Delete Chaff from the game (and make gimballed weapon weaker)

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

One of the hallmarks of biweave setups is the ability to quickly regen. Regen is stopped for 1 second after any damage is taken; giving gimbals 100% time on target, even at a reduced damage completely negates the benefits of biweaves. Which more than likely will lead to even more people shield stacking.

And yet any ship agile enough to keep on target has the same effect if it uses fixed weapons.

I used to be annoyed w/ chaff until I changed over to a mix of rails and MC's.

Chaff deployment has me sniping you w/ 4 rails. Two separate triggers help this along and if there is a pause in chaff, I find that if I put my rail aim dots on target, the MC's are targeted nicely as well for double shots.

No problem.

see thats the issue, chaff and gimballed? there is no balance if someoe replaces them.
further we could also question how missiles keep their lock. Becuse surely they have a lot less of targetting capabilities than the ship itself.

 

[FH DIP]

And yet any ship agile enough to keep on target has the same effect if it uses fixed weapons.

That's assuming the pilot is 100% accurate with their shots, and if that's the case then the result is a fitting reward for said pilot. Why should someone using a computer to aim their shots receive the same level of benefit as someone using every thrust vector needed to consistently land fixed shots?

 

[Mohrgan]

And yet any ship agile enough to keep on target has the same effect if it uses fixed weapons.




see thats the issue, chaff and gimballed? there is no balance if someoe replaces them.
further we could also question how missiles keep their lock. Becuse surely they have a lot less of targetting capabilities than the ship itself.

One note here, the targeting, or tracking, of a gimballed weapon has nothing to do with the ship. It comes from the weapons themselves.

 

[RagingxPenguin]

That's assuming the pilot is 100% accurate with their shots, and if that's the case then the result is a fitting reward for said pilot. Why should someone using a computer to aim their shots receive the same level of benefit as someone using every thrust vector needed to consistently land fixed shots?

this
THIS
THIS

Fixed takes substantially more effort. I recently put a gimballed huge MC on my FDL and it almost feels like cheating!

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

One note here, the targeting, or tracking, of a gimballed weapon has nothing to do with the ship. It comes from the weapons themselves.

which makes no sense at all too, yet i am quite sure an entire wepaon has a better trackign system than a small missle. because in the end, whatever makes the missile trck 100% accurate could eb placed in the weapon as well. so just a weridom of ED.

 

[Crank Larson]

One note here, the targeting, or tracking, of a gimballed weapon has nothing to do with the ship. It comes from the weapons themselves.

Seems an odd statement. What makes you say that? They are obviously connected to and controlled by the ship, it makes no sense that they'd be shut off from the ship's sensors.

Missiles could also very easily use the ship's tracking systems - just by having a radio link back to the ship.

 

[Mohrgan]

Seems an odd statement. What makes you say that? They are obviously connected to and controlled by the ship, it makes no sense that they'd be shut off from the ship's sensors.

Missiles could also very easily use the ship's tracking systems - just by having a radio link back to the ship.

No, it has been made clear by the Devs, a gimballed weapon's tracking is all part of the weapon, not the ship. There was one experiment, during combat balance Beta, where they tied gimballed weapons to Sensor grade, but that fizzled and died. You can even see in the description of a gimballed weapon something to the effect of 'including the signature tracking'. Their tracking has no relationship with the ship, or it's sensors.

P.S. The in-game description of a E3 Gimballed Pulse Laser says: "Single-pulse laser weapon on Gimballed mount, with signature tracking assist."

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Hmm... okay, maybe call it Radiant Emission?!? or something instead of Emissive Munitions and give it a different description (<If needed), minor detail I know but... to me it would feel more... logical. (even though i'm obviously slow)

And I think the original experimental effect and your chaff idea should be accumulative for both Multi Cannon and Pulse Laser, I feel like it would make it a bit more skill based form of gameplay instead of a simple hard counter.

It's probably just the "munitions" part that's bothering you - since lasers don't actually have any "munitions" per se, but this is more semantics than anything else. They could call it "Yellow Cabbage" as long as the effect was the same: the target gives off higher-than-normal emissions.

 

[Cupsuki]

You better get another argument other than "I don't like it" otherwise you're are not gonna get anywhere

 

[vrcan]

I dont want to convince other its great idea, i am also not sure, but still think more that its good idea

I was expecting if someone will like that idea and improve that.
Its really not about my personal preference (f.e. if i am gimbal user, or if i dont want use chaff etc),
its purely hypothetical question, if that is not better game mechanics as it is now.

But what i realised, pve and pvp has probably totally diferent point of view.

I noticed one pure pvp point of view, fas pilot with dual high ammo cap chaff, so my answer for that is - yes just for those reason, when all chaff is out/spent, i think somenthing is wrong with game mechanics IMHO

 

[Aidan Skye]

Silly idea

 

[Crank Larson]

No, it has been made clear by the Devs, a gimballed weapon's tracking is all part of the weapon, not the ship. There was one experiment, during combat balance Beta, where they tied gimballed weapons to Sensor grade, but that fizzled and died. You can even see in the description of a gimballed weapon something to the effect of 'including the signature tracking'. Their tracking has no relationship with the ship, or it's sensors.

P.S. The in-game description of a E3 Gimballed Pulse Laser says: "Single-pulse laser weapon on Gimballed mount, with signature tracking assist."

I know that sensors currently make no difference to tracking. I don't agree with any of your other analysis, though - there is nothing in the words you have posted that implies that the tracking is entirely implemented in the weapon itself. Have you got a link to dev comments?

Not that it matters. My point really is that there is no reason why tracking should not be connected to sensors - and as you point out, the devs did look at this at one point. I hope they do so again.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

chaff is important for defensive small targets.
gimbal is important for large, slower ships.

a nerf of firing arc could be applied, yes. But breaking them completely, no. Diversity.

The fixed pride is becoming very, very tiresome. If all ships were vultures, well maybe we could have fixed weapons only - but there are not only vultures, and it is 3304. makes zero sense that this tech wouldn't be available.

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

chaff is fine, removing it will increase shields even more.

if you get bothered by chaff, just use more fixed weapons.

Or unselect the target with gimbals

To the OP, gimbals arnt aimbot, theyre mostly assisted aiming so you can focus on flying. They still have jitter and so theyre pretty much pointless at long range.

They already have a pretty hefty damage penalty, enough to make me consider using fixed for lasers and use gimbals for projectile based weapons, turrets are as close to aimbot as you can get considering they can shoot in all directions. Turrets are penalized by having slow tracking speed and lowest damage in class.

Now about chaff. Chaff is fine as there are plenty of ways to beat it: fixed weapons, de-select gimbals, get closer, and ram them.

In short find a solution to your issue rather than complain on the forums to have them nerfed

 

[Dakron Nova]

1. Delete chaff from the game (I hate it... it waste utility slot(s), need to be timed, it has ammo, and chaffing looks stupid imo)

Is it stupid idea?

Im not sure, modules add an element of strategic decision making into outfitting your ship reduce the number of modules and you limit these choices further, meta builds emerge and everyone ends up flying the same ship.

If anything we need to add more modules into the game to allow for vastly different builds with associated weaknesses or strengths to allow for further strategic choices and builds.

i.e. EMP pulse modules, Fuel efficiency modules, Interdiction multipliers for avoiding or intercepting, comms breakers for disabling report crimes, offensive limpets etc etc almost unlimited number you could come up with.

It would mean real choices would have to be made.

 

[sb413197]

No. Gimbals and chaff are perfect as-is. Gimbal provide a much-needed crutch for newer players and less combat focused pilots; but virtually every late game player is totally reliant on fixed weapons, even in big ships. The micro gimbal, higher DPS, longer range use, immunity to chaff/dispersal makes fixed weapons pretty much universal late-game for most players. Chaff is important to counter the gimbal though particularly for fast ships.

 

[Morbad]

I don't have any real problem with chaff.

Chaff is actually used by real aircraft.

Check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KOMiLBqh-4

I quite like things like this in game would be true to real life.

Real chaff (which adds radar clutter) bears almost no resemblance to in-game chaff (which apparently works more like flares, to confuse the tracking of weapons reliant on IR).

Who's to say our chaff isn't superheated?

It must be...probably why they changed it's color to glowing red.

When a lock is lost because of chaff or low heat, turrets should stop firing and gimbals should shoot where aimed (as fixed).

That would be better than the current random firing arcs followed by 'unlock target' to fire as fixed process.

As far as gimbals go, low heat either causes a target to be lost, or to only be partially resolved. In the latter case gimbals don't gimbal except in a much smaller arc than normal.

Chaff is evidently shooting IR emitting flakes which causes targeting sensors to track randomly.

How about this?

IF you have gimballed/turret weapons, and a target deploys a chaff, your weapons go crazy, like they do.
However, if you unlock the target, instead of going fixed and staying that way, they still go crazy if your crosshairs go pass over the ship deploying the chaff for a short time.
Sensor rating can reduce this interference time.

That means all chaffs will effect all tracking, on all ships, regardless of whether you're targeting them or not.

This is as silly as seekers not being able to fire without a lock.

Dispersal at least makes some sense, as it's delivering some payload that is triggering an involuntary gimbal motion, but there is no even vaguely convincing mechanism for chaff to do this...if the weapon points directly a head with no target selected, no passive countermeasure should be able to do anything beyond that.

Emissive makes sense, especially on a LASER - acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

You're bombarding someone with a concentrated beam of irradiated light. Crank up that radiation enough, and why wouldn't it be Emissive?

Because the skin/hull of the ship is constantly cooled by the ship's cooling system, with any hotspots quickly evened out. It's why every hit from every energy weapon isn't emissive.

Emissive projectiles make much more sense as they would carry their own heat source that could be insulated from the vessel they embed themselves and continue to burn/radiate.

 

[Mohrgan]

I play late, really late sometimes. Gimballed weapons are ok with me.