On 2010-05-26 15:33, Lark of Serenity wrote:
C) alter the armour setup on kluth: ICC MDs and other missile ships used to have no rear facing armour or shield. doing this to kluth would make a fair bit of sense: all of their ships are supposed to be forward firing attack ships, meaning their rear is supposed to be the most vulnerable. accentuating that vulnerability so that a kluth ship doing a strafing run will always take a significant amount of damage when its moving away (and thus cant always make a quick repeat of that run) would make some sense. dreadnaughts would supposedly be safer because they tend not to make those kinds of attacks. it would also make the principle tactical counter to kluth (flying smaller ships than them and spacing out enough that they cant do their looping strafing runs without someone shooting them in the back) a much better counter: one that is similarly effective and similarly difficult to orchestrate.

C) alter the armour setup on kluth: ICC MDs and other missile ships used to have no rear facing armour or shield. doing this to kluth would make a fair bit of sense: all of their ships are supposed to be forward firing attack ships, meaning their rear is supposed to be the most vulnerable. accentuating that vulnerability so that a kluth ship doing a strafing run will always take a significant amount of damage when its moving away (and thus cant always make a quick repeat of that run) would make some sense. dreadnaughts would supposedly be safer because they tend not to make those kinds of attacks. it would also make the principle tactical counter to kluth (flying smaller ships than them and spacing out enough that they cant do their looping strafing runs without someone shooting them in the back) a much better counter: one that is similarly effective and similarly difficult to orchestrate.

On 2010-05-26 15:33, Lark of Serenity wrote:
I'm finding luthie ships still have a bit too much staying power in a fight. This is from playing with them in scenario and from fighting them in MV.

e.g. my combat dessy versus a kluth dessy, the kluth didnt cloak once and just kept fighting with me

e.g. in a firefight my siphon can kill or chase off another dread before having to cloak, usually with energy to spare, and usually without being in any severe danger of being destroyed.

its also extremely frustrating to lose several ships in your fleet and watch the kluth lose nothing in the entire fight, get away with X hull value and be ready to fight again far earlier than anyone on your faction will ever be. where an ICC dread has to retreat to a depot planet and takes several minutes to repair (sometimes tens of minutes. im sure UGTO players can speak to this more readily than us, 90% of UGTO play time seems to be spent repairing), the kluth can rest in deep space and be field-ready in a couple of minutes, and always be full hull faster than ICC.

A review of game mechanics:

K'luth have poor armour (or are supposed to), so their hull is effectively all theyve got. thus they have the automated repair so that their hull recharges the same way UGTO armour and ICC shields do. the problem is that in order for ICC and UGTO to maintain our defensive advantages over kluth we need armour AND hull repaired. since Kluth are mostly hull it works out to be a relative defense advantage i find. it also seems that kluth armour is a bit too thick: my support station firing at a passing kluth cruiser barely knicked his hull value. that doesnt feel right when fighting kluth. as ICC im uncomfortable getting into range of any station even with an AD. also, automated repair means kluth technically dont need to field repair ships, whereas most UGTO and ICC fleets have at least 1. thats 1 very easy ship to kill versus a destroyer/cruiser/dreadnaught being fielded on the kluth side of a balanced fight.

the kluth cloak is their principle defense. it allows their smaller ships to quickly disengage, and larger ships have a good chance of escaping with it. with perhaps the exception of stations its a pretty good chance a luth vessel will get away. this is especially true when kluth are taking turns decloaking: its easier for a fleet to focus fire on the visible kluth than try and track down one that isnt an immediate threat. this translates however into kluth repeatedly doing loops around and attacking, always with a higher hull value than where they were left off (sometimes dramatically in a short period of time, which is mystifiying). as ICC, it doesnt feel like we have very many options.

A) if we sit at the planet at fire at incoming kluth ships it basically facilitates their tactic and we eventually lose. our shields dont seem to recharge as fast as their hull can be repaired. they have a sustained attack advantage against our supposed defensive advantage

B) if we pursue disengaging and damaged kluth ships, we are opened up to fire from the next attack wave. it also strings our fleet out and makes everyone more vulnerable. it really isnt an option against a coordinated kluth attack.

C) ECCM pinging doesnt tell us who to target first and makes coordinating weapons fire very difficult. laying down tons of ECCM increases cloak time but not by a very large amount, kluth can compensate by speeding up their attack runs. beacons means sacrificing firepower on the field, so its not a very good trade in the short term. that and several ppl have reported beacons bugging out on them and not spawning when fired.

lastly, kluth have traditionally had much less energy than the other factions. this is still the case but as mentioned my siphon can fire repeatedly before having so little energy i need to leave; to the point that i can kill a dreadnaught and leave in an evenly matched firefight.

i DONT want to strip the kluth of the tactic im referring to above, as it is clearly their most effective and i personally enjoy doing it when i play kluth. its difficult to orchestrate and fun and effective, and i like it and i like seeing kluth use it. its frustrating on the receiving end but its obviously the best way to use cloak. HOWEVER, i DONT think its fair that it can continue nearly non-stop, with the defending force facing the problems i mentioned above. im doing my very best to be fair here. with that said,

i think ONE of the following needs to happen:

A) tweak kluth energy to be a bit lower, or make it recharge slower, so that kluth ships cant do a quick loop around and continue firing; make it so kluth ships have to spend as much time at rest as ICC and UGTO ships do after an intense fight. either that or decrease rest time for UGTO and ICC. UGTO spend most of their time repairing at planets, ICC spend a similar amount of time repairing and waiting for shields to recharge. the new rest mode for ICC shields is a boon to us when repairing but UGTO will still have a massive disadvantage, and it doesnt solve the active repairing problem happening in combat situations.

B) tweak kluth automated repair so that it doesnt have as much ammo. thus kluth ships actually need a resupply ship between fighting rounds in order to get back to fighting strength. automated repair becomes a temporary solution that will last a couple loops at best.

C) alter the armour setup on kluth: ICC MDs and other missile ships used to have no rear facing armour or shield. doing this to kluth would make a fair bit of sense: all of their ships are supposed to be forward firing attack ships, meaning their rear is supposed to be the most vulnerable. accentuating that vulnerability so that a kluth ship doing a strafing run will always take a significant amount of damage when its moving away (and thus cant always make a quick repeat of that run) would make some sense. dreadnaughts would supposedly be safer because they tend not to make those kinds of attacks. it would also make the principle tactical counter to kluth (flying smaller ships than them and spacing out enough that they cant do their looping strafing runs without someone shooting them in the back) a much better counter: one that is similarly effective and similarly difficult to orchestrate.

On 2010-05-26 16:34, Lark of Serenity wrote:
yes, im aware of the points you brought up. lets look at something else though

"we usally cloak when are armor go"

THAT is a problem.

On 2010-05-26 17:53, Starcommand of ICC wrote:
Either ICC should get something back that has unlimited ammo and is energy based (e.g. the Ion Gun) OR the other two factions need to have ammo caps on there ships. UGTO and Kluth both have a nigh unlimited sustained attack power that ICC just CAN'T DO! Supply ships fix all that but just as Lark pointed out, there is an easy kill waiting to happen.

On the subject of Kluth having too much armor? There armor is fine but its that hull HP that was upped a little while back (dread/station) that gave them way too much staying power in a fight.