The 'M20 Basilisk' seems to be underpowered

The 'G30 Walker' which is apparently designed to counter aircraft's, is better than the 'M20 Basilisk' against ground units by a bit, excluding the low angle of depression.

The M20 Basilisk damage falls off from 250 to 167 at only 100 meter range, it has a slower firing rate, slower reload time, less ammo, slower muzzle velocity and very inaccurate shots.

This is a pretty under powered weapon, that's given out to the new players.

It really is Bantha poodoo.

Kobalt and Bulldog way better at AI
Walker and Ranger way better at AA
It's marginally the best AV top gun ever since the Fury nerf, so... good job Basilisk I guess?

I'd at least like better fire rate, 200 minimum damage and halved bloom per shot, more accuracy and DPS would make it a better all-rounder.

You forgot that except for the MAX and Flash, all vehicles have a higher resistance against the Basilisk (Heavy Machine gun type) than the Walker. The "worst" are aircraft who get 75%damage reduction and it goes up to 87% for MBT's, ANT's and Lightnings.

For a weapon that is supposed to be a 20mm machine gun (thats a 0.78 cal weapon, dwarfing the 12,5mm .50cal) this is a pretty lame and tame weapon.

Edit: for suggestions of improvement Ubernoob's answer seems good. More accuracy, less damage falloff. Since this is the starter weapon for newbies it should be the most average jack-of-all-trades weapon rather than something you desperately want to swap out. Perhaps you could do something like Crisis its high powered anti material gun that would cause your screen to go a bit blurry if a shot hit nearby or against you even in vehicles to make the weapon have more use as well.

In my opinion the biggest issue with the M20 is the total ammo. It's one of the worst guns in the game and has no ammo lol.

Then why don't you run the Walker vs ground?



Uh huh. That low angle of depression is the price paid for that higher DPS. You run it vs any vehicle with a competent driver and he'll stay below you, or simply run up to point blank and work you over and nothing you can do about it.


The M20 is nearly as good as walker vs armor. Not near as good as the Kobolt vs Infantry. But it does both. It's a solid gun.

it's the freebie gun in a f2p game and the vehicle "noob to decked out" difference was always far more of a problem than infantry was/is.

Agreed. (except for when the bassi was actualy good and was on every sundy)
But should it stay like this?

Thread reply:
Worst part about the bassi is the noise, like banging on a cardboard box, cringeworthy.
Bring back old bassi sound, please devs, or make buy a new one.

The basi is a tricky spot, because if you make it too good it steps on the roles of other guns. Making it too good VS air makes the Walker/Ranger less appealing, making it less sucky at range steps onto the halberd and making better and infatry farming steps onto the kobalt.

A good reverse-example is the Valkyrie, all of the guns are pretty wank so the default wyvern get's the most use cus it's most versatile. You then get exeptions like when the VLG was bugged and could fire super fast for NSO'.

It's why it's tricky to buff "jack of all trades, master of none" guns because then you make master of 1 guns far less appealing in favour of utility.

I'd rather just lower the Halberd cost on all vehicles to like 300certs or something, that way it's easy replace kinda like semi snipers for TR/VS.

You have to be very careful with adjusting the basilisk, yes it's the jack-of-all weapons and kinda sucks but if you buff it any where close to how other specialty weapons perform at their intended jobs then you get pure chaos!

A few years ago it was a "Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none-but-not-by-much-and-the-versatility-was-amazing-to-shoot-anything-so-who-cares" (Yes it was a long name). It created giant death balls of sunderers tricked out in reinforced armor and default basilisks just MURDERINGeverything (and I do mean everything) that came close to it. Add in some repair/ ammo sundies theybecame these invincible organisms traveling the map consuming all in their path like an episode on the animal planet.

You DO-NOT want a repeat of that

Why not buff MBT main gun damage?

Because then you get damage inflation. We buff the Basilisk to too much power? Allright we buff the primaries to compensate. But now the Basilisk is still a comparitively weak weapon (and all the other secondaries suddenly too) so we would need to buff them...

It would also play heck with TTK's. So you'd be better nerfing every single secondary to be of similar power of the Basilisk. That doesn't really sound like a fun game to me either. So we should be looking for a way to upgrade the Basilisk without making it the death-ball jack-of-all-trades weapon it became for a while.

Since it's a newb weapon, it should simply be easy to use. Accurate with a little leading required at range to teach you a little. Since we can't really upgrade it's firepower without either stepping on other weapon territory or making it too powerful we need to look for special features. A very small concussion effect (without the reversing of key controls) that builds the more hits you score on both vehicles and infantry? Piercing ammo? Sucks ability energy? Reduces enemy movement speed? There's a range of options.

The bassi is pretty bad. In exchange for buffing nearly every stat and ammo pool, it could maybe get smaller mags, less velocity, and more gravity. That would let the Walker still shine against air.

I do. That's why I made the topic...?

The low angle of depression is very easy to solve, just position yourself. And if it's not possible the gunner can shoot at air or scout for light assaults. It does everything better than the M20.

Would it really be a problem if secondaries become weak compared to a the MBT cannon?
Like if there apparently was a problem with Sunderers M20 spam, shouldn't the MBT's main gun that was designed to penetrate, do more direct damage?
The secondary guns don't have to be buffed, they support anyways.
If this happens what's that going to do?

Because people wouldn't want to play the secondaries anymore and you would basically be cutting a part of the game away? They might be called "secondaries" but that doesn't mean they should be "just secondary", they are simply called secondaries because they are the second weapon. Keeping their damage is important to keep them valuable and enjoyable to use, but if the Basilisk becomes too powerful then you lose reasons to pick other weapons.

There is plenty of reasons to buff all secondaries. You become dependend on the driver and all you can do afterwards is basically look around and hid two buttons (left mouse, right mouse or use them simultaneously). Giving every secondary some abilities to use and enhance the vehicle, nearby allies or nerf enemies should be standard options for every secondary. Deploying short-duration shields to repair behind for a second, sacrificing ammo for a short burst of speed/armor/acceleration/health/whatever for the vehicle, firing a directional pulse that spots enemy targets caught within, nerfing enemy vehicles or infantry, sapping enemy ability energy. There are quite literally dozens of options to make gunning a far more enjoyable and interesting act without directly upgrading the damage.

All that does is drive down 2/2 MBTs if you make the main guns even stronger than they are now.
Way back, Topguns used to be almost as strong as mainguns, in some cases even stronger.

For VS this was the 2nd incarnation of the saron (similiar to what it's like now but stronger) and it could put out some damn fine DPS at close range. This lead to to the VS pulling more 2/2 MBT's than both other factions and had a goofy side effect of soloists using the lightning more too.

For the TR, thier main-gun was far far stronger than vulcan or Halberd at the time and it only pulled further away when anchor was used. This lead to the TR not pulling nearly as many 2/2 MBT's compared to the NC who was the middle and VS who had the most 2/2. It also effected soloists cus the prowler completely dwarf'd the lightning so TR also barely used that as a tank.

I honestly like the Basilisk, and it is currently my go to secondary on Prowler and Vanguard, and I don't use Magrider much. I've had pretty good success lately with it, and even though some of my gunners have expressed their initial trepidation about it, they usually warm up to it pretty quick, and have been quite effective, on all targets. I don't really know how it stacks up against the Walker when you throw in the different resistances, but the Basi feels stronger against ground targets, and is not toothless against air or elevated targets and fairies. I even ask for it as secondary gunner myself, even though it's rarely much certed. I do like the other weapons, but inevitably, they always leave me vulnerable to something, so I feel Jack of all trades is good when you might meet any situation on the battlefield. Could it be buffed, or resistances changed to make it more effective...probly a bit, as long as it doesn't step on the toes of other weapons.

When playing VS my son and I run the Walker. We've had okay success with it. We prefer to run it vs ephilion. Hate that gun.