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I'm impressed Xer, how on earth did you manage that? I demand a FRAPS! The DPS for a single dumb lobbing fig surely isn't high enough to out damage 6 nans given they'll start donutting before the shields fully drop.

Besides you just altered your earlier comment whereby you agreed with Adept that Dumbspiking requires some co-ordination by a defence, and that defence usually loses because of soloists going out and dying individually. I think the loss of hvy boost will remove a fig's ability to effectively get in tight behind a bomber and take out nans as easily so suspect the scenario will change somewhat.

I'm not jumping on a bandwagon, but I think that there's a reason fighter craft have decent missile tech and aren't so good in a straight up, close in, fight.

Perhaps the agility of figs could come down so they're less capable when up close, not by much, but just enough that a good int jockey can get in and mostly stay out of weapon arcs.

Also, did someone mention cost increase on figbees to slightly reduce swarm numbers? Or was it discounted as it would just result in a longer wait, rather than a reduction in ships?

Exo wrote:QUOTE (Exo @ Nov 16 2009, 05:29 AM) I'm impressed Xer, how on earth did you manage that? I demand a FRAPS! The DPS for a single dumb lobbing fig surely isn't high enough to out damage 6 nans given they'll start donutting before the shields fully drop.

And thats usually the case (but not always). I remember being a bit stunned when it happened. The aleph was about 3Kish from our outpost, and an uneyed bomber popped through it right as I was transferring base. I already had hvy booster and dumb2 loaded, so I launched and boosted right for it. Usually this results in the turrets killing you or eating prox but the lead scout was a second too late dropping his and I got the ram at full hvyboost speed. With a face full of gat and dumbfires along with it. Now I think I had a 30-40KB at the time and I did pod myself between the turret damage and the ram, but the bomber went poof along with me. I would've just been a speedbump in an int because the dumbfires did enough spike damage to soften the bomber up for the ram a second later.

It does seem like one of those once in a blue moon type deals, but drop the number of nans down by a couple and its even easier to do. Which is still a pretty powerful ratio of manpower, and if you can get even one person to help you do it then the chance of success goes up significantly.

QUOTE Besides you just altered your earlier comment whereby you agreed with Adept that Dumbspiking requires some co-ordination by a defence, and that defence usually loses because of soloists going out and dying individually.[/quote]
Spiking does require coordination, but the combination of hvyboost & dumbfires empowers the soloists, IMO, more than it should. I wonder sometimes how much of that soloing happens because the people doing it were able to pull off something similar to my tale.

QUOTE I think the loss of hvy boost will remove a fig's ability to effectively get in tight behind a bomber and take out nans as easily so suspect the scenario will change somewhat.[/quote]
I fully agree with you here. Hvy boost is the biggest culprit in my little soloing adventure above and I'm not going to be sad to see it changed or removed. But I definitely came away from said adventure feeling that dumbfire spiking is maybe a little too awesome. I will admit some bias because of it.

QUOTE I'm not jumping on a bandwagon, but I think that there's a reason fighter craft have decent missile tech and aren't so good in a straight up, close in, fight.[/quote]
My apologies for the bandwagon comments. I do wish seeker didn't suck as much as it does, but figs don't need that kind of perk right now either. I normally just load dumbfires for everything because they've got just enough tracking to hit half the time and enough damage that even one hit is worth taking them along. Which was another reason I was considering dumbfire nerfs, its good enough to overshadow seekers for dogfighting in a number of situations. Partly because of their tracking, and partly because of seekers sucking.

QUOTE Perhaps the agility of figs could come down so they're less capable when up close, not by much, but just enough that a good int jockey can get in and mostly stay out of weapon arcs.[/quote]
Interesting idea. I find agility is one of those funny stats like scale that has an effect on combat but isn't always consistent. Lowering it could help, and should in theory, but its just as likely to make absolutely no difference in most situations. Be that because the int jockey in question isn't moving as much as they should, or the fig pilot is able to hold the range or turn radius open just enough for it to not matter, etc.

QUOTE Also, did someone mention cost increase on figbees to slightly reduce swarm numbers? Or was it discounted as it would just result in a longer wait, rather than a reduction in ships?[/quote]
I remember this coming up the last time (months ago) that there was a debate on figbees. The problem I find with increasing the cost on cheese is that its still cheese, and this affects the perception of it quite a bit. Lets say we increased the cost to get FBs by 10,000 and then they show up in the next big sup vs. whatever game. 10,000 is about 2 miner loads which is nothing to scoff at, but the end result is the same: 15 FBs pop out from a TP2, hose down the last techbase the other team is turtling from and the game ends. And that happens in a bunch of games like this until people are convinced nothing changed, because the turtling teams are still getting finished off by FBs.

Would they be more balanced than they were before in that kind of situation? I'd say yes, but all it accomplished was to drag the game out another 10 minutes or so while the sup team mined up that extra cash. For the record I like cheese that ends turtle games.

Now I'm not saying FB price needs to go up $10K or that I feel they're balanced at the current price. But I think before any serious look at tech pricing happens we need to make sure we're looking at it because of facts, rather than some long drawn out games where the other team got 2-3 miner loads we never noticed and suddenly had FBs/XRM/etc and finished it.

I actually believe Figbbrs are fine where they are because a player of Xer's caliber, or mine, or Brood, or papa Weedbag can gun down 4-5+ figbbrs before they even get into firing range. Figbbrs are ragingly powerful atm because the majority of the player base consists of super hero voobs that can't aim.

The ratio of good players to eh, people who wish to be good players is really low. Something like 0.1:1. You put an Expansion team of Broodwich Drizzo Xeretov Weedman Sheffwill xPhoenix Kev Dude up against a sup team of I dunno, 5 random RT members and a few SF, the sup team's economy wouldn't live past enh figs for one, and even if they did manage to get a TP2 Figbbr drop off, I doubt the figbbrs would make it to 1.5k.

Teams like that won't happen, since such players are forced to spread out otherwise there would be a massive skill imbalance. That is the main issue at hand here, and unfortunately that issue is outside of the scope of the CC team. Asking for nerfs on things that aren't blatantly too good by design, not by execution, will not make you a better player. In fact it only encourages the saturation of a lower skill requirement in order to do well.

Blatantly too good would be defined as the ability to simply turn around and outrun an interceptor and give him no hope of catching you. Now imagine 10 figs just cruising in, tagging your miner with some DF and gat fire, then simply just boosting the hell away when they get shot at, reload fuel, come back in, barrage it again, then just boost out of range.

Tweaking the respective speeds of Inteceptor and Fighter, possibly perk seeker OR move QF3 to sup (But don't do both), would bring excellent balance to Fig vs Int. In the realm of a 1v1, a fig with gat3 boost3 QF3 and hull 2 vs a MG3 Hvy int wil dmg2 range2 would be near perfectly matched in terms of killing power and relevant pilot skill. Adjusting the damage of DF vs Bombers/TTs/HTTs gives sup the same early-mid game vulnerability as the other two tech paths. Which would make perfect sense for a fighter really, given their definition as a multipurpose craft. Either they bring a combat missile so that they can achieve the same combative strength as a hvy interceptor, or they bring a missile with a massive warhead for killing things that don't move very fast. Allegiance was designed for this kind of versatility. Don't cry about DF being nerfed and how you can't use it to dogfight anymore, if you wanted to dogfight you should be using another missile you have 3 of them ffs.

I have a question about DMs though. The DM14 class that QFs and MRR Lightnings used, where could I find the damage table of each respective DM on each class of hull? I only poked around briefly in a few places and yielded no results.

Drizzo wrote:QUOTE (Drizzo @ Nov 16 2009, 12:57 PM) I have a question about DMs though. The DM14 class that QFs and MRR Lightnings used, where could I find the damage table of each respective DM on each class of hull? I only poked around briefly in a few places and yielded no results.

You can pop open ICE and check Globals (It has a toggle to display all the DMs for a specific armor class, or vice versa), or try reading this page (link) on the wiki. Its a bit of a mess, but DM14 is listed as "Super light" on that table.

I think that reducing dumb3 to a near rocket like state would be fantastic

give seek3 a little perk and it would balance out just fine

Drizzo wrote:QUOTE (Drizzo @ Nov 16 2009, 12:57 PM) I have a question about DMs though. The DM14 class that QFs and MRR Lightnings used, where could I find the damage table of each respective DM on each class of hull? I only poked around briefly in a few places and yielded no results.

For Drizzo and whomever else is concerned, the damagechart can be found via this link.

http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/Damage_chart

The wiki is quite helpful now compared to how it was a year ago; you guys should give it some love.

[I don't think DFs are a problem with the removal of heavy boost, but if something needs to be done then...]
If it comes to that, one can tweak the agility of the dumbfires down a bit. Personally I like them as they are. We have seekers that make newbies / voobs at least somewhat useful, and dumbfires that need skill to use, and pack a mean punch. Shaving a small amount of turning speed (radius) from them probably wouldn't hurt them too bad.

Exo's idea of increasing DF weight is a good alternative.

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Nov 16 2009, 05:48 PM) [I don't think DFs are a problem with the removal of heavy boost, but if something needs to be done then...]
If it comes to that, one can tweak the agility of the dumbfires down a bit. Personally I like them as they are. We have seekers that make newbies / voobs at least somewhat useful, and dumbfires that need skill to use, and pack a mean punch. Shaving a small amount of turning speed (radius) from them probably wouldn't hurt them too bad.

Exo's idea of increasing DF weight is a good alternative.

I think seekers make the voobs less useful by making them line up the lock for 2 seconds while the int boosts in their face (and then out of the scope of the missile's tracking) rather than doing useful things like shooting, thrusting, and other things that actually result in dead ints.

Drizzo wrote:QUOTE (Drizzo @ Nov 16 2009, 05:57 PM) The ratio of good players to eh, people who wish to be good players is really low. Something like 0.1:1. You put an Expansion team of Broodwich Drizzo Xeretov Weedman Sheffwill xPhoenix Kev Dude up against a sup team of I dunno, 5 random RT members and a few SF, the sup team's economy wouldn't live past enh figs for one, and even if they did manage to get a TP2 Figbbr drop off, I doubt the figbbrs would make it to 1.5k.

Still hurts that we beat you when it matters doesn't it?

Drizzo wrote:QUOTE (Drizzo @ Nov 16 2009, 05:57 PM) Tweaking the respective speeds of Inteceptor and Fighter, possibly perk seeker OR move QF3 to sup (But don't do both), would bring excellent balance to Fig vs Int. In the realm of a 1v1, a fig with gat3 boost3 QF3 and hull 2 vs a MG3 Hvy int wil dmg2 range2 would be near perfectly matched in terms of killing power and relevant pilot skill. Adjusting the damage of DF vs Bombers/TTs/HTTs gives sup the same early-mid game vulnerability as the other two tech paths. Which would make perfect sense for a fighter really, given their definition as a multipurpose craft. Either they bring a combat missile so that they can achieve the same combative strength as a hvy interceptor, or they bring a missile with a massive warhead for killing things that don't move very fast. Allegiance was designed for this kind of versatility. Don't cry about DF being nerfed and how you can't use it to dogfight anymore, if you wanted to dogfight you should be using another missile you have 3 of them ffs.

Interesting point about the missiles there. I've always felt that a standard fig miner hunting loadout should be seekers in the slot and dumbs in cargo. Seekers for the Miner D, dumbs for the miner. Dumbs shouldn't be a combat missile, they should be used for larger targets like drones, caps and med ships (and no, the Int should not be a med ship, that's always been silly).

I'm also interested by Drizzo's rather pointless desire for Fig/Int combat parity. Because there's pretty much no reason to have a 1 on 1 dogfight between the two outside of a DM. The int should be able to beat the fig most times but that's fine because the fig ripped away with time to spare. Or killed the miner out from under the int because it had backup. Or galved the base. I guess you could argue that camp breaking is what you're talking about but that's always an assymetric fight regardless of ships or skill.

Raveen wrote:QUOTE (Raveen @ Nov 17 2009, 10:42 AM) I'm also interested by Drizzo's rather pointless desire for Fig/Int combat parity. Because there's pretty much no reason to have a 1 on 1 dogfight between the two outside of a DM. The int should be able to beat the fig most times but that's fine because the fig ripped away with time to spare. Or killed the miner out from under the int because it had backup. Or galved the base. I guess you could argue that camp breaking is what you're talking about but that's always an assymetric fight regardless of ships or skill.

because right now, that is backwards, the figs are beating the ints