well get in here and make some points!! you are a vehical user as well, talk about how it is for dropships. Sadly i never flew i cant confidently speak for you guys :/ i would if i could

I'm down with losing splash radius, **** I'm ok with losing all of it.

I also wish it were harder to score a direct hit, not much harder, but something, cuz I rarely miss :/

Splash damage should only be reduced on the assault variant. It has a low charge up time, so it's pretty OP compared to the other FGs IMO.

Judging by the kill feed you could've fooled me.

However, there is an aspect were the Forge Gun is absurd and too multi purposed. The splash on the forge is okay, it has a balanced strength and blast radius but this splash is abused for holding down objective hacking panels, especially PC. When there is a FG above an objective you simply can not capture the objective, as the splash on the assualt FG kills all hackers. This makes this AV weapon an anti everything weapon, if you are able to kill infaintry it should be a direct hit because it is an anti vehical weapon, it does not need splash to kill vehicals and the idea that it ever did is laughable. This weapon is currently to versatile for an AV weapon, an extreemly effective AV weapon at that. The splash should be removed to define its battlefeild role, it is almost the ultimate tactical weapon when placed above ground, like the flaylock was as a sidearm

Well reasoned commentary. I say, remove the splash entirely- it's just a big railgun, basically a huge sniper rifle, with no real reason to have splash damage. This would make it much harder to use vs infantry, while not gimping the gun for AV use. Additionally, I would be in favor of making all FGs have the assault's drawback- no stored charge, but instead requiring sufficiently excellent aim to time the charged shot. While we're at it, add a high-magnification ADS, because not having it makes working at the high end of the FG's optimal range (300M) impossible. Now you've got a proper long-range heavy AV weapon, devastating against tanks, but very hard to use against infantry. No stored shot will make life easier for dropships (as unpredictable flying will become much more valuable) and generally make the current FG's absurd accuracy/range less easy to abuse.

As we should all know by now, AV and vehicals are going to be changed in 1.5 and most likely 1.6 and will be changed completly. as evident in this post:



So, im going to go through the whole list of AV weapons in different threads and try to collect a non biased collection of feedback the Devs can use to change vehicals and AV. So remember, what we post here is what they may listen to. Ive started a discussion on Plasma Cannons in this thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1145262#post1145262
Also, this link is the AV nade discussion: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=99452
and finally, the swarm launcher discussion https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=101971 Feel free to throw in your thoughtful and reasonable ideas in ethire.

What are your ideas for Forge Gun rebalance?
Remember to ALWAYS give reasons on your ideas, we dont want to give the DEVs crap to read. Put up a convincing argument!!

Personally, i think the Forgegun is mostly balanced considering we only have standard HAVs vs proto AV. With my experience with the end Chromosome Sagaris (ADV level tank) the Forge has not changed by much and is fairly balanced, the damage output is almost fair, tho it does most likely do a tad too much damage, only by maby 300 points, very minor. However, we do not have anything past standard tanks, tho the weapon in scale is not OP, it is currently OP to standard tanks, standard tanks do not stand up well to proto forge guns, they eat them up within a single clip. This is exactly what should happen, it shouldent take much more than a single clip for a proto forge to kill a standard tank. Sadly we are most deffenetly not getting the additional tanks needed to fix the balance issiue, the proto forge will annihilate our standard level tanks for many months to come untill additional, more powerful vehicals are released. Unless the tanks are getting a monsterious buff, we should temporarily remove the proto forge unitll tanks are strong enough to require proto forge monsters.

However, there is an aspect were the Forge Gun is absurd and too multi purposed. The splash on the forge is okay, it has a balanced strength and blast radius but this splash is abused for holding down objective hacking panels, especially PC. When there is a FG above an objective you simply can not capture the objective, as the splash on the assualt FG kills all hackers. This makes this AV weapon an anti everything weapon, if you are able to kill infaintry it should be a direct hit because it is an anti vehical weapon, it does not need splash to kill vehicals and the idea that it ever did is laughable. This weapon is currently to versatile for an AV weapon, an extreemly effective AV weapon at that. The splash should be removed to define its battlefeild role, it is almost the ultimate tactical weapon when placed above ground, like the flaylock was as a sidearm

No offense but stop placing the forge gun under the anti vehicle section
It is not a anti vehicle, it's anti material so yea you were right when you said anti everything. It kills installations, vehicles and infantry. And I hope you know the forge gun hardly kills with splash damage. Most of its kills are by direct damage. Only once in the while you kill infantry with splash and that's only if they are low on health. So again it's not an anti vehicle. The gun is fairly balanced, and if it takes you out in one clip it means that the tank stood still long enough for him to unload a whole clip which is pretty sad cause it takes a while to unload a clip lol. Try being at the end of a forge gun. We usually get help by other forgers. And swarms.

Keep making that argument on how Forge Guns are balanced, there... "Flaylock" Steve...

actually he's right. it's a rare situation when there's only one AV weapon pointing a tank or dropship.

Nine times out of ten there's also other dingbats spamming the enemy with militia swarms and forges, giving enough defensive suppression for assault forges and breach to seem like they're cutting through your vehicle like it's made out of tissue paper. Tank on field means everyone and their brother is hunting for the 200-300 WP that it's worth.

Dropships, I think should be able to take three DIRECT assault forge hits at the proto level.

However, Dropship pilots please bear a couple things in mind:

1: Hovering does not help you. Ever.

2: Flying low, and slow in a straight line means it is trivially easy for me to slap you out of the sky. Practice the maneuvering, and shifting directions fast because once the AV has a bead you need to escape.

3: Afterburners are for escaping the range of forges. I encounter vehicles I have to jump in a jeep to chase because they are, in fact, out of my absolute range. Once you get 1/3rd of the map away you are out of range. add some elevation or cover and you are untouchable.

actually he's right. it's a rare situation when there's only one AV weapon pointing a tank or dropship.

Nine times out of ten there's also other dingbats spamming the enemy with militia swarms and forges, giving enough defensive suppression for assault forges and breach to seem like they're cutting through your vehicle like it's made out of tissue paper. Tank on field means everyone and their brother is hunting for the 200-300 WP that it's worth.

Dropships, I think should be able to take three DIRECT assault forge hits at the proto level.

However, Dropship pilots please bear a couple things in mind:

1: Hovering does not help you. Ever.

2: Flying low, and slow in a straight line means it is trivially easy for me to slap you out of the sky. Practice the maneuvering, and shifting directions fast because once the AV has a bead you need to escape.

3: Afterburners are for escaping the range of forges. I encounter vehicles I have to jump in a jeep to chase because they are, in fact, out of my absolute range. Once you get 1/3rd of the map away you are out of range. add some elevation or cover and you are untouchable.

actually he's right. it's a rare situation when there's only one AV weapon pointing a tank or dropship.

Nine times out of ten there's also other dingbats spamming the enemy with militia swarms and forges, giving enough defensive suppression for assault forges and breach to seem like they're cutting through your vehicle like it's made out of tissue paper. Tank on field means everyone and their brother is hunting for the 200-300 WP that it's worth.

Dropships, I think should be able to take three DIRECT assault forge hits at the proto level.

However, Dropship pilots please bear a couple things in mind:

1: Hovering does not help you. Ever.

2: Flying low, and slow in a straight line means it is trivially easy for me to slap you out of the sky. Practice the maneuvering, and shifting directions fast because once the AV has a bead you need to escape.

3: Afterburners are for escaping the range of forges. I encounter vehicles I have to jump in a jeep to chase because they are, in fact, out of my absolute range. Once you get 1/3rd of the map away you are out of range. add some elevation or cover and you are untouchable.

Very true, with any luck rails get a better buff. This will be brought up in my railgun thread later :)

I am in for a reduced accuracy
I would keep the Splash and radius.

I would most probably give AV weapon a different damage output to vehicle than to infantry. So a forge doing 2000dmg to a vehicle, would do 10%-20% of that to infantry, 200-400. AV nades do zero damage to infantry, it would be logical AV guns don't do full dmg against them.

Against dropship and tanks I would prefer they release proto vehicles and modules, then we can talk balance of that forge gun against them...

I would like the forge gun to remain exactly as it is. Good, high sp tankers are very difficult to kill. Nerf llav's, buff drop ships.

I think travel speed is fine, it can already be tough tracking quick vehicles with the Assault at least. I've always felt the FG needs damage decay outside of its optimal to help dropships out a bit. If they get close, they're vulnerable to full damage, but put some distance between you and you can tank another shot or two.

Maybe adding the tiniest bit of shake to the crosshairs while charging / holding a charge could help make it difficult to use vs infantry, but it would have to be minor to avoid making it too difficult to use vs moving vehicles.

I dont think the FG should be able to hold a charge like a couple of them do, they should all have to time and lead there shots a little like the rail turrets

I know people are probably gonna flame me for saying this but I think AV needs to have damage degradation over travel time.

Something like: (just for example)

100% of damage until optimal
smooth dropoff from optimal until effective at around 40% of damage at max effective.
smooth dropoff from effective to around 5% at the edge of max range.

Railgun turrets should do the exact same damage as std forge guns but have ~40% more range.

In this way, yes you can camp on a high tower and forge snipe all day, but you pay for it in less damage.

This creates a dynamic where if AV can get in closer they can deal massive damage to tanks. Also, dropships can fly out of effective range as well, but if they get close and they arent careful they get pwned hard.

What this does is make it so tanks can get in close with their infantry team mates and AV will need to get into the fray as well to effectively take down a tank. It also gives tankers a chance to retreat if things get dicey.

In terms of variants, I think we need to normalize it a little. (these are just examples, tear me apart if you like, just tossing out an example/idea... its not like these are final numbers)

Breach should have lower range and slightly higher damage.

+40% damage vs std variant
4s charge time
4 round clip - max ammo 16
Splash radius 0.5m
Optimal Range: 80m
Effective Range: 140m
Maximum Range: 280m


Std should remain fairly similar to how it is but slightly faster and more rounds due to range nerf
3s base charge
6 round clip, max ammo 24
Splash radius 1.5m
Optimal Range: 120m
Effective Range: 180m
Maximum Range: 320m

Assault should be a lower DD high splash anti personelle variant. I know we all hate it but it makes sense, esp given that heavies only have two weapons.

It should do something like (at proto)
800 Direct Damage
350 Splash Damage
2s base charge
3.5m blast radius.
8 round clip, max ammo 32
Optimal Range: 100m
Effective Range: 160m
Maximum Range: 300m

Now the range nerf would give a place for a 'Tactical' variant.

Tactical Forge Gun:
Similar damage to std
4s base charge
4 round clip, max ammo 16
Splash radius 0.5m
Optimal Range: 180m
Effective Range: 240m
Maximum Range: 360m

I don't know, just my thoughts from being on both ends. the forge gun is mostly okay, its just that you can sit there and snipe tanks from places even your fellow infantry can't get to. I think there should be a penalty for forge sniping, and the ability to snipe a dropship from 100s of meters away makes them practically worthless.

Decreasing the effective range on AV while making their up close damage very high would create a risk vs reward scenario. Yes you can whittle a tank from a place he can never touch you but you shouldn't be able to sit up there like a god and be untouchable.

On the other hand, if you can get up close and the tanker doesn't see you or can't kill you in time, you should be able to deal a massive amount of damage to a tank.

Most people will probably hate this idea im sure, this is just what i've thought of after being on both ends of AV.