Fellow Ex-Gunners Of Icarus Lend Me Your Ears!

[N-Sunderland]

Double gunners on a Pyra? That's not a very good idea. It leaves your balloon badly exposed to any carronades/lumberjacks the other team might have.

[LazerusKI]

so far it worked.
but as i said, i was thinking about a change and hope for some additional passive-advantages for the classes.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Gunner solution: take all ammo types away from non-gunners.
Think about it.

Very radical, even though it sounds good at the first moment. What makes me unconvinced is that we'd only go half of the way - take gunning functionality away from the Captain and Engineer, but leave the Engineer & Captain functionality to the gunner. (Meaning, Gunner has Engi & Captain Slot, Engi & Captain don't have a Gunner slot). Kind of unfair, but limiting the classes to only their respective slots would also take a lot of.. features away.

And if we went all the way, removing all the extra class slots from each class (ex. gunner has only gunner skills, ect.) then the gunner would suffer even more I think. Everything gets a lot less versatile, which for only 3 available classes isn't good.

so far it worked.
but as i said, i was thinking about a change and hope for some additional passive-advantages for the classes.

I don't think passive advantages would change anything. If each class gets their respective buff, than nothing really changes other than values that are currently balanced. You risk tossing those way out of balance, and still end up at square 1.


When you get a good gunner on your boat, you'll see just what they are capable of vs another engineer.

[Arthem White]

This may just be the silliest idea ever: Why not having a gunner skill that is actually a gun?

Something like a short range, raycast based blunderbuss with a long cooldown, that deals little damage, but gets a huge bonus if you are very very precise (as in hitting the subsystem itself dead on).

This way a gunner could contribute by slightly covering the ships blind spots. I understand blind spots are important and this shouldn't devalue them, so the damage should be low and balanced with the idea of needing hawkeye precision. For instance, hitting the balloon itself with this weapon wouldn't scratch it, but hitting the balloon repair system would deal significant damage.

Otherwise, a cool Gunner skill could be a bomb he/she could drop straight down overboard.

Another idea would be giving the Flare Gun (or a version of it) to the Gunner, in the form of a handheld flare gun. Mounting it on the ship seems a bit niche and it looks to me like it would make more sense that way.

I'm not saying any of these should be Gunner exclusive, just vanilla Gunner skills. By having other skills that don't directly relate to ammunition, that can be useful while guns aren't pointing the right way, Gunners would perhaps be more interesting to have on board.

I don't know, it could be fun. Bear with me if this has been said before or just sounds really stupid.

[Sgt. Spoon]

I don't know, it could be fun. Bear with me if this has been said before or just sounds really stupid.

Sadly yes. The problem with hand-held weapons is that it would need totally new mechanics where shots are calculated from the players actual position instead of the ship. It also falls into a similar category as the "no" stance on boarding, where the focus is trying to be directed at ship to ship combat instead of the actual crew. So it's not very likely to make it into the game. But hey, we're still always for suggestions, even though this particular one is unlikely to get implemented.

[Arthem White]

I don't know, it could be fun. Bear with me if this has been said before or just sounds really stupid.

Sadly yes. The problem with hand-held weapons is that it would need totally new mechanics where shots are calculated from the players actual position instead of the ship. It also falls into a similar category as the "no" stance on boarding, where the focus is trying to be directed at ship to ship combat instead of the actual crew. So it's not very likely to make it into the game. But hey, we're still always for suggestions, even though this particular one is unlikely to get implemented.

I see, thank you!

[JaceBoojah]

Gunner solution: take all ammo types away from non-gunners.
Think about it.

Very radical, even though it sounds good at the first moment. What makes me unconvinced is that we'd only go half of the way - take gunning functionality away from the Captain and Engineer, but leave the Engineer & Captain functionality to the gunner. (Meaning, Gunner has Engi & Captain Slot, Engi & Captain don't have a Gunner slot). Kind of unfair, but limiting the classes to only their respective slots would also take a lot of.. features away.

And if we went all the way, removing all the extra class slots from each class (ex. gunner has only gunner skills, ect.) then the gunner would suffer even more I think. Everything gets a lot less versatile, which for only 3 available classes isn't good.

Right now the gunner has full gunner ability and 3 perks.
The gunner also has full piloting ability plus 1 perk.
The gunner can either buff, put out fires, or repair (with various speeds) limiting his ability to engineer.

Pilot and gunner tools are just perks while engineering tools are more necessary for the job.

It would take more that 2 and less than 3 gunners to do the job of one engineer. Lets say the gunner can do 40% of an engineers job.
Engineers can operate any gun. That is already 80% of the gunners job. (2 engineers could out gun 1 gunner even without tools).
Personally I think having multiple ammo types is only really good for the 2 of the 14 guns, or if you are going back and forth on different guns. Even then the extra ammo type will only give you around a 15% efficiency boost and only while the ammo is loaded.

In my opinion Gunners are 40% Engineers but Engineers are 90% Gunners.  That is why I think we should nerf the Engineer by taking away his ammo type (making him have 70% of the gunner's ability) instead of buffing the Gunner.

[Moo]

Is that going far enough though? The engineer would only be slightly worse at gunning than present, and the gunner would still be significantly worse at fixing stuff.

[JaceBoojah]

I don't think the goal is to make all classes bad at other classes jobs, just make the gunner a little more useful.

[HamsterIV]

I am not a fan of subtractive game design, taking away something the players have gotten used to will only create anger and discontent. I think Muse should add more guns that can make use of different ammo types, or add more ammo types that have really niche applications. Right now the engineer needs every one of his class items in order to function effectively, but the gunner rarely uses one, sometimes two of his class items.

[DMaximus]

This may have been mentioned already, but a possible solution/addition that seems interesting to me might be to add some gunner class items that function similarly to pilot items. Things like a scope that provides some level of zoom to any gun or various kinds of contraptions that increase turning radius or speed in various directions (Like phoenix claw and hydrogen for guns). If they need some detriment they could do some DOT to the guns like most pilot items.

I envision it taking up one of your 3 ammo spots, so your load out would be something like Heavy, Greased, and STEAMPOWERTURNER3000. I'd avoid anything that directly changed the damage output of the gun itself or had similar effects to the ammo types, since stacking that with special ammo could be difficult to balance.

Any other class could still take them, but it's more likely you'd take them as a gunner since you have enough slots for both ammo and a gunning tool. It seems like a solution that makes the extra gunner slots more useful instead of just giving them an ability bonus or gunner-only items.

Anyway, that's just some random thoughts I've had on the subject.

[HamsterIV]

@ DMaximus
It was before my time, but I have read old threads about the "Reload spring" It was a gunner item that decreased reload time, but could be swapped out for a different ammo type right before the gun loaded. From what I could tell by the remarks, people thought this was incredibly over powered.

[Arthem White]

This may have been mentioned already, but a possible solution/addition that seems interesting to me might be to add some gunner class items that function similarly to pilot items. Things like a scope that provides some level of zoom to any gun or various kinds of contraptions that increase turning radius or speed in various directions (Like phoenix claw and hydrogen for guns). If they need some detriment they could do some DOT to the guns like most pilot items.

I envision it taking up one of your 3 ammo spots, so your load out would be something like Heavy, Greased, and STEAMPOWERTURNER3000. I'd avoid anything that directly changed the damage output of the gun itself or had similar effects to the ammo types, since stacking that with special ammo could be difficult to balance.

Any other class could still take them, but it's more likely you'd take them as a gunner since you have enough slots for both ammo and a gunning tool. It seems like a solution that makes the extra gunner slots more useful instead of just giving them an ability bonus or gunner-only items.

Anyway, that's just some random thoughts I've had on the subject.

awesome! I was thinking pretty much that.

The way I saw a possible item is:

Crank (placeholder name. Should have a name that represents the fact it draws power from the steering engine):
When activated, the gun you are manning turns 100% faster. For as long as it is being used and for three seconds afterwards, the steering engine of that side of the ship loses power (both if its a front or rear gun)

And just for fun:

Oven Mitts: Makes you able to shoot from a gun that is currently on fire.

[N-Sunderland]

@ DMaximus
It was before my time, but I have read old threads about the "Reload spring" It was a gunner item that decreased reload time, but could be swapped out for a different ammo type right before the gun loaded. From what I could tell by the remarks, people thought this was incredibly over powered.

Heavy Duty Springs... Yeah, those were ridiculous. It was basically a free method of cutting your reload time down a lot. You'd shoot until you had one shot left, switch to springs, fire the last shot, and switch to your preferred ammo type as the reload ended. The DPS you could put out was insane.

[Veyka]

I like the idea of more utility gunner only items that could go in gunner skills slots, as most guns are happy with 1 or 2 ammo types.

The ugly bug of balance is always around though, so would have to be dealt with carefully.