Forums » Suggestions

Better Defense for Slooooow Ships

Dec 07, 2003 Phaserlight link
Celebrim had a fairly lengthy post on ship turrets and the like, I don't have the energy to go digging it up right now, but this has been discussed in great detail.

The Centaur is sufficiently unwieldy that I think it could stand to have one of it's L-ports taken out and the other L-port made into a full 360 turret (with a few blind spots). Imagine being able to fire the adv gatling cannon backwards at a pirate that was chasing you. Perhaps once it is supported you could even invite a friend to ride shotgun, manning the L-port turret.

The Centaur used to be even more of a deathtrap earlier in 3.3, when it only had 1400 armor. The extra 2000 it has now helps a lot, but it's still a sitting duck for valk rammers. As it stands, I'd say your best bet would be to go with either dual mines or dual swarms, since both of those weapons have some potential to hit an opponent that is chasing you. For the s-port I'd choose geminis, since the Centaur's turn rate is so slow you really can't expect to bring a non-seeker weapon to bear on a fighter.
Dec 07, 2003 andreas link
The Centaur isn't all that bad. If you allow Icarus to catch up with you, he is going to get you no matter what ship you are flying. The average pirate I can fight off in my centaur, and Ic never managed to catch up with me. Just jump back and forth between gates, fly a wide circle, drop mines all the time, fly out really far, etc. At some point he is going to loose interest and go for an easier target.
Dec 07, 2003 roguelazer link
The dangerous part is at station. Quite often I'll undock, see no hostiles, plot my course then have Icarus undock and kill me.
Dec 07, 2003 Spellcast link
well that's been IC's style since I've been playing. He's good at using the station to kill people. once there are station defenses and no-fire zones around stations that lock you out if you violate the rules that problem will correct itself :)
Dec 07, 2003 Immortal Q link
It suddenly occurred to me, while getting slaughtered by Icarus in a Centaur (cargo run), that the larger ships should have a better way of firing at targets out of their line of sight - perhaps a chaingun, or some type of point-defense weapon (close range, add a couple blind spots, you're there) Probably make it a large weapon, or assign another weapon slot for large/slow ships. I don't know how the frigate experiment worked (That was before I joined) but as is, fighters will slaughter anything that isn't a fighter. We need more specialization between ships, or even between nations. If you watch/read much SciFi, you'll know that unless there are multiple fighter, the large ships'll take em out without blinking. What do you all think?