4.85 Weapons

[Tenacity]

I had a feeling varyag would throw his peice in after that.

Varyag, you might be an exceptional cruiser pilot, and I would venture to say that a majority (not all, but most) of the bomber pilots you've fought were:
a) Not in top notch bombers (i.e. redcats)
b) Not all that good.

I've seen bombers solo cruisers before, and even battlecruisers. It isnt impossible and most pilots here, whether they're in the bomber or in the cruiser+, are really only average pilots.

Cruisers are not easy to fly, most people think "Big capship, powerful guns, strong shield, ezmode" and they're wrong. The problem is that they dont have one area they really excel in like the other two (or three if you count bc's) capship classes do. Gunboats/gunships rely on manuverability and are generally able to dodge most fire from larger caps as well as bombers. Battleships cant dodge at all but have more firepower than the other cap classes. Cruisers are like some meddling inbetween that excels in no area; it might be a balanced class between the others but it isnt focused on anything specific.

I dont think cruisers will change much from their current incarnation in 4.85 - from what i've heard the only change going through is that cruiser weapons will have a longer max range than other capship weapons. That doesnt remove their current ability or make them any weaker when fighting up close, but it gives them a specialization - something they can do that the other ships cant - and that's really what the class needs right now.

It all also depends on what cruiser you fly. I flew a zoner destroyer, which doesnt have really great manuverability (though it definitely isnt the worst of the cruisers), and has a pretty large profile - but it only has 9 guns, making it barely stronger firepower-wise than a gunboat. Cruisers also tend to have power issues in my experience, but that could just be the weapons I used or the zoner dessie's power core itself.

BTW, varyag, you know I'm going to bug the hell out of you when 4.85 rolls around to teach me 2 cruiser =P
I've actually learned more about how to fly cruisers since i started flying a fighter again than I learned in all my time using the zoner destroyer. I've had to fight a lot of them (and some very good cruiser pilots in the bunch) in my fighter (with support of course) and caught on to how they're manuvering and what tactics they use. I just gotta get back in the hang of using one =P

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