GB forward guns

[mjolnir]

EDIT: See post # 16


GBs with forward guns should be more anti-cap specialized and a bit worse for shooting fighters/bombers. This is mostly reflected by them having one less forward firing turret(Liberty GB is an exception and unbalanced - see the GB balance thread).

Problem is that right now it's much better to mount some cerbs/infernos for the anti-cap business since they can shoot anywhere, while the forward guns have a very limited firing arc and they also have a better range. Yes forward guns are more energy effective, but the difference is not that big.

GBs with forward guns are also mostly much less agile. (Kusari GB is an exception here, but it has only 4 forward firing turrets)

When fighting a stronger Capship a GB needs to dodge or stay at range most of the time.

Now the Forward guns don't really do that much damage and have only 1400m range ( Cerbs/Infernos/Razors have 2000m). They also have 1.00 refire and do only moderate damage per shot.

To make them (and the Slow GBs) more competetive I suggest the following:

- Decrease all forward gun refire rate to 1/2 or 1/4 of the current one (1.00)
- Make them deal 2 or 4 times (or something in between) more damage, energy use should be increased accordingly as well
- Increase their range to 2000m

All this while keeping the limited firing arcs (on some slow GBs they are VERY limited)


The GBs that will be affected by this:

Kusari
Liberty (with 1 less turret than it has now)
Rheinland
Bretonia
Dragon
Orca

Now most people would agree that these are not exactly overpowered right now. In fact most people would say that Rogue GB, IMG GB and Corsair GB are all better than these.

---

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

[Jinx]

why are you not happy with the foreward gun stats? - roughly 20.000 damage at a quick fire rate and a reasonable amount of energy is fine, imo. decreasing the refire while increasing the damage neutralizes itself sort of - except that one has to aim better and a missed shot weight heavier against the gunboat.

increasing the energycost is meaningless for that matter, cause the gun fires less - however, one can not fire the foreward gun for a "bit" of damage when being low on energy - which means... less flexibility.

so whats the benefit and the greater anticap ability - unless you aim to unbalance the stats towards more damage. - but as long as you keep the ratio without increasing energy consumption and damage rediculously ( like 80.000 damage for 4 times the energy ( i guess that would be around 90% of a gunboats energy ) - things can pretty much stay the way they are.

there is a lot that can be tempered with - but there i d ask - why if its not only not broken, but also perfectly balanced. - one is easily tempted to meddle with the balance in favour for something. - like more projectile speed for more energy etc. - and quickly one has an imbalance problem.

edit: in order to make the GUNboats more capkillers than the gunboats without a foreward gun... - how would one balance the scorpion / corsair toolbox with their 8 guns against a kusari GB. - one cannot give the kusari GB with its 4 turrets + gun more anti-cap firepower than an eight gun gunboat. - not without seriously improving the gun. - which is a bad idea, imo. - at the same time, one cannot take away guns form the kusari GB to make it less anti-fighter. - it already has quite few turrets.

---

Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[mjolnir]

why are you not happy with the foreward gun stats? - roughly 20.000 damage at a quick fire rate and a reasonable amount of energy is fine, imo. decreasing the refire while increasing the damage neutralizes itself sort of - except that one has to aim better and a missed shot weight heavier against the gunboat.

Well take a really slow GB - Rheinland one for example. The forward gun can basically only be fired straight forward.Now if you are fighting a cruiser you can't be pointing at it for longer periods of time (from under 1400ms at current range), since you will take a lot of damage.

If you double the damage and half the refire you can dodge much more between the shots.

Right now most of the time it's not worth the extra stress to point your ship precisely towards the other one since the damage done in one shot is low.. and he moves away before you fire next one. Instead other GBs just sit at 1.6-1.8k and hit the Cruiser/BS with Cerbs without taking damage (since they can strafe away from shots at that range)

That's why range might be even more important that doubling the damage.

Also there are two Forward Gun classes, I guess the smaller ones (Liberty, Dragon, Orca, currently around 16 damage) can get only some 1600 range and 3/2 the damage with decreased refire. While the Larger (currently 20k damage) can get 200 range and 2 times damage/ half refire.


EDIT:

there is a lot that can be tempered with - but there i d ask - why if its not only not broken, but also perfectly balanced. - one is easily tempted to meddle with the balance in favour for something. - like more projectile speed for more energy etc. - and quickly one has an imbalance problem.

As posted above the forward guns on the slow GBs are useless most of the time. Against GBs you can't hit (very limited firing arc), against cruisers you are a lot of damage (under 1400m) trying to point on them. Against BS you get annihilated at under 1400m.

If people want an anti-cab gb, they mount cerbs and infernos on their slow gbs.. and don't use the forward gun most of the time. I would never dare to call Rheinland, Bretonian or Dragon GB perfectly balanced against IMG, Rogue or Corsair one.


-----------------------
Kusari GB is the a example of a GB with forward gun that can actually dodge at 1400meters. Still the fast refire/low per shot damage make it worse anti-cap ship than if it had one extra normal hardpoint mounting a cerberus. Which is strange.

I'm not saying it should be better anti-cap than 8 Turret GBs... but the forward firing gun should be and advantage against caps over having one normal turret slot in the same place.

---

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

[Tenacity]

having used the liberty and kusari gb's on the server, and the rheinland and bretonia gunboats in open sp... I have to say I disagree.

The current forward guns deal twice as much damage as a gunboat battle razor, at twice the refire rate, for only slightly more energy than it takes to fire a single razor/inferno.

They're already good, you just have to get used to aiming them.

EDIT:

And related - if you lower the refire rate so it's a slower weapon, 'misses' will impact fights even more dramatically.

Right now at a 1.0 refire rate on the forward guns, you can afford to miss a shot here and there... but if the refire rate was .5 or .25, a single miss would greatly tip the fight to your opponent.

---

[Doom]

not that i complain, but isn't general opinion that gunboats are meant to be anti fighter/bomber vessels?
(that opinion doesn't have any sense to me since that are called GUNbloodyBOATS)

If we follow that twisted logic of GBs being anti fighter vessels there is no use for FWD guns on them at all...is there?

However, if we want to to keep FWD guns on GBs then they MUST have longer range, slower refire and much slower speed...with increased damage output...they will keep ability to hit cruisers but they must require extra skill/luck to hit GB and lower...

Also, GBs with FWD gun must not be more agile then GBs without FWD gun...(exception to that should be Kusari GB)...

[Tenacity]

well, if you really want to look into it...

Take the mission in SP where you, juni, and walker go to willard research station and have to fight the rheinlanders. Walker says "Fighters, target those gunboats, they're too fast for our turrets"

That would lead me to believe that gunboats are meant to be effective against cruisers and up due to higher agility, but wouldnt be easy for smaller ships to take out one on one either due to their heavy firepower as well.

I think the forward gun is to help some gunboats in fleet combat when going against larger ships, while the rest of their weapons are more designed as a defensive measure against fighters and bombers.

---

[Doom]

exactly..that is how i always treated my GBs...as anticap ship...

...turrets are there for GBs defense...(that is why i agree with suggestion that GB weapons should have higher refire and less damage output, but each GB should have FWD gun)

GB without FWD gun is just a Boat...with defense capabilities and no way of fulfilling its role...(and barely fulfilling its enforced role of being antifighter ship)

[mjolnir]

I guess I should have called this: "How to make the slow and useless GBs competitive"

I would say that GBs with forward guns should be meant as anti-capship and are therefore slower (RH, Bret etc..)

Without are either universal - Corsair, or Anti-fighter - IMG, Rogue



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I do fly quite a few GBs with forward gun and quite a few without it... in multiplayer against players.

And I would trade the forward gun for a normal turret hardpoint against any target ANYTIME without thinking. The short range and low damage per shot is just not worth the very problematic ship positioning. This is especially true for the sluggish and big gunboats.

---

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

[chopper]

Forward guns, at this moment, are pretty much useless.
I'v even seen people mounting fighter missiles instead (CB's?).

They should do 3x more damage, consume 2x more energy, have 2k range, and have some 400-450 speed.

At the time, most GB fwd guns are weaker then bloody mini-razor, which is pretty silly.

Also, Liberty GB totally deserves to be nerfed for it's forward gun. It's agile, it's small, it has LOTS of turrets.
It doesn't need a FWD gun at all.

Also, FWD guns for Cruisers should be much better then now.

---

It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.

Can't let you bash folks in your sig Chopper-Del

[Tenacity]

I use my gunboat forward guns all the time against traders and cruisers+

it's not that hard to aim them, honestly, you just need to quit trying to aim them like fighter guns.

---