Cruiser Balance

[El Nino]

I did some solos in a red cat against cruisers, with oorp equipment back in my days... with inferno + SN it's quite easy untill the cruiser stars running away... Then you can kiss your victory goodbye. Almost all victories I can contribute to the inexperienced pilots that fly cruisers. Their mistakes turn down to:

-flying in rear view, like a fighter.
-not flying at all (staying still)
-jousting a bomber (lolwut)
-firing infernos + mortars + primary turrets all at once
-inability to strafe

If a cruiser pilot does these:
-chainfires
-moves+thrusts at 140 speed
-fires in turret mode
-strafes out of the way when SN comes packing

I'd doubt he'd get killed by a single bomber. Two easily, but solo? No way...

Hell I could take down bombers in Parchenons... with only 5 transport turrets... while cruisers are packing heavy cruiser turrets...

So once again the age old problem of noobs in cruisers kicks in. If you learn how to fight before you become a cruiser captain you'll be good in a cruiser, if you only know how to trade before you become a cruiser captain you'll suck utterly...

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Donate to the Poor Pilot's Fundation via Sirius Bank /givecash GreenHawk 1000000 now, and support poor pilots sirius wide!
Skype: jure.grbec
My primary char: Jose El Nino - Corsair Elder captain of the SS Greenhawk

Currently Inactive due to pursuit of life long dreams, will be back...*edited* As promised am back.

[Varyag]

I have found that reverse thrust works wonders vs bombers. Wait till they do their run stop, they close in fast and lose half hull in the process. You take a snac hit to the shields and they panic. Also, strafe is your friend in a cruiser. Me and fpsdoug would get into a cruiser vs bomber+fighter fights for hours because I could dodge his snac and he could dodge my fire.

If anyone tries the strafe thing around me, I would laughingly eat them alive because it puts the bomber on a nice smooth plain at close range. You have no chance at that point.

Missiles are fun, but you have to use them selectively. Use your guns and force them to use up their shield regens then hit them with the ol' missile turrets while they cannot recover.

No gunboat has a even slight chance vs any cruiser. You turn off all of your slow powerful weapons and just use your basic and defense turrets. Keep them facing you or use reverse thrust to drop distance fast if they are following you and they are done. 2, you have to work a bit harder at it but you should be able to keep your shields up.

There are even better tricks for killing fellow cruisers but those are mine.... all mine.

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"I looked up and all I saw was green death"

[Tenacity]

No gunboat has a even slight chance vs any cruiser. You turn off all of your slow powerful weapons and just use your basic and defense turrets. Keep them facing you or use reverse thrust to drop distance fast if they are following you and they are done. 2, you have to work a bit harder at it but you should be able to keep your shields up.

I still disagree here, I've taken out several outcast destroyers and one rheinland cruiser with my kusari gunboat, and that thing isnt even set up for anti-cap combat, it's got two solaris and two missile turrets.

The forward gun plus 2 solaris turrets is enough to eat through a cruiser shield. The kusari GB is agile enough to maintain maximum weapon distance and strafe erratically to avoid the bulk of the cruiser's fire.

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[chopper]

The forward gun plus 2 solaris turrets is enough to eat through a cruiser shield. The kusari GB is agile enough to maintain maximum weapon distance and strafe erratically to avoid the bulk of the cruiser's fire.

See.. That's the problem.. Against a good cruiser you have no chance of keeping range + using forward gun.
Why? You both have same speed. You face him to use FWG - he approaches closer.
Kusari GB is smaller then some bombers, so it can dodge even from 500-600m very well, yes.

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It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.

Can't let you bash folks in your sig Chopper-Del

[Tenacity]

See.. That's the problem.. Against a good cruiser you have no chance of keeping range + using forward gun.
Why? You both have same speed. You face him to use FWG - he approaches closer.
Kusari GB is smaller then some bombers, so it can dodge even from 500-600m very well, yes.

Engine kill does wonders, y'know.

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[Varyag]

Engin kill works both ways there. You cannot strafe and fly in a strait line. You will just eat salvo after salvo. The cruiser can also go into engin kill and maintain speed longer because of its added mass.

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"I looked up and all I saw was green death"

[looqas]

I'll try to explain one thing to you. You have different tactics in this game.
If a GB chooses to joust-turn-joust a bomber, a bomber stands some chance.
If a GB goes in a straight line strafing and shooting from rear view on a bomber - bomber has no chance.
Now of course, some bigger ones like Bret GB or such are easier to take on 1vs1.
But standard GB's (like Rogue, Liberty GB, Kusari GB, Lunchbox etc) simply pwn a bomber 1vs1.

I sign here. You beat a bomber using these every time.

When flying a bomber I'm seriously in trouble when someone uses EK and strafe.

To even the field I need to equip Train CD -> which prolongs the time to take down the enemy significantly since Inferno is out of the question. And any one-eyed-eddie will hit my bomber (I fly mostly Thor, with it's hitbox disadvantages) and will eventually win the race against time. I'm not that good SN user that I get every SN count. And my 4x codes suck the power plant pretty dry in any case.

But if I have Inferno equipped then he can just enter EK and that's it. Even with thrusters I need to tail the sucker and the more I dodge the incoming fire the more time is needed to catch up. Another alternative is that I do not chase and let him turn around unmolested while his shields are recharging. And more often than not when I manage to start to scratch their hulls they suddenly don't have that much fun anymore and just cruise away leaving my mangled bomber. And the looping around the hull is in all practical purposes very hard to execute if the guy is EKing. At least I have not attained that kind of mastery in flying yet.

In all of engagements I run through nanos and bats at a pretty good clip. In my case it's always a race against time. Time is a bomber pilots worst enemy since the more you spend the more chances you give the opposition to give you a full volley.

All in all. I'm clearly at a disadvantage in 1vs1 if the adversary has any inkling of how to fly and fight. I'm cool with that since it makes me appreciate the victories that much more.

I agree somewhat that bombers should not be able to toe to toe with Cruisers, but GBs are a different matter. Bombers should be able to fare better against GBs than against Cruisers.

Since I'm pretty often alone (of my faction) in the server I have two options: Either let the caps have free reign or try to take on the guys. And given the recent trend what my opposition (corsairs) are flying it gives a lot of practice in my bomber. Luckily most of the guys are flying the Handbags are rookies, but they will learn.

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Flying under radar.

[El Nino]

Engine kill does wonders, y'know.

So does CD...

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Donate to the Poor Pilot's Fundation via Sirius Bank /givecash GreenHawk 1000000 now, and support poor pilots sirius wide!
Skype: jure.grbec
My primary char: Jose El Nino - Corsair Elder captain of the SS Greenhawk

Currently Inactive due to pursuit of life long dreams, will be back...*edited* As promised am back.

[looqas]

So does CD...

Read the post I posted above. It's usually either choice between CD or Inferno and both ways present very big problems unless the opposition is very green.

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Flying under radar.

[chopper]

He responded to Tenacity's post, not yours.
Tenacity said that e-kill does wonders. And Jure responded that CD does too, since it stops e-kill.

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It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.

Can't let you bash folks in your sig Chopper-Del