Why is Nomad gear so good for PVP?

[Antonio]

I don't even know how you people come up with these conclusions. Let's break it down bit by bit.

So I think anyone will agree, the nomads in this mod have a clear and definitive advantage in pvp. My question is why. Why does one faction have gear that is so much better than everyone else's. Not just a little better, but far and away the best. What is the rationale for this? I know what the answer to this question was from when we implemented nomads as playable in the mod to several years ago, but I am not sure the answer anymore. With this latest patch buffing nomads even more, I think this is a fair discussion to have since we have moved so far way from its original intent.

The nomad gear was either absolute trash or average at best half a year ago, apart from the broken Rabisu which had huge tentacles sticking out of its arse. Only when I started buffing things to a normal level they became "viable", or "good". Let's take a look at all the nomad stuff in the game:

1. The 3 buffs that happened this patch. First of all, the concept of a "buff" is pretty misunderstood in the community. Say you have 2 weapons with identical stats but one has 500 and the other 560 damage. If I buff the former 10 times by 5 damage, it ends up on 550, while I don't touch the 560 one. Technically I "buffed" the first weapon 10 times(!?) while the second one was ignored, surely the first one is better!? No, it's not. It doesn't strictly matter if a weapon is buffed or nerfed nor how big the buff/nerf seems, what matters is the status after the change compared to other equipment or ships of its class and balance in general. As for the 3 nomad buffs you mentioned -

- Nomad CMs ammo: 70 -> 125, hit points: 12k -> 120k
- Nomad heavy CD: c/p of reinforced cd
- Nomad cd damage: 140 -> 255, reduced power usage, ammo: 70 -> 90

-all 3 were complete trash and worse in almost everything than a normal, human CM would be. Before I get into this, the thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to Nomad mines, CMs and CDs is that they only have 1 type of it. 1 type, no variety, no options. They're forced to stick with it. If for example a Fortress CM is bad, a human ship can just switch to a Sentinel or a Silencer, no problem.

The nomad CM was a worse version of the Heavy CM (which is considered below average for humans as well, fortress, sentinel and silencer all do the job better), having identical stats but much less hit points making it die to missiles and torpedoes VERY fast. The hit points buff was simply to give the nomad caps (which are terrible as well, I'll get into that) a viable CM they can use, while it's irrelevant on snubs since if you're hitting their CM -that- hard, they're likely to die before the CM gets blown off even without the hp buff. The ammo buff is needed to bring it up with the rest top tier human CMs mentioned above, having less ammo than a sentinel (by far the most popular and arguably still better CM than any other) and a silencer, but more decoy effectiveness. End result? A balanced alternative to human tech.

Nomad CDs were even worse. The cd 1 (regular CD) was a worse version of the train. It had worse damage, worse velocity and power usage(!?). Think about it for a second. A CD meant for fighters & bombers having power usage, while also being worse in 2 other stats mentioned above compared to human alternatives. The buff makes it have the damage of a mosquito, ammo of a mosquito and range of a train. Again, nomads -don't have- an alternative, they -can't choose- between mosquitos & trains, they only have 1 version which is made to be between the two.

Nomad heavy CD was as bad as the regular nomad CD, having all the stats identical except lower velocity. Granted, it didn't have power usage so technically it was better, but it was terrible regardless. I made it a copy paste of the reinforced CD to give caps a proper viable CD to use. End result? A balanced alternative to human tech.

And that's only the 3 "buffs" that happened this patch. Nomad mines are a slightly better version of Nukes because yet again Nomads don't have an alternative such as a Screamer or a Ripper which is overall a disadvantage, especially on bombers. Let's get onto ships.

The nomad capline is terrible. Granted, they're getting new versions of them soon™, but it's no surprise almost nobody flies them ever, except the Marduk. Marduk was also completely useless for anything but buttcloaking and dying after that before it got its guns buffed. The model was too big for anything else to be done about the dying part, so I gave it stronger guns to at least be able to be a threat to anything smaller than a battleship. It's still dying very fast, but it's scary in return. The cruiser and the gunboat are the largest of its class, which comes as a big disadvantage. Sure, they have the stats according to their size, but -that- big of a size just doesn't end well. They're duel gods, no doubt, but as soon as a groupfight emerges they fall down quickly. All 3 are (below) average at best, and nowhere near as good as human caps.

Snubs I didn't fly much and it isn't my territory, but they're pretty good as far as I know. The Rabisu isn't as broken as before, the Labraid is very good for evading even though it has only 3 guns, and as Vasko said it can survive an instakill which other LFs can't. I'd think of it more as an HF than a LF. The guns are balanced according to @Haste 's formula, so I'm sure nothing is broken or "simply better" there. They have 700m/s 2.00s, but it comes at a disadvantage of efficiency. Cap guns are average, except Marduk prims & secondaries which are balanced specifically for the Marduk for the reason I explained above.


Overall, the Nomad tech is average at best compared to a Liberty, GRN, Bretonia or literally any other complete tech & ship line. It was terrible before we buffed a few things, but still nothing impressive and with a lot of stuff still missing (Nomads don't have flaks, cap missiles or solarises). I'd take for example Liberty's weapons & shipline ANY day over the Nomad one. Where this is coming from I really don't know, but hopefully this post clarified things for you.