GB forward guns

[Jinx]

another idea to give the foreward guns more meaning WITHOUT turning them into weapons of destruction is to allow them a greater fire arc. - ( that does not apply to the cruiser guns. they are spinal mounts and not meant to fire anywhere but straight, - the cruiser foreward guns are the most efficient capital ship guns anyway when its about damage / energy - the only problem is that they are not used in a way they are meant to be used, but the cruisers are taken against bombers etc. ( maybe one could increase the speed of the projectiles a "little" - but its not far from turning a balanced gun into one that is overpowering )

now - lets look at GB guns again. - they are easily one of the most efficient GB guns .... their only limitation is their fire arc restriction. - they are fairly small ( no spinal mounts ) - and there is no real reason they they shouldn t be able to have at least a fire arc similar to a supernova on a bomber ( which is around 20 degrees left, right, up, down ) - right now, the guns have an arc of around.... 5 degrees? - don t know, its not very much.

with 20 degrees - they woudl still be useless against fighters ( unless the fighters joust the GB which would be strangely pointless ) - but can be fired much easier while dodging capital ship fire.

i do not think that a gunboat should stand much of a chance against a cruiser of course. - but if not targetted ( and as a support ship ) - they should be able to pummel a capship for a good amount of damage.

maybe the problem is aswell that we do have 1st. made gunboats with too many turrets ( a feeling tells me that the rheinland GB had the max turrets, cause its rheinland and they like armour and firepower ) and that we should never have introduced the special weapons to the GB class ( razor, inferno - well ... they re both rather inefficient anyway compared to the fighter class ratio )

of course, everyone would always choose an 8 gun GB over ANY of the original GUNboats. - but that happens when you agree to buff up new ships more and more - at one time, you end up being as efficient as the next shipclass.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Tenacity]

I actually got my sorry butt owned by a rheinland gunboat's forward gun when I was flying visas in a falcata bomber...

He was about 3k away from me, I was in pursuit at cruise speed, in the siniestre cloud in omicron alpha. I didnt have a visual of his ship because of the cloud, and distance was remaining constant so I assumed he was still moving away from me on cruise... I was wrong.

He had engine killed and turned around to face at me while remaining mobile at cruise speed. Between a few turret shots and his forward gun, I died before I even had the chance to hit a shield battery. One seocnd I was alive, the next I was asploded.

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[Jinx]

well, yea - but thats nothing to consider a chance of anything with - doesn mean they are good nor bad. - its simply bad luck / or luck - depends from what pov. - a GB gun right now is just the same like a mini razor for a fighter.

but while the razor on the fighter is usually used in a close joust, - the GB gun cannot perform that task. - however, its good efficiency and fast refire makes it a good weapon to deal sustained and noticable damage to a heavy target.

but i also remember that i loved going after gunboats in the singleplayer. - no shields and damn easy to hit cause - for a fighter, they were really really slow. - they were much easier to take down than the average fighter on the battlefield.

too bad we cannot get rid of the shaking effect on hull hits. - it would be so awesome to balance the hull hitpoints and get rid of the rediculous shields on capitals.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[mjolnir]

Jinx yes we can increase the firing arcs... and get into a lot of balancing problems as you said before..

or we can go the simple way of increasing range and double damage while halving refire.


Tenacity well I did kill a LF with the forward gun on a RH GB... does that mean it's uber?
No it means the pilot made a stupid mistake.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Teknikal]

I've only been flying the Bretonian Gunboat a few weeks now but ther very first thing I liked about the ship is I could actually hit things with the forward gun (when it isnt being rammed by npcs anyway).
It is a very bulky ship though and slow to get onto a target I think the balance would be fine if NPC's didn't ram you but as they do maybe it should hit for more damage.

I've no real complaints about it though and I'd be fine leaving it where it is as well.

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[mjolnir]

I went to re-check all the forward guns (except Dragon GB which I don't have access to). And it looks like I was affected by the Kusari and Rheinland GBs which are the only ones I fly daily.

Most other ones have actually pretty generous firing arcs.

Following pictures have shots fired at maximum angles, just before the projectile disappears


Very generous - Orca - if I used the maximum angle here the projectile would disappear off the screen, yet it can't fire straight ahead - which is going to be fixed in 4.85

Quite generous - Bretonia, Liberty

Very narrow - Kusari, Rheinland

Kusari GB has the agility to point the gun pretty much where it wants... Rheinland GB does not.

So obviously the Rheinland GB forward gun firing arc should be fixed to something like the Liberty and Bretonian one.

While I'd love to see the refire changes, most people don't seem to like them.

What I however see as necessary is increasing the range to 2000m as I said. It doesn't make any sense that Cerbs, Razors and Infernos have 2000m range while the specialized forward guns have only 1400m.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[chopper]

I don't think that improving fire arcs is a good idea.
I think that this limitation itself stops gunboats from instant killing fighters.
It's 500 speed after all.

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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

[mjolnir]

But as you can see on the pictures all except 2 Gunboats already have wide firing arcs.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Blodo]

I'd say decrease the horizontal firing arcs of the Orca, Lib and Bret GBs, rather than increase the ones on the Kusari and Rheinland GB. The forward guns are meant against larger targets the way I see it, but with this firing arc it's not hard to rip fighters with them.

[Teknikal]

I'd say decrease the horizontal firing arcs of the Orca, Lib and Bret GBs, rather than increase the ones on the Kusari and Rheinland GB. The forward guns are meant against larger targets the way I see it, but with this firing arc it's not hard to rip fighters with them.

If the pilots stupid enough to stand still directly in front of the turret otherwise that's just nonsence. The odds of hitting a player controlled fighter are already close to impossible it's much much easier to hit fighters with a supernova than with a forward gun so if anythings to be nerfed.

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