Logical balance

[Malcolm_Reynalds]

may I preface this post with a statement:
I do not/have not ever flown a BS on this server. my last was a 4.84 BHBS on a different server.
nor have I participated in bomber attacks vs large battleships.


logically speaking, If this statement is indeed true:

Even with two average fighters on their tail. bombers can still dodge until their powercore is up and then pause that one second it takes to shoot. repeat until dead (20 mins)

Then simply giving Capitol ships more armor or more bots/bats or a bigger shield capacity only prolongs the fight (not necessarily a bad thing) but it still leaves the issue of bombers being able to dodge indefinitely at maximum range and fire an unlimited ammo weapon.

if we implemented this: http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73437 (My thoughts on limited fuel for thrusters.)
With a limited fuel supply: bombers may only be able to keep up their attack until their fuel is exhausted, then their ability to dodge incoming fire and escorts would be diminished.

as far as balancing it, I don't know what a reasonable amount of fuel would be, if it's as little as 3 minutes as my example uses, or 10, or 20 minutes. do fighters get more fuel than bombers, do gunboats get more as well. . .I don't know. I just thought the Idea may be somewhat relevant here.

[keithobad]

Thruster limits is an interesting idea.
I agree that bomber dodging is really the essence of the problem, fix that (while still allowing them to attack unescorted cap ships) and you've gone a long way towards solving the problem.

An anti-afterburner missile strictly for LFs would be an option too. Make an interceptor slot for them and give them a low max (2? 4?) they can carry.

[mjolnir]

Even with two average fighters on their tail. bombers can still dodge until their powercore is up and then pause that one second it takes to shoot. repeat until dead (20 mins)

Then comes the skill of a BS pilot.
yes you can hit a stationary bs from very long range....

try to hit a reversing/straffing LN dread... if you want to be 100% sure to hit you need to go down to some 600-800 meters and you'll need more than just 1 sec aiming.

Also the BS should wait for just that few secs when you align your sn and blast you with a razor shot - shield is down because of fighters

What I would propose though, is that battleships, cruisers, and possibly GBs get the same amount of Bot to armor ratio as fighters and bombers...

Think about it.. When in a liberty cruiser, It's all you can do to bot once.. then that is it.. while ALL the fighters and bombers around you can bot about 5-6 times.

Even it out so that caps and smalls have the same (relatively same) number of bots to comparative armor.

vanilla had few hull regens on fighters ....

=> we should actually decrease number of bats/bots on fighters

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

[Osilon]

I would do what was said earlier in the thread- Supernova is overpowered, gives the bombers an ability to snipe. If we removed them (EDIT: Or made them a shieldbuster weapon), made the nova a perfect-lock weapon, but slow, and give it a larger model, so it can actually be shot out of the air- Give LFs an interceptor role, much the same as intercepting the bombs in Freespace 2.

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A million dollars isn't cool. You know what is cool? A basilisk.

[mjolnir]

I would do what was said earlier in the thread- Supernova is overpowered, gives the bombers an ability to snipe. If we removed them (EDIT: Or made them a shieldbuster weapon), made the nova a perfect-lock weapon, but slow, and give it a larger model, so it can actually be shot out of the air- Give LFs an interceptor role, much the same as intercepting the bombs in Freespace 2.

There are still 2 problems with nova coming in 4.86

1. any tracking based projectile weapon tends to do very strange things if
a) there's some lag
b) there are asteroids (some asteroids are actually invisible but are still there, not to mention the issues with those visible ones)

2. it often doesn't do any damage to hull even with huge blast radius (this is related to size of bs and also to multiple components on vanilla BS)

EDIT: Btw nova's can be destroyed by any ship with cd now.. only need to click on the projectile in space and fire cd.

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

[Lobster]

try to hit a reversing/straffing LN dread... if you want to be 100% sure to hit you need to go down to some 600-800 meters and you'll need more than just 1 sec aiming.

Also the BS should wait for just that few secs when you align your sn and blast you with a razor shot - shield is down because of fighters

A) hmmm 75% chance of hit and no way for my shields to be taken down? or 100% chance of hit and chance of death... Ill take the 75% thank-you.

B) LN dread is more maneuverable then a geb and one of the best battleships vs bombers. I would like you to use the Bretonian battleship as an example please.. that is a move avridge and baseline battleship for general comparisons.

vanilla had few hull regens on fighters ....

=> we should actually decrease number of bats/bots on fighters

I like that too...< (no more 1hour fighter battles) lets go for it

[Huhuh]

Nerf SNAC's. Give bombers....hmmm....idk....A BOMB!?

Give the bombers a nova mine or something that they is maybe 1/4 the strength of a SNAC so they have to evade fire and drop mines on to their target. It makes them actually seem like bombers.

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[Vogel]

Not much of a suggestion, this is pretty much just pointing out the flaw: Battleships 'should' be able to sweep the floor with just about anything unless they're swarmed from multiple directions. To be able to "solo" a battleship is atrocious. The tradeoff for that power 'should' be the ability to run away from it, since God knows you certainly can, but the ever dreaded 4 hour rule comes in; nobody wants to be kicked out of a system for 4 hours because some lolwut in a battleship shot at you. It's yet another conflict of server rules, in-game "reality", and in-game mechanics.

I'd almost say leave them as is; status quo is less painful. If you give the battleships the ability to fend off "solo-ers" that'd be good, 'but' it'd invoke the problem I spoke of above.

[Lunaphase]

Its actually pretty painful now, to see a single bomber and fighter kill a capital ship. (cruiser)

or to see two unarmored rocs capable of downing a bs without ever entering gun range of the bs.

Frankly, heavy battleships are so big they cant dodge the snacs 99% of the time, even if they SEE them. a FIGHTER is a small dot at anything but point blank. the snac is damn near invisible.

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[Akura]

Battleships need support, escorts.

Improving Caps in any way will not improve the Mod in any way. I will cause more problems.


Battleships are tough enough as it is, if two unarmoured Bombers killed a BS and it didn't attempt to escape or Missile them, that's the Battleship's lack of skill, or the Bomber's amount of skill.

You can't nerf something cause skilled players use it.


Get escorts, a GB and a fighter or two, you'll find the Bombers stand less of a chance.