LF balance. What happened?

[Lythrilux]

Can the sea serpent be made into an LF/VHF hybrid to test the waters for LF balance? Right now it's pretty had and needs it's own specific changes :p

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[sindroms]

Making gameplay unique to every class is a better choice than wondering why bombers cannot use fighter guns.
On that subject, make Energy Cannons do more damage, so that they are actually scary. 1.00 refire with an even huger spread and slower speed, if necessary.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Swallow]

Making gameplay unique to every class is a better choice than wondering why bombers cannot use fighter guns.
On that subject, make Energy Cannons do more damage, so that they are actually scary. 1.00 refire with an even huger spread and slower speed, if necessary.

Making classes evolve in own ways is okay, but there should be at least some argumentation of features, to explain why they are unique.

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FL MOD(EL)MAKING: TOOLS, RESOURCES, TUTORIALS AND MY SHIPS (OLD)

I am on discord: Roal-Yr#5994, I don't log on forum more than a few times a year.

I am not making ships for FL anymore, I am making my own space game instead:
https://github.com/roalyr/GDTLancer
https://roal-yr.itch.io/gdtlancer
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HQB...cdH45LZgjj

[sindroms]

The argument is simple. So that the only defining feature of the X class is not a Y class minus two gun slots.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Maskage]

to be honest I like the way it is now more than those proposed changes... The main reason LPI uses the liberator as its main ship is its survivability. Lone patrol officers are usually ganked by scyllas and outcast dreads, and need to dodge or die. Right now they fill an essential role as scouts being able to go in and get out of a hostile situation.

[Blodo]

Blodo, what would happen if you would make LFs be the only ships capable of mounting missiles, or perhaps them receiving a specific Class6 missile for long-range engagements, similar to the current Sidewinder at 2k range.

This would give them a unique feel, while keeping their current stats the same. Perhaps indeed try tweaking things like the range of the guns instead, giving them C7 weapons with 1.2k range.

Perhaps try toying around with the idea of a C6 disruptor with a custom range or custom effects, leaving the LF with only a Torpedo slot so they can blow themselves up if they wish.

The problem with giving LFs a homing missile is that it plays to their current strength too much. The only way LFs will be balanced in their current high agility state is if they are forced to stop dodging when they shoot to maintain accuracy (which basically means they should have only high refire guns), meanwhile with homing missiles they can sit back and launch while not taking any damage. So I'd be very reluctant to allow missiles on LFs without a complete change in their flight mechanics.

Also, homing missiles in general are fun. Don't drop them. Though perhaps move them to a dedicated ''FaF'' ship, rather than spreading them over different types.

I don't really agree with the sentiment to remove homing missiles personally, but we need to figure out some way to make spam in group fights from multiple missile users not as effective, especially now that we don't trade bots.

[TheFreelancer]

The idea for LFs was the following: Make them much less maneuverable (about as fast turning as VHFs), keep the low health and the small models (for some anyway), add these burst damage guns for them and make them be interceptors.

The basic principles were going to be this:
- LFs shouldn't have high survivability, they should go down faster than VHFs (reflected in lower HP as it is now)
- Their turning should be a little less fast than VHFs to compensate for the extra damage (this was not applied unfortunately, which made the LFs OP)
- They should also have higher burst damage than VHFs
- They should be on equal or slightly worse footing in 1v1 fight with a VHF, but should do a lot of damage in group fights where focus can be kept off them (so the burst guns and LFs themselves required a lot of tweaking)
- They should have faster cruise speed than most (this already happens)

In this way what we know as an LF would be effectively an interceptor/space superiority fighter which focuses on damage and linear speed over survivability (death to bombers, and in group fights VHFs), while VHFs would be essentially a multi-role combat fighter. This would mean that now LFs were the best to employ against bombers, while none of the classes in the fighters were specifically "best" against VHFs, but VHFs themselves weren't the "best" at dealing with any of the classes either (except LFs).

It was going to fit in with missiles that track well, in that the missiles would keep it sort of equal across some of the smaller LF models like Liberator, and only VHFs and above had missile slots so that gave them something unique. Of course then missiles had to be nerfed because of issues in group fights (missile spam being impossible to defend against because of how CMs catch one missile at a time when they should catch all within radius for this balance to work), and the whole plan fell on its head kinda. There was another problem: if VHF guns were to be an effective tool against LFs at all (including some of the ones with the tiny models), some of them would either have to have agility nerfed into the ground (worse than most VHFs, meh) or they'd have to have model replacements. Since it was effectively only me working on this part of balance, we decided to reverse it since it would in the end require remodels to be viable against enemies that are guns only, and homing missiles at that point we were gearing to start replacing with other mechanics.

So yea if you have ideas on what else we could do with LFs, tell me and maybe something will come out of it.

That kinda defeats the pourpose of an LF then, being slow turning with powerful guns (also weak and crappy!) , I think you should keep the turning rates the same, and slightly buff the damage of the guns!

But the missiles is a good Idea, back to the old, perhaps high energy usage!

[Connor]

I honestly think LFs should have no guns, a new CD just for LFs with extended range and speed with a high hit ratio but low ammo, slightly higher cruise speed, no CMs and keep its manoeuvrability making it a true interceptor. I think that this would bring new gameplay styles to groups that are chasing each other.

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[TheFreelancer]

I honestly think LFs should have no guns, a new CD just for LFs with extended range and speed with a high hit ratio but low ammo, slightly higher cruise speed, no CMs and keep its manoeuvrability making it a true interceptor. I think that this would bring new gameplay styles to groups that are chasing each other.

Nah, you could keep the weapons the same, and do this to them, because if they have no guns, theyre useless in big fights.....

[sindroms]

Actually, here's an idea.
Have you considered merging LFs with HFs and freeing up the current LF class (And gear class) for some completely different type of ship?

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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