[Suggestion] Vortek rotary is overpowered, buff vs and tr rotaries.

Right, and when considering that balance, Reaver is the fastest.

That's how fast it's AB is, it's enough to make up for it's slowest cruise speed, and then some.

Which means the reaver is relying on a gimmick, a Necessary gimmick at that to make up for the slow cruise speed.

If you think AB is a "gimmick" you don't fly much....

AB is the bread and butter of ESF gameplay, and managing fuel is of the highest priority.

The fastest cruise speed (racer 3 moss) isn't enough to let you get away from someone if you're out of fuel and they aren't... you're still toast.

Pilots live and die by AB use. It's no gimmick, it's the entire basis of air survivability. (and, incidentally, ganking... of which Reavers reign supreme. Stealth+Racer3+fuel+Vortek reavers are some of the most dangerous threats to any TR/VS pilot.)

In dogfights, turning never gets me killed.
It's always that the scythe is paper thin while facing me, and my missing more shots than he does due to this, that gets me (and 99.9% of the best flyers I know) killed in dog fights.

Hitbox is the biggest balance factor I know of.
I would trade my reaver turning speed in for the speed of a lib if it meant I could have a hitbox the size of a flash, but I know every pilot and their mother would outrage over how blatantly OP that would be for any aircraft.


Long story short:
In PS2's world of air fights, hitbox size is king.
That's the main reason why everyone agrees that the scythe is so good.
(And also the reason you don't see many reaver zergs. The reaver is the original cert piñata.)

Ballto, I told you when you asked me in game that this is the reason the Vortek is what it is. Listen to this guy, he has been flying since release on all factions. I think I actually said explicitly in game that the Reaver is great at ganking, but sucks in a standup fight. You just need to stop being gank bait. When you hear a sound like someone using a hair dryer walking towards you, stop and look around a bit. It's really that simple. Also, last I checked the Oracle, (which you are using as a reference so you acknowledge it as valid) the Reaver has the lowest life expectancy of all three ESFs, which would make your assertion that it's harder to learn VS/TR ESFs when they die so quickly invalid.

Its a design Gimmick on the reaver due to its relationship with the reavers cruising speed. It has to compensate for a fault.

The reaver is only competitive thanks to AB, when you can't use AB, the faults of the craft show up.

...

That's not a gimmick, that's a strength and weakness. It's balance.

Poor reaver pilots will find themselves out of fuel at a critical moment and die... pretty often.

It's kinda like the Scythe, which has the best 3d model for RM dogfighting at range, but is the slowest ESF overall (cruise is 5KPH faster than Reavers, but it's like 30KPH slower than Moss/Reaver AB speeds)

It has terrible speed compared to the other 2, but it has other strengths (best weaponry over longer range, good face to face profile... but don't you DARE give them a shot at top/bottom or you're getting shredded)

In form and function, the 3 ESF's are very similar in their purpose and role... but they actually play out a fair bit differently with their subtle differences in strengths and weaknesses.

...

Of course, most the time it only boils down to who has more players in the air, or AA support nearby

The AB has to compensate for the slower cruising speeds.

Thats a design gimmick

FTFY

If the reavers cruising speed was better, would AB have to cover for it as much as it has to?

make it 5KPH faster cruise and drop 5KPH off AB speed?

THat'd hardly change a damn thing.

It'd still be slowest (tied with Scythe then) and still be fastest (still faster than Moss AB)

In fact, I'd call it a direct NERF to the Reaver. That speed burst is the primary strength to close in for the kill or create some distance when needed.

The accerlation on Reaver AB is likewise that much faster because it takes it from slowest (by only 5KPH to next slowest) to fastest by a decent margin, so it's AB acceleration is that much faster to hit top speed as fast as Mossie does with it's AB (and has the lowest AB boost benefit).

"Normalizing" Reaver speeds would be a TERRIBLE choice.

Not really.

I would be up for Scythes & mossies to get buffs aswell.

Scythes get best default, best at hover dueling.

Reavers get best Rotary, best at stealth rushing.

Mossies used to get best AI nose gun and best at ground farming.

Now that banshee has been nerfed to crap. Something else about Mossies need to be buffed to give it a niche. It can't be default nose gun or rotaries, because those are taken. Perhaps a speed increase? It makes no sense that Mossies need Racer + AB to be the fastest ESF, that's too much of a penalty to lose out on Hover 3/Stealth 3 just to run away faster. Mossies should have the fastest cruise speed regardless.

I actually upvoted a comment of yours in an air thread.... I'm dazzled. I did pause before I thumb'd it up, when I noticed the name. I was like, what in the world is going on? Still don't know.

Well, I agree anyways.

Currently, the scythe is the best performing ESF. It has the best gun (Saron) and the best hover-fighting shape. It's also the most stable. The scythe is currently considered OP, so I don't understand why you'd want to nerf the vortek when the most OP thing right now is the scythe.

And the mossie has no "weak" angle, it's also the fastest and has the fastest firing guns. It also holds the highest DPM of the rotaries.

The reaver has the biggest hit box, it has the best afterburners and his guns have bigger damage per bullet in general.


Really, if there was one thing to change it would be to nerf the scythe right now; the saron is the best gun by far. But honestly, I'd prefer that they didn't touch anything. I can't trust them to do a sensible nerf (that will bring it closer to par, and not simply down the drain). And it's close enough to balance for me to be happy about it.

I'm an *** to people who use tomcats (coyotes I don't appreciate, but I can stand them). Though, I remember when I first started. I would die right out of the warpgate. PREY crew was waiting for me outside, and me with my little scythe I would just get murdered back to back every time.

It took some VR practice for reverse maneuver, and then just fly fly fly fly. Eventually you start getting better, for some reason, people think good pilots didn't go through those steps. I think I can arguably say I'm a very good lib pilot, but I got killed gazillions of times before I ever managed to get there. Learning to land those tankbusts was one hell of a chore... And that was with the old ressource system. Now it's way easier to pull.

I think you're quite presumptuous. Knowing that you need to practice and have a good determination and will to get better to get in the air game, why would you assume pilots are any worst at anything else?

I went to look at your stats, and considering I'm a pilot, I'm drasticaly out-performing you even on infantry. I'm waiting to hear the ragestorm when the infantry players realise that pilots can farm them from an aircraft or using their infantry guns just as well.

I have only finished directives on the Reaver, but will also on Scythe and Mossie, but my main is NC. Like quite a few pilots in this game, I have days, perhaps months in esf pilot seats, quite a bit of which was previously waiting out resource timers, lol. Flying is incredibly fun ingame, and the skill ceiling is much higher than flight ceiling in game.

Vortek was the last weapon I aurax'd for Reaver directive. I didn't really like it as a new pilot, because if you aren't close enough to spit in their eye, it's not effective. It really is a ganking weapon, it's about the only way it can be used. A scythe or mossie w/default noseguns will rip you a new one, if you face one from any distance. You must close the distance, run, or die. Like the NC's love of shotguns, even on the nose of a Reaver. I guess as a faction, we like to be close enough to hear your death rattle....lol. But fully certed to mag size 470 and clip size 34, with a reload time of 2 1/2 secs (which is an eternity, and about equal to firing time), damage fall-off beginning at 130m, and ending about where dmg falloff even begins on other noseguns.....I doubt it's the weapon some people think it is.

"that empire has something that fits its empire traits"


Come back when Reaver doesn't fill your screen at its effective range.
Might as well get rammed then complain about your HP being too far into smoking after enemy explodes.

So my question is, if a Reaver sees me in a hover mossie, and we both have fully certed AB, yet I run like the bad pilot I am, will he catch up to me everytime?

(The answer is YES), little more than a 'gimmick'. Yeah yeah, never run in an air fight, or from A2A missiiiles

How does buffing the other rotaries help? You'll just have more people facing fast TTK and struggling to learn.

I'm just curious about your reasoning because all your complaints seem to be regarding the power of the NC, not the lack of power of the other factions.

Provided as information only:

Racer increases your top speed, and afterburner speeds. Useful for hit and run, or it would be if the change was major by full certification.

Dogfighting increases your roll, turn (using A and D) and 'agility'. This is arguably and without contest the worst air frame, it lets you roll faster, which is practically useless without a better pitch rate, and makes it harder for you to adjust your aim with the A and D keys.

Hover decreases the affects of gravity on the craft, increases your up and down thrust power (default space and ctrl), which makes the reverse maneuver easier, and still provides a small boost to your travel speed, increases you pitch rate (your ability to move the nose of the craft up and down), meaning you can actually turn to face enemy crafts easier, and your air brake, meaning that if any other chassis attempts to give chase, you can slow down, watch them blaze past you, and suddenly your roles have reversed.

Vortek is definitely a powerful weapon, but goodluck using it outside of 50m. You'll spend most of your time reloading.

The reaver suffers in many areas, no effective primary AI, slow as ****, easy to hit from all angles. The vortek is strong up close, but i would hardly call it OP. It has a ton of risk and coupled with the aformentioned speed issue you're handing yourself on a platter if you don't get that kill in the first few seconds. Even a slightly aware pilot will be able to spot and retaliate to a vortek reaver hundreds of metres before it gets into range. There is no fight or flight in a reaver, only fight or moon your enemy until he kicks your butt into the ground.