That's all we need... MORE flares in a tube when for the past year people have been asking for less.

Don't give Icarus absolute power! :P
-:sigma.SB

Iceflare/Starflares = Weak and too little ammo.
Sunflares = Stupidly Heavy.

Plus they are ALL too slow. Back pedelling away from a rocket is just plain dumb.

"Plus they are ALL too slow. Back pedelling away from a rocket is just plain dumb."

But it's *so* much fun! It makes dodging flares feel a little like bullet time :)

Back on topic:

Nya13 I never recommended making Sunflares available at level 0 or did I suggest that iceflares or yellowjackets would become the primary weapon; quite the opposite as a matter of fact if you read my original post.

If this suggestion ever was implemented, I would also like to add that it would be good to limit the availability of said iceflares, yellowjackets, (gatling?), so that noobs would have to do some exploring to find them. The starting station would probably only offer the plasma mk II, but perhaps the barracks station one jump away would have yellowjackets and iceflares, and the research station would have the basic gatling. That would also lend a little variability to different stations even at starting levels.

This would solve the problem without changing the weapons...

have a button thats says "Show All" when pushed it shows ALL weapons available at that station in gray (meaning you cant buy them but you can drool over them and level to see them) and the button that said: "Show All" now says: "Show Available"

This would then make it so there are no UBER weapons AND us vets could see what levels are required to get that weapon/item so we know what to work for.

there thats my 2¢

I really think it would be great with the new weapon tweaks if the devs would consider a *license requirement* re-balance.

I also thought this would be a good place to talk about the plasma cannon HK, which imho is a little unbalanced compared to other newb weapons at its level

Take a look for yourself:
http://www.vo-gate.com/mediawiki/index.php/Weapons:Table

You have 3 types of noob blasters; the plasma cannon, the ion blaster, and the phased blaster. In general, plasma cannons are slow but hard-hitting, ion blasters are rapid firing with a high dps, and phased blasters are fast but effecient.

Unlike its sisters, the plasma cannon HK (available at 1/1/0/0/0) really performs more like an improved version of the phased blaster (available at 1/2/0/0/0). It has the same shot velocity, energy usage, fire rate, *and* it hits harder and does more damage per second. The only redeeming quality of the phased blaster is that it is 200kg lighter, which doesn't seem like enough to justify a whole extra license level.

I would recommend tweaking the plasma cannon HK so that it preforms more like its sister plasma cannons. It could still be better than the mkII and mkIII in the same respect, just not to the same magnitude. Right now, the plasma cannon HK is pretty much *the* blaster that noobs use, and I think there should be a tradeoff between plasma cannons, phased blasters and ion blasters.

This could be done by either bumping up the required license of the plasma cannon HK to 2/2/0/0/0 or slightly nerfing its velocity to 145 m/s, upping its damage to 450, upping its energy to 10/shot, and increasing its fire delay to 0.23 seconds. Right now it holds too many advantages over all other types of blasters at its level.

"Perhaps they will find they are naturally good with rockets or they just like the way missiles look and work on getting better missiles."

--The thing is, compared to the plasma cannon, everyone is going to think they're a natural with rockets.

This is a great idea, and I'll post here to bring it to the attention of the devs. Ah-hem. Seriously though, this would do a lot for the tedious first few levels.

well, if you make the iceflares and starflares a true secondary wep, one designed to put your opponent offbalance, not to kill them, then they can be very useful.

However, FOR that to happen, they would need speed on par with jacks and screamers, and a bit more ammo, you could even drop the damage to be on par with the ammo upgrade, so that they're like concussion missiles, small amount of damage, but the effect is enough to get in a number of blaster shots.

I'm glad the iceflares finally got re-balanced...

But I still think yellowjackets (or possibly fireflies?) and iceflares would make great level 0 weapons to show off a few different weapon types right off the bat.

And I still think that the popcorn guns should become available around 2/2, 3/2

And that a nerfed version of the basic gatling cannon (2x spread?) would make a great level 0 L-port blaster.

I definitely think that there should be a steady progression of items when leveling up, but also that the player should be presented with a few balanced options from the beginning. Price can also be a limiting factor here. At least the newb will know that yellowjackets, rockets, and the gatling cannon even exist, and that they can be bought as soon as afforded.

Again, let me point to my "kid in the candy shop" example... there's nothing quite like a "woah, look at all the cool stuff I can't afford" to get a new player on his feet earning credits.

Of course I may be wrong, feel free to disagree... this is just my take on one aspect of VO's opening game.

Back when a1k0n "fixed" missiles, yellowjackets and fireflies were deadly. Too deadly. Now, they're back to "we don't ever hit anything". I believe I've already recounted my story of firing a yellowjacket from 0m/s at a non-moving bus from 300m away and having it miss. Perhaps just a little boost in homing-missile efficiency. I know it's a slippery slope- too much, an this game becomes a boring "let's spam the bots" game; too little, and nobody ever uses homing missiles (like now, with the exception of the Gemini and the swarms). But it would be nice...

As for levels, I agree with Phaserlight 100%.

This is going to make me sound like one helluva n00b (not the Genka species =p), but I actually use Stingrays for fighting bots (DenTek collectors are really the only things I use them against though, since using them against anything smaller is overkill and anything larger is like shooting an elephant with a spitwad).

I use Stingrays for Queens (the old type that's going to be phased out, tho), but apart from that, I agree they are just not that good. An Artemis Collector dodges them about 1/3 of the time, that should tell you something...

So I concur: make the Fireflies, Yellowjackets and Stingrays newbie weapons, and move the Iceflares down a License. I remember as a newb seeing little weapon choices, and then, when I finally saw a weapon other than a beam, I also noted I needed both more Licenses and a different ship altogether (which in turn required more Licenses) to use it and going "Oh, man...."

Stingrays have the most damage per tube of any homing weapon. So if you're sure you can get 100% hit (which with Hive Queens, Levis, Cap Ships, etc. is fairly easy), Stingrays are the best. And since they have no prox, they always do 100% damage to the target. IMO Stingrays are currently the best bomber weapon in the game.

Here's the damage per tube of all ammo weapons:
Screamer: 48000
Rail MkII: 48000
Rail MkI: 42000
Stingray: 39200
Chaos Swarm: 34000
Locust Swarm: 30000
Rail MkIII: 27000
Rail Adv.: 25000
Prox. Mine: 25000
Jackhammer: 24000
Sunflare: 18000
Gemini: 17100
Yellowjacket: 14400
Starflare: 14000
Iceflare: 12800
Firefly: 7200

Firefly missiles just suck. They should have no license requirements, IMO.

*bumpage*

feed the noobs! Maybe even add three new nation-specific starting weapons? Would create a little variety which is good for first impressions.

I don't know how you manage to remember these threads, Phaserlight, but thank you very much for doing so AND bumping them.

*stamp of approval*

definate /agree with phaserlight on this one, though looking at the table maybe it should be the firefly/iceflare instead of yellowjacket/iceflare... either way, they should be made license 0 so players can fiddle around with them :)