Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Echoez on July 26, 2013, 11:28:10 am
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Yes this is me again and this is an other thread about the Mercury. I did some research, not sure how many have done the same but I reached a single conclusion which was the exact different from the one I had before.
Some people might remember how I wanted to take the piercing damage of the Mercury and give it to the Artemis, letting the Mercury only do shatter damage. Well, I have to admit, I was gravely wrong to think so, not only would that probably break both guns, but it would mess up a lot of things while solving very few.
So here is the interesting part. The Mercury, at least for me, is considered broken cause of its ability to do some severe long range and mid range disabling, pierce armor with more than above average results at range and also chip away at your permanent hull at an impressive rate.
The Current Mercury will do:
172.5 Armor damage per shot and 45 Perma Hull damage per shot with the default ammo and no buffs.
It will also instantly disable any component you shoot at and with some positioning and right ammo choices, might even knock out multiple parts.
The funny thing is, that 30 out of that 45 points of damage on the hull come from the ridiculous ammount of shatter damage it deals (Merc Shatter damage * Hull modifier = 30 ), instant component disables are no fun either.
Its Piercing damage, despite high, does a pitiful 15 points of damage per shot on the perma hull, making it negligible.
Now if you take out the ridiculous Shatter and only leave the Piercing you get something like this:
112.5 Armor damage and 15 Perma Hull damage per shot. (Could be tweaked to be a bit more to compesate for the Shatter loss)
A specialized gun that softens up armor from a disance, can not kill on its own and allows more charging opportunities for ships like the Goldfish and more positioning places for a ship like the Spire. Cause now their guns can actually soak up the damage it does.
With that said, an Artemis with Lesmok is an amazing disabler that will be utilized more for the longer range disables, it gets 3 shots with that ammo type all of which have a wide explosion radius.
Don't ask why. My internet was down for 3 days and while I was trying to get it back up and running ,including walking long distances, waiting on the phone for 45 mins and getting screamed at by random post office ladies, the only thing I could think of was GoIO maths, so I did some more of them.
Still not sure everyone will agree with this, oh yeah, Zill and Smollett, you are both invited to post btw, I need my devil's advocates, what do you think of this? :P
(Also Sunderland will probably hate me for this..)
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If anything, I would think keeping the shatter and lowering the piercing damage a little would be better. Without that shatter, the LJ becomes OP since only an Artemis would be able to take it down at a long range. This would make matches in Canyon Ambush ridiculous if the canyon team (forget the color) decided to camp and snipe, no one would be able to disable their LG or Flak. The Atemis is good, sure, but hitting with it is tough since without a scope, the slightest hand movement would take you off target, being that ships that far away are only a couple pixels big.
I do think the Merc is a bit too powerful, but I love it fur it's shatter more than its pierce.
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The Artemis could use some more zoom. With Lesmok it has around 1600+ meters range.
Piercing needs to stay on the Merc cause you need a long range piercer.
Canyons Red spawn is poor map balance, fix the map, not the weapons. It's like saying that taking out the Shatter from Merc makes LJ OP in Dunes cause of the range, well, Dunes is the wrost map in the game as far as map design goes, simply cause it is a beginner map with very VERY few obstructions.
On any other map, unless you decide to blindly charge the open areas, there is more than enough places to disable a Galleon from afar. Plus they won't be able to take out your guns as easily either so you get more of a shot to them.
Also getting your guns disabled in one shot is something detrimental to the receiver's experience because there is little (if nothing at all) he/she can do to prevent it.
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I agree that it still needs piercing, but getting rid of shatter takes out the point of it being a sniper. You might add well remove the scope since you don't have to really aim for anything, just hit the hull. It takes away the skill required to use it and would it make it boring to use.
As for dunes, I don't think it's a bad map, just exploitable like any map. Not every game is competitive and not every match has snipers. Though that's a different topic.
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Hitting hull at longer range is still hard to do without the scope, unless you are saying that you can aim at the semi-visible ships at long range without the ridiculous zoom, in which case I bow to you.
If you agree that it still needs the piercing then it needs to do a repsectable ammount of it.
If you take out the Piercing, you greatly restrict long range piercing capabilities, which after all, should not be tha case since if you take out the shatter the Merc does, it is no longer a threat to permahull, which is why spamming it currently works.
If it does both the current disabling and respectable ammount of piercing, then it still broken, hence one of the two has to go so the 'sniper rifle' can be a properly specialized weapon, like snipers should be.
You can just buff the Artemis's range a little bit and give it more zoom, problem solved.
People should finally realize that they should maybe use something else as well if they want to do both piercing and disabling and not go easy mode with the current Mercury.
I agree, not all maps are competative, my point still stands, from a competative stand point of view, maps that heavily favor one playstyle over an other are not good, hence Dunes is a bad map, still not sure why it is in the competative rotation. ???
Also something final, since now all components act as shields, you need to aim for the hull specifically, if you hit any component, you will be doing no armor damage while barely scratching the component itself. So there goes one more reason the scope is still useful.
EDIT: Oh yeah to make it clear, I do not just want to take out all shatter and put nothing in to compesate, I think that a 10 damage increase to the piercing damage the merc does would be acceptable so it has a base of 85 Piercing, adding an extra 15 armor damage and 2 hull damage per shot.
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PRO NO SCOPE BRO! Nah, but I do wanna try that now~
If such a change were made, what would the second damage type be? If you REALLY had to change the shatter aspect, at least make it so that it's not a one shot component killer. Make it do, like, 75% of what would be a one shot kill. That way, the gunner getting hit goes "oh crap! Sniper! Better repair!" So he strikes it once and the cool down begins. If the sniper is a good shot, that second shell would not destroy the gun, but take away enough health to make the gun hard to use.
If the Merc is nerfed then they would HAVE to increase the zoom of the Artemis. In fact, how about the devs do that regardless ;D
You raise good points. I agree that something should be done, but not so drastic as to take away half of the gun's usefulness.
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Translation: buff the sniper Galleon. No, thank you.
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I can't remember if I said this before, but I think the merc could have its Shatter damage reduced by half and still be viable. Would still be able to snipe out components, would still be able to crack armor decently, but wouldn't be able to take out heavy components quite as easily. Can't remember how much health heavy guns have off the top of my head, but making it require 2 shots to take em out seems fair.
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Translation: buff the sniper Galleon. No, thank you.
On Dunes maybe (And Canyon's Red spawn), but that's a broken map anyway. Anyway I don't expect you to agree with this, but I want something done with this weapon to enable more ships into play for starters. I've found that the ridiculous shatter damage it does is the main problem any experienced pilot should be afraid of and it is the main reason it does so much permahull damage as well. Plus it renders Goldfishes and Spires pretty helpless with just one shot, which is bad IMO, not sure about you.
I can't remember if I said this before, but I think the merc could have its Shatter damage reduced by half and still be viable. Would still be able to snipe out components, would still be able to crack armor decently, but wouldn't be able to take out heavy components quite as easily. Can't remember how much health heavy guns have off the top of my head, but making it require 2 shots to take em out seems fair.
Halving it doesn't realy fix the problem, Heavy guns have around 400 health, considering that the 250 from Loch takes out more than half of it.
The current Shatter damage by itself doeals at least 60 extra armor damage and 78 if you are using Charged. Halving it won't fix the issue, since it will still deal at least 300 damage to it, leaving it to around 100, if you manage to get a quick mallet hit in before the second shot gets in, you still only heal it for 250, for a total of around 350, the next shot will reduce it to 50, basically turning the gun useless for the next 9 seconds you will be waiting, funny fact is it can reload before that and still destroy it, can't see the difference of just destroying the damn gun other than maybe giving ships with a forward gun a 2 hit shield from the piercing part of it and you might be able to shoot one mroe volley, which depending on the gun, might not even land.
Removing the Piercing leaves us with no long range piercing option and having both breaks the gun, unless you guys think its okay as it is, which in my opinion is pretty ignorant or lazy on your side to get used to not having the all-in-one long range light gun that the Mercury currently is.
Anyway, I'll probably stop trying to create any more balance discussions, I seem to be doing bad at it, especially since I touch the tabboo of this game :P
If you think a new long range piercing will be introdoced and then the Merc will just be a disabler and I'm talking bullshit cause that's going to happen, well, I have no idea if it will happen at all, I mean, what else could have such a long range piercing that isn't a sniper cannon? I proposed something for the Artemis, but I didn't see many people agreeing and I know Muse doesn't agree with it either (Don't ask how, I have links~)
So I'm just left kinda on the wait here, not knowing what the hell is gonna become of this gun.
Anyway, peace.
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I wholeheartedly agree that removing shatter would cause imbalance due to other guns, and would take most of the fun out of the weapon. I'd suggest a modest reduction in piercing. Yes, the gun still does a chunk of hull damage, but the reduced armor damage means repairing the armor is easier.
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I wholeheartedly agree that removing shatter would cause imbalance due to other guns, and would take most of the fun out of the weapon. I'd suggest a modest reduction in piercing. Yes, the gun still does a chunk of hull damage, but the reduced armor damage means repairing the armor is easier.
The only one that has 'fun' with this weapon is the guy shooting it, the defenders have no chance to repair due to instant destructions and it has no downside for close range other than the shallow firing arc. you can easily point blank an enemy's heavy gun with it and it will take them way more time to repair it than it takes you to turn and face them with something else.
The piercing this gun does is fine, that's you people don't get, the Shatter damage is the actually scary part if you realy think about it and especially for ships like the Goldfish and the Spire, their guns act as shields as well and it can take em out in one shot. If it only does piercing you will have to avoid any components and go the hull directly.
Anyway, I'm done discussing this, it's already been discussed to death, I don't feel like re-stating everything.
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As a pilot, I'd blame the pilot if you're close range with a Merc in your face.
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As a pilot, I'd blame the pilot if you're close range with a Merc in your face.
Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.
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Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.
True. However, suffering sustained Mercury fire at close range should not be a thing a crew has to deal with. One or two shots makes sense, but the firing cone is so narrow that it's easy to avoid more than just lucky shots.
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Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.
True. However, suffering sustained Mercury fire at close range should not be a thing a crew has to deal with. One or two shots makes sense, but the firing cone is so narrow that it's easy to avoid more than just lucky shots.
Who's talking about 'sustained fire'? I'm talking about ships like the Goldfish and the Spire, if they get even one lucky shot on your main gun, even at point blank, on a Goldfish you lose 100% of your firepower source and on a Spire a good 75% of it, depending on the gun, this shouldn't be a thing. In an engagement that is under 800-1000 meters ( I consider that mid range cause it close to the Gatling's range and within Artemis range), that spells either instand death or a disengage cause you can't return respectable fire for the next 10 seconds or so due to repairs, now if they do it point blank, you are practicaly dead, there is no time to disengage and you can't fire back anymore cause your weapon went kaputt.
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No one has fun getting shot at.... Well... Except maybe a few masochistic engineers.
If you're up close with a gold fish and the enemy snipes out your main gun, you can still turn your side guns on them. A Carronade clip would take out their balloon so you could go up and repair your gun. A flamer might distract them enough for you to get into a better position.
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No one has fun getting shot at.... Well... Except maybe a few masochistic engineers.
If you're up close with a gold fish and the enemy snipes out your main gun, you can still turn your side guns on them. A Carronade clip would take out their balloon so you could go up and repair your gun. A flamer might distract them enough for you to get into a better position.
Instant disable = No reactions allowed.
This is the not 'fun' part of it and that it can keep doing that and keep a gun down indefinately.
Getting shot at isn't fun, but it's part of the game. When it comes to the Mercury, you are completely at their gunner's mercy the moment they get an arc on you, nothing you can do about other than hope he misses or find cover.
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I have to respectfully disagree here. I use a mercury extensively for weapon disables, and there is a very wide range of skill levels when it comes to accuracy with it - it's not something that can be done reliably by someone who hasn't trained in the weapon, and even then it takes a lot of skill and coordination to pull it off successfully. I think this is an analogous argument to claiming that lumberjack is OP - no, it's just chances are that you're used to seeing highly skilled players use it.
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I have to respectfully disagree here. I use a mercury extensively for weapon disables, and there is a very wide range of skill levels when it comes to accuracy with it - it's not something that can be done reliably by someone who hasn't trained in the weapon, and even then it takes a lot of skill and coordination to pull it off successfully. I think this is an analogous argument to claiming that lumberjack is OP - no, it's just chances are that you're used to seeing highly skilled players use it.
Lumberjack can be avoided due to the much slower projectile and its vulnerability to disabling weapons, you know, rockets.
The Mercury is very easy to aim and if you feel like you are a bad shot, there's always Lesmok to make it even easier to land an accurate shot. "You are probably playing against very skilled players" is not a valid arguement to excuse a light weapon weilding all this power, it litteraly forces you to take cover or get disabled and armor stripped.
Also I know how you use the gun Frogger, I've seen the Raft play and practice, I didn't realy expect you guys to agree with this since you based a whole strategy around it, but something needs to be done with this gun, no matter how it is used now because the only reason it is used like it is now is because of the stupid power it has. I'm not sure how you guys think it should be balanced like, but I for one know the piercing it has isn't going anywhere and if it's going to keep penetrating armor, I want the shatter gone so some ships can have more of a chance against this menace instead of going "Oh they saw us, gun is most probably going down" that's ridiculous.
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Being against a Mercury can be frustrating for sure, expecially when you are flying a ship with medium weapon mounts, like the Galleon, Goldfish and Spire. But, of all this ships, only the Goldfish is rendered completly unable to fire (if you keep facing the same direction that is) and can be reliably pinned down. On a Spire or Galleon you can mount a Mercury too and disable their guns as well.
Plus in certain maps the effectiveness of the Mercury is greatly diminished, like in Canyon or Rumble, where the firing arc of a weapon is much more important and fights are more often at close range.
Finally some clever manouvering can make the life of a Mercury gunner much more difficult, if you approach the enemy while changing altitude with Hydrogen or Chute Vent chances are he won't be able to reliably disable any components.
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Being against a Mercury can be frustrating for sure, expecially when you are flying a ship with medium weapon mounts, like the Galleon, Goldfish and Spire. But, of all this ships, only the Goldfish is rendered completly unable to fire (if you keep facing the same direction that is) and can be reliably pinned down. On a Spire or Galleon you can mount a Mercury too and disable their guns as well.
Plus in certain maps the effectiveness of the Mercury is greatly diminished, like in Canyon or Rumble, where the firing arc of a weapon is much more important and fights are more often at close range.
Finally some clever manouvering can make the life of a Mercury gunner much more difficult, if you approach the enemy while changing altitude with Hydrogen or Chute Vent chances are he won't be able to reliably disable any components.
A Spire without its heavy gun loses way too much firepower, you would be better off bringing a second Pyra or something, where your guns are safer and you can have 2 Mercs instead of one.
Goldfish is rendered useless with just a single shot.
Mercury can be used in any map and to very good effect, Canyons have massive open areas and you can still snipe in Rumble.
So it is okay with you that a single light gun should force you to resort to Vertical tools just to save your gun?
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Yes.
Just like the Carronade forces you to keep your distance, etc...
There's plenty of weapons that force you to use a specific strategy in order to win against them.
The Mercury has its niche, the only thing that I might concede is that it is pretty easy to use, but making it harder to use would change nothing in high-level play and would make it more frustrating for newbies.
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Yes.
Just like the Carronade forces you to keep your distance, etc...
There's plenty of weapons that force you to use a specific strategy in order to win against them.
The Mercury has its niche, the only thing that I might concede is that it is pretty easy to use, but making it harder to use would change nothing in high-level play and would make it more frustrating for newbies.
Unlike the carronades, the Mercury has no range restriction, enemies can keep distance, but the carronade user must all think around a lot of things on how to approach without getting decimated at medium range, hence the carronades are balanced. You also fly 'under' the carronades and they are relatively harmless to permahull unless you are talking about the Heavy one, in which case, it's still not as deadly as a light explosive gun like the Flak or Mortar.
You are kinda comparing the 2 polar extremes on the board here, the Mercury is a long range weapon that is still easy to work with even in medium and closer ranges while the carronades are extremely close range guns and work there and ONLY there and it is only the Heavy carronade that has significant brawling prowess by itself and nobody in their right mind would use carronades as their main weapons on the common brawler ships, they will usually be left on the support side of a Pyra or the second side of a Junker cause unless brought in pairs, light carronades can only realy do significant harm to the balloon and are restricted to a meager 350 meters range.
The Mercury isn't a niche, it is a widely used gun cause it can cause significant harm to armor, weapons, engines and permahull ALL IN ONE PACKAGE, I do not understand why is it so hard to understand that such a weapon is broken.
Making it harder to aim isn't the issue, it won't change anything, its massive utility is what needs to be looked at. Snipers should be specialized ranged weapons, not jacks of all trades.
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How about tweaking the shatter damage multiplier on bare hull? Leave the damage the same, tweak other guns that use shatter to do a tad more if needed (though no gun that I know uses shatter as primary damage) to compensate. You have an armor strip/disable with much less bite on the exposed hull.
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How about tweaking the shatter damage multiplier on bare hull? Leave the damage the same, tweak other guns that use shatter to do a tad more if needed (though no gun that I know uses shatter as primary damage) to compensate. You have an armor strip/disable with much less bite on the exposed hull.
That is an interesting take on it. But the multiplier on bare hull for Shatter is already like 0.1, it would have to be very low like 0.05 or even 0.
Still doesn't solve the one-shotting guns problem though, but if Shatter does 0 damage to permahull, I believe then if you lowered the Shatter it did to 150, so it doesn't one shot a heavy gun, but still severely cripples it, it could be fine.
I also did some research to look at how much lethality do other guns with shatter damage lose to perma hull if Shatter dealt 0 damage to it.
Hwacha with Heavy clip loses out around ~67 damage from a full barrage on perma.
Heavy Carronade loses 44 damage per clip.
Artemis loses 48 damage per clip.
Light carronade loses out on 64 damage per clip, 51.2 if you are using Heavy clip.
Considering most of these guns aren't real permahull killers though, aside from the Hwacha maybe, they aren't hurt that much from Shatter not doing any damage to permahull, only the Mercury gets realy hurt due how it is used to pierce even perma from range.
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I would argue that the pilot shouldn't bring a Goldfish against a Mercury build on an open map. Or, suffer the damage, dont fully rebuild the main gun until you're in range and get in close. Even on Dunes, you only spawn 1km apart.
There really hasn't seemed to be massive backlash over this gun, so I'd say empirically, it's not as unbalanced as its made out to be in this thread.
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I would argue that the pilot shouldn't bring a Goldfish against a Mercury build on an open map. Or, suffer the damage, dont fully rebuild the main gun until you're in range and get in close. Even on Dunes, you only spawn 1km apart.
I had to make serveral other points about this gun obvious in this thread, but don't be fooled, my main concern is elimitating the permahull threat this gun is currently and easing up a bit on the pain of instantly disabled guns.
Also mercuries are everywhere, should we not bring a Goldfish or a Spire at all in the game the moment our enemies start being serious and bring the damn gun? I see that as a balance problem since every ship should be at least competative, not sure about you.
There really hasn't seemed to be massive backlash over this gun, so I'd say empirically, it's not as unbalanced as its made out to be in this thread.
This gun is at the tip of the iceberg with everyone, they know it's not balanced but can't think of what needs to be done with it so it doesn't end up useless. You might not see it but when I sent a mail to Muse about it, they assured me there have been many others that voiced the same opinion as me. The gun is not balanced properly.
PS: Dunes is a horrible map since it only favors sniping over brawling, a balanced map should offer both playstyles roughly equal chances.
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How about tweaking the shatter damage multiplier on bare hull? Leave the damage the same, tweak other guns that use shatter to do a tad more if needed (though no gun that I know uses shatter as primary damage) to compensate. You have an armor strip/disable with much less bite on the exposed hull.
That is an interesting take on it. But the multiplier on bare hull for Shatter is already like 0.1, it would have to be very low like 0.05 or even 0.
Still doesn't solve the one-shotting guns problem though, but if Shatter does 0 damage to permahull, I believe then if you lowered the Shatter it did to 150, so it doesn't one shot a heavy gun, but still severely cripples it, it could be fine.
I also did some research to look at how much lethality do other guns with shatter damage lose to perma hull if Shatter dealt 0 damage to it.
Hwacha with Heavy clip loses out around ~67 damage from a full barrage on perma.
Heavy Carronade loses 44 damage per clip.
Artemis loses 48 damage per clip.
Light carronade loses out on 64 damage per clip, 51.2 if you are using Heavy clip.
Considering most of these guns aren't real permahull killers though, aside from the Hwacha maybe, they aren't hurt that much from Shatter not doing any damage to permahull, only the Mercury gets realy hurt due how it is used to pierce even perma from range.
Eh I didn't think the modifier was so low already. I also said that for all other guns using shatter, if they did modify that hull modifier, then they would need to increase the shatter on those other guns as they are balanced currently. No point nerfing hwacha's and carronades.
I don't agree with the sentiment that the merc shouldn't be able to disable. Even a well shot gatling can disable guns. One shotting them might warrant a look into it, but it needs to be able to take out those heavy guns in some form (be it heavily damage them with one shot, kill with two), else ships with no heavy guns wouldn't have a good time, even if they tried spamming artemis.
PS: Dunes is a horrible map since it only favors sniping over brawling, a balanced map should offer both playstyles roughly equal chances.
That's heavily opinionated, and best for a new thread. I'll say that not all maps need to cater to all play styles, else we'd end up with one map doing so. IF you take a short range build into an open desert map, that's your fault, not the map's. Same for taking a pure long range build into Paritan, or any cp map.
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Eh I didn't think the modifier was so low already. I also said that for all other guns using shatter, if they did modify that hull modifier, then they would need to increase the shatter on those other guns as they are balanced currently. No point nerfing hwacha's and carronades.
I don't agree with the sentiment that the merc shouldn't be able to disable. Even a well shot gatling can disable guns. One shotting them might warrant a look into it, but it needs to be able to take out those heavy guns in some form (be it heavily damage them with one shot, kill with two), else ships with no heavy guns wouldn't have a good time, even if they tried spamming artemis.
Heavy guns have a total of around 400 health, I know that since Lochnagar that now does 250 damage to your gun when shot, deals more than half its health pool. 2 Shots with a Mercury that has 150 shatter damage are still sufficient to destroy a heavy gun. Shatter damage multiplier for components is 2, so it would deal 300 damage to it per shot, more than enough to destroy it within those 2 shots.
If Shatter did nothing to permahull, as my numbers prove, other guns don't lose out on much of their permahull damage due to them not realy using shatter as a main source of permahull damage. Only the Mercury gets most of its permahull damage out of the shatter it does. Hence, only the Mercury is realy hurt while all other guns won't feel much of a change.
If you feel like tha Hwacha especially does, you could potentialy buff its explosive a bit to even it out without risking much difference in the armor damage it does due to difference of the modifiers of explosive damage on perma (1.4) and armor (0.3).
That's heavily opinionated, and best for a new thread. I'll say that not all maps need to cater to all play styles, else we'd end up with one map doing so. IF you take a short range build into an open desert map, that's your fault, not the map's. Same for taking a pure long range build into Paritan, or any cp map.
Heavily opnionated doesn't mean it's not close to the truth, cause even a long range focused team can still play in a tight map like Rumble albight not as a effectively, yet in Dunes playing as a Brawler is almost impossible and your victory is completely dependant on your enemies making some sort of stupid mistake, since the map doesn't have almost any cover aside from 2 ruined metalic hunks who do have quite the space between them. So yes, Dunes for a brawler isn't just 'difficult' it's near the edge of impossible to beat a sniping team there, you might score some kills, but you will most probably not win.
I am implying that both teams are realy good at what they do for simplicity's sake. Cover is an essential element on any other map, Dunes is the only map that lacks sufficient cover over a very wide area.
That's all about maps in this thread though.
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Heavy guns have a total of around 400 health, I know that since Lochnagar that now does 250 damage to your gun when shot, deals more than half its health pool. 2 Shots with a Mercury that has 150 shatter damage are still sufficient to destroy a heavy gun. Shatter damage multiplier for components is 2, so it would deal 300 damage to it per shot, more than enough to destroy it within those 2 shots.
If Shatter did nothing to permahull, as my numbers prove, other guns don't lose out on much of their permahull damage due to them not realy using shatter as a main source of permahull damage. Only the Mercury gets most of its permahull damage out of the shatter it does. Hence, only the Mercury is realy hurt while all other guns won't feel much of a change.
If you feel like tha Hwacha especially does, you could potentialy buff its explosive a bit to even it out without risking much difference in the armor damage it does due to difference of the modifiers of explosive damage on perma (1.4) and armor (0.3).
I worry about shatter on other guns less for perma and more for their disable capabilities. For hwacha, it would mean more rockets needed to disable x part, which would in turn nerf it as getting a full clip into someone is relatively hard.
Increasing their explosive then increases their chance to ignite a fire on their own (% chance to ignite based on damage) so that becomes an indirect buff.
It's increasingly looking like the best option (initially) is to lower merc shatter damage to where it can either still kill a heavy gun in one shot or heavily damage it (up to devs).
And that is to say if change is even warranted. You obviously feel strongly in favor of a nerfed mercury, but many others feel the opposite. Biased or not, I've been increasingly taking out teams who use more mercs than my side and still coming out on top. It's not an impossible thing to beat, nor overly difficult.
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Echo's not suggesting that shatter's effectiveness against components should be reduced, so the Hwacha's disabling capabilities wouldn't be affected at all. He's only suggesting that the merc's shatter damage should be reduced.
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It was my suggestion to lower shatter's modifier to bare hull, as I assumed it's already at the least possible shatter damage to all components in one shot.
And I probably got mixed up in my own argument and made myself look silly, which happens with lack of coffee ;x
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I worry about shatter on other guns less for perma and more for their disable capabilities. For hwacha, it would mean more rockets needed to disable x part, which would in turn nerf it as getting a full clip into someone is relatively hard.
Increasing their explosive then increases their chance to ignite a fire on their own (% chance to ignite based on damage) so that becomes an indirect buff.
I'm not saying lower any other gun's shatter damage, the Hwacha would still take the same ammount of rockets to kill components. You got me a bit confused now, I was talking about changing the damage modifier of shatter damage to the permanent hull, nothing else. So basically any ammount of shatter you have will deal 0 damage to permahull from any gun.
Ignition chances wouldn't be increased all that much by adding a little more explosive to each shot (2-3 more explosive damage), so I say that's fine, it wouldn't realy break the gun at all aside from maybe 1 extra stack of fire once in a while.
And that is to say if change is even warranted. You obviously feel strongly in favor of a nerfed mercury, but many others feel the opposite. Biased or not, I've been increasingly taking out teams who use more mercs than my side and still coming out on top. It's not an impossible thing to beat, nor overly difficult.
I feel the gun accomplishes too many roles by itself at the moment and does so with a very high efficiency for a light gun and especially a long ranged one with very high accuracy provided by a massive zoom, hence I can't help but believe the gun is not balanced as is, no matter if it is beatable or not simply because it shouldn't be able to do so many things, I don't think any other light gun can accomplish what the Merc can with such freedom, due to very restricted range, lack of zoom and straight up less damage/efficiency.
And to complete my thoughts on that last 'supposed change', I'll provide a small changelog:
-Shatter damage modifier to permahull is now 0 (from 0.1)
-Manticore Heavy Hwacha now does 27 explosive damage per shot (from 25)
-Mercury Field gun now deals 85 piercing damage (from 75) and 170 shatter damage (from 300)
Figured 170 would be better so even if the engineer can repair it with a mallet before you shoot it again, you can still destroy it with the second one, rewarding you for 2 accurate shots no matter what. Also added 2 points of explosive damage to the Manticore per shot to make up for the permahull damage loss from its shatter. Any other gun doesn't realy lose all that much.
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Taking away shatter's ability to damage the hull would definitely dissuade people from sitting at opposite ends of the map and missing at each other for an hour while still retaining the current primary functions of the mercury.
Zill you probably don't recall the modifier being .1 because it used to be higher however it's been dialed down bit by bit ever since I started playing.
I do think if shatter ceased causing hull damage you probably would need to slightly tweak the balance of the other affected guns to compensate for their loss as they are all weapons in the sort of mid tear of GOI guns.
That being said I can't stress how important it is that the mercury changes be done one at a time, very slowly and incrementally. The merc has been nerfed slowly but surely ever since I started playing the game with good reason and is currently at a decent spot; though I know people have issues with it as it stands, it wouldn't take much more to nerf the gun out of existence, and I don't think effectively removing guns ever benefits the game.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESe-gdBWuJ4&feature=share&list=UUQuR0B-HhVm-YhxqNwuyCtg
here is in game data from before the last patch. the mercury can now disable through ships but takes longer to reload
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Yea I just messed my argument all up, but meh.
Zill you probably don't recall the modifier being .1 because it used to be higher however it's been dialed down bit by bit ever since I started playing.
Yea I never keep real close track with the numbers. I always go off "feel" in-game, so when people start throwing numbers around I tend to shake my head and hope my point gets across. I let awkm deal with the numbers, and just make sure it has the "feel" I want in-game.
-Shatter damage modifier to permahull is now 0 (from 0.1)
-Manticore Heavy Hwacha now does 27 explosive damage per shot (from 25)
-Mercury Field gun now deals 85 piercing damage (from 75) and 170 shatter damage (from 300)
What's the point of lowering the modifier if you want to lower its shatter anyway? It needs to still do perma hull damage to be a useful gun.
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The merc doesn't need to do any permahull damage to be useful. It's an excellent long-range armour stripper and disabler.
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Taking away shatter's ability to damage the hull would definitely dissuade people from sitting at opposite ends of the map and missing at each other for an hour while still retaining the current primary functions of the mercury.
That is one of my main concerns and what I realy want to be honest.
What's the point of lowering the modifier if you want to lower its shatter anyway? It needs to still do perma hull damage to be a useful gun.
Basically it just requires the gunner to hit both shots for a disable on a heavy gun. That is not a necessary change though. I disagree completely that this gun should still be a threat to permahull to be useful. It is immensely useful even if you are using one just because of the disabling power it has plus it's a good armor softener.
Also lowering the shatter damage it does won't change anything with its damage to permahull if shatter does no damage to it anyway. Anyway, what I realy want is the permahull damage this gun does to be gone, it has no place doing that damage to permahull as a piercing weapon and at that range. Smollett explained it for me anyway.
And I've already stated the numbers of how much damage other guns with shatter lose per clip, I can assure you for the carronades at least that this damage is minimal, hence won't hurt them at all. The Artemis doesn't lose out on much either and I already proposed a slight buff to the Hwacha's missiles explosive damage to compesate for the loss of shatter on perma by 3 points which is eventually 4.2 on perma and 0.3 on armor, the original loss of damage on perma from the 45 shatter it deals is 4.5, so by buffing its explosive by 3, you retain most of that while very slightly buffing its armor damage, but realy, just by 5 damage per clip.
The merc doesn't need to do any permahull damage to be useful. It's an excellent long-range armour stripper and disabler.
And since Sunderland made me a favor and posted this while I was writing, there you go as well.
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I agree with "feel" as well. I want the game to played with 80% feel 20% numbers.
The field gun has not changed for many months. The fact that complaint around this gun does not arise until major tournaments draws me to the conclusion that it requires highly coordinated teams and skilled gunners to pull off the strategies. If this happens during competitive play and it does require such coordination, I don't think there is a huge problem. So long as that this does not happen in public matches, then I think we're okay.
This is not to say that there aren't other issues like map design and skills that may mitigate line of sight problems. These will slowly be worked into the game as we move along.
Otherwise, the field gun will not see any further changes until more piercing and shatter options are made available to lighten the field gun's burden and usage characteristics.
And for the record, the Field Gun does not penetrate. Ever. We've seen reports this past weekend and we don't know what to say until we can get reliable reproduction cases for the possible bug. Everything looks dandy on our end, though.
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awkm thanks for the reply. I have a deep suspicion that Muse is already working on another piercing weapon and is looking to rebalance when it is introduced.
What's the point of lowering the modifier if you want to lower its shatter anyway? It needs to still do perma hull damage to be a useful gun.
That's an interesting perspective. I think I have to respectfully disagree.
For me the merc was always more a support weapon almost like a gattling gun with greater precision and range but less dps. A gun good for stripping armor to allow a kill and precision component desctruction.
Being able to outright merc someone's armor and perma down never really felt right to me. It always seemed like it should be a gun to soften up a target but not to outright kill it. I remember commenting to Squash months ago that the merc would probably be perfect if it just stopped doing perma damage and since then the perma damage has been lowered quite a bit through several different methods, and I think for the better. Reduicing the perma damage even further might not be a bad idea in my opinion.
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So what you are trying to say is that if I want to play against people that are are being serious and use that gun as a spamming tool across the map, making approach 80% more difficult because the damn thing can kill you on top of disabling you and armor stripping you, I should look for an other match?
I'm sorry but I am not a tournament player yet, maybe in the near future, but in game I will encounter people that will abuse the gun in pubs as well and that takes out a lot of the fun of the game for me. I want to be able to play against good players while I'm sure that there is no gun that can be abused to such extend as the current Mercury.
And despite the fact that Zill messed up his arguement, what he proposed is actually the best solution without touching the gun itself. Reduce the damage modifier of Shatter on Perma Hull to 0, buff guns like the Hwacha a tiny bit to compesate for the loss, boom, gun is mostly fine now since it lost 2/3 of its Perma Hull damage source, effectively trippling the ammount of shots you need to put on a target to destroy them with it.
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I have to agree. Getting rid of shatter's effect on permahull would make no difference to the mercury's use as a disabler or armour stripper, so there'd really be no cause for concern. The sole change would be reduced instances of quad mercs (which occur in pub matches and don't require very much coordination). I think everybody here can concur that quad mercs are not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination.
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From Echo's wording, it sounds like he wants absolutely 0 perma hull damage from a merc, which I believe will make the gun useless. It needs to make people move. That's always been my intended use of it apart from a disabler.
If it does no perma damage, the other team can just sit back and chuckle at their attempts to do anything worth moving for. That would force the other team to move closer, into the effective range of the real damage dealers.
It's really a fine line to make it so it's not so powerful that it kill's too fast when spammed at max range, but also not so tiny that the enemy can ignore it and simply beat the team using mercs outright. I've never considered the merc a killing weapon, but one that forces people closer, as if you just sit back and let me merc you, yea, you're going to eventually die, very slowly.
Of course, the whole thing is moot as awkm has worded his reasoning. I just wanted to explain my thought there.
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4 shots of that thing into permahull is one less flak shot and 2 less mortar shots you will later need to destroy a ship and with its reload time and accuracy plus how fast it takes down armor if brought en-masse, putting 4 shots into an other ship isn't so hard and gives you a big advantage.
The gun will still deal Permahull damage, it deals piercing as well after all, but it won't be a threat unless you realy sit there and eat it in the face.
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@Zill
But quad mercs are difficult enough to approach (especially on Dunes) that you'll usually end up with both teams taking them, and that's what leads to hour-long sniping matches.
The merc has other uses. You can combine it with a flak like Polaris did to get some serious range with the piercing-explosive combo, or you can use it to disable while approaching (like on the front of a Junker). It excels at those roles, and neither require any permahull damage. So I don't see how it would be useless.
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Well the gun would still do a very small amount of perma damage if the shatter modifier were removed. Though I really don't think it's necessary to have the gun do permahull damage to encourage a team to move.
Having all your guns, engines and armor knocked down over and over again should provide plenty of encouragement. Should the enemy decide to stay and take the pummeling, an ally could simply approach and provide explosive damage at a relatively safe range to finish it off.
Also as Sunder stated the gun has so many other functions and abilities; losing the capability of providing across the map perma damage would still leave it tons of other uses.
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You guys are taking my post too literally...
Can the merc stand to do a little less perm hull damage? Sure. Can it stand to do absolutely none? No. The acceptable amount between the current damage vs 0 is obviously debatable.
You do not need to match the other team's amount of mercs to remain in a position to win a match, Sunderland. I've proven it too many times for myself for anyone to tell me you have to. Sniping matches are inherently long not only because of the lower hit % but also because of extremely cautious positioning, and the guns effective at those ranges require very particular situations to get kills.
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I never said they're a necessity. It's just the most conservative option, and so that's what a lot of people end up bringing.
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I'd like to bring everyone's attention to this quote:
This is not to say that there aren't other issues like map design and skills that may mitigate line of sight problems. These will slowly be worked into the game as we move along.
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Echoez, most of your complaints seemed centered around the "OMG GOLDFISH IS USELESS AGAINST A MERCURY" argument and the fact that it can disable components too well.
Please tell me how is changing its ability do do permahull damage going to fix that? I can still snipe your Goldfish or Galleon or wathever and by the time you get close I'll just finish you off with something that deals explosive damage while keeping your guns disabled 100% of the times, at least this seems to be your opinion.
It seems to me that your opinion is heavly biased against this gun, meanwhile the few people that support the idea of changes to the Mercury do so because they play in the competitive scene where apparently long range spamming is an issue.
An issue with the players, in my opinion, not the guns, but I've already voiced my opinion on the matter in other threads.
I never had the impression that the Mercury can absolutely dominate a game, it's a strong weapon no doubt, but you are basically denying all its flaws and pointing at your math as your only argument, which in the complex reality of a real match I'm sorry to say but isn't as important as you make it seem.
You are also totally convinced that brawling isn't a viable solution unless the enemy captain has the piloting skills of a tomato, something which I find simply false. Even in Dunes there are dust clouds, wreckages and uneven terrain that can be used to move undetected and to provide cover against long range fire, in addition to good old piloting skills that is.
And I know this from experience, having been on both sides of the issue and having found ways around it.
Theorycrafting can deal some serious damage to the game balance.
Finally, I don't think that every ship and every weapon loadout should be equally viable in every map and against every opponent. There should be some tactics involved in choosing your loadout and ship, if you take a Galleon in Canyons you are at an objective disasvantage because it will take you a long time to navigate and there are many narrow passages. Same thing for the weapons, brawling in an open map is doable but risky unless you pick a fast ship that can quickly close the distance. I don't see the problem with that.
Anyway, I agree that baby steps is the best way to fix any balance concern, radically changing how an entire category of damage works or taking away any kill power the Mercury has will absolutely wreck this game and make it even more frustrating for new players.
I'm happy to see the devs taking the reasonable approach.
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Also, allow me to use your math against you. You are saying that the Mercury with default ammo takes 2 shots to kill a heavy weapon. Ok.
Last time I checked the Mercury had only 2 shots and a slow reload time. So what you are saying is that even a simple gunner with a rubber mallet can simply keep its heavy gun perfectly operational even under constant mercury fire.
THe mercury shoots, the gun takes damage, immediatly the gunner hits it with his mallet, second shot comes, the gun is still alive, mercury reloads, gunner finishes bringing the gun back to full health.
And if you use 2 Mercs to disable a single component I'm sorry but not only this isn't doable on many ships but you are basically committing all your firepower to disable a single weapon. This doesn't seem like a smart strategy.
This bit's a little moot seeing as it only takes one shot to disable a heavy gun.
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Yeah I got distracted, I had it deleted right after posting, but you ninja'd me.
Anyway it's irrelevant.
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Echoez, most of your complaints seemed centered around the "OMG GOLDFISH IS USELESS AGAINST A MERCURY" argument and the fact that it can disable components too well.
Please tell me how is changing its ability do do permahull damage going to fix that? I can still snipe your Goldfish or Galleon or wathever and by the time you get close I'll just finish you off with something that deals explosive damage while keeping your guns disabled 100% of the times, at least this seems to be your opinion.
Both the Goldfish and the Spire have very low armor, penetratably by 2-3 Merc shots, unlike most ships though if those shots hit consecutively you have no chance to repair armor, so unlike most ships, the permahull damage it does harms them way more due to a fast armor destruction. You can disable my gun but you do not get an unfail permahull advantage as well. Especially seeing as how a ship like the Spire can be destroyed by 2 full volleys from 4 Mercs, something not so uncommon.
It seems to me that your opinion is heavly biased against this gun, meanwhile the few people that support the idea of changes to the Mercury do so because they play in the competitive scene where apparently long range spamming is an issue.
An issue with the players, in my opinion, not the guns, but I've already voiced my opinion on the matter in other threads.
If it can be abused, it is an issue with the gun, the players just want to win, can you blame them for that and say that "You guys are the real problem of this game for spamming a broken weapon" are you serious?
I never had the impression that the Mercury can absolutely dominate a game, it's a strong weapon no doubt, but you are basically denying all its flaws and pointing at your math as your only argument, which in the complex reality of a real match I'm sorry to say but isn't as important as you make it seem.
I actually pointed out some of the weaknesses it had, something you failed to do and see apparently, but its negatives are negligible, seeing how easy it is to use and how much damage it packs even against permahull.
You are also totally convinced that brawling isn't a viable solution unless the enemy captain has the piloting skills of a tomato, something which I find simply false. Even in Dunes there are dust clouds, wreckages and uneven terrain that can be used to move undetected and to provide cover against long range fire, in addition to good old piloting skills that is.
And I know this from experience, having been on both sides of the issue and having found ways around it.
Theorycrafting can deal some serious damage to the game balance.
If you are talking about pubs with low level of competitiveness, sure, everything is viable. Against even remotely serious snipers, winning as a brawling team is almost impossible in Dunes, there is too much space and clouds aren't hard cover. Anyone even won against good snipers in Dunes?
I am not saying the map is bad by itself for the game in general, it is a very good beginner map that as usual, can be extremely exploited by advanced players and I did state I didn't want any more map discussion in this thread, so don't bring that up again.
Finally, I don't think that every ship and every weapon loadout should be equally viable in every map and against every opponent. There should be some tactics involved in choosing your loadout and ship, if you take a Galleon in Canyons you are at an objective disasvantage because it will take you a long time to navigate and there are many narrow passages. Same thing for the weapons, brawling in an open map is doable but risky unless you pick a fast ship that can quickly close the distance. I don't see the problem with that.
No you actually just camp your spawn. You are forgetting that people usually do not fly Galleons, it's 80% parking and 20% piloting, seeing as how the Galleon is a positioning ship more than a manuvering ship cause well.. it can't realy manuver that well.
Anyway, I agree that baby steps is the best way to fix any balance concern, radically changing how an entire category of damage works or taking away any kill power the Mercury has will absolutely wreck this game and make it even more frustrating for new players.
I'm happy to see the devs taking the reasonable approach.
Wreck the game because one weapon that is not supposed to be dealing sufficient permahull damage in the first place will actually not due to and be properly specialized?..
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Echo I hardly think the game is "wrecked".
I haven't really used my Mercs in the last few games I've played.
I think everyone is aware of, and attempting to fix, the balance with this gun.
Now is the time for patience.
You also have to recognize that balance is a careful ecosystem. Fixing one issue may result in creating several more. Not that it will, but it might. Additionally the competitive scene is the minority (as has been pointed out) even if we are the most vocal/passionate about it.
Sniping should be a very valid tactic. I agree: It should not be the only tactic, but you can't simply make it unviable.
I think we should all take a deep breath and realize that there is weight to both sides of this argument. Again, (as I seem to be saying a lot lately) nobody is "right".
Maybe I like playing Guns of Sniperus.
Maybe I like playing Guns of Brawlicus.
I happen to actually like both.
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Fine Echoez, you win an Internet argument. Mercury will doom us all. Run for the hills!
I'm done with this thread, you are not even trying to be objective and you are willingly misinterpreting anything that can jeopardize your argument.
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I went up against some level 5+ pilots yesterday on dunes using a Blender fish, ally using a Squid, and the enemy having a gat/flak junker and a merc/mortar Pyramidion. My ship has two level twos and one level three, and we still won. It was a close battle, but me and the Squid found it stupid easy to fly around the clouds to get to the Pyra. He's be able to shoot at us all but ten seconds before we were on top of him, hammering him into a pulp. He'd take out our main gun, but we'd repair it back up easily enough and get those two shots to take out his balloon, easy kill from then on. It only got tough when they started working together at close range at the edge of the clouds.
He was screwed out in the open, even with his sniper. There's just not enough time for him to get enough shots out to disable us. If he would have brought dual mercs, we would have rolled them. After that match and a few more against the same guy using the same ship, and us trying different ships, including a flamer/banshee pyra, I'm no longer intimidated by a merc. Teamwork and soft cover is the counter.
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That was 1 merc on dunes on a ship that needs to be close to get a kill. I'm not sure that's what this thread is discussing.
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I think that's where the issue lies Zenark. It's not the single Merc but the multi-merc loadouts, especially over two ships, that cause these issues with the gun. A single merc on you is quite manageable though you may take some hull damage here and there, it's often negligible. However, due to there being no mainstream alternatives due to competitive viability, this gun usually appears in pairs and sometimes across two ships.
You'll see some people here and there run Merc/Arty but usually realize they benefit more by bringing their 2nd merc, and that should not be the case - where a piercing weapon outclasses a weapon with explosive on the hull.. even if it's the secondary damage. If we want to balance this gun up, I would suggest looking more towards finding a way to make this gun need a complimenting pair the same as brawling needs a gat/flak or gat/mortar. Merc/Merc should be classified the same as Gat/Gat, etc. Knocking its permahull damage down a notch is absolutely a step in the right direction to help push explosive compliments on the merc side of a ship.
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Fine Echoez, you win an Internet argument. Mercury will doom us all. Run for the hills!
I'm done with this thread, you are not even trying to be objective and you are willingly misinterpreting anything that can jeopardize your argument.
I never said the Mercury will doom us all, I am saying the pressure it puts on many vessels is not justified. Aleviating the permahull damage it does will not harm what the weapon is designed to do, which is disable and armor pierce, meaning you will actually have to pair it with an (Here it comes!) explosive to have killing power over range as well just like in a close range loadout, the Mercury is the only gun that can get away with it by just spamming it twice.
I made a post for the sake of argument, my original post is clearly not correct and an over reaction, but it did spark a discussion and we did reach a point of slight agreement which I want tested, not sure how that will hurt the game. I am trying to make it more fun, a thread just sparked up as well on how this gun is probably the most detrimental to gameplay exprience, so it's not just about competative play.
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If more than one merc is so overpowered, make it so you can't have two mercs on one ship.
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I don't think that restricting what guns can be put on a ship (other than the distinction between light and heavy, of course) should ever be used as a solution to a problem.
I think Chrinus put it best. The only viable light weapon long-range combo is merc/merc. Changing that could be a good way to bring back the rather underpowered Artemis.
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Bias disclaimer, this is coming from a Merc hating brawler.
What if instead of changing the damage of the Mercury and the Artemis, the skill requirement for them was changed. The Artemis could use a bit of a speed and/or range boost. Perhaps the Merc needs the opposite. Increasing the arc and/or slowing down the shot could force people to bring Lesmok, move less, and still be likely to miss a few shots. The Lumberjack is easily the most powerful weapon in the game, it is just hard as all get out to shoot, often require Lesmok rounds. What if a similar approach was taken with the Merc?
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I've thought of that Sammy, but realy, there's so much drop and slow down of projectile speed you can give to a bullet... from some point onwards it would look kinda silly if it got too slow.
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Give it a clip of one shot.
(Just throwing random stuff out there, now. I've yet to ACTUALLY have any quarrels with the Mercury)
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Give it a clip of one shot.
(Just throwing random stuff out there, now. I've yet to ACTUALLY have any quarrels with the Mercury)
This lowers its DPS a bit too much and would basically make 2Merc a necessity if you wish you drop armor at range.
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Well in that case they should definitely double the piercing damage.
Because there's surely no way that could go wrong with lochnagar...
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Let's give it a silly hat. Surely no one will take it seriously then.
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That's it.
The Field Gun is getting locked.
You will now have to get all the achievements in order to use it... and also play in matches with it equipped. It ensures everyone using it and everyone getting shot at are progamrs lulz.
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Let's give it a silly hat. Surely no one will take it seriously then.
I can see that being an april fools thing, Mercury fires mini top hats. Don't derail though, humor appreciated :P
That's it.
The Field Gun is getting locked.
You will now have to get all the achievements in order to use it... and also play in matches with it equipped. It ensures everyone using it and everyone getting shot at are progamrs lulz.
Eric nooooooooooo!
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But in all seriousness, other things are being taken into account. As of right now, I don't think the fault is entirely with the gun itself.
Furthermore, once new guns are added I have room again to mess around with piercing and shatter.
Spoiler alert!
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new guns
Sounds like an update of volcanic proportions.
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What's confusing me is the potential damage the mercury can deal with the right ammo and ship:
If you had a ship that's capable of equipping 3 mercuries that are able to focus on the same target (probably only at long range though) while equipped with lochnagar shot and if those mercuries were buffed by the buff tool as well, you could technically get (75*1,5+300*0,2)*2,5*1,2*3=1552.5 armor damage, which is sufficient to one-shot the armor of any ship afaik and allow you to damage their hull, used on lightly armored ships like the squid it might even be able to oneshot them. Even without lochnagar shot it would still be (75*1,5+300*0,2)*1,2*3=621 damage when all three guns are fired at the same time. This becomes 621*1,3=807,3 dmg if one is using charged rounds as well (which don't limit the turning radius), for a total of 807,3*2=1614,6 armor damage per magazine if all three mercuries fire at the same time.
While this doesn't tell us anything about actual ship health damage, since there are different multipliers for that, it still seems like a huge amount of damage.
Would the Mobula be suitable for this kind of strategy? I don#t know if it can equip three front-facing mercuries at the same time, but if it can, it would be one hell of a beast when used for sniping.
Edit:
My mind is blown. The Mobula can actually equip mercuries on all 5 of its weapons, all of which are front-facing.
If you fire the one in the middle and the ones on the upper level and then jump down to the other two mercuries instead of waiting for the reload, you might be able to deal 1614,6*1/3*5= 2691 armor damage within less than 6 seconds.
Aussuming you could directly damage the hull and all the damage had the same multiplier for the hull as shatter damage, (which it doesn't, the piercing part of the mercury has a higher multiplier) of 0.1, you'd end up with (2691-850)*0,1=184,1 which means that, if the stats on the wiki are correct, the squid's hull would be left with 200-184,1=15,9 health points.
Now, to remind you: this in actuality, the hull damage is greater than that, meaning that a squid might very well get killed at long range by a Mobula within less than 6 seconds (estimation, but the time it takes to fire all 5 guns on the Mobula should be something around that, maybe even less).
Any other ship will already have lost its armor completely and be easy prey for any ships with hull-damaging weapons.
If my calculations are correct, Mercuries are good to the point of being frightening, at least on a Mobula.
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Two facts:
-The Mobula can only get two mercs on one target due to the gun's low maximum yaw. There is no ship in the game that can get more than two mercs on a single target at any given time.
-The number given on the Wiki for the Squid's hull are wrong. It has 850 hull.
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Two facts:
-The Mobula can only get two mercs on one target due to the gun's low maximum yaw. There is no ship in the game that can get more than two mercs on a single target at any given time.
-The number given on the Wiki for the Squid's hull are wrong. It has 850 hull.
Then just turn the Mobula like Leonardo da Vinci's cannon tank thingy and fire them separately. While this will increase the time it takes to fire all five mercuries, it's probably still incredibly fast. I'll do some testing on this tomorrow.
And even then, being able to remove the armor of any ship at long range within a very short of time still seems pretty frightening.
But now that I think about it, I still need to know if damage multipliers are multiplied with each other (i.e. 100base*1,3chargedrounds*1,2bufftool) or just a percentage of the base damage of the weapon (i.e. 100base+100*0,3chargedrounds+100*0,2bufftool).
Also I haven't done anything accurate regarding actual hull damage, I might need to do that sometime.
Anyways, if we take the base damages of 75 and 300 of the merc and calculate the final damage dealt with percentages of the base damage and with damage modifiers applied after all the other damage bonuses, we'd have
(75+75*0,3+75*0,2)*1,5+(300+300*0,3+300*0,2)*0,2
=168,75+90=258,75 armor damage per shot.
258,75*2*5 would still be 2587.5 damage, which isn't all that far off from 2614 damage.
3 mercuries firing their mags would still be sufficient to take down any ships armor, as they would deal 1552.5 armor dmg.
And turning from the left side guns to allow the middle gun to fire should be even shorter. Now if you take hull damaging weapons on your right and have your left-side gunners run to the right while middle one is firing, any enemy that can't get past you or kill you fast enough could already be considered dead.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with this strategy a Mobula can kill any approaching ship in a matter of seconds, and anything without powerful long-range weaponry has basically already lost anyways because by the time it has gotten close it has already taken enough of a beating that it needs to retreat, thus forcing the usage of other long-range weaponry, and what would be more suitable for this than another set of mercuries?
I only theorycrafting here, as I don't have any practical experience with mercuries, neither on the giving nor on the receiving end, but this does worry me a little bit.
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...I don't have any practical experience with mercuries, neither on the giving nor on the receiving end...
I can tell.
On a mobula, in the time it would take you to rotate from the arcs of mercs on your right side, to give arc to the mercs on the left side and stop rotation, the mercs on your right side would already be reloaded and ready to shoot again. You severely underestimate how long turning will take and/or how difficult it is to aim while turning. EDIT: And if anything manages to get in close range with you, you're screwed.
Your assessment ignores repairs, rebuilds, the presence of cover, the ability to break spots and line-of-sight, the ability to dodge, and the possibility of missing. If you get 4 mercs on a target and manage to hit with every single shot, yes, that can do a fair bit of damage. It's a legitimate strategy, and a strong one. But by no means will every shot hit in every circumstance, and they won't all be synched up to hit at the same time.
Math is all well and good, but the usefulness of math in this game is fairly limited in scope.
EDIT2: Sorry, I got kinda fed up with clueless newbie posts (and clueless newbies ingame) and took it out on you. My apologies.
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...I don't have any practical experience with mercuries, neither on the giving nor on the receiving end...
I can tell.
On a mobula, in the time it would take you to rotate from the arcs of mercs on your right side, to give arc to the mercs on the left side and stop rotation, the mercs on your right side would already be reloaded and ready to shoot again. You severely underestimate how long turning will take and/or how difficult it is to aim while turning. EDIT: And if anything manages to get in close range with you, you're screwed.
Your assessment ignores repairs, rebuilds, the presence of cover, the ability to break spots and line-of-sight, the ability to dodge, and the possibility of missing. If you get 4 mercs on a target and manage to hit with every single shot, yes, that can do a fair bit of damage. It's a legitimate strategy, and a strong one. But by no means will every shot hit in every circumstance, and they won't all be synched up to hit at the same time.
Math is all well and good, but the usefulness of math in this game is fairly limited in scope.
EDIT2: Sorry, I got kinda fed up with clueless newbie posts (and clueless newbies ingame) and took it out on you. My apologies.
The damage of two mercuries is actually STILL enough to take down the armor of most unbuffed ships if both fire a single mag.
Considering that that's at long range, they seem like a pretty solid option, as you can do so at the same time or even earlier than your enemy can engage you.
Although the limited usefulness at close range might make up for that...
Anyways, with charged rounds they have a rof of 20.4 rpm, which means 0,34 rps, which means that it takes 2*1/0,34=5,88235294 s to empty a mag+6 seconds reload=11,88 s per mag
(258,75*2)dmg/11,88s=43,55 dps.
A stock gatling gun with the buffhammer buff deals either 12 or 24 damage (is aoe damage counted in addition to the regular damage? The stats on the wiki are confusing)
at 60 rounds and 375 rpm it has 6,25 rps and it takes 9,6 seconds to fire all of them.
Plus the reload, it's 14,6 seconds per mag. If a single shot deals 12 dmg, it's 720 dmg per mag, if it deals 24 dmg it's 1440 per mag.
So either a dps of 720/14,6= 49,315 or 1440/14,6=98,63 dps. Bringing the piercing dmg armor modifier into the equation, we get 73,97 dps against armor or 147,95 dps.
So, as long as you manage to close the distance(3000m mercury range vs. 700 m gatling, that's more than 4 times the range and without heavy mag(which would worsen our possible dps even more, we can't reasonably expect to use our gatling at this distance), a gatling WILL win against armor and hull due to the high amount of piercing dmg, regardless of whether it has 12 or 24 dmg.
Hmmm.....
Screw this, if the turning radius on the mercury is as limited as people say, aside from the range it seems fine (seriously, being able to severly damage the armor of any ship like that at up to 3000m is insane).
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Although the limited usefulness at close range might make up for that...
Well there's the thing - you can actually use lochnagar in the merc at close range to aid a hull ram with a pyramidion.
*looks about for a "cat among the pigeons emote"*
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I propose the following balance pass on the mercury: half the range, but double the turn radius.
1500 is still more than double the range of most guns, and the higher turn radius will prevent having a high range from being a neccessity.
Is there some sort of test server where the devs can play around with new stats etc?
I dimly remember reading about something like that.
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I propose the following balance pass on the mercury: half the range, but double the turn radius.
1500 is still more than double the range of most guns, and the higher turn radius will prevent having a high range from being a neccessity.
This would mean 3 mercs on one target on a Mobula. Seems a bit overpowered.
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Don't forget 2 mercs and a heavy gun on the spire.
Yea that change would have dramatic balance changes for the worse.
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I propose the following balance pass on the mercury: half the range, but double the turn radius.
1500 is still more than double the range of most guns, and the higher turn radius will prevent having a high range from being a neccessity.
This would mean 3 mercs on one target on a Mobula. Seems a bit overpowered.
Finding the right balance between range and turn radius seems to be a little bit tricky.
Hm... by the way, what's the role of the merc supposed to be in the first place? A long range armor destroyer or a component sniper?
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Both.
Changes are being tested for the merc. That's all I'll say.