Jehrico interceptor and fighter abilities, non-conducive/under par

Game Discussion Balance
#1

First off, awesome game. Great potential and very fun as it is currently. I’ve been spending my first couple days jumping around to find which faction I prefer, and have ended up testing out all the abilities of each faction/ship.

 

The federation and empire ships both have excellent abilities pertaining to different roles. The empire interceptor gains an awesome tool for moving quickly to objectives or escaping combat, while the federation ship gets a good bit of additional damage via the net (Which I would think should slow the enemy as well, but doesn’t seem to describe this, but none-the-less is good).

 

On the other hand, the tachion cacoon is puzzling. It doesn’t play to the strengths of the interceptor, being mobility or, well intercepting. In fact you trade your strong points (Speed and small target) to become invincible for a moment and then detonate in an extremely small AOE stun.

There are a number of issues here with the tachion cocoon

  • Players can quite simply ignore you
  • Even if you are attempting to survive, or holding the emp, enemies can simply back off for a moment and then tear you up when it ends
  • Comparative to the other abilities, it offers very little offensive of tactical utility. Purely defensive unless your enemies are utterly oblivious.

I would think this ability might be more useful on the frigate (Though torp works well enough in the damage/support role) or something more defensively oriented, but on an interceptor it’s neigh on pointless.

 

Some thoughts to buff

  • Allow the interceptor to maintain momentum
  • Any enemies within the radius are slowed as it takes effect, making them less likely to escape and at least doing something  evenif they do
  • Perhaps the cocoon should heal the interceptor somewhat as well
  • POSSBLY allow the cocoon to run off energy rather than a timer. The longer you charge, the more healing is done and the longer the stun. So you can burst really quick for a very brief stun (.5) or hold for a longer one (4 seconds)

 

Some thoughts to replace

An ability that allows you to swap position with the targeted craft, and stun them for 1 second.

 

Shield siphon- When activated 50% of damage done to your sheild is transferred to the afflicted target. If no damage is taken during this period the interceptor instead gains X shield regen for 3 seconds.

 

Adaptive shielding for fighter

While I love the idea, I was tihnking about it in comparson to the other two ships. Empire ships get a nice boost to damage, and manuverability for whatever that’s worth, while the feddies get to go freakin invisible for 18 seconds. That’s a long time in a dog fight.

Both of these directly effect all hostiles in the area either by increasing your damage output against them AND ability to dodge, or simply no longer being a visibile target.

 

The adaptive shield ONLY works if you are being hit with the damage type you are attuned to. Excellent for dueling no doubt, but useless in a large battle where multiple damage types are being thrown around. At most you can effect a couple people with it, at worst only a single enemy. Furthermore, it’s not very fun to use, being extremely passive.

 

Thoughts to buff

I’m not sure what “40 pts of resistance” is but I cant imagine it being more than being 400 more effective HP. If it’s a percentile (Which I doubt considering nearly 50% would be nuts) it should be displayed clearly. If it’s not, imo it should be a percentile.

 

Not much else really…more ideas in regards to radical changes

 

Ideas for replacement

An energy based shield booster that reduces damage and regenerates the shield faster, same concept but active based and stronger effect, more interesting than passive.

 

Shield hardening system- increases damage resistance against frontal attacks for a period of time, but conversley makes the ship weak to attacks from the rear. Not unlike in the intro movie.

 

Siphon tether- establishes a link with the targeted ship that drains their shields. The closer you are the higher the drain, though the further you are from the enemy ship the more it increases your speed.

#2

Good post and a lot of good ideas in there. Those additonal 40 pts of resist amount to a crapload of nothing in the end.

Even 100 pt resist could not match the overdrive or cloak in the slightest.

If you ask me it should be 300, which amounts to around ~30% damage reduction, assuming you started with 100.

I still saw no clear answer from any dev regarding Resists.

#3

While i am of the opinion that the Jericho special ability is a bit lacking in comparison, you are incorrect in assuming that resists scale staticly.

In fact, they scale exponentionally (i likely mispelled that).

 

120 pts of resist will equal to about 20% dmagae reduction.

140 pts of resists will equal to about 40% though

 

From 120 pts onward, resists become 5 times as valuable.

 

So you see, those 40 resists can make a huge impact, especially so in higher tiers.

#4

While i am of the opinion that the Jericho special ability is a bit lacking in comparison, you are incorrect in assuming that resists scale staticly.

In fact, they scale exponentionally (i likely mispelled that).

 

120 pts of resist will equal to about 20% dmagae reduction.

140 pts of resists will equal to about 40% though

 

From 120 pts onward, resists become 5 times as valuable.

 

So you see, those 40 resists can make a huge impact, especially so in higher tiers.

 

110 or so resist is 50% damage reduction.

You need to push it upto 150-160 to get it upto 60%, not really worth it as getting it up that high requires a lot of mods.

#5

Seconding this. I fly Jericho almost exclusively, and the Fighter and Interceptor, while good, seriously lack in utility with their ability compared to Empire (Become a rape cannon that doesn’t die) and Federation (Get out of jail free card).

 

The Interceptor ability in particular isn’t very good, and this comes from someone who mostly plays frigate and ends up killing them. Where a Deimos with the rape button can 1vs3 my frigate (3 frigates vs 1 fighter, fighter still kills a frigate) and the Fox M can press button and disappear from a fight for repairs, all the Jericho interceptor gets is to become a near-dead primary target for everyone in range to get an easy kill on 3 seconds after his invincibility shield pops. In practice, I target someone else for the 6 seconds that shield is active, wait out the 2 second disable, and then laser the interceptor to death because he’s nearly dead.

 

And the Jericho fighter’s ability might as well just be a passive +40 resist to one stat, because in effect, that’s all it is. You can’t even tell what damage type you’re taking without using a console command to reveal it, nevermind actually being able to pay attention to that in the midst of a fight and successfully swap to the correct shield resist type inside of 2-5 seconds of combat while doing everything else you’re doing. It’s easier to just use it to plug your EM hole or something and add resists/health to other stats, and not even bother switching it.

#6

As far as I know, resists get less useful the higher they are… and since no dev or any moderator ever gave feedback, i stick to the numbers i found somewhere in this forum:

 

100 resist = 50% damage reduction

200 resist = 67,5% DR

300 = 75%

 

I don’t know if thats true, however i’ve been flying around with 170 EM resists on my shields and it felt bascically the same as with 130.

(With my empire fighter and the buffs i got around 200 kinetic resist @hull and he stays in the air much longer)

 

Also that switching the shield resist from one type to another costs way over 100 energy, makes it totally unusable in dogfights.

 

The later shields you get which heal 5% hull or give 5% damage… meh. After losing 10000 shield to the correct damage type you heal 500 hull. YAY. When a jericho fighter’s shields are down he IS dead.

 

I tried running a Jericho with command shield booster, every passive in shield resists and add the +40 on top of that. Its a joke how fast you go down.

You cant really solo an interceptor (he just runs away if you get him down), you cant solo a frigate and for crying out loud you cant solo any fighter except other Jericho’s.

 

The Jericho Interceptor ability is not that bad. In those 6 seconds immunity you can heal to almost full shield when near a friendly frigate (with heals), and when used tactically, you can help your team.

I use it mostly behind asteroids/platforms where the enemy cannot see me, but the stun still works.

#7

The formula for effective hitpoints is: Base hitpoints * ((100+resistance)/100)

 

Example: My Jericho Frigate has 16777.5 shield hitpoints and a kinetic resist of 65. So: 16777.5((165)/100) = 27682.875 effective hitpoints vs kinetic weapons.

#8

Maybe  side topic but:

Why the hell can a cocooned ceptor capture beacon?!

(Or why can’t i capture beacon in cloak xD)

This ability is the perfect beacon capturer clearer. The ship gets immunity, continues to capture beacon, and then stuns every enemy who tries to capture it too.

I think this is OP in domination and good in recon. (you can stun the captain and all of his/her defenders, or make them run out from cover). Don’t know bomb planting works with it, if yes than it’s op in detonation too.