How much damage can a FDL take?

[Chongo]

Apologies if this has been said (haven't got time to read all replies) but this is something that needs rebalancing in my opinion. I'm very, very glad to see that Silent Running stealth builds have been given "some love" as they say, and the introduction of hull reinforcement packages in internal slots is a welcome addition, but... not at the sacrifice of going in to battle with shields. Dev Sandro once said - Silent Running can be used in combat, but is a high risk gambit. Somewhere down the line this "risk" has gotten lost.

Mainly I would suggest it's the high class hull reinforcement packages that do the real protection (and is the main contributor to these outrageous armour values), the slot where you'd normally have a shield fitted (and perhaps a cell bank). Perhaps this is where the improvement can be made to make the return of the "shield build" at least the primary choice. Forbid the fitting of hull reinforcement in the largest internal slots on each and every ship, so at least one can go in to battle with an SR stealth build but with some of this "risk" returned and so skill is thus required focusing of agility and manoeuverability, not just a hull tanky setup.

It is the hull reinforcement meta that has got a bit silly to the point now you're better off without shields which doesn't make a lot of sense, a simple tweak like this suggested would rebalance the disparity in my opinion.

You're either oversimplifying or don't know what you're talking about. 1v1 shield tank wins with competent pilots on both sides. I don't even trigger silent running in a hull tank 1v1 unless the other guy is running gimbals. Your suggestion will only lead to hybrids that are already fairly standard.

if both pilots equally skill 1v1 shield tank should come out on top against a silent runner. Now the problems lies not on the new meta but in a wing battle, whoever drops in with shields is going to get all the attention because you are lighting up on the radar like a Christmas tree, imagine if the whole wing you could easily target silent runners they wouldn't be any left and all the Federals ships would become useless, and the new Meta would be shift back to FDL once again. Really boring if you ask me

Jesse has been correct in all the statements said on this thread so far. People that are afraid of silent running builds and/or find them overpowered belong in 2 categories: 1) They just haven't practiced fighting them enough to understand the mechanic, or 2) They've only interacted with silent wings swarming them instead of 1v1. It's only when you're outnumbered against multiple silent hull tanks that it can seem overwhelming if you haven't practiced flying off radar. They're still on the radar!

People are running silent builds for a couple of reasons, and it's not that they're overpowered. 1) They're in a full wing with other silent builds and aren't comfortable with their experience level being the only solid blip on the radar that's easily locked onto, 2) It's fun, or 3) They know it's easy to gank inexperienced folks because it's something you need to practice fighting against or be shown how to.

This is 100% an experience issue. Don't suggest balance changes unless you've experienced a lot of it. Just grab some friends, do some friendly sparring (first to 30-40% hull submits) 20km from a station, practice countering it with different loadouts/ techniques, learn how to track SR builds off radar. Post up an overpowered build on here and any fairly experienced pvp pilot can offer you a countering build. And this is good.

 

[Yodafone]

You're either oversimplifying or don't know what you're talking about. 1v1 shield tank wins with competent pilots on both sides. I don't even trigger silent running in a hull tank 1v1 unless the other guy is running gimbals. Your suggestion will only lead to hybrids that are already fairly standard.



Jesse has been correct in all the statements said on this thread so far. People that are afraid of silent running builds and/or find them overpowered belong in 2 categories: 1) They just haven't practiced fighting them enough to understand the mechanic, or 2) They've only interacted with silent wings swarming them instead of 1v1. It's only when you're outnumbered against multiple silent hull tanks that it can seem overwhelming if you haven't practiced flying off radar. They're still on the radar!

People are running silent builds for a couple of reasons, and it's not that they're overpowered. 1) They're in a full wing with other silent builds and aren't comfortable with their experience level being the only solid blip on the radar that's easily locked onto, 2) It's fun, or 3) They know it's easy to gank inexperienced folks because it's something you need to practice fighting against or be shown how to.

This is 100% an experience issue. Don't suggest balance changes unless you've experienced a lot of it. Just grab some friends, do some friendly sparring (first to 30-40% hull submits) 20km from a station, practice countering it with different loadouts/ techniques, learn how to track SR builds off radar. Post up an overpowered build on here and any fairly experienced pvp pilot can offer you a countering build. And this is good.

Agreed I was being rather simplistic and perhaps I'm not hugely experienced in PvP in this area compared to some though that's not to say I haven't a great deal of experience. I've had countless fights myself in open with these type builds but with the group I fly with, Ghost Legion, we do regular 1v1s and wing fights and we have some extremely skilled pilots who are always in an array of builds for this very reason for our group's improvement. I do also agree that the 1v1 and then a wing vs wing scenario is quite different so perhaps this simplistic view I suggested wouldn't necessarily work completely but feel it could go towards helping things (or at least something like it or an alternative to address it in a similar way), but I agree with you Chongo and Jesse in this regard. So I appreciate the correction, it is something I should have mentioned, I do think it's only a small tweak required, nothing huge.

Perhaps I should have elaborated and continued in why I feel this way about the hull reinforcement meta, suggesting why the hull reinforcement makes such a huge difference. Mainly with the fact there is considerable less skill to piloting a ship like this compared to all that is required with a shielded ship. Consistent pip distribution for each capacitors' functions (keeping capacitor from draining and boosting shield strength etc etc) and module management (and turning SCBs on/off etc) is quite the juggling act, something that the Silent Runner doesn't really have to deal with as much (perhaps turning modules off to increase the heat build-up and increase SR's longevity), but with pip management for instance all one really cycles between is ENGs and WEPs capacitors, with perhaps the odd keeping an eye on your Systems capacitor making sure you've enough to launch your heat sinks but generally the skill required in piloting and management jobs is quite reduced in my opinion than juggling the shielded variant.

I'm not exactly sure what the answer is, I've been playing this game since Alpha and to be honest initially it seemed almost ridiculed and frowned upon to use Silent Running in combat capacity so I am extremely pleased Frontier have given us the opportunity to use this technique and implemented changes that have livened things up, only it's gone just that little bit the other way now almost to the point full ammo counts of kinetics have difficulty finishing a target's hull, even a full reload ammo salvo of a pair of C2 Rail Guns can't cope with these extreme armour ratings (and the shield depletion on an attrition build with many a SCB only really requires thermals that never run out - another disparity).

There's so much to consider how all mechanics interact as a whole and of course I haven't touched anywhere near close to all of it, what I love about this game quite frankly, perhaps my suggestion was far too simplistic so I'll admit when I've been corrected and the issues you've both raised are extremely informative but as I said I appreciate the feedback, an interesting discussion.

 

[nosleepdemon]

I'd add a fourth point that a smaller hull tanking ship like the dbs can punch above its class, and becomes a fair bit more survivable with hull reinforcements compared to using a shield.

 

[Chongo]

Good, thoughtful response Yodafone. Not sure how I feel about ease of flying in response to your thoughts. Pip management is easier in stealth, yes. And it frees up a lot of room for maneuverability/ boosts compared to the shielded build. This is an undeniable flight advantage. To really ace a shielded build your pip management needs to be pretty stellar. Watching Cillit's last video is great confirmation that I've got a ways to go if I'm going to get that good with general system management. At the same time, heat management on a shielded build is as simple as two key bindings hit in succession when you fire an SCB or chained SCB. On a silent build it takes some practice before you stop frying your ship. And you get way more unplanned malfunctions from fire which invariably makes you miss a heat sink or something in time which dominoes quickly. Even watching pretty experienced silent hull tanks on youtube, you can see them run into trouble pretty frequently. So in that regard - I'd contend there's some skill balance between the two. If anything, I'd contend that pip management has a higher skill ceiling than stealth/ heat management. And that's not an indicator of imbalance. Just means you can get really dang good at holding shields.

On the rail example, I personally run into a lot more ammo trouble getting shielded builds down with rails than hull tanks (of comparable ability). A shield FDL is going to chain class 4's and get you pretty low on rail count compared to stealth FDL which really doesn't take that long to rail down. Vette/ Cutter chaining SCBs with a heat sink... forget it - you're out of ammo and they haven't even had to change out module sets.

All this said, now that we have wingmate healing laser potions and who knows what else coming with the 2.1/1.6, this is all moot. I just really worry that FD will react to the overreactions toward hull tank/ stealth builds that seem to be predominately the howlings of people who haven't taken the time to test and understand it at all. I fear many got wing ganked by something they don't understand and have automatically written it off as unbalanced - and then have the audacity to howl about it on the forums, insofar as to call it a hack, when they should've just asked a buddy to test outside a station for a couple half hour sessions until they understood it.

 

[Chongo]

(sigh) I thought FD was going out of their way to AVOID creating metas like this, so that there'd actually be some VARIETY in player loadouts. Instead they buff HRMs all to blazes and ALL you guys seem to be flying, maybe, four or five separate loadouts, but all of them with the same theme, depending on whether or not you have much Fed rank.

Booooo-ringgggg...

This is nonsense. I change my ship/ loadout based on what I'm going up against.

 

[Karla]

I'm finding this thread very interesting. I've very recently bought an FDL and am still not happy with the set up. I don't have much experience with PvP but I am aiming to do a lot more. I am currently making the transition to using FA on/off and two joysticks, the second for lateral thrust and throttle forward / reverse. I can't yet aim with FA off but I can do things like reorient myself to be flying backwards etc.

I'm really not happy with my weapon set up. I have a huge PA, two gimballed beam lasers and two gimballed multi cannons. One of the reasons for buying the FDL was to have a huge hard point, but I just can't seem to hit anything with the PA. I had far more success with the fixed C3 cannon in the Vulture that I sold to buy the FDL.And that's if the PA even works. By the time I switch to the third firegroup to use it, I generally find there's some kind of thermal overload for whatever reason.

So I've been thinking that I should have a hull reinforcement package instead of a shield booster. I never got round to experimenting to see what silent running would look like for the opponent.

But a silent running build might work really well for me. I would swap the mirrored surface armour for the one that works best against kinetic weapons. Does it make sense to swap the shield generator for a hull reinforcement package as well and switch to silent running when that goes down? Or is it better to just do silent running all the time with a hull reinforcement package in the larger slot that a shield generator would go in? When my shields are down, it takes ages for them to regenerate, which is really annoying in a PvE HazRe, but hulls can't repair themselves like a shield can.

When I flew my Vulture I would get in really close and stick to the side or behind the enemy ship. But I find the FDL too fast leaving me really far away and jousting with the enemy. And at the moment that just means that the enemy has more time to lock onto me. So I can totally see that silent running might make the speed of the FDL work for it.

 

[Vegar]

I'm really not happy with my weapon set up. I have a huge PA, two gimballed beam lasers and two gimballed multi cannons. One of the reasons for buying the FDL was to have a huge hard point, but I just can't seem to hit anything with the PA. I had far more success with the fixed C3 cannon in the Vulture that I sold to buy the FDL.And that's if the PA even works. By the time I switch to the third firegroup to use it, I generally find there's some kind of thermal overload for whatever reason.

I'm relatively new to the FdL myself, and tried some different loadouts I wasn't really happy with. With lasers mounted on the C2-slots, the weapons capacitators would get drained too quickly, and I'd frequently find there wan't enough to fire the PA when I wanted to if I wanted to maintain shields to a decent level as well.

Then, I switched to 4x C2 Multicannons and 1 huge PA. That load-out is working out perfectly for me. I can maintain plenty of pips in either engines or systems, and still have enough to keep firing. The only waiting time for the PA is the loading time, weapons capacitor is no concern.
With a little practice, you can hit most ships (even the small ones), just get in close if they're maneouvering around. At any rate, the MCs will work just fine alone against most smaller ships (if you hit them with the PA, it's like mosquito swatting). Anything larger than a Vulture is usually pretty easy to hit with the PA, which will make short work of the shields if you can keep energy in the capacitor (which you can with the 4xMC-loadout).

 

[Aio]

I hope you reported the incident. I do not know if FD is able to check what happend but at least there is a chance. My experience is that "skilled" pilots often are skilled in searching and download stuff on the net