Is it time to nerf cruise disruptors?

[Tenacity]

At first, I was thinking, "Nerf cruise disruptors? No way! They're an interesting part of PVP, and are a balancing force that gives smaller ships added value so that people don't just BS spam. Their variety of uses make them a unique tool."

But, then I saw your suggestion. I think limiting their ammo capacity would be appropriate. At 70, they are completely spammable. With less capacity, they will still be useful, but they'll have to be used wisely, and multiple people with cruise disruptors would be necessary in order to use them consistently throughout a fight.

But, the only problem is that this would make it very difficult for someone to solo pirate. Without enough cruise disruptors, how will you prevent someone from cruising away if they are constantly trying?

Thus, sadly, they should remain at 70. However, if it is possible to change cruise disruptors to not negate missiles, then perhaps it would be a good idea to have different kinds of cruise disruptors: ones with more ammo that cannot destroy torpedoes, and ones with less ammo that can. Perhaps, if possible, they could even be made to require multiple hits with cruise disruptors in order to destroy heavier ordinance, in which case they would not be able to disrupt so many missiles, but they would still be just as effective at disrupting cruise.

A solo pirate can destroy a trader with ease after the use of only a single disruptor. At most you'd need less than a dozen to deal with a pesky trader that somehow manages to avoid all of your fire (and in that case, maybe piracy is not for you).

I would say, tentatively, that most cruise disruptors should be limited to 15-20 ammo, maybe 25 tops. You have missiles and torpedoes in the game that are already limited to 25 ammo, which means a single fighter would still be able to completely nullify a cap's missile allotment.

However, I would also say that on many ships, having a 360 degree (or even 90 degree to each side) firing arc for the cruise disruptor would be perfectly acceptable with a limited ammo count.

Cruise disrupters are fine.

What we need to nerf is cruising during combat, you know, cruising on people. It breaks the whole range/speed limit dynamic when you can just cruise on someone.

I agree with this as well, I've suggested before that the FLhook plugin which causes cruise power drain should not allow your ship to recover energy until you're traveling once more at your ship's normal maximum speed - that'd be 90m/s for battleships, 120 for battlecruisers, 130 for cruisers, etc (max speed with thrust active). This way, you would not be able to cruise, engine kill at 200+m/s, and regain your energy back while moving faster than your ship normally would be able to.

Let’s not try to fix something that’s not broken.
The CDs are fine as they are.

Obviously you're in the minority here with that opinion. Giving one piece of equipment too many strengths and not enough weaknesses is most definitely something I consider 'broken'. Every other piece of equipment in the game has drawbacks - weapon loadouts tend to be good for one thing, and weak at another, jump drives and cloaks all have their own limitations, shields for some classes even have varying strengths and energy requirements to offset those strengths.

A spammable, effectively unlimited-ammuntion weapon that can be used for both offense, defense, and utility is broken.

---