The Wasp

[Firefly]

Enrico stated that the 12mm isn't going away. But it will be modified. Given that the 12mm is the smallest vehicle weapon in the game, that probably means they're giving it a Liberator nose cannon.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Enrico stated that the 12mm isn't going away. But it will be modified. Given that the 12mm is the smallest vehicle weapon in the game, that probably means they're giving it a Liberator nose cannon.

Nice, I wont need the Lib to play A-10 anymore.

[Firefly]

EDIT:

Nevermind. I got answers via email. Dunno if I'm allowed to discuss them, am seeking confirmation.

[Firefly]

Gotta love insider info. Source is protected, approval for release granted. I considered releasing this on the official forums, but I hate most of the dumbass trolls there. Stupid ignorant morons really raise my blood pressure, and I'd rather just stay away from poltroons and troglodytes. Easier that way.

-- It's something that comes up a lot, but nothing's finalized. I
proposed an EMP-like chaff device, where the pilot would essentially
trigger an EMP on their craft that would make it so nothing can lock
onto it for three seconds (and flak will not proximity explode, although
direct hits still count). The drawback would be that for five seconds
the aircraft's fire control and bailing mechanism are scrambled.
(Undecided if it should also negate afterburner use.) The "chaff" would
take ten seconds to recycle. Using the weapon would have a visible
effect, so the attacker can do things like attempt to force a target to
use their chaff, then switch to guns while their fire control is down.

I wanted to add chaff in conjunction with a bailing change: pilots have
a short (like 1.2 sec) countdown to ejecting. So when you hit the bail
button, you would hear a "beep...beep...BEEEP! Whoosh!" The idea is to
make it more difficult to simply bail out of a bad situation, and to
make bailing onto towers require more skill.

I'm currently changing the wasp's missiles to require much more skill to
use. The idea is essentially to make the wasp the "sniper of the
skies", where it's weapons are devastating but are more difficult to
use. We're gonna tweak the values, but I'm currently testing these
missile changes:
- 3 second acquire time
- Lockon CoF that is about half the starfire's, so it is possible to
break lock through evasion maneuvers
- 1 second refire time
- 4 second reload time
- Missiles move at a fixed speed of 130kph, so they can be evaded with
AB.
- Increased damage per missile from 125 to 300 --three hits will kill a
skeeter or reaver, but will take a minimum of eight seconds of sustained
lock to accomplish.

(These numbers are almost certain to change, though, possibly today.
Still tuning it.)

The goal is to make missiles devastating but require skill to land, and
allow skilled pilots a real chance of evading them.

Also, the wasp gun is being changed completely. For that matter, a lot
of other things are changing on the wasp, too, heh.

-----------------

We're going through a lot of tweaks right now with the wasp --like just
in the last hour the missiles have been tweaked quite a bit. We're
gonna put it on our internal test server and do some dogfighting to get
a better feel for it before it goes on test.

Another thing we're experimenting with is giving it a "tactical
afterburner", where it fires for only a few seconds (giving a max speed
of about 210kph) but recharges every seven seconds or so... the idea is
that it can be maneuverable in dogfighting without giving it the uber
edge of a tighter turn radius. Honestly, I have no idea how it's gonna
play, though, so we're gonna test it a lot. This is a really tough
vehicle to balance, so it's going to get more iteration than normal
before going live (and it won't go live until most people feel it's
balanced).

Also, playing with the wasp having about 20% less armor than the
mosquito. It's harsh, but we're aiming for an aircraft that is very
deadly in skilled hands, but vulnerable with an unskilled pilot. It
might be too gimped, we'll see in testing hehe

[Mag-Mower]

Sounds good.

[Firefly]

The 12mm cannon:

On the cannon what I'm testing right now is a fast-firing 12mm cannon:
- Damage is about 10% higher vs aircraft than normal
- Damage vs infantry is 65% less, strictly to avoid instagib farming
- Cannon fires 3x as fast as normal mosquito nosegun (same RoF as
Vulture)
- But it only has a 25 round clip, which it unloads in 1.25s, with 2.5s
to reload.
- Default loadout is two boxes of six A2A missiles, and two boxes of 125
exploding 12mm rounds.

So far, it's been a lot of fun to shoot with. Because the clip is so
small, it requires greater accuracy than the mosquito, but it can really
tear shit up --a full clip will destroy a mosquito. It sounds
overpowered (and it might be) but we'll tweak it after testing. If
nothing else it definitely feels different than the skeeter, seems to
require more skill.

Currently testing the "tactical afterburner", too, as described earlier.
Wasp armor is currently 515, where the Mosquito has 665. That might be
too gimpy, we'll find out during testing. (Reaver guns can tear it up
very quickly, and Wasps are especially deadly when used against each
other.)

Oddly, the Wasp might actually be worse at taking down liberators and
galaxies than skeeters and reavers, because those craft can sustain fire
for a long time, while the Wasp has frequent reloads. Wasp should be
best at dogfighting, though, if the pilot is accurate with the gun and
good at maintaining missile lock.

[Setari]

You and your Army Intelligence skills.

[Warborn]

With the lock being harder to maintain I am hoping PS will get some real sort of dogfighting. But I am not a fan of the wasp being given anything resembling a powerful cannon. Its main armament should be its missiles, and maybe have some crappy backup gun that is inaccurate "just in case". Seriously, the last thing they should want is for wasps to clear the skies then do exactly what skeeters do and mow down infantry.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Warborn

do exactly what skeeters do and mow down infantry.

Hence the quote

Damage vs infantry is 65% less, strictly to avoid instagib farming

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Hence the quote

Yeah, but

- Cannon fires 3x as fast as normal mosquito nosegun (same RoF as
Vulture)

Call me a worrier, but even with 65% less damage and a small clip I am concerned the wasp will have a dual role on the battlefield, and infantry won't be getting the break from aircraft I'm praying to Odin they will get.

[Firefly]

I think that with the lack of ground radar, most Wasp pilots will focus on air-to-air combat almost exclusively. And if the average grunt starts getting hammered by aircraft cannons, he/she should probably consider AV. With the Wasp having less armor than a Mossie, only a retarded noob would stick around to try and finish off a Striker-carrying grunt.

[Firefly]

Some more Wasp info to help clear a few things up:



How many AA Rockets does it take to kill a...

* Wasp? 2
* Mosquito? 3
* Reaver? 3
* Liberator? 9
* Galaxy? 17
* Note: Both the Mosquito and Reaver have faster TTKs against Air Support

How much punishment can the Wasp Minigun deal?

* It will kill an Agile very quickly. So a bailing pilot is no problem
* It can't kill a ReXo even if it unloads a full clip with 100% accuracy.
* It can kill a Wasp in a single clip! Hovering = BAD
* It cannot kill a Mosquito in a single clip.
* It cannot kill a Reaver in a single clip.
* Note #1: Both the Mosquito and Reaver have a faster TTK against Air Support than a Wasp Minigun
* Note #2: Against a Wasp ONLY fighting with the Minigun both the Mosquito and Reaver have a higher TTK.
* Note #3: The Wasp Minigun is designed to quickly finish off a wounded aircraft and or to quickly take care of a pilot that bails. So the design is to hit the target with 1 or more AA rockets and then move in for the aircraft kill or pilot bail mop up job.

How effective will AV weapons be against the Wasp?

* Decimator kills with only 2 hits
* Phoenix kills with only 2 hits
* Lancer kills with 5 hits. This is less than 1 clip.
* Striker kills with 1 clip (5 shots).
* Note #1: Against a ReXo with any AV weapon the Grunt has the higher TTK against a Wasp.

When will we be able to test this out on the test server?

* We will try to have this ready for weekend testing. However, the Markov live server issue is the priority.

When will we have another public playtest to try this out?

* Our current play is to have this ready for a test on Monday or Tuesday.

Is it not silly to have bullets that don't do much damage to infantry? How is that possible or even logical?

* As with most things is a game, the design is geared to gameplay and not "reality". This same logic has been applied to other areas and is why a Grunt can survive a Decimator to the face. We did not want an instagib rocket launcher. With the Wasp we do not want a vehicle that can easily farm infantry.

[Mag-Mower]

This vehicle is starting to sound really good.

[Warborn]

Alright, the gun sounds like it's not that good against infantry, and striker can take it out in one clip, so it might not be so bad afterall. And it is suitably lethal against other aircraft, too, so that's good. Overall it might give infantry a bit of a break.

[Lonehunter]

I still don't understand this "Bailing problem"

Anyone here in the Air Force? Please tell us what you're trained to do if your craft is about to blow. Yeah I know this is "just a game" but what's it based off of again? lol