Snub PvP; A deep dive complaint

[Oggdo Bogdo]

Have you tried Bombers?

Edit: This is a genuine question. Bombers are fun and theyre a snub. i know you said "SHFs and Bombers have their own problems" buuuuut. have you really tried 'em?

Short answer: Have you tried VHFs?

Long answer: (I'll write SHF and bomber interchangeably in this answer, Levenna has it exactly right)

I didn't want to get into them because they're more complicated in implementation compared to VHFs, as they have a lot of non-vanilla characteristics. These things also include glaring issues, one of which is similar in principle to what this thread focuses on, so I'll elaborate slightly on this.

Bombers are poor at dodging, and their movement is a lot clunkier than VHFs. This is because of their mass and strafe force/mass ratios (to be clear, lower mass is better, higher strafe/mass ratio is better). Before adding any bomber guns, VHFs sit at 150 mass, and 100 strafe/mass. Bombers sit at 350 - 450 mass, and 66 - 86 strafe/mass.

This influences bombers negatively a few ways: The initial burst you get from tapping the strafe key is extremely weak. If you try switching strafes to dodge shots, it's going to be highly ineffective, it takes time for the strafe speed to accelerate up to where it needs to be, and you not only have proportionally less strafe to compensate for the mass, but also more mass to overcome.

Next, it makes movement clunkier. In duels, there is a movement strategy that is quite fundamental, called "outer strafing". What you do is that you thrust at the opponent from an angle, while holding down the strafe key that puts you further away from the opponent. When you do this on a bomber, it's a lot clunkier even when you have fully accelerated to maximum strafe speed, because there's higher mass, which increases the ship's inertia, and causes the ship to drift slightly in the direction you were moving in. With "outer strafing" it's like being dragged in a direction you don't really want to go in, exposing yourself to more shots, and it's quite annoying to players that are used to VHFs.

The higher mass also does one more thing, it makes accelerating up to full thruster speed slower. VHFs have no problem reversing, and immediately thrusting forward at full speed. SHFs need a second thruster, and because they sit at over 2x the mass, they still do this slightly slower. These 3 things make SHF movement extremely hard to vary and limits skill expression drastically. It has virtually no ability to dodge shots because there is no burst of strafe to work with. It often gets outpaced by theoretically slower turning VHFs because of the drag, and it doesn't do boxing nearly as well. To make up for this, it just has a lot more health and nanobots to work with. They usually make for 1-dimensional duels with the faster ships because it's pretty obvious what the SHF is trying to do and it just comes down to whether or not they can kill the faster ship in time. It's akin to being put on a timer, similar to the current meta with VHFs, but it's exaggerated and multiplied since it's the same problem on a much bigger scale and with more and different stat issues compounding the problem.

One last thing is that SHFs/Bombers don't scale well into bigger fights. Being big and poor at strafing is a recipe for eating lots of shots with no counterplay. It's impossible to give SHFs enough health to not make death inevitable in bigger fights, because this makes them oppressive in duels. I think people remember a time when SHFs had more bots/bats than gunboats and they were impossible to kill outside of instakills.

The reason I didn't include all this in the main body is because I don't know a solution to this. SHFs are meant to fulfill this role. They help newer players be useful in fights by allowing them to survive longer than in a VHF where they haven't developed the skills to justify the extra freedom of movement. Most aces prefer VHFs and other lighter ships precisely because SHFs limited range of movement isn't as fun or nimble as VHFs and lower and they aren't as easy to gang up on and kill off.

The current iteration of snub PvP is so convoluted and full of useless features that it makes cap pvp feel like a breeze to understand in comparison (because it is at this point). Every now and then I'm asked if I can explain how snub pvp works, because I'm one of those gremlins that fly fairly well despite the massive pile of slop that snub pvp is now. A newbie that wants to get better or see if he can get into this stuff.

So what do I reply with? "I'm just as confused as you are."; "I don't fucking know" or "Just fly around and get a feel for it.". There's shields, strafe changes, mass, gun efficiency and DPS, missiles, mines, powercore regen etc. If I were a newbie all over again I'd just neck myself with a steel rope and let "Hurt" by Johnny Cash play in the background. Because it really hurts when my guns won't fire 'cause they eat up too much energy for what they're worth, my ship either moves like a brick and the other guy throws a swatter (which I'm forced by to disengage, take it in the face or focus on instead of the actual target), the shields are down so regen is even more fucked and the other guy runs with guns that also drain powercore.

If I wanted to play EVE or Elite: Dangerous I'd go play those games, not this. I like the ideas the balance team came with, but they are either too overtuned or too taxing on what is supposed to be easy to understand, hard to master combat. Now its hard to understand and hard to master. Not a combination I'm a fan of.

Completely agree with this sentiment. Most aces can barely keep up with the new mechanics. Newer players not only have to learn the fundamentals but also how the changes function. The new swatters and missiles are not uncommon either, and a lot of these newer ammo-types have extremely counter-intuitive responses. The swatter for instance, acts exactly the opposite a normal mine functions: It disarms when shot at, while other mines explode. It explodes when it times out, while other mines disarm themselves. They don't even track targets and they fly relatively far backward, while normal mines will track the closest ship and exit relatively close to the mine launcher. It can be quite disorienting.

---