Minor Squid Buffs

[Daft Loon]

Lowering the top engines by the small amount the art will allow (speaking of which are the lower engines held on by mag-Lev or what?) making the repair and rebuild from below each a little less finicky.

Rotating the armor 90 and move it right up to the bottom of the stairs for its compartment, blocking getting stuck down there.

Rotating the side gun forwards about 10 degrees.

[greendra]

Top squid engines are reachable from below if you do a stamina jump on to the railings on the right ( Facing the pilot ) and then if you jump and in mid-air hit, you can reach it.

I agree with that.

And also agree with that.

[Daft Loon]

Top squid engines are reachable from below if you do a stamina jump on to the railings on the right ( Facing the pilot ) and then if you jump and in mid-air hit, you can reach it.

You can reach them with a regular jump timed well when running down the ramp, jumping at about the point where it starts to slope. Its good for repairs but rebuilds are a bit too hard to find the spot and with the proliferation of reduced scattering, stamina arcing hwachas its the rebuilds that are needed.

[MightyKeb]

Moving the gun 10 degrees to left would be a huge buff to side mortar squids/and some other potential builds that I haven't explored yet, but it would also take away from it's back-side trifecta versatility. I personally wouldnt mind it as my playstyle mostly involves the front guns but this could hurt people who do.

I think the problem here isn't its engines but rather the ridicilous amount of hwachas existing in the lobbies both pub and comp thanks to the buff. Nothing was wrong with the hwacha, the heavy carronade was just good enough to overshadow it. Losing an engine with the squid should be equivalent to losing your balloon as a junker. This would greatly improve its' recovery time, so I think it's a major buff.



I've never heard of the hull causing problems.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Actually awhile back, think Eric, or maybe it was another, suggested changing the side arc. Think this was after they nerfed the light flak which damaged AT squid's attack options. I was obviously not pleased and this was presented as a fix so then mortar could be used better.

Turned it down. Why? Because it wouldn't solve the problem and it would take away creativity in Squids as a whole. I've seen some pilots utilize their side and rear guns well in combination. While it isn't frequent, it is an option that is interesting to face.

Literally it would turn the squid into a faster Pyra which would then get nerfed to heck. That would solve nothing.

The inherent problem was caused by Muse and "fixing" something that didn't need to be fixed. It not only hurt the squid but it also hurt other ships which would often rely on fast hitting side guns. The LF was perfect for this role and was the king of lateral combat. Mortar was the king of confrontational.

LF nerf was all to appease some folks who desired midrange combat and remove LF from CQC. Which was a rather dumb move to introduce a new gameplay style that the game didn't need, nor really worked well at all outside of very niche roles.

All engagements happen in the long range and CQC areas. Midrange engagements were rare simply because there would be too much risk of a ship charging past arming ranges before the midrange attacks did anything. Ships in midrange have a lot of uncertainty to deal with. You're either going to get charged or you're going to get sniped. Hades was not a good weapon to couple with it as it is far too dependent on gunner skill and doesn't work fast enough to really hold it's own in a charge. Midrange would only work as a support ship where the support ship takes all the risks and the midranger sits back firing away. One way or another, a ship is exposed.

In 3v3s it has some meaning, but by messing with it, Muse created something totally unnecessary by nerfing multiple ships and many other builds. I honestly haven't seen a midranger in a long time that was any bit useful to their allies. In fact most of the time they cost a match because they get flanked easily then have no CQC ability.

Really, everyone lost in the LF arming timer nerf, not just Squids. So that is why I didn't want them to do arc changes on the squid. They also did similar with the Spire before it. For a long time people were arguing to buff the spire cause it died so easily. HP/armor was all it needed but when Muse touched it, they did the part rearrangement and arc changes. Neither did much till they finally touched the survivability which everyone had wanted from the start. So, roundabout ways to fix a simple problem instead of just simply fixing it.

[BlackenedPies]

Fix the hull so players don't get stuck. Slightly increase turn acceleration.

[Daft Loon]

...

Fair points and more or less why i only suggested 10 degrees though its a fair argument for 0.
Wasn't around to see the old light flak but i can agree that its in a fairly marginal niche these days.

[Dementio]

All of the game's unique features like guns and ships are unique, because of their niche-ness in application.

Lowering the engines would make it easier to engineer and survive on a Squid, which is often said to rely purely on its speed. Considering the massive use of Hwacha and Artemis, which will probably not decrease any time soon, I would say it is a fair buff.

The hull, I think, used to be directly next to the stairs at the spot where people now get stuck at when they want to go up. It was moved forward, away from the stairs so the hull isn't to close the opening on the side anymore. That was done, because when you went towards the hull from the helm you could repair/rebuild it from outside. Repairing stuff and mounting guns from below is one thing, but apparantly Muse doesn't like it when you can ignore physical objects in the way.

Rotating the Squid's side gun for a better bifecta has been discussed on the Forum before, in this thread if anybody is interested: https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2129.msg36694.html
Although that thread is old, the basic arguments still apply for today's Squid.
I like to say "Mobula OP" and I believe a Squid to be its best counter. If the side gun was angled more forward then I would change my mind.

By the way, if you don't like the Banshee on your Squid, a Light Flak inside arming time still does a decent amount of damage. If you are skilled enough you can happily sit outside arming time range and kill ships for your team. Sometimes people forget, but you don't always have to be within touching distance to do damage.



An offtopic opinion to what Gilder posted:
If you want the old Light Flack on your ship then use the Banshee. If the Light Flack didn't have arming time it would make Mortar and Banshee redundant. In the old times the Gatling's range was much larger and with the old heavy clip you would be guaranteed to hit with it. If we still had the guns of the old times then there would be even less variaty in ship loadouts than in today's competitive scene. Gatling and Flak would rule every range when it comes to killing ships.
Long range is overrated anyway. Most engagement don't even start above 1km and close range always wins, so the mid-ranged Light Flak has to deal with problems similar to any other long range gun in the game and in practise often doesn't get sniped until it is in a range where it could fulfill its purpose to its maximum potential.

[BlackenedPies]

I wonder if the top engine repair hit boxes could be extended slightly downwards rather than physically changing position.

I think the light flak is ok. Mortar does 126 hull dmg and 126 dps while flak does 112 dmg and 118 dps. Damage could be shifted from secondary to primary for example from 50-30 to 60-20, but it serves its purpose well enough and I don't think shifting damage or changing arm range is necessary.

Heatsink is great on light flak and is similar to burst in terms of dmg. Burst is -15% rof +20% clip while heatsink is -17% dmg +20% clip (due to rounding). I think the problem with the light flak is its limited range being only 1k. It could use an extra 200m.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Gat/flak only ruled until people learned Gat/mort. Before then mortar was rarely used because it was deemed difficult to use. Heck I flew during that time and often used flak over mortar because newer players couldn't hit the broadside of a Galleon even if it was right in front of them. The best time for both builds was when Muse had them both balanced. Believe this was in 1.3. Think early to mid 1.3. Later in 1.3 Muse added arming timer and ruined the gun in favor of providing an ultra niche gameplay that some in the community were pushing.

Remember, Flak also had spread. This is why Heavy Clip became meta. Using HC with Gat/Flak was necessary. But it could be beaten with mortar. During this time all 3 guns had meaning and purpose. Mortar was more in your face and deadly. Flak was faster with more finesse. Banshee on the other hand was the bastard child that would bounce between decent and crappy constantly.

Teams used Gat/Flak, Gat/Mort, quite often. Banshee was the only gun people didn't really use much in competitive since it was more of a long range flamer thrower than it was a killing weapon.

So your argument about them being redundant if LF had arming removed is not based on any historical evidence. In fact I flew during competitive when flak and mortar were both on par and while everyone flew mortar, I flew flak still. There were teams who flew Gat/Mort and teams who flew Gat/Flak. I won with it over Mortar because flak was more optimal with evasive pilot styles where you needed more accuracy on a ship that rarely stood still. Because it could hit past mortar range and gat had a longer range back then, it could effectively tear up a charging vessel before it got it's mortars to bear. Something that Hades/Flak struggles to do.

Long range play was only really good in the merc days or the art buff days. That was when 1-2k+ engages happened frequently and you just could not approach anyone. This was largely due to 1.2's huge slow down effects. Ships just were not fast enough to attack a sniper before being torn up. To fix this, Muse again employed a roundabout gun nerfing regime which set them in a year+ long constant balancing battle. Instead of rebalancing the ships, Muse messed with weapons which brought about more balance problems on top of other problems.

Current Banshee on squids is viable but I honestly am more prone to use LF, even with arming, than I am Banshee. Simply because Squid pilots who sit still too long, become dead squids. I'd rather unload 4-5 shots of LF than unload 8+ of Shee. Simply because LF is faster and can exploit armor drops better. You aren't going to beat Goldfish or Squids with mortar or Shee unless their crews are braindead. Time to kill a goldfish with a gat/mort squid is often about 4+ armor break passes if they are tanking. Sure if they aren't tanking and you catch them you can bring it down in 1-2. Banshee is can be even more. In fact with banshee you are likely to not even hit all your shots before armor is back so you are doing even less damage than mortar. Both mortar and shee, even with greased, fire too slow for quick rebuild ships. Banshee only has an advantage in lack of travel time on shots. Mortar has the dmg output. So if you score 2-3 mortar hits before armor up, it'll often be better than scoring numerous shee hits.

LF was the balance between these both. It traded dmg for accuracy and attack speed. Mortar captains would often scoff at it, but they couldn't forget about it like they could the banshee. You could be very consistent with getting a majority of hits to strike and on time too before armor goes back up. It had it's role, and as Mortar gained recognition, LF became more popular with ships that didn't have the luxury of sitting there bombing a target to death.

Ideally what I'd like to see is banshee return to being the more range weapon, mortar remain CQC, and flak slot back into that space between. Hades play wouldn't be affected too much as you rarely see hades/flak kills out past 500m anyways. Either that or Muse needs to invent a new gun to fill in the old LF's role. Which is what I suggested since they don't seem interested in going back on arming timers anytime soon.

[Daft Loon]

To further explain what im suggesting for the engines

Currently you can do both repairs and rebuilds from below with standard jumping from the ramp, repair is reliable once you get the hang of it, rebuild is not - it can take 15s or so to find the spot to jump from.

The current ship model in game has the top engine bolted into its support through a point a bit below the mid line of the engine, moving the engine down until the bolt is a similar distance above the mid point would look fine and total a little under half a meter.

The effect of moving it down that much would be to make repair from below easier to learn and rebuild from below semi-reliable, it might become possible to jump onto the railing and rebuild standing i dont know if that is bad.

[Extirminator]

If anyone got into a squid engineering argument with me before, knows that I always was a guy that repairs the top engines from the upper ramp and then jumps down to either one of the bottom ones to repair it(usually the non-side engineer engine.).

In my opinion, letting the main engineer do the repair cycle of - front gun(if needed)>hull>balloon>top engines>back gun(if needed)>left bottom engine>and back to front gun, while the side engineer takes care of his side gun and that one bottom engine(with the obvious help on balloon/engines when things get hairy.) is and always was more viable, even in the days before the hitbox change when jumping to repair was easier.

From plenty of aspects you can say that it is superior to operate this way:
-You get the side engineer more time to focus on his shooting.

-You minimize the damage difference between the left and right side engines for more stable flying with the addition of getting 3 engine HP's up at a once instead of 2 at once, which gives you a more sustainable speed boost.

-While getting your main engineer to do the 3 engine repair cycle you have someone accessible at the back gun ever so often for shooting(which is nice if it is a mine launcher because you can quickly pop a mine and continue repairing quickly) and also for maintaining in case a use of it might be needed.

-The only downside to this might be a longer cycle time by a second or two, which could mean it takes you more time to get to the hull at an emergency, but this can be easily countered and turned into a positive point, since you can make an educated decision in your cycle depending on if the armor gets damaged or not to go and repair it, e.g. front gun(if needed)>hull>balloon>top engines>back gun(if needed)>(check if armor getting too damaged, if so, don't jump and repair it.)>left bottom engine>and back to front gun. Using this method of breaking up the cycle into intersections where you decide what to do next is often enough even more efficient towards being on time on the armor than the other method, because you are minimizing the risk of you being on the bottom engine ramp(maximum distance from hull) when the armor goes down.

-The maximum distance you can be from the hull is still the same in both cases, on both cycle styles you could be found in the back engine on the lower ramp needing to run to the armor(so the risk is equal), which to be honest, stamina minimizes the risk quite a bit.

-The longer cycle time also does not affect your repair speed, because if you are engineering a squid correctly, you have a mallet, which the 9 seconds of cooldown allow for a flexible cycle time length.

So, in conclusion if you'd ask me, I don't even think that the squid needs to have engines easier to repair from below - because this is quite counter-productive to engineer a squid using this method. But that is only my take on it, I am sure people have their reasons of why they like the other method of repairing better.

[BlackenedPies]

From testing I've found the easiest way to get from top to bottom is walking through the gap in struts at either side of the rear of the squid and parallel to the bottom engine ramp. It's safer compared to jumping which can cause mistakes. No jumping is required: walk to the rear gun, turn 90 degrees and face between the two struts, and walk forwards perpendicular to the bottom railing. Hold forwards and don't use stamina. The jumping method is slightly faster, but walking is safer for less experienced squid crew like myself.

Tips: you can't overshoot, the farthest you will go is bumping the outside rail. Hold forwards and don't stop moving until you're near the bottom. Don't face towards the engine or you may land on top of it.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

I think some adjustments to the structure around the hull repair would be good.  Stamina-using engineers currently get stuck in that alcove a lot.

[Daft Loon]

Exterminator, Pies

I shall have to give those methods a try next time im engineering a squid.

I think some adjustments to the structure around the hull repair would be good.  Stamina-using engineers currently get stuck in that alcove a lot.

It would be nice to not get stuck and be high enough (part way up the stairs) to see whats happening around.