New Patch - Lack of Testing

[Vortex]

Well I'll say one thing for the new patch. It completely screws playability.

Shame you didn't test the interaction between the AI, Pirate Weapons Load, and Pirate Tactics.

Scenario - You jump through a warp point. Waiting for you are 4 pirate cruisers and 3 destroyers.

Three of the cruisers have their usual compliment of weapons - 3 iconic pulse missiles, 4 anti-proton beans, 1 point defence cannon, and their usual ability to shoot down ALL incoming missiles fired from greater than 20ls - I wish I hand that ability.

So there you are in your battleship with 3 pulse missiles, 3 tachyon cannons, 2 High eneryg magnifiers, weapons damper, and 2 point defense cannons.

The fight is initially rather quick and you dispatch the 1 cruiser and 3 desrtoyers - because they bother to come closer than 160ls to attack you.

By now you can't go anywhere even should you want to because the consistant hits of those Iconic missiles from the other cruisers means your engines don't work. Oh and the cruisers now don't come closer than 110ls, and they always fire the missiles in 3's, and since they have point defense cannons your missiles are useless, and so there you sit with your phased shields at 100% and your armour at 100%, unable to do anything, except wait for the intervention of a passing friendly cruiser.

Well it took me 1.5 hours real time to get out of this one. Either revoke the iconic missile fix, or sort out the pirate weapons load - how about making them obey the same space and enery rules that player ships have to, or make point defense cannon work properly for player ships.

I'm not sure whether I'm going to bother playing any further.

[Phoenix-D]

What are you talking about? The patch didn't do a thing to ionic weaponry exept to add the weapon damage resistance field, which doesn't make a difference because they didn't get enough to withstand even a low-level point defense hit. Haven't seen the shoot-down issue either, actually.

[Phoenix-D]

Little messing around and I've found that some Pirate cruisers will be generated with nothing but 3 Ionic missiles..could be your problem. Not sure what in the patch could cause the behavior you described except maybe the response range fix.

[Vortex]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
What are you talking about? The patch didn't do a thing to ionic weaponry exept to add the weapon damage resistance field, which doesn't make a difference because they didn't get enough to withstand even a low-level point defense hit. Haven't seen the shoot-down issue either, actually.

Before the patch ionic missiles had little or no effect. I've dealt with the situation described before without to much dificulty. Now its impossible.
All it takes is about 8 hits to disable over 5000 points of propulsion which is greater than required to give the max 600 speed on a battle ship (5 engines give 517 points - if you want to do the calculation I've got 4 lvl 15 and 2 lvl 16 quantum engines fitted).
Once your engines start to recover, it takes just a single hit to flatline them again, and since your facing 8 or so iconic missiles in a barage you stand no chance.

As regards the shoot down issue, you've never fired 2 missiles at a pirate at 40ls range and watch both missiles get shot down, but been on the receiving end of at least 1 hit in the same situation. And both my point defence cannons are lvl 16.

[Renegade 13]

One idea: Were you chasing the enemy ship when they shot down your two missiles, and you couldn't shoot down their one? Because what you're describing makes total sense if that is the case.

[Vortex]

Originally posted by Renegade 13:
One idea: Were you chasing the enemy ship when they shot down your two missiles, and you couldn't shoot down their one? Because what you're describing makes total sense if that is the case.

No. Absolutely stationary. Couldn't go anywhere. No engines!