Isn’t it time the AX weapons got a buff? Please?

FatFreddysCoat

FatFreddysCoat
AX dumbfire missiles make no sense as I can lock onto Goids with regular missiles so why not have guided AX missiles?

AX Multicannons not available in gimballed variants? Why? Overall damage on AX MC’s could really do with a buff too, as they’re massive underperformers in terms of damage vs guardian tech.

I’m not a great AX or fixed weapon fighter, and I’d love to get more involved with the Thargoid fighting, but I have a choice between using a huge number of fixed weapons, which I suck at, despite tons of practice (PS4 so no precise mouse control) or drop to turrets and suffer a huge DPS reduction.

I suspect lots of other cmdr’s who aren’t very good at combat and who appreciate guided and gimballed weapons would love upgrades.

In-game, there’s been enough testing to move the AX weapons from the ‘experimental’ classification by now I’d have thought: as the goids are closer and closer to Sol you’d have thought research would have speeded up and - at the very least - some genius should have worked out how to stick an AX on a gimbal mount.

Thanks.
 

Riverside

Riverside
I think one of the reasons why we have Thargoids at all is because they are hard to kill. They were the ultimate challenge in the original game, they currently fill that (PvE) role in the current game.

I think making them easier to kill would go against that principle. So I'm happy enough that there are no gimbaled multi-cannons etc, and that the dps ratio is part of what determines how much of a challenge they are.

It takes a long time to kill a big Thargoid, it requires experience and the risk of loss to the player is relatively higher than almost any other encounter (Neutron Stars probably represent the highest risk of rebuy).

There is a demand to lessen the challenge presented in the OP, and I think this would be at the expense of those players that do enjoy taking on the challenge.

I do not need to be able to kill a big Thargoid to achieve any goal, I do not need to fit AX or Guardian modules at all. If a player chooses to take them on it is because they are hard to kill. If there were a need to fit them as the only way to achieve a goal then I could see an argument for making that path an easier one to take.
 
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FatFreddysCoat

FatFreddysCoat
Some skilled cmdr’s can kill a Cyclops in under a minute with 4 shard cannons ... hell, there are cmdr’s who have killed them in sidewinders, so - for the right Cmdr - they’re really not hard to kill.

For PS4 or Xbox cmdr’s, who don’t have the luxury of mouse input as FDev don’t seem inclined to implement it, it’s bloody hard using fixed with either a DualShock or HOTAS and the gimballed weapons wouldn’t be a game changer: they’d just give those of us who aren’t premier pilots a bit more of a chance.

Skilled cmdrs won’t switch from fixed guardian weapons: an implementation of gimballed AX weapons would only let those of us who aren’t top gun flyers a bit more of a chance and a lot more enjoyment.
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
More AX weapons fitted, or gimbal versions, or turreted ones which work without multi-crew; any of these would make Thargoid content more accessible and so more popular. Increasing payouts would help too.

I'm not sure if this is actually FD's intention at the moment though.
 

FatFreddysCoat

FatFreddysCoat
I never understood that limit: “We’ve come up with a bespoke Thargoid killing ship with 10 hardpoints. Unfortunately you can only fit as many AX weapons as a Cobra 3 though”.
 

Heater

Heater
I think they are fine as they are, BUT, please remove the limit of 4.... this has never made any sense to me.
 

Sylow

Sylow
ebbrell said:
It would be nice for t10 to be able to carry more and the usual limit. Make it special as it was designed as AX ship
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I actually find the T10 very useful for AX CZs the way it is. It is very durable, which helps me endure the caustic effect for quite a while. It has the capacity to bring plenty of internals, can carry C3 AX weapons and it allows me to bring an array of secondary weapons of non-AX kind, which allow me to kill scouts without wasting AX ammo on them. So i can preserve my AX ammo for the interceptors. (And yes, Medusas kick my rear. Badly. But i would see that as player skill problem. )

Bortas said:
Isn't it time to do away with the ax-crutch and make standard weapons effective against ants?
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They work against scouts, but i know what you mean. There's several sides to this. The whole "AX only hurts Thargoids" and "non-AX only hurts human ships" thing is a bit silly. But in terms of gameplay, it has some benefits. It means that Thargoids are the one and only content currently in the game, where FD have not painted themselves into corner. Anything outside of Thargoids suffers of the crazy power gap between regular and engineered equipment.

So yea. Something in between could work, like regular weapons also -can- hurt Thargoids, but should be less effective than AX weapons. (I also pondered like "and should only do base damage, without engineering effect", but in that case i'd immediately go for higher firing speed, working around such a limitation. ) At the same time, i think that AX weapons should be able to do damage to human targets, equivalent to regular weapons. The fact that they can't be engineered will still leave them far behind, but they at least could be used.

This would leave both to be the best choice for their intended use, while not locking them in as badly as they are now. But it does weaken the above mentioned advantage that FD has this one any only aspect of the game, where they can actually do some balancing and create some (at least for most players) challenging content without completely locking out a too big part of the playerbase.
 

Marcus Tullius

Marcus Tullius
Isn’t it time to git gud guys? The thargoids are in game more than a year and instead to learn how to kill them, you whine in the forum for I WIN button. There are plenty of players from all platforms and with all kinds of controller setups who are killing the thargoids with ease.
 

Jaggedmallard

Jaggedmallard
Riverside said:
I think one of the reasons why we have Thargoids at all is because they are hard to kill. They were the ultimate challenge in the original game, they currently fill that (PvE) role in the current game.

I think making them easier to kill would go against that principle. So I'm happy enough that there are no gimbaled multi-cannons etc, and that the dps ratio is part of what determines how much of a challenge they are.

It takes a long time to kill a big Thargoid, it requires experience and the risk of loss to the player is relatively higher than almost any other encounter (Neutron Stars probably represent the highest risk of rebuy).

There is a demand to lessen the challenge presented in the OP, and I think this would be at the expense of those players that do enjoy taking on the challenge.

I do not need to be able to kill a big Thargoid to achieve any goal, I do not need to fit AX or Guardian modules at all. If a player chooses to take them on it is because they are hard to kill. If there were a need to fit them as the only way to achieve a goal then I could see an argument for making that path an easier one to take.
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Mild buffs to AX weaponry isn't going to lower the skill floor on things like the Medusa or Hydra, all it would really do is open up the Cyclops to lower skilled players which is fine. The Thargoid war is in full swing, wing bugs make it wing fights more difficult than they should be and we're still telling lower skilled players that they can't even fight the baseline PBI interceptor? No wonder we're losing all these systems and the prevailing attitude is "who cares, let it burn" when its out of reach (well that and the crippling bugs and utter lack of communication). Literally the only goid this would help with is already easy peasy for the expert pilots, why not let less confident pilots in on it?

Besides, Fdev are trying to sell a war story and do you really think that all research to make weaponry more effective in the hands of grunts would stop?
 

Jaggedmallard

Jaggedmallard
Marcus Tullius said:
Isn’t it time to git gud guys? The thargoids are in game more than a year and instead to learn how to kill them, you whine in the forum for I WIN button. There are plenty of players from all platforms and with all kinds of controller setups who are killing the thargoids with ease.
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If you think the only thing stopping thargoids from being easy peasy to kill is gimballed MCs, tracking missiles and a small buff to damage then you have to consider how difficult you think AX content is as with how you're reacting to those changes you'd think it was already point and click to win.
 

Riverside

Riverside
It is fairly common practice (and something FDev have done with several features in ED) to have a challenge initially be really tough, then once a meta is established begin to lower the barrier to entry. We have seen this with the Elite ranks, Engineering, Military ranks, they have all been rebalanced (some multiple times in different directions). It will probably happen with Thargoids too eventually, introducing scouts goes in that direction.

But to dilute the 'ultimate' challenge without introducing a new 'ultimate challenge' to replace it would be to reduce the overall scope of the game. I'd rather that be avoided or postponed for as long as possible, just as with power creep in any other area. I want FDev to add to the game, not take gameplay away.
 
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Sylow

Sylow
Riverside said:
It is fairly common practice (and something FDev have done with several features in ED) to have a challenge initially be really tough, then once a meta is established begin to lower the barrier to entry. We have seen this with the Elite ranks, Engineering, Military ranks, they have all been rebalanced (some multiple times in different directions). It will probably happen with Thargoids too eventually, introducing scouts goes in that direction.

But to dilute the 'ultimate' challenge without introducing a new 'ultimate challenge' to replace it would be to reduce the overall scope of the game. I'd rather that be avoided or postponed for as long as possible, just as with power creep in any other area. I want FDev to add to the game, not take gameplay away.
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It's a common thing for online games, no matter which genre, that things get easier in the run of time. Sometimes it's bugfixes, sometimes it's just new gear which is a bit stronger than what formerly was available, etc. Often producers consider it necessary to sell new content. The big offender in ED here of course are engineers, which would really need to be hit badly with the nerfbat. Although it would first result in rivers of tears. But while i wish it to happen, i don't think it will.

On Thargoids, i up to now have not really seen a reduction of challenge. They actually kept adding harder Thargoids for a while. Indeed, scouts were added as "entry level Thargoid content", but it was an addition and does not replace interceptors. And even if you can handle scouts on one ship and interceptors on another, recently we got AX CZs, where you have to be able to handle both and best also have the endurance to take down several interceptors. The challenge rating is still on the rise on the Thargoid side. I currently wouldn't worry about that.
 
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