Talon Game

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Version 1.2 released; new game mode, new map, misc improvements

#1 2013-10-20 09:48:55

sdfgeoff
Beta Tester
Registered: 2013-09-27
Posts: 103
Website

What do people fly?

What ships/weapons do people tend to pick when they fly?

For me it depends on the level.
For open levels, like Frontier, I take the orion with autocannon, distruptor, seeker missiles and swarm missiles.
For closed in levels, I take the hydra with disruptor, pulse laser, swarm, and buster.

Out of just over an hour of gaming since the latest Beta, I have a kill streak of 21. I found the best ever camping spot in the warehouse map against bots. I currently have a total of 204 kills and 38 deaths. (An efficiency of over 5)

What are other peoples weapons and achievements?

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#2 2014-01-03 11:38:12

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

Games Played: 129
Games Won: 9
Games Lost: 3
Tie Games: 2
Total Time Played: 6:27

All Time High Score 11,664
Total Points Earned: 261,076

Total Kills: 1,069
Best Kill Streak: 31
Best Multi-kill: 3
Total Assists: 635

Total Deaths: 627
Total Suicides: 37
Total Team-Kills: 2

(means nothing, I tested a lot with the bot AI)


best choice for anarchy carnage in closed-in-levels against multiple human players is Orion armed with blaster/disruptor and seeker/inferno because there strength and agility is much more important than speed
- don't get involved in dogfights, just roam the level
- spam rooms with seeker missiles, hallways with timed disruptor shoots and inferno missiles

------------------------
Some ideas for discussion about possible improvement of the tactical variety of the ships:

all ships:
- beacon data should display target ship type in HUD
- Swarm Missiles should not be fooled by cloak or get a little more punch (just a little bit)
- when shield is down, cabin hit with Waveguide or Quad Raser gives insta-kill ('Headshot') + extra points
- hover repair-speed should be slower with greater shield strength/capacity
(that would mean that with full shields Sparrow would be fastest and Hydra slowest)

Sparrow (Light Fighter Scout)
weak and slow, but most agile
(should get longer cloaking time then other ships)
(should get ability to send beacon-data to team members)
(should get ability to cloak while bearing flag in prospective capture-the-flag mode)
(should get more Autocannon ammo and Beacon missiles then other ships)

Stiletto (Fighter-Interceptor)
fast and agile but weak
(should get more Blaster ammo and DartRockets then other ships)

Orion (Multirole Fighter)
all average
- no change

Griffin (Strike Fighter)
fast and strong but not agile
(should get better zoom then other ships)
(should get more Waveguide ammo then other ships)

Hydra (Heavy Fighter / Bomber)
very strong but slow and not agile
(should get more Spike Mines and Buster Missiles then other ships)

Last edited by Smaragdadler (2014-01-03 12:24:47)

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#3 2014-01-03 12:22:52

sdfgeoff
Beta Tester
Registered: 2013-09-27
Posts: 103
Website

Re: What do people fly?

The ships used to have different loadouts, and at one point I agreed with you about needing them that way.

But, I've re-considered, and I'll explain why in a minute. First I'll update what I fly:

Most of the time it's the Griffin with blaster and razer as primaries. Dart and buster/spikemine on secondary.
But it changes quite a lot these days, as all ships are pretty equal (except the sparrow, which I don't like)

Stats since I last did a clean install (three days ago)
Games Played: 42 (Map editing counts for playing games I think?)
Games Won: 24
Games Lost: 1
Tie Games: 5
Total Time Played: 3:04

All Time High Score 16,566
Total Points Earned: 151,405

Total Kills: 596
Best Kill Streak: 23
Best Multi-kill: 4
Total Assists: 350

Total Deaths: 106
Total Suicides: 10
Total Team-Kills: 9

Interesting that most stats are nearly exactly half yours!
And I'm glad to note that my k/d is working it's way towards six. Of course, this is against bots, so it doesn't really count at all.

---------------------------
Right, onto the ships:
Ammo is equal, which means the only difference in ships is performance. And the key to success in any ship is realizing what it's good at.

Stiletto:
- Outdoor maps only pretty much, which it is really good in.
- You have a HUGE speed advantage. You can outrun nearly all the missiles
- My Main Strategy: See a group of people fighting a few hundred meters away, fly at them firing a row of seekers and particle cannon (so you don't hit your team members). You arrive at the same time as your weapons, and by the time anyone can respond, you are gone. Cloak, move to a different angle, and repeat until you've killed them all or run out of ammo.

Griffin:
- The fastest ship I can manage indoors, very good outdoor
- Like the sparrow, you can outfly a good many things, but now you have a bit more hull/shield strength, and ... way better strafe speed
- My Main Strategy: Great at dogfighting, but you can't take much damage. So get good at dodging. In my mind, this is most like the Descent Ship.

Sparrow:
- I haven't spend much time in here, but for the bots at least, it sucks outdoors, a couple of seekers take it down every time. Probably indoor only.
- You have really weak shields, slow top speed, and your only advantage is agility, or rotational acceleration.
- My Main Strategy: You can turn faster than a player can move across the screen, so get in close to the ship you're fighting. Unfortunately he'll be faster than you, so try to guess where he'll be going, but don't get in the way of his guns.

Orion:
- Pretty decent everywhere. Bit slower than I like for outdoors, but perfectly good there.
- This has a very round flight envelope, and is able to fly equally well in any direction. So get used to those strage buttons. Just don't expect to outrun anything.
- My Main Strategy: Indoor use mainly, pretty good for holding a checkpoint as you can take quite a bit of damage. This is the 'all rounder' and so it suits most fighting styles.

Hydra:
- Great indoors, and medicore outdoors
- Tonnes of shield, and again a round flight envelope.
- My main strategy: Mainly indoor use, and it is fantastic for guarding an entrance. With a friend on LAN, we managed to clean up and hold a room using two hydras for an entire game (~30 mins). You can't turn fast, but doors don't move, and people will come through them. It really is a ship for 'camping'.

So instead of relying on ships having different ammo levels to give them advantages, they now have different flight and strategy.
With ammo levels, it used to be that Hydra dominated indoors, as you could simply stay in a fight for longer. The faster speeds and accelerations didn't make a difference. Even outdoors the slower ships were top dogs.

I do agree that the sparrow needs some upgrades, but I'm not sure what.




-------------
On a completely different tangent, I'd be interested to try some formation-fighting. In Descent, maps were small and tight, and so single ships fought single ships, even in team games. But in the outdoor maps, getting four or five team members into a wing, and each firing 10 seekers, followed by 15 darts (leaving some for later), while maintaining a constant flurry of blaster shots could absolutely devastate a couple of enemies.

Or a player in a dogfighting ship could clear a room for a person in a Hydra to capture (because he can stop people coming through the doors and generally hold it longer than the lighter ships). Or I'm sure there must be other strategies.

Unfortunately the ping over where I am is ridiculous, so I doubt I'll ever be able to play properly in a game with more than the one or two people who play this sort of game and live nearby.

Has anyone tried coopporative fighting yet?

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#4 2014-01-03 19:19:26

Scott
Refractory Studios
Registered: 2012-08-07
Posts: 463
Website

Re: What do people fly?

This is a good thread, and I want to spend more time going over this when I can. Right now I have time enough to address but a couple points:

The Sparrow's effectiveness is highly dependent on the skill of the pilot, of course, because its only defense is its agility. You have to be quick in your movement and there is little room for error because it is so weak in armor and shield. With the bot skill all the way up, I find the Sparrows to be often the most annoying and difficult opponents. Unfortunately, I have not engaged many human opponents in Sparrows as yet. I suspect that as players gain experience with the flight dynamics in Talon, some will find the Sparrow becoming more useful to them; though this will take time to test.

On the subject of formation flying: I expect this to be a very effective and useful strategy in team games. While I can take down any single bot more often than not, when they fly in groups they are much, much more dangerous. Enemies are also much easier to take down when I have an AI wingman. Again, this is not something I have had much chance to test with human players, although I imagine it can be even more effective with a well coordinated group; especially if the strengths of different ships are strategically leveraged.

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#5 2014-01-03 22:34:26

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

more ideas:

- reduce Inferno Missile loadout - maybe even to just 1 per ship
(they are the most dangerous weapon in the game, especially indoors where it is additionally  very easy to collect them from killed opponents)

- seeker missiles make to easy kills -> maybe make them heat seeking on the engine ?

- QuadRaser sounds to squeamish ("piiiif,piiiif,piiiiif" -> should be more "pfrrrimm,pfrrrimm,pfrrrimm")

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#6 2014-01-03 23:34:10

CommandoRash
Member
From: Clarksville, TN
Registered: 2013-11-12
Posts: 97

Re: What do people fly?

Raser does sound a bit weak for being the most dangerous primary weapon.

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#7 2014-01-04 07:30:31

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

Sparrow again:

- all points I posted above + give it the ability to actually fire the Autocannon while cloaked but this would additonally decrease the cloak timer count-down with each bullet

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#8 2014-01-04 10:36:10

VEX-Boogie
Beta Tester
From: Germany
Registered: 2013-09-27
Posts: 37

Re: What do people fly?

I don't want any extra bonus abilities for any ship because it makes everything more complicated than it should be. The ships are great, I first thought the Sparrow was useless, but for me it is now the best ship for small indoor maps.

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#9 2014-01-04 12:05:14

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

VEX-Boogie wrote:

I don't want any extra bonus abilities for any ship...

That's an valid opinion.
I'm just brainstorming. There could be mods, server options or special extra game-modes for this. Or nothing of this at all.

Here comes next idea:

- kill explosion of ships should make damage + an in-game self-destruct option per key-press (kamikaze tactics)

Last edited by Smaragdadler (2014-01-04 12:20:53)

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#10 2014-01-04 14:38:28

VEX-Munk
Beta Tester
Registered: 2013-10-13
Posts: 45

Re: What do people fly?

It took already a great challenge weighting the gameplay to the current state. Missile counts have already been drastically reduced.

A cloaked autocannon ship ? It's already a fast impact weapon which on top is almost invisible. The whole idea of a cloaked ship is to *not* being able to do anything.  Being able to fire autocannon while cloaked will make a pretty one-sided game.

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#11 2014-01-04 15:40:45

Scott
Refractory Studios
Registered: 2012-08-07
Posts: 463
Website

Re: What do people fly?

Brainstorming is useful, and it's good to at least consider and discuss all the ideas.

But I'm going stick to the "no firing while cloaked" rule; I still very much like that dynamic. If I would consider allowing a weapon while under cloak, though, it would have to be one that is otherwise very weak. I can see where the Autocannon would make sense, "technically", since it is the only matter weapon; thus there is a distinction that could explain why that is the only one which works through the cloak. So it's good from that perspective. However, the Autocannon is a lethal weapon. To avoid serious balance issues, its damage would have to be cut way back, and I'm not ready to do that because the game needs weapons which are effective outdoors.

I could see adding some radius damage to the ship explosions, but not too much, certainly not enough to kill more than a very weakened ship.

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#12 2014-01-04 17:03:46

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

The Sparrow is the underdog and nobody will fly it much in Anarchy, Deathmatch or Caputre & Hold modes, because all what counts there is number of kills in the end. A scout is no warrior and his task is NOT to battle, but to gather intel or/and 'assassinate'. As it stands now, the only ones that would find some use of the Sparrow are masochist. Erase it from the game, nobody would care.

But if we have a Capture-the-Flag mode in the future, the Sparrow in it's scout role would become a very interesting expert ship for team strategy/tactics with the ideas I have proposed.
If Sparrow get's no 'upgrades' people would just use Stilettos and Griffins outside to race for the flag - and Orions and Hydras inside.

sdfgeoff wrote:

Hydra:

- My main strategy: Mainly indoor use, and it is fantastic for guarding an entrance. With a friend on LAN, we managed to clean up and hold a room using two hydras for an entire game (~30 mins). You can't turn fast, but doors don't move, and people will come through them. It really is a ship for 'camping'.

I do agree that the sparrow needs some upgrades, but I'm not sure what.

In an indoor Talon-CTF Hydras certainly would be used to guard the flag room.
And this is, where a Sparrow with better cloaking abilities and instant broadcast of tracked beacon data to all team members would become very useful.

If ONLY the Sparrow can carry the flag while cloaked, it would also become very useful in open space maps. And the Particle Cannon much more important.

To give it the ability to fire from cloaked mode would give it also some 'Assassin'-role. With what weapon(s)/ramification and the exact details - this has to be careful fine tuned of course. (Maybe just one DartRocket, then the cloak goes down - better have a good exit strategy if you pull this off. But it would make the Sparrow much more interesting.)

As I said, it's all just ideas for discussion. If people just like balanced deathmatches with different flight mechanics to give some variation...ok, what the hey.

Last edited by Smaragdadler (2014-01-04 18:08:54)

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#13 2014-01-04 18:04:42

Splotchie
the lounge's pet leopard
From: some other reality
Registered: 2013-09-16
Posts: 81
Website

Re: What do people fly?

I tend to fly a rogue Griffin tongue.  Especially against organic opponents.  Indoor and outdoor it's an awesome ship (especially if you can figure out how to use the lack of maneuverability to your advantage).  Occasionally I use the Stilleto (which I'm sure is/was a name of a fighter plane in another game...) but I tend to die a lot more.  I've tried the Sparrow a few times and I can certainly see its potential, but I'm not good enough to use it!
I'm trying to gain skill with all the weapons but I'm still not very good with the autocannon and I've never found much use for the tracking beacon.  Although I'm sure somebody will use it against me eventually, because of what strategy I like best...

Last edited by Splotchie (2014-01-04 18:05:02)


We live in a universe...                                                                    it's distracting
=========================================================
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#14 2014-01-04 18:16:22

Smaragdadler
Member
From: Thuringia
Registered: 2013-12-26
Posts: 42

Re: What do people fly?

Splotchie wrote:

I've never found much use for the tracking beacon.

If you have 'beaconed' an opponent and then target him ('F' by default), you ALWAYS get his position on your HUD. That means, you can 'see' him through walls ! (as a dot)
Say, if you are alone in the big main room at the Bunker map, you will know, through which of the hallways he is heading and you can catch him by suprise with an inferno etc. Also homing misslies track better, I think.

Last edited by Smaragdadler (2014-01-04 19:25:10)

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#15 2014-01-04 18:37:26

Splotchie
the lounge's pet leopard
From: some other reality
Registered: 2013-09-16
Posts: 81
Website

Re: What do people fly?

It has uses, it's just not worth giving up another missile slot (my dart rockets! big_smile) to me.


We live in a universe...                                                                    it's distracting
=========================================================
beware of ounce

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#16 2014-01-04 18:51:19

CommandoRash
Member
From: Clarksville, TN
Registered: 2013-11-12
Posts: 97

Re: What do people fly?

I was wondering how that missile worked

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