Reverski.. suggestions to stop or at least limit it
We're not talking about battles here, we're talking about dogfights and inexplicable overperformance of tiny thrusters compared to fat main engines delivering a true punch. At least that is what can be sensibly expected from how propulsion works, even if it is arcade-grade like in ED.
Now everyone who thinks reverski is cool please raise their hands if you ever fought one...
None? Thought so
I'm indifferent to it. I expect people to do what works best for what they have, and would prefer they not artificially cripple themselves by taking the opinions of a subset of their opponents into account.
That said, I don't think reverski, as it's commonly applied, is especially effective, for reasons I mentioned in this thread last year. Either the ships are close enough in performance that one can keep up, or even overtake the reverski vessel, or one ship is vastly faster, and shouldn't be playing by the terms set by the much slower vessel. It can give some setups a tangible advantage, but the counter of not chasing is always there.
I do think long range, zero falloff, weapons (especially hitscan ones) are seriously detrimental to gameplay in Elite: Dangerous, but I also think they would be, even if reverski was somehow impossible, as I feel they make extreme levels of focus fire too easy to achieve, irrespective of maneuver...it's not like cover is commonly present in open space. it gives the game a very bizzare TTK curve where 1v1s take forever, but wing fights can often be resolved even faster than before, which is problematic at both ends of the spectrum.
Drifting backwards with FA off does provide an avantage, as it can be done at full normal velocity with zero pips in ENG. This gives the reverser initiative, because they can still adjust vector on the fly without losing speed, while any pursurer can only compensate when they see the after effects (a change in rate of closure), forcing them to move pips to ENG to boost to keep up...unless they have the significantly faster vessel.
it's bad becouse it's limiting ship and build variety, to beat reverskie you need same ship as reverskie, to beat any other mentioned build you can take whatever you want.
This is a problem with the intersection of low velocity caps and huge acceleration. Main thrusters already generally provide much more thrust than any others, even in ED. The problem is it only takes a few seconds to reach the velocity cap. Boost on demand significantly exacerbated this issue.
I don't know whether it's cool, but I'm certain it's what a real spaceship with a fixed forward-firing long range weapon would do.Now everyone who thinks reverski is cool please raise their hands if you ever fought one...
None? Thought so
It's one of the issues that current healthpools for 1vs1 are too high, but perfectly fine for wing fights, also for reasons you mentioned
real spacweship would most likely have much weaker reverse thrust than forward, we dont have any vehicles that have same forward and reverse speed/thrust curently, for space ship it would mean that primary engine can change veocity by 180 degress, it's preety hard to imagine, and even if elite use simplified space flight model with artificially limited speeds for gamepaly purposes, those speeds represent forward and reverse thrust
FA-Off laughs at your superior intellect
Burn, flip, shoot - one doesn't even NEED reverse thrusters to do reverski. Even in ED this is the superior maneuver, since boost is limited to forward thrusters.
No, they would point their main engines to burn with maximum efficiency to where the orbital calculations have concluded to point for a burn manouver. Then they would encounter a very brief intercept window and an even briefer window to employ their "fixed forward firing long range weapons" which in turn wouldn't probably be a thing because they'd point their broadside to the enemy in that brief window. Front is probably not where many guns would fit on "real spaceship".
Game spaceships would - if some realism is involved - not be able to maintain distance and same speed as a pursuer with retro engines compared to main engines. Reverski is silly. Main thrusters should beat retros in every case. Unless you design a ship that has equally powerfull thrusters retro- and prograde.
Boost also increases the acceleration of vertical and lateral thrusters, it just can't be done without also applying forward thrust.
AI doesn't use FA off afaik, so I dont bother about such considerations.
Also, it's hard to imagine a nerf to "full-reverski" that wouldn't also cripple "partial-reverski". If you're up against ships that are faster and more agile than yours, you can't outrun them, but you can buy more time to hit them by reversing as they approach.
Crippling ships that are already at a mobility disadvantage would probably not be good.
Crippling ships that are already at a mobility disadvantage would probably not be good.
Well, if we're going to be realistic, fixed weapons on a spaceship are completely daft. Why use the energy needed to turn the whole ship when you could just aim with a turret? We're only in this daft situation because FD chose to badly nerf turreted weapons. But now that we're in it, reverse thrust or FA-off reverse drift are natural strategies. Those are the easiest ways to bring the opponent nearer to your aim direction.
In a battle I don't care what strategies will encourage diverse ship designs. I just want to avoid getting blown up.
I don't. AI reverski is just as bad, however.
Reverski is a defensive tactic full stop. They are literally running away from you in reverse taking pot shots. The only way they can destroy you with reverski is if you stupidly follow them and allow the fight to go on at their terms.
Who is the aggressor in these situations? If it is the player pulling a reverski that initiated the battle via interdiction or what have you, they idiotically just gave you a way out of the situation. If it is you that started it, then accept that this one got away and move on. If it is some agreed upon duel, well they are being an idiot since you are still under no obligation to follow them like a moron while they peck at you from range. Sit back outside their range and wait for them to boost to get you back in range and then give it to them. Complaining about reverski changing how you have to approach outfitting while people get blasted every day in exploration craft by frag boats sort of comes across as wanting the cake and eating it too. If they have to outfit to protect from frag boats, I see no reason you can't outfit to deal with reverski boats.
Somehow, I get the feeling, that the people most unhappy with reverski, are plasma/frag users or slow ship flyers.
You know that most medium combat ships cant catch reversing phantom? OTOH defence vs frags and plasma is very simple-evasion, or maybe not that simple, becouse you must know how to evade, vs reverski your only defence is not fight, and it would be ok, if we remove any elements of control territory, in perfect game, without engineering unbalances, you could allow reverski in a system, becouse he would be harmless, but when reverski have enaugh firepower to kill in seconds literally any unengineerd ship then it's one more reason to limit reverskies. Saying reverskie is no problem becouse you migh not fight them is liek saying premium ammo in pvp is no problem for same reason, same logic apply
The more premium ammo I see used, the more ok I am with it. My CMDR's biweaves grow back way faster than materials...all I have to do to inflict losses on opponents is get shot at. Mechanically speaking, someone dumping a load of premium ammo into a ship costs them more time and effort than gaining the credits to cover a rebuy.
I still think synthesis is dumb, full stop, but as long as it exists, there is nothing that an opponent can do with it that's going to cost my CMDR more than it costs theirs.