What happened to all of the VS on Emerald?

Emerolloled VS here as well, i've noticed we've been quite out popped lately. But luckily my outfit has gotten used to 2:1 odds against us and sometimes we win

Crushing you guys as the underdogs makes our victories MUCH sweeter

Yes, TR really needed more help fighting only NC .
I think server smash is partly to blame. Everyone wants to get comfortable with the faction weapons.

For perspective's sake, please bear in mind that while my main is a ~1500 hour VS, I have 600-700 hours on my BR 100 TR / NC as well - I play everything in the game. I'm not the best ESF pilot, but I do everything else frequently enough to have a fairly good handle on the performance of various items, and balance in general.

A few fun facts:
Vehicles are interesting, this is a given - people (generally speaking) like using them.

The magrider is interesting, and it was effective. The primary cannon is terrible, the shots have tremendous drop (higher gravity applied to the projectile relative to other cannons) and projectile velocity is slower as well.

Lets look at the tanks themselves first.

Magrider Cons (relative to other MBTs) :

• Slowest top speed
• Low armor, roughly even with the prowler
• No mobile turret = less vertical traversal, less situational awareness (due to having to turn the entire hull)
• Extremely high skill cap / cert investment to use the ES ability correctly in combat.
• Glowing engines combined with needing to angle the hull down make better targets from the air then most

Magrider Pros

• Slight hover ability allows easier terrain traversal then most (Note the 'easier', not better - I can get my sundy anywhere I can get my magrider, excepting galaxy-riding shenanigans - it's just faster to use the magrider)

... That's really the only pro I can think of - no-recoil can be duplicated in any tank by firing from third person, you can even put a bit of colored masking tape on your monitor for a crosshair, if you can't memorize where the camera fires from. (That's right, you can duplicate this supposed empire ability with masking tape and a sharpie, or a good memory - either work)

Now, ES weapons:

Saron: Excellent burst DPS up close, but damage dropoff / CoF makes it inferior to the Enforcer at mid / long range. The Vulcan can't compare to either. In terms of AI, i'd say the Enforcer is more effective these days, especially since it now takes 4-5 direct hits to down one infantry unit. It's faster to get out and use sensor bolts, in most cases. Overall, i'd say it's 2nd best, above the Vulcan, but below the Enforcer.

PPA: True to SOE nerf methodology, the weapon was buffed until people started using it, then it was castrated with a jagged, rusty spork that forumside had been using as an athletic cup. The CoF feels worse then the Duster initially was, and bloom is tremendous. Without a greater splash range, this weapon is inferior to the Canister in nearly every aspect. Sustained fire is required to remove targets, and CoF Bloom prevents this quite effectively.

Without the large pellet-spread of something like a Canister, the CoF bloom makes the new PPA feel like a shotgun that can only fire one pellet of its shot at a time. It I had to identify the ideal range and scenario for the new PPA, I would say that it's best within 50 meters, and only against targets remaining relatively still, on a flat surface, or standing near easily splashable walls.

For AI situations requiring splash, the marauder is better (I can't believe I just said that), and for burst damage in close, i'd much prefer my Canister. It feels as though the new PPA doesn't have a very well thought out role, but rather it was nerfed merely to quiet the hordes of whine pouring through twitter feeds, forumside, reddit, etc.

To clarify my opinion, the PPA did need to be tweaked, although I don't think it was nearly as overpowered as people seem to think it was, at least the 1st nerfed version (the first one was - 70 shots was insane, 30 / less max ammo / no shield penetration / less splash and direct damage is more reasonable) ... The issue was that the vast majority of all Magriders seemed to use it. 40 tanks, all with ranged AI firing at once will destroy any infantry threat. (I personally think the issue here is more the number of tanks permitted in a hex at once is limitless. Impose max-MBT spawns within a given region, say... 20 allowed to be pulled from one hex at a time, and suddenly those 50 heavies with rocket launchers start living long enough to blow a few out of the fight.)

At least the marauder can lay down a field of splash damage with enough reserve ammo to sustain fire for a good while. At least the Canister can fire a burst of damage capable of OHK versus approaching threats, and provide fire support at medium range. The PPA is less effective at both of these, and the CoF bloom ensures that any shots past the 2nd are almost a guaranteed waste.

If I had to think of a way to address this, I would pick one of these three approaches:

• Revert the nerf, then change other aspects of the old PPA.

A 20 round, accurate AI option with slow projectiles is not inherently overpowered, but the high damage at range is. Scale the damage dropoff to be more significant. It's a giant ball of superheated plasma that should become less superheated as it's exposed to the atmosphere. At 50-75 meters, reduce it to a standard lasher round, which is really only enough to tickle a wary target. Really, you could mount my Lasher atop a magrider, and I would be happy with it as is.

• Reduce the CoF bloom of the current version to allow 4-5 semi accurate shots instead of 2

Self explanatory. You can fly a drunk galaxy coated with bungeed, tapdancing elephants through the current PPA's crosshairs.

• Redesign the PPA entirely.

How about a NEW mechanic? The VS are all about technology, give them something fancy looking, but with drawbacks. How about... the PPA draws energy from all the ambient nanites in the air, recycling them to boost PPA round potency. Because nanites. But, but... having too many PPA's operating within each other's proximity removes any bonuses, reducing the weapons' effectiveness significantly. Suddenly those 80 magriders aren't all that threatening.

How about a plasma mortar? We don't have no-drop on anything that matters now, anyway. (excepting the Saron and the Eidolon, those are literally the only two that matter now.) A 6 shot AI cannon with a psudo-charged mode. Holding down the optics-key paints a glowing purple trail in the air that anyone can see, pressing fire fires a projectile that will follow roughly that path. Holding down the fire key allows charging up to three rounds, which fire in a triangular spread for overlapping splash.

Really, at this point - i'd take a plasma variant of the Kobalt with slightly less damage, nodrop, and a tighter CoF.

TL ; DR - Plasticles. Lots of plasmasticles.

I seriously doubt that the VS is suffering from underpop.

GOKU isn't on Connery, which is reason number 17 why Connery is more fun than Mattherjaegarsonrald.

First your OP ZOE gets a much deserved nerf bat and you run to other factions cause your OP toy got taken away.
Then PPA becomes the new OP flavor of the month and that toy gets a much needed nerf and you bail ship yet again.

So for something said in a joking manner you VS sure are proving it to be a 100% accurate statement.

are reasons 1-16 also related to easily hurt feelings?

Gonna favorite this thread and all threads like this, so when, like, I dunno...Banshee's getting nerfed, so...TRAC-5? Godsaw? What can TR lose that will make the VS newcomers to the bandwagon jump to the NC, anyways?

Well, whenever the next ship is jumped over the shark, I'll happily bump these threads back up and lol. Oh, I will lol.

Apparently I was too subtle two posts in a row. I'll try to be a little bit clearer the third time.

IT WAS A JOKE!

If TR ever loses the extra 10 rounds in their guns and the immense satisfaction that one feels when aircraft melts as a Lockdown Burster MAX, we'll bandwagon our way to the freedom train and become the 5th faction.

World wide stats have NC as topping the population charts for months now. TR were last, but after latest patch VS have almost equal numbers to TR.

PPA got nerfed so they went to play in OP Manguards.

Never understood that. I understand jumping factions because your bored or want to try other things out.. but to jump to the largest pop just so you can "win"... meh.
Personally, I started on VS Matty and i'll most likely end on VS Matty/Emmy/Gemini/whatever/etc. Not a big fan of switching myself. I've played through underpop, overpop, rediculous overpop, even balance, and underpop again.

To be honest, I haven't been playing much due to SS. Between Planning and Practicing on NC, not much VS has been played by me lately. Some outfits have been sharing Ops nights as well.

Silly 4th faction terribads.

really? I remember checking and seeing the VS and NC were tied, with the VS a little more?

1. Easy certs
2. Lack of a constant source of chat Spam, so /y is reasonably useful at times
3. Wide variety of outfits
4. Occasionally gets visits from Briggs
5. Command Channel is surprisingly useful
6. Lack of an obvious redeployside meta
7. Cheese is left to farmers
8. Usable population at most hours
9. General lack of Skygod mentality
10. Abuse of broken weapons is usually kept to tolerable levels (exceptions: Striker, ZOE)
11. No one holds the throne of being constantly overpopped or super underpopped
12. Population peaks constantly shifts
13. Pro outfits usually fight each other instead of farming zergfits
14. TE is not present on Connery Well now they aren't present anywhere so I can cross that one off my list
15. Meta shifts are usually recieved well
16. We don't ***** about Connery's problems on the forum's like it is every server's problem
17. We don't have GOKU
18. TK alts are kept to a minimum ( I have only seen ~5 in the year I have been playing planetside)
19. Outfits of all factions can be seen cooperating during alerts and don't instantly give up and go play on the other continents
20. People haven't figured out that you can exploit prediction algorithms and send your hitbox into a wall (please let it stay that way, i'm looking at you NivxWest)
21. You have a 1 in 900 chance of seeing a Dev playing. I killed Higby once, and I frequently see PromptCritical running around.
22. HMRD (You have no idea how much fun these guys are, I would say it is a reason to switch all on its own)
23. Gank squads and warpgate camps from aircraft are kept to a minimum Darnit Don, we had such a great thing going on :|
24. Its surprisingly hard to find tryhards that will rage at you, although i guess this could be a downside and an upside
25. Pop stacking is reserved for alerts only.

HEY! Think on the bright side...
XP bonus for all!

Spawn room shields.

God this makes my eyes roll every time I see it. The VS is hands down the best faction despite the PPA nerf.