DUST Search - [Feedback] Swarms and Dropships

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.)


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 12 post(s)
ZDub 303 Escrow Removal and Acquisition Dirt Nap Squad. 3044	Posted - 2014.06.10 18:32:00 - [1] - Quote 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'
ZDub 303 Escrow Removal and Acquisition Dirt Nap Squad. 3048	Posted - 2014.06.11 00:44:00 - [2] - Quote CCP Logibro wrote: The Assault name on the Swarms is flexible. Main point is we're taking away the current assault swarms and replacing them with something else (Tactical I'm partial to, Breach I would prefer to leave for a single shot version). Idea with the new swarms is to make them faster, but also less agile so that a dropship pilot that's on the ball can better maneuver to avoid them. The standard swarms will be shorter range but higher damage, more suited for taking out ground targets. I forgot to mention I'm also looking at lowering the lock on times If you wish to reserve the breach and tactical swarm variants for other ideas but still wish to maintain this idea of adding in a longer range and less maneuverable missile. An easy solution would be to change standard swarms to your new idea while making the current standard swarms the assault variant. Something along those lines. It keeps the nomenclature consistent while still implementing the ideas. Just a thought at least.