Just some notes over the past day. Is still a suggestion, but it's also notes.

-If you do not want to read this, gtfo of my topic.

Gunner: Ordinance Supremancy
Gunner is a Capital Ship Class under Fleet Focus. It is an offensive class, designed to be on the front lines. It is characterized by hitting hard, having an element of speed, some range, and a sturdy tank. It lacks the aggro control and sustainability of Berserker, as well as the sheer DPS and range of Sniper. The damage of its main weapons lies just under Berserker, but missiles allow it to match the latter’s total damage.



Part 1: Missiles

All Missiles would use the Kinetic Missile Base. Essentially, the code the forms the Kinetic Missiles replaces any code for any other player accessible missile. The other missiles are renamed to what they are now and added to wherever they came from.

A Kinetic Missile is fired from its launcher at a pretty high speed towards the intended target. It accelerates to its max speed(if it can before impact) and explodes onto the target with a small amount of splash damage should it miss ever so slightly. That is how all missiles should act. the difference is that Gunners would have more powerful missiles that goes much faster. They would also gain access to mobile factories that can produce missiles with debuffs.

Each Missile Launcher would be assigned to an individual missile. When the missile dies or explodes, a new one pops up for the launcher. Different launchers would do different things. The best overall launchers are intended as Broadsword Launchers. Claymore and Skirmish Launchers would have different attributes suited for different play-styles and tasks. Freighters, Light Fighters, and Heavy Fighters have their own launchers, but they would be rather limited to what they could do.

Missiles are not affected by Collision Code, but will explode on the first enemy they come across. Missiles have a set timer, usually 10 seconds. Specialized missiles and different launchers could increase/decrease the time limit.

Missile Mastery provides a +1% Missile Operations Stat per level. Missile Operations is +2.5% Missile Damage, +5% Missile Speed, and +10% Missile Thrust.



Part 2: Damage

Gunners would do roughly the same damage as a zerk of the same level and setup, but without the nifty aggro control and sustainability. This means that in the Gunner class skills, an extra +100% Total Damage must be accounted for. Scrapping the Big Guns damage buffs, per level is suggested to be +3% damage for capital ships, and +1% damage for others. With Destruction, the damage should also be +2% damage for capital ships, in addition to the Destruction efect. Note that capital ships get a very crazy damage boost compared to the others. That is intended. Gunner is an offensive capital ship class.
Missiles will make up the remaining damage to complete the Gunner being exactly the same damage as a zerk.



Part 3: Gunships, a new kind of capital ship

As the title says, there would be a new kind of capital ship called a Gunship. What makes it so special is the fact Gunships all have 3 augmenter slots, like a Heavy Fighter. They tend to have more hull than Heavy Fighters of the same Tier and Tech, and do not have any kind of hostility bonus. Sometimes they will have offensive bonuses.

Gunships have a unified set of resists, like the Earthforce Capital Line. There is a weakness to mining damage, and a single damage type strength, but the rest of their resists is the same number.

In the end, a Gunner’s ship has more range than a zerk, is faster than a zerk or sniper, has the same damage as the zerk, but less range and damage than the sniper, and loses the aggro control and sustainability of the zerk.



Part 4: Debuffs

Gunners would have access to Gunner-locked Aura Gens. These do not provide a field, merely take the slot. What they do is change the gunner's debuff from the default destruction to one of a various other kinds of debuffs. Unequipping any equipped gunner aura resets debuff back to default destruction.



Hyperion Capital Ships

The Kalthi in Hyperion would have a series of Gunner oriented capital ships to obtain. They’d be obtained via missions, rather than BP’s. However, the costs would be exactly the same if it was BP based. These ships are Gunships, so they have 3 augmenter slots and a higher amount of weapon slots. They are meant to be in the thick of fighting, so they have good resists, ample speed, and a special inbuilt launcher, each.

The ships’ names would be, imo, Kalthi Retribution(T13), Kalthi Nemesis(T16), Kalthi Vengeance(T19), and Kalthi Vendetta(T20). All Kalthi Gunships use the Kalthi Avenger model and texture.

Parenthesis denote changing stats from one ship to another with the one not encircled being a static amount not changing from any ship, or the T16's stat.

Ex.
Kalthi Nemesis
Hull Class: Capital Ship
Tech: 16
Speed: (80)90(100)(110)
Hull: (500)600(750)(900)
Augs: 3
Weapons: 6
Resists: 70H, (30)35(40)(45)E, 35L, 35P, 35R, 35S, (15)20(25)(30)M
Vis: 50
Ref: 50%
Elect: (25)25(30)(35)
Inbuilts: +20% Damage, +20% Shield, +20% ROF
Items: Kalthi Missile Launcher

Kalthi Missile Launcher:
4 Missiles, launched at 1 second per.
+25% Heat Missile Damage


Gunships for Vicar(Bishop), Warden(Sky Marshal), Porpoise(Dolphin), Shrimp(Lobster), Rosy(Privateer), Reaver+(Reaver+), Narwhal(Narwhal), and Zebra(Jackal) would be added.
(Names of the Gunships in parenthesis)



A. Gunner Gear
1. Weaponry
Their weapons should encourage fighting at medium range, with good DPH. These weapons should also look bigger than normal, as they are intended to be fired from a big capital ship, rather than a puny fighter. Weapons that look like Titan Torpedo, Mzungu Big Pulse, and ACAL are good examples of what new gunner weapons should look like.
2. Shields/Energy
Bank based with Resist/Elect Temp bonuses to make up for less than stellar Regen/Elect stats. Similar design to current capship locked and oriented gear, like CCR and GGnT.
3. Radar/Engine/Misc
Larger pieces of gear not unlike Lion gear is fine. No need for any real addition for them.
4. Missile Launchers
While missiles are not the primary means of damage anymore, launchers should not be neglected. Ideally, missiles would fire away from the fight, then turn around and rocket towards the target slamming into them with force.
4A. Missile Types
Missiles should be able to do damage, as well as debuff if the missile is supposed to do that. More immersion to specific types of AI’s.
4B. Since missiles all would use the Kinetic Missile Base, Missiles of all or most damage types could be add. I suggest using a basic group of Kinetic, AP, Plasma, and Explosive be used, with special types such as Cheetah and Radioactive being from specific places.
4C. Higher end versions of the basic missiles could be from unique places too. For example, Huge missiles would not exist from basic locations. To obtain Huge Plasma Missiles, you’d need to do Red Photon a few times for the factory bp.
4D. Factory bps would be changed, at least somewhat. The type of missile [crate] it produces determines the type of items you’d need to collect. For example, a Kinetic factory needs items that have to do with physical damage. A Large Kinetic Factory may need a Rock Launcher(because it’s a physical weapon).



B. Gunner class skills
Currently, the skills are(per level):
Gunner Class: +5% Multi-fire, +5% Weapon Hold
Big Guns: Capital Ships +3% Mining damage, Others + 1% mining damage
Destruction: Target gets + 0.5% Vulnerability to damage type on impact, or 1% Vulnerability if Multi-firing
Missile Mastery: +5% to all missile stats

Suggested Change:
Gunner Class: +5% Multi-fire; +5% Weapon Hold
Big Guns: Capital Ships +3% Damage, Others +1% Damage
Destruction: Target +0.5% Vulnerability on impact, or +1% if MFing; +2% Capital Ship Damage
Missile Mastery: +1% Missile Operations Stat per level. Missile Operations is +2.5% Missile Damage, +5% Missile Speed, and +10% Missile Thrust

Missiles are vastly weakened in favor of special effects. Instead of a Small AP doing 500 damage, it’d do 100 damage. Instead, AP missiles would have a chance of doing TRUE damage, or damage that ignores the target’s resists. To unify the missiles, small missiles should do 100 damage, medium at 200, large at 350, and huge at 500. Remember, damage is secondary to their effects. Specific debuff missile variants of the original batch would also be obtainable.

(Debuff version does 50% of original’s damage and add a new effect to target)
Ex.
AP: 5% Chance of dealing True Damage (-25% Range for 2.5 seconds)
Kinetic: 5% Chance of explosive impact (+50% Weight for 3 seconds)
Plasma: 5% of Damage over time (Splash Fires at 50% missile’s damage in range)
Explosive: 10% of damage done in Splash range (+50% Elect temp for 1.5 seconds)

The debuffs last only for a short time, so the gunner must choose between damaging his target, and debuffing his target. The gunner cannot do both at the same time as the effect timer is way too short.

The man of ideas is back

And he has returned to do what he does best, oping the heck out of gunner.

Fortunately for me I have never been a gunner and wouldn't know.

It's as OP as zerker, which compared to a sniper...isn't that OP at all.

Offensive class means it takes the fight to the enemy. It doesn't rely on ambush or pets to deal damage. And you can go on the offense spearheaded by a gunner.

Who has ever heard of an engineer or seer spearheading a bunch of snipers and zerks?

lets be honest, i didn't read the whole post. but when you lead off with the idea that gunner should be a combat class, you're clearly going in the wrong direction. Gunner isn't under combat focus, its under fleet focus. Fleet -> increasing squad dps while contributing minimal dps directly.

That being said, it is a shame that the solo/duo potential for gunners is rather limited. The DPS really isn't there, and honestly I think an easy fix would be to improve the increase in DPS across the cap laser line (probably by increasing ROF) so they get decent burst dps but can't sustain for shit since they are elec whores.

Missiles are one of the worst quality elements in the game, so suggestions on that realm are warranted. But atm devs simply dont seem interested, sadly...

What most of SS continually fails to realize is the stacking buff potential from using an FC and gunner and engineer aura drones in the same squad already give gunner a potential role for runs, without any changes. Dunno for sure if you fall under that category of witless asshats, just saying...

I'm pretty sure Blue Dwarf has been ripping his face off waiting to get at Gunner changes, but there is other stuff that is priority? Patience, Traderscum

You try to change too much at once and I don't like your idea that more power = faster. + I liked my suggestion about missile types better

I like this suggestion.

The idea is to limit spamming. We'd want new gunners to play an active role in killing something, rather than have his engineer buddy or himself pull it or himself to the target and spam it with missiles.

Then it pretty much becomes a mining version of DemonBlood Lincin Zerk that can't do anything else but Lincin and therefore fails when anyone could could keep range pops up.

On the other hand, missiles fire away from the fight and arc back to ram itself into the target. Missiles with debuffs, all missiles with a default(not a debuff specific effect) effect. Etc.

But the main point is that missiles will take a more or less backseat to the gunner's own weapons. They'll still be used for dps, but they won't be THE dps.

I'm of the opposite view, I think that missiles should be the main part of gunner damage. FC damage is limited mainly to slaves(their own special weapon), so why shouldn't gunner damage be limited similarly.

Gunner's version of slaves is his guns, called...Left and Right.

Missiles to Gunners as Fighters are to FC. Have you seen Jey?

FC's SHOULD be using fighters. Most do. Only at the endgame, when you can tweak out your own ships to insane levels do fighters become superfluous.

Missiles should provide the majority of gunner DPS.


I believe that the Debuff that gunners give should be based on their DPS. The more DPS(including missile DPS), the more debuff. This makes gunners on runs require actual use, strategy, and teamwork to maximize their impact.

I would prefer the majority of damage boost to be in mining, but a secondary boost to others. Maybe half.