Fighters should be fun...

[Yngen]

I find it frustrating that I have to devote massive portions of my server time to ungodly long fighter battles. While I admit to enjoying the sheer mental challenge of it all, and that I love testing myself against skilled opponents, I fear its not very good for role playing. Flying a fighter should be the most dangerous occupation in the game. That's what fighters are. They are death traps. Small machines with soft skins but powerful weapons. A mistake in a fighter should be life-threatening, not just a dip into the nano pool.

What's the biggest difference between flying a fighter and flying a Battleship?

Time.

I'm guessing that if you commit a battleship to a fight you will spend about a quarter of the time you would in a fighter against an equally skilled opponent both due to the size of the target and its relative speed.

Before I continue though let me share some numbers I scratched onto a napkin:

Your average Very Heavy Fighter has 10,000 base armor. Your average bomber has 20,000. (if you disagree, humor me please.) Average number of nanobots is about 64, bombers is about 105-I'm guessing this allows 2 full hull regens for either ship.

Assuming those amounts, here's how hard it is to kill a fighter:

VHF-Mk8 armor, 64 nanobots

10,000(2.5 armor)(2 nanobot regens)=50,000 hit points

Bomber-mk8 armor, 105 nanobots

20,000(2.5 armor)(2 nanobot regens)-75,000 hit points

Now I will take 5 sample weapon combinations (one from each refire rate,) and compare their hull damage to the above amounts. I've measured the weapons 4 at a time to account for the predominant usage of shield busters on this server. However it must be noted that the Outcasts get an advantage by equipping a shield buster in their torpedo slot allowing them 2 more hull busting weapons.

ARCHANGEL X4: 5600 hull per shot. VHF takes 9 full hull shots. Bomber takes 14 full hull shots.

TWILIGHT X4: 3520 hull per shot. VHF takes 14 full hull shots. Bomber takes 21 full hull shots.

Kraken 2 X4: 2224 hull per shot. VHF takes 22 full hull shots. Bomber takes 34 full hull shots.

Fury 5 X 4: 1296 hull per shot. VHF takes 39 full hull shots. Bomber takes 58 full hull shots.

Skyblast B X 4: 904 hull per shot. VHF takes 55 full hull shots. Bomber takes 183 full hull shots.

Now, I have purposely left shields out in order to make a point. Hopefully most of you realize how difficult it is to hit a skilled fighter/bomber pilot. The ability to use thrust and strafe either more actively to recharge ones shields or less actively to make more accurate shots means it takes a lot of time to get in those requisite hull shots.

ineffective solutions to avoid:

-messing about with shields. Shields keep camera jarring at bay with capital ships and prevent insta-kills on fighters, leave them alone

-increasing or decreasing armor kits. Again for fighters, armor kits prevent insta-kills in most cases and capital ships need armor due to the power of their weapons.

-messing around with ship manueverability. Too many variables and too much careful balance work would be lost

-eliminating nanobots/sheild bats entirely. Too drastic, would make the game too difficult for new players and would make NPCs too dangerous.

The only viable option:

-Reduce the nano counts of all ships bomber and below. I suggest by 50%. Shields remain as they are and coupled with existing armor upgrades means the fighter can survive a single hit from any source and not be destroyed. Ships keep their same relative speed and manueverability which is balanced fairly well with the weapons in the mod. Cutting the nano counts in half means the fighter/bomber pilot can survive one mistake completely instead of 3. This also means fighters are less likely to be turned immortal by nanobot traders.

I prefer this solution over making any additional server rules that are difficult to enforce.

edited per AoM's feedback 12/23/07

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[AU]Anton_Blix
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