The Spire.

[Captain Smollett]

I believe in baby step balancing to see how things go and work from their.

I'd love to see 45 degrees on the lower port side gun and then 15 degrees on starboard side gun just to see how that changed the ship.  If it was op as heck you could revert one of the changes and if the ship stunk like a skunk you could turn the starboard side gun all the way forward.

I think the Spire needs a bit of love to be usable by casual players however you always have to be careful not to make it too good so that organized crews can easily dominate with it.

[Crafeksterty]

That is why that lower weapon degree is best solution, in my oppinion.

It does not trade away or add stats, nor does it play with functions, it just makes one slot of the ship more usefull.

But im against turning the upper right one, it is fine. Ive had gattlings, flaks and some other high turning weapons on that slot and it works well, the only thing you have to do is turn your spire just a little left. If the weapon on lower left has the 45degree buff, then you can alternate between using the left gun or the side gun giving the spire more options.

Or you cold quadfecta with 2 artemis 1 merc and a flak. That sounds strong, but being the spire as how it is, it then sounds balanced.



I still want faster acceleration though... that would be fun Now that im thinking about it again, that would be great because then the spire would do great at close combat! Aaah. so much to decide upon!

[Alistair MacBain]

I find the idea of that quadfecta interesting and this would make spire actually a real cannon though im not sure if that would be to strong cause the spire with it topside guns close to the helm that would allow the pilot to act as a topside gunner ...
But tbh i dont think just adding a usable gun or changing weapon placements/ facing the spire wont become usable. Its just to squishy. A ship just has to get close unload his gat and the hull armor is pretty much down and you can just get 1 mallet hit down. After that the armor is down its just a instadeath for the spire.

[Crafeksterty]

Thats true but i did manage to escape and use positioning in relation to the enemy ships with my own to decrease as much damage as possible, that is why i want acceleration to be drastically increased for the sake of manipulating positions.

With the 45 degree buff you can point 2 gattling, maybe 3 if your close enough.  Enough for a hwacha killing blow or a flak killing blow. Making it a ship that could potentially fight versus another ship in terms of health and repairs. It can do this now, but that is too difficult and the 4th gun cannot come to aid.

Here is another potential build for the 45 degree buff.

Like today, i have a merc,Hflak,minelauncher, the 4th gun is a flair.
With the buff, you can have 2 minelauncher on the side, merc and flak.

This is what i mean by "wee bit too powerfull".  2 mines hitting a ship is... devestating.

It is possible to come up with more devestating combinations that could potentially make things abit... discuss heavy. Maybe, i would gladly have a ship that can shoot 2 mines and have heavy gun with a light gun, but in a way that does not feel like it is the answer.


The 45 degree buff is awesome but, it is also too simple and perhaps just boring. The more i think about it, the more problems i see, but ofc more firepower.


I remember there was a squid suggestion where the middle gun would aim more forward. It starts to feel the same with this.

[Echoez]

I remember there was a squid suggestion where the middle gun would aim more forward. It starts to feel the same with this.

Yeah but let's not forget that angling the gun of the Squid isn't something that would benefit the ship, just make a bi-fecta easier and that is simply not the purpose of the Squid, it doesn't need a better focus fire from 2 guns because firepower is not its purpose.

On a Spire it makes sense though since as a Glass cannon - Weapon's Plat you want as many guns pointed at the same direction as possible, hence why it's a reasonable request for this ship. It's not the same deal.

I believe in baby step balancing to see how things go and work from their.

I'd love to see 45 degrees on the lower port side gun and then 15 degrees on starboard side gun just to see how that changed the ship.  If it was op as heck you could revert one of the changes and if the ship stunk like a skunk you could turn the starboard side gun all the way forward.

I think the Spire needs a bit of love to be usable by casual players however you always have to be careful not to make it too good so that organized crews can easily dominate with it.

Agreed, this would at least make weapons like the light Flak better suited for that Right Starboard gun on the top deck, also a Flak Spire could better utilize a Merc/Magma combo like this (since people frown upon the Merc/Merc)

[Crafeksterty]

On a Spire it makes sense though since as a Glass cannon - Weapon's Plat you want as many guns pointed at the same direction as possible, hence why it's a reasonable request for this ship. It's not the same deal.

Is it though? Maybe it is, but you musst not forget the mobula.

The spire has 3 guns facing forward and one of them is a heavy weapon. Making it pretty much better than the mobula sense the mobula cannot turn for crap.
So is the spire a gun happy ship or is it a gun combo happy ship?

This is the thought process of applying the 45 degree buff on the lower left gun. It will help, but it harms other roles (not just spire roles but other ship roles).
The spire allready is able to kill and it is able to destroy i just think it needs to perform better. If that gun gets a 45 degree buff, i will be happy but you will see less uses of the mobula, heck maybe even the galleon.

The spire today is reliant on its guns, its combos work, they work but got damn it is just not enough. So what do you do? Dodge, fly up, fly down, spin, near miss. Once succesfull, it will work, your guns will have room to attack again. But, that is also just not enough. You dodge slowly, you barely escape the shots.

I still think acceleration boost to the spire is a much safer choice of a buff than a 45 degree on the gun. If that 45 degree gun is there trust me, spire will be good and will be better than the mobula and the galleon.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Its only better until you start getting shot. Then you lose an engie to repair and the pilot to evade. I don't see it getting OP if you turn that lower gun.

[Echoez]

Is it though? Maybe it is, but you musst not forget the mobula.

The spire has 3 guns facing forward and one of them is a heavy weapon. Making it pretty much better than the mobula sense the mobula cannot turn for crap.
So is the spire a gun happy ship or is it a gun combo happy ship?

This is the thought process of applying the 45 degree buff on the lower left gun. It will help, but it harms other roles (not just spire roles but other ship roles).
The spire allready is able to kill and it is able to destroy i just think it needs to perform better. If that gun gets a 45 degree buff, i will be happy but you will see less uses of the mobula, heck maybe even the galleon.

The spire today is reliant on its guns, its combos work, they work but got damn it is just not enough. So what do you do? Dodge, fly up, fly down, spin, near miss. Once succesfull, it will work, your guns will have room to attack again. But, that is also just not enough. You dodge slowly, you barely escape the shots.

I still think acceleration boost to the spire is a much safer choice of a buff than a 45 degree on the gun. If that 45 degree gun is there trust me, spire will be good and will be better than the mobula and the galleon.

Mobula is way faster though and can dodge much more reliably, plus it's a light gun platform that can keep a trifecta at all times without akward turning and can change from close range to long range very easily, that alone is much to differientate it from the Spire.

I don't mind the lower gun specifically, but I'm dead on set that the upper gun needs more turning forward to make more choices available to it.

[treseritops]

I know it's math but I think a great way to approach this would be the average time it takes to kill a spire, and the average time it would take for a spire to kill a ship (assume best possible loadout).

I haven't unlocked any of the medium weapons (I think?) and I'm missing most of the ship stats (especially Spire) but that could be an easy way to decide what would be "OP". If it only takes an average of 15sec to kill a Spire (Pyra does it in 13, squid in 18, etc.) than we need to equip a Spire to kill an average ship in 15sec.

That way the game changing factors are piloting, ammo types, and engineer loadout. Which I think we can agree is how it should be!

[Omniraptor]

My problem with the spire is that it can't actually use all its strong sides well in combat.

Things the spire is good at:

• Turning
• Vertical movement
• Sniping/concentrated fire. It's pretty easy to set up and maintain a light-light-medium gun trifecta because of good turning speed and slim horizontal profile (unlikely to crash into anything).

Now, here is what it's actually bad at:

• Brawling and horizontal dodging because it's so slow and squishy and can't maneuver while firing.
• Vertical dodging because it has a HUGE vertical profile.
• Sniping because it can't strafe or backpedal quickly, so it's really easy for an enemy to take out its guns.

All of that being said, I think it's already a good mid-range killer, because pretty much anyything disintegrates under sustained fire from two magma cannons and a heavy flak. The problem is that outside of that annulus, the magma cannons' projectile drop becomes unworkable, and inside it the bullets/shells don't arm for full damage. This can be compensated by taking either greased or lesmok, but those tools only shift the already narrow effective range, not widen it. As long as the spire has a (possibly disabler) buddy that can stop enemies from ramming it, the spire can kick ass, but I agree that it's helpless when alone. Too bad good (disabler) buddies are so rare..

[Gambrill]

My problem with the spire is that it can't actually use all its strong sides well in combat.

Things the spire is good at:

• Turning
• Vertical movement
• Sniping/concentrated fire. It's pretty easy to set up and maintain a light-light-medium gun trifecta because of good turning speed and slim horizontal profile (unlikely to crash into anything).

Now, here is what it's actually bad at:

• Brawling and horizontal dodging because it's so slow and squishy and can't maneuver while firing.
• Vertical dodging because it has a HUGE vertical profile.
• Sniping because it can't strafe or backpedal quickly, so it's really easy for an enemy to take out its guns.

All of that being said, I think it's already a good mid-range killer, because pretty much anyything disintegrates under sustained fire from two magma cannons and a heavy flak. The problem is that outside of that annulus, the magma cannons' projectile drop becomes unworkable, and inside it the bullets/shells don't arm for full damage. This can be compensated by taking either greased or lesmok, but those tools only shift the already narrow effective range, not widen it. As long as the spire has a (possibly disabler) buddy that can stop enemies from ramming it, the spire can kick ass, but I agree that it's helpless when alone. Too bad good (disabler) buddies are so rare..

Merc front art starboard? Merc has the shatter + pierce and artemis also with the shatter.

[Captain Smollett]

My new spire motto is going to be "gotta have more cannon" with the voice of Christopher Walken in my head as I say it.

I really do think a 45 degree turn on the lower port gun and a 15 degree on the upper starboard gun could really make the Spire a feared ship in combat. 

I agree with Zill in that Quadfectas are rarely op since firing on a Spire can stop the quadfecta by either disabling a weapon, popping the balloon, setting a fire or damaging the hull in order to force a repair and any sort of horizontal maneuver will make the pilot abandon his gun or lose firing arcs. 

I think it would be pretty cool to set loose the quadfecta spire on GOI and if it turns out to be op it'd be pretty easy to turn it back into the slow moving giant punching bag that it is now. 

Spires gotta have more cannon!

[Crafeksterty]

Omniraptor pretty much has the more saturated strengths and weaknesses narrowed down.

If you just add this 45 degree buff it will not change much or change too much. This is being said because of weapons, weapons are a balance on its own, so if a weapon that the spire uses alot gets buffed, then the spire may be percieved as OP. So fi one of the three available guns we have today are buffed or tweaked to comfort the spire, it will then either be fine or broken on other ships and etc.

The degree buff on the weapon slot does not just effect the spire, but the weapon used on it.

I still going to have to say that buffing the spires stats someway or another, in my oppinion the acceleration is our best bet so we dont ruin other ships.

Mobula is way faster though and can dodge much more reliably, plus it's a light gun platform that can keep a trifecta at all times without akward turning and can change from close range to long range very easily, that alone is much to differientate it from the Spire.

I disagree, the mobula has the most akward turning ever, keeping that trifecta is easy but keep aim at a target flying around you, doing god knows what, and just because of that, it has a tough time fighting back after "escaping". It even has a tougher time maintaining repairs than the spire. BUT because that the mobula can dodge duck dip dive and dodge for it is smaller than the spire.

If you have seen me flying on some tourneys then you know that being a though target to hit as the spire can mean alot to your teamate. But most of those times when i try to dodge i always have my hull down at some point.

That is why acceleration boost will help it out, like alot. It will even do hella good with close range weapons on open maps. It will be viable at dodging sniper shots, the 45 weapon degree will not.

I disagree completely on the upper right gun getting a 15 or so degree buff, that could be a bit too dangerouse. Again it is all worth testing but imagine a pyra that rams even at long range, that is what the spire then may become.

[Echoez]

If you have seen me flying on some tourneys then you know that being a though target to hit as the spire can mean alot to your teamate. But most of those times when i try to dodge i always have my hull down at some point.

That is why acceleration boost will help it out, like alot. It will even do hella good with close range weapons on open maps. It will be viable at dodging sniper shots, the 45 weapon degree will not.

I don't disagree that buffing its acceleration is a good idea, but making it more 'cannon'-ish is a priority since the ship's focus should be its firepower. It IS a sniper after all.

I disagree completely on the upper right gun getting a 15 or so degree buff, that could be a bit too dangerouse. Again it is all worth testing but imagine a pyra that rams even at long range, that is what the spire then may become.

I'm sorry but the Galleon already does that a million times better than any Spire would hope to do and nobody complained it's OP, why would the Spire be OP cause of one more light gun that has a choice variety that isn't just "Artemis or Banshee cause the arc is shit"? Care to explain what's the difference?

People already exclaimed their worries about 2 Merc, which I find very comical and over-reactionary to be honest, but 15 degrees will help a ton of other guns that could go there while keeping 2Merc non-viable due to no arc overlapping.

The whole point of turning the other top gun isn't to put a second Merc on it (even though I believe this should be an option as well, but I digress, people seem to be too scared of it even though the twin Merc meta is long gone), but to make other guns viable there so you can keep the frontal Merc cause right now, there isn't much choice and if you want an other gun there that works without having to turn your ship JUST right, you need to have either a Banshee or an Artemis and that's a very depressing number of choices.

Balancing aside, you have to think of the gameplay experience as well. 1.2 Merc was fine balacing wise, barely, but it was still a horrible experience to go against it for example. Making the ship too much of a hassle to play also detracts from its appeal and right now that top right gun is a massive hassle (requires too much precise turning that might throw off your gunner's shots, mess other arcs, blah blah blah, can keep going for ever) for anything that isn't a Banshee or an Artemis, with the later turning so slow as well.

[Crafeksterty]

you need to have either a Banshee or an Artemis and that's a very depressing number of choices.

Wooooaaat?!?!?!

OOooh Hold on, imma make a vid now. And i will show you. (Dont take this hard, i wanted to do this anyway   )