Before I get in to nit picking, I want to make it extremely clear that I love this game, and this is all born of that.
Now I know a lot about weapons, not just because I'm a crazy American... that's only why I have access to them. I mean I get in to combat in general, from martial arts to guerrilla warfare, not only knowing the techniques but also the science, I like to understand things completely. It's a passion, I sometimes worry if I'm a psycho but my point is I know a thing or two I'm not just pulling this outta my a**. So naturally, weapons like the ones in this game bother me to no end. It would be one thing if they were all unrealistic in the interest of gameplay, but that's not the case. For example, the lasers don't go more than what, two kilometers (even though the targeting of a a gimballed mount still tracks them)? Like even if you can eyeball it and hit the mark it doesn't actually make contact. Lasers don't work that way, they don't just stop. Lasers are beams of light. And light, as anyone playing this game would know, kinda goes on forever, even if the source is long gone. That means when I fire one of my four beam lasers, some Thargoid in a thousand years should be having a really really bad day. And then when I use the multi-cannon, the bullets fire, they have drag, they have to be aimed to compensate for that drag, and they have a maximum effective range because combustion firearms have that problem for a multitude of reasons, even in the vacuum of space. In other worlds, they make complete real world sense. That's also why non-gimballed mounts are basically useless but that's player choice. My issue is, both of these things have a negative impact on gameplay, even though it's not for the same reason. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were using any excuse to nerf everything that exists regardless of whether or not if the latest excuse is consistent with the last. Just to clarify, I have absolutely no notion of that actually being your intent, that's simply what the result feels like.
You might say, "But Xman, lasers would be OP if they went on forever." Would they? I mean I'm not saying the effective targeting rang for say a gimballed laser has to be more than two kilometers, just the effective range of the laser itself. It's not like the game will do it for you, you still have to be good, very good in fact, to pull off a long range shot in the void of space or against the blinding light of a star. There's a game I played regularly before ED came out, it was free to play on the PC. It was a sci fi dog fighting game called "Star Conflict". I recommend it to those interested. Star Conflict got lasers right. Sniping another player from across the map with a laser was a legitimate tactic that you could actually use, and it only served to make the game better. There were ships that were set up for such a tactic, zoom abilities and all that. At least I think there was a zoom ability, I don't know because the frigate I used wasn't made for that. Some people would take cover by an asteroid or something and support their team. But even if yours wasn't set for it, if you were that much of a dead eye that you could eyeball a shot at a guy who's so far away that he literally shows up as a pixel, that was something you were allowed to do. It wasn't an ability through game function, it was an ability through player skill that the game simply allowed. Players of Elite Dangerous already come up with creative setups for different gameplay styles, just imagine if you gave them yet another option. Just imagine your in a wing with two guys. You're a hulking frigate, another is a small nimble fighter, and you've got the other guy stealth running in the distance taking pot shots at your enemies. How cool would that be? Combat is that thing that everyone has to take part in at some point for one reason or another. And you really only have two options right now: Run away or fly in circles for X amount of time until one of you blows up. And as much as I like dogfighting in general, it's kind of a one trick pony on it's own. Allowing players to take their own spin on it would spice things up quite a bit, and lead to far more unique ship builds and strategies. Then there's that one, fun guy, decides to come in, knock you down to 20% hull strength, uses all your missiles, and then gets to run away because your lasers decided to say " it" after a couple kilometers. My point is, lasers have way more potential than you're allowing them to use.
"Okay so lasers would be better off more real, but then wouldn't multi-cannons be kind of OP if they were less real?" That would imply that they were decently effective in their realistic state, they're just not, even if you get good ones. There's a time and a place for them yes but they don't exactly do you any good outside of that. I'll repeat myself for clarity's sake: I'm not saying everything should be flipped on it's head and everything would be fine and dandy, that would just be the opposite imbalance we have now. It's not realism or lack there of that bothers me, it's the fact the weapons are inconsistent in their realism. A push towards unrealistic for multi-cannons would add an equal amount of entirely new options as making the lasers more realistic. So there are really a lot good things that could happen whether you decide to make weapons realistic or unrealistic. It's just a matter of, ya know, picking one of those options. Inconsistency on either side of the scale is bad news for numerous reasons.
Speaking of multi-cannons, let's talk about kinetic weapons for a minute (note that I'll be grouping some in game types together, I'm categorizing them based on actual physical properties/style). Energy weapons have all kinds of things: Beams, bursts, rail guns, plasma, and a couple more. Kinetic weapons have a machine gun, and missiles with a few different paint jobs. Then there are mines, as if anyone is actually dumb enough to fly in to those when they light up like a Christmas tree and you have the entire endless void of space at your disposal to move around them. I mean just look at kinetic weapons in the real world, it's all we really have right now so there's tons of options! What, did people in a thousand years just forget all that existed but decided to say, "Oh yeah machine guns and missiles that tickle the other guys junk, those are okay, we'll keep those around. Everything else is bad though get rid of it." How about a single shot cannon that fires anti material rounds to rip through the other guys armor? Let's go further: Knock down his shields, target a specific component (like the shield generator) and have that anti material round tear right through the hull and in to the target? That would be useful. Because right now I can't do a rescue mission because I have no room for a hatch breaker and dogfighting doesn't exactly afford an easy shot at that one little specific place. Not that it does much when you do manage to target it. We can be even more creative than that. How about launching a thruster that attaches to the enemy ship and screws up his flight for a minute? Smaller ships could sorely use a way to turn that Anaconda away from them. It's not like that would imbalance anything. A novice AI can already kill an expert pilot in one of those simply by outlasting them. There is a lot of unused potential when it comes to your combat.
On the topic of unused potential, how come the best missiles money can buy are nothing more than a mosquito bite against most ships? I mean something like an Adder or smaller is gonna take a huge hit yeah. But big guns are supposed to be for taking down big things! That's why we made'em in the first place! Why should I spend thousands every time I fire a missile when I can do the same thing with my lasers for free? I spend a bunch of money on a top dollar missile rack and this frigate takes it like I just threw a snowball at him. Yeah it might hurt if you pack it right but he's not exactly crippled. It seems like there's too much emphasis on how much money you can blow on a ship and not how to set that ship up. Yeah the setup effects you a little but like I said before a novice AI in an Anaconda can simply outlast you, with lasers and nothing else, no matter how much time, money and effort you put in to your ship, and no matter how well you conduct yourself in the fight, he can take all the ammo you have and there's nothing you can do about it. Doesn't that kinda go against your goal of not having an "end all" ship? Also what's with the turning on that thing? I'm in a smaller more nimble ship and it seems like I can never get out of the firing cone of one of those things for more than a few seconds no matter what I do. I'm not asking you to nerf the Anaconda, a ship that expensive should be that effective. I'm saying we should have viable ways to deal with that situation if we're smart enough to properly prepare for it. There is no excuse for a novice AI to be able to win a fight just because his ship is nearly indestructible and literally nothing else. I'm throwing everything I've got at this guy, and he's laughing while he wears me down to nothing.
It's not as if I specialize my ship for one thing and it's just caught out of it's element, I balance my ship. I like to be prepared for any situation I might get thrust it to, same philosophy I have in reality (I use an ASP btw). The only thing I haven't been able to get through yet is a rookie AI in an Anaconda. With like one exception, for some reason his shields and hull were sh*t compared to literally everyone else. Oh yeah, and I had a buddy, who I'll note was new to the game and in a Sidewinder so it's not saying much. Wow, I got off topic. I'll admit I'm writing this as I get tired. Maybe I should take that as a queue to stop here and let a discussion start.
So what do you think, am I off my rocker or am I on to something? I wanna know if I'm alone here.
Now I know a lot about weapons, not just because I'm a crazy American... that's only why I have access to them. I mean I get in to combat in general, from martial arts to guerrilla warfare, not only knowing the techniques but also the science, I like to understand things completely. It's a passion, I sometimes worry if I'm a psycho but my point is I know a thing or two I'm not just pulling this outta my a**. So naturally, weapons like the ones in this game bother me to no end. It would be one thing if they were all unrealistic in the interest of gameplay, but that's not the case. For example, the lasers don't go more than what, two kilometers (even though the targeting of a a gimballed mount still tracks them)? Like even if you can eyeball it and hit the mark it doesn't actually make contact. Lasers don't work that way, they don't just stop. Lasers are beams of light. And light, as anyone playing this game would know, kinda goes on forever, even if the source is long gone. That means when I fire one of my four beam lasers, some Thargoid in a thousand years should be having a really really bad day. And then when I use the multi-cannon, the bullets fire, they have drag, they have to be aimed to compensate for that drag, and they have a maximum effective range because combustion firearms have that problem for a multitude of reasons, even in the vacuum of space. In other worlds, they make complete real world sense. That's also why non-gimballed mounts are basically useless but that's player choice. My issue is, both of these things have a negative impact on gameplay, even though it's not for the same reason. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were using any excuse to nerf everything that exists regardless of whether or not if the latest excuse is consistent with the last. Just to clarify, I have absolutely no notion of that actually being your intent, that's simply what the result feels like.
You might say, "But Xman, lasers would be OP if they went on forever." Would they? I mean I'm not saying the effective targeting rang for say a gimballed laser has to be more than two kilometers, just the effective range of the laser itself. It's not like the game will do it for you, you still have to be good, very good in fact, to pull off a long range shot in the void of space or against the blinding light of a star. There's a game I played regularly before ED came out, it was free to play on the PC. It was a sci fi dog fighting game called "Star Conflict". I recommend it to those interested. Star Conflict got lasers right. Sniping another player from across the map with a laser was a legitimate tactic that you could actually use, and it only served to make the game better. There were ships that were set up for such a tactic, zoom abilities and all that. At least I think there was a zoom ability, I don't know because the frigate I used wasn't made for that. Some people would take cover by an asteroid or something and support their team. But even if yours wasn't set for it, if you were that much of a dead eye that you could eyeball a shot at a guy who's so far away that he literally shows up as a pixel, that was something you were allowed to do. It wasn't an ability through game function, it was an ability through player skill that the game simply allowed. Players of Elite Dangerous already come up with creative setups for different gameplay styles, just imagine if you gave them yet another option. Just imagine your in a wing with two guys. You're a hulking frigate, another is a small nimble fighter, and you've got the other guy stealth running in the distance taking pot shots at your enemies. How cool would that be? Combat is that thing that everyone has to take part in at some point for one reason or another. And you really only have two options right now: Run away or fly in circles for X amount of time until one of you blows up. And as much as I like dogfighting in general, it's kind of a one trick pony on it's own. Allowing players to take their own spin on it would spice things up quite a bit, and lead to far more unique ship builds and strategies. Then there's that one, fun guy, decides to come in, knock you down to 20% hull strength, uses all your missiles, and then gets to run away because your lasers decided to say " it" after a couple kilometers. My point is, lasers have way more potential than you're allowing them to use.
"Okay so lasers would be better off more real, but then wouldn't multi-cannons be kind of OP if they were less real?" That would imply that they were decently effective in their realistic state, they're just not, even if you get good ones. There's a time and a place for them yes but they don't exactly do you any good outside of that. I'll repeat myself for clarity's sake: I'm not saying everything should be flipped on it's head and everything would be fine and dandy, that would just be the opposite imbalance we have now. It's not realism or lack there of that bothers me, it's the fact the weapons are inconsistent in their realism. A push towards unrealistic for multi-cannons would add an equal amount of entirely new options as making the lasers more realistic. So there are really a lot good things that could happen whether you decide to make weapons realistic or unrealistic. It's just a matter of, ya know, picking one of those options. Inconsistency on either side of the scale is bad news for numerous reasons.
Speaking of multi-cannons, let's talk about kinetic weapons for a minute (note that I'll be grouping some in game types together, I'm categorizing them based on actual physical properties/style). Energy weapons have all kinds of things: Beams, bursts, rail guns, plasma, and a couple more. Kinetic weapons have a machine gun, and missiles with a few different paint jobs. Then there are mines, as if anyone is actually dumb enough to fly in to those when they light up like a Christmas tree and you have the entire endless void of space at your disposal to move around them. I mean just look at kinetic weapons in the real world, it's all we really have right now so there's tons of options! What, did people in a thousand years just forget all that existed but decided to say, "Oh yeah machine guns and missiles that tickle the other guys junk, those are okay, we'll keep those around. Everything else is bad though get rid of it." How about a single shot cannon that fires anti material rounds to rip through the other guys armor? Let's go further: Knock down his shields, target a specific component (like the shield generator) and have that anti material round tear right through the hull and in to the target? That would be useful. Because right now I can't do a rescue mission because I have no room for a hatch breaker and dogfighting doesn't exactly afford an easy shot at that one little specific place. Not that it does much when you do manage to target it. We can be even more creative than that. How about launching a thruster that attaches to the enemy ship and screws up his flight for a minute? Smaller ships could sorely use a way to turn that Anaconda away from them. It's not like that would imbalance anything. A novice AI can already kill an expert pilot in one of those simply by outlasting them. There is a lot of unused potential when it comes to your combat.
On the topic of unused potential, how come the best missiles money can buy are nothing more than a mosquito bite against most ships? I mean something like an Adder or smaller is gonna take a huge hit yeah. But big guns are supposed to be for taking down big things! That's why we made'em in the first place! Why should I spend thousands every time I fire a missile when I can do the same thing with my lasers for free? I spend a bunch of money on a top dollar missile rack and this frigate takes it like I just threw a snowball at him. Yeah it might hurt if you pack it right but he's not exactly crippled. It seems like there's too much emphasis on how much money you can blow on a ship and not how to set that ship up. Yeah the setup effects you a little but like I said before a novice AI in an Anaconda can simply outlast you, with lasers and nothing else, no matter how much time, money and effort you put in to your ship, and no matter how well you conduct yourself in the fight, he can take all the ammo you have and there's nothing you can do about it. Doesn't that kinda go against your goal of not having an "end all" ship? Also what's with the turning on that thing? I'm in a smaller more nimble ship and it seems like I can never get out of the firing cone of one of those things for more than a few seconds no matter what I do. I'm not asking you to nerf the Anaconda, a ship that expensive should be that effective. I'm saying we should have viable ways to deal with that situation if we're smart enough to properly prepare for it. There is no excuse for a novice AI to be able to win a fight just because his ship is nearly indestructible and literally nothing else. I'm throwing everything I've got at this guy, and he's laughing while he wears me down to nothing.
It's not as if I specialize my ship for one thing and it's just caught out of it's element, I balance my ship. I like to be prepared for any situation I might get thrust it to, same philosophy I have in reality (I use an ASP btw). The only thing I haven't been able to get through yet is a rookie AI in an Anaconda. With like one exception, for some reason his shields and hull were sh*t compared to literally everyone else. Oh yeah, and I had a buddy, who I'll note was new to the game and in a Sidewinder so it's not saying much. Wow, I got off topic. I'll admit I'm writing this as I get tired. Maybe I should take that as a queue to stop here and let a discussion start.
So what do you think, am I off my rocker or am I on to something? I wanna know if I'm alone here.
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