Nerf Reverski

[voidwalker]

There is absolutely no way that it can be harder to fly spitfire, and manage all the controls, as it is in in F-15, F-18, or F-22.

I'm talking about airmanship, not figuring out the controls. Older planes are simpler, but therein the challenge lies. Everything about the actual flying and fighting in the older planes is far more challenging than anything in a modern jet. Don't take it from me, take it from the pilots themselves, they'll agree with me. Most modern air combat takes place with the push of a button, BVR. Don't tell me that takes more skill than chasing a plane at 500m, and matching his every move, waiting for him to make a mistake and give you the energy advantage so you can get that perfect deflection shot with guns, all while making sure your engine don't overheat and your oil doesn't spill into the cockpit, blinding you.

Agreement with me isn't necessary on this point. This is a simple fact. It took a lot more airmanship to master combat in the older planes than it does in modern ones.

And for the record, the planes in DCS are modelled very accurately, with very fine and careful detail. It's why the modules cost as much as a AAA game, because that much development really does go into each one.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Good points, but 1) It can never be realistic, speeds have to be limited or we could accelerate infinitely, as would be the case in reality. And 2) There should be rear facing hardpoints on some ships

I've often wondered if it would be that much of an issue. If you made it that the faster you go, the less maneuverable you are, wouldn't that limit those that wish to fight down to the speeds we have now, anyway?

 

[jonesskill]

No, no more a single nerf, don't matter in what aspect of for what purpose.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

This is more or less correct in spreadsheet terms. In two identical builds, reverski with 4-0-2 pips confers no DPE advantage over 'forwardski' with 4-0-2 pips. It also makes aiming slightly more difficult (the rotational model is slightly different, in reverse).

However, even with identical builds, reverski, by forcing a facetank (as neither party can move outside the fire target cone of the other ship) limits evasion as a tactic. It doesn't eliminate it - after all, a PA can still be made to miss, by either the reverser or the follower, using side-thrust at the correct time - but the effectiveness of evasion is reduced as both ships are almost always within the other's fire arc.

Furthermore, though, most fights are not fought between identical builds. Reverski permits whichever of the two opponents has better facetank spreadsheet damage to force a partial (not complete, as noted above, but partial) facetank.

In very broad terms, reverski is helpful towards whoever has the better sustainable DPS (via DPE) and/or most effective hit points.

At its very worst, if the reversing ship has advantages of both speed and greater damage-over-time and hit points, it can achieve something similar to both pilots switching off thrusters at an agreed distance and simply firing, rather like a realtime strategy game.

This is why many object to it - it limits (not deprives, but limits) the ability of the better pilot and/or more maneuvrable ship to overcome 'on paper' disadvantages or even speed disadvantages via manoeuvring.

But I would repeat, as in my first post in this thread, that the problem with a simple, outright nerf to reverski is that it would make the Big Three (Four?) unable to defend themselves against well-flown medium ships, unless some other buff is provided.

If the shipyards sold only (e.g.) FdL, FAS, Chieftain and Clipper, I would have no problem with a straight nerf ... but there's more!

yes a lot of things are out of balance, I mean realistically spoken lets compare these two weapon setups:

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B050,...AsY0BAs0BOw0Bcg0,,08c008c07Uw00720mpV2Uc002M0

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B0_0,...Ahc0AxE0BAs0BQU0BeE0,,7Y200Bk008c0mpW2Uc003w0

one is a single PA, the other a fully turreted fatty.

funnily, efficiently that single PA has more DPS than 7 turrets.

Simply because:
PA's deal absolute damage and don't have to go through hull and shield resistances.
Their dropoff basically comes with inbuild "focussed" feature.
Their piecing even does full damage no matter what target you have since no Hardness exceeds 100.

The Turrets already have a lot lower damage, they have to go through shield/hull res and then hardness is calculated too And their dropoff starts at lousy 500m.
Not even speaking about energy requirements.
How is it that just because those weapons are Turrets deserve to go through so much bad multipliers? In the end not even all will have a line of fire on the target if not fully in front of the turreted ship. Sure you can engineer them, btut hen dropoff damage is still a problem, or if focussed you gonna have to pay more heat.

ok you can take canon turrets as well, butt heystill go through all these multipliers and wow, one c3 costs even 16M and their AI accuracy isn't amazing and will fail a lot.
7 weapon systems not even worth that one other.And what are the downsides of the PA? You ened to aim, and ammo, but thats not THAT hard vs a big ship.
And after even that comparison there is still chaff to entirely screw up the turrets.

So turrets are basically useless wepaons, unless you are superlazy or have 0 skill youc an just use any other weapon the game offers and do better. Especially plasmas.

And then some of these people here ask to get rid of reverski. Well i don't know what they expect from this. Do they think it will make battling those big fatties more interesting? Because thats just wrong, those big fatties will just press J and thats it.

Turrets need a serious buff, but then we are up to the issue with skill vs less skills for turret usage since they cna be used on ships who don't need to rely on turrets and can combine their agility with Turrets where it flips badly in another direction. Maybe turrets should only be possible for some ships to be used. Naturally a low amount fo ships already comes with limited turret abilities, becaue their hardpoints are in locations where turrets make them have not much angle anyways.

But when people argue that reverski is boring and removing it would make up for more "diversity" then I dunno what these people hope to achieve. More diversity would happen if we had better weapon balance. But what are the meta weapons currently used? mostly PA's spam with some minor support weapons in the mix or gimballed rails. So what about those other turrets, any ammo dependend turret is just seeing your ammo flying into space.

No I do not think that most people in here wanting reverski to be gone would even get what they expect to get should reverski be gone. What they would get is people avoiding these battles entirely. Or indeed, if they have interest in PvP using other ships and builds.

 

[UnhappyDev]

PA's deal absolute damage and don't have to go through hull and shield resistances.

I think PAs do 60% absolute, 20% thermal, 20% kinetic, so they only partially ignore resistances.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I'm talking about airmanship, not figuring out the controls. Older planes are simpler, but therein the challenge lies. Everything about the actual flying and fighting in the older planes is far more challenging than anything in a modern jet. Don't take it from me, take it from the pilots themselves, they'll agree with me. Most modern air combat takes place with the push of a button, BVR. Don't tell me that takes more skill than chasing a plane at 500m, and matching his every move, waiting for him to make a mistake and give you the energy advantage so you can get that perfect deflection shot with guns, all while making sure your engine don't overheat and your oil doesn't spill into the cockpit, blinding you.

Agreement with me isn't necessary on this point. This is a simple fact. It took a lot more airmanship to master combat in the older planes than it does in modern ones.

And for the record, the planes in DCS are modelled very accurately, with very fine and careful detail. It's why the modules cost as much as a AAA game, because that much development really does go into each one.

Yeah, I think we're arguing about different things. You're talking about airmanship while I'm talking about managing the complexities of dealing with all the crap in a modern plane and the extra threats from surface launched munitions.

That airmanship your talking about is why I found WWI flight simulators (back when I was playing them, there sadly wasn't any WWII ones) more fun. Planning ahead, hiding in the clouds, diving down on our enemy, having to lead the target, etc. I'm sure it required even more skill in WWII planes due to the increased speed, increased complexity, and (obviously) still no computer assistance.

As for DCS, all the planes characteristics may be modeled very accurately. However, does it have that complexity for managing the controls for the modern planes? Falcon 3.0 had a whole section on how you had to manage your radar modes, and how you to switch to a particular mode before you could even attempt to get a missile lock. Ironically, the F-16 featured in that game highlights your argument - in that, when it was introduced, it was far easier to fly combat than other modern planes. You didn't have to do any special maneuvers, just go in a tight bank - eventually you would out turn anything else in the air and could take your kill shot.

All that aside, I'm just not interested in any simulators at this point (other than ED, which only loosely can be called that). It didn't look like DCS had anything focused on the Pacific theater from WWII. If it did, I would be more interested in that - but still not enough to want to play it at this time.

 

[rekurzion]

For you op, I'll do one better. I've convinced fdev to give you a special patch to solve your problem. All you need to do is uninstall elite and install Minecraft. Be sure you play on creative with its unlimited everything and no pesky npcs that might challenge your ego.

Win-win. You get to be coddled like mom used to do and the rest of us can get back to boring things like challenging ourselves and getting better.

Peace

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

I think PAs do 60% absolute, 20% thermal, 20% kinetic, so they only partially ignore resistances.

yes sorry, int he ehat of the writing forgor that it is only 60% still a lot of raw damage that the single wepaon does. probably even worse if you talk FDL qwith a C4 plasma. but from the nimble ships the FDL is a bit of a special kind by having the only c4 hardpoint available.

but multiple PA's even the c2's by havign the same 100 piercing are worrysome outstanding in their performance vs big ships.

 

[Powderpanic]

For you op, I'll do one better. I've convinced fdev to give you a special patch to solve your problem. All you need to do is uninstall elite and install Minecraft. Be sure you play on creative with its unlimited everything and no pesky npcs that might challenge your ego.

Win-win. You get to be coddled like mom used to do and the rest of us can get back to boring things like challenging ourselves and getting better.

Peace

Aww cute response, it's kinda like you missed the entire point of the post but that is ok.

I am looking to make the combat more challenging and skill based. If that is something of a concept that horrorfies to you, sure go with telling me to play minecraft. KEK

Also do I think that the single removal of the OP nature of reverski is going to solve the issues with Pew Pew and the flight model and engineers and highwake and bugs and exploits and and and?.... yes it will fix it all /s

Powerpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[DaveB]

ok. I think this has to be the thread most full of distilled weapons-grade STUPID that we've seen to date. And that's saying something.

Sure, there are folks that don't like reverski but the daft logic-pretzels they trot out to justify that dislike are mind-blowing. When what it really boils down to is that they want the "kill" more than they want the "win". They are not satisfied with "your opponent is no longer around to dispute your dominance of this piece of space" but demand "your opponent is now a pixel light show". Let's start with one basic fact. YOU CANNOT FORCE SOMEBODY TO STICK AROUND AND FIGHT TO THE DEATH IN ED. They can boost away and highwake.They can reverski and out-facetank you right off your scanners.

Now, you may quite legitimately argue that reverski is kinda lame. It is. But if you get popped by a reversing ship that you chose to chase the tactical error was yours, not the retreating pilots. If you can out-facetank them and close the distance, you'll get 'em anyway and you got nothing to complain about. Soon enough the engagement will be at your most effective range not theirs.

If reverski bothers you, you've lost sight of your strategic goal.

"I want his bounty!" Well, we've already established that if he isn't prepared to stick around and fight you, you won't get it even if reverski WAS nerfed. Chill and chase the next one.
"I want to stop him getting to point X!" As he reverskis away from you, stop chasing him in n-space. Stow your guns and get back into SC. If the deities of instancing are kind he'll "stick it up and say hi" soon enough and you'll be right there. Or he'll highwake and you'll never see him again - in which case you HAVE stopped him "getting to point X", haven't you? Maybe he'll come back and try again in which case you can have another go too, but THIS encounter is over and decided in your favor.
"I want to beat him in combat!" You already did. He ran away.

Instead what do we get? Somebody demonstrates a thrust reverser and because the "thrust being reversed" was generated by an air breathing engine we get pages of idiotic arguments about how thrust generated in a vacuum is somehow different - which it isn't, you chuck something in one direction very fast, you generate thrust in the opposite direction. Reverse the direction in which you chuck it, you reverse the thrust. And that's without even getting into how stupid it is to try and argue newtonian accuracy over a flight model that is already non-newtonian for gameplay reasons - and as we've already established there isn't an overriding gameplay reason to nerf just one of the ways a ship can safely depart combat.

There's one reason and one reason alone that folks want reverski nerfed....

 

[Speedcuffs]

I... I just...
What's Reverski?

 

[Powderpanic]

ok. I think this has to be the thread most full of distilled weapons-grade STUPID that we've seen to date. And that's saying something.

Sure, there are folks that don't like reverski but the daft logic-pretzels they trot out to justify that dislike are mind-blowing. When what it really boils down to is that they want the "kill" more than they want the "win". They are not satisfied with "your opponent is no longer around to dispute your dominance of this piece of space" but demand "your opponent is now a pixel light show". Let's start with one basic fact. YOU CANNOT FORCE SOMEBODY TO STICK AROUND AND FIGHT TO THE DEATH IN ED. They can boost away and highwake.They can reverski and out-facetank you right off your scanners.

Now, you may quite legitimately argue that reverski is kinda lame. It is. But if you get popped by a reversing ship that you chose to chase the tactical error was yours, not the retreating pilots. If you can out-facetank them and close the distance, you'll get 'em anyway and you got nothing to complain about. Soon enough the engagement will be at your most effective range not theirs.

If reverski bothers you, you've lost sight of your strategic goal.

"I want his bounty!" Well, we've already established that if he isn't prepared to stick around and fight you, you won't get it even if reverski WAS nerfed. Chill and chase the next one.
"I want to stop him getting to point X!" As he reverskis away from you, stop chasing him in n-space. Stow your guns and get back into SC. If the deities of instancing are kind he'll "stick it up and say hi" soon enough and you'll be right there. Or he'll highwake and you'll never see him again - in which case you HAVE stopped him "getting to point X", haven't you? Maybe he'll come back and try again in which case you can have another go too, but THIS encounter is over and decided in your favor.
"I want to beat him in combat!" You already did. He ran away.

Instead what do we get? Somebody demonstrates a thrust reverser and because the "thrust being reversed" was generated by an air breathing engine we get pages of idiotic arguments about how thrust generated in a vacuum is somehow different - which it isn't, you chuck something in one direction very fast, you generate thrust in the opposite direction. Reverse the direction in which you chuck it, you reverse the thrust. And that's without even getting into how stupid it is to try and argue newtonian accuracy over a flight model that is already non-newtonian for gameplay reasons - and as we've already established there isn't an overriding gameplay reason to nerf just one of the ways a ship can safely depart combat.

There's one reason and one reason alone that folks want reverski nerfed....

http://i.imgur.com/TBdyMNk.gif

For everything else, there is solo

Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[Jex =TE=]

For you op, I'll do one better. I've convinced fdev to give you a special patch to solve your problem. All you need to do is uninstall elite and install Minecraft. Be sure you play on creative with its unlimited everything and no pesky npcs that might challenge your ego.

Win-win. You get to be coddled like mom used to do and the rest of us can get back to boring things like challenging ourselves and getting better.

Peace

What has anything you said got to do with the issue of flying backwards?

 

[Aashenfox]

I've often wondered if it would be that much of an issue. If you made it that the faster you go, the less maneuverable you are, wouldn't that limit those that wish to fight down to the speeds we have now, anyway?

X3 was quite a happy medium and iwar2 was almost newtonian. I actually really like elites ww2 flight model. I know others don't, but reverski aside it has a phenomenally high skill cap.

 

[Powderpanic]

What has anything you said got to do with the issue of flying backwards?

Think he was farming Forum Upvotes

Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[Kamiyoda]

I... I just...
What's Reverski?

I... think its just flying backwards???

 

[Aashenfox]

I gave the solution on page one Well, probably not. But:

Make prolonged use of reverse thrusters increase thermal load. From very little thermal load at -25% throttle to considerable at -100%. That way, we don't have to visit the flight model.

I like the thinking but it probably isn't that simple, when fa off boosting you'll be going 'slightly' backwards at times, and it would be most annoying for the sake of a degree or two, to have heat rising right before I wanted to fire my long range PAs. Naturally you're going to say the more reverse, the more heat, problem solved, and I'd agree, then maybe say that the speed of some ships might still then be able to reverse fast 'enough' to defeat the purpose of the change, and then raise the next issue (which I can't think of right now, but hey you get the idea, there's always side effects), that's what I mean when I say I wouldn't want to be the one tasked with solving this elegantly.

Think he was farming Forum Upvotes

Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

Will have been a poor harvest this year. No bread for little Tommy.

 

[Jex =TE=]

X3 was quite a happy medium and iwar2 was almost newtonian. I actually really like elites ww2 flight model. I know others don't, but reverski aside it has a phenomenally high skill cap.

I like the flight model too I just think it can do better and it doesn't need to be capped. If combat can only realistically be had at 500ms then that's what people with do. I also think it would open up better game play options for piracy, anti piracy tactics.

 

[[VR]tailgunner30uk]

The "Reverski Maneuver" is a problem. It gives an unassailable counter for big ships against smaller more agile vessels. But I do not see Frontier doing anything more in regards to nerfing reverse performance or FAOFF n the foreseeable future. And in truth, although I would prefer something along those lines, I accept this.

Perhaps we could approach this from a different angle so to speak. In reality, currently big ships are far too agile, therefore I would suggest that increasing their inertia so that they handle like big solid lumps of metal rather than slip-fighters would be a start. I also think that for smaller ships the boost function should be more like an afterburner than a one-time kick up the backside. It should be throttleable drawing from the ENG in proportion to the throttle setting above 100% until the ENG is depleted. This would allow smaller ships to use their agility to remain engaged in the fight. I would also propose that this function should also come with a significant thermal penalty.

I would like to think that this would enhance gameplay for PvP players as well as PvE, as it would encourage a mix of ships from small agile to Large battleship types and working on adopting tactics and skills to defeat the opponent rather than the current, "He who had the biggest guns/shields/armour stats wins".

As an aside, I had the pleasure of watching a duel between two Chieftains recently in Beta, it was compelling to watch two ships well matched trying to gain the upper hand. Neither used or apparently needed to hit the reverse button. (It did however cost me a 100 credit bounty, as, some things, report crimes, DO carry across from beta to live. Ah well. I still need to find an interstellar Factors near Shinrata to clear that bounty.)

 

[Dbrn47]

Just make it so ships can only ever fly forward and can't manually stop until near a landing pad. Take all weapons out except multi-cannons, give all ships 1 hull hp, and make all missions, bounties, commodities, and ships worth 1 credit.