Almost forgot about that for denying movement.
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Continuation on Mortar being OP: https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1615.msg36970.html#msg36970
Surrete(I cannot seem to quote it anymore):
How is a Galleon supposed to outrun a Junker or Pyramidion? Nevermind the goldfishes and squids that can outmaneuver Galleons with relative ease? And the mortar range is quite large, quite frankly, it is larger than the heavy carronade, which so happens to be one of the few supposed answers that the Galleon has.
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Galleon doesn't need to outrun them, if you're going against a mortar I recommend having a hwacha for those close-range disables. Then your opponent's mortar will be useless. Plus if you're in a galleon you're meant to be heavily damaging the enemy before they're able to get that close to you.
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Have you ever seriously attempted to fly a Galleon? You seem to have no notion of what Galleon crews are going through. When a pyramidion/goldfish/junker/squid/spire/etc decides to attack a Galleon, they first of all rarely charge from the Galleon's broadsides. That means that the Galleon has to turn. For the Hwacha to work, the Pyramidion needs to be in 750 meters. The Pyramidion's chaingun has a range of 750m and starts firing usually while that Galleon is turning. Now, why wouldn't a Pyramidion chaingunner not target the Hwacha's that are turning towards him?
In short, those hwacha's are more often gone than not before the Galleon has turned to fire. It gets worse from here, because the heavy guns die so easily, you need an engineer below deck to repair them and that means the hull is being sacrificed. Now you got an engineer downstairs, your hull is down and the Pyramidion starts to fire its mortar. Do you still think it's fair for a Galleon to die without firing a shot?
Don't forget that you silently agreed that the Galleon cannot outrun its pursuers. The Galleon's guns also go down to easily for the ship to make a proper stand and the only thing in between instant death right now is the hull armor that it provides. That hull armor takes very long to repair and ships that are trying to kill a Galleon will have done so before anyone on that ship has had the time to respond in the first place.
I will reiterate once more that I don't think it's fair for a ship classified as tank, where the crew is working their hardest to keep the vessel alive, to have their ship evaporate at a moment's notice. And it's only the mortar that is this bad. Flak cannon, rocket carousel, artemis and any other sources of explosive damage are much more moderate.
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Have you tried coordinating your crew? If you're hull engineer upstairs needs help, pull your second engineer right on upstairs. Perhaps you need to work on your positioning better, don't let them get in your blind spot and if they do, have something to counter them like a flare gun or tar barrel.
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If an enemy ship manages to approach from the front of your Galleon, you're doing something wrong. That ship is all about positioning. You need to park it in a spot where the only angles of approach are from its broadsides.
(and the hwacha has a range of 1200 metres, by the way)
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Yes, I have flown a galleon countless times. I'd also like to point out that I engineer on Zill's galleon in competitive play, so I'm likely more aware than the average player of what galleon crews go through. Now, yes, the galleon has to turn. Phoenix claw on a galleon (or most ships really) is a 100% necessity. Whoever told you that you need to be within 750 meters to use the hwacha was sorely mistaken, I'm afraid. It fires up to 1.2k, and as long as you have heavy ammo loaded in, you can hit at that range with a bit of practice. A gatling gunner may target your hwacha, but it's fairly difficult to consistently hit a heavy gun with a gatling gun, especially while both ships are moving. Not to mention the galleon crew should be focused on not letting their guns get destroyed, so they'll be repairing them while this is happening.
If your hwacha is gone before the galleon has even turned to fire, something is going seriously wrong. Having an engineer downstairs absolutely does not mean the hull is being sacrificed. You should have two engineers; one upstairs on the hull and balloon, and one downstairs on the guns and engines. Again, if your galleon is dying before even firing a shot, something is going seriously wrong.
I didn't "silently agree" that the galleon cannot outrun its pursuers, I simply said that it doesn't need to. If you'd like to try outrunning your pursuers, the galleon certainly can. It has poor acceleration, but a fairly high top speed. The only reason it's generally a bad idea is because then your broadsides are no longer facing the enemy. Of course you have things like tar barrel to help mitigate this.
You keep coming back to your point of "have their ship evaporate at a moment's notice" ... I'm not sure what's happening in your galleon matches, but the galleon should never be evaporating at moment's notice, and that's almost never my experience on a galleon.
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Max distance on Gatling is 700m, but with its amount of jitter it'll take a few clips to kill Galleon armor. Heavy Clip will help, but with the -25% clip size the Gatling still needs one more reload to finish Galleon armor off. Of course, you'd have multiple ships attacking the target Galleon and then it's a piece of cake. However, you'd also have a friendly ship flanking your Galleon and distracting anyone focus firing the Galleon...
Just sayin'
1v1 is hugely imbalanced. This is where your 2nd ship comes into play. We didn't design the game for 1v1. Make sure you're talking to your friendlies.
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Have you ever seriously attempted to fly a Galleon? You seem to have no notion of what Galleon crews are going through. When a pyramidion/goldfish/junker/squid/spire/etc decides to attack a Galleon, they first of all rarely charge from the Galleon's broadsides. That means that the Galleon has to turn. For the Hwacha to work, the Pyramidion needs to be in 750 meters. The Pyramidion's chaingun has a range of 750m and starts firing usually while that Galleon is turning. Now, why wouldn't a Pyramidion chaingunner not target the Hwacha's that are turning towards him?
In short, those hwacha's are more often gone than not before the Galleon has turned to fire. It gets worse from here, because the heavy guns die so easily, you need an engineer below deck to repair them and that means the hull is being sacrificed. Now you got an engineer downstairs, your hull is down and the Pyramidion starts to fire its mortar. Do you still think it's fair for a Galleon to die without firing a shot?
Don't forget that you silently agreed that the Galleon cannot outrun its pursuers. The Galleon's guns also go down to easily for the ship to make a proper stand and the only thing in between instant death right now is the hull armor that it provides. That hull armor takes very long to repair and ships that are trying to kill a Galleon will have done so before anyone on that ship has had the time to respond in the first place.
I will reiterate once more that I don't think it's fair for a ship classified as tank, where the crew is working their hardest to keep the vessel alive, to have their ship evaporate at a moment's notice. And it's only the mortar that is this bad. Flak cannon, rocket carousel, artemis and any other sources of explosive damage are much more moderate.
I actually came from a locked thread where you were whining about a different thing vs. Galleons and just HAD to see what else you would put.
You argue and assume the people talking have no idea about this game. Well done you fly a galleon. Yet you complain about a chain gun taking out your manticores? A galleon is meant to be at the fight before it happens. You can't just fly into a battle half done.
the fact that you are being ambushed and having your manticores taken out before even a rocket fires. Shows you are not using the galleon to its full potential.
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https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1813.15/topicseen.html
Read this thread,a fellow on there will give you a great tip for galleons.
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Yes, I have flown a galleon countless times. I'd also like to point out that I engineer on Zill's galleon in competitive play, so I'm likely more aware than the average player of what galleon crews go through. Now, yes, the galleon has to turn. Phoenix claw on a galleon (or most ships really) is a 100% necessity. Whoever told you that you need to be within 750 meters to use the hwacha was sorely mistaken, I'm afraid. It fires up to 1.2k, and as long as you have heavy ammo loaded in, you can hit at that range with a bit of practice. A gatling gunner may target your hwacha, but it's fairly difficult to consistently hit a heavy gun with a gatling gun, especially while both ships are moving. Not to mention the galleon crew should be focused on not letting their guns get destroyed, so they'll be repairing them while this is happening.
Yes, but I recall that even with heavy clip, almost no rocket will hit their target at such ranges. Either that or the gunners I've been up against are terrible shots. Quite frankly, I have a history in FPS and I have had to aim in situations much more intense than that this game has to offer, and beyond 700 meters is a range I simply won't go for because most of my rockets would miss anyway.
If your hwacha is gone before the galleon has even turned to fire, something is going seriously wrong. Having an engineer downstairs absolutely does not mean the hull is being sacrificed. You should have two engineers; one upstairs on the hull and balloon, and one downstairs on the guns and engines. Again, if your galleon is dying before even firing a shot, something is going seriously wrong.
Yes, they came at you faster than you wanted. Of course I do my best to avoid the really bad situations myself. But having been on the other side of things, it's simply impossible not to notice how easy things are, especially with a greased round mortar.
I didn't "silently agree" that the galleon cannot outrun its pursuers, I simply said that it doesn't need to. If you'd like to try outrunning your pursuers, the galleon certainly can. It has poor acceleration, but a fairly high top speed. The only reason it's generally a bad idea is because then your broadsides are no longer facing the enemy. Of course you have things like tar barrel to help mitigate this.
So you're saying that the Galleon can clear any pursuer, most notably the Pyramidion carrying the front side guns, before your engines are down or before they destroy your ship? I would really really really like to see that.
You keep coming back to your point of "have their ship evaporate at a moment's notice" ... I'm not sure what's happening in your galleon matches, but the galleon should never be evaporating at moment's notice, and that's almost never my experience on a galleon.
What is happening is this: Galleon hull armor goes down, I pump out mortar shots, Galleon dies at shot number 13. No armor repair made. Does this game have any recording tools? I'm sure I can show you. Or you could add me as friend and we'll do a dummy 1v1 for the sake of argument. Once hull armor is down, that Galleon goes down to a single ship with the double barreled mortar onboard, if there were any helpers, they might as well turn away to kill another ship.
Max distance on Gatling is 700m, but with its amount of jitter it'll take a few clips to kill Galleon armor. Heavy Clip will help, but with the -25% clip size the Gatling still needs one more reload to finish Galleon armor off. Of course, you'd have multiple ships attacking the target Galleon and then it's a piece of cake. However, you'd also have a friendly ship flanking your Galleon and distracting anyone focus firing the Galleon...
Just sayin'
1v1 is hugely imbalanced. This is where your 2nd ship comes into play. We didn't design the game for 1v1. Make sure you're talking to your friendlies.
You need 4 clips of heavy clip chaingun before Galleon hull armor is down, after that, less than 1 full clip of greased rounds mortar. With other types of Mortar I reckon they can get their ship repaired before they receive the killing blow and thus mitigate a lot of explosive damage. And I picked the Galleon for this discussion because it is specified to be a tank; we're completely ignoring what it does to other ships and with what ease it is doing it. And I still stand by my point that killing the strongest ship with one burst is just not fair.
[I actually came from a locked thread where you were whining about a different thing vs. Galleons and just HAD to see what else you would put.
Oh! A follower! How nice!
You argue and assume the people talking have no idea about this game.
No, I questioned him on what he seemed incredibly casual about. It turns out that he has every right to be to some degree, but on the other hand... he's no world champion either(I think).
Well done you fly a galleon. Yet you complain about a chain gun taking out your manticores? A galleon is meant to be at the fight before it happens. You can't just fly into a battle half done.
Ah, an argument neatly scoped to your own perspective. Did you know that it is perfectly possible for a Pyramidion to rush the long range side of a Galleon without sustaining any permanent damage? I'm talking about opponents hitting every mortar shot on our vessel and still not dropping us out of the air or destroying our hull. And when the Pyramidion gets within armtime range, the only gun that could potentially still hurt it is a fieldgun(unless proper self defense equipment has been put in place). So when a pyramidion is charging your sniping side and is not dropped, you have to make the choice on whether to turn or not. And even if you do, that Pyramidion still has the first shot on your brawling side. That is how you can lose your manticore and your carronades.
the fact that you are being ambushed and having your manticores taken out before even a rocket fires. Shows you are not using the galleon to its full potential.
I'm not ambushed, I only get bumrushed. Furthermore, saying you never go down without dishing out a rocket barrage is plain delusional, even for the best of the best.
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Ok, what build do you take on the left side of your Galleon, and what ammo types do your crew members take? I'm sensing that that's the source of your problems, rather than the light mortar.
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Ok, QKO, I've said this before and I'll say it again, you need to find better gunners.
When you're in an engagement with the Galleon, unless you've made a serious mistake. the Galleon should be getting the first shots off. A Galleon can easily drop a charging pyramidion before it reaches armtime (lemme lay some math on you)
A pyramidion has 650 armor, add on 250 armor worth of mallet repairs and the charging pyra has 900 armor.
If he's already at mid range (like you implied) then you should have some easy shots. Two charged rounds in a mercury do 448 armor damage, 6 lumberjack shots do 690 hull armor damage. With ace gunning you can single handedly drop a pyra's armor before it is in range and kill them with a well timed hwacha (trust me good gunners can hit this at 1200 meters, just watch Lambert from MM) or Flak shots. Gunnery that good doesn't often happen, even so, assuming your gunners hit at an average accuracy of 75% of their shots. You can still kill a charging pyra in two clips or with focused fire you can burst down a ship in seconds once they reach your allies range (theoretically your teammate is fighiting with you). This should leave you a 2v1.
Secondly regarding your concern with light mortars, it actually is very difficult to one clip a galleon with light mortar if your galleon is actively tanking. There should always be two people top deck on a Galleon, the engineer and the pilot. If they both are rebuilding the hull with a spanner, it will almost always go back up before the mortars kill you. Regarding getting your guns shot out, yes you should always have an engineer below deck, and your gunner should also be repairing his gun through damage being taken. Every shot that hits your gun doesn't hit your hull, and the galleon has a lot of armor to break through, so if they're shooting out your guns it leaves your ally a ton of time to kill the opponent while they try to kill you and theoretically your ally should get the kill on them long before you go down.
Honestly, I know you're speaking emotionally because you love the Galleon and think it could be better than it is, but the ship is not under powered. It squarely falls right in the middle of ship hierarchy and is probably the most balanced ship in the game, it just has the highest skill ceiling. Anyone can waltz into a beginners game and load 4 hwachas on the thing and murder everybody, but at high level play it's one of the toughest ships to use, but can become almost infinitely good and easily the best ship in the game when used to its full potential.
Currently there are two competitive teams using this ship near its max. Merry men and the Paddling. Check out the videos of their matches and you'll see just how not underpowered the Galleon is.
Find some regular people to crew with and fly alongsiede, learn the maps to find out optimal Galleon positioning and flight routes (this matters more for a Galleon than any other ship) and enjoy the steep learning curve of the ship. It can easily rule the battlefield when all of the pieces come together.
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Can we move Galleon discussion to another thread please?
This is about GUNS and GUNNER SKILLS.
Thanks.
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awkm: we're still partly on topic here and you ignored a key question: is there a way for me to record in guns of icarus?
Or for theoretical proof: what is the equation here? How many repairs does it take to fix a hull? What are the timers on shots and repairs?
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We don't offer any built in recording solutions.
Final answer regarding the Galleon having too little hull health: if your armor is down to allow someone to pump an entire clip of anything into you then what were your engineers doing, what were your teammates doing, and where were you in combat? There are a lot of factors that can ensure the Galleon's survival as well as many factors that can bring it to its knees, just like any other ship. This is the first time that any kind of Galleon balance has been brought up in recent times and there is only one voice saying that Galleon is underpowered.
Please move all Galleon related discussion out of this thread or at least into the Ships thread.
GUNS
GUNNER SKILLS
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As much as I find the incendiary rate chance nice...I feel like those clips easily outweigh the Flamethrower. Perhaps it's because I don't quite understand how the flamethrower works....(I'm a "vet" who still thinks burst rounds in a flamethrower is great...could be the ammo count and the fact that there is no damage, but I always seem to ignite more in an area with that round than others...)
But with Incendiary being 25% chance per shot, and Flamethrower being 20% per particle...which I guess means round...
Perhaps I just need more explanation on how the Flamethrower works...(also, I think it'd be cool of the flamethrower had an Eastern Dragon head on it...around where the fire comes out...just to fit the name...)
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Flamethrower works with Burst rounds.
Each flamethrower particle has a sphere on it. Each particle has a chance to ignite things. Burst Round is increasing the size of the sphere. Lesmok works on flamethrower too.... super long range flamer :D
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Flamethrower works with Burst rounds.
Each flamethrower particle has a sphere on it. Each particle has a chance to ignite things. Burst Round is increasing the size of the sphere. Lesmok works on flamethrower too.... super long range flamer :D
So...
Does the particle cross through components like a flare then?
I knew about Lesmok, I just never really used it back before 1.3.1 except to start igniting, and halfway through my clip, switched to burst to have EVERYTHING stay ignited...
I think most of my early screenshots of the game are me on NateDawg's squid destroying ships with burst round flamethrowers....
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To be honest, the flamethrower is broken in a few ways and we have to fix it soon.
The particles do in fact go through things that they've hit.
The most reliable way to light people on fire is probably to increase the size of the detection spheres or slow down the rate at which those spheres travel. Because of the way that the particle system is set up, the spheres jump. It's possible for you to point blank flamethrower an enemy's gun and not have that gun ignite. Everything behind the gun will have ignited though. This is because those particles 'skipped' that gun, jumped ahead of it. Lesmok will increase the size of those jumps so that's an obvious drawback from flaming someone at range. Kinda works out.
It's not ideal so we've been trying to fix it for the longest time. Particles are really tedious to tweak right now. We have to rewrite the entire system for just one gun so we put it off. For most cases, the flamethrower is quite effective.
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To be honest, the flamethrower is broken in a few ways and we have to fix it soon.
The particles do in fact go through things that they've hit.
The most reliable way to light people on fire is probably to increase the size of the detection spheres or slow down the rate at which those spheres travel. Because of the way that the particle system is set up, the spheres jump. It's possible for you to point blank flamethrower an enemy's gun and not have that gun ignite. Everything behind the gun will have ignited though. This is because those particles 'skipped' that gun, jumped ahead of it. Lesmok will increase the size of those jumps so that's an obvious drawback from flaming someone at range. Kinda works out.
It's not ideal so we've been trying to fix it for the longest time. Particles are really tedious to tweak right now. We have to rewrite the entire system for just one gun so we put it off. For most cases, the flamethrower is quite effective.
Interesting! But I can see how, saying that the flamethrower can shoot through rocks..yeah that needs to be fixed. On the other side, it would make sense for flames to pass through components with a flamethrower...well to a point. A Direct blast to a direct spot, that spot should get most of the flames...where as from a distance, you have the ability to allow the flames wrap around said spot, and spread beyond....and burst, basically, means more flames in a wider area...
But I can see how one system for one gun will be tedious...but my question was answered...now I can just say "Because Awkm says ____" when people question my want for burst rounds in my flamethrower!
Been saying "it ignites more area" for the longest time with no one wanting to believe me .__. ...and I was right technically.
As for the first point incendiary vs. flamethrower. Still seems like Incendiary Gatling gun is the better choice...perhaps if incendiary's ignite chance (25%) was the same as the flamethrower's particle chance (20%?) Incendiary in a Gatling gun was already effective before the 25% chance was implemented, in my opinion.
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Letus, you're forgetting that the flamer fires waaay more rounds per second than the gat, and it hits multiple components at once. It's a far better choice for lighting fires.
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Furthermore, ignite is only one part of the equation. There's also how many charges it applies.
Currently, I don't expose how many charges things apply.
I will in the future though :)
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Letus, you're forgetting that the flamer fires waaay more rounds per second than the gat, and it hits multiple components at once. It's a far better choice for lighting fires.
Hey, might as well ask what others may ask...even if it is redundant...to get all facts!
But yes, I think we got enough, thanks Awkm!
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We don't offer any built in recording solutions.
Final answer regarding the Galleon having too little hull health: if your armor is down to allow someone to pump an entire clip of anything into you then what were your engineers doing, what were your teammates doing, and where were you in combat? There are a lot of factors that can ensure the Galleon's survival as well as many factors that can bring it to its knees, just like any other ship. This is the first time that any kind of Galleon balance has been brought up in recent times and there is only one voice saying that Galleon is underpowered.
Please move all Galleon related discussion out of this thread or at least into the Ships thread.
GUNS
GUNNER SKILLS
I wasn't referring to the Galleon being underpowered, I was referring to the Galleon because it has the most HP and can still die to 1 clip of greased mortar, making it OP. It is the gun that applies the most explosive damage over the shortest period of time over almost any chaingun target. And it's not a small margin, with the greased rounds the margin becomes excessively large. That was the point I've tried to make on several occasions. It destroys ships that are supposedly tanks and have a really hard time avoiding the greased mortar's range. That is the issue I've been trying to present here.
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There are ways to move out of arc and prevent arc from being gotten on you.
If you are in arc, yes greased mortar will just utterly destroy you.
Again:
- What were you engineers doing? Why is your armor down. The Galleon has a TON of armor. This is why it's a tank.
- What were your teammates doing? Why haven't they distracted or broken up the focus fire?
- Where were you in combat? Why did you not take evasive action?
There are a lot of things at work here. Under very specific circumstances, yes a lot of things will seem OP.
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Flamethrower works with Burst rounds.
Burst is one of my favourites for the flamer.
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There are ways to move out of arc and prevent arc from being gotten on you.
If you are in arc, yes greased mortar will just utterly destroy you.
Again:
- What were you engineers doing? Why is your armor down. The Galleon has a TON of armor. This is why it's a tank.
- What were your teammates doing? Why haven't they distracted or broken up the focus fire?
- Where were you in combat? Why did you not take evasive action?
There are a lot of things at work here. Under very specific circumstances, yes a lot of things will seem OP.
They are not my crew, I inform my crew every time that when hull armor is down, we are going to die instantly. Why? Because everyone and their mother has a mortar on his ship; it's firing pattern is even more consistent than the flak. I've seen other people's crew's ships die at a blink of an eye just because the hull armor went down and I started firing rounds. It is just too easy. There isn't even a guessing game involved, hull armor down -> ship dead, which unlike the flak is guaranteed.
Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether they were repairing or not, that chaingun will eventually take down the armor and it will take them a considerable amount of time to rebuild it. Now, when considering lesmok, it would be easy for them to fix the armor in time and let the armor take most of the explosive damage. But I seriously doubt that anyone fends off a greased burst; no matter how hard they try. That is head on damage.
You recommend evading the damage, and I'm pretty sure everyone here would love too. But short of moonshining out of range(and breaking my most likely damage engines) I don't see any ways of avoiding the firing arc of a mortar. Maybe Hydrogen could work. But regardless, it's still unlikely that a ship like pyramidion can be shaken by a Galleon. The Galleon in all its glory can fight, put up a manly fight, but evasion isn't exactly its thing.
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Mortar will be receiving some changes in a hot fix among other weapons.
Until other people can back up your claims, the Galleon is not changing.
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I'm backing up the claim of QKO, mortar is absolutely capable of killing a Galleon in one clip (what kind of ammo are used to accomplish this I don't know):
In fact, since the armor of the Galleon takes forever to rebuild I'd say that it's the most vulnerable ship to mortar spam strategy.
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Then that implies an issue with the mortar, which awkm has already said is getting changes in the coming hotfix. So....yea?
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It's always been a fact, since the beginning, that the mortar could destroy any no armor ship with 1 clip. What that indicates is a failure of positioning and teamwork.
The mortar can STILL kill any no armor ship with one clip.
The Galleon is not a ship you charge into battle with. There are other ships that are more capable of doing that.
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I didn't read those numerous threads regarding weapon changes of the last patch. Still I want to word my 2 cents:
1. I don't like the lesmok change. Frankly I don't even know what your intention for the change has been (nerfing the mercury?). You've significantly nerfed an underused gun (heavy flak) and limited the ammos use for weapons where it was a balanced secondary pick (eg for the carronade) while further turning the mortar (which has been over used int 1.3.0 already) into a universial short - long range hull killer by makeing longe range shots even easier than they have been before.
With the current meta lesmok rounds are the 1st choice pick for alot of weapons - simply to allow hiting targets at ranges the guns weren't designed for (mortars and flamers in particular).
If I were to balance that ammo, I'd probably reduce their range extension to 50%, roll back their ammo reduction to the 1.3.0 value and decrease the damage dealt by it to 80-90% of the std. ammo. That way it'd still be a valid pick for alot weapons, due to the unique feature of range extension while coming along with significant drawbacks for all weapons (dmg reduction) without rendering the ammo useless for 2-shot weapons.
2. if you want to stick to your lesmok changes, the heavy flak needs a buff.
3. I want to see less mortars.
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@wundsalz
Already in the works :)
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I'm curious what you have planned :)
I'd like to see the flak cannons becoming medium-long range support weapons. A spotting ally can get in close and take down the armor, allowing the support ship to use its flack cannons to hammer away at the base hull health (not armor). Make the arming time high enough that the weapon is almost useless at close to short range, which is where mortars would be dominant.
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It's always been a fact, since the beginning, that the mortar could destroy any no armor ship with 1 clip. What that indicates is a failure of positioning and teamwork.
The mortar can STILL kill any no armor ship with one clip.
The Galleon is not a ship you charge into battle with. There are other ships that are more capable of doing that.
I haven't said anything about charging into battle with a Galleon.
But what's the point in having a tanky ship that can't tank the single most used combo in the entire game?
Meh. Whatevs.
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It's always been a fact, since the beginning, that the mortar could destroy any no armor ship with 1 clip. What that indicates is a failure of positioning and teamwork.
The mortar can STILL kill any no armor ship with one clip.
The Galleon is not a ship you charge into battle with. There are other ships that are more capable of doing that.
I haven't said anything about charging into battle with a Galleon.
But what's the point in having a tanky ship that can't tank the single most used combo in the entire game?
Meh. Whatevs.
Survived many brawls against the most used combo in a galleon many times...it's a matter of what you're doing to what your teammate is doing...see a Pyramidion coming at me...gonna point my hwatcha side at him and make him utterly useless, forcing my deck engie to stay on the hull.
In which I will now go on topic...
Heavy Clip fix makes the Hwatcha's long-range capabilities...well...a bit weak...in my opinion
Perhaps...if the Hwatcha had it's old AoE back...I never really had a problem with it then...as all I did when I saw a hwatcha burst fly at me in a straight line was chute vent...
Maybe just a bit bigger of an AoE to make a hwatcha something you don't want to charge into...but that might take a little tweaking...'cause you shouldn't be able to fully disable a ship when all missiles hit one spot...
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Honestly the AOE is fine, especially with heavy clip. It just takes a bit of aiming.
I usually try to remind my gunners to sweep the areas where they're trying to disable, or even shoot in bursts if taking out guns is the priority.
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Honestly the AOE is fine, especially with heavy clip. It just takes a bit of aiming.
I usually try to remind my gunners to sweep the areas where they're trying to disable, or even shoot in bursts if taking out guns is the priority.
Just thinking of newbie standpoints...there is almost no benefit to hwatcha fishing again...probably because nobody knows how to use it at such a low level (first thing I did when I was new was practice mode, see what each gun did, and what each shot did...) even though a good hwatcha is probably the best counter to these one ship, double-combo brawlers that people moan about.
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We're doing some work to get newbs on the right kind of ship. No more newbie hwacha fishes.
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Something really needs to be done about the gunner Vs engineer balance issues. i've been one achievement away from leveling up my gunner for weeks now, but due to the communities hostility towards gunners i just can't get it, not once, not twice, but three time in the last week have the DUCKS forced me to quit out of match's because i wanted to play a gunner, and i'm not talking about jumping into matchs already happening, i mean going into a lobby, the last time i was on a ship alone waiting for people to pop in and a couple of them got on and demanded i switch. if this is how the community reacts to somebody playing one of three classes how do you expect to keep new players past the first day?
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Something really needs to be done about the gunner Vs engineer balance issues. i've been one achievement away from leveling up my gunner for weeks now, but due to the communities hostility towards gunners i just can't get it, not once, not twice, but three time in the last week have the DUCKS forced me to quit out of match's because i wanted to play a gunner, and i'm not talking about jumping into matchs already happening, i mean going into a lobby, the last time i was on a ship alone waiting for people to pop in and a couple of them got on and demanded i switch. if this is how the community reacts to somebody playing one of three classes how do you expect to keep new players past the first day?
Tell them they're wrong, and if they still demand for you to engineer, just move to another ship. It's not a balance issue, is a strict misconception issue (and the ducks are known for not liking gunners).
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Asking you to switch classes, unless asked in a hostile way, is not something that I consider a hostile act in itself. The captain typically has a certain strategy that requires, more often than not, an engineer. If you want to win, it's usually best to trust the captains decision. As an engineer you'll often get to shoot guns anyway, so unless you're completely restricted to repairs, you're not actually missing out on any gameplay.
@Imagine you don't want to incite an argument over something like this, as that would just make your experience worse.
My advice? Fly with some high-levels, follow orders, and gain their respect. You are still relatively new, and learning the basics of the game, which is in no way a bad thing. When you're friends with them, ask if you can farm for some achievements when you are more experienced, and perhaps more in tune with those numbers.
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Tell them they're wrong, and if they still demand for you to engineer, just move to another ship. It's not a balance issue, is a strict misconception issue (and the ducks are known for not liking gunners).
When I've played with ducks members, they have had me on as a gunner often enough without complaint. I think the major issue here is that gunners tend to just restrict themselves to one type of ammo and for that purpose any crew is better off with an engineer. I'm pretty sure that if you explain that you, as a gunner, switch ammo types regularly and even help reloading other people's guns(engineers that are repairing stuff for example) that you make a much stronger case for yourself. Just think about what a hwacha can do when its user is loading in incendiary, burst or heavy clip depending on the situation.
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Changes are being made to stratify the classes. That should help end the gunner vs. gungi argument completely.
@QKO: Our reasoning for using gungineers goes much further than that, but I'm not going to begin an argument on this thread.
All right, end of story for that subject.
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Something really needs to be done about the gunner Vs engineer balance issues. i've been one achievement away from leveling up my gunner for weeks now, but due to the communities hostility towards gunners i just can't get it, not once, not twice, but three time in the last week have the DUCKS forced me to quit out of match's because i wanted to play a gunner, and i'm not talking about jumping into matchs already happening, i mean going into a lobby, the last time i was on a ship alone waiting for people to pop in and a couple of them got on and demanded i switch. if this is how the community reacts to somebody playing one of three classes how do you expect to keep new players past the first day?
Well speaking as a Duck captain who often asks people to switch to engineer for the strategy I prefer, I really don't mind having a gunner in a casual pub match if someone wants to farm achievements. However it is something that I think should be communicated. After being asked to switch to engineer did you let the captain know you were trying to finish your achievement?
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i have in the past, and its usually met with them asking me to leave. and before anyone asks, no, i don't join as a second gunner, and i'm not the type to spite someone by simply staying in the lobby when i'm not wanted there, i just move on to the next quick start lobby, where i either get the same reaction or the ships already have gunners, rinse and repeat 3 or 4 more time, then i either rage quit or switch to pilot
and just to be clear, i have no ill will towards the ducks, they are simply the only physical target i can point to, my experience has largely been in PUGs, as i said, i've been stuck one achievement away from leveling for weeks, its not even a hard achievement, i just need to win 5 match's.
i actually understand why they want engineers rather than a gunner, with a little extra coordination you get everything a gunner can bring to the table, AND extra engi tools. its the fact that the mechanics of the game cause this sort of reaction in its community that's frustrating me. imagine being new to the game again, whats the class that everyone is going to want to play? its the gunner, and then you get people insulting you for picking that class, telling you to play a class that you probably have no idea how to play, i couldn't tell you how many newcomers i've taught how to engi in the last 3 weeks.
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Well, I suppose that's the life of the swabbie. But why do you think newbies join as gunners? Because they want to shoot stuff. You get to shoot stuff as an engie on most beginner ships anyway, since I've heard most beginner matches are loaded with Pyras. You're just a more effective (in most cases) crewmember as an engie. I feel like it's just a matter of pride that makes people not want to change from being a gunner since you'd be doing the same stuff as an engie, just more effective. At least in beginner matches.
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Well, I suppose that's the life of the swabbie. But why do you think newbies join as gunners? Because they want to shoot stuff. You get to shoot stuff as an engie on most beginner ships anyway, since I've heard most beginner matches are loaded with Pyras. You're just a more effective (in most cases) crewmember as an engie. I feel like it's just a matter of pride that makes people not want to change from being a gunner since you'd be doing the same stuff as an engie, just more effective. At least in beginner matches.
no, engi's get to HOPE they get to shoot, which causes fighting over who's on a gun and who's repairing, which often leads to no one repairing at all.
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There are other threads available for discussions along these lines. AWKM likes to keep this thread nice, clean and on topic so he can quickly determine the community's thoughts on GUNS & GUNNER SKILLS balance. Unfortunately, there are no database settings to be tweaked to modify how other players think, so this discussion should really be continued elsewhere.
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What if each class had base stat advantages over the other two? I think it would help if being a gunner meant you had things like decreased jitter, increased yaw/pitch speed, and decreased reload time just because you were a gunner. The idea is that, if you spent your career firing guns, then you should be better at firing guns than the other two classes.
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Changes are already in the pipeline to separate the classes a bit more. That discussion is over.
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Ah, I guess I missed out on that discussion.
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It's need to know info right now because wild speculation isn't that helpful and saying things like that tends to cause wild speculation. NOBODY WILDLY SPECULATE!
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Honestly the AOE is fine, especially with heavy clip. It just takes a bit of aiming.
I usually try to remind my gunners to sweep the areas where they're trying to disable, or even shoot in bursts if taking out guns is the priority.
Please allow me to gun on your ship so you can teach me, i struggle to take down weapons apart from the merc.
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Honestly the AOE is fine, especially with heavy clip. It just takes a bit of aiming.
I usually try to remind my gunners to sweep the areas where they're trying to disable, or even shoot in bursts if taking out guns is the priority.
I think the AoE is not realy exactly fine.. seeing as how it is very hard to disable certain ships with Heavy clip due to the now perfect accuracy plus the lower clip side.
Sure disabling a Galleon's broadside is a piece of cake, but everything else is realy pretty damn hard to aim properly, an extra difficulty this gun didn't REALY need. I mean, it's not horrible, but it definately didn't deserve to become harder.
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The Hwacha has indeed suffered a penalty to it's mid-long range effectiveness. This is why I fly almost strictly Blenderfish after the Heavy change. It's easier to hit things from a stationary Galleon, but from a Goldfish's point of view, it's much harder to disable anything at all from mid-long range. I used to have to call to my gunner "Steady!" when a Hwacha shot was lined up and ready to fire, but even then, chances are the ship would still be drifting from the natural agility of it. The reduced clip size and pinpoint accuracy make it very tough for a gunner to hit effectively on such a fast moving ship.
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I propose some of the spread be returned to heavy clip to be honest, make it something like 90% recoil reduction, not nothing at all, so at least the rockets have some sort of spread to them.
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Honestly the AOE is fine, especially with heavy clip. It just takes a bit of aiming.
I usually try to remind my gunners to sweep the areas where they're trying to disable, or even shoot in bursts if taking out guns is the priority.
I think the AoE is not realy exactly fine.. seeing as how it is very hard to disable certain ships with Heavy clip due to the now perfect accuracy plus the lower clip side.
Sure disabling a Galleon's broadside is a piece of cake, but everything else is realy pretty damn hard to aim properly, an extra difficulty this gun didn't REALY need. I mean, it's not horrible, but it definately didn't deserve to become harder.
Wait so people are struggling with the Hwacha now that it's more accurate?
The precision is awesome, especially at range(see Mr. Lambert shoot in the Flotsam Dynesty campaign for a demonstration). If you want to make sure you disable certain components spray around the components that you want destroyed. Don't forget holding down the trigger is not requisite in Hwacha firing.
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Wait so people are struggling with the Hwacha now that it's more accurate?
The precision is awesome, especially at range(see Mr. Lambert shoot in the Flotsam Dynesty campaign for a demonstration). If you want to make sure you disable certain components spray around the components that you want destroyed. Don't forget holding down the trigger is not requisite in Hwacha firing.
The only awesome thing about it is that now that it doesn't reduce projectile speed you get the accuracy at max range, the bad thing is that if you try and spray it, you might end up missing a lot of shots cause the mouse is not really as depentable (here goes) as the random spread that gun used to have with the old Heavy clip (due to the evenly distributed shots, something impossible to achieve with mouse aim)
Since now it has no spread, if your first shot misses the target, the next 5 or so shots are also guarrantied to miss, so unless you get it right with the first go, you will waste a lot of rockets, it's just not as dependable as it was. For a multi warhead rocket laucher, this much precision shouldn't be required of the player is what I'm getting at, not that my gunners have problem aimming it (unless they are random pubs, in which case they are excused)
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Don't forget holding down the trigger is not requisite in Hwacha firing.
This.
Hwacha is perfectly fine as is. The fact that heavy clip can turn it into a long range weapon is bonus enough, as without it, any other ammo type just spray's rockets everywhere, making it most effective at medium range at best.
As for increasing the aoe, then you just make burst Hwacha even worse for people, which I doubt anyone feels is needed.
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Hwacha is perfectly fine as is. The fact that heavy clip can turn it into a long range weapon is bonus enough, as without it, any other ammo type just spray's rockets everywhere, making it most effective at medium range at best.
As for increasing the aoe, then you just make burst Hwacha even worse for people, which I doubt anyone feels is needed.
You know the Hwacha was fine before as well, it's not realy in a better position, I'd say that the perfect accuracy Heavy clip has now is extremely detrimental for this weapon, basically the new Heavy clip hurts it more than it helps.
Old Heavy clip still allowed it to be used at a pretty long range (roughly 900+ meters) with much better effect due to the 20% deviation the projectiles had.
Also Burst disables everything on any ship already anyway, so more AoE wouldn't make it any more powerful than it already is, but I don't realy want more default AoE, rather than some spread returned to Heavy clip.
(and by all means, this isn't a major issue, I just feel it should be adressed)
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I'll be honest about this: you need a better hwacha gunner. All it takes is sweeping the fire around to land hits on multiple components.
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Watching the latest tournament videos don't help much to prove your point. If you notice that almost every time a Heavy Clip shot is made, 0-1 component gets destroyed on the enemy ship. There are very few times in those tournaments that the Hwacha actually does the job it was designed for and disables an enemy ship reliably. On a Goldfish, the long reload time is devastating for your ally if nothing gets destroyed because you've done the equivalent of absolutely nothing to help him out.
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Same can be said about the gat, but I don't feel that it has hurt the gun at all in terms of balance. Hwacha honestly has no business hitting very accurately at/near it's max range anyway. If it did, I'm sure you'd be getting your wish as people would be crying OP.
At it's max range, the best you can hope for is a destruct here and there, but mostly just damages. It's not a long range gun to begin with, so the fact that heavy gives it that potential is very much a boost to the gun.
As for missing shots, that's just something to learn (and I say it in the nicest way possible).
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The Hwacha was fine before the Heavy change right? Well, It could more reliably hit at longer ranges back then and nobody but newbies cried OP. Which, well they still do. I just want the Hwacha to do it's job and disable reliably from at least mid range. I don't want it for it's explosive damage. I want it for it's shatter, and right now it's shatter isn't very reliable.
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The Hwacha is fine now. Obviously this is a point which we all wont be agreeing on so make a thread on it if you'd like. I know Awkm would want it that way.
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I'll be honest about this: you need a better hwacha gunner. All it takes is sweeping the fire around to land hits on multiple components.
Pretty much, unless it's a Pyra, then the guns are impossible to hit :P
Jk, but still, that is the only ship that is ridiculously hard to disable, which is a bad thing that the Hwacha can't do it reliably IMO, still, some spread back on Heavy clip wouldn't hurt.
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some spread back on Heavy clip wouldn't hurt.
Heavy carronade would have some words on that.
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some spread back on Heavy clip wouldn't hurt.
Heavy carronade would have some words on that.
The Heavy carronade was perfectly accurate in 1.2 when Heavy was at 80% accuracy and not 100%, so I don't see what you are saying? I'm talking about an 90% reduction in recoil instead of 100%, that is all, the carronade wouldn't be affected at all.
I used the gun extensively in 1.2 and it was perfectly fine even without the laser-like accuracy.
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Well, I can make much more use of the carronade's shatter damage with no spread.
Beyond that large bonus I can see your point. However, you aren't going to convince me heavy needs some spread so you can more accurately hit things.
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This thread is for guns and their balance right? Just, my previous gunner BADFOOT was an ace with the Hwacha, and still is, but when the heavy clip change came around, far too many times a barrage would hit and not disable anything. My gunner's skill is not the problem. Mr. Lambert was hardly disabling anything at mid-range either, though he was hitting with it. The Galleon doesn't care if anything get disabled or not, but the Goldfish sure as heck does.
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Well, I can make much more use of the carronade's shatter damage with no spread.
Beyond that large bonus I can see your point.
Man what are you trying to disable with that carronade?.. Light guns? That's the only thing that requires perfect laser like accuracy to disable with that gun..
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This thread is for guns and their balance right? Just, my previous gunner BADFOOT was an ace with the Hwacha, and still is, but when the heavy clip change came around, far too many times a barrage would hit and not disable anything. My gunner's skill is not the problem. Mr. Lambert was hardly disabling anything at mid-range either, though he was hitting with it. The Galleon doesn't care if anything get disabled or not, but the Goldfish sure as heck does.
A goldfish can control it's engagement range. Hold fire until you're gunner is at a range they can comfortably disable in.
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Damaging also reduces effectiveness of components, and forces repairs, thus lowering dps. It doesn't have to outright kill everything to be considered a good Hwacha barrage, especially at range.
Now, yes, you have to be more targeted with your barrage in order to take out specific components. I mean, hitting the side of a ship isn't going to take out the engines. If anything, adding spread will make your disable issues worse at range as you spread your damage. Then you really won't see any disables. Heavy clip its a very precise thing in a Hwacha, which is kinda funny given it's random nature.
I also think that if you are trying to use a hwacha fish at long range, you're doing it wrong.
(At no point is "you" targeted at any one person.)
Well, I can make much more use of the carronade's shatter damage with no spread.
Beyond that large bonus I can see your point.
Man what are you trying to disable with that carronade?.. Light guns? That's the only thing that requires perfect laser like accuracy to disable with that gun..
I've just notice more disables after the change. I'm giving my perspective purely from a pilot's point of view.
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I also think that if you are trying to use a hwacha fish at long range, you're doing it wrong.
(At no point is "you" targeted at any one person.)
Excuse me? This gun has a pretty long range, it's imperative that you use it at that range as you approach, that's the whole freaking point of getting it on a Goldfish, especially against a Galleon where you need to disable it from as far as possible. I think my gunner proved it pretty well during the Saturday Flotsam event, doesn't even have to be a Galleon, could be an incoming Pyra, a Junker witha broadside on you and even a Spire or an other Goldfish.
Nidh is actually right about it, the Galleon realy doesn't care if a Hwacha shot doesn't disable much, but it's much worse on a Goldfish where you have no other guns pointing at the same enemy.
I've just notice more disables after the change. I'm giving my perspective purely from a pilot's point of view.
Eh fair enough, though I didn't notice that much of a change in my time flying it, but I can't say anything about that specificaly.
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From gatling range it is still very hard to disable reliably. If within gatling range, holding fire is no longer an option or myself or my ally are dead. You think I'd be upset about this for nothing? I had been flying Hwachafish for so long, and if it was still "fine" you think I'd be complaining about it? Echoez agrees with me, and he's probably been flying Goldfish longer than I have. I think we have enough experience to say the the hwachafish has taken a big hit and could use some help.
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Excuse me? This gun has a pretty long range, it's imperative that you use it at that range as you approach, that's the whole freaking point of getting it on a Goldfish, especially against a Galleon where you need to disable it from as far as possible. I think my gunner proved it pretty well during the Saturday Flotsam event, doesn't even have to be a Galleon, could be an incoming Pyra, a Junker witha broadside on you and even a Spire or an other Goldfish.
Just because a gun has x max range does not mean you will get full effectiveness at that range, nor should you. While yes, you can use it on approach, you're in a goldfish. Use that speed. One good hit will damage what you were aiming for, and let you close, because a Hwacha is firmly a med/short range gun when you want its absolute max effect. I base that on shooting vanilla rounds and seeing what range a gun does its most damage, be it through disables or straight kill power. So yes, using a hwacha fish at 1.2km out (Hwacha max range) is not going to yield the same results as at medium/short range.
From gatling range it is still very hard to disable reliably. If within gatling range, holding fire is no longer an option or myself or my ally are dead. You think I'd be upset about this for nothing? I had been flying Hwachafish for so long, and if it was still "fine" you think I'd be complaining about it? Echoez agrees with me, and he's probably been flying Goldfish longer than I have. I think we have enough experience to say the the hwachafish has taken a big hit and could use some help.
Then we are having different experiences. Don't take my perspectives personally, as that is not my intent. While you and echo do have experience, so do me and Smollett, and it is my view that the Hwacha is doing as it should.
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Pffbtbtbt. As much as I hate being wrong. I did some testing, and the Hwacha, *sigh* still has potential. It's still harder to use mind you, but I suppose it's not as bad as I had originally thought. I hate you guys. Though I will still say, if it could get some love it would be very much appreciated, but I won't push that it's absolutely necessary.
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Just because a gun has x max range does not mean you will get full effectiveness at that range, nor should you. While yes, you can use it on approach, you're in a goldfish. Use that speed. One good hit will damage what you were aiming for, and let you close, because a Hwacha is firmly a med/short range gun when you want its absolute max effect. I base that on shooting vanilla rounds and seeing what range a gun does its most damage, be it through disables or straight kill power. So yes, using a hwacha fish at 1.2km out (Hwacha max range) is not going to yield the same results as at medium/short range.
Well I didn't say you will use it at 1.2 km all the time nor that you shouldn't close in. Sure the long range shot should not yield the same results as a medium/close range shot with Burst rounds, but right now, unless the enemy is a Galleon you risk yielding no results at all even if you land most shots, which is why I'm even here discussing it, this shouldn't be a thing.
Then we are having different experiences. Don't take my perspectives personally, as that is not my intent. While you and echo do have experience, so do me and Smollett, and it is my view that the Hwacha is doing as it should.
I respect that and I realy don't want to think that my opinion counts more than yours just because I fly the Goldfish most of the time, because it realy doesn't, but you have to understand that the gun does have some issues, or well, a certain ammo type is creating them, else we wouldn't be here talking about it.
I honestly think the problem is not with the gun itself though, rather than the fact that Heavy clip has no spread, which makes it incredibly hard to disable certain ships for no good reason since it was perfectly fine before.
Once again, Heavy clip is my problem if anything and as I noted beforehand, it's not something extremely game breaking, but it hurts this certain ship and loadout while it didn't before.
Though I will still say, if it could get some love it would be very much appreciated, but I won't push that it's absolutely necessary.
There.
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Quote from: Nidh on Today at 11:20:02 am
Though I will still say, if it could get some love it would be very much appreciated, but I won't push that it's absolutely necessary.
There.
Indeed. I love buffs to guns that I feel already do well (who wouldn't). I don't think adding spread (even that 10%) would make anything more potent on a hwacha, especially with the reduced ammo. You might hit more when your aim is off, but it's effect will be reduced.
Nice chat guys.
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I don't think adding spread (even that 10%) would make anything more potent on a hwacha, especially with the reduced ammo. You might hit more when your aim is off, but it's effect will be reduced.
It's not about my aim being off but more about how small the hitbox of light guns is, hence, having a small spread within a small circle has way more chances of hitting said tiny hitbox rather than a straight line which will waste a lot of shots on nothing, 90% recoil reduction would still be extremely accurate but would allow that minimal spread for an easier time disabling light guns, which I think would be a good bonus since the primary reason this gun is used is disabling and especially on ships like the Goldfish where your front gun defines your role, I think it's important to note.
At least that's my reasoning behind it.
Other than that, thanks for the chat as well.