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Author Topic: So what's the plan with the Fury?  (Read 8540 times)

prav

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #30 on: July 18, 2022, 04:43:46 PM »

The issue I have with the Fury is that it has so few mounts for its flux that you're heavily pushed into using a Heavy Blaster. Putting something else in the nose turret is just making things complicated for little gain, and often means skipping half your missiles.

Also, unless I'm missing something the variant fits seem pretty bad, so in faction fleets it's rarely carrying its weight.
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Draba

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #31 on: July 18, 2022, 05:30:29 PM »

The issue I have with the Fury is that it has so few mounts for its flux that you're heavily pushed into using a Heavy Blaster. Putting something else in the nose turret is just making things complicated for little gain, and often means skipping half your missiles.

Also, unless I'm missing something the variant fits seem pretty bad, so in faction fleets it's rarely carrying its weight.
Yeah, for some reason whenever I try to mix it up with other weapons and reapers AI doesn't use the reapers nearly as well as it would on an Onslaught/Odyssey.
In the end Fury is best at running around on the sides, swatting frigates/destroyers but there is some really stiff competition for that role (Scarab/Glimmer are both very good).
At old cost was definitely overpowered, for current version 18-ish might be fair but only having M energy is the main limit so new weapons/missiles could shake things up.
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Grievous69

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #32 on: July 18, 2022, 11:10:40 PM »

It was simply too boring to have every Fury build be Heavy Blaster + Sabot Pod, since I already did that combo a million times on high tech ships. That's why I tried some experimenting with the AMB in a small turret but the ship either hangs back or goes in too deep. Now that it's brought up, yeah I'm also not a huge fan of the mount setup. It present itself like you can do a lot there, but is in fact very limited if you want an effective build. It all goes back to my age old complaint of high tech cruisers with only medium mounts, they'll either be frigate/destroyer hunters or rock Heavy Blasters with Sabots. We'll see how much of a difference with the Kinetic Blaster make, but I'm not getting my hopes high up.
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smithney

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #33 on: July 18, 2022, 11:42:50 PM »

That brings up the age old question, what is a valid argument for game balance?  As you noted, the DP cost is meaningless for early campaign, it's just a few supplies here and there.  It only matter at the 240 DP fleet limit.  So what am I usually fighting when I've amassed a full 240 DP fleet? Ordos, Doritos, and end game bounties.  How do I test just the Fury effectiveness with as few other confounding factors?  Just use Furies, aka a mono-fleet.

Perhaps there's a better metric, and I'd love to hear other testing methodologies.   General experience feedback is obviously valuable, but it's hard to place in context given it is presumably with a specific loadout (or set of loadouts) in a specific fleet composition played in a certain way.
Team players like Vigilance and Onslaught are going to have an infinitely worse time mono-fleeting than say Hyperion or Odyssey. A better test would be to assess which roles you want the hull to be competitive at, make up a couple different fleets to fit them in, then make up a couple more where you fit the tested hull's spot with its competitor (and with randos), and finally let your testers try all these against fleets you expect the player will be facing when using this hull and compare the results. The point would be to see whether the tested hull feels weaker than its competitors to the point where the players would prefer not using it so they don't shoot themselves in the foot.

I haven't tried Fury in the last patch, but my guess is that it feels weak without SO or cookie-cutter builds. Mono-fleeting is just an extreme case of wolfpacking, which was Fury's forte back when it was released and I wouldn't be surprised if it's still good at it now. Is it possible that Fury's current problem is that it lacks alternative builds that would feel viable?
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #34 on: July 19, 2022, 07:04:26 AM »

Team players like Vigilance and Onslaught are going to have an infinitely worse time mono-fleeting than say Hyperion or Odyssey. A better test would be to assess which roles you want the hull to be competitive at, make up a couple different fleets to fit them in, then make up a couple more where you fit the tested hull's spot with its competitor (and with randos), and finally let your testers try all these against fleets you expect the player will be facing when using this hull and compare the results. The point would be to see whether the tested hull feels weaker than its competitors to the point where the players would prefer not using it so they don't shoot themselves in the foot.

That's a very good point.  Onslaughts and other slow non-fighter capitals would likely perform better with at least an escort ship each.  Furies are natural wolfpack ships, so a monofleet plays to their strength.

I guess I was thinking about Furies too much and viewing it from the sufficient argument rather than a necessary argument.  If you can defeat end game enemies with a monofleet of a ship, then that ship is at least good enough when compared to the challenges presented by the game.  Might be too strong if it sweeps them to easily, but at the very least it doesn't need to be made better.  This is looking at the point of view of campaign balance as opposed to relative ship balance.  I.e. the campaign should be the balancing point, not ships that may or may not need to be brought down in strength to match the campaign.

The thing about picking a role, you have to pick a reasonable job for the ship to do.  Apogees, for example, have come up several time as a better ship for the DP cost, which makes no sense to me as a comparison, since they're not competitors for the same type of role in a fleet.  Apogees and Furies fly completely differently.  Their only similarities are the fact their cruisers that have similar DP costs. 

It was simply too boring to have every Fury build be Heavy Blaster + Sabot Pod, since I already did that combo a million times on high tech ships. That's why I tried some experimenting with the AMB in a small turret but the ship either hangs back or goes in too deep. Now that it's brought up, yeah I'm also not a huge fan of the mount setup. It present itself like you can do a lot there, but is in fact very limited if you want an effective build. It all goes back to my age old complaint of high tech cruisers with only medium mounts, they'll either be frigate/destroyer hunters or rock Heavy Blasters with Sabots. We'll see how much of a difference with the Kinetic Blaster make, but I'm not getting my hopes high up.

I haven't tried Fury in the last patch, but my guess is that it feels weak without SO or cookie-cutter builds. Mono-fleeting is just an extreme case of wolfpacking, which was Fury's forte back when it was released and I wouldn't be surprised if it's still good at it now. Is it possible that Fury's current problem is that it lacks alternative builds that would feel viable?

The Fury's problem is it's claim to fame is being the fastest base speed cruiser, with a fast mobility system on top of it.  Which leaves you with two options when designing the weapon systems.  Either short range, high DPS for darting in and out (i.e. Heavy Blasters + Sabots to overload in that window), or long range safe but slow to kill kiting beam builds that are either support or all beam fleets.  That is the "standard" high tech play style.  Long range reasonable hard flux is a no go for balance reasons, and low DPS is terrible for darting in and out.  It's the exact same build options the Aurora has.

The short range high DPS build is then further accentuated by safety overrides, as it makes it easier to dart in and out, and gives more flux for high DPS but inefficient weapons.  The long range support build is best done with converted hangar Xyphos, since fighter beams can shoot over friendly ships, and provides 400 equivalent in flux for guns.

What other flying styles does one imagine for the fastest cruisers in the game that can chase down frigates easily or disengage from capitals quite safely with their 360 degree shield pools?  For example, if you add more medium mounts to the Fury, it just becomes an Aurora, and I don't put pulse lasers or phase lances on that ship either.  If you add a large slot, now you've got beams which when combined can start overloading ships (i.e. Tachyon Lance) or you're going for burst (Autopulse, which is akin to Ion Pulsers but with more range), or a real Plasma cannon, which is the Heavy Blaster equivalent but with more range.

What slot layout would people like to see, and how do they imagine it flying in a distinct way from low and mid tech?  Would you be adding new weapons to the energy weapon line up or tweaking current weapons, adding new mount types to it (Large? Balllistic?).  Is this mostly a Pulse laser/Phase Lance/Graviton Beam vs Heavy Blaster issue?  Is this more of an issue about the high tech play style in general rather than just the Fury feeling underwhelming with non-heavy blaster and non-sabot loadouts?
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Grievous69

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #35 on: July 19, 2022, 07:15:59 AM »

It's the exact same build options the Aurora has.
And that was a concern of mine when it was first teased. There's already a number of ships that pretty much have exact same build and design philosophies. I don't mind the Shrike because it's cheap. So either Fury or Aurora needs to change a little bit since imo they're too similar too each other. Bunch of medium energy and medium mounts, 180 omni shield, mobility system. Aurora has the advantage of having a better mobility system that can go backwards, that's it. If the fast high tech ships had more options for builds I wouldn't complain I think, right now it seems weird to have many same options which are basically "punch down" ships.
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #36 on: July 19, 2022, 07:26:40 AM »

AI Aurora can run away with its Plasma Jets system.  The AI Fury cannot.  AI Fury is not smart enough to turn away and burn.  It backpedals like any other regular ship, which is generally not fast enough (without Safety Override).  If AI Fury gets in over its head, it is dead.

As for punching down, we have smaller ships that can deal with small fry.  A big ship that can only punch down well but not its peers is not that great.  People want big ships to deal with everything up to its weight class.
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BigBrainEnergy

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #37 on: July 19, 2022, 08:10:09 AM »

Quote
There's already a number of ships that pretty much have exact same build and design philosophies. I don't mind the Shrike because it's cheap.
The fury really does feel less like it's own thing and more like the middle child between shrike and aurora, but those two ships are far apart enough they don't step on each other's toes even if they use the same weapons. It doesn't help that from an aesthetic standpoint the fury is the ugly duckling of the bunch.
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #38 on: July 19, 2022, 08:12:50 AM »

The fury really does feel less like it's own thing and more like the middle child between shrike and aurora, but those two ships are far apart enough they don't step on each other's toes even if they use the same weapons. It doesn't help that from an aesthetic standpoint the fury is the ugly duckling of the bunch.
It is the Falcon of high-tech, and one of the few ships in the high-tech blueprint pack (instead of locked up in rare singleton blueprints).
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FooF

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #39 on: July 19, 2022, 08:13:25 AM »

What I’m hearing is that the Fury doesn’t have a place because the Aurora exists. The more I think about it, the more I believe this is more of an Aurora problem than a Fury problem. Yes, the Aurora was here first but as a 30 DP rare find (and simply more options on the sprite itself!) it has more leeway for changes than the Fury.

I know I suggested back in, I don’t know 2016/17(?), about making the rear Medium Energy (at the time, now Synergy) into a Large Energy. It would force the Aurora to broadside to bring its heaviest gun to bear, which would be odd/unique, but it would turn the Aurora into more of a high-tech line cruiser. It would also differentiate the Aurora and Fury more now.

The problem, of course, is how you fight a Frigate-speed Cruiser that can endlessly kite with a Tachyon Lance. I suppose the two worst offenders (HIL and Tachyon Lance) don’t deal hard flux so this might be ok for some things, and the fact the Aurora would have to turn to use them. I’m afraid that the Large Mount would become a trap option or at least a point of contention because it can’t contribute to the otherwise forward-facing main battery. Maybe I’ll mod it in and see how it feels.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2022, 08:16:09 AM by FooF »
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prav

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #40 on: July 19, 2022, 08:23:21 AM »

You could remove the Aurora from the game entirely and it would not change my usage of the Fury one bit.
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #41 on: July 19, 2022, 08:24:39 AM »

The medium synergy turret used to be energy, and the medium synergy hardpoint used to be a large missile.  Its system was originally High Energy Focus, and it earlier releases, High Energy Focus was a toggle that disabled shields while it was on.  Aurora was the original Gryphon or Champion before those two ships came along.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #42 on: July 19, 2022, 12:35:33 PM »

It's the exact same build options the Aurora has.
And that was a concern of mine when it was first teased. There's already a number of ships that pretty much have exact same build and design philosophies. I don't mind the Shrike because it's cheap. So either Fury or Aurora needs to change a little bit since imo they're too similar too each other. Bunch of medium energy and medium mounts, 180 omni shield, mobility system. Aurora has the advantage of having a better mobility system that can go backwards, that's it. If the fast high tech ships had more options for builds I wouldn't complain I think, right now it seems weird to have many same options which are basically "punch down" ships.

What I’m hearing is that the Fury doesn’t have a place because the Aurora exists.

I kind of view the Aurora as the player ship version of the Fury.  Mostly because "punching down" ships punch up by wolf packing (i.e. multiple Furies for every one of bigger ships, having eliminated the smaller escorts quickly).  At 20 DP per ship, Furies are much better at getting bodies on the field than 30 DP Auroras.  In a DP limited situation, I'll typically take 3 Furies over 2 Auroras.  Also more benefit from converted hangar (i.e. non-SO builds).

The situation where that doesn't apply is where I only have 1 of a resource, namely player piloting.  At which point player in Auroras has more of a multiplicative effect than a player in a Fury.  An Aurora can pack enough sabots to knock out the shields on Capital while still running 2 Heavy Blasters and an Ion Pulser.  So if I was running a high tech cruiser fleet, one composition might be 1 Aurora (player), 9 Furies, 2 Hyperions.  Overall fast, mobile playstyle where one ship distracts a capital each, and the rest eliminate escorts and then focus efforts on the capital(s).

As for too many punch down style ships, if a ship is fast, it basically has to be a punch down style.  If it's fast, it can catch smaller ships, and if it's a cruiser, it has cruiser grade firepower and can kill smaller ships quickly.

So what do we have for a breakdown on combat cruisers in the current release?

Fast, punch down style?  Fury (90), Aurora (80), Falcon (80), all with mobility boosts and no large mounts.
A mid-speed Eradicator (70), which has solid burst in AAF or pursuit in Burn drive, and no large mounts.
Slow "punch up" ships which include Dominator (30), Champion (60), and Apogee (60), each with 2 large mounts.

Which leaves the ugly duckling of the Eagle that is both slow (50) and no large mounts, although Alex is dropping the DP point to 20 it sounds like, so we'll see if that helps.  I mean 3 or maybe 4 out of 8 being fast combat cruisers doesn't sound crazy when the only other option is being slow.

As for tweaking mounts, there's not much to be done in that space, unless you just want to add longer range weapons.  For dash in/dash out, and vent playstyle, sabots are pretty optimal as they are the only burst kinetic missiles available.  Similarly, Heavy Blasters are essentially a large weapon in a medium mount.  Of vanilla guns, only Plasma Cannons and Mjolnir cannons have higher DPS.  Only Hellbores and Tachyon Lances have higher penetration.  Being able to slap on a Plasma Cannon basically just means 100 more base range and missile/fighter pass through (which is a really nice perk admittedly).

As far as I can tell, Heavy Blasters were designed such that fast high tech ships didn't need a large energy mount and the extra range that potentially entails. As for burst (like Autopulse), the current Ion Pulsars can fill that role pretty well.

To be honest, the only other thing you can do with fast energy mounts is beams, which are terrible in isolation and merely OK if massed.  Although even massing them can be hard since ships block each other.  That one tournament with beholders (i.e. slow ships with tactical laser drone fighters, not unlike Xyphos) was good because they all shot through each other and could focus fire better as well as shoot down missiles together.

Actually, that makes me wonder, instead of High Scatter Amplifier halving range and giving beams hard flux as a hullmod, what if Alex doubled down on the long range beam spam and made a hullmod such that all beams gained allied ship passthrough (like what the Paladin has).  Would that provide enough of boost to make graviton beam Furies and Auroras more viable?  It also would give some boost to the PD/anti-fighter capabilities of Eagles.
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smithney

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #43 on: July 19, 2022, 11:14:25 PM »

Actually, that makes me wonder, instead of High Scatter Amplifier halving range and giving beams hard flux as a hullmod, what if Alex doubled down on the long range beam spam and made a hullmod such that all beams gained allied ship passthrough (like what the Paladin has).
I thought viable sustained long-range beams are a no-no because there is no counterplay to them. Wouldn't it end up in a situation like the Pilum spam?

The more I think about it, I don't see any reason to change Fury or Aurora up. As you wrote, Fury and Aurora are two sides of the same hi-tech cruiser coin, where Fury deals better in packs, while Aurora leverages player's piloting. Their logistical profile is a justified drawback considering how versatile hi-tech hulls are in general. The only threat I see is to the viability of Fury at the hand of the infamous  m e m e t i c  hi-tech frigate monofleets. But then again those are almost harder to build up and manage than a pack of Furies.
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #44 on: July 20, 2022, 07:16:30 AM »

What I’m hearing is that the Fury doesn’t have a place because the Aurora exists.
Aurora costs too much DP.  Fury is nice because its DP cost is more reasonable, even if slightly overpriced at 20, and it is more widespread (for now).  Wonder if Independents will have it after the factions get "uniquified" next release.
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