Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: awkm on April 30, 2013, 02:24:35 pm
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Everything about ships in v1.2
Just so everyone knows, acceleration and mass was broken ever since the game's release. There was a bug that was found during another check between calculated speeds and actual in-game speeds. Previously, all ships had the same mass and accelerated at the same rate. This is not the case now. Each ship accelerates very differently on each axis (forward/backward, turning, and ascent/descent), has varying masses (Squid being lightest, Galleon being heaviest), and varying top forward/backward and turn speeds. Top ascent/descent speeds are all the same at approx 12m/s.
Due to the existence of mass, pilot skills will affect a ship's movement slightly differently. For example, using Hydrogen on a Galleon will still increase its top ascent speed as well as ascent acceleration, it will not affect it in the same magnitude as it does the Squid due to mass differences.
The Squid's handling may be more sticky than in the previous versions but when compared relatively to other ships the Squid still outclasses everyone else in maneuverability.
So far, there are no planned changes unless something egregious arises here. I will continue to keep watch.
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Harpoon Squid matches seem to have been ruined with the new patch. It's practically impossible to land kills.
(not very important, but just saying)
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Harpoon Squid matches seem to have been ruined with the new patch. It's practically impossible to land kills.
(not very important, but just saying)
Hi, I'm Sunderlands anger translater. :>
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I've flown yesterday for the first time with the new patch, and the way the Goldfish handles now is just amazing. Every push on those engines results in a swift and graceful turn, even on full speed the turning rate is now competitive enough to catch a ship flying past fast enough. Compared to the handling before, I've been flying a brick.
All in all, matches seem to go much faster again - After the patch in which the Flak was nerfed, things seemed to go much slower, but now the fights are quick and unforgiving again. My thanks :)
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Here is something for you all to chew on. First I thought it was just hydro doing too much dmg that was the problem. Then I tested it right now. Hydro does 75dps to the balloons.
Now, before patch balloons had 1200 hp. I took a screenshot and looked it up to confirm.
So I tested it twice with my squid. Hitting hydro will kill a balloon in 10 seconds. 10 x 75 = 750.
Hmmm...that sure wasn't in the patch notes. A massive nerf to balloon hp and we would have never have known with the new ship loadout screens lacking any numbers. So now it makes sense why carronades were so OP at one time during the tester. With our balloons nerfed they could easily be. Now, what else was changed without being noted?
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Now, what else was changed without being noted?
The list is kind of growing
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It's really hard to ram with a Pyra now, even if the resulting ram doesn't result in seizures. The low turning speed and the penalties to turning and acceleration make it very difficult to get up to ramming speed without help from an item, which in turn makes the turning speed issue worse. This makes it very easy to repeatedly miss an enemy that's aware of you, I don't find myself landing rams except by surprise or against newer captains.
The Junker's manueverability has been absurdly buffed as well, before it was somewhat difficult to keep it in trifecta but now its incredibly easy to outrotate and outrun ships, particularly the Pyra. Even if the Artemis gets nerfed, it'll still probably be very strong. It has no blindspots, high armor, and high manueverability. The turning speed feels pretty silly, to be honest. The turning speed felt OK on a Pyra as it made it feel like the "fighter" ship (since the Goldfish has no close range kill guns), on a Junker you've got a broadsider which makes you feel like you're on a propeller on a helicopter. I'll have to see where it goes after the Artemis is dealt with, but even before the patch the Junker was an excellent Pyra slayer with its larger trifecta and higher armor.
Spires still feel incredibly weak, they can trifecta too now but their armor still sucks which constantly pulls that third crewmember off of a gun and their low mass now makes them even more of a Pyra's bitch. I think the lower left gun on the Spire should have been the one to be turned, it's closer to the hull and so it'd be easier for the hull engineer to babysit the fragile little thing.
And as for these threads themselves, it's a bit hard to talk about the guns and ships separately. They're so very much intertwined, a gun's effectiveness depends entirely on where it is on a ship and how well that ship can get the gun in arc. It makes more sense to have the maps separate but even those will favor certain ships and loadouts, possibly to the point of causing issues (like merc Pyras and lumberjack Galleons on Dunes).
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The top right gun is meant for the pilot to use, Helmic.
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The top right gun is meant for the pilot to use, Helmic.
Or the engineer, a Spire that isn't turning in melee is a dead spire. Certainly possible to do that with an Artemis but you don't need much of anything working to ram a Spire, particularly one whose captain has decided to man a gun.
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The top right gun is meant for the pilot to use, Helmic.
Or the engineer, a Spire that isn't turning in melee is a dead spire. Certainly possible to do that with an Artemis but you don't need much of anything working to ram a Spire, particularly one whose captain has decided to man a gun.
The captain can freely fire the gun if you're sniping or if you've disabled their engines, both of which are likely to happen if you have an Artemis.
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Certainly possible to do that with an Artemis but you don't need much of anything working to ram a Spire, particularly one whose captain has decided to man a gun.
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It's really hard to ram with a Pyra now, even if the resulting ram doesn't result in seizures. The low turning speed and the penalties to turning and acceleration make it very difficult to get up to ramming speed without help from an item, which in turn makes the turning speed issue worse. This makes it very easy to repeatedly miss an enemy that's aware of you, I don't find myself landing rams except by surprise or against newer captains.
The Junker's manueverability has been absurdly buffed as well, before it was somewhat difficult to keep it in trifecta but now its incredibly easy to outrotate and outrun ships, particularly the Pyra. Even if the Artemis gets nerfed, it'll still probably be very strong. It has no blindspots, high armor, and high manueverability. The turning speed feels pretty silly, to be honest. The turning speed felt OK on a Pyra as it made it feel like the "fighter" ship (since the Goldfish has no close range kill guns), on a Junker you've got a broadsider which makes you feel like you're on a propeller on a helicopter. I'll have to see where it goes after the Artemis is dealt with, but even before the patch the Junker was an excellent Pyra slayer with its larger trifecta and higher armor.
Spires still feel incredibly weak, they can trifecta too now but their armor still sucks which constantly pulls that third crewmember off of a gun and their low mass now makes them even more of a Pyra's bitch. I think the lower left gun on the Spire should have been the one to be turned, it's closer to the hull and so it'd be easier for the hull engineer to babysit the fragile little thing.
And as for these threads themselves, it's a bit hard to talk about the guns and ships separately. They're so very much intertwined, a gun's effectiveness depends entirely on where it is on a ship and how well that ship can get the gun in arc. It makes more sense to have the maps separate but even those will favor certain ships and loadouts, possibly to the point of causing issues (like merc Pyras and lumberjack Galleons on Dunes).
As a Bounty who's potentially become infamous by now for his exploits on a ramming Pyramidion, I have to wholeheartedly disagree here. I always felt the Pyramidion was Too Good at just about everything. Now, it actually needs to give thought to its build, or it simply must use ramming to be effective. The horrible turn speed just makes sense, as a ramming ship with fairly good weaponry and forward speed. It has drawbacks.
The Junker was horrible before. Now, it's actually potent. As for Artemises, I'm actually not sure they're as bad as they're made out to be, as they don't seem to have the raw DPS to make them dangerous. It's the same deal as the Hwacha; they're commonly used, and obnoxious to deal with, but not actually very deadly. It's possible the Junker was buffed too much, but the fact the Junker is a "Pyra slayer" isn't a problem in itself, as long as it's not an "Everything slayer."
I've been seeing lots of people making horrible use of Spires, charging in with lumberjacks or even hwachas mounted on the front. They're a kiting, long range ship, meant to destroy an enemy before it even gets in range. They should be using a Lumberjack or Flak at range, combined with a Field gun and Artemis. That makes them ridiculously deadly. Of course, they'll be outmatched in a close-in map, but the same can be said for a Galleon. I could see a close-up Carronade loadout working on the Spire, actually, given the change to its top right weapon.
I definitely agree with you on your last point. The balance between Ships and Guns is linked intimately. That said, I feel the game's balance has never been in a better spot; all the problematic things are relatively mild, in my opinion.
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Certainly possible to do that with an Artemis but you don't need much of anything working to ram a Spire, particularly one whose captain has decided to man a gun.
Yup, because they'll definitely be ramming you with no engines.
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As for Artemises, I'm actually not sure they're as bad as they're made out to be, as they don't seem to have the raw DPS to make them dangerous.
You don't need that much dps when you're destroying every gun the other boat has, thus just letting you slowly murder them.
I do agree with NikolaiLev's assessment of the Pyra and Junker. I think the only reason you see so many Junkers right now is the new artemis. You can get a trifecta so easily with them that its becoming the new meta missile boat.
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For the record, it's very hard for me to respect comparisons to how things were before because things were just broken before. The way I look at the ship balance now is that it's NEW and we're working with a clean slate. Therefore, handling of ships now is completely different. Metas for each ship are only just beginning to shed light.
It's fine to talk about guns here. There are separate threads to keep me sane. I know that anything mentioned here is specifically about ships and that's already very helpful for me.
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I'm finding the spire to be an amazing 1 on 1 ship or even a 2 on 1 ship right now thanks to the artemis and lumberjack trifecta.
2 Artemis up top and a lumberjack main gun can demolish just about any ship on any of the bigger maps before he gets close enough to do anything except sneeze on me. I can have my right or left artemis gunner knock out an incoming ships weapons before they get to me. Effectively making it a situation of you have to ram me or else I'll just peck you to death.
I know alot of people are saying the captain should be on the right hand gun but honestly with both engineers up top on artemis systems the need to repair is almost non existent in 2 v 2 matches. It is also easy enough for a good engie to jump straight down the ladder and get on repairs quickly if we do get surprised.
I played a game just to test it with the banshee light rockets and while not as dominating as the Artemis it was still surprisingly easy to suppress enemy weapons in a 1 v 1.
That being said I don't know if this is an issue with the Artemis or the spire. Being able to put 3 forward guns on an enemy without much effort is an amazing ability.
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I'd say it's the artemis doing the work. The lumberjack just deals the insulting death blow.
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you see so many Junkers right now is the new artemis. You can get a trifecta so easily with them that its becoming the new meta missile boat.
In terms of ship balance, the Junker turns WAY too fast. I don't even bring the Phoenix claw. It's like a Squid turn. The rotational drag on that craft is way off. I can score a trifecta from any orientation in 3 seconds.
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It may just be the ridiculous disabling power of the Hwacha and Artemis, but the Galleon seems a bit underpowered in a 1v1 situation. I get that the Galleon is mainly a long range support, but I've tried nearly every combination of weapons and still our enemies tend to just get in close and fly circles around us. There is no way for the Galleon to stay at range since to get out of range I'd have to lose target with the guns, and it's too slow to make it worth running in the first place. The close range "defensive" guns for the Galleon, Hwacha or Carronade, don't have nearly enough killing power to be worthwhile. Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us. Our right side was useless because lumber-flack does nothing at close range. If I had carronades on the left I'm sure the Goldfish would have plenty of time to just repair their front gun and balloon, since that's all they needed to keep us pinned. We couldn't run because the second we turned, our engines would die. If I had turned-tail before the had gotten to us, well, they would've caught up anyway. The only thing the Galleon has going for it is it's firepower, and that is easily nullified up close.
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It may just be the ridiculous disabling power of the Hwacha and Artemis, but the Galleon seems a bit underpowered in a 1v1 situation. I get that the Galleon is mainly a long range support, but I've tried nearly every combination of weapons and still our enemies tend to just get in close and fly circles around us. There is no way for the Galleon to stay at range since to get out of range I'd have to lose target with the guns, and it's too slow to make it worth running in the first place. The close range "defensive" guns for the Galleon, Hwacha or Carronade, don't have nearly enough killing power to be worthwhile. Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us. Our right side was useless because lumber-flack does nothing at close range. If I had carronades on the left I'm sure the Goldfish would have plenty of time to just repair their front gun and balloon, since that's all they needed to keep us pinned. We couldn't run because the second we turned, our engines would die. If I had turned-tail before the had gotten to us, well, they would've caught up anyway. The only thing the Galleon has going for it is it's firepower, and that is easily nullified up close.
I've had different experiences, minus the artemis issue. One artemis sniping out your galleon's everything really is a frustrating thing and 95% of the time requires ally intervention.
Apart from that, I usually don't have issues with keeping people in my broadsides. Not sure what kind of crew you have, but your gunners play a big role in keeping people away, or the clever maneuvering to get them on your short side. Dual hwacha it devastating at those short ranges. Try to make your guys stagger the barrages, so you have a more constant stream of rockets hitting them. Carronades work too, or a combo of both, but I'd rather grab a kill without moving too much, so popping their balloon isn't ideal.
This is also coming from a guy who like to play a full carronade galleon at times.
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I had my crew repair within a single hit of repairing the guns, wait for the barrage, then full repair and counter disable. Still went on for ages. I have no trouble keeping the broadsides of my ship in line with the enemy, but usually the amount of shots that hit are 10-20% of the shots fired. I don't have a crew so it's almost always low level randoms on my ship.
This is coming from a guy who has flown a Galleon 90% of the time since he started playing.
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but usually the amount of shots that hit are 10-20% of the shots fired. I don't have a crew so it's almost always low level randoms on my ship.
This is coming from a guy who has flown a Galleon 90% of the time since he started playing.
Well, I think I found your Galleon problem. The Galleon is really a gunners ship; the success of the crew is highly dependent on the skill of the gunnery. That and try putting your long range weapons on your left/port side. The additional light gun can turn the tide of the engagement and kill many enemies before they get anywhere near enough to fly circles around you.
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Also, slow the hell down, shooting sideways from a moving airship is extremely difficult, especially with medium guns. Most gunners wont manage to get hits unless you're completely stopped, and even the best of the best have enormous trouble with even half speed.
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Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.
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Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us.
Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.
???
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I will vouch for the frustration of the Galleon. The Typhon and Lumberjack are functionally useless at close range, so the only option you have are the Hwacha or the Hellhound. Even with heavy or charged, it can take a significant number of volleys to kill an enemy (it took 6-8 on a Goldfish with about 80% hit rate). The way I see the Galleon builds, you either have a gat on the port medium mount and run a <800m ship, or you have a merc and run flack/jack. I think a lot of people miss how the whole strategy really can hinge on port side gun fire instead of starboard fire.
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Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us.
Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.
???
Sorry, I get hostile when people assume I don't know what I'm doing.
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Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us.
Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.
???
Sorry, I get hostile when people assume I don't know what I'm doing.
No, he's pointing out how you contradicted yourself. Look at the underlined parts.
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Heck I had a Hwachafish park on our left, and we had double Hwachas but it turned out to be a ridiculously drawn out, disable-counter disable trade for 10 min straight until his ally showed up and killed us.
Hey. What did I just say? I've been playing since beta and 90% of the time I fly a Galleon. I put my long range on the left side, and usually I'm hardly moving at all. I KNOW HOW TO FLY.
???
Sorry, I get hostile when people assume I don't know what I'm doing.
No, he's pointing out how you contradicted yourself. Look at the underlined parts.
Oh, whoops, my mistake. Sorry, I meant the Hwachafish parked on our right.
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Anyway, the people mentioning how the Heavy Flak is useless at close range are tragically incorrect. Is it essentially a 50% decrease in DPS? Yes. It's only 50%. It's still huge, and you have a much better hit rate. Even with a Field Gun, you'll be able to do competent damage unless your piloting is off.
Phoenix Claw is vital here to keep your turn speed up. If they try to circle, you can reverse rotation and bring your right side to bear, which should usually consist of close range weaponry; a carronade and a hwacha is an excellent combination, and makes you no slouch in close range scraps.
Let's not forget the Galleon is ridiculously hard to kill. Provided sufficient engineering, you will stay in the air for a long time unless you're getting hit by three or more ships, or one of the two ships is a dual flak Galleon at range. When you're being piled on by enemies, your teammate has a great opportunity to get in and fight for free. One ship is seldom enough to kill a Galleon unless it's another Galleon with superior gunnery.
I feel heavy weapon balance (and thus, Galleon balance) is decent, because you have tradeoffs to make. Dual heavy flak gives you the best explosive DPS in the game, but makes you sub-optimal close. Putting a hwacha or carronade makes you sub-optimal at long range, but gives you versatility. Doing all close range (carronades and hwachas) is difficult to pull off given your poor maneuverability. And Lumberjacks... are just too weak to use on anything. :P
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And Lumberjacks... are just too weak to use on anything.
Wait is my sarcasm detector broken or is he being serious? Except for the temporarily op Artemis. There isn't a gun in the game better than the Lumberjack
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Wait is my sarcasm detector broken?
You might need to get it checked out :P
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Just would like to refocus the discussion on ships and not guns. That is all.
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So I played a match with a hwachafish, and it may be my inexperience with the Goldfish, but even when using a chain gun on one side, we were unable to kill anything 1v1. My ally was on the other side of the map doing who knows what, and the other enemy ship was nowhere to be found, so I was stuck facing down a junker, who we disabled quite easily, but that was about it. Switching back and forth between the chain gun and hwacha after taking down armor, even using the phoenix claw, we were locked in a standstill for ages. I don't have a problem with teamwork, but it would be nice if I could kill something on my own. Idk, I haven't flown a Goldfish very often, but from my experience it seems underpowered.
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You'll need to apply a judicious amount of ramming, side gun use and proper ammo rotations to see the Goldfish armed with a Hwacha become a murder machine.
In the right position, and time the attacks correctly, it's not too hard to ram an enemy ship, break their armor, and then fire a hwacha blast right down their throat at point blank range.
I've seen this work to pop a ship that was hard to kill on a few occasions, though it comes at the sacrifice of your own ships health. Just gotta keep using the goldfish's superior maneuvering and get into a position to do the maximum amount of damage to overwhelm the ability to repair it. Sometimes that just means breaking the armor and shaving some of the total health down each time before retreating, then doing it again.
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But should that be the way it is? I mean, the Goldfish isn't designed to ram, and I certainly don't want to risk unnecessary damage to my ship.
Or maybe I'm trying to make the Goldfish into something it's not.
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I'd like to say that the goldfish is one of my better ships that I fly. what type of ammo is your gunner bringing into the match, and is he using them? It's funny, but I've stuck two flare guns on my side mounts, so that I can get those 15 stacks of fire going, and causing their engineers to panic... it's pretty effective
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Charged and Burst, then the third is optional, but if we need long-range disable I'll suggest heavy.
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Don't forget heavy for the long range engagements.
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but if we need long-range disable I'll suggest heavy.
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Yup that's what I get for glancing through posts...
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lol, so i guess i'll play around with a few more builds, maybe a flamer on the right? or is the flare better?
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I like the flare, as some engies decide to take chemspray over fire extinguishers....
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I like having a left side flare on the Goldfish. It's a nice asset to have, and when it hits it'll be really punishing, especially against chem spray engis.
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A single hit with flare is 15 stacks of fire and that does 38DPS (8+2*the number of stacks) fire damage per second - before baloon modifiers. I have no idea about the baloon health or fire modifiers, but 10 seconds of 15 stacks nearly destroys the whole baloon (witch doesen't quite add up to listed 1200 baloon health).
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A single hit with flare is 15 stacks of fire and that does 38DPS (8+2*the number of stacks) fire damage per second - before baloon modifiers. I have no idea about the baloon health or fire modifiers, but 10 seconds of 15 stacks nearly destroys the whole baloon (witch doesen't quite add up to listed 1200 baloon health).
Fire damage done by stacks has no modifiers for any components.
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No , I'm pretty certain that fire stacks use fire damage multipliers and that the initial stack does 8 fire damage per second and subsequent stacks do 2 fire dps.
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I don't think it does (for the multipliers, that is).
Can we get Eric's word on this?
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I don't think it does (for the multipliers, that is).
Can we get Eric's word on this?
He's on vacation. I'm pretty sure fire stacks get modified. How else does fire do damage?
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I don't think it does (for the multipliers, that is).
Can we get Eric's word on this?
He's on vacation. I'm pretty sure fire stacks get modified. How else does fire do damage?
The particles themselves do damage, along with the stacks they put down. Just like any other gun.
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Indeed, but working with the damage both giving and receiving today, I'm pretty sure that stacks hit harder on balloon than anything else, which would reflect the balloon damage bias. Plus, it's been said in the past (can't find citation) that fire stacks are fire damage proper.
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Anything on Spires? Honestly, spires are either Bad or OK. And when it is OK it is actually GREAT. But the enemies will always be Perfect in the spires eyes.
Despite a ship like pyramedion having bad menouverability can still outrun a Spire in a vertical fight. Or Outwin. Going up and under ships then kiting them is difficult on its own. But incredibly difficult on half the maps. If you compare all its advantages vs its disadvantages, the spire will just have more disadvantages that pop out.
And by the maps, im talking about vertical space, maps with tight spaces. Etc. Maps with low vertical space (Fromm ground to maximum sky) can make the spires jump. When the baloon is upgraded, then from the ground hydrogen yourself and go up. You will sky rocket above the maximum hight. However. It only works on low vertical maps with baloon upgraded + Hydrogen.
AI do better than players on the spire also, engineers move around the spire like buttah and get to everything quite quickly, while players need to form a formation, one top one bottom.
AI also do great as gunners. They simply hit the target with difficult sniper weapons such as the mortar or the flak. Players always miss.
It has 2 guns in the front. The right gun can aim forward only with the artemis, and the left gun (Lower left gun) is just a bonus that barely does a thing. So flare it is.
Now this is my stupid fix to make the spire more of a glasscannon if they dont buff his maneuver. Cause honestly, either make its maneuver better so that baloon upgrade will be like hydrogening or chuting down. Or. Bend the Right gunner position to aim forward. So that it can have 2 sniper guns on the upper. And the lower left one able to be able to aim alot more to the right. This can open up more builds for close range, sneaky spires aswell.
Other than that. Spire needs a buff.
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Ok, not to get off topic, but AI are worse at everything (this is probably intentional). When you start to play with experienced players you will become loathsome of anytime you don't have an all human crew.
That being said the Spire's right gun has been turned forward, which is why you can now aim almost any gun into a trifecta except another mercury (also quite intentional).
I enjoy winning with a spire when I do but man is it ever a glass cannon. When it get's ignored or has positional advantage it can do incredible dps in the right hands, when it get's focused....
Not sure what the Spire needs. It's in many ways the best it's ever been, but in other ways it's worse for the 1.2 changes. It definitely has the ability for incredible dps but when the physics changed, it made the spire into a giant ramming practice dummy.
I'd like to see perhaps the right gun turned another 5 degrees to start with, then go from there. It's close to being competitive but since it can't really dodge anymore it's not only become more powerful but also far more fragile.
The game still has a lot of evolution to its balance and I think awkm is carefully dialing in the Spire. I see it as being almost there, and should make it all the way pretty soon.
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Quick question before moving on to the Spire: Have we heard anything about the Junker's turn speed being intentional with this patch?
On to the new Spire. She seems to do well on 3v3/4v4 maps where her allies can tie up foes before her later arrival and mass devastation. Unfortunately, you rarely ever get the opportunity to trinity against a decent adversary. I know as a captain, if I see a Spire I normally crack an evil smile and crack the poor ship in a second. Even moreso now with the angle change to the starboard gun, which extends the rear blind spot slightly more to the right which compounds with the turn reduction on the vessel.
She's definitely much more of a threat, albeit glass by all cards played if attacked by a proper loadout.
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Quick question before moving on to the Spire: Have we heard anything about the Junker's turn speed being intentional with this patch?
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,767.0.html
I am fairly sure it was intentional as they list the Junker turn speed as the second fastest.
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So it is ???. That's somewhat concerning considering it's a common trifecta ship that runs broadside with a low profile hull. You'd think a balloon that size would act as a giant windsail and greatly hamper the turning rate of the ship. Considering you only need about 70-80 degrees of angle compared to other ships, it just feels too easy to keep your guns on target with an inherently efficient combination compared to the 3rd in line's: The Goldfish, which most often runs a role of support ship rather than a brawler due to the odd angle to achieve two guns on target IF her guns can turn far enough to achieve a perpendicular bifecta.
You can see clearly how rugged the ship is from the cogs.. Just look at week 8. I understand that its survival has a lot to do with on board engineers, but also the profile of the broadside hull. From gunning I can say from medium range her profile is quite narrow compared to other ships and I commonly see flak fly between the balloon and the hull touching nothing on what otherwise would have littered the ground with spare parts.
Don't get me wrong here, I love the ship and her capabilities. However, the current state of the ship feels too agile for the firepower one can bring to bear. I think being able to bring 3 guns on target mere seconds after a full blindside is a little too much compared to the closest competitors on the list and their loadout capabilities.
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The junker honestly needs that turning to be competitive against a pyra. Keep in mind that performing a trifecta means no one is repairing. Its not something to be sustained under heavy fire.
Also, of your armor goes down on a junker, you better start praying. You could hit a fly and it would take half that hull away.
Further, you have to turn a broadside and get crew on those guns to get the carnage started. For a pyra, you point the ship forward and you have two guys up there ready all the time. It needs that fast (yet slow to accelerate) turn to get guns facing.
For a Goldfish, that heavy gun is the main gun, and itll be doing 95-100% of your dps and killing. Trying to get a bifecta on that is hard, and usually not worth it. The side guns should compliment the front one, so that you can use it some, then finish with the main. That's my way of going about it anyway.
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Chrinus brings some excellent points to the table. Maybe the Junker needs a makeover, because it seems far too big to turn that fast with three engines.
Trifecta on the Junker is unachievable basically with sustained balloon killers or gat fire, which further reinforces the gat/flak meta. With the new 5-forward medium gun emplacement ship coming out and recent ballooning depression reductions, and the need to drive at least a third gunner off of the Junker, the gat/flak meta is pretty much here to stay.
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Well, I actually really like where the Junker is with game balance right now but I don't think it would be unreasonable for the Spire to have a bit faster turn speed and a little more acceleration as well.
Now the Spire still turns and accelerates very well, and though I could be remembering this wrong, before the physics changes I recall the Spire being able to turn even faster. The Spire being the glass cannon currently does struggle (depending a lot on weapon loadout of course) if an enemy is able to effectively close. Giving it a slightly better ability to dodge rams and scuttle behind cover could help nudge the ship into the competitive meta.
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Don't forget the Junker is vulnerable to all disabling weapons due to its large balloon and concentrated components. Being ever so slightly extra resilient to the gattling gun and flak due to it's small hit box I believe is well balanced.
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Before 1.2 everybody was laughing at junkers only captains, but now junkers are actualy a viable ship in competitive meta. The narrow hull is one of the saving graces of the ship allong with the ability to repair hull armor from below, good acceleration and good turning speed - especialy contrasted to how fragile it is.
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I'm not out to rebuild the Junker. I like the ship and her design, strengths, and weaknesses. She's in a solid state overall, I agree. My only disagreement is with how unparalleled her ability to keep target is as a ship capable of wide converging arcs, it's a tough ship to get an approach angle on. On the other hand, a ship posing a fairly consistent threat forces pilots to adapt or conform, and those loving the other ships will assuredly bring new ideas into the game to counter them.
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I'm not out to rebuild the Junker. I like the ship and her design, strengths, and weaknesses. She's in a solid state overall, I agree. My only disagreement is with how unparalleled her ability to keep target is as a ship capable of wide converging arcs, it's a tough ship to get an approach angle on. On the other hand, a ship posing a fairly consistent threat forces pilots to adapt or conform, and those loving the other ships will assuredly bring new ideas into the game to counter them.
This, combined with its good armor are pretty much its only strengths. Remember how underpowered the Junker was before it was made extremely agile and tanky. That's its niche, now.
I think there are a few weapons with arcs wider than they strictly should be (artemis) but other than that, I don't perceive the Junker as overpowered. Remember the inherent tradeoff you get for having three crew on weapons.
The Spire may possibly deserve some more turn rate and acceleration. It should be the best in both of those categories, and it should be the best by a decent margin.
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The Spire may possibly deserve some more turn rate and acceleration. It should be the best in both of those categories, and it should be the best by a decent margin.
sorry but that destinction should ALWAYS bellong to the squid, for without it, it is absolutely NOTHING.
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The Spire may possibly deserve some more turn rate and acceleration. It should be the best in both of those categories, and it should be the best by a decent margin.
sorry but that destinction should ALWAYS bellong to the squid, for without it, it is absolutely NOTHING.
Oh, yeah, my bad. This is definitely true, to the point where I sort of assume it to be true. Aside from the Squid, the Spire should have the best turn rate. :p
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I'm going to spend a lot of time with the good ol' Spire this week to wrap my head around what it needs since it feels like it could still use a tad more love.
My current line of thinking is with NikolaiLev in that it would definitely benefit from faster turning (like in pre 1.2) and a bit more acceleration.
I also think it wouldn't hurt to turn the right gun forward an additional 5 degrees to give it a slightly easier time making the trifecta so that more light guns are viable in the right weapon slot.
Since the Spire is so incredibly fragile, I don't think any of these changes would unbalance the game, and could hopefully start creeping the Spire to the point where people would start being scared to go against one rather than thinking about the easy point on the board they usually provide.
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Also, the Spire should get a bonus for ramming directly downwards. Because it would look awesome.
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Also, the Spire should get a bonus for ramming directly downwards. Because it would look awesome.
Heh... (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,517.msg18189.html#msg18189)
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The Spire may possibly deserve some more turn rate and acceleration. It should be the best in both of those categories, and it should be the best by a decent margin.
sorry but that destinction should ALWAYS bellong to the squid, for without it, it is absolutely NOTHING.
The squid's strait line speed and acceleration is more than enough to make it worth while. It doesn't need to be the fastest at turning, but it is a nice bonus. I don't think I am the only one who finds the squid a bit squirrely.
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I still find the lack of an effective close range all around weapon or disabling weapon the biggest issue. Flames used to serve that role quite well till they stopped being able to disable guns at all.
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I still find the lack of an effective close range all around weapon or disabling weapon the biggest issue. Flames used to serve that role quite well till they stopped being able to disable guns at all.
Combined with the fact a Flamer was made unreliable for setting things on fire, the Flamethrower was made entirely useless. A Gatling or even a Carronade is just better in every way at this point.
The Squid's speed is good, but it's not good enough to make it a good ship. I don't think the problem would be solved by simply giving it more speed, though, especially with how ridiculously good the ship is at Resource Race.
It needs more armor, first of all. It currently has 225 armor and 850 hull, or so. Give it 450 armor and 450 hull, instead, so it's better at hit and run.
Something needs to be done about its firepower, as well. I feel the nerf to Explosive damage was the biggest hit to its kill power (while the nerf to fire was an equally huge hit to its disabling power). There would need to be a weapon that deals both piercing and explosive damage, perhaps at a prohibitively close range. That, or it needs two front guns, or two side guns, or a gun on the forward-right (ala the Spire).
Giving it an extra weapon platform on the aforementioned position, instead of moving it, would actually do quite a lot for giving the ship utility and power. Alternatively, it could be given a heavy weapon on the side or rear, but I don't quite like that option as much.
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I don't think the squid needs anything near that radical for changes. It was actually competitive prior to 1.2.
The only difference was a little more maneuverability, hydrogen and effective carronades.
The low armor wasn't a problem since you could dodge once your armor dropped and eventually could position yourself for a disable.
All the ship needs is a bit more dodging capability and a close range weapon.
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Did we ever get a real solid answer on the balloon HP changes? Are the tooltips wrong on some of the captain tools or what?
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It's worth saying the current squid's value might explode once the minelayer enters the game, depending on how it works.
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Like in that other topics, my thoughts in a nutshell.
Goldfish :
With : nice to steear, the lone medium front weapon tends to push people to use the manticore, as it disables easily and its reload time let the steerer angle his side weapons quite effectively.
Against : interesting ennemy, the presence of the front gun makes for good and timely decisions when fighting it. Plus it's the ideal ship to counter engage when its attacking an ally
Pyramidion :
with : a simple but effective mechanic. The way the decks are made the side guns barely see use but that leaves place for some special weapons.
against : a bit annoying to fight, more lethal than a goldfish on average but the steering issue more than compensates
Galleon :
with : seldom used, a very "brick" feeling. Nice to manage to get those twin medium guns firing though.
against : once again interesting to fight, as it moves slowly and you really really want to engage it on bling angles.
Spire
with : I have a bad experience with this one. A huge firepower and less than enviable survability means you really need your crew to pucnh a pack very fast if you want to achieve something
against : a glass cannon, just hope they miss their shots, once chased, disabled, a really crunchy target.
Junker
with : the ship I do the most kills with, simply put a lethal weapon. Steering is quite sweet, you won't engage is crazy manoeuver most of the time. managing to keep the trifecta firing is a good feeling
against : the whole fire arc of this ship doesn't let much room for crazy tactics. You won't be disabled when engaging one but you may get hurt quite quickly. I really don't like attacking one with a lower range ship.
Squid
With : steering is a blast. I dunno if it's possigble to achieve two guns firing together. That means you must have something interesting as your "main gun" and it can difficult. I usually go with carnode, but against pyramidion, it feels utterly useless. lack of armor is fine balance wise, but that combined with the 4 engines being afar from each other can makes the enginners' life a hell.
against : can't say much. If some managed to blast your engines/baloon you're in for a long agony. Its an interesting foe anyway, the polar opposite of a galleon.
About the squid, I think the steering/armor is fine on itself. The engines positions are annoying for repairs and since speed is the weapon of the squid it's a relatively annoying issue. What I would appreciate most would be weapons arcs that cross a bit more. Like the front/side or back/side combos being available more often.
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Pretty good assessment uriak.
I'm waiting to see how mines and fire changes affect squid use but the carousel and flamethrower have always been excellent side guns for a Squid due to turning arc and disabling and the mine Launcher is an obvious choice for the rear gun so I'm expecting this ship to make a comeback.
As for the Galleon I've always seen that as an experts ship since it requires top level engineering, gunning, flying and a competent teammate to boot. When it has that though, it is an incredible force to be reckoned with.
The Spire, so tough to know what that one needs. It has a giant hit box and a super wimpy hull. More Maneuverability and maybe even more speed wouldn't hurt. I wonder if it would be possible though to give it a slightly more slender hit box. Right now it's almost impossible to miss.
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I'll always have a soft spot for the Spire, used to run around with the gat/hwacha combo (back when the heavy flaks ruled the skies) and absolutely demolished people with that build, provided I had a half-competent crew. It's still fun to pull it out sometimes, but yeah, I think most folk have realized just how squishy a spire is and immediately turn on it the moment it arrives into the fray.
I'm not sure what could be done about it that wouldn't be game breaking either, but it would be neat to have it have a resurgence of use like the Junker has gotten recently :)
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The poor Spire, I know I tend to target them when they are on the battlefield. I think they need to be able to turn on a dime. They aren't really streamlined to be fast, but they should be able to turn like nobodies business. This way as ships have to physically steer their ships around it, it can just spin in place and keep firing. I think also possibly giving it another medium gun wouldn't be game breaking. Whereas the galleon is the slow heavily armored weapons platform, the spire could be the lighter more agile weapons platform. It would take up more of a damage dealing support role, not going directly into the fray, but dealing out damage from a stationary position while a teammate chases to finish them off.
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I am an engineer aboard a pyra, I'm finding that out of all the ships I've been on it's by far the easiest to engineer, Using rubber mallet I can hit the hull and then all engines before the cooldown of the hull even expires, the only awkward thing is the balloon, which is solved by having another engineer... Anyone else think there's a balance problem here?
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It is balanced. It has horrendous turning and only functionally has combat effectiveness in the front and slight effectiveness on one side. Its a tank, not a god.
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I completely agree with you that it's balanced in terms of guns and piloting :) my concern was the massive ease with which it can be kept in good repair. Even under heavy fire a fairly inexperienced player (such as myself..) can keep it going.
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Well maybe you should give yourself some credit as a good engineer then, lol. More to the point though, the pyra is designed to have a main engie and a top engie. This obviously separates them, and forces one to carry a lot more workload. To compare, a goldfish keeps both the engineer's busy with repairs while the gunner does his thing. You couldn't keep a goldfish up with just one engie.
Regardless of it being easy to get to hull and engines, if your engines are down, and the hull is taking fire, as one engie you have a lot of choice there, where on a goldfish, two engies are running around fixing things simultaneously.
Clear as flak?
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The goldfish can still put out 100% of its firepower with two engineers camping a red hull, where as the Pyra looses 50% of its fire power under the same conditions. As a Pyra pilot I occasionally jump off the helm to help with the hull if it is about to go red. It is a very situational trick, but it has helped me win some slugging matches I would have other wise lost. It helps to cut out as much rotational momentum as possible and fly slightly in reverse before leaving the helm. Also screaming "Jesus take the wheel" over crew chat before you do this is always good for a laugh.
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Thanks Zill, that's cleared a lot up, didn't think about the fact that anything less than 2 gunners basically makes pyra useless :L And the reversing Pyra trick is a truly beautiful thing when done properly :D
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I think I should bring up the Spire again.
Right now I believe that the only 'viable' build is the Lumberjack sniper Spire, it's the only weapon that can keep enemies away from it while it can keep firing at them without fear of its fragile armor and hull going away in the blink of an eye.
Hwacha Spire, while it can work, is not as effective as one would believe and getting close range to the real battleships with a Spire is a deathwish for sure if the enemy has a clue.
Heavy Flak won't do it, it's not powerful enough for a single heavy weapon, it's a finisher and one Mercury on top deck can only do so much before the enemy storm rushes you and roflpwns your hull. (But I guess it also depents on your gunners a bit too much)
As hard as I try to manuverer, against competative pilots, only the Lumberjack was proven to be effective and Hwacha up to some point, so I just wanted to post my concern about my, I could say, favorite ship in this game. ( I absolutely adore its looks. )
Of course, that's just personal input, anyone agree?
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I have similar issues with the Spire, though I suspect as more medium guns are implemented we will see more guns suited to the Spire's role as a sniper.
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I have similar issues with the Spire, though I suspect as more medium guns are implemented we will see more guns suited to the Spire's role as a sniper.
My problem is, the Spire is already a decent sniper, it has 1 light and 1 medium gun facing forward, but it's manuvering lacks options, it can't keep distance because it's deadfully slow and while its turning speed is enough to keep your guns on the enemy while sniping, it's not enough when you want to quickly turn and run away, basically (and I realy hate to say this) if you get mean looks from your enemy you are probably going to blow up shortly after cause there is so much a pilot and his engineer can do to keep the Spire afloat. I just feel it's a bit to fragile for the speed it has.
For starters, at least if it's gonna keep being as fragile, I'd like to see it being more agile to support this weakness, or become a bit more survivable in the form of the hull requiring less strokes with a spanner to be rebuild, so you can tank a bit 'Squid Style'.
I have survived my fare share of difficult encounters with the Spire, but it was probably my enemy not being competent enough, I have abused Hydro, Vent, Tar and Kero to the max in order to achieve this and it's still not enough to keep us afloat sometimes.
Then again, I'm no game designer, so I might not be correct, but I still think the Spire right now is not where it should be.
Matadoring Pyra's all day is a hard job.
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Matadoring Pyra's all day is a hard job.
This quote earned you a Salute :P... in all seriousness, the spire has always been the support ship. Without a teammate assisting by cutting off anybody looking at you funny, then you're gonna have a bad day. This is hard in a 2v2, but in 3v3 it's pretty easy to accomplish (I'm excluding Polaris and their dual spire shenanigans). I'm not saying that the spire shouldn't be buffed, but that it should still keep the spire in that supporting role
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Perhaps if the Spire wasn't a damn spire it would be effective. I feel like if the ship were smaller or lacked the seemingly pointless rod going down then the ship's effectiveness would drastically increase. I always feel awkward when I kill a spire by ramming the meaningless and pointless spire of the spire. Surely it is not critical to the ship.
Doing that will give the ship some of that Junker hardiness from there being less hull to shoot as many of the shots will hit the components.
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Maybe the spire comes off when it takes heavy damage? The ships already change looks with damage, why not this? It would not help overall survivability much, just keep it from being so easy to hit.
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Matadoring Pyra's all day is a hard job.
This quote earned you a Salute :P... in all seriousness, the spire has always been the support ship. Without a teammate assisting by cutting off anybody looking at you funny, then you're gonna have a bad day. This is hard in a 2v2, but in 3v3 it's pretty easy to accomplish (I'm excluding Polaris and their dual spire shenanigans). I'm not saying that the spire shouldn't be buffed, but that it should still keep the spire in that supporting role
Hah! Thanks.
And I agree with you, the Spire should remain a support ship. My personal opinion is that if it could turn faster than a Squid, it would be more than fine. If not faster at least equally fast. It is slow, fragile and all its components are exposed, so I believe having the turning rate be the thing of this ship would be wonderful.
But that's just me.
Also dual Spire is suprisingly ( in a very silly way ) effective, heh.
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I like pairing a double gat Pyra with a hwachafish for that one two punch that can kill a ship in a clip and a half. With the changes to the top right gun a single Spire a can match the firepower of one of the most effective ship combinations in the game. If the spire was more survivable in a brawling roll it would quickly dominate the game.
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I like pairing a double gat Pyra with a hwachafish for that one two punch that can kill a ship in a clip and a half. With the changes to the top right gun a single Spire a can match the firepower of one of the most effective ship combinations in the game. If the spire was more survivable in a brawling roll it would quickly dominate the game.
Yeah, for better or for worse, the Spire is realy fragile and can not afford to go Hwacha-DoubleGats without a realy competent teammate to take advantage of its immense firepower and even then a Mercury Pyra can destroy it easily. I realy have no idea how to balance this ship.. and I want it to be realy good cause I just love how it looks, it has that awesome junkyard style to it.
Oh well. We'll see in the future.
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A spire's survivability in a 2v1 is the lowest of any ship in the game. The squid can run, and everything else can tank better. However the double gat manticore can work in a 1v1 since the manticore's first volly has a hight probability of taking down the enemy's guns. Of course if you get in a 1v1 these days you are most likely fighting noobs and could survive in almost anything. I take the spire out when my team is on a winning streak and feel like giving the other side a fighting chance.
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Hell, even the Squid can tank to a certain extent when under fire, thanks to the swift hull rebuild. The Spire is the only ship in the game that can't really tank at all, it can't move quickly at all, and it's an enormous target. The high firepower simply isn't worth it.
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Hell, even the Squid can tank to a certain extent when under fire, thanks to the swift hull rebuild. The Spire is the only ship in the game that can't really tank at all, it can't move quickly at all, and it's an enormous target. The high firepower simply isn't worth it.
Sunderland pretty much summed it up in a better way that I could ever do myself x3
The Spire realy needs something going for it that isn't a 'glass cannon ship' cause those are almost never worth it unless you have lots of teammates to protect you. This means the Spire will always be locked to a 3v3 game and upwards unless you are fighting less experienced enemies than you. Which makes me sad. Spire either needs to be faster or tank better for how big a target it is. (Also turn faster)
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In my opinion; an increase in turn speed, and increase in acceleration, moving the right gun arc more toward the front (without allowing a mercury to make trifecta but perhaps allowing a mortar) and reducing the hit box would be a good place to start.
This will allow the Spire to dodge rams, take less hits, and make it much easier to make captain Trifectas. Even with all of this the Spire likely would not rise to top tier but it may make it more competitive.
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Made a thread for Spire discussion to keep this thread tidy, since I think a lot of people will chime in on it.
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1419.0.html