7 gun 2.00 loadouts - coming changes

[Durandal]

This isn't the post I wanted to write today, but the fact that 7 gun 2.00 loadouts are a thing once again came up on the backend.

I'm just going to cut right to the chase and say it - 7 gun 2.00 loadouts were never intended to be a thing. To the best of my recollection there were only two 7 gunners for the majority of Discovery's existence, and only one in vanilla (unless the Anubis had a 7th as well), the Nephthys and the Sabre.

Let's talk about the Sabre first. The Sabre was historically an unlawful/unaffiliated powerhouse of a ship, flown by factions and individuals with no access to non-codename 2.00 weaponry (Magma Hammers & Firekisses, for the longest time. Later, Grand Culverins)

Back in 4.86, when the Hellfire Legion got their tech, they were refused 2.00s and instead given a 3.03 plasma, at least in part due to the potential for abuse on the Sabre and their new 7 gun VHF, which later became a 6 gunner because - you guessed it - it was over the top when they finally received 2.00 plasma guns.

But now we don't have OFs restricting tech access. Anyone can buy anything and for a long time both the balance team and the administration turned a blind eye to potential for abuse in this area. We now have some strange, unaccounted for situations. You've got ALG flying 90% IMG Lhotses with full Firekiss loadouts, still the issue of 7 Judgement 2.00 Sabres, and Liches with 7 Buckshot loadouts.

I know that a lot of people are probably going to take this poorly, and file it away under the "don't fix what ain't broke" cabinet. What I'd ask everyone to realize however is that for the most part, these changes are all relatively recent. Up until the past 2-3 years, the Lhotse and Arbeiter had only 6 guns, the Lich was inaccessible to... well, pretty much everyone, even attempted RoS restarts, and Sabre pilots lacked access to 2.00s. The only long standing outliers I can think of are the 2.00 Judgement Sabre which has existed since around 2013 or '14, which was balanced by a weak (10.4k) powercore - since removed in 2018, and the Nephthys.

My personal theory on why the Nephthys remained the way that it did for so long is because the paradigm was previously that the nomads had access to overpowered tech (anyone remember the old voidrunner?), coupled with it being a holdover from Mjolnir's balance era, where balance was in part dictated by the skill of a faction's pilots, something we've long since done away with.

The plan as it stands now is to remove all 2.00 turrets from the game and replace them with guns that can't fire, and infocards which inform pilots of the change. Ships with 5 guns and 1 forward firing turret such as the Guardian and Avenger will have their turret slots converted to gun slots. There is no technical difference here, and there would be no changes to firing arcs or weapon compatibility otherwise.

SHFs & Freighters would have their turret slots switched over to gun slots as well, allowing these slower, larger ships to continue mounting a greater number of 2.00 weapons.

I've written this post primarily to inform people that this change is coming soon™, in the hope that some transparency behind design decisions will lead to less anger and misunderstanding throughout the community when it does.

~ J

[SnakThree]

In the meantime, this change would benefit community more.

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[Shiki]

that's bad

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[Prysin]

wont this negatively affect Freighters?
Or are we just going to ignore those?

The Grizzly is a combat freighter, and if memory serves me right, it has 7 guns forward. Now that means it will lose a big portion of its DPS, because SOME VHFs are too strong with 7x 2.0s....

but i guess, who cares, right? As long as we can all use the same 2x debs and rest 700 3.03 tachyons, we're good. Because if all has effectively the same, we're all good on balance.

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DHC Discord

[Durandal]

wont this negatively affect Freighters?
Or are we just going to ignore those?

The Grizzly is a combat freighter, and if memory serves me right, it has 7 guns forward. Now that means it will lose a big portion of its DPS, because SOME VHFs are too strong with 7x 2.0s....

but i guess, who cares, right? As long as we can all use the same 2x debs and rest 700 3.03 tachyons, we're good. Because if all has effectively the same, we're all good on balance.

I think I'm going to switch freighters and SHFs over to using guns too, which frees up a weapon class entirely. There actually isn't any point to the fighter turret class, as it doesn't do anything the fighter guns don't already. This would allow Freighters and SHFs to continue using 7-8 2.00 loadouts.

[Wesker]

Let's talk about the Sabre first. The Sabre was historically an unlawful/unaffiliated powerhouse of a ship, flown by factions and individuals with no access to non-codename 2.00 weaponry

The sabre is historically GARBAGE and has been since I've played anyways. There's no way - regardless of what loadout - that anyone could convince a veteran player that the sabre is actually a ship you would reliably bring to fights outside of screwing around in conn. Sabres and guardians are free blues, and will be until they're properly rebalanced.

Speaking of which, it's long overdue that the guardian got fixed so it's not hot garabge anymore.

Re: the 7 gunner 2.00 thing, i don't really care just patch the server already.

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[Reeves]

I feel like we should also address the fact that things like the Nephthys and Lhotse are still going to be incredibly effective even without the ability to pull off silly gun setups.

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[Lucas]

What about Core and Order HF's which can mount 7 class 9's?

[Prysin]

wont this negatively affect Freighters?
Or are we just going to ignore those?

The Grizzly is a combat freighter, and if memory serves me right, it has 7 guns forward. Now that means it will lose a big portion of its DPS, because SOME VHFs are too strong with 7x 2.0s....

but i guess, who cares, right? As long as we can all use the same 2x debs and rest 700 3.03 tachyons, we're good. Because if all has effectively the same, we're all good on balance.

I think I'm going to switch freighters and SHFs over to using guns too, which frees up a weapon class entirely. There actually isn't any point to the fighter turret class, as it doesn't do anything the fighter guns don't already. This would allow Freighters and SHFs to continue using 7-8 2.00 loadouts.

Great... so what we gonna use that "freed up weapon class" for?

Ruin another class of ships with a useless split?

i do not see how this "balance" change does anything positive to the gameplay. 2.0s are harder to aim then other guns, by the merit of having fewer shots possible to land in a given span of time. The flip side is that their damage is increased, so that the risk of missing is outweighed by the reward of landing a shot.

Now, to most normal players, this is a fine trade, but to someone with really good aim, which let's face it, isn't the majority, or even the median of the server, this is a non issue.
So this "nerf" is serving no purpose, other then targeting, i guess, the top 10% of PvP players? Of which how many uses 2.0s regularly?

The Neph is atrociously bad ship, i have yet to see anyone fly a hellfire Snub outside conn in the past 2 months, and AFAIK, most IDs trying to use a Sabre with gallic Grand Culverins, will have a 75% powercore, so they won't be having a great time fighting in that ship.



I'd say it is more pressing to "fix" gunboats and light cruisers, then it is to fix this. Both of which is struggling. Gunboats are either completely broken OP, or just flying target practice for VHFs due to the turret split between "normal" and "heavy".

And the lack of a Battle Razor is destroying the ability for Light cruisers (2x Heavy slots/1,400,000 powercore) to be effective against anything bigger then themselves without risking losing to a gunboat because their bigger guns drain their core too much for them to be relatively effective at anything.

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DHC Discord

[Durandal]

The sabre is historically GARBAGE and has been since I've played anyways.

I feel like we should also address the fact that things like the Nephthys and Lhotse are still going to be incredibly effective even without the ability to pull off silly gun setups.

These are two ships that are performing very well, and do probably need to be looked at. What I'm not interested in is erasing their identities. While they likely need to be toned down, they're definitely going to remain 7 gunners.

What about Core and Order HF's which can mount 7 class 9's?

There's an Order HF with 7 guns?

The Hammerhead and Skipjack can likely remain as is, glass cannons. HFs as a class have yet to find their particular niche and I don't mind experimenting a bit here.

Great... so what we gonna use that "freed up weapon class" for?

Ruin another class of ships with a useless split?

Actually, Battlecruisers have already been "ruined" this way and currently share the fighter turret class with with VHFs and HFs. This will just reduce confusion by having it present only on a select few 7 gun VHFs.