Gunboats balance

[mjolnir]

Also agree on normal Cruisers being toughened up a bit.

It's not the ships that need to be toughened... it's the pilots that are usually crap. If they are not the GB should never win. (not counting the BHG GS)

That combined with the " a bit too fast" energy recharge on GBs is the reason for cruisers beeing "vulnerable".

---

Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[El Nino]

I agree with Mjolnir. Cruiser pilots are usually crap... or should I say unusually crapy... It seems that about 70M more that you need for a cruiser, doesn't put off traders from buying them... i've come to the observation that most power traders in sigma 13 want to buy either a cruiser or a battleship. They don't even consider gunboats... and since cruiser money can be made with a day they buy one... And with their trader like skills they engage hardtime pirates such as myself...

Pwnz roarz, //actually without a word// their usual strategy involves flying in turret screen, sometimes cruising if you get out of imediate range, but overall they just cannot aim. As such they loose teribly.

I've meet only two cruiser pilots who could fly to this day. Mon'Star and a KNF destroyer someone... No target was to big for them to take out, and they did it... So a well flown cruiser isn't a problem.

The main balance issue is the recharge rate on gunboats. That is there probably to charge those hungry forward guns. Wich are ballanced that hungry so bombers don't use them... Perhaps by leaving top 5 gun slots for capital ships, and make all fighter weapons from 1 to 5... (lvl 1 covering from 1 to 4, lvl 2 from 5 to 7, 3-8,3-9, 5- 10.. So fighters and bombers cannot use forward cannons, and energy consumption can be brought down... As this is a bit unbalanced, if you mount 8 order turrets wich are the most power hungry turrets, still your supply won't budge from 100%. Why don't Cruisers and Battleships have such great batteries is beyond me... this should be lowered in any case.

---

Donate to the Poor Pilot's Fundation via Sirius Bank /givecash GreenHawk 1000000 now, and support poor pilots sirius wide!
Skype: jure.grbec
My primary char: Jose El Nino - Corsair Elder captain of the SS Greenhawk

Currently Inactive due to pursuit of life long dreams, will be back...*edited* As promised am back.

[Generation]

I like my Dragon Gunboat's power supply its perfect for my set up. I think you would be surprised at how quickly a gunboat can run out of juice. My set up chews threw power, its quiet well balanced. I have to converse my fire, do I want to utilizes the main gun and the hell out of something, do I want to launch missiles or do I want to pound them with two cerbs and a couple of GB defense turrets.
I can mix and match my firing if I want but I all ways need to watch that power gauge specially when I em using missles AND cerbs.

I'll go in game now and work out the energy usage.


<edit>ok I have just experimented a little.

Firing the main gun drops a reasonable amount of power but at its refire rate the energy recharges to full before I can launch the next shot.

My load out of 2 cerbs and 2 Gunboat defense turrets chews threw the energy at a slower rate then I originally thought, I can put of a fair few shots. My biggest energy users are the 2 Dragonfly missile turrets, they chew threw the juice at a reasonable rate.

However when I use these in conjunction the power still disappears fast;
My primary combat method is the turrets and when I use the cerbs, GB DT's and DF MT's the power drops a lot. This is mostly due to the MT's, they drop a fare amount of power and if I don't let it recharge then I generally run out of power after 3 consecutive launches.

I think the power plant should be left alone, but increase the time it takes to recharge.

---

[Telbasta]

Ok, here's my take on the whole situation-

I think more gunboats need to be made like the kusari GB, bounty hunter gunship, etc. Small, fast, manuverable, but with limited firepower.

I fly a kusari gunboat, and it's manuverable enough to easily avoid supernova shots. So far I've gone up against three bombers, and in all three fights I never took a single supernova hit, as well as doding most standard fire directed at me. I dont have any problems at all taking out fighters or bombers, but anything larger than a transport is a bit difficult to handle.

Right now on my kusari GB, my setup is two kusari defense turrets, two kusari missile turrets, and the kusari gb forward gun. The fifth turret slot I leave empty, because it's rear-fire only and as such isnt very usefull.

The forward gun is the real saving grace on the ship... It does twice as much damage as a razor for only slightly more energy than a single razor takes. It has a fast refire rate, but isnt easy to aim. That weapon is the only thing that gives me a chance against any type of capship or transport - without it, I wouldnt have enough damage output to take down anyone's shields.

However, that forward gun's power also allows me to focus the rest of my ship's setup on anti-fighter weaponry, which is really where the focus of a gunboat should be. A GB isnt meant to take out large, well armored and well shielded capital ships unless you're working in groups. Last night myself and another kusari gunboat went up against a rheinland cruiser, and if he had not fled from the engagement the two of us could have easily taken him out - we could dodge his fire without much effort, and between the forward gun and our two defense turrets each we'd have been able to take him down over time.

I think more gunboats need to be made like that - only 4-5 turrets (if 5, one rear-facing only), but with a powerful forward gun that can make up for lack of damage against transports and capships. Personally I dont consider any GB-class vessel without that forward gun a true gunboat, but instead a gunship - it may have more turrets but in the end it lacks the firepower a gunboat with a forward gun has.

I'd just prefer that more gb's be made small, manuverable, and with 4~ forward turrets and a gun instead of 6-8 turrets only.

---

[AdamantineFist]

Eh, up the energy consumption on normal turrets. That alone will help.

---

[Telbasta]

Eh, up the energy consumption on normal turrets. That alone will help.

without significantly increasing damage output on those turrets I dont think it will do anything but hurt GB's.

Normal turrets dont do enough damage against anything larger than a fighter/bomber. Unless you're using 6-8 normal turrets, you wont even be able to break through another cap's shields with them alone.

The heavy hitting gunboat weaponry - battle razors, infernos, and cerberus turrets - all suck energy pretty quickly, they're balanced just fine aside from gunboat razors/infernos being next to useless compared to cerberus guns.

Missiles also use a pretty large amount of energy, the only reason they dont drain a gb's energy down on their own is because of low refire rate - unless you're using 4+ missile turrets you wont run out of energy solely by using them. If you use a couple cerberus turrets with your missiles, you'll have energy problems and probably wont be able to fire your missiles half the time due to the drain from the cerbs.

---

[AdamantineFist]

Yeah, but using normal turrets, you regain energy as you fire! That's... rather weird.

---

[Doom]

its a gunboat..it sole purpose is to fire its guns...and besides, if it needs to be anti fighter/bomber vessel then it needs to be capable of using it turrets as pilot sees fit...

GBs can and always will have power to destroy cruiser if they are flown by good pilot.

Reducing turret hull damage, but adding refire would be better choice for killing fighters and much worse for going after capital ships....not to mention that it would reduce ability of GB to recharge its power plant fast enough...even if we keep current energy usage

[Jonathan_Archer_nx01]

It's not the ships that need to be toughened... it's the pilots that are usually crap. If they are not the GB should never win. (not counting the BHG GS)

That combined with the " a bit too fast" energy recharge on GBs is the reason for cruisers beeing "vulnerable".

Lots of people think that gunboats should be inferior to cruisers, but why? It's called GUN BOAT and it has one really big gun on it. Also, do you remember the sp mission from California where Walker and his fleet were fighting Rheinlanders? Walker says, "These gunboats are too fast for our turrets" and orders all fighters to engage them.

Cruisers and Gunboats should be balanced to each other. Cruisers are tougher and pack more firepower while gunboats are fast, agile and benefit from dodging all the heavy fire.
Something like Very heavy fighters vs. Light fighters.

[Horon]

Lots of people think that gunboats should be inferior to cruisers, but why? It's called GUN BOAT and it has one really big gun on it. Also, do you remember the sp mission from California where Walker and his fleet were fighting Rheinlanders? Walker says, "These gunboats are too fast for our turrets" and orders all fighters to engage them.

Cruisers and Gunboats should be balanced to each other. Cruisers are tougher and pack more firepower while gunboats are fast, agile and benefit from dodging all the heavy fire.
Something like Very heavy fighters vs. Light fighters.

True, but seeing as Cruisers are still a bit higher up, they should still be able to hold their own.

Besides...

It seems everyone is using the BH Gunship as an excuse to nerf Gunboats in general....

Destroyer - Should have large amount of firepower. Slower than a Cruiser.
Cruiser - More agile than a Destroyer. Not as much firepower.

That how it works. Or rather, how it should.

Gunboats and Gunships would work the same way. Gunships would have less firepower, and higher agility, while the Gunboat would be slower, but pack more punch.

---

While being quite funny, your sig was the biggest one i've ever seen so far. No more than 700x250 please. ~utrack
http://pastebin.com/SYQXBufs