I find it frustrating that I have to devote massive portions of my server time to ungodly long fighter battles. While I admit to enjoying the sheer mental challenge of it all, and that I love testing myself against skilled opponents, I fear its not very good for role playing. Flying a fighter should be the most dangerous occupation in the game. That's what fighters are. They are death traps. Small machines with soft skins but powerful weapons. A mistake in a fighter should be life-threatening, not just a dip into the nano pool.
What's the biggest difference between flying a fighter and flying a Battleship?
Time.
I'm guessing that if you commit a battleship to a fight you will spend about a quarter of the time you would in a fighter against an equally skilled opponent both due to the size of the target and its relative speed.
Before I continue though let me share some numbers I scratched onto a napkin:
Your average Very Heavy Fighter has 10,000 base armor. Your average bomber has 20,000. (if you disagree, humor me please.) Average number of nanobots is about 64, bombers is about 105-I'm guessing this allows 2 full hull regens for either ship.
Assuming those amounts, here's how hard it is to kill a fighter:
VHF-Mk8 armor, 64 nanobots
10,000(2.5 armor)(2 nanobot regens)=50,000 hit points
Bomber-mk8 armor, 105 nanobots
20,000(2.5 armor)(2 nanobot regens)-75,000 hit points
Now I will take 5 sample weapon combinations (one from each refire rate,) and compare their hull damage to the above amounts. I've measured the weapons 4 at a time to account for the predominant usage of shield busters on this server. However it must be noted that the Outcasts get an advantage by equipping a shield buster in their torpedo slot allowing them 2 more hull busting weapons.
ARCHANGEL X4: 5600 hull per shot. VHF takes 9 full hull shots. Bomber takes 14 full hull shots.
TWILIGHT X4: 3520 hull per shot. VHF takes 14 full hull shots. Bomber takes 21 full hull shots.
Kraken 2 X4: 2224 hull per shot. VHF takes 22 full hull shots. Bomber takes 34 full hull shots.
Fury 5 X 4: 1296 hull per shot. VHF takes 39 full hull shots. Bomber takes 58 full hull shots.
Skyblast B X 4: 904 hull per shot. VHF takes 55 full hull shots. Bomber takes 183 full hull shots.
Now, I have purposely left shields out in order to make a point. Hopefully most of you realize how difficult it is to hit a skilled fighter/bomber pilot. The ability to use thrust and strafe either more actively to recharge ones shields or less actively to make more accurate shots means it takes a lot of time to get in those requisite hull shots.
ineffective solutions to avoid:
-messing about with shields. Shields keep camera jarring at bay with capital ships and prevent insta-kills on fighters, leave them alone
-increasing or decreasing armor kits. Again for fighters, armor kits prevent insta-kills in most cases and capital ships need armor due to the power of their weapons.
-messing around with ship manueverability. Too many variables and too much careful balance work would be lost
-eliminating nanobots/sheild bats entirely. Too drastic, would make the game too difficult for new players and would make NPCs too dangerous.
The only viable option:
-Reduce the nano counts of all ships bomber and below. I suggest by 50%. Shields remain as they are and coupled with existing armor upgrades means the fighter can survive a single hit from any source and not be destroyed. Ships keep their same relative speed and manueverability which is balanced fairly well with the weapons in the mod. Cutting the nano counts in half means the fighter/bomber pilot can survive one mistake completely instead of 3. This also means fighters are less likely to be turned immortal by nanobot traders.
I prefer this solution over making any additional server rules that are difficult to enforce.
I'm tempted to agree... I really don't know what else to say. I, too, am tired of hours of fighting for a single kill when in the end they just get reinforcements (or some PvP-whore jumps and shoots me [Blood Dragon BS, Cap Armor MKVIII, three full regens]).
I have to agree, and I commented about it in the 'Avoiding PvP' thread... I like flying fighters, I even enjoy fighting in fighters... But I hate it when fights drag on for half an hour, hour, hour and a half... Honestly it gets to the point where I'm just about ready to give up and let myself get shot to hell, just because I'm sick of it. Doesn't help that people with limited time to play (an hour or less) can't get into a fight if they wanted to, because they know that they'll have to quit or die halfway through the battle.
I agree as well...
Fights, for me, are harrowing experiences, and I would like to not be utterly defeated just after I finally land that mini shot, because, well, there goes just another regen...
Besides, when capships are less durable than fighters...something is off.
I think its done this way to prevent capwhoreing. And its pretty effective, You wont see me flying my Dessie more than a few minutes a week. I say eleminat regens and armour altogether.
There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for. -Elizabeth Elliott
Well, after a test of the disappointing Freeworlds, something has to be said about its balancing. The lack of regens(and armour) is also very nice.
The interesting thing about the ships' fragility is that equipment and pilot skill still factor into who wins a fight whilst not dragging it out. It also makes things a bit scarier as you can't get away with screwups, which is cool. Of course, there are other issues that make Freeworlds balanced, such as the size and speed of all the fighters, which is much higher than the speeds here.
Yes, I quite agree. I find that fighting with fighters these days is akin to standing in a field wearing full suits of armour clubbing each other with bare hands. Often, the one who gets bored/has to go first is the one who loses, rather than the pilot with less skill, or who made a serious blunder.
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
I've been in fights before that have lasted ages. Some I've won because of this, some I've lost.
For instance, months ago, against Korrd, we had the most epic of duels for almost two hours. I had the upper hand... and then his net crashed. Quite the anti-climax for a fight which could have ended quicker.
Another fight, a recent battle against KNF, I was in my Hussar trying to nuke mine all of them. Very luckily, I managed to do so, but I had to run to the bathroom after due to the length of the damn fight. Now, with less armour and regens, I would have lost that fight, but I would have gotten to the bathroom quicker. Hmm.
Quick and painful. Yeah. That's how dogfights should be. It will also have the side effect of increasing light fighter usage, since the gaps between VHF and LF armour will be smaller and power plants will become less important. Missiles will become more important as less shots will be needed.
This would be a HUGE change however, and would probably require a rebalance of the entire mod. Bugger.
I would say it'd be worth it though. I remeber one fight, it was SCRA vs. RM I think, before I joined up, where I actually tossed in the towel and let meself get blown up because the people I was going out with that night showed up, two hours after the fight started. Remember that Disco is an enhancement mod, and FL was originally a fighter game.
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
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