Pilot Archive
Thread: Question for people hyped about Capital Ships
I dont have the idea that the vette will be this all powerful god of space, because given the right armnaments and ship, also taking into consideration the AI has a set amount of hit rate in which players do not (where as they are prone to miss more in those sudden evasive manuvers), a single pilot could take one down. Besides i'm a fighter pilot more then a captian (I enjoy flying and gunning not just 1 at a time), so give me the Heavy Xwing (RNS SF-5a Shadow-2) over the Corvette (RNS SC-1X Star Fang).
Message Edited by ShadowWolfXX on 07-13-2005 01:38 AM
Hey Tomo, a thought exercise for you.
Its established that for a POB to truly operate, it would need a crew of 4. Pilot, Ops, two Turret Gunners.
Now, given the current set up, these people would be more effective in 4 separate fighters, should it not follow then that the POB should have the capabilities at least equal to the four fighters you're giving up by working together? Offensive power isn't so much a concern, because POB Elite weapons are pretty impressive, though adding a second weapon mount to each turret could go a long way towards helping improve performance. Defensively, though, the net gain in defense for being in a large ship is completely inadequate to the equivalent defensive capability spread among four fighters. Because the POB is not a dogfighter, that defensive parity in the form of higher strength armor and shields is critical.
A turreted fighter gains the functionality of having the capacity to effectively engage 2 different targets. I've been a gunner on a Y-Wing several times, believe it, its cheese compared to gunning on a POB because you still have fighter maneuvering ability and I work in concert with teh pilot, either shooting the same target he's chasing, or if he gets two in the forward arc, I can hit the one he's not and we make the ship more deadly as a result. I've seen my guildmates working in a Krayt and the effect is quite similar, so I'd safely say that turret fighters (I'm speaking in the blind about the Aggressor admittedly) can make up for the loss of a single fighter in performance. To the Aggressor, I've been told there are pairs that work these rather well, the pilot does a match speed with a fighter chasing, and the gunner pounds him while the NPC follows blindly.
A POB is hindered because design issues, logical though they are, prevent gunnery coordination. Top and Belly gunners are essentially on their own, and you have a guy who's essentially dead weight, since there's nothing that an Ops officer does that a pilot couldn't do on his own as a result of time spent training in a fighter before he became a master. POBs give up a lot of capability for having multiple people on board, where turret fighters can count their gunners as a net gain in efficiency. Believe me when I tell you, the ability to repair a system on board is nice, but its not that impressive an advantage. As a Rebel, I can pretty much do the same thing with VRepair.
Given that Capital ships are going to demand more crew to run effectively, even the Y-8 when the extra turrets are added will demand more manpower, should a rule of thumb not be instituted that a POB ship's defenses should be roughly equal to the equivalent power of the fighters you're not flying because you're a crewman on a larger ship?
i'm interested to see what t-bone has to say...
alyris wrote:
TomoRainer wrote:
You know what, the RotW ships aren't really the problem, they just expose and exaggerate problems that've been with JTL since the start--specifically, that there aren't really different roles out there. Except for dumping missiles at Eta-2s in PVP, there really isn't any point to bombers, for instance. And when it comes to firepower and cap ships, what's the point? Ironically, it's the interceptors that own cap ships, while bombers and heavy fighters are all significantly less effective than an Eta-2.. or an A-Wing, or Interceptor, which have always been enormously better for killing cap ships and PVP than B-Wings or TIE Bombers. The Eta-2 might be even better at these things, but it's not like anyone was ever flying bombers in those situations (or really, any) even before the RotW ships came along.
To get back to the original topic, POBs should be fortresses--they can't avoid damage, so they need to be able to soak it--but not to the degree they'd become if you balanced their components solely with PVP in mind. Even if challenging post-master PVE is sparse right now, it would be short-sighted and irresponsible to use that as an excuse to simply grant them 100,000 HP shields rather than to come up with a combination of factors, such as Doghairedinfant's suggestion, that takes both PVE and PVP into account.
You are completely right about bombers, they have never been useful in this game. Even back in the XWA days, I would choose an A-wing over a B-wing if I had to take out something large, so, I guess maybe thats the way its supposed to be? As far as POB's are concerned, the way I see it now, they are completely useless (I know there are those that love them, and please give me a break just once from the flames), why not at least give them enough armor to be useful in PvE? Maybe PvP isn't the place for POB ships (at least the "transports" we have today), maybe enough armor in PvP is out of the question, I can see that. But I promise you, you make them work in PvE, and people will use them in PvP, just because its cool.
Kirsha - Kettemoor
Well that the thing. WithNPC damage so low, they've got PLENTY of armor for PvE with Elite components and an Ops Officer. I have no problem about going into a slugging match with a YE-4, and I've been in and close on the ISD and have come through several test passes (theoretically enough to take it out using a full crew) with no shield breaches, so for ANYTHING PvE, with the exception of the Kessel Corvette (which is just me taking time to learn the tactics), the Nova will do the job.
That's the issue that I've made to Tomo elsewhere. PvE damage is too low, Tier 4 and Tier 5 NPCs just do not do enough damage per shot to be a real threat. My Advanced X-Wing's shields (2300 F/BType V)can take 8 shots or more from a Tier 5 TIE Aggressor BEFORE CapShunt. By comparison, my damage output with just three level 7 guns, with .268 Refire/2540 max damage, will blow that Aggressor to hell before it has a chance to drop my forward shield to 50%.
Tier 5 enemies ought to require some hard defenses to tank. The idea of "FP Farming" in Deep Space and Kessel should be anabsolute anethma to any"Pilot" that takes the profession seriously. You don't have to do a damned thing to the current AI, just make them hit hard enough to be a threat. All these new fighters that are coming out with the defenses to handle a bit of a beating, along with the maneuverability to avoid it anyway, are absolutely gamebreaking in PvE.
Tomo's right in that making PvE trivial for heavy fighters and POBsby upping defenses is wrong. But the existingissue of strong defense, high maneuverability fighters is a game break that is equally wrong.
He's also right, that balancing PvP is going to be meaningless until there's some kind of fix put in place for WO3. RIght now, the rates of fire to damage output on fighters using it is BADLY skewed.Maybe once the WO3 fix is put in, and that level of overload becomes impractical on most light fighters, we'll see some inherent adjustment, until then, its a free for all for the ROTW ships. 
Message Edited by Rhu on 07-13-2005 05:39 PM
Quick clarification because I'm dumb:
Are you saying that adding docking protocols to capitol ships and transports would not be a workable solution to the lack of viability of these ships, or just that the nova courier can't make use of the existing alliance repair/reload commands?
I'd just like to point this out...
The current crop of POB ships are all variations on light transports and frieghters. None of them are purpose-built warships.
Tier 5 enemies ought to require some hard defenses to tank. The idea of "FP Farming" in Deep Space and Kessel should be anabsolute anethma to any"Pilot" that takes the profession seriously. You don't have to do a damned thing to the current AI, just make them hit hard enough to be a threat. All these new fighters that are coming out with the defenses to handle a bit of a beating, along with the maneuverability to avoid it anyway, are absolutely gamebreaking in PvE.
The only problem I could forsee here is that the AI is far too accurate when it comes to going after the light fighters. If you up the damage too much, anything that's not a heavy fighter will get blown out of the sky instantly simply because the AI can shoot the wings off a fly... this would be especially bad when it comes to gunboats and the lot - you couldn't even get close to them without dying.
On the other hand, if you up AI damage while reducing their accuracy a bit, things might balance out a bit more.
) Han solo was able to use his ship as a form of a gunboat...heck why did he let Lando use it in the 2nd Death Star battle if it wasn't good as a fighter. Point being, i have been taken out pretty dang quick in my YT and i'd say i have fairly decent equipment. what should really be done is give the POB's better equipment (defense and offense) at the exspense of weight. i mean they have a mass of like 5 million, let it be used..Message Edited by Gsvlar on 07-13-2005 05:06 PM
Han Solo's light freighter had just about every part of its body, internals, and externals refined and replaced. He put in systems that were at the cutting edge of technology and/or unique bits cobbled together in ways that no sane person would begin to consider.
A vessel geared to transcend every expected limitation shouldn't be considered a standard of comparison for vessels which look similar.
Starcloud wrote:I'd just like to point this out...
The current crop of POB ships are all variations on light transports and frieghters. None of them are purpose-built warships.
Yes, they can soak a little more damage than a starfighter, but they're just not supposed to be hard targets.A true Gunboat should be much more difficult to take out than a freighter, and would be correspondingly smaller and more agile.What a lot of people are calling for in POB ships sounds to me like small capitol ships. Frigates and gunboats. That's not what the YT-1300, Decimator, and Nova Courier are.As 'unfun' as they may be in PvP, the POB ships are scaled right where they should be.
It seems that, generally speaking, if something just isn't fun, it needs to be changed. Right now, POBs don't fill any kind of role in PVP, and hardly have one in PVE. So if turning them into something that's more like a gunboat than a freighter is what it takes to make them fun, I don't think there's a problem in fudging the definitions a bit in pursuit of improving the game.
TomoRainer wrote:
Starcloud wrote:I'd just like to point this out...
The current crop of POB ships are all variations on light transports and frieghters. None of them are purpose-built warships.
Yes, they can soak a little more damage than a starfighter, but they're just not supposed to be hard targets.A true Gunboat should be much more difficult to take out than a freighter, and would be correspondingly smaller and more agile.What a lot of people are calling for in POB ships sounds to me like small capitol ships. Frigates and gunboats. That's not what the YT-1300, Decimator, and Nova Courier are.As 'unfun' as they may be in PvP, the POB ships are scaled right where they should be.
It seems that, generally speaking, if something just isn't fun, it needs to be changed. Right now, POBs don't fill any kind of role in PVP, and hardly have one in PVE. So if turning them into something that's more like a gunboat than a freighter is what it takes to make them fun, I don't think there's a problem in fudging the definitions a bit in pursuit of improving the game.
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