Gunboat ponderings

[Trogdor]

From the little bit of pvp Ive done there doesn't seem to be much, at all, difference in the agility of a light gunship vs heavy gunboat. So light gunships just feel like really weak gunboats.

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[Ursus]

I'd rather talk about role first instead of solutions first. The current changes were debated a loooong time ago and came about for two main reasons.

First, a competent gunboat would always win against 1-2 snubs and could take on as many as 5 snubs and win in some cases (or could drain them all anyway), and some people thought this was too powerful. I personally thought it was alright since the snubs had the ability to determine the engagement, they could not be attacked without choosing it, and could leave whenever they wanted. On the other hand, lone pirate bomber could not interact with transports that had gunboat escort, could not camp a gate, etc., so from that pov it was a detrimental to a certain style of gameplay.

The second problem was that primary turrets did everything better than all other gunboat weapons, and there was no reason to use anything else. The typical configuration was ~6 primaries only and no other weapons.

Both of these problems were resolved by reducing the speed of primaries so that they could not be anti-snub and anti-transport and anti-cruiser all at the same time. The changes still allow gunboats to be anti-snub if they use solaris loadout, but you have to configure for that role and you will be weak in other roles. A good GB can still destroy 1-2 snubs pretty easily, if the targets stay in weapon range. Meanwhile, the reduction in speed for primaries does not affect piracy or gunboat-vs-gunboat fights. Anti-cap fighting is still better with pulse and cerbs.

The main problem that was NOT addressed are the fact that gunboats are terrible at pursuing snubs. Bombers can attack a target from one flank while gunboat is on the other side of the ship, and when gunboat waddles to intercept, the bombers just move to the other side of the target. They only time a lawful gunboat even gets in a fight against snubs is when a group (multiple) want to see if they can kill it--if they get the upper hand they stay and finish it, if they cant they scatter and run off.

Way back in 4.85, this was solved with missiles that worked very well, with fast tracking and heavy damage (two gb missiles could deshield and kill). Those were effective removed in 4.86 by being turned into EMP weapons that were mostly only useful against caps. I havent looked at them in 4.87 yet but it looks like they do about 9750 hull DPS now which is coming back around to being viable. A barghest with au8 has something like 61,250 hit-points (have not confirmed) so that means you need ~7 missiles to kill one after shields go down. A roc with au8 has 43,500 which is ~5 missiles on bare hull. This should be tested since 2500 range effectively increases the reach of the gunboat dramatically.

Until missiles are tested for anti-snub effectiveness I dont think anything should be done.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Sabru]

You mean to have them as the snub-killing Frigates/Corvettes they were meant to be?

I'd be all for this if it wasn't for the fact that they were so hilariously easy to get away from.

If you upped the gunboats thrust speed to like 185, or even 200, then maybe it'd be a thing. But at the current speed and with 500 range? They'd be worthless.

i agree with saronsen here. they do need a bit of a speed buff to fulfill the anti-snub role.

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[Veygaar]

An upped thrust speed by just 10-20m/s would do it for me. Or remove/extremely limit zoom on all caps and return them to .86 stats.

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Veygaar for Admin Moderator 2013!!!

[Trogdor]

I've been doing some GB shield duels... it takes forever to take down a GB's shield with primaries/solaris. Other GBs using prims were able to take down my shields, eventually, but I haven't had much luck at all due to what I believe to be lag; Their ships seem to fly eratically, stop randomly, and I just can't seem to keep primaries trained on them long enough to bring them down.

Even when I ask them to sit still so I can just test full DPS on their shield, it still seems like it takes a very long time to get the shield down.

I had better luck with Cerbs, but GB powercores can't sustain Cerbs for any length of time, especially lighter gunships (which seem just as slow to turn as heavy gunboats, so gunships just feel like weak underpowered gunboats instead of being lighter, more maneuverable alternatives).

GB missiles are awful. Even in your example, 7 missiles to kill that barghest? And that's not counting the fact that their shield will be coming back online and eating some of those missiles, and they will have regens, and they may deflect some of them with countermeasures. And you can only carry 40 missiles..
And GB Missiles take like 200k energy to fire. That's between 1/2 and 1/3 of the gunboat's powercore per shot to do 10k damage...

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[Ursus]

I ran around goofing with my solaris/missile GB earlier this evening. Two missiles kill NPCs pretty easily if the shields are down and both missiles hit. As expected they are able to be used against targets that are beyond turret reach. They dont do much against shields.

Also got involved with a gank against a player scylla, and my solaris turrets did almost nothing (as expected), and the missiles were the only thing that did any visible damage. Not much, but it made the bar drop a little. A full count of 40 missiles will not kill a scylla.

The missiles are fairly slow, and the limit of 40 is really crippling. I would say that if they are going to stay this speed and damage, then the cargo should be bumped to 70. There should not be any energy consumption on these missiles.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[kikatsu]

Well about gunboat duels taking a long time, back in the OP I was kind of thinking that if GB shields were slightly weaker that could make it so the gunboat vs gunboat stuff was faster and more reasonable... but again buff the regeneration to help keep fighters off of them. Gunboat faction guns can pretty much fire as long as you need them to, and GB energy regenerates fast enough to keep the fire nearly constant.

And yeah I suppose gunboat missiles could be reworked slightly again. Thankfully they are doing hull damage now, but with the speed of gunboats that really does not guarantee a weapon that can effectively go up against a fighter. Not sure what to change about them though, I want to say speed first, maybe lower missile launch energy but I am sure people would want more damage. *shrugs*

[Ursus]

The primary advantage of missiles vs snubs is you can shoot a runner. If their shields are down and they are taking hull damage when they start running, you can pop a couple of missiles on them to finish the job before they get +2km distance. They are balanced pretty well for that right now, they could use a little more speed and a little more bang, but they work pretty well against fighters and the only real issue is they dont work very well against anything bigger than a medium bomber. So they are good for anti-snub duties, bigger stuff you still want bigger turrets.

Cerbs seem pretty good against other gunboats and everything larger, if you have the power core for them.

Also noticed that NPCs with BR loadout are pretty vicious... they were 1-2 killing my au8 bomber during testing quite frequently. I havent tested that setup yet, but it might be a good option for gunships with weak power core.

ps--a couple of houses have "light" gunboat turrets that occupy space between solaris and primaries, and while they are still too weak for fighting other gunboats they have a little more punch than solaris with less power drain, which makes them viable for anti-bomber loadouts.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[TLI-Inferno]

I always pictured the purpose and design behind Gunboats to be ships that were intended to defend other ships against smaller enemies like fighters and bombers. They would be defending military transports or even military capital ships. Because of this, they would need quick projectile speeds and medium range, enough to keep them off their fleet's backs. Their own shields would need enough shield capacity to withstand fire but not as much regeneration as they are not generally taking sustained fire from capitals. They need to be somewhat faster than capital ships so that they can stay close to defend them, but as a defensive role they don't need to be able to keep up with a bomber; fighters instead would be sent to intercept or hunt down fleeing bombers while the gunboat keeps them away from the fleet.

Anyway, what does this mean for stats?

I believe gunboats should have weapons with a high projectile speed (1200-1600 m/s) and a medium range (600-800m). They should have enough damage per second to be deadly against bombers (2000-2500) but not be powerful enough so as to be deadly against cruisers because that is not generally their role. They need a high shield capacity to withstand a lucky or careful bomber torpedo (100-150k) and a reliable shield regeneration rate (1200-1600), but not too much shield regeneration or else capital ships won't be able to drain their shields and ones like the bottlenose would become overpowered. These stats make them effective against fighters, bombers, and other gunboats.

Basically, what I'm saying is that they were pretty much fine the way they were before. They maybe should have had their shield regeneration lowered slightly and damage lowered only slightly, to make them a little bit less effective against capital ships. This would be a very, very slight change, enough that they would still be effective against fighters and bombers, but it would make a difference when it comes to them trying to out-drain a cruiser's shields.