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[SCC]

Making the Thumper an exceptoin from armour damage reduction floor mechanic doesn't fix its issues, not to mention it's a rather inelegant solution to the issue at hand. If it's possible to fix Thumper without making it an exception to the rules, I'd rather have that.
It's more expensive than either Heavy Mortar or Arbalest Autocannon, which are budget medium ballistic guns with defined roles, while Thumper is more expensive and seemingly worse at anything you want to set out to achieve. It could use getting reduced to 8 or 7 OP.

Another issue is that it's just hard to find a spot where you can put the gun without feeling bad about it. Offhand I can mention Enforcer and Onslaught, but to find more than that, not an easy task. Midline ships typically want better, not cheaper guns, so they're out. Legion can do it, but it can also use fighters, like Talons, which can substitute Thumpers and have a longer range, too. Dominator can be built to use Thumpers, but they're rather low range for Dominator's low mobility, and I personally don't like to use Dominators without flaks without mods that add superb small ballistic PD. This is a rather narrow set of circumstances where Thumper might be desirable.

I don't think that Thumper is actually good against fighters, unless it's massed fighters. Against few, it has trouble with insufficient target leading and accuracy. It might benefit from a small projectile speed increase or turn rate increase.

[Grievous69]

@Eji1700
Thanks for bringing up the point about recovering anything and doing good with it as the player, I kinda forgot about that one. As you said, D-mods are a thing that can make enemies easier, so to make whole ships really weak at base is a bit annoying to me. Especially their capitals, because I really like the design of Prometheus MkII, I think it's a great ship with a lot of potential for different builds yet the campaign stats kill it, much like Atlas MkII. I mean what other ship has a large hybrid, let alone two. Both of these capitals need so many hullmods and maxing out flux stats just so they can be not horrible, but then you barely have any OP for weapons. It's so weird liking a ship but feeling bad when you use it. It's not even about challenging myself, I'm just making my life harder for no reason. Burn 6 is really a deal breaker. And yeah I know story points will help with some ships but so will with all the others, so nothing changes essentially.

Re: Rest of the discussions

First, I never said Shrike is bad because the ship is poorly designed, I think it's bad purely because of AI. I'd actually agree with you guys and say it's a phenomenal early game flagship, burn 10 *** yeah. But, in any other scenario that someone else is gonna be piloting it, I immediately hate it. Good point about the pirate variants being better than normal ones, I guess it's not so bad when a ship is vastly changed but the pirate Shrike has one small mount that's different, that's stupid. Either make the AI better or improve the base version.

Lmao @ the comparison between Medusa and Shrike, gotta love dem stats in a vacuum that don't prove anything. One and only thing is the most important difference, Medusa can, wait to hear this, BACK OUT OF A FIGHT. Someone mentioned what other ships enables to shield you back while boosting away from danger. I mean what, good luck doing that in an actual fight. Oh and btw Odyssey has exactly the same things you said no other ship has. Same omni shield, same ship system, same god awful AI.

Thumper has no right being 9 OP without doing one role really well, if you don't count overfluxing yourself as a role. I'm fine with it getting more projectile speed and turn rate, make it a really good anti-fighter weapon and there you go, finally a useful weapon.

[SCC]

Venture - use them as bigger Shepherd, either when you can't get Shepherd or when you reach a stage when you want to consolidate on bigger ships and you still need to do exploration. Unless I'm mistaken it as the same logistic profile as a Falcon, a good point for a utility ship that you can bring in battle. Indeed burn speed is an issue, fortunately Augmented Drivefield or Militarized Subsystem fix that easily. I don't use it often, because I usually do a quick transition from Shepherd to several logistic ships with Surveying Equipment for my exploration needs, but on a few occasions Venture appeared as the solution at hand.

Venture doesn't offer the combination of good cargo efficiency and utility hullmods like Shepherd does. So you aren't getting it for the cargo, because at cruiser speed you want a Colossus; you aren't getting it for utility hullmods, because you already have Shepherds and you aren't getting it for combat capability, because Falcon is just as cheap, without committing you to cruiser burn level.

Also, IMO, thinking about this only in terms of balance or meta-game is preciselly missing the one point that matter. Think of it in terms of gameplay, "there is a purpose for this and for that". Please note I didn't write niche, as the word seems to convey poor value to what has the highest value here: gameplay. I would even go as far as claming: the meta-game viewpoint here can be dangerous as it might restrict one's view to "I want the best", which is indeed an issue in several video game community, especially where PvP fight is involved - and the balance viewpoint is dangerous as is encourage to level everything to a similar playing field.

"The only reason I'm using X is because I want to go with the worst option available" significantly limits enjoyment I get from using X and makes my gameplay experience worse. It's better for me to actually have reasons to go with a more difficult playstyle, other than because I want to increase my e-schlong length.

It does indeed not bring any kinetic damage while the Medusa can bring two LN's. And it does indeed have a slightly worse mobility system. But its still just as fast and with a heavy blaster is bringing better armor damage/DP than a Medusa does. And its less likely to take damage due to its larger shield.

Literally the first thing i mentioned after the stats... But two small kinetics do not kill ships. Flux into blasters does.

It's more likely to take damage, because its shield is worse, its mobility backwards is worse, the ship system is likely to put it at risk and heavy blaster's utility is greatly diminished. Using heavy blaster to overcome the enemy shields is inefficient by default, whereas it takes 0,45 efficiency shields for railgun to deal more flux to you, than hard flux to the enemy. And if you want to use heavy blaster anyway, Tempest is way better at it. Shrike is okay, Shrike (P) is very much decent, but they can't stand up to Medusa.

I shudder to think how you must feel about the Falcon (P) in that case. I think it's fine if sometimes the pirates luck into legit improvements.

It's hilariously overpowered, only somewhat tempered by its rarity. The moment the player finds a blueprint for it, it can replace everything in player's fleet.

[Goumindong]

Have you all like... played with shrikes in fleets?? In the hands of the AI its not that much worse than the medusa at surviving. Yea the medusa is better at backing away but like... you get three shrikes for every 2 medusa. And the medusa is really bad about eating damage on the side of its shields. 120 degrees is not enough to cover the entire front of the ship... let alone when its sliding to center whatever shot its selected to block.

The Shrike is much better than the odyssey at keeping away from enemies. It is still a 100 spd destroyer remember and so does not suffer the 75% reverse acceleration penalty.

The shrike can bring both a heavy blaster for armor and hull cracking and a Sabot pod for shields. Not every ship has to win a missileless 1v1 duel.

[Grievous69]

Have you all like... played with shrikes in fleets??

I could ask the same question to the people defending them. I just don't understand how people can see them as useful when they die faster than fighters. Do you have lvl 20 officers on them or something? That might explain a few things.

I feel like the Shrike is the second Conquest, by that I mean it completely divides the community. But I can understand it with Conquest, it's hard to build right, meanwhile with Shrike it's one build with minor modifications.

[Goumindong]

Faster than fighters? What? Faster than a tempest maybe but like... tempests are really really good and not merely really good. They did slower than Sunders and ain’t nobody got a problem with them.

Sometimes they might get an officer but usually not. Depends on how big things are. If I am deploying 10+ Capitals and cruisers probably not. But if I am deploying less then a few probably get an officer

[Grievous69]

I was exaggerating a bit but it's not that far from the truth. Why would anyone have problems with Sunders when they're the best ship in the game? I don't get it.

[SCC]

Tempest is pretty killy. Medusa is pretty killy. Shrike is kinda killy with its missiles, until it isn't. I might as well get a ship that's always good, instead of sometimes good. Or I could, had Medusa not been super rare for some reason...

[Serenitis]

Shrike is kinda killy with its missiles, until it isn't.

This is the issue with Shrike (and a few other ships). It tends to get itself into situations it can't easily get out of with alarming regularity, and as a result is frequently in the recovery list at the end of the battle.

[TaLaR]

Shrike is kinda killy with its missiles, until it isn't.

This is the issue with Shrike (and a few other ships). It tends to get itself into situations it can't easily get out of with alarming regularity, and as a result is frequently in the recovery list at the end of the battle.

Every ship does that. AI simply lacks foresight to intentionally avoid dead end situations. What does differ is threshold for what counts a problem for particular ship.

But AI will find a way to suicide even essentially un-killable ship.
Exhibit A: 2 beam Auroras vs Paragon. Getting through Aurora's shield require MUCH more time than it needs to safely retreat. Yet Auroras simply don't retreat because Paragon also has high flux (very much intentionally, to exploit this AI behavior).

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOqtFfLmBcs&t=23s

[close]

[Megas]

Whew, Fair and Balanced™. Exactly as I predicted.

If you are being serious, then I agree on being balanced.  Especially since Thumper costs more than Arbalest and Mortar.

20% to 25% of hull off of Onslaught from five Thumpers?  That is exactly how much damage they should do, if not more, especially since those Thumpers struggle to get through shields and armor to get to that point.  I pity the Enforcer that spent too much time chewing through shields and armor with five Thumpers before it can shoot at the chewy insides for the payoff.

EDIT:  Double checking the pic, I see two Thumpers instead of five.  I guess it may be a little on the high side (but still not too overly high) given modern releases' lower-powered calibrations (which feel too low powered at times).  However, two Thumpers on Enforcer is an opportunity cost, either no flak or fewer kinetic/HE guns.

[Megas]

Re: Shrike
Shrike needs more turning speed if it keeps Plasma Burn.  Without Auxiliary Thrusters or skills, it cannot turn fast enough to plasma burn away from enemies when it is time to get out.  Shrike does not have the OP to spare for Auxiliary Thrusters; it is one of the more OP-starved ships.

Plasma Burn is a problem system for AI.  AI kills itself too easily with it.  With Shrike, it may be okay because it is cheap.  With Odyssey, it is unacceptable.  AI cannot use the good Odyssey brawling loadouts because it will burn into a mob and die.

[TaLaR]

AI's main problem with PB is that it's only used to burn straight at enemy. Never to dodge (and get short breather to dissipate flux), get behind an enemy or disengage.

AI Odyssey's idea of brawling an enemy group is to charge with PB into it and get mobbed. Player Odyssey would just kite the group in counterclockwise circle using speed advantage granted by PB.

[Mondaymonkey]

Funny fact: if you just replace Plasma burn for Plasma jets for Shrike and Odyssey... well, became really good in AI hands. Even with no system at all, Shrike is far less suicidal.

So, I blame "plasma burn" to be bad AI shipsystem, not Shrike or Odyssey as a bad AI ships.

[TaLaR]

I think for player piloted Odyssey getting Plasma Jets would be a nerf.
- PB seems to provide more overall speed boost (Odyssey can catch a fleeing Aurora, despite 10 lower base speed) and is more controlled (2 burst charges with fast recovery are better than single long activation + long cooldown).
- While dodging enemy shots with PB may be hard (compared to skimmer), PJ can't do it all (too slow).
- Broadside Odyssey is still able to fire in one direction while using PB in another, partially negating PB disadvantage.

If only AI could use PB properly...