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Exactly what I'd like to have happen

Vortrog wrote:QUOTE (Vortrog @ Jun 9 2009, 10:21 PM) Crono, you have been heard and your wish was sent to santa. Where was this succinct post...can you ref it for me?

I actually just forgot and eventually agreed to making XRM's damage 75/90, but my main proposal was to get rid of the stupid price tag. It's superfluous, XRM is fairly harmless even without the price tag.

I didn't play much since CC is out, so I might be missing things, but here's how I see XRM + my ideas:


The current way to use XRM is to drop a far TP2, Rip as many bombers as possible and just fire as many missiles ASAP before losing the bombers.
The main problem with how XRM currently works is that most of the time, the bombers can manage to shoot a few(or many) XRM before the enemy team can start damaging the bombers. How many "free shots "of XRM a team can get and their total damage output is directly related to the amount of bombers which usually comes from the size of the team. By changing the damage of XRM, you directly change the amount of damages done by the "free shots". By balancing XRM damage for larger game to avoid letting XRM bombers to kill a base with "free shots", you end up making them useless in smaller games.

Imo, what XRM needs is a much shorter range that make it easier for the defense to reach the bombers before they can fire their missiles. I'm not talking about an XRM nerf(XRM would probably do much more damages), I'm talking about a way to make them scale. If the defense could usually reach the bombers before they could fire their XRM, then the damage of XRM would becomes less revelent to how powerfull they are. What would make an XRM run suceed or not would be related to the ability of the defenders to pod all bombers before they can get in XRM range rather than team size. Bigger teams would mean more bombers, but it would also mean more defenders.

IMO before we start nerfing figbees and perking XRMs we should totally rethink those two techs. Right now they have very similar use, XRM hvy bbrs or fighter bombers are two choices to deliver anti base payload using TP2. Before, XRMs were used much more often than FBs, now it's other way around and I strongly belive that playing with different stats (damage, range etc) can lead only to change of balance in favor of XRMs again. Whats the point of using XRMs if FBs are better? What wiil be reasons to use FBs if they are nerfed and XRMs perked?

We should focus on figuring out how to make both XRMs and FBs have significantly DIFFERENT use, so they don't exclude each other like it is right now - I never seen both researched, anyone did? for sure it don't have much sense. Maybe XRMs should be significantly perked vs station shields so it's reasonable to use them vs. teams going EXP with station shields GA? Maybe lower their damage but increase range even more so XRMs could be used efectively without TP2 but could reach targets just after you enter sector? Give FBs some kind of new missile, capable to damage stations but not very heavy, so theres reason to use FB as multirole heavy fighter? These are just few very rough ideas.

Most drastic change I belive we could consider would be moving XRMs to some other techpath. I was thinking about EXP - most ppl agree that HTTs are most difficult to use end game tech, giving EXP team ability to use hvy bbrs with XRMs would slightly help int-bombing maybe making ending game with EXP easier. But I also see XRMs in TAC, with very high signature so you spot them 3k away or even further and have to boost to kill sbs (however I belive Tac game ending is ok atm).

Koczis wrote:QUOTE (Koczis @ Jun 11 2009, 02:54 AM) We should focus on figuring out how to make both XRMs and FBs have significantly DIFFERENT use, so they don't exclude each other like it is right now - I never seen both researched, anyone did? for sure it don't have much sense.

What this guy said.

I was thinking along the lines of, one (don't really care which) is a moderately priced, moderately successful endgame tech whereas the other is outrageously priced, outrageously successful endgame tech. But these other ideas are good too.

Perhaps XRM could be very good against shields but no improvement against hull as its damage perk, instead of being a straight damage perk all across. The reasoning for this is fairly simple, if XRM is better against station shields, then it could be used to make normal bomb runs more effective or as a precursor to the bomber closing or some other attack about to occur. There are a number of possible uses it could be tied to, even if it was just able to take down shields effectively at a range. Keeping the same very poor hull damage(perhaps even slightly reduced) would make them in net only slightly better against stations, less than the strict 20% boost, but it would make them have a wider variety of uses when interacting with other tech.

Just a pure terrible damage at high cost at very long range will only work with large organized teams and be very difficult to scale. Increasing how specialized the use is slightly will increase the possibilities without making it outright overpowered. It also succeeds in making it different that FBs, besides pricing (unless I am missing something).

Maybe we need another tier for TP2 actually.

I also propose a TP2 researchable on Enh Sup: It is basically a TP2 (maybe smaller activation time, cost, etc) but is only small rip.

Of course, the extra tier for this one would be the current incarnation of TP2 but which needs TP1 and the TP I propose for researching.

The idea would be that you drop this small rip probe before you drop the TP2. The shorter activation time lets you rip in scouts or figs to d the real TP2 while it activates, hence allowing much shorter drops (unless the D OVERWHELMS the dropper team), and maybe not requiring the XRMs at all, just the bbr.

Other perks include, miner O drops, miner D drops, Galv drops, etc.