As a dropship pilot and tanker, I will agree to leave forge guns alone, if I get my advanced/proto vehicles, and get my powergrid skill to give +% pg again. Until then, it's too OP.

I say leave the damage and splash how it is. Make it have a 10 sec charge up time. That much power coming out of so small a weapon should take a long time to generate.

10 seconds and leave the splash on it? i liked your post up till that

I want it to be effective as anti-materiel, which it should be good at. But not at such a fast firing rate.

What would you have done?

This topic just needs to die. There is nothing wrong with the forge gun. It hardly changed since Codex and now all of you are complaining about it. Before someone brings up forge sniping calm down it's no big deal. Someone found a good way to kill/ protect a point with a gun that was used for mainly AV, how is that op? It has its drawbacks (can't do solo, no ads, heavy suit) It has its counters ( snipers, dropship full of heavies, railgun, counter forge gunner, orbitals). I think for something to be OP it needs to have little to no counters and forge guns DO have counters. For a well coordinated team I don't see how a forge gunner is a problem, if you or your team can't kill him then you deserve to be killed by it.

Did you even read the OP or anything said so far? were not calling for a massive nerf or anything that would change the AV potential of the weapon, and if we do hint at it we dont want a crazy nerf, were trying to balance it and give it a definite roll. Yes, we agree the forges are mostly balanced and it is the poor excuse for the current tanks that are the promblem. Yep, we got that.

However, your making it sound like its hard to cope with the disadvantages of the forge, all you have to do is get up high on the map and YES, IT MAKES AN IMPACT!! One forge gunner can hold down an objecitve by himself, with no support other than someones uplinks. The only way to get him is to use a dropship, which duh wont wonk bcuz he has a forge gun or to snipe him wich is not always possible in citys and impossible when they have multiple armor reping hives. If you get rid of the splash it would fix the promblem, its hardly a nerf to an AV weapon

I don't see how removing the splash would do anything. Compared to the plasma cannon the forges splash is **** but do you see anyone using the plasma, no. The splash is not the problem. Removing the splash will do nothing but hurt any forge gunners chance of living a fight against anything. Even if you do remove splash people would still ***** about it if you manage to get a direct hit. If you say remove the splash on the forge because it can blow up a tank then take the splash off ANYTHING that can kill a vehicle just to make it even. So that's Mass drivers, railguns, missiles, orbitals, flaylocks, and locus grenades.

The Forge Gun is fine just the way it is! Don't believe me just ask CCP.

Better yet go try it for yourself!

If you really think using the FG in any way, shape, or form is easy go do it! I'm gonna tell you right now you are in for a big surprise!

Kill the assault variant. Just delete it from the game. The other FGs are fine, breach is the most balanced imo.

-XOXO

Kill the assault variant. Just delete it from the game. The other FGs are fine, breach is the most balanced imo.

-XOXO

whats wrong with the assualt?

no

I hate you guys. I see thread after thread of saying, "Let's talk over how to balance vehicles," but what they really are is, "How can we balance AV against HAVs?" Yeah, let's make forge guns balanced to a vehicle that is able to utilize cover and has 2-3x the health of a dropship. Let's just forget about those poor bastards in the sky, because they don't matter.

Personally, i think the Forgegun is mostly balanced considering we only have standard HAVs vs proto AV.

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.

How about leave the blast radius but make the effect of the radius only effect shielding aka flux type effect, thus only a direct hit can kill infantry but it can still do damage to shielding.

why? its an AV weapon, it doesent need to penitalise infaintry, it shouldent be good at everything like the flaylock was. Give a reason why it should!

If a rail gun on a tank is pretty much the same as a large forge gun
will the proposed BM mod to the FG then be applied to the Rail turret/?
Only splash with shield damage?
Because isn't the rail tank supposed to be AV?

What do we want forge guns to be like?

Very low charge time makes it have higher DPS than breach, and vanilla FG obsolete. You must have seen it getting ridiculous kills. With high splash radius you can spam shots every 2 seconds for easy kills. No holding charge isn't really a concern or a way to balance the gun as most people say. Being a heavy either. Actually being a heavy is awesome because snipers can't kill you, and ypu can OHKO them so easily. And lol running for cover tanks.

-XOXO

can they just increase the cost of forge guns like they did to vehicle turrets? make them cost between 300k and 500k isk.

and get rid of holding charges