GB balancing for 4.87

[Vrabcek]

The TZ/TSless 4.85 gunboats worked well and a skilled gunboat pilot was still a pain in the ass without all those fancy new things

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[Jansen]

Firepower, but the only thing that really would make them fun again would be removing their TS and TZ ability completely. They dont need it and it really ruins the fun of flying a GB.

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[TonyRistar]

Less turret steering/zoom ability. The people who really need turret zoom are transports, capitals. Those are larger and get swarmed. Gunboats are still agile, and deserve only a notch of zoom or two. Autoaim with the fast refire turrets is just silly. Mostly due to the fact that gunboats are nothing more than miniature cruisers in the sense of the game.

Balance seems off to me. Gunboats are larger, have a bigger power core, yet they have VERY limited anti-capital options (Besides pew pew pew pew I'm turret steering you can't hit me) and a lot of patience. Solution?

Add anti-capital abilities to gunboats. Nothing drastic, but give them the ability to /really/ worry a cruiser or bship. However the saving grace is their zoom is reduced, making them more vulnerable to what is SUPPOSED to kill them (bombers and snubs). If a gunboat decides to kit out for anti-snub combat, it should be worthless against anything large or other gunboats. Face the music, a cruiser or Bship with anti snub weaponry onboard is fresh lunch meat. Should be the same for gunnies. Make them have specific purposes. Right now the turrets are too good for literally eating everything with sustained DPS.

More gun spread, more focus on specified firepower. Add anti-capital weaponry (No reason there can't be gunboat 'torp' turrets)

This will also improve fleets from being a bunch of BS's and carriers and turn them into actual "Ok we need harassers and finishers that can be quick about it"

Slugging matches would turn into coordinated battles after a few sides lose 3 dreads to a gunboat gank.

Plus, the snub pilots would get something to hunt down.

tl;dr gunboats once they acquired TS became pretty much unstoppable after the turret steering concept has been learned.

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[SummerMcLovin]

The required nerf is a consequence of their now increased (use of) agility with TS, and increased accuracy with TZ. Since these are unlikely to be removed (although I agree limiting zoom would be some help), another solution is required.

The decrease in DPS for regular GB Turrets was chosen, as this moves the focus onto other GB turrets. If you want to fight other GBs, you use Cerbs. If you think you've got the skills, Pulse/Razor boats have more importance. If you don't think you're good with either of them, you can still do fairly well with regular turrets.
Right now, all situations are trumped by regular turrets.

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Kingdom of Bretonia
Colonial Republic
Independent Miners Guild
Ex-Admin

[Pavel]

(...)
But NOOOO peeps wana have their auto aim because they don't wana learn2aim.

Because everybody here is 16 years old teenager with cat reflex. Gunboats finally are to be feared by snubs (though snubs can escape, no one forces them to fight gb...)? Time to use nerfhammer.

[Charos]

I'm all up for removing turret zoom on gunboats or atleast nerfing it : D

[Vrabcek]

(...)
But NOOOO peeps wana have their auto aim because they don't wana learn2aim.

Because everybody here is 16 years old teenager with cat reflex. Gunboats finally are to be feared by snubs (though snubs can escape, no one forces them to fight gb...)? Time to use nerfhammer.

Can they? It often happens that if a snub tries to run and is trusting away the gb starts to cruise, EK and suddenly in 5-10 seconds the snub will loose half hull because it is funnyyou can easily target your oponent with more speed and with core that allows you to shoot with 2-3 turrets

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[Ursus]

Add anti-capital abilities to gunboats

This is what the forward gun is supposed to provide, but its such a limited weapon that most people dont even use it for anti-cap. Would be far better to replace the FG hardpoint with a class-7 turret hardpoint, so that house gunboats could mount one cruiser heavy turret. Power core restricts the options, so its not like we would have little gunboats running around spamming cruiser missiles. Anyway it would be a lot closer to the anti-cap design point.

As to balancing in general. I agree that faction turrets are a bit too good right now, but the rumors of 50% DPS nerf is over-reaction.

Gunboats fight three classes, bridging the gap between snubs and caps, able to fight either of them (when used appropriately), and also fighting other gunboats. Assuming equal skill, a lone gunboat should be able to fight 2 snubs, and 2 gunboats should be able to fight 1 cruiser. Right now they are kind of strong on the snub side but just a little bit, 2 snubs will die fast but 3-4 good snubs can bring down a gunboat np. A slight nerf to DPS addresses that, but it makes the gunboat less effective against other gunboats and caps too. Reduction in weapon speed would work better, since it would make it harder to hit the snubs and therefore make the gunboat die a little faster to swarms. But the imbalances with gunboat-vs-gunboat can only be fixed by addressing turret arcs, and changing the arcs would also make them more succeptible to snubs who got behind them, so that is the one true fix.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Knjaz]

This is what the forward gun is supposed to provide, but its such a limited weapon that most people dont even use it for anti-cap. Would be far better to replace the FG hardpoint with a class-7 turret hardpoint, so that house gunboats could mount one cruiser heavy turret.

A Cuiser Cerberus turret on a gunboat? A Cruiser Cerb on the LiGB? A Cruiser Cerb on KuGB?
NOTHX.

Only IF it'll act as a Forward Gun on LSC, Valor and Jorm,i.e. totally unusable and incompatible with TS.

[Pavel]

@ Vrabcek

then removing CD from gunboats will do it.