Gunboat ponderings

[kikatsu]

I was thinking a bit about what gunboats should really be doing in this mod last night. A lot of people are not really sure what kind of role gunboats are being put into now... and well I was thinking, what if how they worked was changed up a little bit.

Before, gunboat guns... we will use Liberty gunboat guns for the example here.

.86 Liberty Gb guns
750/375
travels at 1400 m/s with a range of 797

.87 Liberty Gb guns
750/375
travels at 990 m/s with a range of 841

As you can see the range of guns was increased slightly here, and the speed of the gun decreased.

Well.... what if the exact opposite happened instead?

Cut faction/basic gunboat gun range significantly, maybe they only fire for 500m or maybe less, but they projectiles travel very quickly and are extremely lethal, but they are only really dangerous if you get close to the gunboat or if you let the gunboat get close to you. Any fighter that is paying attention can stay out of the way of the thing.

Now of course with this fighters can outrange gunboats... but what if gunboat shields were slightly weaker, but regenerated a lot faster. This would stop fighters from hiding on the edges of their range and pecking away at them, but it allows bigger ships that are able to dish out more damage to close the cap and smash the gunboat and forces a gunboat to get into range of a cap to attack them. Bombers with their EMP guns and good snac aim could still do damage to them, but if they stray too close the gunboats smash them.

Cerberus guns and pulse/razors would still have a much longer range.

TL;DR
Anyways, point is, idea = make gunboats super short range but very dangerous to actually approach instead of having them with longer range, slower guns.

I dunno... just my random thoughts on the things.

[Lythrilux]

So you're suggest we use something similar to pelicans with transport shields, except with guns that have lower range?
It could work, maybe.

---

[Johnnie-Lapierre]

Sounds like a great ideea.
This would make gunboats more deadly as they are supposed to be, or atleast sugested.

[Govedo13]

I would go on with slightly different approach.
I would buff gb shields to 4.85 level, and would remove faction and basic turrets at all with Damage Buff both for Solaris and for Cerbs, with Cerbs speed nerf.
BRs could have the said close range weapon role- nerfing their range in favour of their speed would do it perfect.
The main point is that GBs need nerf in the turret steering movement, if the GBs moved slower there would be no 1 hour fight between 2 good gb pilots or gbs soloing cruisers and killing in pairs battleships.
I does not see how the difference of 400 speed fix gbs- it breaks them even more since the GBs become weaker vs fighters. I need to do more testing with the new cruiser guns and new secondariness but if they have the 4.86 hitrate the GBs still would be pain for caps. 4.86 GBs and their anti snub capabilities were perfectly balanced, sadly GBs were a way too good vs cruisers and Caps.

---

€œ

Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)

[Colt556]

Way I see gunboats is the way Corvettes are used in scifi. Simply not meant to engage bigger ships, but the absolute bane of fighter craft. A cruiser will almost always win against a gunboat, short of massive skill gaps. But the a gunboat will almost always win against fighters/bombers, short of massive skill gaps. That way, in fleet formations, gunboats would be picket ships with the sole purpose of protecting the big ships from bombers. That way the cruisers and battleships can freely deal with one another without pesky bombers harassing them.

But are cruisers/BS vulnerable enough to bombers to justify having a ship class with the sole purpose of protecting them from such? I don't know, haven't played enough.

[tothebonezone]

You mean to have them as the snub-killing Frigates/Corvettes they were meant to be?

I'd be all for this if it wasn't for the fact that they were so hilariously easy to get away from.

If you upped the gunboats thrust speed to like 185, or even 200, then maybe it'd be a thing. But at the current speed and with 500 range? They'd be worthless.

---

User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202684
Time left: (Permanent)

[Murcielago]

Hey


I see like this:

So we have here smaller ships against bigger ships...
It is hitbox, speed and agility thing here.
All on the side of smaller ship (easy to evade hits) in battle..
The developers compensate that whit shilds hull and weapons (all this should be bigger ship adventage ).
Hull and shild are on the side of the bigger ship ..we all know that.
Well did I forgot something?
Ah yes weapons...
It should be fine tuning..which depends on hitbox, speed, agility
and one small thing (for me very important)
purpose of the ships
And this is the major issue here...
If I have ship (GB) which only purpose is to kill fighters then the weapons should be made for that . The fighter only option should be to run away.
The GB are not made to fight Cruisers..but to kill fighters.
The devs made mistake here becouse they offer GB weapons to fight bigger ships...I know they just wish to satisfy all the players..but the ship purpose is to fight smaller and faster ships....


Soo what kind of weapons statistic do I suggest?

1.They (GB weapons) should be fast..GB should be able to hit fighter...
-1200m/s speed(that should be avrage)

2.They should do some demage not just to tickle
- fighter weapon demage +50, but rate 1.5 more then fighter
(soo if fighter have 500dps and rate 4 then GB should have 550dps and rate 6)
thet would also give the developers more space whit making house GB weapons

3.And they shuld have little more range than fighter weapons.
fighter range +100m

So here example:
(I don't have all the new stats soo I will use old one)
old salamanca;
575dps, rate 4, range 600m, speed 600m/s
Corsair GB weapon should be;
625dps, rate 6, range 700m, speed 1200m/s

remember here fighter can allways run away...

I have also some sugestions for other ships class weapons...
But it is always the mater of ship purpose.

Murcielago

[tothebonezone]

2.They should do some demage not just to tickle
- fighter weapon demage +50, but rate 1.5 more then fighter
(soo if fighter have 500dps and rate 4 then GB should have 550dps and rate 6)
thet would also give the developers more space whit making house GB weapons

....So basically you want them to be oversized, overly expensive fighters that do only minimally more damage?

That sounds extremely pointless.

---

User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202684
Time left: (Permanent)

[Murcielago]

2.They should do some demage not just to tickle
- fighter weapon demage +50, but rate 1.5 more then fighter
(soo if fighter have 500dps and rate 4 then GB should have 550dps and rate 6)
thet would also give the developers more space whit making house GB weapons

....So basically you want them to be oversized, overly expensive fighters that do only minimally more damage?

That sounds extremely pointless.

It is 1.5time more demage whit speed 1200m/s to hit remember rate of fire 6 and bigger range too

[Murcielago]

2.They should do some demage not just to tickle
- fighter weapon demage +50, but rate 1.5 more then fighter
(soo if fighter have 500dps and rate 4 then GB should have 550dps and rate 6)
thet would also give the developers more space whit making house GB weapons

....So basically you want them to be oversized, overly expensive fighters that do only minimally more damage?

That sounds extremely pointless.

Take all 3 points together not just one.