Small Ships Stealth Nerf

Yure · Dec 16, 2018

Greetings Commanders,

Just our of curiosity; Anyone else feel like their smaller ship is not performing as well as they used to? Namely size 1 weapons. Altered different loadouts on my Eagle Mk II and I don't know... something doesn't feel right. For two days now I engaged in fights where I was 20 minutes just pegging my enemy and at the end I just stopped because I would have taken another ten minutes to finish my target. In one occasion I drew enemy out of combat zone and got a murder bounty because apparently declared enemies should only fight in combat zones.

But it just feels weird, even while raising AP and pinging on hull it just felt like I was doing less than 1 dps.

Anyone else?

Kamiyoda · Dec 16, 2018

Nope, not at all.

Askorti · Dec 16, 2018

from what I've read in another thread, it's just the CZ enemies that were toughened up. So it's not your weapons that got weaker, it's the enemies that got more health.

Yure · Dec 16, 2018

Ah I see. Thanks Askorti is this just CZ enemies or just in general?

Blackcompany · Dec 16, 2018

Askorti said:
from what I've read in another thread, it's just the CZ enemies that were toughened up. So it's not your weapons that got weaker, it's the enemies that got more health.

Was this really necessary? Combat - against larger ships especially - is already a slog. The game has turned what used to be fun, deadly dogfights into something that feels more like a capital ship cannon volley contest. Its far too drawn out already. So why do this?

If the answer is because engineered weapons are plowing through enemies, then perhaps its time to reign in the power creep, as opposed to making the grind any more mandatory than it is now.

the100thmonkey · Dec 16, 2018

I find myself in new territory - agreeing with Blackcompany

The power creep does need to be reined in. With that said, targeting modules still works. The ships are definitely tougher now, especially Chieftains and similar, but the power plant still explodes.

bladebss · Dec 16, 2018

Yea the ttk in pvp has been stupid for ages now, and the last time fdev tryed ti fix that loads of people lost there minds. Now that the npcs are getting engeneered stuff in a bigger way they too are becoming a chore like pvp. So i am hoping its a sneaky strategy by fdev to get every one on bord with what needs to be done so they dont scream bloody murder when they do.

I mean a viper ina CZ now will likely run out of ammo after 2 or 3 kills... and the credits per hour on that are.. poor lol

Burke · Dec 16, 2018

This explains my experience in the CZ. Have a serious 10 minute dogfight.. ok i dont mind that its enjoyable when they fight. But then you start to win and its like.. bye *pop* gone. Its like they simulated combat logging for solo players

Sterling MH · Dec 16, 2018

Burke said:
Its like they simulated combat logging for solo players

Misread probably. You may have meant that solo players will get combatlogging.

Thing is, I don't care. Still counts as a win.

If they fight and run away, you can make them run another day. Double the fun!

Trollymctrollerson · Dec 16, 2018

I think all weapons should get a 200% damage buff across the board. Or something similar. It really has gotten out of control just how many times you need to shoot something. The game was supposed to be like ww2 dogfights. Not ww2 flying panzers armed with potato cannons. Go watch the old elite trailer and have a laugh.

Burke · Dec 16, 2018

Sterling MH said:
If they fight and run away, you can make them run another day. Double the fun!

Very trollish if you are trying to farm combat rank. You get all the fight, all the time and ammo expenditure and none of the reward.

Sterling MH · Dec 16, 2018

Burke said:
Very trollish if you are trying to farm combat rank. You get all the fight, all the time and ammo expenditure and none of the reward.

Simple answer: Don't farm at a CZ. It's not trolling unless someone is doing it with ill intent. So when an NPC run by a program does it, it is not trolling.

If you want to get emotion into it, feel free to yell at the NPC's retreating back how much of a coward it is and laugh. Because the next time you meet, you get to fight it again. Farm in HazRes. Not CZs. If you go into CZs you should be heavily engineered, and you will be there in buffed shield boosters with full resists.

How do you kill heavily engineered ships with unbreakable shields? Torpedos with shield cascade. Stop them running? Target their engines or thermal overload.

If you're running it solo, it will teach you how to deal with engineered foes, whether human or NPC. The rewards are beefed up, so a lower kill rate will not be as big an effect as you presume. But if it is, farm your kills in resource extraction sites.

People complained that there was no challenge with NPCs. Now they're a challenge and you can't mow them down because you outclassed them, you want to complain about the challenge of fighting them like you would any other engineered ship???

Doesn't make sense.

Farm the RES. Learn combat in Horizon's Open arena in a Solo CZ.

Blackcompany · Dec 17, 2018

Trollymctrollerson said:
I think all weapons should get a 200% damage buff across the board. Or something similar. It really has gotten out of control just how many times you need to shoot something. The game was supposed to be like ww2 dogfights. Not ww2 flying panzers armed with potato cannons. Go watch the old elite trailer and have a laugh.

I would love to see this happen. I mean, if you want to balance PVP separately, then make weapons do different damage to player ships. But at least when dealing with the AI, all weapons needs to do more damage. Combat takes far too long, win or lose, and this needs to be fixed.

Shir · Dec 17, 2018

I think maybe the npc AI got a bit buffed as well. I 've noticed fighting at random locations and beacons they try to ram you quite a lot, come really close (both when flying a corvette and a vulture). And i can second the toughened and engineered npcs at CG, plus less money to be made with bonds. I like it though, its all good!

Burke · Dec 17, 2018

Sterling MH said:
Simple answer: Don't farm at a CZ. It's not trolling unless someone is doing it with ill intent. So when an NPC run by a program does it, it is not trolling.

Wasnt blaming the NPC

Sterling MH · Dec 17, 2018

Burke said:
Wasnt blaming the NPC

Pfft. You forget the trope (google for TVTropes), the computer is a cheating bstarred. The NPC deserves it.

Best of all, you don't have to care if you hurt its feelings.

Oh, and next time the computer crashes taking half an hours work with it, fire up ED and kick the ephemeral rears of the computer to teach it a g-d lesson!

Trollymctrollerson · Dec 17, 2018

Every thing being a bullet sponge isn't just a pve problem. As tough as those ships you are fighting are, the player fitted version of those same craft ar much tougher. Boosting all weapons damage by 200% would be welcomed by the pvp players too I'm sure. The only ones who wouldn't like it are the traders. For them, I propose the introduction of shield boosters that can go into weapons slots.

Hacker#451563 · Dec 17, 2018

Sterling MH said:
Simple answer: Don't farm at a CZ. It's not trolling unless someone is doing it with ill intent. So when an NPC run by a program does it, it is not trolling.

If you want to get emotion into it, feel free to yell at the NPC's retreating back how much of a coward it is and laugh. Because the next time you meet, you get to fight it again. Farm in HazRes. Not CZs. If you go into CZs you should be heavily engineered, and you will be there in buffed shield boosters with full resists.

How do you kill heavily engineered ships with unbreakable shields? Torpedos with shield cascade. Stop them running? Target their engines or thermal overload.

If you're running it solo, it will teach you how to deal with engineered foes, whether human or NPC. The rewards are beefed up, so a lower kill rate will not be as big an effect as you presume. But if it is, farm your kills in resource extraction sites.

People complained that there was no challenge with NPCs. Now they're a challenge and you can't mow them down because you outclassed them, you want to complain about the challenge of fighting them like you would any other engineered ship???

Doesn't make sense.

Farm the RES. Learn combat in Horizon's Open arena in a Solo CZ.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

(It must have been while you where ganking me)

Yure · Dec 17, 2018

Ok, so it wasn't just me.

I certainly don't mean that weapons should get a buff, but I just don't see how a new players with unenginereed weapons are able to fight in a CZ. So now size 1 weapons are borderline useless, and the person you attacked all of a sudden decided your the highest threat... Meanwhile the guy that was attacking your target decided you have it under control. ..

Sterling MH · Dec 17, 2018

Yure said:
I certainly don't mean that weapons should get a buff, but I just don't see how a new players with unenginereed weapons are able to fight in a CZ. ..

I could not months before this change. I wasn't engineered at all and I just kept getting reamed.

It got SLIGHTLY easier to survive when I worked out how to choose a side and I only started surviving more than one kill in a CZ when I worked out how to work out which side had more ships... Before then I just picked whichever one I had picked the last mission for and NOT gotten maxed reputation with.

I only started to hold my own when I was G3 on shields, thrusters and pulse lasers.

The CZs for the community goal a while back I just gave up. I was trying a vulture, but I hadn't engineered the PP or thrusters at all. Expected to go pirate hunting, not go in a CZ...