Messages

526

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: At the edge of the map

« on: August 26, 2013, 05:17:19 am »

There's a similar problem on Duel at down. it's quite easy to get stuck at the north eastern arch (especially at the lower part).
Also some visiual indication for crossing the map border would be nice (eg a notification pop-up for the pilot - similar to the tutorial text fields). On some maps like rumble or duel at dawn the borders really aren't intuitive and seem to confuse new pilots on a regular basis.

527

Feedback and Suggestions / [feature request] primary and secondary key binds

« on: August 26, 2013, 03:51:38 am »

I'd like to change some of my keybindings. However I'm very used to my current settings and if I change them I'll most likely fall for my old habits and press the wrong buttons occasionally. Beeing able to bind multiple inputs for the same action would allow a smoother change.

528

Gameplay / Re: Possible Change to Squid

« on: August 24, 2013, 08:12:26 am »

I like to fly the squid occasionally, to toy around, but I barely ever pick it when I encounter serious opponents. While it's possible to stay out of enemies lines of fires in most CQC situations, it's very hard to bring two guns into arc at the same time and at the end of the day the squid simply lacks damage output. Currently I can't think of a Team Setup where the role of the squid can't be better fulfilled by another ship. The squid needs a little boost to become a viable choice for tough encounters.

As a possible approach, turning the side gun to the front popped into my mind as well. However I agree with those who say that a 45° side gun would ruin the flight style of the squid. What about turning the gun roughly 10° to the front (so the angle between front gun and side guns is 80° instead of 90°). That way maintaining a bifecta at the front would be significantly easier for a wide range of weapons which would ultimately result in more bang for bug when choosing the squid.
The rear gun could be turned slightly as well to still allow a 90° rear bifecta.

529

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: ship design thread

« on: August 22, 2013, 09:29:36 am »

Here's a concept for an intermediate ship which is supposed to cater ram/driveby playstyles:



The ship has 3 levels - one platform for the captain. stairs allow to travel to the mid deck which is mostly open-air. 1-2 guns and steering engines are located there. stairs are leading downwards to the lower deck at the front-right part of the ship which holds a heavy gun, a light gun, hull and the main engine. The Left side of the ship doesn't have any points of interest for the crew.

We've got a hull extremity at the front which supports precise rams with the hull. A heavy weapon is placed underneath it.
There are 2-3 weapons on the right side (the rear weapon could be turned further to the ships stern or cut entirely imo). If there are 3 guns on the side a trifecta should be very hard to maintain.
One of the side weapons slots should be usable to support the front weapons if a wide-angle weapon is used and if the ship doesn't approach an opponent directly.

The ship has a giant weak spot on the rear left consisting of hull (ships body and smoke pipes) Enimies positioned there are barely visible for any crew members.
For the captain the view in front and below is obstructed by the ships nose. The view to the top is obstructed by the balloon. He can't see anything to the rear left and he has got an excellent view to the right.


shield: 80%-100% pyra
hull: roughly Junker (should be killable with a single flak volley)
speed: somewhere inbetween mobula and pyra
maneuverbility: inbetween mobula and goldfish - closer to the mobula

530

Gameplay / Re: GUNS & GUNNER SKILLS Balance Discussion v1.3.1

« on: August 21, 2013, 03:00:22 pm »

I didn't read those numerous threads regarding weapon changes of the last patch. Still I want to word my 2 cents:

1. I don't like the lesmok change. Frankly I don't even know what your intention for the change has been (nerfing the mercury?). You've significantly nerfed an underused gun (heavy flak) and limited the ammos use for weapons where it was a balanced secondary pick (eg for the carronade) while further turning the mortar (which has been over used int 1.3.0 already) into a universial short - long range hull killer by makeing longe range shots even easier than they have been before.
With the current meta lesmok rounds are the 1st choice pick for alot of weapons - simply to allow hiting targets at ranges the guns weren't designed for (mortars and flamers in particular).
If I were to balance that ammo, I'd probably reduce their range extension to 50%, roll back their ammo reduction to the 1.3.0 value and decrease the damage dealt by it to 80-90% of the std. ammo. That way it'd still be a valid pick for alot weapons, due to the unique feature of range extension while coming along with significant drawbacks for all weapons (dmg reduction) without rendering the ammo useless for 2-shot weapons.

2. if you want to stick to your lesmok changes, the heavy flak needs a buff.

3. I want to see less mortars.

531

Gameplay / Re: Pyra being op?

« on: August 21, 2013, 01:58:35 pm »

I have strict role assignments on every ship I pilot... do other players not do this?

I think he means that the Pyra's roles are easier to explain and enforce. "You stay on the deck, you two get up on the catwalk and shoot" is easier to understand for a new player than "You sort of hover around the front of the ship, you hover around the middle (except when in combat, then you go to the side) and you sit on this tiny spot that will give you the optimal repair zone."

I spend a good amount of team each game during the pregame lobby setting positions.  Everyone knows which guns and components they're responsible for in which situations.  I then call crew members by name when posts need attention and chastise them when they leave their posts.  Eventually everyone learns to trust one another allowing all stations to be manned and increasing the efficiency of the ship substantially.

My point is it's WAY easier to organize an unknown crew on a pyra than it is on other ships. Let me elaborate it with two examples:

1. Junker - gat/flak gat double sniper:
You need to make sure that your gunner heads down and takes care of sniper + gat and claping the main engine occasionally - easy.
You want one engi to bring heavy for the front gat and one to bring charged rounds for the mercury.
During sniping the engi with heavy clips needs to take care of the repairs. once you engage enemies in close range he quickly needs to hop to the front gatling gun. During the first seconds of the encounter the engineer with charged rounds is responsible for the repairs (including hull) to allow the second engineer to continue hull stripping. The engi with charged rounds needs to keep track of the battle to jump to the flak just in the moment where it's needed. Depending on the battle situation either the heavy clip engineer or the charged engineer needs to take care of the balloon and steering and/or hull repairs. Also repairing the hull from the front deck isn't intuitive and needs elaboration (and reminders during the match). Bottomline: It's not possible or at least not optimal to assign static roles to the engineers on a Junker. Their duties are rather complicated. Hence I prefer to fly the Junker with engineers I reckon to have some situational awareness.


2. Metamideon - gat mortar front:
You sent 2 people to the top and one on the lower deck and ensure that they bring the appropriate equipment. 2 people have got a very simple task - point 'n shoot hulls + clap the balloon during reload times - easy to teach. This grants some extra time to observe your main engineer to tweak his actions.
Clear, static and straight forward assignments for everyone. Easy to organize and easy to manage.

532

Gameplay / Re: Pyra being op?

« on: August 21, 2013, 12:49:50 pm »

I have strict role assignments on every ship I pilot... do other players not do this?

I think he means that the Pyra's roles are easier to explain and enforce. "You stay on the deck, you two get up on the catwalk and shoot" is easier to understand for a new player than "You sort of hover around the front of the ship, you hover around the middle (except when in combat, then you go to the side) and you sit on this tiny spot that will give you the optimal repair zone."

That's what I mean. Especially the engineering aspect requires more situational awareness on other ships. The only "hard" role on a pyra is taking care of the maindeck, imo.

In my experience the Squid's the optimal ship for Anglean, since there isn't really much combat happening.

1 vs 1 encounters happen frequently

533

Gameplay / Re: Pyra being op?

« on: August 21, 2013, 09:24:25 am »

I think the main reason why we see the Pyra as often as we do, is that it's a ship wish can be organised very easily. If I pilot unknown crews I usually pick the Pyra first and move on to other ships later on. The strict role assignments which you don't have on any other ship provide a good enviroment to organise and get to know your people. Also it has got unique features which can be very annoying when engaging it - the well protected balloon and front guns. I have to admit that I wouldn't play it any less if its structural hull was reduced by 1/3.
Still I don't reckon it an overpowered ship in general. However the pyramideon clearly excels in Anglean Raiders, as there's no other ship which combines selfs sufficient killing power with speed. I can't think of a ship combination that might possibly be a better pick than 3 pyras for that map.

534

The Docks / Re: Quack Quack, it's Duck Time

« on: August 19, 2013, 05:36:24 am »

After roughly two weeks I've still failed to settle down in your pond. I assume that's mostly due to my lack of attendance to your events (the time-zone gap seems to be a biggie afterall). Anyway I currently don't see how to move on in your clan. At the same time I've met quite some non-duck player I play with on a regular basis and enjoy doing so. Hence I'll leave you and move back to my side of the big atlantic pond - I'll most likely search for another, EU-centered clan or found a new one.
I hope you don't hold any grudges.
Farewell

535

Gameplay / Re: CP matches since 1.3.1

« on: August 13, 2013, 12:40:01 pm »

I think there's an offset between the actual capture points and the position of the balloons on the map. E.g. The capture point on Labyrinth seems to shifted quite a bit into the south eastern direction of the balloon.

536

General Discussion / Re: Elite Costume level

« on: August 13, 2013, 08:17:51 am »

o_O 15, seriously?
I reckon 13 as de-facto lvl cap for people who refuse to outright grind for the sake of getting achievements in destined farming matches.
It Looks like I can give up the attempt to cover my pilot e-peen in fig leaf green

537

Gameplay / Re: CP matches since 1.3.1

« on: August 13, 2013, 07:40:52 am »

Did muse knowingly alter the capping mechanics? - as such isn't mentioned in the changelog, but capturing balloons clearly feels different now. I've yet to see a cp game where noone complains about not beeing able to claim ballons since the last patch.
here are a couple of pictures showing a failed labyrinth capture attempt: https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2023.0.html

Next time this happens, send us your log file.

Where to find it?

538

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Stop punishing high levels

« on: August 13, 2013, 07:24:45 am »

Ok, the "all enemy captains" objectives are being changed to "1 enemy captain," although the number of matches required may change depending on the achievement. Not sure when it will be live, but it's going in.

Ideally this should encourage high-level players to split up and lead opposing fleets of mixed levels, giving them a challenge and still letting lower-level players in on the fun without all being on the losing side.

Dominating matches against a high lvl pilot with a powder monkey partner flying off to la-la-land isn't an achievement, imo. I prefer the previous requirements as they're more meaningful and not impossible to achieve afterall. Especially with the recently introduced party and prelobby system it's easy to just grab the core players of your team if your matches run well and to look for a challenge with those guys (eg by joining a clan training session). I'd rather like to see the repeat count of those achievements to be reduced than the number of pilots. Another promising alteration of those achievements might be to use the average player level of the opposing team instead of the pilots level.

Perhaps something a bit more interesting like:  Weapons master (with so many ways to kill, why choose?) - kill 3 enemies with 3 different methods in the same match 50 times, or Brinksman (the greatest victories happen at the doorstep of defeat) kill 50 enemies while your armor is broken.

Good suggestions! I'd love to see more interesting achievements which support unconventional playstyles rather than dull buff x parts objectives. Just make sure that you keep the repetition count for those achievements low - I regarded my 5 harpoon kills are a refreshing deversion. 20 would have been a nuisance.

539

The Docks / Re: Quack Quack, it's Duck Time

« on: August 06, 2013, 07:41:50 am »

Duck Summit 7pm EDT Tuesday 08/06. Attendance optional, it's an update on a few Duck projects in the works.

sounds like a good time to hop into your pond.
Feel free to invite me to your steamgroup and to send me your ts-server password via forum/steam/ingame pm!

In game name: Wundsalz
location/time zone: Germany/UTC+2
availability: as a student I'm pretty much free to play whenever I want to. that beeing said, rl comes first.
Class choice from best to worst: captain, engi, gunner -  I really feel comfortable with any role though. I've only got aversions against a couple of guns - gats in general, artemis in certain ship slots, hwachas on spires/fishes.
mic: yes
Teamspeak: yes
favorite ship to captain: I'm used to pilot junkers, goldfishes and pyras. I also toy around with galleons and squids occasionally. I dislike the manta.
steam name: Wundsalz
Current team: none

540

Community Events / Re: Cog structure overhaul suggestion: planetary gearing

« on: July 29, 2013, 05:03:05 pm »

what if the outer ring had 4 slots instead of just 3 so there could be 2 newcommer battles, and 2 advancement battles

I can't estimate how huge the need for additional newcomer slots is at the moment. I've designed the diagram above in order to roughly match the current cogs size (current system: 9regular slots+2newcomers, suggested system: 11regular slots+1 newcomer). If there are significantly more crews interested in entering the cogs than there are slots, adding an additional newcomer segment in between the transition slots sounds like a good idea - this way the teams in the B-League had to change in between defending their place in the cogs and having the opportunity to advance in  a weekly cycle.
The only downside I see is that the change would harm the matchmaking, as the matches to advance from the B-League into the transition gear could repeat in a 4-weekly cycle (with the diagram above we'd have a 6weekly cycle). If the size of the clanscene can handle it, I think it'd be better to add a 3rd newcomer slot while we're at it, as that'd result in a 10 weekly cycle.

As for the pauses:
I personally don't think they're really needed, as losses in the suggested system are way less dramatic compared to the current system. If you loose a match at any position you just need to win the next encounter to get the opportunity to retake your former position the week afterwards.*
If pauses really had to be integrated I can currently think of two solitions for this system and none of them are nice:
1. One could add empty segments to the league or transition gears, but that'd result in a frustrating experience for the players who miss their chance to advance on that day.
2. Introduce official pause days where the gears stop to rotate.

*The only exceptions are the champions match (if the champ looses he has to defend twice before beeing able to reclaim his former title) and the first B-League vs Transition match after the newcomer slot where the looser of the game can try to advance in the next week again.