On 2013-04-18 06:40, Fluttershy wrote:
I wish there were a way to fire missiles straight ahead.
The arcing is good if you want to shoot over your allies, but it makes blind firing impossible.
Several cases in which It would be preferable to launch them straight forward like rockets.

Actually, having a non-tracking heavy missile would be neat.
Small ships could dodge it more easily than torpedoes, and so it would be a good choice for attacking dreads and stations, but could be repelled if it had escorts.

[ This Message was edited by: Fluttershy on 2013-04-18 06:41 ]

On 2013-04-18 04:48, Kenny_Naboo wrote:

But I've already said it. That was the basic idea of a minimum jump range.

It is to make INTRA-battle point jumps impossible. You can't short jump your dread to a dessie who's pelting you with cannons 800 GUs away. But you can call in help from outside the battle to jump that dessie. If you ask me, I say that works well enough.

It also works the other way. If you're a missile ship pelting an enemy 1300 gus away. He can't jump you. But should another assault ship from outside the battle area jump you... you have to jump away to escape too. You can't just make an easy 1300 gu jump away to maintain your advantage.

The overall effect would be more thought in your battles. This idea was NOT and NEVER meant to give missile ships any kind of advantage. It's a blade that cuts both ways.

Geddit?

On 2013-04-18 04:48, Kenny_Naboo wrote:

Already said it. I like the interdictor cruiser. I want them back, but that's just a personal liking. Ultimately, most of the playerbase hate them. And as a result, they were removed.

As much as they promoted tactical gameplay, they had the effect of causing scores of players to log off. It's stupid, but there you have it. Players just don't wanna play when a dico is present.

So compromises were made, the dico ship was removed.

On 2013-04-18 04:48, Kenny_Naboo wrote:


Personally, this would nerf cloak to the point of unusability. It would be pretty much the same as having ECCM in droves making cloak ineffective.

Anyone could simply disable a cloak with a wild shot. Hits a cloaked ship and poof... 30 secs of no-cloak.

I've proposed something else before. That whenever a cloaked ship takes a hit, there will be somekind of animation where a lightning field will crackle around the ship, visible to all players. Sort of like when the Predator's (Yautja) cloak gets splashed with water. And the signature will spike/shoot up, and then recede again.

In effect, this will "disrupt" the cloak but not drop it. But since the sig has spiked up to default and starts to drop at the normal cloak rate, the effect is similar to having the cloak dropped, and immediately powered up again, giving you the time to target and shoot at it.

Continous hits will keep the lightning animation and signature values up.

On 2013-04-18 04:48, Kenny_Naboo wrote:


Faustus has stated somewhere before that he would like to keep the EW triad of ECCM-ECM-Cloak relationships intact. Cloak will always be affected by ECM/ECCM in some way.

If you ask me, I say that pinging was actually a good counter to cloak. It was a bug, hell yeah. But it worked well. But the decision was made to fix it, and we'll just have to live with it.


As for mines, that is another topic altogether.

On 2013-04-18 04:48, Kenny_Naboo wrote:

Kluth will always remain immune to missiles as long as the pilot is alert, and has enough time to get his sig down and his ship out of the way. Cloak was always meant to do that. There's no other way to make it otherwise without kookamamie logic.

As for ship variety, speak to Jim. Kluth were always a close range, assault/hit-and-run faction. There's not much in ship variety in it for that kinda playstyle.

To give the Kluth a ship like the ICC Missile Dread with cloaking ability would be pretty nasty for the enemy. That's why cloak and close range weaps were paired. If Kluth can get close in to hit you hard, then you can hit him back hard too.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:


Yes, I have gotten it on the first time you explained it. What you do not understand is that its going to create more problems than fix.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

I am not proposing we bring back the interdictor cruiser, so that excuse does not apply here. Address Interdictor platforms, not interdictor cruisers.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

As I said, you have to think about your approach now. You cant just jump 1000 gu away, cloak, and expect to directly stroll up to the ICC/UGTO without them making an attempt to counter you. You have to think about your approach now. Thats the entire point of my post. Kluth no longer gets a free lunch.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

The main advantage of my system over yours are three fold.
1: It allows long range ships to target Kluth. Your suggestion will only allow CQC ships to target Kluth, essentially maintaining the value of CQC ships over long range ones.

2: It is easier to impliment. It largely uses a system already implimented in game, and thus would require minimal coding to adapt.

3: It addresses the 'easy escape' option for Kluth. With your method, the Kluth can still jump away, cloak, and likely never be cought. With my method, the ICC/UGTO have 30 seconds to track down a Kluth.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

This is a horrible decision, though. It just forces ICC/UGTO to pack as much ECCM as possible with the purpose of countering Kluth, and completely shuts down a potentially interesting ECM/ECCM dynamic for the purpose of creating a blunt tool to whack a faction with. This is not good gameplay.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

I already told you how to make an attempt to fix it. I even gave you step-by-step instructions that would be very easy to impliment. If the developers cannot fix the problem, it is becasue they decided not to fix the problem, no other reason.

On 2013-04-18 06:39, Novacat wrote:

Well yes, if you take the suggestion out of context that is true, but in context, with the rest of my post, my suggestion makes perfect sense.

On 2013-04-18 23:10, Talien wrote:
Pinging was horrible and I'd rather not go back to getting finger cramps from mashing a sequence of number keys endlessly. Hell sometimes it didn't even work, you know there's a luth there because he just cloaked but you ping and nothing happens.

On 2013-04-19 00:17, Talien wrote:
Or you could just use the beacon as an aimpoint for not so blind firing. I mean, you can see the beacon and you know it's attached to something, so why shoot at the beacon itself and blow it up so you can no longer see where your target is going?

On 2013-04-18 23:02, Kenny_Naboo wrote:

How? By making it inconvenient to make a short jump to the moon of a planet that's 1500 gus away? SLOWBOAT to it then! Not a problem unless you're a station. And even if you're a station... you're well... supposed to be nearly stationARY.

What are you looking for really? An easier life for missile ships? You tell me.

Unfortunately, interdictor anything other than planet-based is basically hated by most of the players.

Let me put things in perspective. You could place an interdictor plat just next to a gate (and trust me it will happen) and camp there waiting for the enemy to pop right in. It'll be like a kill zone.

What happens then?

And your former idea of just allowing ONE dico plat per system or even server? What's the use of that? It'd be the same as allowing only one planetary dico to be built per system/server.

A good tool, but limited to one use or unit, becomes essentially useless. So what's the point then?

And again I say, that's the point of cloak, and is its original intended design. Cloak makes you invisible. It doesn't make you invincible. A cloaked ship cannot fire. As of now, any Kluth ship which tried to cloak out of a battle can still be found and hit continously as long as the human pilot knows how to blind fire and keep it up.

Be reminded that cloak was always meant to be absolute

TBH, I rarely cloak to run if there's an exigent need to. I simply jump out far, then cloak. Yes, I can get away. But so can any human pilot. Don't just use the e-jump, because everybody can guess the distance you're jumping. Long jump out 100K gus and more. Your chances of getting away will be improved manyfold.

The only clear advantage I see is point 2. It is easier to code.

The other two are subjective. Mostly to the advantage of pilots who fly missile ships. Which I'm guessing you're in favor of. Make life a little easier for missile ships, right?

That's your opinion. You're entitled to it.
The lead devs opinion may differ, and they're in charge. Not you.

I'd emphasize the previous point again. Your opinion may differ from the lead devs. They already have a design philosophy for each faction.

If cloak works the way it does because it was meant to be, then it's not a problem. It's a feature. You'll just have to learn to live with and work around what you have.

All that said, there could be a few things that I could suggest to make cloak more manageable to work against, as well as make life easier for missile ships. Again, just suggestions. I don't make any decision either.

But really... if you'd ask me. The best way will probably be to bring back pinging and leave everything else as is.