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Thread: A plea to the Devs
Oh, and the Hutt Ships are going to pwn faces off.
Yeah, I could go for that. Nice analysis.
KAndreas wrote:
If you buy an unmodified ship and spend say 1,000,000 creds on it, and your friend buys a ship for 200,000 creds and soups it up with 800,000 creds of modifications, they should be the same performance wise. If I were a dev that would be my design philosophy.
Should the performance be exactly the same as the other, hell no... All I am saying they should each have the same number of pros and cons. The 200-000 cred ship could be a Z-95, because face it, they are obsolete and inferior to say an xwing. But the right number of mods should put it on par with an unmodified xwing. The xwing would have adequate shielding, firepower, but tremendous speed and meneuverability (not true, just hypothetical analysis), and the Z-95 should have say gooned out shields and weapons, but be much slower and awkward.
Another thing I would do to cheaper ships, is make them extremely customizable, allowing them to be modified to the balls without too many hiccups being caused by such overhauls, where as with an xwing or tie interceptor, the technology is so compact, and there is much to them, you will end up screwing things up if you modify them too much. Ie.) Your meneuverability, or your energy consumption etc... Why would I do this? To make the craft in space very diverse. Like the author said, he doesn't wanna see only the top two craft in space. He wants diversity. I want the same damn thing.
A sidepoint: In all the xwing games I have played, I have always preferred the slower more versatile ships since it was rather difficult to target another fighter while going at full speed. I hated the A-Wing for that since I always had to change my throttle to keep those blasted ties in my sights. Z-95 all the way baby, or a YT-1300 with turrets. ::begins to drool:: I hope you can switch the turrets to auto like you could in XWA. In closing, mission completion was more rewarding when completed in inferior ships.
KAdnreas is on the right track.There are many variables that will go into who or what "is the best of the best". There are 3 factors to consider:
1) Stock/NPC fighters
2) Pilot skill/tactics
3) Modifications
STOCK/NPC FIGHTERS
Let’s assume for a minute that the stock fighters will equate to the NPC fighter configurations. A stock x-wing will have the same equipment as a standard NPC x-wing fighter (same applies to the Tie Fighters). Overall you can probably expect a similar shield/armor rating, weapon rating and maneuverability from the stock x-wing and your standard NPC x-wing. (There probably will be exceptions such as an ACE/BOSS pilot). So different stock ships going one on one will reveal a wider fighter superiority gap in equipment configurations. A method to test this without accounting for pilot skill would be to set the 2 fighters some distance apart and fly right at each other. Leaving out missile systems the two would fire at each other as they close the distance. The fighter that survives would be space superiority stock fighter. However a tool (ship) is only as good as its user (pilot).
Pilot Skill/Tactics
The art of dog fighting takes careful precision, fast reaction, and watchful eye for opportunity. There is a plethora of maneuvers and tactics when dog fighting one on one but in the end it comes down to one pilot out witting, out thinking and out flying the other. I won't go into great details of the dog fighting tactics but you can do a google search for this information. Learning said maneuvers does take practice and is never as easy as Tom Cruises' Top Gun where "He will fly right by" stunt. Part of the dog fighting technique is trying to read you opponent’s moves. In essence become a high stakes game of poker. Where bluffing and giving false moves can work to your advantage, but if your opponent calls you bluff...well you get the idea. This instance I only refer to one on one dog fighting, of course the tactics and odds change when the opponents and allies increase. Although a ship is only as good as its pilot, a pilot can only be as good as the ship.
Modifications
Having the fighter superiority edge is what can make a decent pilot good and a good pilot great! Having the proverbial ace up your sleeve can throw your opponent and give you the advantage you need to win. This is where the battle can get interesting. Looking strictly at a PvP perspective one could easily make different fighters on par with stock or other modified ships/fighters. Just because you have a superior stock fighter does not mean you will win against an overly modified junker. From what I gather of dev reports and the like is that they don't want everyone running around in the same exact fighter just because it’s been determined the best at what it does. Instead having a ship of your choice that is overly modified can easily go toe to toe with a totally different fighter. If the fighters were compared as stocks then perhaps your fighter would lose to your opponents but with the right modifications you stand a fight that is even or in your favor. So the real question becomes what ship PARTS do you think will be better overall?
Closing: In the end it comes down to pilot skill and what you've done for your ship (Treat her well and she will treat you well). Practicing on other space Sims is ideal for getting the feel for dog fighting and especially against real players. However the only caution here (looking at XvT, XWA etc.) is that the ships in these are along the lines of stock fighters and JTL will give unprecedented options to modify any ship in your arsenal. So although the B-wing/Tie Defender etc. are the "best of the best" stock fighters it may become a totally different story in JTL.