Ok, Having had about a week and a half to play with the updated ship types, I have noticed that the same problem we had with all ships pre-change still applies to the centurions, and to a lesser extend the vultures. with thier speed and infinite boost ability, running is still far too easy, an attacker can drop in, open fire and if he starts to loose, just boost away.

I would like to propose the following additional changes to turbo speeds and energy drains.

1. Make the absolute top speed that infinite turbo is availible at no higher than 210, and that only for marauder or atlas variants.

2. Adjust the amount of drain needed for higher turbo speeds on very light craft in a resonably steady progression. for the centurions, valks and vultures I would like to see the following speed/drain levels:
at 210 m/s - drain 55
at 220 m/s - drain 60
at 230 m/s - drain 63
at 240 m/s - drain 66
at 245 m/s - drain 70

Heavier ships with less acceleration could have slightly higher turbo speeds for smaller drains, because it takes them longer to get up to speed. perhaps a difference of +5 m/s to the drains I have suggested above for the midsize ships, (wraith, maud, hog, hornet) and +10 m/s for the heavy ships (prom, rangarok). To keep them from having higher infinite turbo, I would just increase the range of turbo speeds that have a drain of 55m/s. Thus a warthog would have top speeds from 200 to 215 m/s at 55 drain and a rangarok would have a top speed of 200 to 220 m/s at 55 drain.

thus, the higher your potential speed, the less time you can maintain that speed. Additionally I seriously think that cargo capacity should also reduce significantly as higher speeds become availible, to the point where the fastest ships of each fighter class, (the best valks; the cent 3, IBG cent, and Orion Cent; the Mk3 vulture, Corvus Vulture, and SGVulture) would only have 1 cargo.

The general idea is that the more specialized to speed and agility a ship is, the lower its cargo capacity should be.

I would also like to comment on some specific ships.

The UIT territorial defender - this ship needs a boost in its non-turbo top speed to make it competitive. Perhaps a bump to a non turbo speed of 70?

The Corvus Vulture - still dont have access to this one myself, but the turbo drain definitely needs to go down on it. Give it a drain of around 75 (its 90?)

Orion Centurion - WOW. this is a powerful ship. everything on it balances pretty well to make it a good interceptor, but its just a bit too good. increase the turbo drain on it to 65, and cut its cargo back to 1 or 2cu. or, leave the turbo alone and cut its cargo all the way to 0.

The Centurions in general - way too much cargo capacity on the Mk2 and Mk3 versions, and as i said earlier, the infinite turbo at high very speed is a problem.

Yes.

yes

On the whole, I really like the differentiation in ships that the recent update added. However, like others, I agree that some things are in need of further refinement.

Of special note, I want to second the call to re-adjust the Corvus Vulturis. There isn't much point in being able to go 245m/s if you can only just barely reach that speed just as your battery is empty. Please lower the turbo drain.

If you want to keep it at 90 and advertise it as the fastest ship in the universe, then please make the turbo speed much higher (several other ships can go 98% as fast for much longer), or make a Corvus Energizerus that can power it.

Thanks for listening.

Also, there's you could lower (or up) the acceleration of the ships to balance them too.

i'd say (not limited to just vulture, valk, and cent):

at 190 m/s - drain 50
at 200 m/s - drain 53
at 210 m/s - drain 56
at 220 m/s - drain 59
at 230 m/s - drain 62
at 240 m/s - drain 65
at 245 m/s - drain 68

you may have noticed i listed 190 as the infiniboost. i have a firm beleif that no ship over 190 should be able to infiniboost.

[off topic and flame bait post deleted]

I tend to feel that the larger, heavier ships with lower acceleration need something to compensate for that sputnik, hence a hiigher turbo speed for the same drain as the lighter ships. The fact that it takes them longer to get up to that speed gives the light fighters with much higher acceleration an ample window of opportunity to catch them.
Not a lot higher tho, just move the drain values you have down 1 spot on your chart.

on the much bigger ships about having the same speed as lighter craft do at infiniboost is a problem. you should keep in mind that whoever reaches the wormhole first, and is fully charged will win the chase. such crafts should be at 190 with infiniboost so it opens a bigger and more managable window of oppertunity than there is now.

at this rate a SVG, corvus' vult, and normal vult varients cannot intercept a cargo ship, or any other infiniboost craft even if their life depended on it. it is infact not only restricted to vultures but all non infiniboost craft. the only effective way to kill your target with a non infiniboost craft is waiting at a wormhole and hope they exit the wormhole 4m away.

the drain is very, very harsh, and even if it's lowered will still be somewhat unmanagable. most chases end at the trader running to the wormhole with his infiniboost craft while you are chasing him with your heavy battery trying to fire. when he jumps you come to a complete stop waiting for your heavy battery so you can jump through the wormhole to continue the chase. clearly a fast charge battery is certainly out of the question now with drain, and weapon's energy consumption at the same time.

the key should be superior interception while he's running to 3000.. it doesn't take long for a ship to reach 190 and be safe (infinboost). while you are going at 240 firing weapons and then you run out of energy, so you need to recharge and turbo again at him while shooting, again.

i tested my theory about 2 days ago. i found that i could intercept ships more efficiently by using the warthog mineral extractor. why was it easier to intercept ships you may ask? because it has infinboost. yet this ship goes at 190, while my SVG goes 240, and accelerates _slower_ than my SVG.

then i tried the cent mk3.. you already know what i'm going to type so there's no point in typing about that =P

My agreement here, and I would like to push in for a bit more interesting differentiation for other ships.

Personally, I would love a Warthog with a max speed of 190 or 200, a drain thats a bit unproportional to that (60 or so) and a push in strength that makes it a -very- powerful accelerator. Special treat for players who like the currently over-weight rockets and would like to get back into combat.

I'd love a vulture to match it, perhaps a bit slower than most, but with more power to the engines... *mmmm*

Ok, this makes no sense, the heavier slower ships having a HIGHER top speed than the fighters AND having infiboost just doesnt seem logical at all. The centurion fills it role perfectly, and if anything needs to be changed the drains on some of the other fighters need to be reduced, nerfing the centurion again is a horrible idea, it is supposed to be a small fast interceptor, and being the the lightest (yes I know its not actually, but it was intended to be) fighter would sensibly have the highest sustainable top speeds. Its like saying your mach truck should be able to go faster than my lamborghini. Or are you guys just wanting the days of everyone infiturbos at 200 making any kind of fighting or chasing pointless since they can choose to run away at anytime and not be caught.

I've flown both the short-legged IBG (terrible drain at 70s), the infinitboosting centIII.

I agree with Sput that the centIII, with all its armor weakness, is impossible to catch. Shape made the point early that the CentIII now can catch everything, and nothing can catch a centIII. Tram, I know that chasing tactics play a role, but given two players with equal skills and knowledge, the one flying the centIII is gonna win. And I think that's the way we should compare ships.

I am a big believer in that all fighters should be born equal : i.e. either all no-infinitboost or all infinitboost. The latter we know how badly that works, but at least everybody is on equal footing.

Now, we have 2 fighters (Rune and CentIII) that essentially is uncatchable. I play CTC a lot, and tried various ships in it. Needless to say, the Rune and the CentIII are mandatory if the defenders/attackers are flying infinitboost ships. And if a centIII gets the cargo, I'll give up if I fly any other ship other than the centIII : it is simply impossible to chase *and* then have energy to shoot once you get there. REmember that it takes more than 1 shot to kill anything.

I am bored flying the Rune and will rather fly the IBG (I enjoy the battery management aspects of it). But if there are ships that can essentially run away from me, I really have no choice. And I don't want ot be flying the centIII/Rune all the time just because I want to catch people. It'll get old fast.

My proposal is simply to

(a) tweek the centIII by giving it a little drain : 55s. To compensate, increase its cruise speed to 70 m/s.

(b) reduce drain on some of the now completely useless ships : SVG/IBG/Corv Vult to 60-65s. (I think 65 is fine).

(c) reduce the max speed of "heavy ships" to 180m/s, and the cruise speed to 55m/s. But let them keep the infinitboost.

The idea is to make the playing field level, and to increase the complexity and the richness of combat situations. I hope we can avoid the current problem that can be stated simply as :

>> Infinitboost Fighter craft is not catchable by Non-infinitboost fighter craft, and it is not even worth trying.<<

If it is not worth trying, it's boring.

Holden Caulfield

[Edit] I am trying to avoid a situation where the result of a chase is a foregone conclusion base on ship types. Wouldn't it be nice if the result of a chase *depends* on the combat situation? E.g. I can try to trick the opponent into firing at me a few times to drain his/her battery, so when I run, I can out-turbo him because he/she has carelessly wasted his/her battery? In a situation where one ship is infiniturbo, and the other is not, this possibility will never occur.

Everybody should try to fly a non-infiniturbo fighter to appreciate the complexities of battery management. It's fun.

I do however like the idea of very light, weak, but incredibly fast interceptors. Basically what the cent III is now.

Small and very weak, but very very fast.

There seems to be two real issues here that everyone is focusing on, and as such are likely the major issues at hand. First off, Im fairly sure we all agree a majority of the fighters have way too harsh of a turbo drain. Secondly, and this is the point of contention, people are having issues with the extremely fast ships in ctc, and so far thats the only major gripe ive seen about them. I posted this elsewhere but I might as well post it again, nerfing a ship is not the answer, since itll just get replaced by another. The trick to fixing this is to fix the convoy to make hit n runs impossible, Theres a lot of ideas floatin around but ill just toss mine top ones in no particular order.

1. CTC cargo could be WAY heavier, im talking a doubling or tripling of its current mass, enough to slow any ship down enough its not just gonna waltz on out.

2. Make some type of turbo drain that effects any non-nation players within a certain radius of the transport. (Yes I know this could be an issue with friendly UIT, and havnt really though of a way around it yet)

3. Make CTC transports become available as a mission at the station with a general announcement about it. It would require a person to move the cargo, and as such, hit n run doesnt work so hot on people. I also wouldnt mind seeing the mission giving you a special transport ship that can only dock at pyronis, and cannot eject its cargo. Upon completion of a cargo run your old ship will have been moved to station where the ctc ends up and the special ship would be taken away.

Additional non-turbo speed is a HUGE advantage in dogfights. Right now the valk has no chance whatsoever against a noob in a corvus vult. That really needs fixing.

....mmmm...

I see a problem with all this can't-catch-a-centIII but I-want-a-super-fast-pirate-ship talk...

-the centIII IS the super-fast-pirate-ship, and there is NO way that you can keep your peaceful "prey" from using it. Pirates will never have an innate speed advantage, except over a bulk transport ship. As fast as you can run me down, that is the speed at which I will be running in the opposite direction.. That has always been the way of things in the real world, and in any balanced game-space you'd care to name...

Back when VO was just a glimmer in the eye, the devs had the wonderful idea to make piracy possible in this brave new world. Note the word "possible"... not "easy" or "broken" or "mindless"... the lawful will always outnumber the lawless, except in those special situations that it becomes so mind-numbingly easy that the whole game becomes a pointless bloodbath. Myself, I find that to be a pretty good description of the dreaded "Space-Quake". For those of you just joining us, Space-Quake is DEAD....

....all hail GAMEPLAY

I agree, even if you nerf the centurions, they are merely going to be replaced by the next fastest ship, so on and so forth until we are all doing 5m/sec with turbo drains 100e/sec

The way I see it, the most important chance necessary for the Centurion is a reduction of cargo space so that it while I can get in and out of fights extremely quickly, it can't carry anything away from it. I don't really mind the centurion's infiniboost because of its light weapons load and light armor.

It's the Rune Valk that I'm more worried about. It has infiniboost and has THREE weapons ports and fully 4000 more armor than the Centurion. I think that it should NEARLY have infiniboost, but not quite, so it's an extremely slow drain on a fast charge batt (maybe 52 drain - 125 seconds of turbo) which for all practical purposes, is infiniboost, except for when the valk tries to go through a wormhole.

thats an idea i could live with crippled. The cargo space in the cent is just too high. For all the fighter ships, the valk, vulture and cent, i think 1-3 cargo is plenty.

While I dont think that anything that can infinite turbo should be able to do so over 200m/s, I could live with them having just a minimal drain, 52-55 e/s still allows you to turbo for a long time, but still leaves you at least a little veunerable at wormholes.

CentIII + Rune : 55s drain will be great. Hard to catch, but not impossible.

\me rubs his hands and laughs evilly, and then hugs his IBG.