Archwing Improvements

[Ikusi_Prime]

To put things bluntly, Archwings suck in Railjack missions. You die nearly instantly, and your weapons do virtually no damage. This necessitates putting a bunch of Intrinsics into Gunner so you can use the Slingshot to get into the action safely so you can actually get to enemy ships to take them out.

Overall, Archwings need to be harder to hit and Archweapons need to pack a bigger punch.

The near-perfect accuracy and heavy damage of enemy fighters makes sense when they're shooting at a Railjack. It's a giant target with over 2k hitpoints and 1k armor. For Archwings, this level of accuracy is not appropriate. They are tiny, agile targets that should be much harder to hit, but they aren't. They get annihilated the moment they peek out of the ship.

I propose a "lock-on" system where enemy ships have heavily reduced accuracy against an Archwing target (~75% to start), where they have a large chance to miss. This means that the shots you do take still hurt, but you take far less of them. As they continue to shoot at you, their accuracy penalty decreases, so the longer you stay in their sights, the more damage you take. When you leave their view, the penalty regenerates, and whenever you perform maneuvers like rolls, blinks, and sudden direction changes, the penalty goes back up. At the very least, this would give Archwings a buffer before they get destroyed as the enemy finds locks on their tiny targets. With clever flying, you could stay in the thick of it for an extended period of time as the enemies struggle to hit you.

Archweapons need to be comparable to the turrets on a Railjack. Visually, they're roughly the same size, and you don't have the protection of the Railjack while you're out in Archwing mode. There needs to be a reward for the risks you take on the away team. Buff the base damage of the weapons, increase projectile speed, and give us mods that add on the new Railjack damage types to our Archweapons so they can actually deal with enemy fighters. Archweapons should feel powerful. Also, buff Furor. 10% attack speed is a joke.

We need Archwing combat to be powerful. When you don't have a squad, you need to be able to leave the ship behind and do things. Hopefully, by the new modular Archwings come out, we will get a balance pass on Archwings in general so that all four of the current ones are viable and fun, and Archwing combat feels fluid and useful. It shouldn't just be a way to get from point A to point B. It should be an optional tool in our toolbelt.

 

[MysticDragonMage]

if archwings were just as powerful of a role as a railjack gunner or pilot, the best course of action would be for the entire squad to forget the railjack, keep it on the side of the map, and use archwing through the entire mission. then there would be no need for engineers, pilots, gunners, or cooperation.

this gammode is all about the railjack, so if the archwing role were to be as powerful as a gunner, i think they need to be on a cool-down or their extra power needs to depend on a resource like flux energy. just so that we wont have players outside through the entire mission, forcing others to either care for the railjack or join them outside.

[Ikusi_Prime]

13 hours ago, MysticDragonMage said:

if archwings were just as powerful of a role as a railjack gunner or pilot, the best course of action would be for the entire squad to forget the railjack, keep it on the side of the map, and use archwing through the entire mission. then there would be no need for engineers, pilots, gunners, or cooperation.

this gammode is all about the railjack, so if the archwing role were to be as powerful as a gunner, i think they need to be on a cool-down or their extra power needs to depend on a resource like flux energy. just so that we wont have players outside through the entire mission, forcing others to either care for the railjack or join them outside.

If an Archweapon was just as strong as a Railjack turret, that still wouldn't make Archwings just as strong as a gunner. Gunners are protected by the Railjack. Archwings are not. Even with the accuracy changes described here, Archwings would be significantly easier to take down than the Railjack. 

The devs also said, explicitly, that they envision solo players needing to abandon their Railjack out of harm's way while they deal with enemy crew ships. Getting out of the Railjack is an important part of the mission. It's the primary way players take out crew ships.

On the same token, sometimes staying in the Railjack is not the best move. Sometimes your pilot is terrible and isn't keeping you where you need to be to reach the action. Sometimes every station is full and you aren't providing anything by staying on the ship. 

Having people both on the Railjack and on the away team is the optimal way to play. The people on the away team deserve to be able to use their Archwings as more than just getting around. 

[MysticDragonMage]

7 hours ago, Ikusi_Prime said:

If an Archweapon was just as strong as a Railjack turret, that still wouldn't make Archwings just as strong as a gunner. Gunners are protected by the Railjack. Archwings are not. Even with the accuracy changes described here, Archwings would be significantly easier to take down than the Railjack. 

but its not like the railjack itself is invulnerable either. go ahead and say that they have more health, no one can deny achwing's are more agile and evasive. if they are given more survivalbility, that supports my argument even more so.

7 hours ago, Ikusi_Prime said:

The devs also said, explicitly, that they envision solo players needing to abandon their Railjack out of harm's way while they deal with enemy crew ships. Getting out of the Railjack is an important part of the mission. It's the primary way players take out crew ships.

even if that were true, what was the purpose of developing the railjack and the ongoing development of the command intrinsic?

7 hours ago, Ikusi_Prime said:

On the same token, sometimes staying in the Railjack is not the best move. Sometimes your pilot is terrible and isn't keeping you where you need to be to reach the action. Sometimes every station is full and you aren't providing anything by staying on the ship. 

that is just the common misfortune meeting sub-optimal players. it is just an excuse to use archwing, but it is not a good reason to buff archwing.

7 hours ago, Ikusi_Prime said:

Having people both on the Railjack and on the away team is the optimal way to play. The people on the away team deserve to be able to use their Archwings as more than just getting around. 

again, if archwing were buffed, the optimal way to play would be to leave your railjack in a safe place and use archwing through the entire mission. then no one in the squad would have to repair it, pilot it, defend it, or use resources for ammo or energy. it would not be necessary to use at all. a consistently powerful archwing would kill the purpose of railjack.

[Orakan]

Agreed archwings are way too fragile on veil missions and archguns needs a buff, they shound't hit like mk3 turrets of railjack but they sure need lots more damage and projectile speed for weapons like grattler , flcutus or kuva ayanga cause without slow effect of the amisha (which is the only useable archwing at this point) dog fights can be take way to long for killing one ship with an archgun and that will hurt the logic of the game.

Of course railjack mark3 guns should do way more damage but I am totally agreed on buffing slightly the archguns (each one needs some little buffs not much ) and more survivability and diffrent more usefull skills for archwings. I mean Elytron should be a nuker , it has tactical nuke for 4th skill and ithzal should have killing the fighters with pulling them together so railjack can finish them completely and its drones from the 4th skill should act like gunner drones from Gundam Seed.