Limit Gunnery's Options in RJ

[sunderthefirmament]

I love the changes to Railjack.  It's a ton of fun.  But with these changes, I'm noticing that most randos who join my squad will park on the side guns and do basically nothing useful the entire mission.  I know I can acquire better teammates by posting up in recruit chat.  But there's no need.  I propose a few simple things to make gunnery less tempting for randos, and less frustrating for hosts.

1. Don't let side guns use avionic powers.
2. Don't let side guns use ordnance.

If all that gun campers can do is fire my side guns, then at least they're not burning through resources.  And they'll likely get tired of it, and want to do something else, like, perhaps, maybe, move to forward artillery or board a crewship.

At this point, a pilot and one good avionic is all we really need to clear the screen of fighters.

 

[taiiat]

why is the answer always to punish everybody for the problems of just some people.

[Zahnrad]

I kinda both agree and disagree with teammates using resources, personally I have resources for days and don't need to care that much but it'd be nice if there was an option mid-mission to lock teammates or individual teammates that are a little too spammy out of using them.

Edit: Second thought, I change my mind. I'm thinking of best case example of myself using it fairly, but I imagine you'd join squads where the owner just blocks everyone which I wouldn't be ok with.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Zahnny

[AlphaPHENIX]

I'am gonna have to stop you right there.

Personally I nearly never pilot, weather it's my own ship or not, but I do tend to use ordnance.
This is going to annoy just about everybody, not only pubs. Terrible idea. Are you trying to make people start yelling ''burn the witch'' at ya?
What's next, ''Wednesday? Better nerf Amesha.'' ?

PS: For the record, I always play Railjack with at least one other mate over on Discord. Usually it's the guy that's a better pilot then me. So yes, I get less pubs and thus get less pubs that don't have any trigger discipline, but I have been there and I know how you feel. However, this is not the way to fix that.

Edited June 6, 2020 by AlphaPHENIX

[TheGrimCorsair]

Screw that noise.

I absolutely want my gunners laying out rocket salvos left and right. We have plenty of ammo to have 3 people creating a wall of rockets as we kite enemies.

Oh, and while we're at it, Munitions Vortex should cost 10 avionics points and mover over to the third slot, not 6 and slot 1. It's way too under priced for how powerful it is.

[sunderthefirmament]

Those that disagree, where are you encountering enemy fighters that actually warrant having someone on guns?  If your Railjack is even close to kitted out properly, you're not going to have any trouble, even in the veil, handling all of the fighters as a pilot.  Munitions Vortex, Tether, or even Seeker Volley can wipe fighters almost as fast as they spawn.  I don't even have Void Hole and it's just not a problem.  Have you played Railjack since they revised it?  It's an absolute breeze.

 

The only thing that slows down my missions are crewships and away objectives, which randos tend to be allergic to.

[(PSN)Raven-Ghosthawk]

Why not give each gun a separate stock so they can burn their own supply? Leaves helm with energy and ordnance while not stripping that from the wing turrets.

Edited June 6, 2020 by (PS4)Raven-Ghosthawk

[sunderthefirmament]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)Raven-Ghosthawk said:

Why not give each gun a separate stock so they can burn their own supply? Leaves helm with energy and ordnance while not stripping that from the wing turrets.

I don't understand why side guns even need to use powers.  The pilot can handle that.  I want to make side guns seem less attractive as a way of encouraging people who join the squad to do something actually helpful, like:

• boarding crewships
• manning forward artillery
• repairing and using the forge
• completing away team objectives
• clearing out boarding parties.

 

Side guns do not noticeably improve a team's efficiency, as all they can really do is kill fighters.  And fighters are so weak right now that the pilot can kill them all in the time it takes the other group members to complete the rest of the mission objectives (crewships, away, anomaly, etc.).

[UUDDLRLRBA_START]

On 2020-06-06 at 8:34 AM, sunderthefirmament said:

I don't understand why side guns even need to use powers.  The pilot can handle that.

Because some Railjack pilots are n00bs or idiots.

Quote

  I want to make side guns seem less attractive as a way of encouraging people who join the squad to do something actually helpful,

Maybe you should name your ship, 'MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL' and get that message across.

I know I do.

[(PSN)Raven-Ghosthawk]

On 2020-06-06 at 5:28 AM, (PS4)Raven-Ghosthawk said:

Why not give each gun a separate stock so they can burn their own supply? Leaves helm with energy and ordnance while not stripping that from the wing turrets.

Still sounds like a better option. The wing guns have a missile option. When forging missile replenishment, why not show the current supply (on Forge screen) based on the lowest number between the wing/nose turrets?

Also, has nobody questioned why abilities on a ship with with a reactor is a thing?

Edited June 13, 2020 by (PS4)Raven-Ghosthawk

[SignatureChewy]

The problem with this perspective is that it's built on the idea that a railjack doesn't need side gunners. That's only true if you use battle avionics like tether, whose current state is overpowered and unhealthy to railjack content as a whole. You absolutely need side gunners if you don't have or know to use good battle avionics, which is most people still leveling their railjack. Honestly, I had a lot more fun with railjack before I had a fully kitted out metabuild. Hopefully once the command intrinsic comes out, DE can nerf avionics into a more reasonable state and we can go back to shooting fighters out of the air ourselves.

That said, I agree that gunner abilities should be different than the pilot's. Not because of griefers or noobs, but because most abilities are pilot-centric. How would gunners even make use of particle ram or fiery pheonix? It's also counter-intuitive for things like tether, that can only have 1 instance active at time, to be controlled by 3 people. Gunners should have their own avionic slots, and their own avionics. Personally I'd like to mount "battle stations" directly to the gunner ability bar. Blackout pulse would be good for gunners too.

As for ordnance, a gunner that's actually doing their job needs them. As a pilot I often don't notice outriders or ramsleds, so I specifically tell my gunners to torpedo those. It's not like they're going to go through all 31 munitions by the end of the mission, and I can always make more. The drop rates in railjack missions make forging flux/munitions a trivial expense.

 

[sunderthefirmament]

6 hours ago, SignatureChewy said:

The problem with this perspective is that it's built on the idea that a railjack doesn't need side gunners. That's only true if you use battle avionics like tether, whose current state is overpowered and unhealthy to railjack content as a whole. 

 

 

That may be, but it's the current state of Railjack.  And in the current state of Railjack, philosophy aside, side gunners are the least helpful role.  I made my original post out of frustration with randos joining my squad and camping on the side guns instead of actually helping.

 

I don't like when randos use my resources, but it doesn't matter all that much.  I'm more interested in efficiency, and side guns don't really help with that.  Maybe the command intrinsic will come with some UI prompts like "Requesting Forward Artillery" or "Requesting Away Team."