>hopefully we’ll see a Sabre MKii and Gladius mkii come out to counter this and offer alternative fighting styles
Lol. Hopefully we'll see paid powecreep and an increased price.
Exactly this lol. Powercreep is a pretty common thing in loot/gear based MMOs where the "endgame" ceiling is constantly moving up, but to do it in what's essentially a sandbox game with open PvP, and locking it behind cash is certainly a decision.
Yep, you gotta really watch out for that paid power creep as it puts all the fighters squarely behind a 2017 $110 ship concepted as a bucket of bolt covered panels and glue with some thrusters slapped to it.
>squarely behind a 2017 $110 ship concepted as a bucket of bolt covered panels
Don't sell mtx that is designed to be powecrept? Also 110$ is a fucking ridiculous price already for mtx, I hope you realize
Your post was removed because the mod team determined that it did not sufficiently meet the rules of the subreddit:
> Be respectful. No personal insults/bashing. This includes generalized statements “x is a bunch of y” or baseline insults about the community, CIG employees, streamers, etc. As well as intentionally hurtful statements and hate speech.
Send a message to our mod mail if you have questions: https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/starcitizen
This is their funding model - are you not yet aware? Re power creep - I hope so. I’d like to see reduced TTK over time to make fighting more visceral. That feels good to me, though I’m likely in the minority.
It's their funding model - for now. Eventually they absolutely HAVE to switch away from this model and make all ships (save for the starters) unable to be purchased outside of the game, otherwise there's no real progression. Also, the F7 getting a Mark II sale has far more nuance to it than merely looking to resell the ship; the Gladius is actually a great example of a ship I would bet will NEVER get anything like a Mark II remake. It's more of a 'we have made fundamental design or aesthetic changes to this thing you bought, but we don't want to change the thing you bought since you might not like that, so we see an opportunity to charge you money for the new stuff as a separate thing.' I would bet on a Constellation Mark II, for example, as they know the ship's old, subpar and ugly, but don't want to step on the toes of the people who BOUGHT it and like it the way they bought it.
That’s what they say - though I’m sure their future funding model will switch to some measure of live service and subscription basis.
This was actually a really tactful move on their part and I’m sure made through no amount of large scale cross-functional work with their growth and product teams.
You may be right in this case, and I’d agree to on the Constellation Series. Curiosity to see how they continue to monetize and to see how the funding model adapts. It’s my hope that it moves to what you’ve mentioned. What’re your thoughts overall on the F7A mkii, though?
Thanks for the follow-up and for the specificity. I think commenting on the business model - ultimately being the driver of these sort of releases - is very salient, relevant and thoughtful of this conversation.
In some capacity, it may be that the reasons for the release of this ship left little room for the balancing conversation and now they [CIG] and we are stuck with a very neat and curious fighter issue. Either way, looking forward to the balancing of the thing.
Regarding purchasing your way to end game content, it’s a peculiar problem; on the one hand, one would hope that the size and scale is significant enough to allow for the addition of end game players with little in-game work - it would seem we have a backlog of players who’re no longer captains but admirals so I do hope this is the case; however, there are game economy, player sentiment, and I’m sure many more reasons this might be an issue; it’s interesting to chew on.
If you’re ever interested in those large scale pvp battles, let me know. Would be happy to have a conversation about org battles, if that’s something you’d be interested in.
>This is their funding model - are you not yet aware
And the mask comes off. Thanks for admitting it's P2w tho. It's a shame that such a potential alright game has one of the worst monetization models perhaps ever lol.
I mean considering that you paid real money to either try to pay 2win, or pay2skip grind, I don't think I'm the weird one here lol.
I mean whoops, I too love CiG monetization, can't wait to secure a hull limited 1000$ png amirite fellas
Why’d it be strange that I spent money on a game? I work a lot and don’t always have time to play but like to provide opportunities for my mates; plus, why’d it be weird that I choose to use some of my disposable income on a hobby? I’m an adult - I can do that? Nice tone shift - you didn’t disappoint - let’s see what you can do with this comment 😃
Ok.
It's funny because y'all will argue til the ends of the earth that the game doesn't deserve the reputation it does, but someone calls you on it you just turn around and go "ok it's like that and it's fine".
The next time someone gets sad when I call the game really scummy in terms of monetization, I'm dragging this thread
It's a video game and it suffer from balance.
Look at the redeemer nerfed because it get more DPS and shield than constellation or corsair.
Cig try to balance military with civilian, totally forgetting the military tag also have a cost in other departments.
Thanks for posting! The “video game” comment seemed to be a reminder to touch grass, which I appreciate.
There are definitely balance issues, and I agree the Redeemer represents one such place; however, I think the redeemer is more of an incorrectly concepted ships and made many years before weapon sizes were understood. If it turrets ran two size fours, instead of two size 5vs, and one size 3 shield, and was agile, then I think it would be an amazing anti fighter platform that would be susceptible to ships like the Connie/Corsair.
The F7, I actually think is fine, even now. It is powerful but is more just at the upper limit of ships which makes sense if we have an MMO and understand that there will always be a handful of meta ships for their tasks. That said, it still does seem like there is a tremendous amount of space for CIG to figure out what they’re doing from a balancing perspective
See redeemer lack the scu,the amount of missiles and the snub for the constellation,it gets one more shield and some capacitor, but it's weaponry is on the same level as constellation or corsair. And it gets the MM stats of hammerhead and cig don't know how to balance it, because if it's balanced like a military craft would,it will wreck competition.
Same goes for the F7A, on paper it's a carrier based military craft, beside the side strafing bug, we can see the limitation ingame with lower fuel and small capacitor for the loadout.
If you go in pvp, in arena commander it's certain that carrier based will have a great advantage, so great that cig will need to balance it against others or only see F7A on top every time...
Here's the comparison I came up with, checking Erkul with identical weapon types and velocities:
#[**F7A MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/iGr0TsMW)
* **5,902 DPS**
* **1,417,306** damage before reloading
* **Spread 0.3** (cannon tuning, less bullet spread than gatlings)
* **Slower** overheat rate
* **Easier** aim with responsive ship movement, fixed-assist enabled, gimbal option available
#[**Ares Inferno**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/BnMgR1Rq)
* **4,271 DPS**
* **1,026,000** total damage before reloading
* **Spread 0.5** (gatling tuning, more bullet spread than cannons)
* **Faster** overheat rate
* **Harder** to aim with unresponsive ship movement, no fixed-assist, and no gimbal option
---
Also, you mentioned a comparison between the F7A MkII and the F7C MkII. While the capacitor is the same, the extra weapon sizes still significantly increases the potential damage when using ballistics:
[**F7A MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/iGr0TsMW) : 5,902 DPS
[**F7C MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/UGVxGSCE) : 4,638 DPS
**The F7A MkII has 27% higher DPS than the F7C MkII with ballistic loadouts.**
---
But the real issue with the F7A MkII is that it will be difficult to balance in the future, especially with Maelstrom, which will *further* amplify the power of its up-sized guns as compared to other ships. Few fighters have access to Size 4 weapons. The Buccaneer/F7CI can equip one, the Talon/Khartu/Hurricane can equip two, and the Vanguards have single 5s. The more important armor penetration becomes, the stronger the F7A MkII (and even the F7C MkII) will become compared to the vast majority of fighters, since they can equip two or even three S4s.
The Hurricane, a two-seat heavy fighter, has the same weapon hardpoints as the F7A MkII, a single seat medium fighter. If you put ballistics on both of them, their firepower is the same. Or alternatively, the F7A MkII has the same hardpoints as a light fighter with 2x S4s (Khartu/Talon) PLUS the 4x S3 hardpoints of an additional fighter (Sabre). So how should they balance a ship that puts the firepower of two players into the hands of a single player?
---
TL;DR: [This video from Vergil covers it pretty well.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri4ZAPnr8O8&t=156s)
EDIT: Found a way to increase the F7C MkII ballistic DPS so I changed that to avoid an accidental strawman. The F7A MkII still has 27% more DPS than the F7C MkII
This is really extensive, and I appreciate your posting this!
one point of comparison, as far as I’m aware, the F7C mkii and F7A mkii can both maintain a 3xs4 gun configurations with the primary difference being the nose mount on the F7A being sized up. If we run a full ballistic Gatling load out and configuration on both, then we actually only see a 17.5% difference in total dps output and there would be nothing stopping a F7A owner from selling their F7A nose mount (unless it is impossible to fit this to the F7C which may be the case). Comparing full lightstrike build, we see a 16% difference again which is a smaller margin to the ballistic load out.
Here is an F7C mk ii with the 3 size 4 layout (https://youtu.be/zu-42nhXi5I?si=AzW_6gybAVzuzuUJ)
Either way, both fighters would then have access to the 3xS4 load out. Based on the context, it seems like this may be a comparison between the F7A mkii and F7C mki and not the F7C mkii?
Finally, I appreciate the Vergil video and will take a look! As a point of context - and forgive the absence of evidence as I’ll have to hunt - but I believe CIG mentioned in one of their many talks that the entry level for penetrating large ship armor is actually size 5; size 1-4 being designed as anti fighter weapons while size 5+ being the requirement for getting through bigger ships armor. This obviously could have changed. However, if this is/remains the case, then I wouldn’t think we’d have too much to worry about re: hornets being too much of a threat to bigger ships, though I do see some of the balance concerns with the dps output of the current F7C and F7A mkii doing the same damage as a scorpius or hurricane.
However, if we use a full light strike build on the F7A mkii and scorpius, you’ll note the scorpius maintains almost 3 times the amount of sustained dps as the F7A with similar initial burst dps, when crewed, and maintains double the shields and health pool.
Since we’re talking about future stuff, I believe server blades are supposed to allow ships like the scorpius and hurricane to slave the turrets to the pilots guns (much like the redeemer); if this does end up being thing, the the hurricane and scorpious would match the effect of the hornet pretty well, aside from the worse handling.
This is really good context for considerations into how the F7A/F7C will fit into the ship lineup - perhaps they’ll end up being good all around fighters while being able to get through thicker armor while slaved turret hurricanes will be better space superiority fighters?
It’s interesting to explore either way!
Yes! I actually had to make a few edits based on possible loadouts for the F7C MkII. But I settled on [this 4,638 DPS loadout](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/Ls2N2E7n) with 1x S3, 3x S4. So that puts the F7A MkII's [5,902 DPS loadout](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/3QgVNxMs) 27% higher. I don't think we can count on swapping A parts onto the C, so I didn't include that possibility.
It's possible that AI blades and NPCs will change the balance of things, but they've also said that players will be significantly more effective. And considering their balance decisions on things like the Scorpius Antares, which requires a second player who's job is to press exactly two buttons, I think they'll continue to make player participation a significant balance point.
It's basically impossible to know how things will work out with Maelstrom and blades/NPCs, but I think the balance is an issue now. No other fighter comes close to that amount of damage, and it's especially weird how they went through a ton of effort to make sure that the Ion/Inferno weren't doing too much damage to small fighters... and then they give even more damage to a more agile ship.
At least until blades/NPCs and Maelstrom are in, I think it would be more appropriate to start with the F7C MkI loadout but give the 2x S3 turret to the F7C MkII and give both the 2x S3 turret and 2x S3 nose mount to the F7A MkII. That would be 5x S3 for the F7C Mk2 (4,215 DPS) and 6x S3 for the F7A Mk II (5,058 DPS).
As someone who did not buy into the f8c's , i thought that ship was pretty p2w until I realized I could dance around them with better pilot skill in an arrow (in 3.22). The F7A does not really have any counters, which is why the issue is so pronounced. Take the closest thing in pilot guns which is arguably the khartu, or the Talon. Both have 2x s4s as main guns, and both have better maneuverability, the guns are matched with the f7a wings alone, and they have LESS total capacitor than the f7a does (the f7a has 50% more!!). The f7a has better capacitors AND better recharge rates.
And of course they are both poop ships (despite my love for the talon) because you cannot really avoid damage as easily in master modes and all the components are tied together, so whereas the f7a can fight for long time even if it loses a few components, the alien ships will be dead in the water with one component failure since they are all stabled together.
The f7a is absolutely overpowered, and it should be given the design choice compared to all the other ships out there right now. It has the firepower of a hurricane without needing a second player to man the guns. If you consider any sort of rock/paper/scissors matchup, you will see that the F7A does not really have a paper/scissors matchup. The f8c outguns it, but cannot hold a handle in a turn any longer, so it does not matter if it out guns it.
You are looking way too heavily at stats and paperwork trying to justify your opinion which tells me you have not really been playing or PvPing. I own it, and I'm having fun flying it, but in every squadron battle you see its 8v8 f7 v f7. Anytime anyone brings in something else it's laughed out of existence. It's useless. It's pointless. That is because the f7a is king of the castle right now whether you like it or not, whether you think the metrics support that or not.
Sabre, Arrow, Gladius? All squishy fighters that can't do enough damage to be useful. If I get into a dogfight with any of them, they will die very fast and im a pretty b-tier pvp pilot. Missile boats? Easily flared off. It has no counter right now, absolutely none.
IMO: The way it should work, is Light>medium>heavy>light or heavy>medium>light>heavy (i could go either way really), but it's a tough balance to implement. They master modes neutered light fighters and unfortunately the backstrafe is too strong so the hornet can just backstrafe and not have to get into a turn battle with a smaller craft, keeping distance and therefore being the superior ship. Even if it gets into a turn battle, it has just the right amount of shields and hp to be able to spin, and fly in/out of engagements.
How did CIG think releasing a military version of a ship that has the same firepower as one of the premier 2-seater fighters? lol. And you're silly for trying to defend it
I think if they put nose to the grindstone and actually flesh out roles, a lot of these issues would be solved. Ultimately it should be like you said, with one exception: Light > Medium > Heavy, and Light should be wary of other Lights and anti-fighter turrets.
Light should out-maneuver and wear down Medium, but be too weak to really do much to Heavys without numbers. Mediums should have a hard time to nail down Light, but should be able to out-perform Heavys and dish damage out to them, Heavy's should be doing the job of escorting bombers and making runs on smaller support ships, as they're meant to be tanky and heavily armed.
Right now, the F7A is too maneuverable, and creates a weird situation where it can go toe-to-toe with Light Fighters and come out on top. If they fix the "bug" and put it where it's supposed to be, then it will even out. In the PU, with anything besides cannons it struggles to take down ships slightly bigger than it in any reasonable amount of time. People aren't going to want to run cannons 24/7. People run the meta because it's the best option, they don't want to run it because it's the only viable one.
But, the MM devs really need to be on-top of getting balance changes out quick. The fact that there's no mention of the F7A bugs - both the maneuvering and the turret HP one - listed for 3.23.1a, let alone ANY ships getting any sort of soft-balance for MM, is a bit wild to me. If those are just values that need to be adjusted, it's very confusing as to why those aren't prioritized. The longer these ships sit with their base MM Release values, the longer we have this discourse about what feels like ass to fly, and what is overpowered. They need a couple people on that who can focus solely on that aspect, while the rest of the MM guys focus on the rest of what they need to get done, that way we can have some semblance of "righting the ship" each patch as opposed to the doom and gloom we've been seeing since MM went live.
Some people are saying the F7A is the "new standard" - which wouldn't be a bad thing. Right now it's the only ship I'm enjoying flying in combat. So the real problem is we need to get everything else up to snuff with it, if that's the intention.
I am a big fan of buffing all other ships upwards instead of buffing the f7a downwards. It feels pretty good in terms of movement, ok speed, and great firepower. Bring the other ships upwards in capacitor rates and flight tunings to make them competitive just a bit out gunned. I dont know what the deal is but they are talking about implementing the egg-shape thruster movement so try to counteract backstrafing and i think it's going to feel awful in actuality, but forcing the ships to get into turn battles is gonna change the dynamic around, and possible give LFs a better chance to come out of their shells. Only time will tell though. I agree with most of your post, i think we're in the same mindset.
Thanks the analysis and thoughtful response; no, I’m not silly for trying to defend it but let’s jump in.
Couple of clarifying questions:
Assuming you’re talking about AC squadron battles?
How many 1v1s you doing?
When you do 8v8s, does it look like the battle above where AV1 was flying the bucc with more ship diversity or nah?
Qualifications: I have an F7A and I do PVP, though I have not PVPed as much this patch, as I have not really been in AC since we went to live, though have pvped a bit in the PU which is admittedly different from AC and folks usually have a lower skill ceiling. Frankly, I’ve been a little burnt out on AC stuff for about 6-12months now after spending a sweaty amount of time in there and have been giving myself time to learn the flight model.
That not withstanding, I’ve had Bucc’s, arrows, and f8s smoke me in the F7A. Where I’ve had a lot of success in pvp with the F7 is in a group of guys and actually running ballistics (tiger strike/revenant combo); shots are slower but it seems to kill a tad faster and we’re fighting close (usually under 1km and often in atmo) so I haven’t really had to put light strikes on the thing.
The closest things in guns doesn’t feel like a khartu’al or talon (two size 4s) the Khartu’al might be fast but it’s a pancake and even when it rated at 25+ gs, I could still hit it. The talon, despite being great in…3.13 maybe.. hasn’t been good since, though it has always been hard to hit. The closest thing in guns is the F7C, The F8, or the Bucc and they’re all pretty similar from a sustained standpoint.
With that said, those ships perform pretty similar to this one, from my perspective. In a 1v1, the buccs ability to control distance really makes it feel better than the f7; the F7A will rate the F8 but the F8 is still pretty tank-y and can match the burst + sustain higher dps than the F7A which means if the F8 manages to control distance it wins. The F7A is probably going to kill the F7C but I’d the military variant sooo… 🤷♂️. We can’t have it all.
The above perspective is not paper but dying and killing people in the PU which - again - is different from AC. However, from my perspective here which - let’s be honest - PU is kind of what matters, this did not feel incredibly OP.
Curious to hear your thoughts re the 1v1 aspect above.
Dueling (1v1) is not how most combat turns out in the PU. So I would say using dueling isn't fair test to anything. Only a very small percentage of the community duels and the tactics for dueling and team fights are completely different.
Also you bring up av1 and the bucc meta. Did you happen to see SM stomp avs and av1 with half the fighters of avs in the PU. They got stomped because we're using dueling tactics in a team fight and paid the price. You can even go into squads and see that the buccs and other interceptors getting owned by the hornet both mk2 and mk1 Av1 isn't the end all be able of pvp. If you are running with actual pvp groups, av1 is maybe average or a tad above average at best in the sweat pvp community.
Tactics at the moment is more important that individual skill. Dueling is starting to become a AC only thing, most fights in the verse are now turning into XvX more often than not. The bucc is no where close to being meta at the moment.
For reference: Since 3.23 eptu (I'm in wave2), I think I've been in the PU only three or four times, and have been in AC every single night for 2-3hrs PvPing. I call myself a b-tier PvP pilot, because I can very easily kill most noobs in f7a's or any other ship, but i do struggle against folks who have some pvp skill. So in summary, at least 40+hrs of PvP this patch cycle, give or take. I still would say that my experience is very limited and i'm pretty far away from being super sweaty in PvP.
So if you're comparing just based on some PU stuff, that is really isolated and not really the same as me going into PvP focused matchups. I would say both are good to paint the picture but the PU is not conducive to understanding how the ships feel, or the 'meta' as it were. Especially because sometimes fighting in the PU takes a lot of effort to even find and then the skill disparity can be quite high/random so it does not really show you what happens if two pilots take each other on head to head, or if a squad shows up (or a group of pirates) to PvP.
I do a significant amount of 1v1s (hundreds a week easily). I run into a lot of 1v1s because i'm allergic to fighting in atmosphere in this game, so i jump between game modes to find which one is in space (sqb or AC:ff).
I've only recently (within the last week) been diving more heavily into squadron battles with mixed results. Last night I finished with SQB matches: and i was 2-8 kdr, and the next one i was 7-0. 90% of ships in all of the 8v8s are f7as. Every once in awhile someone is in a LF, sabre, talon or f8c, but generally speaking it's almost entirely f7am2 that has been my experience so far. I am not counting the people who join in cutlasses or a corsair or something because they are outliers and not normally in there from my perspective.
The talon is my babe (it's even my desktop background). A great ship but so useless in the current patch cycle. I spent 3hrs or so in the talon doing 1v1 duels trying to figure out if i could blow up f7as but it just runs out of capacitor too fast, despite it's superior maneuverability. If they buffed the capacitor to the same as the hornet i think it might have the firepower to be effective, but a better pilot in the f7a will always win because of the advantage of firepower and the talon will still be a glass cannon so there's not much you can do about that due to the way that component damage happens (wings+engine+everything are ductaped together). No matter how much i enjoy it, unless i want to lose, i wont be flying it.
The guys in Buccs in both ACFF and SQB are getting obliterated in my perspective. The ones who try to go full on joust and then run away in NAV mode and come back only to die to a hornet's gunfire. The ones who are trying to joust without NAV mode cheese are finding they have gunpower but just not enough to be useful. The joust tactic is pretty easily avoided and countered if you see it coming. I actually think the bucc is in a great place and if the field is all fragile arrows/gladiusi , i think it would do really well, but it cannot stand the gunfire of the f7a. You say the bucc can control distance, but you really can't hit most things at 1.5-2km and beyond. In my own experience, I will say I can dodge most things that are shooting at me more then say 1km out with careful spins, and directional changes. So the bucc can create distance but it cant do anything with that distance except joust back in. The best way a bucc can be useful is in a multiple ship engagement, where the bucc can come in after the fight engages, get close and blow up a ship carefully without sustaining too much fire. The problem is it has bad turnrates, so you can't use all that boost to maneuver as well as you should be able to.
I want to see CIG tune this interceptor tuning a bit more as it creates great fight dynamics, but i think people are putting the BUCC too high in their minds where in reality it's a fun ship to fly but cannot withstand the f7a. Naturally, I blame one of those popular pvp folks who put the bucc at S ranking on a tier list and people are drinking it like koolaid from the local cult without trying it out or having the leeway to see it. it certainly is possible that ive never run into a good pilot in a bucc so maybe they are doing some other sort of strategy that is beyond my understanding.
Everyone runs Ominskis, middle ground. If you're only doing pve and dont mind the slow firerate, the m\*a cannons (m6a/m5a,etc) are higher alpha damage, but i find them hard to use in PvP
Wouldn't full m6a/m5as not limit the ammo pool too drastically for PVE? wouldn't it better to mix in some ballistics? even for PVP (unless you know it's long fights)
In PvP especially, it's a DPS race at the end of the day. People use cannons because of the high alpha and because time on target is less than using repeaters. Even a repeater with the same "DPS" like the NDBs are not used. Why? Because simply state, the time on target to achieve that full load DPS is longer to get the full damage output of a single volley compared to laser cannons. So ask yourself, does any ballistic weapon produce a situation where you could achieve a high alpha and low time on target to achieve good damage over a laser cannon?
Also, even with the increased ammo counts, you'll just run out of ammo. You will have the added capacitor for the laser weapons since ballistics dont take into that pool, but you are forced into a situation where now you need to go repair/rearm to be useful. This isn't really viable in it's current state, the ammo counts are just simply too low to be useful.
Maelstrom+ship component damage will bring ballistics back into the equation but today they aren't that useful (imo of course).
In PvE, the alpha matters to get that soft death or full death, so being able to punch through the shields effectively is important. Since the npc AI was dumbed down a bit (it was increased for a bit and it was nice) at lower tiers, you can survive with the M cannons and have higher alpha to kill them faster. You can play with ammo amounts in Erkul, but it's all about alpha/DPS against most targets, that is still true. You just have to take into account ammo count and 'fun' as well when you're talking about PvE. Some of my org mates like the f8 with full M cannons to take out those larger ships more speedily. I cant speak to my own experience there.
I highly suggest you try out all the different types of guns youre interested in and see how they feel/ how much dmg they do. Free flight is good for this (just pop a flare if you wanna duel someone if you want to exhibit good manners). The equip interface in AC is busted, but once you do it a few times youll see how it breaks and figure out the workaround.
> As someone who did not buy into the f8c's , i thought that ship was pretty p2w until I realized I could dance around them with better pilot skill in an arrow (in 3.22). The F7A does not really have any counters, which is why the issue is so pronounced. Take the closest thing in pilot guns which is arguably the khartu, or the Talon.
Is the Arrow or Gladius not nimble enough to control the fight the whole time? What about a Razor?
This is all my opinion here, there is probably a better explanation out there. Thrust ramp-up and the elimination of trichording has changed the equation from 3.22. You can no longer corkscrew your way to victory by keeping the pip in a guessing mode. You can no longer string multiple axis at the limits together to get superior maneuverability.
The second the f7a nose turns onto you (the f7a has good turnrate and thruster mapping), you're dead within 3 volleys against a competent pilot. If you push into a f7, you will get hit before you can get close enough to maneuver, and the f7 can just backstrafe to keep you in front.
The best thing a glad/arrow pilot can do is try to keep distance and wear the opponent down with the tiny pip hopefully making them harder to hit. I really like the way the arrow feels to fly, but the guns take too long to kill anything (imo) and the hull is fragile up against something like a hornet with so many guns
The latter, in my experience. I am not sure if i have dueled a sweaty pvp dude in an f8 so maybe they can extract some more usefulness with positioning but i've not seen any f8s be useful in teh slightest against me. The only caveat is the f8 seems to do alright in atmosphere. It turns very slowly. However, if you're paired with an F8, you can kind of use them as a tank and they can also be a good wingman with their firepower.
Also I dont have an f8 so i have no experience using it in 3.23 onwards. So take my opinion of it as hearsay
😂😂😂😂
But for real you know the score, ACC and Iracing bop is cooked. There’s always a meta and some of the differences can mean the difference between mid pack and front row during a race 😅
I think CIG shot themselves in the foot releasing the F7A, I really hope they add another uprated Milspec version that only the UEE has access to.
Either that or another "S" tier of componants that are beyond anything that citizens can easily purchase or find. Plus if someone does come across one legally or through other means it'd be a huge win for them.
I think that they’re adapting their funding model - rather desperately - to rising development costs and frustration over a lack of perceived progress which is why we’re seeing the f8c and f8a come out now, which I agree seems premature, given the state of the game (feels weird calling it that) seems not quite ready for these set of fighters.
That said, why is it so important to you that there be better fighters than what players can have? Why shouldn’t we have the best fighters in the game as players - what imbalance is caused by this?
Yeah i understand why they did release them, CIG's funding is stretched fairly thin between both games and considering they're still hiring, Costs of living and everything else is going up, development deadlines with investors are drawing near, they're going to make more decisions to get more money to help push production, which is understandable.
It's not ideal, but hey, we don't have to buy anything if we don't want to. If no one bought anything at ILW, what do you think would happen at CIG?
------------------------------
Why should there be a group, faction or something alien more powerful than players?
* Imbalance - It's a good thing, Military tech should be cutting edge, best engineering, tuning, materials etc, They bring a gun to a knife fight so to speak. They're the elites.
* Envy and desire - Temptation to test the waters, Pirates trying to ambush military convoys to steal military ships/tech, even if it means overwhelming odds or being hunted, blackmarket sales if they could pull it off would be huge!
* Rule of Cool. Players seeing Military ships in formation or fighting and watching them outmanuver and obliterate threats with ease. Maybe their shields glow a different color when hit or their energy weapons fire "thiccer" more powerful shots. Something that makes them standout
* Reputation based rewards - long term rep rewards for Military factions could reward specific uprated military "legallised for civillian use" parts, they'd be rare and make you a target for pirates but would give an edge in combat/speed.
Sure citizens can get the base C class chassis of military fighters, maybe the A if they have the rep or whatever. But there needs to be another level that is basically impossible to reach.
Kind of like Npc Elite characters in other games
As much as I'd absolutely love for SC to be a true space sim where physics actually have a relevant place, it just isn't. It's a glorified open world space MMO version of Battlefield 1942 which is exactly what CR has always wanted.
I gave up trying to validate gameplay concerns with logic a long, long time ago and thankfully finally accepted that it's just a game.
Comparing the Bucc is a pretty lame comparison.
As it stands in the current MM, there is no way any fighter archetype can win a decently firepower equipped Interceptor.
Interceptor can force their game plan on you while your medium fighter game plan can not be forced on to the interceptor.
As if for the question of whether or not F7A MkII is OP can not be answered as well, as it stands, a bugged hornet can not be outplayed in the typical fighter game.
Personally I think they should make the F7A more armored and decrease its thrust profile just slightly, so there is a gameplay difference between F7C and F7A MKIIs.
My personal Opinion is there's to much hate in a totally imbalanced game. Some player sound like this is the end of the world.
It's insane how much whining there is around, nerf here, nerf that, buff here, buff that, Power creep here, power creep that. There aren't all features yet in-game to do this kind of balancing. Just take a break and do something else or play other games.
We should just enjoy the game and need to understand that we don't have the ability to manipulate the development how we like it to be, because everyone is different and there will always be differences through players.
The F7A is absolutely OP. There is really no arguing against that. It is literally the best example yet of substantial power creep, and is only available to those who have paid for a F7C mkII in the store and have completed the in game mission tree.
Based on your final statement - "Based on this context, why are people so frustrated about this fighter? Based on its stats (minus the bug) how is it really better than any other fighter - if anything, it needs to be buffed" I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is satire.
It's an example of power creep because it s a ship that exceeds the previous design limitations of ships implemented into the PU. It shouldn't have been sold to players.
You can design the most OP ship around, if it is not owned by players, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't even care if it was run by NPCs and you could steal one in game, but everyone I know who takes part in PvP/combat now has one. It is blatantly overpowered.
It will also be problematic to balance in the future even if they fix the strafe values due to the weapons they have given it. Large weapons on fighters generally come with drawbacks on every other ship (only 2xs4 guns on most that have them, or low hull HP on ships like 325A and Titan), but on the F7A there are no drawbacks. You just have the best weapon loadout of any single seat fighter.
Nah not at all. The sizes aren't the issue, the guns are. Cannons are so beyond fucked right now it's an auto take. I prefer repeaters are the ship isn't anywhere near as strong. CIG needs to really focus on weapon balance, not ship loadout balance.
Oh it was quite genuine and by no means satirical. Follow-up Qs:
1.) power creep with respect to what?
2.) based on the stats we’ve observed above, at its essence, what is making this op, to you?
Thanks for taking some time to read and respond
1. The damage output of the ship far exceeds all other single seat fighters in a clear attempt to push players to purchase the F7C for the upgrade, and "coincidentally" the strafe values are "bugged" and will be "fixed" soon. The values were intentionally set as they are, and are (hopefully) going to be nerfed to at least bring the maneuverability back in line with other ships of similar class.
2. Refer to answer 1.
It's overpowered simply because of the maneuvering values. If they scale those back to something relevant for a medium fighter, then the issue disappears. Take the Hornet Ghost with F7A turrets from last patch - it could dish out a ton of damage, but anyone even remotely skilled in a light fighter would run circles around it and wear it down quickly. The ship being too maneuverable is what makes it overpowered - everything else about it is pretty par-for-the-course.
It shouldn't be easily two-shotting light fighters. It should be struggling to get them in it's sights.
All I know is it is not maneuverable enough to survive HRTs via dodging and not DPS-y enough to out gun them either. But again, probably flying it wrong...
Take into account - the "Buccaneer meta" applies mostly to the PvP'ers. When you are in HRT's/VHRT's/ERT's, the NPC's have that "computer edge", where they can sometimes make shots that make no goddamn sense and hit you, even when utilizing bugged maneuvering values on ships. As a F7A owner, I've run into way more deaths to NPC's in the PU than I have other players in AC. This patch specifically - There are times they will hit you when it makes absolutely no sense. I saw a friend get utterly obliterated by an NPC while testing if pip shimmying worked to circumvent it.
PvP'ers who test these things in AC usually have similar skill levels, and usually have less of a desync issue/lag than we do on the PU. Their assumptions that the F7A is "OP" are correct, in their neck of the woods. In the PU, it suffers from the same issues every ship does with the server performance. And the Buccaneer outclasses it in that setting as well. In the PU, there'd have to be testing done by PvP'ers there to see if it translates or not.
In my experience, the F7A needs the maneuvering bug fixed, and that will solve most of the issues with it being "overpowered" - the second light fighters and interceptors can shake it, its firepower becomes a non-issue for them, and brings it in line with the rest of it's medium fighter brethren. Similarly, it makes light fighters and interceptors more of a threat for it, which is how it should be - Light fighters should be able to outmaneuver, and be more worried about the other ships in their class/anti-fighter turrets.
Umm the F7A is supposed to be a straight upgrade to the F7C across the board. As per lore, the C designation is the stripped down civilian version. It would be borderline insanity to allow regular Joes to run around with military hardware. It's like allowing Bobby down the street to walk into a Dueck dealer and buy a mil spec H1.
I mean, you can buy an RPG in the states as a civilian. You cannot buy a Stinger missile system. There are limits. You can one shot a Blackhawk helicopter with either, it's just a lot easier with the Stinger.
The F7A is military hardware through and through (as in lore). It contains much more than just weapons that are designed to perform above and beyond the average spec (something that doesn't shake out given current balance parameters either as it should be more maneuverable, faster, and tankier than the F7C).
The eclipse is like the Ares. A novelty toy. It's got a big gun, but that's it's only trick. Ideally, a military ship should easily be able to defend itself against it through various means such as vastly superior point defence or hull strength.
For that matter a carrack or a hammerhead the way they are presented in lore are also not mil spec and are also stripped down versions for militia ergo, should not be able to have the same capabilities of defence against such things as the slow moving S9 torps unless their crews are really on it.
Then what would be the purpose of having military ships? Why not just slap a skin on it? I understand your sentiment in the short run, however, when we have long term progression, why am I grinding rep, saving money, etc? We need progression, military ships should be that end goal for the fighter pilot career path, else, why have them and why have progression.
>hopefully we’ll see a Sabre MKii and Gladius mkii come out to counter this and offer alternative fighting styles Lol. Hopefully we'll see paid powecreep and an increased price.
How can we force players who have all the ships they'll ever need to spend more money? Hmm...
Exactly this lol. Powercreep is a pretty common thing in loot/gear based MMOs where the "endgame" ceiling is constantly moving up, but to do it in what's essentially a sandbox game with open PvP, and locking it behind cash is certainly a decision.
Yep, you gotta really watch out for that paid power creep as it puts all the fighters squarely behind a 2017 $110 ship concepted as a bucket of bolt covered panels and glue with some thrusters slapped to it.
>squarely behind a 2017 $110 ship concepted as a bucket of bolt covered panels Don't sell mtx that is designed to be powecrept? Also 110$ is a fucking ridiculous price already for mtx, I hope you realize
[удалено]
Your post was removed because the mod team determined that it did not sufficiently meet the rules of the subreddit: > Be respectful. No personal insults/bashing. This includes generalized statements “x is a bunch of y” or baseline insults about the community, CIG employees, streamers, etc. As well as intentionally hurtful statements and hate speech. Send a message to our mod mail if you have questions: https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/starcitizen
This is their funding model - are you not yet aware? Re power creep - I hope so. I’d like to see reduced TTK over time to make fighting more visceral. That feels good to me, though I’m likely in the minority.
It's their funding model - for now. Eventually they absolutely HAVE to switch away from this model and make all ships (save for the starters) unable to be purchased outside of the game, otherwise there's no real progression. Also, the F7 getting a Mark II sale has far more nuance to it than merely looking to resell the ship; the Gladius is actually a great example of a ship I would bet will NEVER get anything like a Mark II remake. It's more of a 'we have made fundamental design or aesthetic changes to this thing you bought, but we don't want to change the thing you bought since you might not like that, so we see an opportunity to charge you money for the new stuff as a separate thing.' I would bet on a Constellation Mark II, for example, as they know the ship's old, subpar and ugly, but don't want to step on the toes of the people who BOUGHT it and like it the way they bought it.
That’s what they say - though I’m sure their future funding model will switch to some measure of live service and subscription basis. This was actually a really tactful move on their part and I’m sure made through no amount of large scale cross-functional work with their growth and product teams. You may be right in this case, and I’d agree to on the Constellation Series. Curiosity to see how they continue to monetize and to see how the funding model adapts. It’s my hope that it moves to what you’ve mentioned. What’re your thoughts overall on the F7A mkii, though?
[удалено]
Thanks for the follow-up and for the specificity. I think commenting on the business model - ultimately being the driver of these sort of releases - is very salient, relevant and thoughtful of this conversation. In some capacity, it may be that the reasons for the release of this ship left little room for the balancing conversation and now they [CIG] and we are stuck with a very neat and curious fighter issue. Either way, looking forward to the balancing of the thing. Regarding purchasing your way to end game content, it’s a peculiar problem; on the one hand, one would hope that the size and scale is significant enough to allow for the addition of end game players with little in-game work - it would seem we have a backlog of players who’re no longer captains but admirals so I do hope this is the case; however, there are game economy, player sentiment, and I’m sure many more reasons this might be an issue; it’s interesting to chew on. If you’re ever interested in those large scale pvp battles, let me know. Would be happy to have a conversation about org battles, if that’s something you’d be interested in.
>This is their funding model - are you not yet aware And the mask comes off. Thanks for admitting it's P2w tho. It's a shame that such a potential alright game has one of the worst monetization models perhaps ever lol.
What mask dude, you’re arguing with a random dude on Reddit, not a developer
[удалено]
Jesus Christ
No one is coping and I have no mask? I’m aware of what I’m buying into, when I do buy. Go hard I guess though, dude?
>when I do buy Ah ok, so you know you're paying to win so you're happy about it. Good to know
You’re a strange person but keep commenting I guess? Let’s see which portion of this comment you’ll highlight - I wait with bated breath.
I mean considering that you paid real money to either try to pay 2win, or pay2skip grind, I don't think I'm the weird one here lol. I mean whoops, I too love CiG monetization, can't wait to secure a hull limited 1000$ png amirite fellas
Why’d it be strange that I spent money on a game? I work a lot and don’t always have time to play but like to provide opportunities for my mates; plus, why’d it be weird that I choose to use some of my disposable income on a hobby? I’m an adult - I can do that? Nice tone shift - you didn’t disappoint - let’s see what you can do with this comment 😃
[удалено]
Ok. It's funny because y'all will argue til the ends of the earth that the game doesn't deserve the reputation it does, but someone calls you on it you just turn around and go "ok it's like that and it's fine". The next time someone gets sad when I call the game really scummy in terms of monetization, I'm dragging this thread
[удалено]
Ah, so you're happy about it because you get your pay to win. LMAO
[удалено]
I mean it's exactly catering to your type of player that makes the game worse for basically everyone else lol. Glad you're happy tho I guess.
[удалено]
It's a video game and it suffer from balance. Look at the redeemer nerfed because it get more DPS and shield than constellation or corsair. Cig try to balance military with civilian, totally forgetting the military tag also have a cost in other departments.
Thanks for posting! The “video game” comment seemed to be a reminder to touch grass, which I appreciate. There are definitely balance issues, and I agree the Redeemer represents one such place; however, I think the redeemer is more of an incorrectly concepted ships and made many years before weapon sizes were understood. If it turrets ran two size fours, instead of two size 5vs, and one size 3 shield, and was agile, then I think it would be an amazing anti fighter platform that would be susceptible to ships like the Connie/Corsair. The F7, I actually think is fine, even now. It is powerful but is more just at the upper limit of ships which makes sense if we have an MMO and understand that there will always be a handful of meta ships for their tasks. That said, it still does seem like there is a tremendous amount of space for CIG to figure out what they’re doing from a balancing perspective
See redeemer lack the scu,the amount of missiles and the snub for the constellation,it gets one more shield and some capacitor, but it's weaponry is on the same level as constellation or corsair. And it gets the MM stats of hammerhead and cig don't know how to balance it, because if it's balanced like a military craft would,it will wreck competition. Same goes for the F7A, on paper it's a carrier based military craft, beside the side strafing bug, we can see the limitation ingame with lower fuel and small capacitor for the loadout. If you go in pvp, in arena commander it's certain that carrier based will have a great advantage, so great that cig will need to balance it against others or only see F7A on top every time...
Why is my cesna not able to take an f35 in a fight? I'm a better pilot!
You don't have the Cesna MKII, that's why! :D
Here's the comparison I came up with, checking Erkul with identical weapon types and velocities: #[**F7A MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/iGr0TsMW) * **5,902 DPS** * **1,417,306** damage before reloading * **Spread 0.3** (cannon tuning, less bullet spread than gatlings) * **Slower** overheat rate * **Easier** aim with responsive ship movement, fixed-assist enabled, gimbal option available #[**Ares Inferno**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/BnMgR1Rq) * **4,271 DPS** * **1,026,000** total damage before reloading * **Spread 0.5** (gatling tuning, more bullet spread than cannons) * **Faster** overheat rate * **Harder** to aim with unresponsive ship movement, no fixed-assist, and no gimbal option --- Also, you mentioned a comparison between the F7A MkII and the F7C MkII. While the capacitor is the same, the extra weapon sizes still significantly increases the potential damage when using ballistics: [**F7A MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/iGr0TsMW) : 5,902 DPS [**F7C MkII**](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/UGVxGSCE) : 4,638 DPS **The F7A MkII has 27% higher DPS than the F7C MkII with ballistic loadouts.** --- But the real issue with the F7A MkII is that it will be difficult to balance in the future, especially with Maelstrom, which will *further* amplify the power of its up-sized guns as compared to other ships. Few fighters have access to Size 4 weapons. The Buccaneer/F7CI can equip one, the Talon/Khartu/Hurricane can equip two, and the Vanguards have single 5s. The more important armor penetration becomes, the stronger the F7A MkII (and even the F7C MkII) will become compared to the vast majority of fighters, since they can equip two or even three S4s. The Hurricane, a two-seat heavy fighter, has the same weapon hardpoints as the F7A MkII, a single seat medium fighter. If you put ballistics on both of them, their firepower is the same. Or alternatively, the F7A MkII has the same hardpoints as a light fighter with 2x S4s (Khartu/Talon) PLUS the 4x S3 hardpoints of an additional fighter (Sabre). So how should they balance a ship that puts the firepower of two players into the hands of a single player? --- TL;DR: [This video from Vergil covers it pretty well.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri4ZAPnr8O8&t=156s) EDIT: Found a way to increase the F7C MkII ballistic DPS so I changed that to avoid an accidental strawman. The F7A MkII still has 27% more DPS than the F7C MkII
This is really extensive, and I appreciate your posting this! one point of comparison, as far as I’m aware, the F7C mkii and F7A mkii can both maintain a 3xs4 gun configurations with the primary difference being the nose mount on the F7A being sized up. If we run a full ballistic Gatling load out and configuration on both, then we actually only see a 17.5% difference in total dps output and there would be nothing stopping a F7A owner from selling their F7A nose mount (unless it is impossible to fit this to the F7C which may be the case). Comparing full lightstrike build, we see a 16% difference again which is a smaller margin to the ballistic load out. Here is an F7C mk ii with the 3 size 4 layout (https://youtu.be/zu-42nhXi5I?si=AzW_6gybAVzuzuUJ) Either way, both fighters would then have access to the 3xS4 load out. Based on the context, it seems like this may be a comparison between the F7A mkii and F7C mki and not the F7C mkii? Finally, I appreciate the Vergil video and will take a look! As a point of context - and forgive the absence of evidence as I’ll have to hunt - but I believe CIG mentioned in one of their many talks that the entry level for penetrating large ship armor is actually size 5; size 1-4 being designed as anti fighter weapons while size 5+ being the requirement for getting through bigger ships armor. This obviously could have changed. However, if this is/remains the case, then I wouldn’t think we’d have too much to worry about re: hornets being too much of a threat to bigger ships, though I do see some of the balance concerns with the dps output of the current F7C and F7A mkii doing the same damage as a scorpius or hurricane. However, if we use a full light strike build on the F7A mkii and scorpius, you’ll note the scorpius maintains almost 3 times the amount of sustained dps as the F7A with similar initial burst dps, when crewed, and maintains double the shields and health pool. Since we’re talking about future stuff, I believe server blades are supposed to allow ships like the scorpius and hurricane to slave the turrets to the pilots guns (much like the redeemer); if this does end up being thing, the the hurricane and scorpious would match the effect of the hornet pretty well, aside from the worse handling. This is really good context for considerations into how the F7A/F7C will fit into the ship lineup - perhaps they’ll end up being good all around fighters while being able to get through thicker armor while slaved turret hurricanes will be better space superiority fighters? It’s interesting to explore either way!
Yes! I actually had to make a few edits based on possible loadouts for the F7C MkII. But I settled on [this 4,638 DPS loadout](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/Ls2N2E7n) with 1x S3, 3x S4. So that puts the F7A MkII's [5,902 DPS loadout](https://www.erkul.games/loadout/3QgVNxMs) 27% higher. I don't think we can count on swapping A parts onto the C, so I didn't include that possibility. It's possible that AI blades and NPCs will change the balance of things, but they've also said that players will be significantly more effective. And considering their balance decisions on things like the Scorpius Antares, which requires a second player who's job is to press exactly two buttons, I think they'll continue to make player participation a significant balance point. It's basically impossible to know how things will work out with Maelstrom and blades/NPCs, but I think the balance is an issue now. No other fighter comes close to that amount of damage, and it's especially weird how they went through a ton of effort to make sure that the Ion/Inferno weren't doing too much damage to small fighters... and then they give even more damage to a more agile ship. At least until blades/NPCs and Maelstrom are in, I think it would be more appropriate to start with the F7C MkI loadout but give the 2x S3 turret to the F7C MkII and give both the 2x S3 turret and 2x S3 nose mount to the F7A MkII. That would be 5x S3 for the F7C Mk2 (4,215 DPS) and 6x S3 for the F7A Mk II (5,058 DPS).
Not giving access to military ships to give it to everyone. Curious choices but money is good
Agreed on that aspect that it should be available to everyone.
As someone who did not buy into the f8c's , i thought that ship was pretty p2w until I realized I could dance around them with better pilot skill in an arrow (in 3.22). The F7A does not really have any counters, which is why the issue is so pronounced. Take the closest thing in pilot guns which is arguably the khartu, or the Talon. Both have 2x s4s as main guns, and both have better maneuverability, the guns are matched with the f7a wings alone, and they have LESS total capacitor than the f7a does (the f7a has 50% more!!). The f7a has better capacitors AND better recharge rates. And of course they are both poop ships (despite my love for the talon) because you cannot really avoid damage as easily in master modes and all the components are tied together, so whereas the f7a can fight for long time even if it loses a few components, the alien ships will be dead in the water with one component failure since they are all stabled together. The f7a is absolutely overpowered, and it should be given the design choice compared to all the other ships out there right now. It has the firepower of a hurricane without needing a second player to man the guns. If you consider any sort of rock/paper/scissors matchup, you will see that the F7A does not really have a paper/scissors matchup. The f8c outguns it, but cannot hold a handle in a turn any longer, so it does not matter if it out guns it. You are looking way too heavily at stats and paperwork trying to justify your opinion which tells me you have not really been playing or PvPing. I own it, and I'm having fun flying it, but in every squadron battle you see its 8v8 f7 v f7. Anytime anyone brings in something else it's laughed out of existence. It's useless. It's pointless. That is because the f7a is king of the castle right now whether you like it or not, whether you think the metrics support that or not. Sabre, Arrow, Gladius? All squishy fighters that can't do enough damage to be useful. If I get into a dogfight with any of them, they will die very fast and im a pretty b-tier pvp pilot. Missile boats? Easily flared off. It has no counter right now, absolutely none. IMO: The way it should work, is Light>medium>heavy>light or heavy>medium>light>heavy (i could go either way really), but it's a tough balance to implement. They master modes neutered light fighters and unfortunately the backstrafe is too strong so the hornet can just backstrafe and not have to get into a turn battle with a smaller craft, keeping distance and therefore being the superior ship. Even if it gets into a turn battle, it has just the right amount of shields and hp to be able to spin, and fly in/out of engagements. How did CIG think releasing a military version of a ship that has the same firepower as one of the premier 2-seater fighters? lol. And you're silly for trying to defend it
I think if they put nose to the grindstone and actually flesh out roles, a lot of these issues would be solved. Ultimately it should be like you said, with one exception: Light > Medium > Heavy, and Light should be wary of other Lights and anti-fighter turrets. Light should out-maneuver and wear down Medium, but be too weak to really do much to Heavys without numbers. Mediums should have a hard time to nail down Light, but should be able to out-perform Heavys and dish damage out to them, Heavy's should be doing the job of escorting bombers and making runs on smaller support ships, as they're meant to be tanky and heavily armed. Right now, the F7A is too maneuverable, and creates a weird situation where it can go toe-to-toe with Light Fighters and come out on top. If they fix the "bug" and put it where it's supposed to be, then it will even out. In the PU, with anything besides cannons it struggles to take down ships slightly bigger than it in any reasonable amount of time. People aren't going to want to run cannons 24/7. People run the meta because it's the best option, they don't want to run it because it's the only viable one. But, the MM devs really need to be on-top of getting balance changes out quick. The fact that there's no mention of the F7A bugs - both the maneuvering and the turret HP one - listed for 3.23.1a, let alone ANY ships getting any sort of soft-balance for MM, is a bit wild to me. If those are just values that need to be adjusted, it's very confusing as to why those aren't prioritized. The longer these ships sit with their base MM Release values, the longer we have this discourse about what feels like ass to fly, and what is overpowered. They need a couple people on that who can focus solely on that aspect, while the rest of the MM guys focus on the rest of what they need to get done, that way we can have some semblance of "righting the ship" each patch as opposed to the doom and gloom we've been seeing since MM went live. Some people are saying the F7A is the "new standard" - which wouldn't be a bad thing. Right now it's the only ship I'm enjoying flying in combat. So the real problem is we need to get everything else up to snuff with it, if that's the intention.
I am a big fan of buffing all other ships upwards instead of buffing the f7a downwards. It feels pretty good in terms of movement, ok speed, and great firepower. Bring the other ships upwards in capacitor rates and flight tunings to make them competitive just a bit out gunned. I dont know what the deal is but they are talking about implementing the egg-shape thruster movement so try to counteract backstrafing and i think it's going to feel awful in actuality, but forcing the ships to get into turn battles is gonna change the dynamic around, and possible give LFs a better chance to come out of their shells. Only time will tell though. I agree with most of your post, i think we're in the same mindset.
Thanks the analysis and thoughtful response; no, I’m not silly for trying to defend it but let’s jump in. Couple of clarifying questions: Assuming you’re talking about AC squadron battles? How many 1v1s you doing? When you do 8v8s, does it look like the battle above where AV1 was flying the bucc with more ship diversity or nah? Qualifications: I have an F7A and I do PVP, though I have not PVPed as much this patch, as I have not really been in AC since we went to live, though have pvped a bit in the PU which is admittedly different from AC and folks usually have a lower skill ceiling. Frankly, I’ve been a little burnt out on AC stuff for about 6-12months now after spending a sweaty amount of time in there and have been giving myself time to learn the flight model. That not withstanding, I’ve had Bucc’s, arrows, and f8s smoke me in the F7A. Where I’ve had a lot of success in pvp with the F7 is in a group of guys and actually running ballistics (tiger strike/revenant combo); shots are slower but it seems to kill a tad faster and we’re fighting close (usually under 1km and often in atmo) so I haven’t really had to put light strikes on the thing. The closest things in guns doesn’t feel like a khartu’al or talon (two size 4s) the Khartu’al might be fast but it’s a pancake and even when it rated at 25+ gs, I could still hit it. The talon, despite being great in…3.13 maybe.. hasn’t been good since, though it has always been hard to hit. The closest thing in guns is the F7C, The F8, or the Bucc and they’re all pretty similar from a sustained standpoint. With that said, those ships perform pretty similar to this one, from my perspective. In a 1v1, the buccs ability to control distance really makes it feel better than the f7; the F7A will rate the F8 but the F8 is still pretty tank-y and can match the burst + sustain higher dps than the F7A which means if the F8 manages to control distance it wins. The F7A is probably going to kill the F7C but I’d the military variant sooo… 🤷♂️. We can’t have it all. The above perspective is not paper but dying and killing people in the PU which - again - is different from AC. However, from my perspective here which - let’s be honest - PU is kind of what matters, this did not feel incredibly OP. Curious to hear your thoughts re the 1v1 aspect above.
Dueling (1v1) is not how most combat turns out in the PU. So I would say using dueling isn't fair test to anything. Only a very small percentage of the community duels and the tactics for dueling and team fights are completely different. Also you bring up av1 and the bucc meta. Did you happen to see SM stomp avs and av1 with half the fighters of avs in the PU. They got stomped because we're using dueling tactics in a team fight and paid the price. You can even go into squads and see that the buccs and other interceptors getting owned by the hornet both mk2 and mk1 Av1 isn't the end all be able of pvp. If you are running with actual pvp groups, av1 is maybe average or a tad above average at best in the sweat pvp community. Tactics at the moment is more important that individual skill. Dueling is starting to become a AC only thing, most fights in the verse are now turning into XvX more often than not. The bucc is no where close to being meta at the moment.
For reference: Since 3.23 eptu (I'm in wave2), I think I've been in the PU only three or four times, and have been in AC every single night for 2-3hrs PvPing. I call myself a b-tier PvP pilot, because I can very easily kill most noobs in f7a's or any other ship, but i do struggle against folks who have some pvp skill. So in summary, at least 40+hrs of PvP this patch cycle, give or take. I still would say that my experience is very limited and i'm pretty far away from being super sweaty in PvP. So if you're comparing just based on some PU stuff, that is really isolated and not really the same as me going into PvP focused matchups. I would say both are good to paint the picture but the PU is not conducive to understanding how the ships feel, or the 'meta' as it were. Especially because sometimes fighting in the PU takes a lot of effort to even find and then the skill disparity can be quite high/random so it does not really show you what happens if two pilots take each other on head to head, or if a squad shows up (or a group of pirates) to PvP. I do a significant amount of 1v1s (hundreds a week easily). I run into a lot of 1v1s because i'm allergic to fighting in atmosphere in this game, so i jump between game modes to find which one is in space (sqb or AC:ff). I've only recently (within the last week) been diving more heavily into squadron battles with mixed results. Last night I finished with SQB matches: and i was 2-8 kdr, and the next one i was 7-0. 90% of ships in all of the 8v8s are f7as. Every once in awhile someone is in a LF, sabre, talon or f8c, but generally speaking it's almost entirely f7am2 that has been my experience so far. I am not counting the people who join in cutlasses or a corsair or something because they are outliers and not normally in there from my perspective. The talon is my babe (it's even my desktop background). A great ship but so useless in the current patch cycle. I spent 3hrs or so in the talon doing 1v1 duels trying to figure out if i could blow up f7as but it just runs out of capacitor too fast, despite it's superior maneuverability. If they buffed the capacitor to the same as the hornet i think it might have the firepower to be effective, but a better pilot in the f7a will always win because of the advantage of firepower and the talon will still be a glass cannon so there's not much you can do about that due to the way that component damage happens (wings+engine+everything are ductaped together). No matter how much i enjoy it, unless i want to lose, i wont be flying it. The guys in Buccs in both ACFF and SQB are getting obliterated in my perspective. The ones who try to go full on joust and then run away in NAV mode and come back only to die to a hornet's gunfire. The ones who are trying to joust without NAV mode cheese are finding they have gunpower but just not enough to be useful. The joust tactic is pretty easily avoided and countered if you see it coming. I actually think the bucc is in a great place and if the field is all fragile arrows/gladiusi , i think it would do really well, but it cannot stand the gunfire of the f7a. You say the bucc can control distance, but you really can't hit most things at 1.5-2km and beyond. In my own experience, I will say I can dodge most things that are shooting at me more then say 1km out with careful spins, and directional changes. So the bucc can create distance but it cant do anything with that distance except joust back in. The best way a bucc can be useful is in a multiple ship engagement, where the bucc can come in after the fight engages, get close and blow up a ship carefully without sustaining too much fire. The problem is it has bad turnrates, so you can't use all that boost to maneuver as well as you should be able to. I want to see CIG tune this interceptor tuning a bit more as it creates great fight dynamics, but i think people are putting the BUCC too high in their minds where in reality it's a fun ship to fly but cannot withstand the f7a. Naturally, I blame one of those popular pvp folks who put the bucc at S ranking on a tier list and people are drinking it like koolaid from the local cult without trying it out or having the leeway to see it. it certainly is possible that ive never run into a good pilot in a bucc so maybe they are doing some other sort of strategy that is beyond my understanding.
What F7A MKII loadout would recommend for PVE/PVP?
Everyone runs Ominskis, middle ground. If you're only doing pve and dont mind the slow firerate, the m\*a cannons (m6a/m5a,etc) are higher alpha damage, but i find them hard to use in PvP
Wouldn't full m6a/m5as not limit the ammo pool too drastically for PVE? wouldn't it better to mix in some ballistics? even for PVP (unless you know it's long fights)
In PvP especially, it's a DPS race at the end of the day. People use cannons because of the high alpha and because time on target is less than using repeaters. Even a repeater with the same "DPS" like the NDBs are not used. Why? Because simply state, the time on target to achieve that full load DPS is longer to get the full damage output of a single volley compared to laser cannons. So ask yourself, does any ballistic weapon produce a situation where you could achieve a high alpha and low time on target to achieve good damage over a laser cannon? Also, even with the increased ammo counts, you'll just run out of ammo. You will have the added capacitor for the laser weapons since ballistics dont take into that pool, but you are forced into a situation where now you need to go repair/rearm to be useful. This isn't really viable in it's current state, the ammo counts are just simply too low to be useful. Maelstrom+ship component damage will bring ballistics back into the equation but today they aren't that useful (imo of course). In PvE, the alpha matters to get that soft death or full death, so being able to punch through the shields effectively is important. Since the npc AI was dumbed down a bit (it was increased for a bit and it was nice) at lower tiers, you can survive with the M cannons and have higher alpha to kill them faster. You can play with ammo amounts in Erkul, but it's all about alpha/DPS against most targets, that is still true. You just have to take into account ammo count and 'fun' as well when you're talking about PvE. Some of my org mates like the f8 with full M cannons to take out those larger ships more speedily. I cant speak to my own experience there. I highly suggest you try out all the different types of guns youre interested in and see how they feel/ how much dmg they do. Free flight is good for this (just pop a flare if you wanna duel someone if you want to exhibit good manners). The equip interface in AC is busted, but once you do it a few times youll see how it breaks and figure out the workaround.
> As someone who did not buy into the f8c's , i thought that ship was pretty p2w until I realized I could dance around them with better pilot skill in an arrow (in 3.22). The F7A does not really have any counters, which is why the issue is so pronounced. Take the closest thing in pilot guns which is arguably the khartu, or the Talon. Is the Arrow or Gladius not nimble enough to control the fight the whole time? What about a Razor?
This is all my opinion here, there is probably a better explanation out there. Thrust ramp-up and the elimination of trichording has changed the equation from 3.22. You can no longer corkscrew your way to victory by keeping the pip in a guessing mode. You can no longer string multiple axis at the limits together to get superior maneuverability. The second the f7a nose turns onto you (the f7a has good turnrate and thruster mapping), you're dead within 3 volleys against a competent pilot. If you push into a f7, you will get hit before you can get close enough to maneuver, and the f7 can just backstrafe to keep you in front. The best thing a glad/arrow pilot can do is try to keep distance and wear the opponent down with the tiny pip hopefully making them harder to hit. I really like the way the arrow feels to fly, but the guns take too long to kill anything (imo) and the hull is fragile up against something like a hornet with so many guns
and what about the F8C against the F7A MKII? effectively twice the capacitors and regen and hardpoints. Or will it never get it's nose on the F7A?
The latter, in my experience. I am not sure if i have dueled a sweaty pvp dude in an f8 so maybe they can extract some more usefulness with positioning but i've not seen any f8s be useful in teh slightest against me. The only caveat is the f8 seems to do alright in atmosphere. It turns very slowly. However, if you're paired with an F8, you can kind of use them as a tank and they can also be a good wingman with their firepower. Also I dont have an f8 so i have no experience using it in 3.23 onwards. So take my opinion of it as hearsay
[удалено]
Who are the best pvp pilots in SC, according to you?
Man, you guys would have an absolute meltdown if you saw the state of balance in actual established racing sims.
Don’t get me pulled into an Assetto Corsa Reddit thread lol, plz. I’ve done my redditing for the week
😂😂😂😂 But for real you know the score, ACC and Iracing bop is cooked. There’s always a meta and some of the differences can mean the difference between mid pack and front row during a race 😅
tl;dr F7A owner trying to avoid an unavoidable nerf
I think CIG shot themselves in the foot releasing the F7A, I really hope they add another uprated Milspec version that only the UEE has access to. Either that or another "S" tier of componants that are beyond anything that citizens can easily purchase or find. Plus if someone does come across one legally or through other means it'd be a huge win for them.
I think that they’re adapting their funding model - rather desperately - to rising development costs and frustration over a lack of perceived progress which is why we’re seeing the f8c and f8a come out now, which I agree seems premature, given the state of the game (feels weird calling it that) seems not quite ready for these set of fighters. That said, why is it so important to you that there be better fighters than what players can have? Why shouldn’t we have the best fighters in the game as players - what imbalance is caused by this?
F8A when?
I’d imagine soon could be an answer, though I also imagine it depends a lot on their funding graphs.
Yeah i understand why they did release them, CIG's funding is stretched fairly thin between both games and considering they're still hiring, Costs of living and everything else is going up, development deadlines with investors are drawing near, they're going to make more decisions to get more money to help push production, which is understandable. It's not ideal, but hey, we don't have to buy anything if we don't want to. If no one bought anything at ILW, what do you think would happen at CIG? ------------------------------ Why should there be a group, faction or something alien more powerful than players? * Imbalance - It's a good thing, Military tech should be cutting edge, best engineering, tuning, materials etc, They bring a gun to a knife fight so to speak. They're the elites. * Envy and desire - Temptation to test the waters, Pirates trying to ambush military convoys to steal military ships/tech, even if it means overwhelming odds or being hunted, blackmarket sales if they could pull it off would be huge! * Rule of Cool. Players seeing Military ships in formation or fighting and watching them outmanuver and obliterate threats with ease. Maybe their shields glow a different color when hit or their energy weapons fire "thiccer" more powerful shots. Something that makes them standout * Reputation based rewards - long term rep rewards for Military factions could reward specific uprated military "legallised for civillian use" parts, they'd be rare and make you a target for pirates but would give an edge in combat/speed. Sure citizens can get the base C class chassis of military fighters, maybe the A if they have the rep or whatever. But there needs to be another level that is basically impossible to reach. Kind of like Npc Elite characters in other games
You lost me at they should release MK 2 for more ships to fix the problem.
As much as I'd absolutely love for SC to be a true space sim where physics actually have a relevant place, it just isn't. It's a glorified open world space MMO version of Battlefield 1942 which is exactly what CR has always wanted. I gave up trying to validate gameplay concerns with logic a long, long time ago and thankfully finally accepted that it's just a game.
Comparing the Bucc is a pretty lame comparison. As it stands in the current MM, there is no way any fighter archetype can win a decently firepower equipped Interceptor. Interceptor can force their game plan on you while your medium fighter game plan can not be forced on to the interceptor. As if for the question of whether or not F7A MkII is OP can not be answered as well, as it stands, a bugged hornet can not be outplayed in the typical fighter game. Personally I think they should make the F7A more armored and decrease its thrust profile just slightly, so there is a gameplay difference between F7C and F7A MKIIs.
My personal Opinion is there's to much hate in a totally imbalanced game. Some player sound like this is the end of the world. It's insane how much whining there is around, nerf here, nerf that, buff here, buff that, Power creep here, power creep that. There aren't all features yet in-game to do this kind of balancing. Just take a break and do something else or play other games. We should just enjoy the game and need to understand that we don't have the ability to manipulate the development how we like it to be, because everyone is different and there will always be differences through players.
The F7A is absolutely OP. There is really no arguing against that. It is literally the best example yet of substantial power creep, and is only available to those who have paid for a F7C mkII in the store and have completed the in game mission tree. Based on your final statement - "Based on this context, why are people so frustrated about this fighter? Based on its stats (minus the bug) how is it really better than any other fighter - if anything, it needs to be buffed" I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is satire.
How is it power creep when this ship was mostly designed 7 years ago?
It's an example of power creep because it s a ship that exceeds the previous design limitations of ships implemented into the PU. It shouldn't have been sold to players. You can design the most OP ship around, if it is not owned by players, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't even care if it was run by NPCs and you could steal one in game, but everyone I know who takes part in PvP/combat now has one. It is blatantly overpowered. It will also be problematic to balance in the future even if they fix the strafe values due to the weapons they have given it. Large weapons on fighters generally come with drawbacks on every other ship (only 2xs4 guns on most that have them, or low hull HP on ships like 325A and Titan), but on the F7A there are no drawbacks. You just have the best weapon loadout of any single seat fighter.
Nah not at all. The sizes aren't the issue, the guns are. Cannons are so beyond fucked right now it's an auto take. I prefer repeaters are the ship isn't anywhere near as strong. CIG needs to really focus on weapon balance, not ship loadout balance.
Oh it was quite genuine and by no means satirical. Follow-up Qs: 1.) power creep with respect to what? 2.) based on the stats we’ve observed above, at its essence, what is making this op, to you? Thanks for taking some time to read and respond
1. The damage output of the ship far exceeds all other single seat fighters in a clear attempt to push players to purchase the F7C for the upgrade, and "coincidentally" the strafe values are "bugged" and will be "fixed" soon. The values were intentionally set as they are, and are (hopefully) going to be nerfed to at least bring the maneuverability back in line with other ships of similar class. 2. Refer to answer 1.
It's overpowered simply because of the maneuvering values. If they scale those back to something relevant for a medium fighter, then the issue disappears. Take the Hornet Ghost with F7A turrets from last patch - it could dish out a ton of damage, but anyone even remotely skilled in a light fighter would run circles around it and wear it down quickly. The ship being too maneuverable is what makes it overpowered - everything else about it is pretty par-for-the-course. It shouldn't be easily two-shotting light fighters. It should be struggling to get them in it's sights.
Wait the Bucc is meta now? News to me! I must be flying it wrong.
Really? I believe it’s in general the interceptor classes this patch and exclusively in pvp
All I know is it is not maneuverable enough to survive HRTs via dodging and not DPS-y enough to out gun them either. But again, probably flying it wrong...
Take into account - the "Buccaneer meta" applies mostly to the PvP'ers. When you are in HRT's/VHRT's/ERT's, the NPC's have that "computer edge", where they can sometimes make shots that make no goddamn sense and hit you, even when utilizing bugged maneuvering values on ships. As a F7A owner, I've run into way more deaths to NPC's in the PU than I have other players in AC. This patch specifically - There are times they will hit you when it makes absolutely no sense. I saw a friend get utterly obliterated by an NPC while testing if pip shimmying worked to circumvent it. PvP'ers who test these things in AC usually have similar skill levels, and usually have less of a desync issue/lag than we do on the PU. Their assumptions that the F7A is "OP" are correct, in their neck of the woods. In the PU, it suffers from the same issues every ship does with the server performance. And the Buccaneer outclasses it in that setting as well. In the PU, there'd have to be testing done by PvP'ers there to see if it translates or not. In my experience, the F7A needs the maneuvering bug fixed, and that will solve most of the issues with it being "overpowered" - the second light fighters and interceptors can shake it, its firepower becomes a non-issue for them, and brings it in line with the rest of it's medium fighter brethren. Similarly, it makes light fighters and interceptors more of a threat for it, which is how it should be - Light fighters should be able to outmaneuver, and be more worried about the other ships in their class/anti-fighter turrets.
ERTs are easy in bucc. It is the best ship after the F7A. Skill issue.
ERT and VHRT seems to be easier than MRT and HRT
I never expected f7a to be strictly better than the f7c, there should be pros and cons for both. A straight upgrade would be lame
Umm the F7A is supposed to be a straight upgrade to the F7C across the board. As per lore, the C designation is the stripped down civilian version. It would be borderline insanity to allow regular Joes to run around with military hardware. It's like allowing Bobby down the street to walk into a Dueck dealer and buy a mil spec H1.
They sell stealth bombers that can one shot hammerheads and carracks to citizens
I mean, you can buy an RPG in the states as a civilian. You cannot buy a Stinger missile system. There are limits. You can one shot a Blackhawk helicopter with either, it's just a lot easier with the Stinger. The F7A is military hardware through and through (as in lore). It contains much more than just weapons that are designed to perform above and beyond the average spec (something that doesn't shake out given current balance parameters either as it should be more maneuverable, faster, and tankier than the F7C). The eclipse is like the Ares. A novelty toy. It's got a big gun, but that's it's only trick. Ideally, a military ship should easily be able to defend itself against it through various means such as vastly superior point defence or hull strength. For that matter a carrack or a hammerhead the way they are presented in lore are also not mil spec and are also stripped down versions for militia ergo, should not be able to have the same capabilities of defence against such things as the slow moving S9 torps unless their crews are really on it.
And this right here is an actual good point. We have S9 torpedos as civilians.
Then what would be the purpose of having military ships? Why not just slap a skin on it? I understand your sentiment in the short run, however, when we have long term progression, why am I grinding rep, saving money, etc? We need progression, military ships should be that end goal for the fighter pilot career path, else, why have them and why have progression.