Pilot Archive

ok ignoring the /follow stuff.

I really do agree that epulse as raw damage isn't the best idea. And if I can run some tests in PvP where I use it and win too easily or often to my mind, then I'll be in your corner on the issue 100% Tomo, I just have questions about how practical it is in PvP at flanking speeds.

Here's the way I wish epulse worked, I posted this once a long time ago, and this seems a good thread to dig it up.

When we were in CU alpha and learning for the first time how some of the new CM abilities would work, the term "de-buff" came up. What if, in the PvP environment, epulse worked as a debuff? It seems to make much more sense to me that an Epulse would short out the power systems in a ship/droid/fcomp system, and negate the benefits of those programs. Would this be terribly unfair in itself? Not instantly lethal, but certainly a hindrance. Obviously, I'd only like to see it as part of a wholesale revamp of pilot specials, and there needs to be a general PvE use too, but what say you guys? good idea, bad idea?

Message Edited by psikobunny on 06-14-200503:02 AM

Message Edited by psikobunny on 06-14-2005 03:02 AM

used it on accident during a duell...trying to use that booster one....ended uo beating the guy and he was all going: WTH happened? you werent even close to me. lol..... funny though i feel dishonored as a pilot

agreed, Ptrap is a total joke.

Pirate trap is definitely a joke, but remember we're talking PVP here, where other specials such as Bomberstrike and IFF Scramble already don't work. I haven't seen any evidence of it being overpowered in PVE. Actually, it tends to be a one-way ticket to the afterlife in PVE: NPCs don't all die in a single epulse and can actually hit you with any regularity, so to dump all your shields and capacitor energy in the middle of a dogfight with them is often a dumb move.

Against human players, however, it seems to be so smart it borders on cheating, in spirit if not in letter.

I hate nerfs, but I hate unfairness even more. Epulse is just one of those things that sets my teeth on edge to think about being used against other players. (In fact, we recently agreed to ban it from our PVP events on Starsider, though not without some pretty savage argument.) I am open to discussion on this--honest, I am, I've been in a couple big ones lately--but so far I haven't heard anything to explain or justify what to me looks like a literal "I win" button. I understand not wanting to lose a useful special, but there are times when the health of the game comes before the health of a specific profession.

Yeah, that's not to say it necessarily needs to be removed, either. That debuff idea's an interesting one, and I've seen and thought of a couple other possibilities in recent discussions, such as a simple significant damage cut (after doing more testing on actual damage output--though I'd imagine that's difficult when you're being one-shotted), or making it do damage to shields only, leaving your armor and components untouched.

In fact, to me, the ideal fix is not simply cutting epulse from PVP--it's finding a way to make it useful while removing those elements that make it unbalanced.

Well... let me post the results of the tests Tomo told you about:

Ramona's ship:
shields: 500 front/back (yes extremely weak!)
capacitor: 1282 (overloaded!)

All in all a ship no one in the right mind would use for PvP since you can get easily 4 times stronger shields and twice as powerful capacitors.

Results:
- Epulse does not damage friendly targets
-Epulse randomly hits one component after destroying the shields and armor before the rest of the damage is mainly applied to the chassis
- The damage of epulse scales with the distance to the target
- At 200m with that setup epulse 3 did 2.5k damage to shields/armor
- At 300m with that setup epulse 3 did minimal damage to shields/armor

Therefore it is safe to asume that Epulse with good shields and a good capacitor will instantly kill any ship in 200-300m radius. If it does not instantly kill the ship it takes out one of the components which pretty much ends most fights as well. Talk about I-win-buttons.

Some further assumptions that match with the results of the test:

Assumption: Epulse outputs exactly 1x of the energy that was put into the special as damage on 200m
This would mean that damage done would be 500(shield front energy)+500(shield back energy)+1282(capacitor energy)=2284 which is just slightly lower than the damage observed at 200m.
Now lets assume we go up in a ship with a 2k overloaded reactor and 1.9k shields resulting in a damage output of 5.8k. The only ship that can POSSIBLY survive that damage is a ship with exploited reward shields (3.8k front/back) and 2k armor.
Furthermore the real nightmare: A JSF outfitted with normal quest shields (2.5k front/back) and a decent capacitor (2.4k overloaded). 7.4k damage output by a ship that can dodge infinitely and does not need to aim anymore due to the nature of epulse. Give me a single ship that can survive 7.4k damage output in either front or back... You will not find one.

I totally agree that privateers have a bad penatly with their ship sizes in PvP but an instant-kill button for all ships engaged is not the solution. The less with overpowered tiny, highly maneuverable, high mass ships from ROTW. As Tomo said before: ROTW did indeed turn out some weaknesses of the old system. (You know my opinion on the imbalances in ROTW itself).

Message Edited by ajag on 06-14-2005 12:33 PM

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Slysix wrote:

Er...i'll trade the another epulse nerf for a pirate trap upgrade(maybe a Teir 5 gunboat with an appropriate escort)!!!

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P trap definately need s upgrade. I remember the first time i used it when i was a privateer, and I was all proud that my pirates came to help. guess what happened. THEY ATTACKED ME!

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ajag wrote:

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TUMOS_GHOST wrote:

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Slysix wrote:

Er...i'll trade the another epulse nerf for a pirate trap upgrade(maybe a Teir 5 gunboat with an appropriate escort)!!!

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P trap definately need s upgrade. I remember the first time i used it when i was a privateer, and I was all proud that my pirates came to help. guess what happened. THEY ATTACKED ME!

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hehehe, they are supposed to attack us but only AFTER they are done with the people we told them to attack in the first place lol

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nope they came straight for me