New Ship: 4-gun Sentry

I figured I should get my suggestions out now ..


New ship suggestion:

The Sentry
Mk6/7

• 4 red items (5 slots)
• 3 blue items (4 slots)
• 1 yellow item (2 slots)

Size, speed, agility and turret speed similar to the fixer.

The main advantage to this ship is the variation in setups it could bring. The allocation of items and slot points allows any item to be used (other than green items). I'll let your imagination run wild with the possibilities .. But, I imagine a ship of this class would certainly bring a high level of excitement to the bay.


Thoughts?




I toyed around with several variations of this ship but ended up with the above version because it adds the most variety to the game and doesn't replace any other ship's role.

Spoiler: A few of the earlier variations:

1) the obvious

• 4 red items (6 slots), 4 blue items (5 slots)

Simply put, this version would replace the defender's role.

2) the 1-slot yellow

• 4 red items (6 slots), 3 blue items (4 slots), 1 yellow item (1 slot)

This version would create a mortar/FB spamming class that is able to outrun shooters and defenders - which is obviously not ideal. It would also prevent the Sentry from using the frost launcher (reducing variation).

3) the mini-fixer

• 4 red (5), 2 blue (3), 1 yellow (1), 1 green (2)
• 4 red (5), 2 blue (3/2), 2 green (3/4)

I thought about exchanging fixing items for firepower. but decided it was a bad idea. Pulse and Duct Tape are too powerful to give to other ships.

One last thing - the speeder crowd might not be enthused about this ... but is it really that much worse than another shooter or enforcer?

 

I've been thinking about a 4 weapon ship for a while. I think It would provide a good balance for any player. The best part is that it would provide an effective counter to DB enfos. YOu could have the same speed but a more versatile weapon array. Great layout.

 

I think your idea is good, its just that every shooter will migrate to it due to the versatility of a yellow item, plus they can make do with 4 weapons. I suggest the hp of the ship be between an enfo and a shooter, and less forward/backward acceleration than a shooter.

 

Motimer (*getting mortar damage+50%)
4 red (6 slots)
3 blue (3 slot)
1 green(1 slot)
Almost deffender size and speed.

 

Torpedo man(lol)
*getting torpedo damage+30%
*this ship can only be searched within 10m meters of approach

2 red (4 slots)
2 yellow (3 slots)
4 blue (4 slots)

 

I think it would need 1 less blue or yellow slot, because right now it's like a slower enforcer with more firepower and more HP. I wouldn't want to go up against something with two grenades, a mine, an xcannon, 11k-12k hp (+ turbo), and a tesla shield

 

I personally feel that it was a huge design error by Rovio, to allow any ship more than three guns. It undermines strategy, precision, and just leads to spamming.

On the plus side, this ship would probably draw a decent amount of players away from Shooter, which might add some variety to the game ‘visually’, but it’s not a direction I’d like to see the game going in terms of gameplay.

 

I love it. A 4-gun ship fills the biggest gap in this game.

I'm fairly open to all of your variations as well.. in fact when I proposed a 4-gun boat months ago, the idea was to push it out with a flex slot, one that can hold any 1-slot yellow/green/blue/red item. If for some reason it became too OP the flex slot have item-specific limitations. Being a 1-slot would already put some significant limitations (no TS, No Pulse, No Frost Launcher), so it's not entirely obvious how this could be exploited.

The questions you ask yourself would be like the following

1. I am a Shooter, am I willing to give up a Red slot for an extra Bandage? A OB? A Repair Bolt?
2. I am a Defender, am I willing to give up a Blue slot for another weapon? A Repair Bolt? A Frost blaster? TB?

The idea of a flex slot makes me excited about the added strategies. But just having a 4-weapon boat would be a welcome first step.

 

I've seen dumb ideas but this one takes the cake.
Just call that boat the OP boat, make it live and see it dominate everything.

 

I assumed it would be obvious, but I suppose I have to spell it out.

The fixer has the largest hitbox outside of the ridiculously-sized defender, which is part of the trade off.

It would be much easier to hit than shooters, speeders and enforcers (especially with double bubbles), and, compared to the defender, it has less HPs and the same number of weapon slots ..

If I wanted it OP, I would have said 4 red (4), 2 blue (3), 2 yellow (4) .. which would be the setup I'd use if we got to fully customize a ship.

 

Why do you say this?

 

Well, 5 weapons is better than 4! My proposal was for a 1-slot Yellow, which excludes any issue with TS... but it all depends on speed/agility and default HP on the boat. Enforcer is sort of garbage without TS, good with 1, and OP with 2... so that gives you an idea that TS itself won't necessarily make the boat OP.

Another way to think of it is what if there was a variation of an Enforcer with 4 Red slots? Or would adding a 4th gun to defender (in place of a blue slot) make it OP?

 

Beautiful summation!


People think of a fixer as tough to kill because they can self-heal at a high rate and good fixers rarely expose themselves to the enemy.

The one 2-slot weapon limitation means you'll primarily be using weapons that force you to expose yourself to the enemy.

[The only exception would be a frost/mortar build but we all know how difficult to use or ineffective that build can be on certain maps.]

This ship without a Tshield/Nitro/OB would be destroyed by anyone that got in it's face - especially defenders.

And, as others said, one TS is balanced. It provides at most 10 seconds of coverage for a 20 second cooldown. Two TSs would be OP.

 

We have been talking about new ships for over a year, but they never come. So, your idea is good. But except from the events and the agility the game has become stale. We got one new map in a years time, wow. Nightmare players getting bored, because there won't be any new challenges, so a lot of them go Seal Clubbing. Their own words not mine.

Just count the ideas we brought in and how few of them have actually made it to the game. Was it worth our time?

I doubt it.....

Regards,
Flint

 

With the exception of the rail gun, 2-slot weapons are all "spam" weapons. The Sentry couldn't spam 2-slot weapons with one 2-slot weapon; the majority of its weapons would be the "higher skill" 1-slot weapons.

Of course you could equip 4 ballparks and run around spamming, but you'd see enforcers doing that now if it was a viable strategy.

But, perhaps you mean that having more than three weapons is spammy ..

They could remove the shooter .. and then remove all the weapons not used on the other 4 ships. Nine out of the twenty weapons already have less than a 3% use rate (including shooter usage), so they'd be unnecessary. And other than flare, blast cannon, grenade, mine, EC, and maybe napalm for fixers, there's no real point for the other weapons either .. so we're left with six weapons and four ships in the game.

Although, even though shooters aren't a good counter for the enforcer, it's the only ship that has the slightest chance of winning 1v1 or 2v2 against enforcers. But, I suppose that's one direction for the game ..


Personally, I also value precision, predictability and reliability in my fps games .. For example, when you fire a weapon, you expect certain things to happen - for it to have a predictable result. If it hits an enemy, you expect it to do damage.

So ... if I had to pick a fatal design error, it would be in designing a ship that is too fast for the game to properly register hits .. an issue that is exacerbated with items that further increase that speed (and exponentially increase the number of unregistered hits).

That's why they stopped doing the 20% boosted speed event .. because the speed of every ship crossed the threshold into the void of lost projectiles.