Goldfish side-gun arcs

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I totally support your efforts Zill. Give the Fish 2 forward or semi forward arcs with one more backwards. Or at least enough of an arc where a fish doesn't have to turn as bad to get a gat/shee on.

Flakfish wasn't a horror, it was some of the best fun this game ever had. Just charge on in blasting with twin barrels. Get in close enough so you can see the enemy crew running to the hull in a panic..then boom boom...squish! You got to kill them...it was very gratifying.

[Skrimskraw]

there is no harm in testing this.

[RearAdmiralZill]

there is no harm in testing this.

And this is my big stick. I really want to test this in dev app to see what can come of it.

I agree that the goldfish could use a little love atm.
Nerfing the artemis put aside (disable kills goldfishes), tilting the side guns slightly forward might be a good approach.
Currently the fishy flight style the goldie is supposed to be flown with is relatively rarely seen ingame. Personally, especially when flying a carro-fish, I often tend to rather keep my front pointed at my enemy than letting my engineers toy around with our side weapons. That's mostly because carro fishes often chase their enemies and hence would risk to loose the upper hand when it comes to positioning if the enemy isn't chased at full speed, which is following it while directly pointed to it. tilting the guns a bit to the front might encourage pilots to strafe enemies a little bit more than they do at the moment.
I personally don't want to see drastic adjustments like those which have been made for the spire, but a rather minor adjustment like a tilt of 10°. I also think tilting a single side gun would be better than tilting both - to prevent builds like lumber+dual arte or carro + dual banshee trifectas.

And this is precisely my mindset with this potential change for the goldie. I do not want overly-easy overlaps. A goldfish on a strafing run would be quite the potent sight. One cant forget that the goldie is a very engie heavy ship. It's real nice having two engies running around not worrying about side guns since half the time they don't have arc anyway. Now you would take one away to do a strafe run and it suddenly gets much more risky. The goldfish's armor is light to be frank (plus the large space between hull and balloon), and I think that will offset the added firepower if they just sit and keep two guns going. Even at long range, they would have to make themselves a larger target to get the bifecta going.

[Nidh]

What about a third light hardpoint, perhaps near the helm facing forward? Hard to access but extremely effective?

[Spud Nick]

I don't see how turning gun arcs will make the fish more competitive. I think it has more to do with the design of the ship and the lack of heavy weapons in the game. It's a support ship a disabling ship.  Not a brawler or sniper.

I do like the idea of faster rebuilds on heavy guns. Maybe reduce the hit box too.

[Captain Smollett]

^ think it may be time to request this for dev app

[Thomas]

I like the idea of tilting the guns forward slightly. Personally I'd like them both tilted forward, because I'm a sucker for symmetry, but I wouldn't start throwing things if it became asymmetrical.

Overall I don't think it will make the goldfish a competitive ship. It's actually a fairly large target with low armor, low damage potential and a poor layout for engineers. Competitive ships tend to be ships with high armor (for the buff) and at least a trifecta (junker, spire, galleon, and to a lesser extent the pyra). Even with better gun angles, it's still lacking in damage and survivability.

Although it will make the ship a lot easier in casual play, especially for newer players. I often see them fail to utilize the main gun with a side gun, often relying on one or the other while ignoring the rest. Tilting them forward would emphasize the potential for overlapping arcs, or at least make the ship need least rotation to transition between them.

[Spud Nick]

You know that the side guns are not even already Thomas. One is higher than the other.

[The Djinn]

I'd definitely favor a slightly asymmetrical angle to the guns as, in the case of a captain or crew without a mic it makes it easy to tell which set of guns is the primary combat set. It also helps counterplay as the Goldfish will have a side which is definitely stronger, allowing opposing ships to stay on the side with the weaker bifecta if their pilot is skilled enough.

If they both face forward I see the potential of a Hwacha/Gatling/Mortar Goldfish being alarmingly effective: Hwacha for the disable, spin *slightly* right and Gatling the hull almost down, pivot back to Hwacha for the hull break and secondary disable, and finish with the Mortar. I'm actually a little concerned at the ease of doing this if both side guns face forward, given the maneuvering advantage the Goldfish has over the Spire, which is the only other ship capable of brining a heavy weapon along with a Gat/Mortar combo.

So my suggestion would be to angle either the port or starboard gun forward somewhere between 25 and 45 degrees.