I hate BLC. Most annoying thing in the game. That is all.

 

Oh wait, that's not all. I did, in fact, roll an alt on Jedi Covenant, but I haven't been able to get into more than a few matches. Slow queue when I'm on.

 

These days, I am spending more and more time on The Ebon Hawk. But it has waaaay too many BLC. WTB more originality and less cookie-cutter.

I hate BLC. Most annoying thing in the game. That is all.

 

Oh wait, that's not all. I did, in fact, roll an alt on Jedi Covenant, but I haven't been able to get into more than a few matches. Slow queue when I'm on.

 

These days, I am spending more and more time on The Ebon Hawk. But it has waaaay too many BLC. WTB more originality and less cookie-cutter.

 

Who are you on JC??? 'Cause I haven,t seen Ymris/Strix pop out.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Ryuku-sama

Don't hate on BLC. Hate the other lasers that aren't as good. Make them better, and people will have viable choices which promote variety.

 

I had never used mastered Rapid Fire Lasers, so just out of experimental curiosity I stuck them on my Sting. I actually did a fair amount of damage, but the thing is, they have a very hard time landing the killing blow. As has been pointed out many times, burst damage is more effective than sustained attrition when it comes to killing things.

 

People gravitate towards what works best, since it puts them at a disadvantage to run suboptimal builds. If other lasers were equally effective but in different ways, there would be more of a choice of what to run if you want to be competitive.

 

- Despon

I think some lasers need a bit of buffing (Rapids in particular), but there's plenty of argument for why BLC are still way too good. Go see the suggestion to remove some or all of their armor pen, for instance. Even with that taken away, as many people have pointed out, it will be a go-to weapon for scouts since so it can be so easy for them to get close with it, and for those high angle, short-window shooting options that happen all the time with experienced players.

 

And I can understand despising the weapon... you see it all the time because it's so ridiculously good. It's easy to hate something you see so much. I know it annoys me, especially with the good players I see only rolling type 2 scouts with it all the time. Players that I see flying different ship types or builds sometimes impress me a lot more.

Rapids should get a damage multiplier or something the longer fire on a single target is sustained for a period of time, who's with me?!?! Bursts r monster, gotta evade the hell outta them. Or what if burst lasers had to be charged up to fire?! i would be down with that tooo. Edited March 30, 2015 by Binthurmung

If you are playing on Ebon Hawk you may want to invest in an overcharged shield/engine-to-shield converter Rampart/Razorwire. With smart piloting it stops even the best BLC scouts in their tracks. As for deathmatch, I have a lot of success with a directional shield/power dive Condor. Although you need an ally to drop railgun drone/seeker mines. Edited March 30, 2015 by RickDagles

It's just so hard to give up beacon. But that's the best defended bomber against scouts, no question.

If I could delete one component, it'd be BLC's.

 

The only "burst laser cannons" in Star Wars were on walkers. Starfighters didn't have space shotguns.

 

And just like shotguns disproportionately rule the meta of most shooter games, they do the same in GSF.

 

BLC are the ultimate trump card in any melee battle. If you have BLC's, you are better than any ship that doesn't have them at close range.

 

Even a T1 Gunship, which turns like a pig, can win any close range dogfight against any ship that doesn't have BLC's (Quad+Pod and LLC Scouts included). If you aren't exploiting this to win Domination matches, you're only playing 2/3rd's of a Gunship.

 

If BLC just went away, Strikes might have a fighting chance of being somewhat relevant (they'd still lose against Scouts at close range, but at least they wouldn't lose against Gunships at close range).

 

A whole class of Scout pilots, who rely on BLC as a crutch, would sink to the bottom of the scoreboard.

 

Many Scout aces would convert to Q&P and go for kill carries. They would still be a bit OP (because of TT/BO), but they'd be a bit less dominant under satellites and would need a bit more team support to win tough matches.

 

LLC's would actually get used. Yay iconic pew pew pew.

 

Heck, Rapids would even have a unique niche, in that they'd be the least affected by Tracking Penalty.

 

The only bad thing about deleting BLC's would be that Gunships would lose a key way to defend themselves. That is tough, and I'm not sure how to solve it. The BLC is a mostly balanced defensive weapon on a slow-turning ship. The problem is that it's just too powerful as an offensive weapon, even on a slow-turning ship.

 

A lot of its offensive power could be nerfed if didn't have its doctor's note that excuses it from tracking penalty. If it had a bigger tracking penalty than LLC's, then I think it would remain a good defensive deterrent weapon for Gunships, and a good specialist weapon for Bomber-hunting Scouts, but it would not be the end-all-be-all of melee dogfighting. LLC's raw DPS would then be able to assert itself.

I wouldn't want to take it out. But I don't know why it was ever in the game to begin with.

 

I really don't think it's as broken as Nemarus says. Other lasers do have their places. But, I generally feel that the other lasers should be buffed a bit. Every laser except bursts honestly feels like their range is a bit too short or a lot too short (IMO). But it has so many things that are odd about it thematically:

 

1)- The effect is a "space shotgun", but its range is similar to the other guns, and the fall off (damage/accuracy), while real, isn't as much as you would expect.

2)- It has a LOT in common with the shotgun, and almost nothing in common with anything we've seen in Star Wars. The FPS shotgun loses power very quickly (usually much faster than a real shotgun), and so does the BLC. Shotguns normally have a lower rate of fire (most FPS games don't even have autoloading shotguns, even though they are absolutely a mainstay in the real world), as does burst laser cannon. It was clearly modeled on this FPS gun, not on anything a ship would really equip.

3)- The parts that don't line up with the shotgun (armor piercing, very fast aiming, reasonable ammo) are all buffs over the model it is based on, in particular the armor piercing part. By the rules that the game has established, bursts would be weaker against armor than the other lasers, not stronger (the laser relies on colliding with a bunch of tiny lasers at different spots, not drilling through the armor or destabilizing it). Shotguns normally don't have a large magazine, but bursts, while not super efficient, don't drain your battery as much as you might expect.

4)- The tracking penalty is such a huge deal in this game, and the BLC is closest you can come to ignoring it.

5)- It allows a different flight style and a different shooting style. This is probably the biggest argument FOR it, but it seems like it's odd to support Shotgun Guy in an arcade space sim.

 

 

I would like to see some mild nerfs, and I do recommend that most ships run burst when they can (with a couple exceptions). But it's way too late to fix the design issue. If you made bursts bad, or nerfed them such that they were effectively deleted, it would be a massive middle finger to everyone who spent time getting good on them. You don't want to design away the skills you've been telling your playerbase that they need.

 

Still, some mild nerfs (rate of fire faster, dps unchanged, or mild dps nerf) would go a long way toward increasing gun diversity. Anything else would take a lot of redesigning.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Verain

The only bad thing about deleting BLC's would be that Gunships would lose a key way to defend themselves. That is tough, and I'm not sure how to solve it. The BLC is a mostly balanced defensive weapon on a slow-turning ship. The problem is that it's just too powerful as an offensive weapon, even on a slow-turning ship.

 

As much as I hate BLC sporting scouts, as a (Novadive) scout pilot I think deleting the component outright would definitely cause problems for gunships. One of my very favorite roles to play is that of gunship hunter and I'll say right now that without BLC the gunship has no real teeth if I can close the gap to under 4k~; plain and simple in a 1-vs-1 against a gunship with LLC I can fly circles around him with total impunity. -I'm only an averagish pilot but I dare say without BLC there are only 2 or 3 GS pilots that come to mind that would be the slightest threat once I got to within 4k of them.

BLC as it is does an *excellent* job of making sure when I'm hunting Gunships I don't get too cocky -the gunship is still at a decisive disadvantage if I'm in that 4-5k range but he does have a weapon that can -and will- kick me in the teeth if I get too sloppy. For me, that makes engagements with gunships much more exciting/interesting since I'm not essentially immune to them up close -I simply have a strong advantage and if I'm not careful/don't recognize when I need to break off an engagement I will rightfully be made to pay.

-In case anyone is worried I'm arguing the Gunships keep BLC as are for selfish reasons I'd like to say for the record I *hate* flying gunships and about the only time a GS is even on my bar is if I'm levelling one or I'm on an alt with a mostly unupgraded T1 scout and I'm worried about running into a gunship wall in TDM.

 

Where BLC gets broken very quickly is when it's mounted to a platform that can place them up any given enemy's butt at will and is also able to keep their target in range for extended periods due to high speed/mobility/boosting ability if need be (looking at you Flashfire/Sting).

 

The way I would consider fixing the BLC scout issue without hurting the gunship's ability to protect itself from attacking scouts would be to simply seperate gunships BLCs from Scout BLCs. Make them 2 seperate guns (I know this might take a little more coding sadly but I think this would also be the best long-term solution). The difference in guns can be explained that gunships have the room on their frames to pack tons of weapons with teeth-kicking potential whereas scouts must sacrifice some firepower due to size constraints and thus they get a miniaturized version:

BLCs on gunships stay the same potent *defensive* system they are now ; scouts' BLCs (call them "Scatter Cannons" or Light BLCs or something) would get some slight nerfs to bring them more in line with other guns and make them a good option rather than one of the *only* options. If I were to just toss some numbers out there I'd say possible double their rate of fire but keep their dps the same so that the shots are less bursty (might also slightly increase the power draw) and either remove or *heavily* nerf the armor penetration for these scout blc -I'm picturing scout BLCs as being an anti-scout killer designed to take high deflection shots with some -but not extreme- burst. Since I'm envisioning this scout blc as an anti-scout gun I'd probably keep the shield piercing on them (maybe increase it slightly) since scouts don't really enjoy hull attrition much.

 

eh, anyway that's my $0.02 on it.

I mean, some of the choices are puzzling from a flavor perspective.

 

1- No strike has distortion, but two gunships do. The gunships have larger and more fragile frames, so it's odd that distortion would be able to be equipped on them- but zero strike fighters.

2- BLC is on three ships, two of them gunships, the third a scout. The problems mostly relate to the scout.

3- The ability to kill momentum instantly on a gunship is absolutely bizarre. While no great help against scouts, this trick can be very powerful versus the wide circling strike fighters, who can be forced into an overfly much (all?) of the time.

 

But I don't have any suggestions that would FIX all of these. In my other threads, I suggest that distortion sort of become a more fair component (and several ways to do that), but it doesn't address why gunships even have it to begin with. I couple these suggestions with changes that could address the rather silly dps of clusters- having such a fast reload time combined with a fast lockon time is pretty brutal, as clusters don't share the targeting restrictions of rocket pods.

 

If we get balance fixes, I wouldn't want them to try to remake the ships, I'd like them to fix the components with buffs or nerfs. I don't think BLC should have been like it is, and I don't think it should have been put on a scout in any form, but neither would I want that taken away, even if we had devs who were promising they would fix ALL the balance problems that would cause.

 

The ability to kill momentum on a gunship got some pretty instant hate, and mostly isn't considered an issue, because gunship hunting ships have ways to deal with that- against a good scout you try that and you'll get red hulled if not destroyed. But it definitely is selective of what ships even go hunt gunships in the first place. The game would not be playable or good if that was just removed, however. It's still odd as heck design.

I still think it's nuts that people complain about BLC scouts when Quad/Pod scouts are arguably just as good if not better. A lot of the DPS and kills records are held by Quad/Pod scouts.

 

Yes I know that a BLC scout typically beats a Quad/Pod scout 1v1, that's not the argument here.

Edited March 30, 2015 by RickDagles

I think some of that is game priority. Quads and pods is unquestionably the highest damage build in the game, the most burst. But it also has targets that are almost dead to it, such as charged plating bombers, and targets it has a hard time fighting, such as burst laser scouts. Meanwhile, a burst and pods scout, while giving up the dps king title, is not dead versus any target, and can pop plating bombers decently well. Yea, he doesn't kill the gunship quite as fast, but he's still deadly and a deroost is almost as good as a kill.

 

So while quads and pods tears up the charts, I'm much more worried when the enemy fields a burst pod scout. The things that survive well versus that scout die easily to other targets, and there's no dead targets.

 

Another part of it is the general uneasiness we have about the "top dog" components- burst laser, distortion field, slug railgun, targeting telemetry. These components seem to really make it hard for strikes and even other builds of scouts and gunships to have a role. So I think some of the uneasiness is just power complaints about the good components, and the rest is the kit of the ships: it seems odd that this strange laser shotgun is something that everyone needs to have skill of under their belt to be a solid pilot, you know?

Edited March 30, 2015 by Verain

 

If BLC just went away, Strikes might have a fighting chance of being somewhat relevant (they'd still lose against Scouts at close range, but at least they wouldn't lose against Gunships at close range).

 

This is pure wishful thinking.

 

In a primary vs primary battle, range is plenty for evening the odds against BLCs. At least as long as you know enough to avoid RFLs (and really, a strike should probably avoid LLCs too).

 

The strike is liable to loose due to evasion cooldowns, but in terms of baseline primary weapon offensive output Strikes are fine if they take the medium range blaster options.

 

They really get the short end of the stick on secondary weapon damage though. They're forced to take missiles, and missile DPS sucks. It sucks a lot more than most people appreciate. Cluster missiles have a niche use on battlescouts attacking high evasion (defensive cooldowns active) scout or gunship targets. Even then, you need to chain lock and fire at most 2 missiles, with no pause or loss of lock to come out ahead of Rocket Pods landing at 40-45% accuracy.

 

Spam more than 3 Clusters in a row at a particular target, and the DPS drops enough that against a target that's not trying to defend itself, Clusters become a trap component. Cluster burst maxes at about 680 for a single un-countered shot, but drops to 237 in sustained fire. The drop-off is steep, by the second shot you're down to around 340 DPS.

 

I've been working on a comparison of theoretical maximum, burst, and "reasonably expected" DPS for weapons that are used in a secondary role.

 

Aside from Cluster Missile burst damage against extreme evasion targets (maximum of 2 shots, neither lock or shot is countered), missiles are terrible components.

 

If you take missiles versus competing components (mines, Pods, BLCs, for bomber drones or blasters since what counts as primary in their case is a very fuzzy line) they uniformly underperform by large margins. In a normal game it's on the order of an 8-15% loss in overall ship sustained DPS compared to competing weapons classes. For burst damage Clusters are ok, but every other missile lags 30% or more compared to competing systems.

 

You take lower sustained and burst secondary damage, then combine that with a lack of cooldowns to significantly increase primary and/or secondary weapons damage, and defensive asymmetry that strongly favors scouts, and you could delete BLCs from the game and it still wouldn't produce a significant shift in favor of strikes.

 

By defensive asymmetry I mean that evasion cooldowns and missile breaks are very strong counters to blaster fire and missiles, while shields and hull points are fairly weak counters to blaster fire and non-missile secondary role weapons.

 

Pilot skill significantly magnifies the effects of defensive asymmetry, and at a rough guess a ship running with missiles is at a 20% or more DPS disadvantage compared to a ship running a non-missile build. That's before accounting for offensive cooldowns like TT.

 

There are 4 ships that are forced to use missiles in a secondary weapon role, and only one of them appears in the meta. Even then it only appears in domination, and for not much longer than the duration of Tensor Field.

 

That secondary weapon DPS gap isn't the only problem with the strikes and the T3 scout, but I think it's a big part. The underlying designs are fairly solid (at least in comparison to the non-meta gunship and bomber).

 

My reaction when this started coming out of the math on my secondaries comparison worksheet was pretty much:

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:!

 

I mean, I knew Clusters were the only remotely decent DPS missile and that Interdictions were the only genuinely strong utility missile, but the size of the disparity was a bit of a shock. Clusters being terrible at sustained DPS was also a shock, but reload times really hammer all of the missiles in sustained fire scenarios, even if you run rapid reload as a crew passive.

 

If you ignore the situational competiveness of Cluster and Interdiction missiles, pretty much the only thing missiles have in their favor in GSF is massive observation bias on the part of their users.

 

Big damage numbers and kills are remembered vividly, the time needed to land the successful shot working out to a DPS of 50 for a torpedo is forgotten as soon as it hits, if it was even noticed in the first place. BTW, if you're getting 50 DPS out of torpedoes that's very high level level performance.

 

I started my comparison on Thursday, which is why I was running BLC+ Pods on Super Serious night. If I ran RI instead of Wingman I might have stuck with clusters because pods start to suffer badly if you miss 70% or more of the shots, and that puts a damper on their strength against skilled defensive fliers.

 

Using them in a BLC centric flying style takes some getting used to but pods definitely didn't feel weak compared to clusters even at point blank ranges. For high skill levels I very strongly suspect that the BLC-Pods scout is the optimum build.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Ramalina

Sustained dps is only useful when comparing weapons of a type. Railguns have poor sustained dps, but no one thinks railguns are bad.

 

Pods are similar to blasters, but have some serious restrictions. The big deal is that hitting non-bombers with pods is sketchy business- anything you aren't looking directly at can't be struck with pods. This makes their biggest victim enemy gunships who are roosted, with some decent use versus plating bombers. They tend to be reasonably effective versus strikes, and not very amazing versus scouts.

 

Clusters, meanwhile, can lock on an evasive opponent and pull cooldowns. Comparing clusters to concussions, thermites, protons, interdictions, ion missile, and EMP missile is reasonable, but comparing them on dps to rocket pods is just not. The tiny firing arc is not without meaning.

This is pure wishful thinking.

 

In a primary vs primary battle, range is plenty for evening the odds against BLCs. At least as long as you know enough to avoid RFLs (and really, a strike should probably avoid LLCs too).

 

The strike is liable to loose due to evasion cooldowns, but in terms of baseline primary weapon offensive output Strikes are fine if they take the medium range blaster options.

 

They really get the short end of the stick on secondary weapon damage though. They're forced to take missiles, and missile DPS sucks. It sucks a lot more than most people appreciate. Cluster missiles have a niche use on battlescouts attacking high evasion (defensive cooldowns active) scout or gunship targets. Even then, you need to chain lock and fire at most 2 missiles, with no pause or loss of lock to come out ahead of Rocket Pods landing at 40-45% accuracy.

 

Spam more than 3 Clusters in a row at a particular target, and the DPS drops enough that against a target that's not trying to defend itself, Clusters become a trap component. Cluster burst maxes at about 680 for a single un-countered shot, but drops to 237 in sustained fire. The drop-off is steep, by the second shot you're down to around 340 DPS.

 

I've been working on a comparison of theoretical maximum, burst, and "reasonably expected" DPS for weapons that are used in a secondary role.

 

Aside from Cluster Missile burst damage against extreme evasion targets (maximum of 2 shots, neither lock or shot is countered), missiles are terrible components.

 

If you take missiles versus competing components (mines, Pods, BLCs, for bomber drones or blasters since what counts as primary in their case is a very fuzzy line) they uniformly underperform by large margins. In a normal game it's on the order of an 8-15% loss in overall ship sustained DPS compared to competing weapons classes. For burst damage Clusters are ok, but every other missile lags 30% or more compared to competing systems.

 

You take lower sustained and burst secondary damage, then combine that with a lack of cooldowns to significantly increase primary and/or secondary weapons damage, and defensive asymmetry that strongly favors scouts, and you could delete BLCs from the game and it still wouldn't produce a significant shift in favor of strikes.

 

By defensive asymmetry I mean that evasion cooldowns and missile breaks are very strong counters to blaster fire and missiles, while shields and hull points are fairly weak counters to blaster fire and non-missile secondary role weapons.

 

Pilot skill significantly magnifies the effects of defensive asymmetry, and at a rough guess a ship running with missiles is at a 20% or more DPS disadvantage compared to a ship running a non-missile build. That's before accounting for offensive cooldowns like TT.

 

There are 4 ships that are forced to use missiles in a secondary weapon role, and only one of them appears in the meta. Even then it only appears in domination, and for not much longer than the duration of Tensor Field.

 

That secondary weapon DPS gap isn't the only problem with the strikes and the T3 scout, but I think it's a big part. The underlying designs are fairly solid (at least in comparison to the non-meta gunship and bomber).

 

My reaction when this started coming out of the math on my secondaries comparison worksheet was pretty much:

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:!

 

I mean, I knew Clusters were the only remotely decent DPS missile and that Interdictions were the only genuinely strong utility missile, but the size of the disparity was a bit of a shock. Clusters being terrible at sustained DPS was also a shock, but reload times really hammer all of the missiles in sustained fire scenarios, even if you run rapid reload as a crew passive.

 

If you ignore the situational competiveness of Cluster and Interdiction missiles, pretty much the only thing missiles have in their favor in GSF is massive observation bias on the part of their users.

 

Big damage numbers and kills are remembered vividly, the time needed to land the successful shot working out to a DPS of 50 for a torpedo is forgotten as soon as it hits, if it was even noticed in the first place. BTW, if you're getting 50 DPS out of torpedoes that's very high level level performance.

 

I started my comparison on Thursday, which is why I was running BLC+ Pods on Super Serious night. If I ran RI instead of Wingman I might have stuck with clusters because pods start to suffer badly if you miss 70% or more of the shots, and that puts a damper on their strength against skilled defensive fliers.

 

Using them in a BLC centric flying style takes some getting used to but pods definitely didn't feel weak compared to clusters even at point blank ranges. For high skill levels I very strongly suspect that the BLC-Pods scout is the optimum build.

 

It all depends what you're attacking.

 

If you're fighting another Scout, Clusters (especially double volley) are serious business. Your average DF Scout has 2380 hit points. A fully upgraded Cluster Missile does 878 damage, over a fourth of what you need to kill the Scout. A BLC hit is going to be anywhere from 900-600, not counting crits.

 

With a Cluster Missile, you need to land 2-3 BLC hits to kill another Scout. Without a Cluster Missile, you're going to need to land 3-4 BLC's to kill the Scout. Considering you should always be spamming Cluster Missile lock attempts as you try and shoot with BLC's, it's pretty solid at Scoutkilling. If you lock on to a Scout with Clusters, they either take the equivalent of a BLC hit or they burn DF.

 

Compare with Rockets, which will rarely ever hit a Scout unless you're jousting or they are distracted and flying straight.

 

I've been running two different Flashfires, one with Clusters and one with Rockets.

 

The Rocket one (which I used in Super Serious) definitely can melt Gunships and Minelayers faster, but even then, the best Gunship and Bomber pilots rarely let you park and center behind them. Most of my hits against Drakolich's Razorwire were high-deflection with BLC--I rarely got any Rocket hits on him. He reminds me of

.

 

The Cluster Missile one, which I run on TEH, still kills lots of Bombers, but can also threaten and harass other Scouts much more efficiently.

 

EDIT: What Verain said.

Honestly the idea that Most missiles SUCK for the current meta besides Clusters. IS spot on...

Quads and pods is unquestionably the highest damage build in the game, the most burst. But it also has targets that are almost dead to it, such as charged plating bombers...

 

I'd like to officially dispel this myth. Quad/Pod is actually a counter to CP bombers.

 

2 seconds of Quad fire (1200+ DPS with TT) strips the shields, then you fire 7 rocket pods and it's dead. Super duper easy. Don't forget you have a 15% chance to get a rocket pod that does 472 damage. And with wingman/TT combo there's no chance you can miss a bomber that has 0% evasion. He has to LoS or he's dead.

 

 

Alternatively you could just wait for the CP to go on cooldown and then melt him in 2 seconds via the normal burst method you'd use on any other ship.

Edited March 31, 2015 by RickDagles

I agree that the problem with BLC is pretty much limited to the Sting/Flashfire. Gunships need a powerful weapon like BLC; I'm not so sure that the type 2 scout does, since its survivability is crazy high even without firing any weapons at all.

 

I am sick and tired of Stings with BLCs, because it practically forces me to use them on my own Sting. And I don't like them.

 

I guess really, I wish people would play less according to "the meta" and more according to what they think looks cool or is fun to fly. For instance, my favorite ship to fly is the Bloodmark. And there are many matches in which I do fine in that ship. But when the enemy team is made of type 2 scouts with BLC...

 

Edit: Using RFL on a type 2 scout was mentioned; this is actually my preferred weapon on this ship. My preferences have nothing to do with the meta or with optimization, and everything to do with flavor and fun! You can do fine with any weapon, with practice. But then someone who just unlocked BLC on their brand new type 2 will fly by and laugh at the remains of your ship in their rearview.... it's just not right.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Ymris

I'd like to officially dispel this myth. Quad/Pod is actually a counter to CP bombers.

 

It's not a myth.

 

Here's a quick question: when you are on a charged plating bomber, do YOU normally die to quads and pods scouts? I know I very rarely do (only if they have a lot of support), because I find it reasonably easy to minimize the number of pods and the number of effective quads that can hit me on a node. Drako also doesn't have this issue on his bomber. Do you on yours?

 

The reason burst is so much better at this is simple and twofold: it ignores armor, and fires at any deflection.

 

2 seconds of Quad fire (1200+ DPS with TT) strips the shields

 

Every shot hits?

 

then you fire 7 rocket pods and it's dead.

 

Every rocket pod hits for 5 seconds?

 

Super duper easy.

 

Do you die on your bomber to this seven second TT combo? Don't you fly and variable boost and break attack angle?

 

And with wingman/TT combo there's no chance you can miss a bomber that has 0% evasion. He has to LoS or he's dead.

 

Lets start with 95% accuracy based on a bitout of closest range. Then lets add TT (+10%). That takes you to 105% accuracy. If you can hold this for five seconds, yes. If your target is 5 degrees off center, you drop to 85%. If he's 10 degrees off center, that's 60% accuracy. Obviously pods are effective against bombers, but when you are on YOUR bomber, do YOU tank five seconds of them routinely, on the shield arc you just lost for bathing in quadstream?

 

Alternatively you could just wait for the CP to go on cooldown and then melt him in 2 seconds via the normal burst method you'd use on any other ship.

 

I mean, my experience has been that a CP bomber is a reasonable effective counter to a quads and pods scout- as in, it makes the scout need support to take a node, which can give my team time to back me up.

Stuff

 

1. When you are on a charged plating bomber, do YOU normally die to quads and pods scouts?

Yes, when the Quad/Pod scout is good. Otoshi melts a good chunk of me before I can even hit the buff for CP. Latish on Shadowlands does the same. If I do happen to hit CP in time, they just fly away and do something else and then wait for the cooldown. But most of the time they can kill 80% of my hull with the Quad/Pod combo and then finish the rest with 2 pods. The problem isn't that the build is bad, it's that the build is hard to use. There aren't many people that can pull it off properly. Patience, aim, and timing are necessary.

 

2. The reason burst is so much better at this is simple and twofold: it ignores armor, and fires at any deflection.

Yes but the massive weakness is that you are super exposed to mines because you have to get so close. 1 seismic hit nearly spells death.

 

3. Every shot hits?

Almost all of them, yes.

 

4. Every rocket pod hits for 5 seconds?

Yes and sometimes you get huge crits which makes it faster.

 

5. Do you die on your bomber to this seven second TT combo? Don't you fly and variable boost and break attack angle?

I think you are too focused on this 7 second combo, it's not really how it happens most of the time. It's just an option. You can also beat the cooldowns as I mentioned. It takes a lot of LoS skill on the part of the bomber to avoid dieing during those exposed 11 seconds. The bomber pilot actually has to out play the scout pilot here. Say you gut him pretty well during those 11 seconds but he escapes with 20% hull? Great, now finish him with 2 pods even with his CP back up.

 

6. Lets start with 95% accuracy based on a bitout of closest range. Then lets add TT (+10%). That takes you to 105% accuracy. If you can hold this for five seconds, yes. If your target is 5 degrees off center, you drop to 85%. If he's 10 degrees off center, that's 60% accuracy. Obviously pods are effective against bombers, but when you are on YOUR bomber, do YOU tank five seconds of them routinely, on the shield arc you just lost for bathing in quadstream?

 

With Wingman that's actually 125% accuracy for the pods and 115% accuracy for the Quads. Shooting into a 0% evasion target means you can easily afford to shoot 5 degree off centre. I'd rarely shoot more than 5 degrees off center anyways. But that's what makes it a somewhat difficult build, you have to be accurate.

 

 

7. I mean, my experience has been that a CP bomber is a reasonable effective counter to a quads and pods scout- as in, it makes the scout need support to take a node, which can give my team time to back me up.

 

Right, well we can agree on that point but it is certainly not the hard counter people claim it to be. To say that Quad/Pod is useless or 'dead to' CP bombers is way off. There are 3 ways to kill the CP bomber:

 

 

A - surprise him before he pops CP, then finish him with purely pods once he pops CP

B- wait for CP to cooldown and then pop him during that 11 second window. finish him with pods if you can't quite finish him in those 11 seconds

C- use the mostly hypothetical 7 second scenario

 

 

 

Overcharged Shield/Engine to Shield converter is much much harder to kill because it takes so long.

Edited March 31, 2015 by RickDagles

Didnt read most of this but just by your number 1, it sounds like you are playing CP bomber wrong.... You shouldnt be WAITING to pop CP, you should be popping it, and then when it goes down playing EXTRA careful for like 10 seconds, and then Popping it again, unless I am playing it completely wrong which I could be, but I never have problems with Quads and pods honestly... (Pods and Burst though.... they hurt).

I don't have anything to say about BLC's but I'd like to talk about Charged plating Bomber vs Quad/Pods Scout.

 

How to engage a Quads/Pods Scout as a Charged plating Bomber.

 

- Your win conditions are landing 2 Siesmics or 1 Interdiction. This is what you are looking to do when fighting the Scout.

 

- Bring the fight to your Interdiction Mine, one of the best ways to do this is simply Death roll with the Scout right on top of one, eventually he has to leave or will hit it. Death rolling vs any Scout with Pods makes it almost impossible for him to land a Rocket Pod.

 

- Don't do circles around a satellite vs a Scout, this will get you killed almost every time, instead do short burst boosts and hard banking turns to stay close to your mines. The normal drop a mine and drag the target all the way around the Satellite into the Mine is a great way to get yourself killed vs a Scout. (It's great and against Strikes and Bombers though)

 

- Because the Scout doesn't have Burst Lasers get right on top of him you want to fight at 500m, charge the Scout and then start that Interdiction Mine Deathroll.

 

- Alternate Mine drops, the Quads Scout will be firing much faster at you and as such often just gets free mine kills for it dropping both at the same time is a really bad way to ensure you have to live an extra 15 seconds with no Mine protection.

 

- Drop Mines while banking, this makes it much less likely that your mines fall right into the incoming fire of the Quad lasers.

 

- Always save 40-50% of your engine power for your 11 seconds of mad dashing around to get charged plating back up

 

- You should be rolling charged plating on cooldown if anything is within 15k as even Ion aoe's still go threw your shields and hit your hull. (Those Ion's aren't much damage but this build is constantly bleeding hull points and every point matters)

 

- Finally use the Charged plating bump as often as you feel comfortable doing. While Charged plating is active you are practically immune to damage from hitting things, by ramming your face into the satellite you can do quick 180 turns that even the Scout can't keep up with, this is especially important vs Burst Scouts as you really don't have long to land your win conditions.

 

 

One last note once you've landed the Interdiction mine if the Scout sticks around just keep dog fighting him you now out turn him and he can't outrun you, at this point you are looking to shoo him off the satellite or land those 2 Siesmics on him. If he leaves you have won this battle, recharge your shields and engines and prepare for the next fight. You just rinse and repeat to hold the satellite as long as you can.

 

Using all these tools it is very easy to win a 1v1 vs a Quads/Pods fight, this fight only gets complicated when the Bomber has to also Los gunships that are shooting at him. It gets even harder if someone is ion AoEing the node to get rid of the mines which are the only thing keeping that Scout at bay.

Bring the fight to your Interdiction Mine, one of the best ways to do this is simply Death roll with the Scout right on top of one, eventually he has to leave or will hit it. Death rolling vs any Scout with Pods makes it almost impossible for him to land a Rocket Pod.

 

That sounds like a really good counter, but what happens when the scout uses retro thrusters, shoots your mine, then shoots pods at you? Meanwhile you are exposed 5750m away from the SAT so his teammates can take easier shots too.

 

Honestly everything you're saying makes a lot of sense and your CP bomber sounds super hard to kill. But I've never played a CP bomber that does any of this stuff as well as it's written on paper. And I have toons on 9 different servers. If I fought your CP bomber 1v1 you would probably best me, but I know I would still be able to take out a decent chunk of hull. And as you've said, hull attrition is a serious threat to this build. I mean you've talked about ion railgun damage being a threat to CP hull. If that's true then certainly 48% shield piercing rocket pods are something to be afraid of also.

 

Even if a well played Quad/Pod isn't a solid counter to a well played CP bomber, I think we can agree that the Quad/Pod is a solid threat and the CP bomber is certainly worth shooting at.

Edited April 1, 2015 by RickDagles

That sounds like a really good counter, but what happens when the scout uses retro thrusters, shoots your mine, then shoots pods at you? Meanwhile you are exposed 5750m away from the SAT so his teammates can take easier shots too.

 

Honestly everything you're saying makes a lot of sense and your CP bomber sounds super hard to kill. But I've never played a CP bomber that does any of this stuff as well as it's written on paper. And I have toons on 9 different servers. If I fought your CP bomber 1v1 you would probably best me, but I know I would still be able to take out a decent chunk of hull. And as you've said, hull attrition is a serious threat to this build. I mean you've talked about ion railgun damage being a threat to CP hull. If that's true then certainly 48% shield piercing rocket pods are something to be afraid of also.

 

Even if a well played Quad/Pod isn't a solid counter to a well played CP bomber, I think we can agree that the Quad/Pod is a solid threat and the CP bomber is certainly worth shooting at.

 

I think you missunderstood the part about fighting on your interdiction mine I didn't mean go fight him off node I mean put the mine down and then fight on the node on that area. You should never leave the node if a Scout is 5-6k off the node and shooting at you that is really easy to line of sight.

 

Yes we can definitely agree Quads/Pods are always worth shooting at a charged plating Bomber, you just need to recognize that you are at a disadvantage. It's the same argument that a Strike fighter can shoot at a Scout but it is at a disadvantage. As long as you're aware of your weaknesses in said disadvantageous fights you know what to watch out for and when to retreat. The best part about playing Scout is you can almost always retreat and no one can do anything about that.