Carronades 1.3.2

[Captain Smollett]

So, I think while I've always been on the side that blenders aren't op, since I have found various ways to deal with them, this may not be the case for players that don't play as often.

Conversely it does offer newer players a way to be successful against moderately better teams and thereby enjoy the game when starting out.

I guess what I'm saying is there's no right answer to this problem, so, good luck awkm.

[Zenark]

I'd say it's one of the easiest guns to use. BOOM, BOOM... enemy balloon is down in two seconds and there's nothing they can do to stop it. Now that they're falling, I can get into a better position and have my gun reloaded way before their balloon comes back up..

Balloon repaired by xxxx
Balloon destroyed by yyyy

One engineer is not enough to repair the balloon before the Carronade is reloaded and having two engineers on the balloon leaves the rest of the ship vulnerable. Once the carronade is in range, your balloon will be popped, guaranteed, over and over. Having an allied ship (that isn't busy getting attacked themselves) rescue you is a best case scenario. There aren't enough guns that can aim high enough that will actually bother an attacking blenderfish. A Drogue Chute isn't a counter, it just prolongs the fall. A gunner using Loch rounds can easily kill any ship alone. There aren't many weapons that can disable and kill at ranges beyond a Carronade; only the LJ, Merc and Flak come to mind, and those are significantly harder to use, not to mention you'd have to be camping in order to not be snuck up on. Once your balloon is down at max range of the carronade, that ship can close within arming time before the balloon is back up. Trying to kill them before they get too close is the best option, but as soon as they're in range, you've lost an engineer to repairing your balloon while they still have a full crew.

We don't all get to fly with level 8+ crews who know what they're doing. Can it be countered? Yes? Can it be countered by crew that hasn't been informed of EXACTLY what they have to do? Not likely. Just because the high level clan can survive it doesn't mean the newbies and random crew ships can.

It's OP because the GENERAL POPULATION of players on GoIO can't counter it.

[awkm]

What Smollet said.

This is the exact problem I face.  If there is any single player that feels like they are being dominated and think they have no way to countering, then I've done something wrong especially if that player has been playing for a few hours.

Therefore I am obligated to find a solution to the problem, it deserves my utmost attention, and certainly is worthy of a fix.

[awkm]

Yes, thank you Zenark.

General population.  Key words.

[Serenum]

@Serenum My reasons for thinking the carronade are not from being a crybaby about getting killed by it. I fly Goldfish primarily and Blenderfish is one of my most used loadouts. I think the Carronade is slightly overpowered because when I use it I feel bad for the guy on the other end.

Well, that's your problem, not the gun's.
Losing a fight is never fun. Feel bad every time you kill another ship then.

When you get carronaded you can ALWAYS get away if you have engines, you can outmanouver your opponent. You need to be a better pilot though, something which I guess makes it hard to admit when a loss is deserved, since it means you simply weren't good enough.
I don't see anything wrong with a weapon that makes the better pilot win. I would have a problem with that if any noob could use it and shine, but any noob trying to carronade will simply be obliterated.

[Zenark]

I thought your engine power becomes reduced when the balloon is down, plus, what ship other than a Squid could outrun a Goldfish, even without a popped balloon?

[Nidh]

@ Serenum Also, the Carronade can take out components rather effectively, such as engines and guns. In my experience the Carronade has a very long range for it's "close range" classification, and ambush tactics are not necessarily required, just proper positioning, which every ship requires. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as arrogant or a whiner, I don't mean to sound that way and I don't mean to brush off your opinions either. I have taken them into careful consideration, but I still have to say that I feel bad for whoever gets on the wrong end of a Heavy Carronade because it is literally a helpless feeling, especially if the carronade takes out your engines and set's your hull on fire with incendiary as you try to run.

Opinions and feelings aside, I have not ever stated that the Carronades are so OP that you can't win against them, however I do feel like they are SLIGHTLY too powerful.

I don't take kindly to being called a bad pilot.

[Serenum]

General population?
So any game with a learning curve is flawed?
Because that's basically what it means, if the "general population" can't deal with it without having to learn the game then it's wrong.
The carronade is fairly simple to deal with, you just need to know the weapon.
It's also a damn short range weapon, if you can see it coming you can win.
Is stealth OP? Are clouds OP? Because all of this is essential to winning using a carronade.

And I'd like to stress that the carronade ALWAYS gives you time to react. Have you ever been killed by a mortar or a flak cannon? That's having no time to react. That's literally "oh shit armor is gone  aaaand... we're dead.".
I dare you to compare the TTK of a carronade+whatever combo with the TTK of a gat-mortar combo. It's not even in the same league!

This is a great game because it lets you be creative with the way you approach the enemy, you don't necessarely need to use the most direct approach to kill him, other approaches can work too. Carronade is NOT a direct way to kill your enemy, it's the opposite. You can't nerf it because then that whole kind of strategy is simply not viable. I could just aim for the baloon with any other weapon and it would be the same.
Do you want to keep the game varied or do you want to make it streamlined?
That's the real question.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Well if we are going for a fix that generally makes the gun harder to use (that's the vibe i'm getting here), then an obvious issue is the "point 'n click" nature of the gun in order to hit things.

Shed some range, give it more ammo per clip (4 due to art style?), but distribute that damage across that bigger clip (so same or less damage now but across 4 shots). Basically, make it more likely to miss and take a smidge longer to cut the balloon.

This is kind of just an "out there" thought.

I thought your engine power becomes reduced when the balloon is down, plus, what ship other than a Squid could outrun a Goldfish, even without a popped balloon?

Not to my knowledge. Only thing a dead balloon does is transfer all the damage that hits it to your hull armor.

[Urz]

Reduce the stats and remove battle drums from the game.

Decreases general effectiveness, increases competitive effectiveness.

[Nidh]

Well if we are going for a fix that generally makes the gun harder to use (that's the vibe i'm getting here), then an obvious issue is the "point 'n click" nature of the gun in order to hit things.

Shed some range, give it more ammo per clip (4 due to art style?), but distribute that damage across that bigger clip (so same or less damage now but across 4 shots). Basically, make it more likely to miss and take a smidge longer to cut the balloon.

This is kind of just an "out there" thought.

That sounds like a good idea to me, spreading out the damage would mitigate the "eternal balloon is dead" + "hull armor taking damage" and return it to more of a support zoning weapon than a killing weapon. Only problem would be no clear option for a brawling/killing Goldfish (maybe that's a good thing, encouraging variety? idk). But the Goldfish is a support ship imo anyway. Until the new heavy weapon comes out, depending on what it does.

[Serenum]

Well if we are going for a fix that generally makes the gun harder to use (that's the vibe i'm getting here), then an obvious issue is the "point 'n click" nature of the gun in order to hit things.

But that's the point.
The carronade doesn't rely on the gunner, it relies on the pilot, just like the flamethrower. A good gunner can make it more effective, of course, but it's the pilot that makes it win or fail.
Long range weapons depend on the gunners, while the pilot just needs to think about positioning. Short range weapons are easier to use, obviously, but it's harder to put yourself it the right position to use them, so they depend on the pilot. Simple as that.
And that's implicit in the nature of short range vs long range, nothing new here.
Nerfing the gun on that basis is simply absurd.

[awkm]

Zill, stop reading my mind.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Im not sure how long you've played Serenum, but this discussion makes me think of Fire. I forget which patch when Fire was simply reworked into a new system from the 1 stack to disable guns, but this has the same underlying issue.

Back when Fire was one stack to disable guns, vets had it pretty easy. Any time someone would say it was OP, we'd tell them to stay away from the fire. The general population were getting locked by flame passes while we just stayed away or took the calculated risks. Then the fire change happened, and honestly fire is still viable and has its many uses. As a Cake member im sure you know.

It is a skill problem, and I say it in the nicest way possible. So instead of fighting change, just think up ways to get the same concept out of carronades.

That sounds like a good idea to me, spreading out the damage would mitigate the "eternal balloon is dead" + "hull armor taking damage" and return it to more of a support zoning weapon than a killing weapon. Only problem would be no clear option for a brawling/killing Goldfish (maybe that's a good thing, encouraging variety? idk). But the Goldfish is a support ship imo anyway. Until the new heavy weapon comes out, depending on what it does.

It really is a support ship unless you use the side guns too. I can't think of balancing a gun based on ships. I mean, flak fish for example. It surely isn't balanced for the goldfish's sake, lol.

Zill, stop reading my mind.

<3

[Imagine]

For the past month, I've watched and casted at the minimum nine games once a week. The only time I've seen a carronade of any type be super effective in the hands on a non-competitive team crew (aka a pug ship aka the general populous) was on Paritan, and only because ramming into terrain after balloon pops causes significant damage. That's not to say that they're not used on any other map, or that it's an ineffective weapon by any other means, but if you compare it to usage on a map like, say, Fjord or even Canyon Ambush, it takes a long long loooooong time to kill off someone with a carronade without the assistance of crashing them into buildings or the ground. Enough time that I've seen enough occasions to where a ship is rescued by a teammate, or gets their gun arcs turned on the carronading ship and blasts them into oblivion.

And you know what? I'm completely ok with that. Yeah, sure, getting your balloon popped repeatedly is certainly annoying, I've played enough engineer to know that. It's no different than mercs constantly taking down hull armor, or flamethrowers/flares lighting ALL the things ablaze. It's something people will have to learn to deal with as they play the game. Don't nerf something because someone had a game where they got pinned down a couple of times and came to cry about it on the forums