Cruiser Command

WhyteDragon wrote: Obviously, wraiths will begin to have an issue late game with falling off in terms of combat and will become a support ship used primarily for EMPs. However, as EMPs are nerfed in order to balance the miner/wraith combat scheme, I feel as if they need a potential upgrade that may help them give an edge in larger scale combat. Again, it's a tentative suggestion.[/color]

A wraith's effectiveness already falls off massively in the late game. I find it frustrating hunting good miners in the late game. Frankly, the only way I manage to bring them down is to get lucky, i.e. guess what they're thinking and be there before them, or have Ionic which still does not help enough if they are remotely close to their BC.

My EMP is already just barely enough to even dint the miner's velocity. I fire it off, and the miner just keeps going because he's mashing the acceleration key.


I realize you guys are discussing a group of wraiths, but keep in mind coordination is tough especially if the wraith pilots don't have access to mics. Even when zak and I fly together, I find it difficult to stay on the same target without getting in each other's way. What I'm trying to say is: Just because you have two wraiths does not mean you have the full output from both wraiths. It's not as simple as adding 1 nerfed wraith + 1 nerfed wraith = 1 non-nerfed wraith.




Disclaimer: I am a wraith pilot and therefore jealously protective of my craft.

Sky wrote:

WhyteDragon wrote: Obviously, wraiths will begin to have an issue late game with falling off in terms of combat and will become a support ship used primarily for EMPs. However, as EMPs are nerfed in order to balance the miner/wraith combat scheme, I feel as if they need a potential upgrade that may help them give an edge in larger scale combat. Again, it's a tentative suggestion.[/color]

A wraith's effectiveness already falls off massively in the late game. I find it frustrating hunting good miners in the late game. Frankly, the only way I manage to bring them down is to get lucky, i.e. guess what they're thinking and be there before them, or have Ionic which still does not help enough if they are remotely close to their BC.

My EMP is already just barely enough to even dint the miner's velocity. I fire it off, and the miner just keeps going because he's mashing the acceleration key.


I realize you guys are discussing a group of wraiths, but keep in mind coordination is tough especially if the wraith pilots don't have access to mics. Even when zak and I fly together, I find it difficult to stay on the same target without getting in each other's way. What I'm trying to say is: Just because you have two wraiths does not mean you have the full output from both wraiths. It's not as simple as adding 1 nerfed wraith + 1 nerfed wraith = 1 non-nerfed wraith.




Disclaimer: I am a wraith pilot and therefore jealously protective of my craft.

I do understand that, but I would like to point out that multiple wraith strategies are rarely employed. We've had loads of experience with running only a single wraith in any game, but very few with multiple - so of course we won't be as accustomed to the usage of multiple wraiths at the same time at first.

I also know it isn't as simple as putting one and two together, but you do have to approach the issue as if there's going to be three wraiths baring down upon a single miner from multiple directions at the same time. If you assume each wraith is simply going to EMP one after another every second or so, that's going to be three free seconds for the wraiths to simply swoop in and body block like nobody's business. Hell, I think it still will be for the most part, but you're investing three wraiths in the en-devour. You should damn well get something out of it.

In my mind I hadn't been thinking of a huge difference. My original thought behind it was removing 3/4s of the miner's throttle, meaning minor movements still. I just feel as if it drops all the way to 0, the target becomes a near stationary duck with only 5-10 movement for the next EMP with little chance of an actual dodge. That is simply my thought on the matter. We have to approach this as a hunt, with a pack of wraiths coming down. I know we aren't used to it, but I feel as if that's because we haven't really experienced it much, not because we're incapable. It puts wraiths in a situation where they're forced to think about their positioning relative to the miner and one other before swooping in.

I might be wrong. Even though I have experience on all roles, I am primarily a captain first and foremost. But I think we still have to make the distinction that if you're going to have three wraiths, you would have to improve as pack hunters. We can't make the excuse that we are all solo wraiths when we're trying to put three on the field. It just doesn't work that way.

An argument for leaving the wraith a bit closer to the status quo is that miners can already counter the wraith easily at this stage. Even without any upgrades it is easy to get away as long as the miner saves up the energy for turbo boost. Of course, increasing the amount of wraiths to 3 should make it harder for any single wraith to get a miner kill, but we should be assuming that wraith squadrons of 2 cooperating wraiths is the average amount for any miner to handle.

Of course, there will always be teams where three wraiths cooperate nicely to take out miners, but that just opens up more strategies for the miners to defend themselves, like travelling in a pack and using the mining beam on a single wraith.

Would the concerns about the wraith go away if miners were AI only ships?

zakhennahr wrote:An argument for leaving the wraith a bit closer to the status quo is that miners can already counter the wraith easily at this stage. Even without any upgrades it is easy to get away as long as the miner saves up the energy for turbo boost. Of course, increasing the amount of wraiths to 3 should make it harder for any single wraith to get a miner kill, but we should be assuming that wraith squadrons of 2 cooperating wraiths is the average amount for any miner to handle.

Of course, there will always be teams where three wraiths cooperate nicely to take out miners, but that just opens up more strategies for the miners to defend themselves, like travelling in a pack and using the mining beam on a single wraith.

I had a long rant, but I decided to cut it and go with something more rational.

The issue with wraiths is their late game effectiveness, right? Then I think we need to look at improving their late game capabilities, such as keeping the damage upgrade at 20% per level instead of the suggested 10%. Maybe you could even consider increasing the number of potential upgrades above 5. I'm not completely sure, to be honest. But if late game is the issue, you should be looking into how to make larger investments into wraiths so that they are still capable of acting into the later aspects of the game -- though in my opinion, how this is fixed should be an upgrade so that it becomes an opportunity cost.

Yes, my issue with the wraith is its late game effectiveness.

Let's be honest, the AI is really good at getting away as a miner in the beginning of the game, since it, along with maybe 2 players I've played with, actually waits for turbo energy before venturing out too far. The downside is that it meanders next to the enemy bc until it gets picked off.

I agree with Whyte that there should be a way to dump human energy and mineral resources into the wraith to make it more viable end game. I would favor being able to purchase extra / different upgrades for the wraith in the end game, as long as they cost an appropriate amount of kerm. The energy drain suggestion would be a nice addition, but perhaps every small ship should have specialized (and perhaps exclusive) upgrade paths, like the minelayer cloaking another ship for a few seconds, or the corvette having an increased chance for causing debris on the enemy battlecruiser or an increased shield duration, and so on.

I also realize that there are good arguments to be made for leaving ships as they are, as the wraith is mostly useful early game to hunt miners, the destroyer is mostly useful late game when leeching the enemy BC, and so on. Not every role filled by players is as useful at every step of the game, and that is part of the strategy skills to gain while playing CC.

I also think that, in addition to seeming a bit dry by not taking 'exciting' roles, what scares some new players away is that early game and late game are played differently to a potentially large degree. Early game you focus on minerals and small ships, so the new player learns a bit about mining and the enjoy it. Then, you either get the joy of awkwardly trying to teach someone a new role in the middle of fight or flight, or they witness the climactic end battle from across the map.

because the ai is so good on weps and can do True DPS (because players will lag click slow), can we make it so you can just hold down the button or hold click on the map for it to auto shoot? because that will help deal true dps on weps without relying on ai, because lets admit, besides wraiths and destroyers, weps are one of the most fun roles in the game.

That or add more weps consoles but we dont have enough people for that

The problem is that the only way I could catch this is by events that will cause network lag. Because of this, it's not worth doing in my opinion.

want to completely redo a couple of ships? lol, go to old roots of shooting 2 missiles from wraiths or corvettes shoot in a normal straight forward fire and make it long range possible. hummmm.....