Pilot Archive

I think the first thing that should be fixed are droid commands. They simply cannot be functioning as intended. Granted, I love hitting wpn overload 3 and seeing my blaster take less energy to fire and do 100% more damage but that is screwing up everything.

The more important thing to note is that the droid programs do not seem to strain components as advertised. They should be slowly eating away at the components hit points while they are in use so if someone goes into combat with engine overload 3, weapon overload 3, reactor overload 4, and capcitor overload 4, and uses cap to shield shunt 4 a lot he should see his ship suffer extreme performance losses within 10 min.

Droid programs basically have no negatives. Make them continually damage the components and you'll see a vastly different approach to pvp as people can't rely on droid programs for more than a few min.

If someone in an A-wing can still take out a ship with 3x-4x as much mass with less than 6 shots there is probably going to need to be another drop in damage output.

There are 2 ways to fix this imo. Drop pvp damage across the board, or go back and overhaul all the components so they can take damage appropriately. I for one choose the first option because I don't want to see them go back and redo all the shields and armor, and all the hitpoints/armor points on all the components so and a-wing/tie adv does the proper damage to bigger ships. Seems foolish to fix 100 things when you can just fix one thing. And it wouldn't kill anyone if they dropped pvp damage for a bit to test this idea, then brought it back if it's not working as intended. Heck just do it on the test server and I'll load that sucker up.

And finally there needs to be some type of alarm that is really hard to miss when another player locks on to you, or even pops up on your screen. It's killing any hope of people haveing fun in pvp when targets on your scope look identical whether player or npc. Players should be orange and blinking or something, really hard to miss.

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Tumbler2002 wrote:
And finally there needs to be some type of alarm that is really hard to miss when another player locks on to you, or even pops up on your screen. It's killing any hope of people haveing fun in pvp when targets on your scope look identical whether player or npc. Players should be orange and blinking or something, really hard to miss.

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I agree with this. Why not have an alarm telling you someone is trying to lock onto your ship? Then you at least have a chance of breaking lock before they get a missile off.

Which brings up another question. Is there any way to tell which direction a missile is coming at you from? By this I'm wondering if there is any way to turn into the missile if your back shields are down and you would rather the missile hit your front? Not to mention turning into a missile gives you a better chance of evasion. You're giving the missile a turn it can't make and you fly right past it.

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GlargTheKelfn wrote:
having spent my fair share of time in online flight sims (and worked as a programmer on a few), a damage reduction will not make a whole lot of diff.

in any combat flight sim like this, there are a small number of pilots who understand acm, and understand a2a tactics. doesn't matter if they are flying a y wing or a spitfire, the technique is the same...


as ot me, i like the way it is now. combat is fast and brutal, like it should be. this is actually pretty much like a ww2 combat game. if the other guy gets a good shot on you, you are going down.

reminds me of the good ww2online times:
flying along, 10-15km up, looking for spits to kill, and thud thud black. 20mm is a one shot kill if you have your joystick up your exhaust pipe

and that's how it should be.

someone will always be better than you. the secret is to catch that person while they are not looking

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I agree. If you look at dogfights historically speaking, they usually weren't long engagements and the first person to shoot usually won. The Red Baron's tactic was to come in behind, fast and hold off a burst until in close and then zoom off. A number of his kills were simply one pass kills. I think, perhaps, people have misconceptions about the nature of dogfighting. The person who usually wins sees the opponent first and gets in the first shot. I've spent my share of time in dogfighting sims covering the whole timescale of dogfighting from Biplanes to starfighters as well as a many years studying military science and tactics and, you are so right about tactics being the same. Now with the disclaimer that with the advent of dependable guided missiles and targetting radar which can track 20 targets within a 100 mile radius the real dogfight is non-existant, it is very interesting to note that very few tactics used weren't invented in WW1. Of course, the most important thing really isn't having the best tactics, it's seeing your opponent before they see you. This will usually determine success.

This is why the USAF owes it's prowess in the sky not so much to the ability of the pilots or the capabilities of their jets, but, in my opinion, AWACS and other sensor arrays and systems. The Iraqi Air Force, in the first one, had jets that weren't completely out classed, but they pretty much all got hit without ever seeing who shot the missile thanks to AWACS and nice targetting radar, but I digress.

I think the frustration many people comes from a a sense or desire for extended dogfights, which I think is a very hard thing to deliver in a game that really provides no training in basic dogfighting, even more difficult when the opponent is an actual person who might have a lot of knowledge and skill in these games. Because these things really don't exist in real life situation. Many pilots from WW1 to Vietnam (arguably the last war with dogfighting), describe combat missions the same way...55 minutes of boredom and 5 minutes of chaos and terror. I think when people think of space combat, they want something like an arcade game with a constant stream of opponents and immediate return upon dying...this is easier to do when the opponents are programmable and do what you tell them to and use the same tactic every time, not so easy to do when both ships are piloted by people who can act in an unlimited range of ways.

Furthermore, I imagine there are people who are frustrated because they don't dominate with their uber loadout like is prevalent in the ground game. I think the nature of the ground game has created expectations that aren't being met in space. On the ground, you can grind a Rifleman/CM, load up with a 35% dam sliced T21 and some wicked area disease and rule...this isn't the case in space, and I imagine this might be the cause of many people's frustration. I'm kind of glad it isn't this way. I find it more interesting and realistic. In reality, having the best equipment doesn't mean you will rule the day. It's not so much having the better plane as knowing in what way your plane is better and making sure the battle is fought in a way to take advantage of this. In many ways, the Me-109 was more advanced than the Spitfire, but Spits had advantages and their pilots made sure to engage where those advantages came into play.

The same is true of Sopwith v. the Fokker D7, the F-4U v the Zero, the Mig 19 and the F-86, the Phantom and the Mig-21. The truth is, air combat is determined by a lot of variables, something to which people used to the grinders rule ground combat might have a difficult time adjusting.

The one thing I've noticed in a lot of people's complaints is they seem to be flying alone. One of the most important tactics developed in ww2 was the concept of a wingman. People who go into Pvp without a wingman are going to get shotdown. I don't mean simply to go up with another person or group. I mean someone who flies with you, watches your back and vice versa. Someone who won't lose track of you in a dogfight, so they can't come to your aid. I suspect if people actually started using this one basic tactic, PvP dogfights might last a lot longer.

Now, this leads me to the one area I think really needs to be changed, though I don't know how to do it in game...and that is communication within the group. All the times I flew missions, my group used a teamchat server it helps lot

don"t know how they can change this but i think being able to communicate with the others better would make the experience a great deal better

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1st_Viduus wrote:

Neither WWII nor modern day aircraft fly with "Armor" or "Deflector Shields".

That about sums that up.

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Take a look at the A-10 Warthog. The pilot sits in a Titanium(I believe) "bathtub." True, the plane doesn't have much else for armor, but I would call that armor.

But I digress, I haven't gotten to DS yet, so I can't comment on that part of PvP. But what I have seen, of space combat in general and PvP in particular, has been pretty good. Although I would like to see the decay on my items reduced. I think it is a little excessive that I spend 50-100K on a chasis only to watch it fall apart before my eyes.

I don't think PvP damage is so bad. I just think the competitive motivation for people to PvP, or get in space, is very lacking right now.

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ajag wrote:

I don't think the problem is the PvP 1-3 kills. I think the main problem is that each type or ship should have it's own unique role and with the current system they don't. For example, the only activity you can pretty much do in space right now is dogfight. Right now, he who owns an A-wing pretty much owns in dogfight. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not calling nerfs on the A-wing at all nor want to bring other ships in par with it. I think the A-wing should stay as the dogfighter plane of choice as it is the fastest, most maneuverable, and has the smallest profile. I am a master Freelancer with no intentions of moving to Rebel so no, it is not a bias opinion. Saying that, the A-wing should not be really able to take on large capital ships because it is designed for dogfighting. The problem is, that all we have in game right now is dogfight. The Devs should put in place other kind of missions. For example, send a system message to to all imps to defend a space station of a star destroyer from a NPC rebel attack. Then you would have imp NPC and real players defending the "the base" and rebel NPCs and real players attaking it. Then change the ships a bit so other ships are also worth using. For example, the B-wing is a bomber ship. It should SUCK at dogfighting, but it should rock at damaging Large Capital ships. This would force players to choose the role of escorts (A-wings & X-wings) and bombers (Y & B wings). This would add a lot more fun for people and to encourage it, they should do it in deep space so people would participate without worrying about decay. There are tons of different ideas you can implement to give each ship a different role and make each useful in it's own task.

Same goes for Multiplayer Ships. Multiplayer ships (as I think we all pretty much agree) should be made much more strong and worth using. You need a minimum crew of 3 people to barely use one so that should count for something. The also need to be made more maneuverable. If you see in the movie (I really do not like bringing the movies in posts, but this time I will do), The millenium falcon is not much bigger than an X-wing. Maybe about twice the size, but you can still see how maneuverable they are. One thing I would like the Devs to also add to MP ships is thrusters in the fron of the ship to help it turn. Now, I do not want special controls to use them. I do not want new special effects to go along with them. All I want them to do is add turning modifyers to the ship, thats all. That would help with the meneuverability issue and would allow each ship to be different. All they have to do is give us positive points to turning and if they get damaged, that would mean our ships would loose maneuverability.

Regards,

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Exremely good post, kudos.