Messages

1

The Docks / Re: Zill's Merry Men

« on: April 01, 2014, 05:15:57 pm »

In Game Name: N-Sunderland
Steam Name: N-Sunderland
Preferred Class: Gunner
Secondary Class: Pilot
Tertiary Class: Spectator
Quaternary Class: There's another class?

A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?

The penguin pulls off his mask, revealing that HE IS ACTUALLY A DUCK!!! He then runs away from Zill and starts quacking maliciously in a corner.

Not sure if april fool's joke or not...

2

The Lounge / Re: Introducing the new CAs!

« on: September 13, 2013, 04:55:02 pm »

Hi, my CA application was accepted recently, so thought I'd introduce myself.

I'm naufrago. You may recognize me if you've ever fought Zill the past several months, since I'm typically main engi on Shinkurex's boat, or do whatever needs doing on Zill's boat if Shink isn't around. As part of MM, I'm pretty active in the competitive scene. I don't post on the forums too often, but when I do, it's typically flare-related.

As for irl, my name is Nick. Currently taking a break from university, but when I start up again I intend to study to be an accountant. Video games are my #1 hobby, and I like to think I'm quite good at most anything I play. I also enjoy watching certain youtubers occasionally, typically those on the Polaris network. I like nerdy things in general.

I also have a tendency to be blunt, but I'll probably have to hold my tongue a bit now, eh...

3

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 11, 2013, 08:57:09 pm »

As I mainly play the engineer role I tend to do a lot of clicking.  I'm worried that one day I'll get RSI from all the repetitive clicking at some point and have to stop playing this game. 

To be fair there already is a click and hold function for continuous hits.

I think a lot of people don't realize this because the timing of the rebuild hits don't match up with the animations. Like, if you tap the left mouse button when rebuilding a part, it animates each swing that rebuilds the meter, but if you just hold the button it still rebuilds at the same pace but the spanner/wrench/whatever doesn't match up with the "ticks." At least, that's what it is from what I can tell.

At least for rebuilding it does *not* actually click as fast as a person. If you click and hold it clicks every x amount of milliseconds but the problem is there is no cool down for rebuild. So if you can somehow click once every millisecond you can rebuild the hull in like 10milliseconds (like when two or three engineers all rebuild a hull at the same time...no cool down).

I accidentally let our ship die yesterday experimenting with this. "Wow, this rebuild seems slower... oh my god it definitely is! HURRY HURRY HURR- BOOM" hahaha

Clicking rapidly rebuilds things faster than click-and-holding, but it by no means rebuilds as fast as you can click. If it could, my ships would never die, ya know, since I can click 12 times per second. There's a small cooldown, a little less than a second, before the next tool swing registers.

4

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Heavy Harpoon

« on: September 11, 2013, 08:38:32 pm »

How about this instead:

Dual Heavy Harpoon. Fires two shots, one after the other. Rather than the cable being attached to the gun, it is attached between the two heavy harpoons.

Usage: Fire first harpoon at one enemy (or friendly?) ship, then target and fire the second harpoon on another ship. It ties the two ships together.

I'd personally use a heavy harpoon to leash an enemy ship to a building or rock.

5

Gameplay / Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull

« on: September 09, 2013, 05:13:26 pm »

Any time I throw any kind of a cooldown on a squid hull, it spells immediate armor death.

This is a big part of my argument in favour of the mallet. Let's say you're under gat fire for example. Buffed gat does 127.5 armour DPS if all shots hit. It'll take just under two seconds to take the 230 armour down. Let's say you get approximately an optimal wrench hit (when 120 armour damage has been dealt). First it'll take about a second for the gat to bring it down to that level. Then after your wrench hit, it'll take about two seconds for the gat to finish your armour. That's three seconds from first gat hit to the armour break. Now try the mallet. An optimal mallet hit would be just before the armour hits 0. So that's almost two seconds before you make your first hit. Then it'll take almost two seconds for it to bring you down to 0 armour. Four seconds armour uptime. In addition, the optimal hit coming later means that you get more spanner time in. The mallet also helps immensely on balloon repairs.

Also, you can try different numbers (unbuffed gat, greased gat, gat with a couple of shots missing per second...), but no matter which way you put it, the mallet gets superior armour uptime, and comes with the benefit of being better at repairing other components.

That's assuming consistent hits. Depending on the skill of your pilot and the skill of the enemy gunners, those hits may not be consistent, which means that the overhealing + 9sec cd means that your armor might drop when you otherwise would be able to keep it up a few seconds longer with spanner + wrench.

6

The Docks / Re: CakeWatch: On Patrol.

« on: September 09, 2013, 03:54:19 pm »

It's 9 o'clock. Do you know where your Cakes are? #CakeWatch

7

Gameplay / Re: Rapid Fire - Left Click

« on: September 09, 2013, 03:36:50 pm »

Well, i can click 12 times per second when I need to, and I have pretty good timing regardless, so I wouldn't get much benefit from a script like that. =p Clicking once every 83ms isn't as good as once every 30ms, but it's good enough for me. I can count the number of times those 53ms would have saved me on zero hands. (Actually, there might have been one time where it could have saved me, but that's about one out of a few thousand times)

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Gameplay / Re: Firing mechanism and damage explanation

« on: September 09, 2013, 03:22:06 pm »

So does that explain why, instead of needing to lead targets, the gatling actually needs to fire behind them? (if you're both traveling in the same direction) I've always wondered about that since, as you said, it's very counter-intuitive.

In the case where you're both traveling the same direction and not turning, yes.

Why are Raycast weapons treated this way?

The devs made sure that all the guns inherit the velocity of their ship properly. Unfortunately, that doesn't work too well for raycast weapons. Oops.

9

Gameplay / Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull

« on: September 09, 2013, 12:43:05 am »

I've been thinking about mythbusting the wrench on Squid thing for a while now... I need to get around to looking at that in more detail.

On a Squid, if you're taking accurate gat fire consistently, I think I'd actually agree with you that mallet would be better since a gat can strip the armor during the 5sec cd of the wrench. However, with the overhealing of the mallet and inconsistent incoming damage, that 9sec cd can be brutal. Imo, it depends on how good the enemy gunners are and how good your pilot is.

EDIT: Although if you buff the hull, you can completely, or almost completely, mitigate the overhealing. Hm.... normally I wouldn't think it's worth buffing the hull of a squid since it increases the rebuild time by one whack, but a full mallet hit might be worth it. Hard to say.

10

Gameplay / Re: Firing mechanism and damage explanation

« on: September 09, 2013, 12:26:43 am »

So why does the Raycast line get crooked when the ship the gun is fired from is moving?

To the best of my understanding, it has to do with relative velocities and how they're kind of ignored with raycast weapons. While a raycast weapon travels near instantaneously, it's treated as though it has a finite muzzle velocity, and follows the path it would take if it actually travelled with that finite velocity. It just travels along that path near instantaneously.

So let's say your raycast gun has a muzzle velocity of 200m/s. If you're moving up at a rate of 5m/s and your target is 600m away, you will need to aim 15m below where your target actually is in order to hit it (EDIT: Because it would take 3 secs for the weapon to travel 600m with a muzzle velocity of 200m/s, so 5m/s * 3s = 15m). The thing is, your opponent's velocity doesn't matter for the gatling. You could both be moving up at 5m/s such that your relative velocities are 0m/s, but you'll still have to aim 15m below it to hit. It's fairly counterintuitive, and kind of ignores physics in that regard.

The devs made sure that all the guns inherit the velocity of their ship properly. Unfortunately, that doesn't work too well for raycast weapons. Oops.

NOTE: I could be wrong about some aspects, it's been a while since I've actually fired a gatling. I did jump into the sandbox real quick to test my theory, though, and I think it checks out.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Social list

« on: September 07, 2013, 07:49:08 pm »

Pretty sure it's ordered first by "Who is online and in a game", followed by "who is online", and then "who is offline". The order of the names within those sections seems to be determined by the order in which you added them to your list of friends. So it is in an order, just not the one you would probably expect =p

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The Lounge / Re: What did you name YOURSELF and why?

« on: September 07, 2013, 07:00:33 pm »

The history of my name starts with when I played FFXI. I tried coming up with something with 'frag' in the name that sounded vaguely medieval. Eventually I came up with 'Fragimer,' which I continued to use for years, taking the name with me to WoW and other games.

After a few years, though, I grew a bit tired of the name since I'd had it for a while and wasn't completely satisfied with it (although looking back now, Fragimer's actually not a bad name, so I may use it some more). I tried coming up with something that included the word 'frag' (since I got used to be being called 'Frag' for short) and, ideally, started with the letter 'n' (my first name is Nick, like Sunderland actually). I was also hoping to include something spanish-y sounding, since I'm half-mexican (but in looks and upbringing, I'm basically a suburban white male). Lucky for me, during a spanish class in high school, I was just sort of flipping through the 'N' section of a spanish-english dictionary when I spotted the word 'náufrago'. It was perfect for me!

náufrago- shipwrecked person, castaway.

I didn't change the names of any of my existing characters, but pretty much all of my online names since finding 'naufrago' have been some variation of that word. It also helped that it's a fun pun for several of the games I played or play (EVE online, GOIO).

So yeah, if you see me around, feel free to call me 'Frag' or 'Frago'. It's what I'm most used to. I do respond to people calling me 'Nau', but it's not preferred. I also tend to not capitalize my name. No particular reason, I just prefer it that way.

EDIT: I should note that it's actually kinda hard to get the name 'naufrago' sometimes, since some spanish-speaking folks like that name too. Guess it should be kinda expected when you use a word out of a dictionary as your username.

13

The Lounge / Re: That Moment When...

« on: August 22, 2013, 06:36:38 pm »

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious XD

And unless the low res is deceiving me, there's also a town called "Naufrago"

Isn't there actually a place called Sunderland? Atleast I know I've seen some kind of booze with the name.

Yep, it's in England.

It looks like it says Naufrage. E instead of O.

All right, so we've got a city named after the French word for shipwreck... Huh...

Well, naufrago is spanish for 'shipwrecked person', so it's possibly coincidental that they named it that. I'll still tell people I have a town named after me, though, 'cause that would be awesome.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new ammo type, plus a couple gun improvements

« on: August 22, 2013, 04:34:49 pm »

I like this for a couple reasons. Primarily it helps out artemis and banshee, two guns which I think everyone can agree are underused right now. Secondly, as you said, outside of its niche the ammo isn't as useful as other ammo types, which gives more incentive to take a gunner, so that you can get maximum effectiveness in this niche area. My only concern is that we need to make sure it fills the niche well enough so that people don't just ignore it completely. If it only provides a mild benefit in a wide area or a strong benefit in a tiny area, it might not be worthwhile. Hopefully it can do a bit of both.

Well, possible ways to tweak that are increasing shell life to 50%, making it reduce damage by -25% instead, etc. I couldn't really settle on exact numbers.

I'd reduce AoE or just not change it. That way you still need the skill index to use it. It should make it possible, not easier, to hit a long ranges.

The point of increased AoE is to benefit rocket weapons more than others.

Anything that benefits the Banshee or Flamer is alright with me!  I could picture myself using such a round, it's like a mix of heavy, lesmok and burst.

Yeah, the goal was something in between heavy and lesmok, with a pinch of burst to help out rockets.

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Feedback and Suggestions / A new ammo type, plus a couple gun improvements

« on: August 22, 2013, 04:24:07 pm »

Ammo to fill a niche
I was thinking of ways to use the Banshee effectively, and noticed a niche that wasn't filled by any of the current ammo types. There are ammo types for close range (greased, incendiary, heatsink), medium range (heavy, burst, charged), and extreme range (lesmok). That's just a generalization, but I'm using it to point out the niche, something between medium and extreme range for most guns. So, here are the stats of the ammo I'm suggesting-

+40% Shell Life, -50% Jitter, -30% Damage, +20% AoE radius [the exact values can be tweaked]

The goal with what I'm calling Galvanized Rounds (since I couldn't think of a better name and the name's less important to me than what it does) is to extend the effective range of certain guns without being the go-to ammo for most of them. If you value precision, you'll still want Heavy Clip. If you value damage or AoE, you'll want Charged or Burst. At close range, you'd be better off using normal ammo. This is just something to give those who value range without being overpowered at the extended range.

It's probably easiest to point out, gun by gun, what benefits from the ammo and which ammo types it competes with.

Guns that benefit
Artemis- One of the guns that benefits most from Galvanized rounds. The Galvanized rounds reduces damage, but increases the chance the AoE will hit stuff, and from farther out. The lack of increased muzzle velocity means that the gunner has to be really skilled to hit at its extended range. You'd still want Burst for anything within normal range, but Galvanized rounds provides a nice alternative.

Gatling- You'd still probably want heavy clip if you can only bring one ammo type, but a gunner could use Galvanized rounds to extend the range and be at least somewhat useful with it prior to the enemy entering heavy clip range.

Light Flak- Sort of competes with heavy clip, but you wouldn't get much use out of the extended range. Probably useless for this gun.

Flamethrower- Galvanized Rounds is pretty much a straight-up buff to the flamer. I think it'll be fine, though.

Carronades- I'm lumping them together because they benefit equally. If you care about precision and maximizing the damage of a carronade, Heavy Clip will likely remain the default ammo, but increasing the effective range at the cost of 30% damage provides an interesting alternative. A gunner who can bring multiple ammo types could bring both! Craziness.

Flare Gun- Including because it technically would benefit from the increased range and precision, but most folks wouldn't load special ammo in it anyway.

Mercury- At the ranges Galvanized rounds allows, you'd probably want lesmok. Probably useless in this gun.

Banshee- Another gun that heavily benefits from Galvanized Rounds. This should be no surprise since this is the gun I was trying to help most with the new ammo. Increased AoE radius, reduced jitter, and increased max range mean it can cause chaos from even farther away. It still requires a good gunner to hit at max extended range, though. It allows you to hit farther out, but other ammo like Burst or Greased would be better at closer ranges. Depends on your strategy.

Hwacha- Potentially interesting alternative to Heavy Clip. You won't hit as often compared to Heavy Clip, but each hit has an increased AoE radius. Not sure the jitter reduction would be enough to hit consistently at max extended range, though. Hard to theorycraft whether it would be worthwhile or not.

Heavy Flak- Needs extra range badly, so a skilled gunner could potentially use this to good effect. Probably not the buff it needs, though.

Mortar, Lumberjack, Harpoon, Mine Launcher- These guns don't really benefit from Galvanized rounds.

Why it isn't OP
At any other range outside its niche, there are superior alternatives, including normal ammo. Within its extended range, things are harder to hit (since it doesn't increase muzzle velocity or dropoff, and jitter is only reduced by 50%) and damage is reduced. It benefits the rocket weapons, flamethrower, and carronades the most, which are some of the least used weapons in the game.

Other suggestions
I'd like to see the banshee given 10-15 more explosive damage in the AoE component of its damage, and a .5 or so reduction to its jitter. It's a fairly underutilized weapon, and increased damage and accuracy would probably help it see wider adoption.

The Artemis could use a little more zoom to make it a bit easier to use (maybe increase to 2.5x zoom?). It's pretty difficult to use effectively with its current zoom levels.