First of all, I’d like to say hi to everyone here on the forum - I am new to star conflict, so please forgive me if I am ignorant/wrong in what I say.
It is my understanding that the amount of damage destroyers receive has recently been increased to a factor of 2.66 … I also believe that a lot of pilots are not happy with this to the point that corporations are recommending their members to not build destroyers atm in favor of manufacturing other ships. I have both a reasonably competently fitted Patriach and a Tyrant (although I only have one active module on the Tyrant as I am only a lvl 9 pilot and dont have access to the areas to farm lvl 14-17 destroyer modules yet) - and I would put my Tyrants survivability on par with the Patriach in a knock-down-drag-'em out fight … assuming that my Patriach is cornered and has nowhere else to run to.
The problem with any destroyer is (without Wormhole or the Ze’ta’s Crystaline Trap and/or engine module) if things start going badly for it, it just has to stay there and die … every other ship in the game has a chance to escape (and a smart pilot chooses to fight where the possibility for escape exists) - Destroyers don’t get that option!
I must say it is rather disappointing to go to the effort of manufacturing a destroyer to then watch it die in under 10 seconds in a medium lvl open sector … granted I am talking about Abandoned ‘Ellydium’ Plant though. My Tyrant, whilst only having lvl 17 Multiphase Shield as its single active module, does have a surviviability of something a little over 498k. It is not just my destroyer that dies quickly in Abandoned ‘Ellydium’ Plan either, I watched a Vigilant go down just as quickly today. I have also had my Tyrant die in under 10 seconds in a Team Skirmish. I didn’t do anything wrong, my Patriach died and within 10 seconds of re-spawning in my Tyrant, I was back to selecting another ship to re-spawn in as my Tyrant had been completely obliterated - I do not think that this is what destroyers are supposed to be about. My new-player interpretation is that they are slow moving tanks that deal large damage … their speed is one of their biggest handicaps. Yes they do lotsa damge, but they have to get to the fight first and if things go wrong, they cant run away.
Assuming the developers are happy with destroyers receiving damage at a factor of 2.66, I can think of some changes that might make destroyers more playable.
- Add more durability to a Destroyers Active modules and make it so that they can only be damaged when the destroyers shields are down (last point may already be the case, not sure??). Taking out modules was the old way to help take down a destroyer … before the damage factor was increased!!! With the damage factor increase, a destroyer now more than ever relies on its active modules to help stay alive.
- I believe the major gripe about destroyers was in a PvP setting - other pilots hated that you needed 2 ships to take down a destroyer in PvP. So my second idea adds a buff to destroyers without changing the PvP gameplay when facing a destroyer by using an existing in-game mechanic … Seed-chips. Make destroyers a unique class for Seed-Chips and give every destroyer in the game 6 Seed-chip slots (they would then be the only class of ship that receives a flat amount of seed-chip slots that isnt determined by ship rank), that will help return Destroyers to their former power in a PvE setting, whilst leaving their PvP gameplay the same.
- My third and final suggestion is … less solid. You could give destroyers another CPU module that allows them to use every available weapon in the game. I am not sure that this would work, but the idea behind this is that the survivability destroyers loose by having their damage factor increased is offset by an increase in firepower … though I am alot less keen about this idea (but holy gosh gee-whiz batman I 'll bet you see some different destroyer builds out there if this were to come to pass :P).
I think both ideas 1 and 2 are very solid suggestions - thoughts everybody please?
