Maybe if more than 5 adv. gat projectiles/gauss/whatever have come within exploding-range of the missile, the missile will detonate?

That's an idea Sheean... how about the ability to actually target rockets/missles/etc.? Think patriot missle. And no reason that the energy weapons couldn't target also.

The weapons aren't the major problem, IMO. The biggest balance issue is the agility of the valk. It is simply too maneuvrrable in relation to the speed of the weapon set we have. I think it would be uber in the right (wrong) hands whatever its hull strength.

Before the "you gotta have skill" crowd leaps on me, let me say that I've killed valks (with highly rated pilots) in a warthog, vulture, prom, and ragnarok. It can be done, I know. But all my kills against valks were to some degree made with the valk pilot's cooperation. They charged into rockets, issued while ramming, failed to withdraw soon enough, etc.

In a valk, you can dodge almost anything with little or no foresight. Energy weapons moving at 180m/s are slowpokes versus a ship that can plot a 65m/s vector in the blink of an eye. You have to get very close to a valk to be able to hit it before the pilot changes direction. And at < 200m, you're dead to rockets and the whole scenario is academic.

I think the valk's agility should be put somewhere between the warthog and the vulture, and the hull should be *raised* to 12500HP, in effect making it a super hornet. The vulture needs the 500 bonus HP removed to put it at 8000HP. A little tuning of the ships and weapons would increase ship diversity and greatly benefit the test.

As long as the Centurion isn't changed (or is made more maneuverable), cool. Although if you're making a super hornet, you'd better give it 13.5k at least.

I'm impressed - Starfisher actually touched on what I find relevant. If a commodite becomes more rarer, it can balance the game. Great, have less flares on the ships, but I would rather that flares simply were harder to come by. If they are only made when some propriotary electronics, some chemicals and some rare metals (various sectors) arrived at a certain sector, and then even required to be transported to the shops (missions in abundance), even pirates might find them hard to come by and have to resort to do a bit of peddling.

Naturally, interfering with "the order of things" (imposing limits) might result in the test becoming slower - fewer combats and dogfights.

/G

Martinet... that doesn't make sense... It'll make it into pretty much the neutral special ship all over again... I feel that the valk should have a reduced makimum speed, as in the engine max speeds minus ten or twenty. Make it into a formidable fighter if it has a fight, this'll make it weak at pirating while making it a strong defender.

Itani Special should be slow, but maneuvarable(agile) and powerful
Neutral Special Ship should be fast, but unmaneuvarable and merely ok weapons, with much cargo room.
Serco should be fast(They're pirates aren't they?!? let them catch the prey), maneuvarable(see previous), but low hp.(Not made for stand and fights)

I like the idea a lot, but as you are new to the test you might not have seen the recent post by Incarnate ( a developer ) detailing the difficulties Guild has had finding a publisher. While making things player-built would be an interesting and effective solution to the overabundance of everything, its a ton of new code and testing that they might just never get a chance to do.

Still, I'll go post a thread in suggestions after dinner.

Fool, we Serco are not pirates! We merely take what is ours by right! (okay, now back on topic)

Actually, story-wise, we Neutrals are pirates and mercenaries. The Sercos are renowned warriors. Think Sparta. Serco = Sparta. Itani = Athens.
Then the Neutral Territories = those few Greeks that tried to stay independant. Argos maybe, Sicily. Even though everyone got involved in the end.
But anyway, back to the point, the valks agility is the core of the problem. Gets the tactical advantage in every respect. The fact that its' a nation special means that the Itani, therefore, also receive that tactical advantage in every respect. I still maintain that a combat advantage effectively negates all others, thus giving any one nation a clear advantage in combat will spell disaster as far as balance goes.

@Starfisher:
True, I havnt read through all of the archive, nor am I aware of the names of each of the developers.
I commented on the situation with finding a publisher in my original post, as basically I wouldnt invest in Vendetta in its current rendition. If the test is what they present to the publishing houses, then they have better have a VERY detailed plan and some skills selling ideas, because the game is not sellable the way it is now (I have seen equal/better engines and more complete games having the same problems.)
Basically I would advocate content as the driving force for Vendetta, as the only alternative currently is "SpaceQuaking" (i.e. lack of content)

Just my .2 Euro anyways
/G

GTHang: http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3778&page=1

You might be interested ;)