DUST Search - [Feedback] Swarms and Dropships

ZDub 303 wrote:

Alena Ventrallis wrote:

Assault swarms should be fast, short range missiles. ADS only counter to swarms is to outrun them. That's the thing people don't understand about fire and forget weapons. The less effort needed to use, the less reward. So make assault swarm missiles move as fast as installation missiles, but they only fly up to 300m. This can be said to be because they have been modified to burn the fuel faster, giving increased speed but drastically lower flight time, on account of running out of fuel far faster.

This is balanced, because an ADS can stil use speed to escape these swarms. But rather than escaping the swarms by moving faster than them, he escapes by outranging them faster. Meaning an assault swarm can apply its DPS easier than now, at the cost of being outranged far quicker. There should be a tradeoff over the normal swarm launcher for using the assault, and missile max range is a good place for it. Especially considering assault generally means higher DPS, less range (with a few aberrant exceptions, like the SMG, which need fixing.)

Along these same lines as Alena is saying.

Logibro, please strive to be more consistent with the current nomenclature in the game. All light weapon assault variants are shorter range and higher rate of fire.

Your proposed longer range and slower missile variant would better fall under either the breach or tactical variant name. As Rattati has been trying to fix with the AR. The idea of a slower and short range variant is fundamentally bad design and Rattati has already proposed reworking the Breach Plasma Rifle into a longer range weapon than the Assault Plasma rifle, which is good. This should be translating to sidearms and AV, try to make it so:

Assault Variant should be high damage and short range
Breach should be higher damage at slightly longer range at the expense of missile velocity
Tactical should be lower damage but very long range.

Very basic kind of spreadsheet here with 'proposed ideas'. Numbers are likely unbalanced but just for general idea.

Swarm Launcher variants 'proposal'


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 12 post(s)
Jaysyn Larrisen OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 1102	Posted - 2014.06.09 14:36:00 - [1] - Quote I'm a long time AV specialist and have been looking for some adjustments to the Swarms vs Vehicles for a while. Several good points brought up by folks and I've got my own thoughts I've been mentioning to folks for a while. 1) Confirm the Swarm dmg vs armor on DS and correct that first (credit to Judge Rhadamanthus). 2) Swarm variants. I saw the comments on perhaps buffing the Assault variant with faster missiles and increased lock on and shave a bit of alpha damage. I would take it a bit of a step further with some possible swarm variants: a) Anti-Air specialist variant. Increased lock range (300 m), increased lock time (roughly 30% increase), significantly increased effectiveness against DS and less against ground vehicles and turrets. b) Anti-tank specialist variant. Decreased lock range to 75m, no change to lock time, ammo clip reduction, significantly increased damage vs ground vehicles / turrets and limited effectiveness vs. DS. 3) Increase all swarm launcher missile flight time by 25%. 4) Not sure how to do this but toning down the "fly around 90 degree corners" aspect. This makes positioning much more critical for the swarmer and coupled with the increased missile speed it's makes a good match for AV vs Vehicle players. "Endless money forms the sinews of War." - Cicero Skype: jaysyn.larrisen Twitter: @JaysynLarrisen
Jaysyn Larrisen OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 1102	Posted - 2014.06.09 20:31:00 - [2] - Quote Judge Rhadamanthus wrote: Jaysyn Larrisen wrote: a) Anti-Air specialist variant. Increased lock range (300 m), increased lock time (roughly 30% increase), significantly increased effectiveness against DS and less against ground vehicles and turrets. This would not work. 300m is half the map. More on most. That is the return of redline swarms. It was a disaster before, and would be again. Remember swarms track. No player should have a weapon that tracks its target and can fire that weapon at the objectives from the redline. Fair point. You'll also note that I think the tracking needs to be toned down; in fact, if I had my way i would have you keep the target in the reticule brackets to gain max (or possibly any tracking). That's where the moderately increased missile speed would come in. I would say that no matter the case If you don't increase the lock range then the missile flight speed clearly needs to be increased by a serious margin. Quick side note...I have and more than one dropship directly over top of me just outside the vertical lock bubble raining death down so there you can create safe zones for pilots via altitude, it's not just about parallel distances. My basic concern is that the DS is the single most difficult entity to deal with on the battlefield. There are limited tools available to the Devs to bring some parity to the fight and I appreciate their effort with this. "Endless money forms the sinews of War." - Cicero Skype: jaysyn.larrisen Twitter: @JaysynLarrisen
Jaysyn Larrisen OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 1104	Posted - 2014.06.10 23:49:00 - [3] - Quote Folks, really good discussion. One think i would offer is they at the Assault Swarm Launcher (or whatever we call it) shouldn't simply outclass the base model and we call it good. * Quick note, I'm assuming that the basic changes discussed by Logibro for the base model swarm will occur. These comments are more aimed to the variants. Tactical (or Specialist) - increased range out to approx 250, increase lock time by 25%, decrease damage by 10% Assault - keeps current range, slight decrease to initial lock time by 10%, allow for significantly increase ROF for follow on shots, decrease damage by 10%. Breach - Lowers lock range to 75m, significantly lowered tracking ability (bring it down to about 45 degrees), and approximately 30% increase in damage. "Endless money forms the sinews of War." - Cicero Skype: jaysyn.larrisen Twitter: @JaysynLarrisen
Jaysyn Larrisen OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 1105	Posted - 2014.06.11 01:20:00 - [4] - Quote THUNDERGROOVE wrote: I think they're fine as is. A skilled swarm user can easily kill assault dropships that overstay their welcome and even multiple sets of militia swarms are completely able to indirectly kill an ADS by knocking it around. As Judge put it before in a recent video, swarms aren't easy to dodge after they're locked. An ADS can't just fly straight and avoid swarms, one has to do a not very easy maneuver and avoid hitting things. The only balance problems we have with dropships are due to stacked turret skills and vehicle damage mods. Totally disagree with this. If we could easily kill ADS with swarms we wouldn't be having this discussion. Swarm lock (really missile tracking) does need to be toned down, however, it is actually pretty easy to outrun swarms. I've seen it done countless times and it pretty much entails them aligning and hitting the jets. "Endless money forms the sinews of War." - Cicero Skype: jaysyn.larrisen Twitter: @JaysynLarrisen
Jaysyn Larrisen OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 1114	Posted - 2014.06.11 18:08:00 - [5] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: Alena Ventrallis wrote: Assault swarms should be fast, short range missiles. ADS only counter to swarms is to outrun them. That's the thing people don't understand about fire and forget weapons. The less effort needed to use, the less reward. So make assault swarm missiles move as fast as installation missiles, but they only fly up to 300m. This can be said to be because they have been modified to burn the fuel faster, giving increased speed but drastically lower flight time, on account of running out of fuel far faster. This is balanced, because an ADS can stil use speed to escape these swarms. But rather than escaping the swarms by moving faster than them, he escapes by outranging them faster. Meaning an assault swarm can apply its DPS easier than now, at the cost of being outranged far quicker. There should be a tradeoff over the normal swarm launcher for using the assault, and missile max range is a good place for it. Especially considering assault generally means higher DPS, less range (with a few aberrant exceptions, like the SMG, which need fixing.) Along these same lines as Alena is saying. Logibro, please strive to be more consistent with the current nomenclature in the game. All light weapon assault variants are shorter range and higher rate of fire. Your proposed longer range and slower missile variant would better fall under either the breach or tactical variant name. As Rattati has been trying to fix with the AR. The idea of a slower and short range variant is fundamentally bad design and Rattati has already proposed reworking the Breach Plasma Rifle into a longer range weapon than the Assault Plasma rifle, which is good. This should be translating to sidearms and AV, try to make it so: Assault Variant should be high damage and short range Breach should be higher damage at slightly longer range at the expense of missile velocity Tactical should be lower damage but very long range. Very basic kind of spreadsheet here with 'proposed ideas'. Numbers are likely unbalanced but just for general idea. Swarm Launcher variants 'proposal' I like your idea, Zdub. I do recommend taking a look at the tactical variant having increased missile speed. If you are locking at long rang but don't increase the missile velocity the DS will be able to move out of range before you can get your next volley off. "Endless money forms the sinews of War." - Cicero Skype: jaysyn.larrisen Twitter: @JaysynLarrisen