Just Bad
Crux Special Tasks Group
Gallente Federation
34
   |
Posted - 2012.07.31 15:44:00 -
[1] - Quote
THE PROBLEM
Blasters appear to be lacking in appeal - all I see these days are Railgun drivers with the occasional Missile Launcher tank throw into the mix. If I see a Blaster tank usually it's the one I've called in hanging off the bottom of an RDV or someone else trying a militia tank out. So I decided to do some comparisons between Blasters and Railguns the widely accepted king of tank - tank warfare.
On paper it looks like Blasters should be king, Ions (Seriously, the bestest are always Neutrons, down with naming them Ions! Boo Devs!) doing 650DPS (975DPS in a Marauder) and the top tier Railgun working out at 500DPS (750DPS in a Marauder) assuming there's no delay from the user in winding up for following shots.
Since the rate of fire of the Railgun is limited we'll work from that and compare damage per volley to what Blasters achieve within the same period of time. Bracketed figures are for Marauders.
Volley ---------- Time passed --------- Railgun damage -------- Blaster damage
1st ------------- 0.8 sec ------------- 1,900 (2,850) ------------- 520 (780)
2nd ------------- 4.6 sec ------------- 3,800 (5,700) ------------- 2,990 (4,485)
3rd ------------- 8.4 sec ------------- 5,700 (8,550) ------------- 5,460 (8,190)*
4th ------------- 12.2 sec ------------- 7,600 (11,400) ------------- 7,930 (11,895)*
5th ------------- 16 sec ------------- 9,500 (14,250) ------------- 10,400 (15,600)*
In theory it takes more than 8 seconds for a Blaster to deal the same damage that the Railgun has over the same period of time. That's before you consider the DPS drop that Blasters suffer starting between the second and third volley from the Railgun. Even with favourable starting conditions for the Blaster tank assuming the Rail tank has unloaded and missed a shot the damage advantage they offer either doesn't hold over the sizeable EHP buffers of the higher tier tanks or is unobtainable in practice because of heat issues.
SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO FIX IT
An easy solution would just to be to up the damage output of a Blaster turret but that'd make another large turret that's perhaps too effective against infantry (albeit only infantry within direct LOS because of the absence of splash damage) another would be to remove the heat management mechanic entirely or extend its capacity or sink rate so that when heat management problems do kick in the damage gap is enough against a Rail tank over time that you can justify their use.
With that said I've got another suggestion that may be more appealing. How's about you turn the Blaster weapon systems into more of a fast repeating tank sized shotgun? Lower the rate of fire obviously but buff potential damage to a ludicrous degree _on paper_ and compromise accuracy and the ability to damage projection to range by ensuring the spread has reasonable dispersion.
This will give Blasters a bit more flavour and increase both sides of the risk - reward ratio. Make them truly fearsome up close and largely ineffective at range. If you get the jump on another tank or can have it held down (webifiers please) long enough to close the distance quickly they should melt without a real contest. For infantry range or good cover is relative safety. And should you get caught out in the open or at range in a Blaster fit tank you'd deal pitiful damage and die horribly as a result. I think this would add a nice element of asymmetry for Tank v Tank warfare.
For what it's worth, a couple of side benefits that I can think of that my suggestion to change Blasters may result in -
Muzzle flash no longer severely compromises your ability to put damage down while in first person view.
If small Blasters also have similar characteristics (but far tighter spread) they may provide some contest to Missile Launchers when it comes to anti-infantry work as opposed to what they are now.
So, what are peoples thoughts on this?
tl;dr - Wahh wahh, here's a table with numbers it doesn't look good. Blasters are terrible at the moment. Here's an idea about how you could give us awesome face melting tank shotguns.
tl;dr the tl;dr - Every weapon system should have it's niche. |
Just Bad
Crux Special Tasks Group
Gallente Federation
34
|
Posted - 2012.08.02 11:58:00 -
[4] - Quote
@ The dark cloud - Other than occasionally hijacking a dropship and playing with a Militia one just to see what the control scheme is like I've not really flown dropships so don't feel I can comment much on them. I don't think they should be easy pickings for a tank though unless it's fit specifically for the job. I think once we see how they play on maps with larger play areas and more interesting terrain features we might see how they'll balance up more realistically.
@ Pokey Dravon - Great reply, exactly what I was hoping for with this thread.
One of the main reasons why I suggested they be shotgun like was to make an effect in game that was observable and thus intuitive for the players. They see a bunch of particle effects where the 'pellets' land with a fairly wide spread and they should be able to figure out that they really want to be using this turret type up close. I feel that would be better than having to rely on figures from stats windows giving you optimal and falloff ranges - although doing it that way does have its own merits.
Also maybe using the shotgun as an analogy was doing the idea a disservice. I'd still like Blasters to have a high rate of fire compared to Railguns but I imagine there would be technical constraints to be considered in calculating x number of rays cast per shot y number of times a second. If it'd be practical to implement in game I'd say think more full automatic as opposed to pump action.
Regarding anti-infantry effectiveness I think that all large turrets are already too good at that and need pulled back in that capacity somehow. Missiles are just obscene*, Large Railguns are also effective due to splash, even large Blasters as they are now can put infantry down in a handful of shots if they don't duck in behind cover quickly. I'd much rather see all the large turrets not be great at that job and have a focus on anti-vehicle/installation work and ensure that all the small turrets are effective in the anti-infantry role to fill the gap.
*Although to be fair Missiles out of all the weapon systems while having a niche of their own at the moment (spam and kill infantry:( ) could also do with some love - on the large turret line different types with progressively higher fitting constraints but no benefit just ain't right. But that's for someone else and another thread to discuss in more depth I think. |