Tempest Needs to be Nerfed - SilverBul!et Edition

[silverbullet]

Few things to note here(perhaps in a slightly humorous/satiric way):

 

Tempests are not "new player" friendly. Example:

"So we have been gifted with Starter Kit. Thats great! WRONG!!!! After Richie, the brand new hs player was sharp enough to follow zone instructions and go through the process of buying their first ship, they muster the strength to exit the safe zone for the first time, wondering what is ahead of their journ....BOOOM!!!!!  Here is a tempest in your face!!!"

 

Sequel: Richie is confused by that first encounter of life in HS. He attempts a second time to exit the safe zone and explore the hs world, ONLY TO BE GREETED BY ANOTHER TEMPEST BOMB IN THE FACE!!! After a few more attempts richie ragequits the zone never to come back again to that dreaded world... of the hyper space...

 

Chances are, that given that players are centering and zone isn't dead, there is a power player who is centering with it.

 

 

Tempests likely to make or break the zone at any given point during center game. Example:

"FG is over"    *first wave of typical post-FG speccers/zoneQuit players*

"lets have a little fun in center while.." ---BOOOOM!!!---  killed by tempest.

A few minutes later playing pop is down to a team of two tempests and a guard gunner and another team with a couple of guys (who do not have tempest) who keep denying to themselves that center-Game is over and their repeated 5 deaths a minute are part of a bigger plan.

 

Reasons:

• For most people tempest shoots at them before they can even see the lanc in which they are mounted in. I have a 2k by 1.5k pixel resolution, and luckily if I can see them creep on the sides I have room to see them, but if they come from below or above the screen, they have already released one or two accurate bombs before I realize that there is a tempest lanc above/below my monitor screen size.
• Impeccable accuracy. They have accuracy unmatched by any human. They shoot accurately from the first bomb to the thousandth bomb, no exceptions. (I later talk about dodging by changing acceleration)
• high fire rate
• high bomb speed(levi status- I KNOW)
• infinite rotation speed - this one even isn't even fair when only coupled with accuracy, tempest can take down two players at opposing sides no problem, no rotation delay, no margin of error, no problem.
• They don't stop shooting upon special item use. Almost killed that tempest after 30 min of seeing it bask in its world of ...non-death? No problem he uses a repel, his turret will still bomb spam your face without a flinch.
• Aside from disabling the turret temporarily -- which is very hard to do(get turret to 0 energy) -- the turret has infinite ammo.
• No penalty to energy. Finally got close to that tempest lanc? no problem you still have to face ANOTHER set of weapons(guns and specials) that he can use WHILE the tempest shoots at him.
• another thing that is worth pointing out is the splash damage. You can be the best dodge in the world, but if the other players around you(even friendlies) can't dodge, you still take a great deal of damage.
• There is no personal reason not to use a tempest turret if you can have one. They are exp and money machines, and all you have to do is manipulate the direction keys using three fingers. There are not restrictions, no rules, nothing discouraging use of tempest in center.  There are utilitarian reasons not to use it, but I don't think many players are into achieving ethical purity when they decide to play ss(or are there?).

 

 

 

The right-down-to-the-bone-facts that make it a dealbreaker:

 

The nature of the "tempest game":

-In order to dodge a tempest bomb, you need to change your acceleration from the moment the turret calculates your predicted position, to the moment the bomb reaches the radial distance that your ship is in relation to the lanc... enough so, that the bomb doesn't hit your ship.

1. If you move away from the ship without moving perpendicularly to the ship, (aka moving straight away from ship) than you remain in the bombs path, and it WILL catch up to you considering the high bomb speed tempest shoots at.(unless you are faster than the bomb, if you are, your build probably dies with one tempest bomb --thinking slipstream here--)
2. If you do decide to dodge it properly, you will need to accelerate at the right time
3. The farther away you are from the ship the more room for error you have

 

-so this is nice, but what about killing it?

• well its a lanc, so not only do you have to take down this dead accurate killing machine, you have to take down a dead accurate killing machine with some of the highest energy and recharge known to hs.

-lets shoot at it - Wrong, to shoot at it is very likely to set you up for death.

1. The best way to avoid dying to this behemoth is to have your ship facing NOT at it(or away from it) but perpendicular to it, so that you can accelerate on time to dodge the deadly bombs.
2. Now if you can't face this thing face to face, how do you shoot at it? You can shoot from far, which is NOT going to be as accurate as that tempest shooting at you from far(remember the dead on accuracy?). You will still have to dodge those bombs by the way. You can snipe it, but lets be serious, you are not going to kill a semi experienced tempest lanc by sniping it. You will likely miss most of the time, or not hit with enough power (reliably) to beat their recharge rates.
3. This means for EVERY dead accurate bomb it shoots at you, you have to stop shooting at it and dodge, couple that with the high fire rate, and you're SS toast.
4. So far in my experience to have enough acceleration to dodge those bombs, you WILL have to use your afterburner, I have been most successful with overthruster and retro. Despite my efforts, you are consuming energy JUST TO STAY ALIVE, at the end even if you dodge successfully, you can get cornered into a wall. And once you are near a wall that level 2 splash damage does the rest.
5. The point on 4 leads to this one. You have very little opportunity to shoot back and not get hit. You cannot hp tank them unless you have another elite lanc, and you cannot dodge all day because you are a human and and you are bound to make human errors.

There is more I had thought of. If I remember it I will edit it in the post.

 

If you don't think what I say is true, spec hs for a few minutes while a tempest center in the arena. You will see what I mean.

 

I really miss hs center game, and so do a lot of us drop-by-for-a-few-minute players, I hope there is a way to compromise.

 

I do understand that a fix is more difficult to do than an observation, but hopefully some of this shed some light on some previously unobserved hard-facts about tempest turrets.

Edited January 4, 2013 by SilverBul!et

[Lone Outlaw]

i endorse silvers post..

 

Also i've killed tempest mainly one on one. With my Jav. By using minimal movement, and facing sideways, you can dodge with good thrust/afterburner. If you are flying away or towards the Tempest, you will likely get hit 50% of the time. Takes about 8 bombs, i might have had random stray enemy fire, that helped me (since it is pub). But most kills i got were mostly my doing. Requires a lot of effort, and it's not really something i want to commit to doing 100 times in a row.

 

As for finding a tempest on the mini map. There is a trick to that if you have low resolution Silver, type ?target 200 Anyone with 200 bounty will appear a different blue color on the min map. Makes it easy for pros like me to gun them down at a distance and find them.

 

Don't have enough XP yet for the higher level items. But my set-up will only get better.

 

Recharge:82%  Thruster:85%  Speed:81%  Rotation:71%  Shrapnel:4

+------------------+
| Javelin          |
+------------------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Item Name        | Count | Ammo   | Item Types                                          |
+------------------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Repel            |    11 |        | Repeller                                            |
| Combat Sensors   |     1 |        | Emitter                                             |
| Carnot Engine    |     1 |        | Sublight Drives                                     |
| Tachyon Sensors  |     1 |        | Emitter                                             |
| Protect Mount    |     1 |        | -20 Repeller, Repel Mount, Mount                    |
| Inertial Damper  |     1 |        | Addon                                               |
| Induction Grid   |     1 |        | Supplement                                          |
| Edison Reactor   |     1 |        | Reactor                                             |
| Faraday Cage     |     1 |        | Protection                                          |
| Pulse Laser      |     1 |        | Gun                                                 |
| Defense Mount    |     1 |        | Mount, Repel Mount, -20 Repeller, -15 Bullet Burst  |
| Tau Blaster      |     1 |        | Bomb                                                |
+------------------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------+

Edited January 4, 2013 by Lone Outlaw

[Edward Elric]

Without regard to the previous posts...... (I thought they were both awesome, but I didn't have time to finish them both so please excuse me if there is some information in my post which is repetitive.... though I doubt it)

 

Sometimes I find when a game designer implements something that so closely mimmicks the real world phenomenom that it's named after "i.e. we're talking about a tempest in hyperspace is just as formidable as a "tornado" "typhoon" or "hurricane" in real life" then perhaps the solution is to emulate real life once again.....

 

For this I turned to a video on "ocean cooling pumps".....

 

When I think of what powers storms I think of cold/heat fronts... but especially the warm air..... and for hurricanes and typhoons that warm air is fueled by warm water......

 

The question is, does an an ocean cooling pump metaphor already exist (inside spiders programming paradigm (or outside of it)) that can be used to steal the "heat" out of a tempest......

 

To be honest I can't answer this question.... but I am leaving this post to inspire players like silverbul!et and lone outlaw so that perhaps they might be able to answer this for players....

 

The second question is, do noobs have a simple way to steal the "heat" out of a tempest (perhaps by banding together?)..... i.e. "if one can't do it, can two? and if two can't do it, can three?"

 

Finally, I'll leave the video that talks about the real life Ocean Cooling Pumps at the end of this post, by I wanted to leave you with a short P.S. first....

 

Code D. Blue

(returning player, last played 2001)

 

P.S. When I think of "heat" in hyperspace I think of "heat reaver"...... could you pump a tempest full of so much heat....... that instead of fighting with cooling..... you fight with "fire"?

 

Video Referenced In This Post:

http://www.smartplanet.com/video/busting-hurricanes-with-ocean-cooling-pumps/402178

[silverbullet]

Edward Eric posts some very insightful information, perhaps we should all take a pause in our daily lives and reconsider the depth by which comments like his reach into the very cores of our hearts and souls.

[spidernl]

My interpretation of what edward said is basically "give it less energy and recharge so people can kill it off with bombs"

[Edward Elric]

[Cheese]

my interpretation of arry's manic post:

 

trees are really.... a metaphor for love and i..... like bagels and.... clouds are actually squares

youtube link

why are cupcakes not a recipe for disaster doctors have no idea what theyre talking about ill sue my church

[Samapico]

I think a big part of the problem appeared when you made it so turret kills give the owner exp and a kill that feeds parasite / nano. Before that, turrets were there to help you, but you knew you couldn't rely 100% on them, or if you did, well it was to help your team, not help yourself rack up hundreds of easy kills.

 

Also, if tempest takes up 4 turret count, maybe it should weigh down on the lanc like it was 4 turrets

[Lone Outlaw]

My only problem is that if it's this bad ass, it should be named falconeer. If you nerf it, name it cheese or something.

[Cheese]

what color is the sky in the alternate reality you are from

[Lone Outlaw]

purple, but i'm slowly moving back to blue skies

[cxc]

Silver is wise and well spoken.

 

Since turrets kills now count as your kills i think you should only get exp for thier kills if you did somthing skillful.

 

Is it possible to have turrets have a 'targeting cone' where they can only aim in the general direction of the host?   say +- 5 ticks (to cover a 90 degree angle)?

 

This way the host still needs to aim, but get extra firepower of turret.

 

Could also sell a rear facing turret that will still be limited to 90 degrees but would protect the rear, and a turret sweep item that increases the coverage angle.

Edited January 30, 2013 by cxc

[Unix]

Under some circumstances I would agree with that argument, specifically when PD was accessible to meds and above, or even when it comes to levi/spider and their turrets. 

 

However, let's keep in mind which ship is using the two biggest issue turrets, ripper and tempest. The only ship with access to them is lanc. I agree they are powerful killing machines, but realistically how will lancs gain exp? Many lancs dont even have any other specials to use to gain kills unlike old PD users, nor do they have the weapons range like levi or spider to kill the enemy through conventional means. 

 

The bigger issue is using them in center, not in base. If you can strip their benefits in center, but not in base, that would be ideal. 

[NuB KiNG]

Leave tempest in, let's just all create Lancs and ruin center with it )) I've already made mine

[Lone Outlaw]

having ships banned from center or nerfed in center and not in base.. creates settings for different ships under differing circumstances which is dumb and should be avoided at all costs.. Who wants ships to suddenly change settings depending on the area or action they are in? That is utterly retarded.

 

Just fix tempest. Easy fix is to make it so after it fires 3 bombs, the energy of turret is low, and the recharge has to catch up...

 

Changing bomb speed is too much of a nerf, and i quite enjoy the fast bombs. Just not so much the fast fire rate.

 

Just because tempest is nerfed slightly in center, doesn't mean lanc can't get XP. There is tons of XP to be had in a base game, no matter how shit the ship is. So that nullifies Unix's argument outright. And i am surprised Unix is saying one sided and dumb things lately. But nerfing the fire rate of tempest won't make Lanc useless in center. Especially since most lancs have defenders in center anyway, or they team up 2 lancs vs all.

[Unix]

Take the experience benefits away, not the actual item or how it's used. 

 

Lanc is the hardest ship to get any experience in a base and in center too. 

[spittnacid]

Take the experience benefits away, not the actual item or how it's used. 

 

Lanc is the hardest ship to get any experience in a base and in center too. 

yeah but the money is still pouring in from turret kills. I'm not proud of it but if i were lazy I'd just meander about with a lanc and turret in center. No exp but money rolling in from turret kills. Take that money and buy exp. Turrets are like retirement. Play enough to afford it than just kick back and retire on ppl futily trying to kill you.

 

[spidernl]

That has relatively little to do with turrets giving experience and kills, and far more with their power.

[Lone Outlaw]

i think the idea is that a turret isn't you, so why do you get XP for kills when you didn't do any of the work, except to wear a turret.

 

But i think i'd rather still see the turret toned down a little. Getting no XP from your turret seems a bit extreme at this point..

[spidernl]

Because the turret -is- you. It is an automated part of -your- ship.