Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

[Echoez]

  Yes this is me again and this is an other thread about the Mercury. I did some research, not sure how many have done the same but I reached a single conclusion which was the exact different from the one I had before.

  Some people might remember how I wanted to take the piercing damage of the Mercury and give it to the Artemis, letting the Mercury only do shatter damage. Well, I have to admit, I was gravely wrong to think so, not only would that probably break both guns, but it would mess up a lot of things while solving very few.

 So here is the interesting part. The Mercury, at least for me, is considered broken cause of its ability to do some severe long range and mid range disabling, pierce armor with more than above average results at range and also chip away at your permanent hull at an impressive rate.

The Current Mercury will do:

172.5 Armor damage per shot and 45 Perma Hull damage per shot with the default ammo and no buffs.

It will also instantly disable any component you shoot at and with some positioning and right ammo choices, might even knock out multiple parts.

The funny thing is, that 30 out of that 45 points of damage on the hull come from the ridiculous ammount of shatter damage it deals (Merc Shatter damage * Hull modifier = 30 ), instant component disables are no fun either.

Its Piercing damage, despite high, does a pitiful 15 points of damage per shot on the perma hull, making it negligible.


Now if you take out the ridiculous Shatter and only leave the Piercing you get something like this:

112.5 Armor damage and 15 Perma Hull damage per shot. (Could be tweaked to be a bit more to compesate for the Shatter loss)

A specialized gun that softens up armor from a disance, can not kill on its own and allows more charging opportunities for ships like the Goldfish and more positioning places for a ship like the Spire. Cause now their guns can actually soak up the damage it does.

With that said, an Artemis with Lesmok is an amazing disabler that will be utilized more for the longer range disables, it gets 3 shots with that ammo type all of which have a wide explosion radius.

Don't ask why. My internet was down for 3 days and while I was trying to get it back up and running ,including walking long distances, waiting on the phone for 45 mins and getting screamed at by random post office ladies, the only thing I could think of was GoIO maths, so I did some more of them.

Still not sure everyone will agree with this, oh yeah, Zill and Smollett, you are both invited to post btw, I need my devil's advocates, what do you think of this?

(Also Sunderland will probably hate me for this..)

[Zenark]

If anything, I would think keeping the shatter and lowering the piercing damage a little would be better. Without that shatter, the LJ becomes OP since only an Artemis would be able to take it down at a long range. This would make matches in Canyon Ambush ridiculous if the canyon team (forget the color) decided to camp and snipe, no one would be able to disable their LG or Flak. The Atemis is good, sure, but hitting with it is tough since without a scope, the slightest hand movement would take you off target, being that ships that far away are only a couple pixels big.

I do think the Merc is a bit too powerful, but I love it fur it's shatter more than its pierce.

[Echoez]

The Artemis could use some more zoom. With Lesmok it has around 1600+ meters range.

Piercing needs to stay on the Merc cause you need a long range piercer.

Canyons Red spawn is poor map balance, fix the map, not the weapons. It's like saying that taking out the Shatter from Merc makes LJ OP in Dunes cause of the range, well, Dunes is the wrost map in the game as far as map design goes, simply cause it is a beginner map with very VERY few obstructions.

On any other map, unless you decide to blindly charge the open areas, there is more than enough places to disable a Galleon from afar. Plus they won't be able to take out your guns as easily either so you get more of a shot to them.

Also getting your guns disabled in one shot is something detrimental to the receiver's experience because there is little (if nothing at all) he/she can do to prevent it.

[Zenark]

I agree that it still needs piercing, but getting rid of shatter takes out the point of it being a sniper. You might add well remove the scope since you don't have to really aim for anything, just hit the hull. It takes away the skill required to use it and would it make it boring to use.

As for dunes, I don't think it's a bad map, just exploitable like any map. Not every game is competitive and not every match has snipers. Though that's a different topic.

[Echoez]

Hitting hull at longer range is still hard to do without the scope, unless you are saying that you can aim at the semi-visible ships at long range without the ridiculous zoom, in which case I bow to you.

If you agree that it still needs the piercing then it needs to do a repsectable ammount of it.

If you take out the Piercing, you greatly restrict long range piercing capabilities, which after all, should not be tha case since if you take out the shatter the Merc does, it is no longer a threat to permahull, which is why spamming it currently works.

If it does both the current disabling and respectable ammount of piercing, then it still broken, hence one of the two has to go so the 'sniper rifle' can be a properly specialized weapon, like snipers should be.

You can just buff the Artemis's range a little bit and give it more zoom, problem solved.

People should finally realize that they should maybe use something else as well if they want to do both piercing and disabling and not go easy mode with the current Mercury.

I agree, not all maps are competative, my point still stands, from a competative stand point of view, maps that heavily favor one playstyle over an other are not good, hence Dunes is a bad map, still not sure why it is in the competative rotation.   


Also something final, since now all components act as shields, you need to aim for the hull specifically, if you hit any component, you will be doing no armor damage while barely scratching the component itself. So there goes one more reason the scope is still useful.


EDIT: Oh yeah to make it clear, I do not just want to take out all shatter and put nothing in to compesate, I think that a 10 damage increase to the piercing damage the merc does would be acceptable so it has a base of 85 Piercing, adding an extra 15 armor damage and 2 hull damage per shot.

[Zenark]

PRO NO SCOPE BRO! Nah, but I do wanna try that now~

If such a change were made, what would the second damage type be? If you REALLY had to change the shatter aspect, at least make it so that it's not a one shot component killer. Make it do, like, 75% of what would be a one shot kill. That way, the gunner getting hit goes "oh crap!  Sniper! Better repair!"  So he strikes it once and the cool down begins. If the sniper is a good shot, that second shell would not destroy the gun, but take away enough health to make the gun hard to use.

If the Merc is nerfed then they would HAVE to increase the zoom of the Artemis. In fact, how about the devs do that regardless 

You raise good points. I agree that something should be done, but not so drastic as to take away half of the gun's usefulness.

[N-Sunderland]

Translation: buff the sniper Galleon. No, thank you.

[naufrago]

I can't remember if I said this before, but I think the merc could have its Shatter damage reduced by half and still be viable. Would still be able to snipe out components, would still be able to crack armor decently, but wouldn't be able to take out heavy components quite as easily. Can't remember how much health heavy guns have off the top of my head, but making it require 2 shots to take em out seems fair.

[Echoez]

Translation: buff the sniper Galleon. No, thank you.

On Dunes maybe (And Canyon's Red spawn), but that's a broken map anyway. Anyway I don't expect you to agree with this, but I want something done with this weapon to enable more ships into play for starters. I've found that the ridiculous shatter damage it does is the main problem any experienced pilot should be afraid of and it is the main reason it does so much permahull damage as well. Plus it renders Goldfishes and Spires pretty helpless with just one shot, which is bad IMO, not sure about you.

I can't remember if I said this before, but I think the merc could have its Shatter damage reduced by half and still be viable. Would still be able to snipe out components, would still be able to crack armor decently, but wouldn't be able to take out heavy components quite as easily. Can't remember how much health heavy guns have off the top of my head, but making it require 2 shots to take em out seems fair.

Halving it doesn't realy fix the problem, Heavy guns have around 400 health, considering that the 250 from Loch takes out more than half of it.

The current Shatter damage by itself doeals at least 60 extra armor damage and 78 if you are using Charged. Halving it won't fix the issue, since it will still deal at least 300 damage to it, leaving it to around 100, if you manage to get a quick mallet hit in before the second shot gets in, you still only heal it for 250, for a total of around 350, the next shot will reduce it to 50, basically turning the gun useless for the next 9 seconds you will be waiting, funny fact is it can reload before that and still destroy it, can't see the difference of just destroying the damn gun other than maybe giving ships with a forward gun a 2 hit shield from the piercing part of it and you might be able to shoot one mroe volley, which depending on the gun, might not even land.

Removing the Piercing leaves us with no long range piercing option and having both breaks the gun, unless you guys think its okay as it is, which in my opinion is pretty ignorant or lazy on your side to get used to not having the all-in-one long range light gun that the Mercury currently is.

Anyway, I'll probably stop trying to create any more balance discussions, I seem to be doing bad at it, especially since I touch the tabboo of this game

If you think a new long range piercing will be introdoced and then the Merc will just be a disabler and I'm talking bullshit cause that's going to happen, well, I have no idea if it will happen at all, I mean, what else could have such a long range piercing that isn't a sniper cannon? I proposed something for the Artemis, but I didn't see many people agreeing and I know Muse doesn't agree with it either (Don't ask how, I have links~)

So I'm just left kinda on the wait here, not knowing what the hell is gonna become of this gun.

Anyway, peace.

[Machiavelliest]

I wholeheartedly agree that removing shatter would cause imbalance due to other guns, and would take most of the fun out of the weapon. I'd suggest a modest reduction in piercing. Yes, the gun still does a chunk of hull damage, but the reduced armor damage means repairing the armor is easier.

[Echoez]

I wholeheartedly agree that removing shatter would cause imbalance due to other guns, and would take most of the fun out of the weapon. I'd suggest a modest reduction in piercing. Yes, the gun still does a chunk of hull damage, but the reduced armor damage means repairing the armor is easier.

The only one that has 'fun' with this weapon is the guy shooting it, the defenders have no chance to repair due to instant destructions and it has no downside for close range other than the shallow firing arc. you can easily point blank an enemy's heavy gun with it and it will take them way more time to repair it than it takes you to turn and face them with something else.

The piercing this gun does is fine, that's you people don't get, the Shatter damage is the actually scary part if you realy think about it and especially for ships like the Goldfish and the Spire, their guns act as shields as well and it can take em out in one shot. If it only does piercing you will have to avoid any components and go the hull directly.

Anyway, I'm done discussing this, it's already been discussed to death, I don't feel like re-stating everything.

[Machiavelliest]

As a pilot, I'd blame the pilot if you're close range with a Merc in your face.

[Echoez]

As a pilot, I'd blame the pilot if you're close range with a Merc in your face.

Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.

[Machiavelliest]

Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.

True.  However, suffering sustained Mercury fire at close range should not be a thing a crew has to deal with.  One or two shots makes sense, but the firing cone is so narrow that it's easy to avoid more than just lucky shots.

[Echoez]

Enemies can turn too, no engagement is perfect.

True.  However, suffering sustained Mercury fire at close range should not be a thing a crew has to deal with.  One or two shots makes sense, but the firing cone is so narrow that it's easy to avoid more than just lucky shots.

  Who's talking about 'sustained fire'? I'm talking about ships like the Goldfish and the Spire, if they get even one lucky shot on your main gun, even at point blank, on a Goldfish you lose 100% of your firepower source and on a Spire a good 75% of it, depending on the gun, this shouldn't be a thing. In an engagement that is under 800-1000 meters ( I consider that mid range cause it close to the Gatling's range and within Artemis range), that spells either instand death or a disengage cause you can't return respectable fire for the next 10 seconds or so due to repairs, now if they do it point blank, you are practicaly dead, there is no time to disengage and you can't fire back anymore cause your weapon went kaputt.