Just to clarify, I'm quite happy with them. I even get some kills with them when forced to fight, as an AB in the face really hurts.
One just needs to understand the name to mean a fighter converted to a bomber, rather than a dual role craft.
Fighter-Bombers.
My 2 cents. I think the problems are two fold, one of scaling and one of current tp2 design.
Bombers, HTTs, Capital ships, and SBs all share a common feature, they require massive extended team support.
Now sure, there any number of times that a solo yahoo in any of these, or with one nan, may do something entirely out of proportion, but by and large you are going to have 5+ people (ideally even more) locked up in transit and preparation to hit an objective. They are not defending and the rest of the team cannot join in when the assault on the target finally occurs.
The magic of the tp2 is that it takes 1 person, maybe 2 to get locked up in the transit and preparation step while the rest of the team is free to defend and then the entire team can be rounded up in a manner of moments to participate in the assault. When its 25-30 people on a team, that is a huge swing.
Personally, I think a reintroduction of tp2 random destruction would be the best bet (leary of energy limits due to interactions with capital ships). It scales the resulting assault phase of the attack with the investiture the team makes in the set up phase. If you want those 10-15 FBs for a large game, you need to move in enough tp2 to support it, meanwhile in a smaller game setting a single scout could probably still make do with a single drop.
Bombers, HTTs, Capital ships, and SBs all share a common feature, they require massive extended team support.
Now sure, there any number of times that a solo yahoo in any of these, or with one nan, may do something entirely out of proportion, but by and large you are going to have 5+ people (ideally even more) locked up in transit and preparation to hit an objective. They are not defending and the rest of the team cannot join in when the assault on the target finally occurs.
The magic of the tp2 is that it takes 1 person, maybe 2 to get locked up in the transit and preparation step while the rest of the team is free to defend and then the entire team can be rounded up in a manner of moments to participate in the assault. When its 25-30 people on a team, that is a huge swing.
Personally, I think a reintroduction of tp2 random destruction would be the best bet (leary of energy limits due to interactions with capital ships). It scales the resulting assault phase of the attack with the investiture the team makes in the set up phase. If you want those 10-15 FBs for a large game, you need to move in enough tp2 to support it, meanwhile in a smaller game setting a single scout could probably still make do with a single drop.
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Slightly perk XRMs.
If you are going with a fighter-bomber TP2 drop run, I think it would be ideal to rip in a mix of fighter-bombers with regular AB missiles for the close in attack and XRM bombers for a longer distance attack. I'm only talking of a modest buff to XRMs, I think they were a bit too powerful before and too weak now.
Boost an unloaded fighter-bomber's combat ability.
While I wouldn't mind seeing a slight boost to a fighter-bomber's combat abilities, they should move like a pig if they are loaded with AB missiles. Without the missiles they should be comparable to a fighter, but not as maneuverable since they can carry a turret if they want.
Instead of reducing the AB missiles power, why not increase some of the bases armor/shield levels? This'd probably impact the game in alot of ways that I haven't really thought of, but it's still something to consider. My thought is mainly to slightly boost the armor/shields of the garrison and tech bases so that maybe they take an extra 4-5 AB3 hits to destroy, while boosting the armor/shields of teleports/outposts by JUST enough to take an extra AB3 missile to destroy, or a few hits from a galv. So for example, and just pulling random numbers. Say AB3s do 150 straight (not counting if it does more to shield or armor) damage per missile, and OPs have 150 armor and 150 shields, it would take 2 AB3s to destroy the OP. My thought is to give the OP 151 armor/shields. Doesn't effect galving runs hardly at all, but does require an extra AB3 or else someone with a galv to finish off the OP.
And lastly, don't touch the heavy scouts!!!!!!
I think I would take a look instead at the TP1/2. In particular I like the idea that TPs have an energy limit before they blow up. I would suggest that perhaps TPs have a certain amount of energy that can be used for teleporting ships in, and that it recharges after use (think rixian TP scouts) and that TP have a set time limit before they blow up. However I'd be concerned you'd run into a problem where you keep trying to rip to a TP with no energy, and so I'm more in favor of giving TPs a finite amount of energy or teleports that they can do before they go boom. I think the increased mass for a TP is interesting, and you might want to put a limit to how many a scout can carry per rack.
If you are going with a fighter-bomber TP2 drop run, I think it would be ideal to rip in a mix of fighter-bombers with regular AB missiles for the close in attack and XRM bombers for a longer distance attack. I'm only talking of a modest buff to XRMs, I think they were a bit too powerful before and too weak now.
Boost an unloaded fighter-bomber's combat ability.
While I wouldn't mind seeing a slight boost to a fighter-bomber's combat abilities, they should move like a pig if they are loaded with AB missiles. Without the missiles they should be comparable to a fighter, but not as maneuverable since they can carry a turret if they want.
Instead of reducing the AB missiles power, why not increase some of the bases armor/shield levels? This'd probably impact the game in alot of ways that I haven't really thought of, but it's still something to consider. My thought is mainly to slightly boost the armor/shields of the garrison and tech bases so that maybe they take an extra 4-5 AB3 hits to destroy, while boosting the armor/shields of teleports/outposts by JUST enough to take an extra AB3 missile to destroy, or a few hits from a galv. So for example, and just pulling random numbers. Say AB3s do 150 straight (not counting if it does more to shield or armor) damage per missile, and OPs have 150 armor and 150 shields, it would take 2 AB3s to destroy the OP. My thought is to give the OP 151 armor/shields. Doesn't effect galving runs hardly at all, but does require an extra AB3 or else someone with a galv to finish off the OP.
And lastly, don't touch the heavy scouts!!!!!!
I think I would take a look instead at the TP1/2. In particular I like the idea that TPs have an energy limit before they blow up. I would suggest that perhaps TPs have a certain amount of energy that can be used for teleporting ships in, and that it recharges after use (think rixian TP scouts) and that TP have a set time limit before they blow up. However I'd be concerned you'd run into a problem where you keep trying to rip to a TP with no energy, and so I'm more in favor of giving TPs a finite amount of energy or teleports that they can do before they go boom. I think the increased mass for a TP is interesting, and you might want to put a limit to how many a scout can carry per rack.
Energy limits would also require a core edit.
I would say having some control over a TP probe's random destructability would be nice. We could even potentially do it without changing the core format, although it might require some funky coding to do.
Probes and missiles share some of their tags. TECHNICALLY, you can set a missile to have a "Warn on Drop" - ICE just doesn't allow it, and it probably wouldn't work right anyway.
However, you can set a probe to 'capture' and 'resonate aleph' - Which are impossible for a probe to do. Why not use these for destructability?
If none are checked, then the TP probe functions as it does now. Can rip in infinite amounts of things with no issue.
If one is checked, then the TP probe has a probability of sustaining damage - Maybe something like a small percent of the hull - upon each ship's entrance. This could have it so that a TP probe could still be used to bring in infinite amounts of stuff, but it would require constant nanning - and the first thing killed are nans anyway, so it'll require some additional effort.
If the other is checked, then the TP probe has a probability of being destroyed upon each ship's entrance.
I think a lower probability for each of them would be better - maybe a 1-in-10 for the destruction, and 1-in-5 for the damage.
I would say having some control over a TP probe's random destructability would be nice. We could even potentially do it without changing the core format, although it might require some funky coding to do.
Probes and missiles share some of their tags. TECHNICALLY, you can set a missile to have a "Warn on Drop" - ICE just doesn't allow it, and it probably wouldn't work right anyway.
However, you can set a probe to 'capture' and 'resonate aleph' - Which are impossible for a probe to do. Why not use these for destructability?
If none are checked, then the TP probe functions as it does now. Can rip in infinite amounts of things with no issue.
If one is checked, then the TP probe has a probability of sustaining damage - Maybe something like a small percent of the hull - upon each ship's entrance. This could have it so that a TP probe could still be used to bring in infinite amounts of stuff, but it would require constant nanning - and the first thing killed are nans anyway, so it'll require some additional effort.
If the other is checked, then the TP probe has a probability of being destroyed upon each ship's entrance.
I think a lower probability for each of them would be better - maybe a 1-in-10 for the destruction, and 1-in-5 for the damage.
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takingarms1
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Making them easier to shoot down seems like a good way to approach this issue without having to screw with scaling issues - theoretically you'll have more defenders when you have more figbees so if they're easier to shoot down, capability to defend against them scales accordingly.
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This I could agree with. I wouldn't touch the speed at all and I'm leery of touching the hitpoints. Amusingly enough TF is a good benchmark for the effects of FB changes. TF FBs suck because they're slow, and I've seen a lot of runs fail because the TP2 was too far out. By the same token, TF teams can defend well against FBs because the current lead indicators make it easier for the TF team to shoot them down.TakingArms wrote:QUOTE (TakingArms @ Jun 2 2009, 05:36 PM) Making them easier to shoot down seems like a good way to approach this issue without having to screw with scaling issues - theoretically you'll have more defenders when you have more figbees so if they're easier to shoot down, capability to defend against them scales accordingly.
I'm fine with FB runs being able to kill bases though. That is, you know, what they're supposed to do. I would rather see games that end within about an hour than drag them out for 3-4 hours just because we've nerfed all the game ending tech. I don't believe we should be balancing this core for 3 hour long turtles where one team wins by having less players go to bed for the night.
Despite the complaints here about FBs I don't see too much of an issue with Sup's endgame. TP2 is not cheap to get and the OP makes a good point with the current trend of 1.25/1.25 setting games. If you play on those settings then expect to see expensive endgame used more often. Although if too many people feel its not expensive enough then bumping up either the tech or probe cost of TP2 seems like the better place to start. Alternatively FBs could be moved from $250 to $500 each, since they're performing almost as well as the XRM hvy bombers they've replaced.
And I suppose we should fix the hitpoints on the Belters FB while we're at it, since they can't carry shields.
Last edited by Xeretov on Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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takingarms1
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- Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:00 am
Well adjusting ship speed and hit points are both ways to make them easier to shoot down, so... yeah.
Adjusting mass and model size are two more ways of the same.
I've never been a huge fan of using price per unit to balance stuff, but it seems to have had at least marginal success with XRM and rix rip scouts... but yeah I'd prefer making them easier to shoot down for the above stated reasons.
edit: reason I don't like using price per unit to balance is because it doesn't remove the cheeseyness of the tech, in fact it just side steps it - and if you've got enough money, you can make a quesadilla out of the game at will. That's no good.
Adjusting mass and model size are two more ways of the same.
I've never been a huge fan of using price per unit to balance stuff, but it seems to have had at least marginal success with XRM and rix rip scouts... but yeah I'd prefer making them easier to shoot down for the above stated reasons.
edit: reason I don't like using price per unit to balance is because it doesn't remove the cheeseyness of the tech, in fact it just side steps it - and if you've got enough money, you can make a quesadilla out of the game at will. That's no good.
Last edited by takingarms1 on Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"You give my regards to St. Peter. Or, whoever has his job, but in hell!"
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I think a slight nerf to their top speed and an increase to their agility combined with a F/B Torpedo tech that is equivalent to the current AB tech would work well. I'm with the camp of people who want to see f/b dogfight at least as well as a regular fighter while still being able to missile bases 
Get over yourselves, don't try to win arguments on the internet where the option of a punch in the mouth is unavailable
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