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[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Currently doesn't really feel like much of a tradeoff, slight nerf maybe.

Huge nerf, actually. It's 23% less (potential) damage.

IMO old Hurricane was better in just about every way - wider spread meant it could "catch" smaller ships or bypass narrow shields(I've seen my Conquest get hit by a submunition or two plenty of times) and IF you had ECCM then you could focus the damage more.

[Amoebka]

Everyone here realises Venture, a 14 DP civilian cruiser, can launch 4 reapers at once and reload with FMR? How many of you have abused this incredibly overpowered strategy over the decade it has been in the game?

This is just a witch hunt at this point. Nerf every missile weapon in the game and then nerf Pegasus even more just to give it large slots back. Guess a 50 DP capital with limited ammo isn't really supposed to kill anything?

[Princess_of_Evil]

People just seem to be hesitant to understand the fact that it's perfectly normal for an expensive capital to nuke a cheaper ship and then be caught without pants afterwards.

[Megas]

My experience with Cyclone is that you don't use it, because Hammer Barrage has higher DPS and by the time you run out of ammo, the enemy runs out of ships.

Also because Hammers are more reliable when Reapers out-of-the-box are easier to intercept and until this release were slow to accelerate.  Reaper needs ECCM for more speed and Missile Spec for more durability (and more shots).

Did not help there are too many ships with angled mounts that making using Hammers and Reapers difficult, and Gryphon is too fragile.  Only Champion is tanky enough and has the proper mount to use it, but even it needs mobility skills to get close to the enemy easily enough.

Everyone here realises Venture, a 14 DP civilian cruiser, can launch 4 reapers at once and reload with FMR? How many of you have abused this incredibly overpowered strategy over the decade it has been in the game?

Not enough ammo.  Also, Venture would need to be the flagship to use it like this, and I think someone would want a faster or stronger ship instead.  Only one ship can be the flagship.

Venture had Salamander spam during around 0.65a, and it was lethal when FMR was unlimited, and Salamanders first became unlimited (they used to have only three shots like Harpoons).  They had 500 damage at the time, and unlimited Salamanders could kill things past fog-of-war.  Later, Salamanders were nerfed to 100 damage, and Venture could still kill everything with Salamander spam, though it took longer.  Then FMR got three charges that we have today.

Aurora originally had Large Missile and High Energy Focus until 0.7.2a.  In essence, the original Champion.  It could almost solo the simulator with Cyclone Reaper, stopped by Paragon at the end, and Reapers were more powerful with super-charged skills, high HP, and no arming delay.  (Dominator was strong enough to kill everything in the SIM; Paragon did not have ATC at the time.)  Then 0.7.2a came and the large missile because a medium synergy (but Aurora still had HEF; Plasma Jets would come later), and Aurora did not have 35 double Reapers, just 8 single Reapers.  It could not solo fleets anymore.  (Expanded Missile Racks gave +75% ammo instead of +100%; and Missile Spec added +1 to ammo.  Missile Spec. main draw was the huge speed and damage bonuses.  6000 damage Reapers from Missile Spec. alone when maxxed.)

A sim test, but still thought provoking. Some excellent points.

I do not remember posting this exact quote.  Used search to find it but came up empty.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Not enough ammo.

All of your(royal your) proposed extreme uses of Pegasus with FMR also would chew through ammo quickly.

[Megas]

Not enough ammo.

All of your(royal your) proposed extreme uses of Pegasus with FMR also would chew through ammo quickly.

I have run out of MIRVs, even with 30 from Missile Spec (stolen from an officer).  Only large Reapers have as many shots as MIRVs (Cyclone launches twice as many at once).  Smaller Reapers have less than MIRVs and would probably run out too fast, and they do not shoot two at a time for maximum alpha damage.

[Alex]

Thank you everyone for your feedback!

What kind of a situation do you have in mind?

This is a ship that still has only 50 top speed and is a capital so is a large target and can't mount SO. Currently, it can fly up to a station and tank the damage, but with a Conquest's shields that would no longer be realistic. The Conquest can't despite better mobility and better flux stats. (It can fight stations but needs to use its mobility and range or needs support).

If you put unstable injector on it, you will lose long range firepower, which is a very significant tradeoff if it no longer has the defenses for close quarters combat that it does now. If it is more vulnerable to flanking and enemy fire then it is unrealistic to just fly it into an enemy fleet, too.

I was thinking something along the lines of driving up to enemy battleships - while there's combat going on all around, more or less - and just deleting them one at a time. Or cruisers if they get in the way; I'm not picky It seems like it'd have enough mobility for that.

Thank you for doing all the tests, btw! I really appreciate it.

It looks like another hotfix is pretty likely, by the way, and I'd love to get another Pegasus adjustment into it. I tried improving the FMR AI - and did - but mostly what it does with a 2-large-slot-Pegasus is make it use the ammo faster; it's not as good as I thought it'd be.

I don't want to give it a really bad shield efficiency, though - it's still a battleship, and that starts to feel more like a battlecruiser philosophy or mobility and firepower rather than defenses and firepower. Right now I was thinking something like:

1) Back to 4 large missile slots
2) Remove the special ship flag that lets its missile slots turn (in retrospect, that's a no-brainer to rein in any Cyclone concerns, the ship *has a special flag* that makes these an issue in the first place)
3) Shield efficiency to 0.8, the midline standard (Not sure if the Executor should be affected here, too or not - my impression is that the Executor is in a good place right now)
4) Movement speed to 35 (the Executor keeps it 50 and gets larger engine glows)
5) Possibly DP to 60; not sure if that's needed or not

At least, that's what I'm thinking at the moment. Could very well change, I'm not settled on any of it.

While doing early bounties (70-90K) I've noticed that very frequently (half the time and its clearly random) the resulting debris is of very low density. Like 0.2-0.3. Meaning that even with salvaging skill and two rigs I'm getting almost no resources. While in AI on AI fights I've never saw those low density debris fields. Is it a bug?

Not 100% sure, but debris density does depend on the amount of ships destroyed.

So what's the point of those bounties in current version?

Those tend to show up in otherwise interesting (and profitable) systems, so it's good to think of them as signposts for where good salvage can be found.

Currently doesn't really feel like much of a tradeoff, slight nerf maybe. But the way those two are connected in my head is because I remember a thread where people were scared of the 4 large missile ship and started theorycrafting builds. That's where you came in and said how the Hurricane got reduced burst size but better tracking. I don't know in which thread this happened, but it was for sure something related to missile spam.

Perhaps the submunitions could stand to be a bit more maneuverable, then. The idea being to increase its floor and reduce its ceiling so that ECCM is not almost a straight up requirement.

Ahhh, this rings a bell, I remember! The Hurricane was changed before that point and not because of the Pegasus, but yeah, I can see how this would make it connected in your mind.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Well, one thing I wouldn't want is to have Pegasus at 60 DP. I think it's cool that we have a battleship at almost every DP "tier"(35/40/45/50/60 so far)

Also, the missile mounts rotate? Wat

[CapnHector]

It looks like another hotfix is pretty likely, by the way, and I'd love to get another Pegasus adjustment into it. I tried improving the FMR AI - and did - but mostly what it does with a 2-large-slot-Pegasus is make it use the ammo faster; it's not as good as I thought it'd be.

I don't want to give it a really bad shield efficiency, though - it's still a battleship, and that starts to feel more like a battlecruiser philosophy or mobility and firepower rather than defenses and firepower. Right now I was thinking something like:

1) Back to 4 large missile slots
2) Remove the special ship flag that lets its missile slots turn (in retrospect, that's a no-brainer to rein in any Cyclone concerns, the ship *has a special flag* that makes these an issue in the first place)
3) Shield efficiency to 0.8, the midline standard (Not sure if the Executor should be affected here, too or not - my impression is that the Executor is in a good place right now)
4) Movement speed to 35 (the Executor keeps it 50 and gets larger engine glows)
5) Possibly DP to 60; not sure if that's needed or not

At least, that's what I'm thinking at the moment. Could very well change, I'm not settled on any of it.

Sounds great! I would love to have the Pegasus back with those stats, including at 60 DP. It seems that lowering the top speed will also play into the vulnerability I mentioned without lowering shield efficiency, since essentially if you spend more time on the approach to target you are taking more incoming fire in the process.

You are the best <3

[Alex]

Well, one thing I wouldn't want is to have Pegasus at 60 DP. I think it's cool that we have a battleship at almost every DP "tier"(35/40/45/50/60 so far)

Also, the missile mounts rotate? Wat

Missile hardpoints normally don't, but on the Pegasus they do, thanks to a MISSILE_HARDPOINTS_ROTATE flag in the csv. Which is specifically so that dumbfire missiles/torpedoes are more usable there, which is kind of a problem, so, uh. Very much self-inflicted.

Sounds great! I would love to have the Pegasus back with those stats, including at 60 DP. It seems that lowering the top speed will also play into the vulnerability I mentioned without lowering shield efficiency, since essentially if you spend more time on the approach to target you are taking more incoming fire in the process.

You are the best <3

Glad nothing jumps out as being too "off" there! I'd like to avoid making it 60 dp if possible - it doesn't feel like that sort of ship to me, but, yeah. Alright. Let's see how this goes!

[Dri]

Weren't you just gonna go ahead and make the Executor its own ship and not a variant of Pegasus?

Also, was 10,000 flux off the Invictus really necessary? Wouldn't 5,000 been a more...reasonable cut to start with?

Anyway, glad you're open to feedback on balance changes and will be looking into reverting to 4 large missile on the Pegasus.

[NotSoLoneWolf]

1) Back to 4 large missile slots
2) Remove the special ship flag that lets its missile slots turn (in retrospect, that's a no-brainer to rein in any Cyclone concerns, the ship *has a special flag* that makes these an issue in the first place)
3) Shield efficiency to 0.8, the midline standard (Not sure if the Executor should be affected here, too or not - my impression is that the Executor is in a good place right now)
4) Movement speed to 35 (the Executor keeps it 50 and gets larger engine glows)
5) Possibly DP to 60; not sure if that's needed or not

Awesome, love these changes. I also think the DP would be best kept at 50, if the ship is still too powerful, a suggestion someone else said above that I liked was reducing the number of FMR charges. As for the Executor, I like it keeping the higher movement speed. I also kind of want its shield efficiency to also go to 0.8, just because I dislike the thematic / immersion implications of it being at 0.6, but you’re right that it’s in a good place right now.

[Princess_of_Evil]

Honestly, Executor would be much better as its own thing. A mostly-energy battleship needs a vastly different reactor than an oversized missile boat. Not to mention that you could give it better hardpoint arcs.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Wasn't he entire "point" of LG ships is that they put energy mounts on ships that can't support them? If Executor is going to be its own thing then so should Brawler LG, Hammerhead LG, Falcon LG, Eagle LG...

[Alex]

(I think the idea that the Executor is going to be "its own thing" is a misreading of an implementation detail that's going to be completely invisible to the player.)

Also, was 10,000 flux off the Invictus really necessary? Wouldn't 5,000 been a more...reasonable cut to start with?

Well, I think it was