Discovery 5.1 Dev Diary #3 - More System Changes & Other Things

[Antonio]

@"0xCosmin" @Dark Chocolate @Sarwar Perhaps my description was a bit misleading, let me clarify. Cruisers getting components has nothing to do with battlecruisers. The goal is to eventually give all caps, and ships in general, components. Why? Because it adds more depth and variety, and it's simply cool. The better question is why not? With enough time down the line, why wouldn't snubs get components again, like in vanilla where you could blow off a snub's wing along with the guns on that wing? As long as it's balanced so you don't get instakilled by a single torpedo (like in vanilla) it's a flat upgrade with no drawbacks.

Backwards heavy: it has a far more liberal arc than the BC one and turns way faster. The arc is so generous you can broadside with it comfortably slightly over 90 degrees. As mentioned in the OP, you can broadside both the frontal and backward heavies, which means broadside gives you the most flexibility when it comes to maximizing your arcs. BC-comparisons aside, the reason why the backwards heavy is the most efficient is exactly to remedy the mistake of a previous cruiser rework where heavies could only shoot forward. What was the result? Two ships slamming into each other, the one with the more turn rate winning every time. Next to no depth or relevant mechanics. When the backwards/broadside heavy is the most efficient, it deters brainless chasing and facetanking, and involves more broadside and component play.

Additionally, in this matchup specifically, the Crecy has a very cracked backwards heavy as its identity. The Scylla is more all-rounded. There will be cruisers with more emphasis on a certain playstyle, though not to the point where all other ones are worthless. In this duel, Haste (the Scylla) didn't use his backwards heavy that much. Why? Because he went for my engines, primarily with his forward heavies, solaris gatlings. I, on the other hand, took the approach to slam him with the disintegrator as much as possible. It's two different playstyles that could've gone either way as the fight result showed, with me surviving with 3% hull. The result? You have multiple playstyles, and more emphasized uniqueness in ships, as well as more broadsiding rater than just kiting each other with the heavy. I'd say that hardly resembles BCs, where chasing is clearly quite weak. If anything, going for the components with bow chasers is just as good when executed properly, which is at the moment slightly more difficult than shooting the center with the stern chasers, exactly to deter ships from slamming face-on into each other with no strategy in mind. Additionally, the shield recharge/powercore component adds an entirely unique component to cruisers that BCs will not have.

Battleships won't be receiving backwards-only guns, at least not that I'm aware of. The 5.1 rework had no plans with touching BS gun arcs, as showed in the videos of the OP.

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