[AP] M7's: Tiger or Nothing

[kardgar]

Let me preface this with saying that I was a Panther pilot before the adjustments and see no problem that the Light Carrier Frigate is now a little more like a light carrier (even if it still hits like a destroyer with slightly less energy).

However when looking at M7's nothing comes close to the all round power of the Tiger with a close runner up as the Panther, even in its diminished form. Peak laser generator, IBL's on the nose and broadsides and flak up/down/back, solid shield and excellent speed and good cargo room. There's just no reason to not fly a Tiger for that all one in M7. If you wanted the Carrier experience in an M7 then you'd go back to the Panther M7 with its 20 docking bays.

Normally this would be par for M7's, but seeing as a pass was made through M7's balancing I'm curious why more Light Destroyer/Carrier distinction and changes weren't made across the board. Perhaps the Astraeus or Cerberus should lose their hanger bays (one or the other) and be beefed up to light destroyer status instead of the Argon having two Light Carrier Frigates.

There's so much redundancy in the Argon M7's I'm surprised things weren't adjusted more radically. The Teladi have the Shrike which can mount Anti-Capital weapons albeit ammo based, so they can compete. The Paranid have 50% more shielding than most other M7's and 4 broadside IBL's (one of which with six hanger bays). The Argon have two Ultra-Light Carrier flak boat M7's?

Just going from memory on what the whole ship class looks like in X3; It seems like the Argon should have a medium shielded M7 (Stay 3GJ or Carrack like 2GJ) Light Destroyer with 6 nose mounted Anti-Capitals, and 2 broadside mounting Anti-Capitals with fewer fighter bays (2-4?, 0?), with around 100 speed and 3800 Cargo space.

[A5PECT]

IBL's on the nose and broadsides

That's the Tiger's limiting factor and it's more significant than you think. They can only be purchased from pirates, and their broken economy necessitates your intervention if you want IBLs in numbers. Otherwise you have to steal them, and for that you need boarding ships and equipment. So the Tiger has the highest combat potential, but requires the most infrastructure to unlock it.

Without IBLs the Tiger lacks teeth. Whereas the Thresher and Shrike can also put out high amounts of damage with weapons that are much more easily acquired (PPCs for the Thresher and GCs for the Shrike).

The Shrike also has both high anti-capital firepower and a fighter bay, making it more powerful than the Panther in a direct fire role and more versatile than a Tiger.

Normally this would be par for M7's, but seeing as a pass was made through M7's balancing I'm curious why more Light Destroyer/Carrier distinction and changes weren't made across the board.

Too much balance kills variety. The trick is finding a way to make an Argon anti-capital frigate unique and still fit within its class.

Also, everyone seems to have differing opinions on how this is to be done.

Perhaps the Astraeus or Cerberus should lose their hanger bays (one or the other) and be beefed up to light destroyer status instead of the Argon having two Light Carrier Frigates.

This I somewhat agree with. The Argon navy doesn't need three different flak boats.

[kurush]

Considering that panther biggest benefit is what some people here consider a disadvantage: front turret, not much changed for it really. To use Tiger main battery efficiently you have to use the cabin view and with Panther it is much easier to use external view for all your combat. I am also not sure whether Tiger can shot its side turrets directly back both aiming at the same target. And finally, 2 FLAK is much less than 4 FLAK

[deca.death]

Let me preface this with saying that I was a Panther pilot before the adjustments and see no problem that the Light Carrier Frigate is now a little more like a light carrier (even if it still hits like a destroyer with slightly less energy).

So they nerfed it? Fair, that ship was WAY OPed.

The Teladi have the Shrike which can mount Anti-Capital weapons albeit ammo based, so they can compete.

And it needs it, with that w. generator :) Also is slow and steers slowly, so it's fair.

The Paranid have 50% more shielding than most other M7's and 4 broadside IBL's (one of which with six hanger bays).

That's because their main gun is close range. You need shields to come close to fight, alive. And they lateral guns are mostly useless, they positioned badly /can't fire ahead, unlike shrike or tiger :)

The Argon have two Ultra-Light Carrier flak boat M7's?

AFAIK cerabrus is not so lousy deliberately, it's a leftover from older games and weapon class changes. There was text explaining it all but not on this forum, on other X3 forum.

[grumman]

Personally, I wouldn't fly either the Panther or the Tiger. What I want in a capital ship is the ability to dock at least one M5 (as a captain's yacht), spinal guns and the ability to launch marines. The Panther and Tiger can each only do one of the three, while other M7s and all M6s can do two.

[deca.death]

What I want in a capital ship is the ability to dock at least one M5 (as a captain's yacht), spinal guns and the ability to launch marines.

Last condition is tricky one isn't it? ;) AFAIK only Carrack can do that. XRM Carrack :)

[AshToDust]

Maybe what I m gonna say isn t really smart, but it looks to me that the way you re playing influence A LOT the balance...

I don t mean the way you re behaving in game but more the save/load habit you have. If you re reloading each time something nasty happens to one of your few golden eggs, of course such wonderfull ship are overpowered. But if you re not...

As KloHunt3r mentioned it, fitting a tiger is not an easy journey. Losing one is pain in the ass on the investment side of the game.

IMO, balance of ship should consider you re reloading only if you die and that you re gonna do whatever you can to not die (raming a station is not a valid suggestion to have to reload to get back your tiger lost 2 minutes ago elsewhere ).

This is not a critism of reloading habit, I m just making my point that this habit should not be consider in the game balancing.

It s kind of the same for M1 fiting... a full M3/M3+ carrier is just WAY expensive. Is it more powerfull that a 50% M4, 25% M5 and 25% M3? of course... but replacing M4 is a lot cheaper than replacing M3 if you screwed something up and lost half of your wings ^^

Same goes for traveler... UT with jumpdrive cost a lot more than 2 LT traveling the slow way with a range of 2 or 3 sectors... and actually UT are dying much more than LT ^^

Not sure I made my point, hope so ^^

[Lelouch]

As KloHunt3r mentioned it, fitting a tiger is not an easy journey. Losing one is pain in the ass on the investment side of the game.

Early in game: Yes. Later in game: Not really.

IBLs are not ~that~ hard to acquire. Either you board cw capitals or set up the necessary infrastructure to support the Yaki fabs. Or both. (A single Trading station with two CAGs is totally sufficient.[1]) If tight on budget you could also use the Hub instead of buying a trading station as long as the 2nd and 3rd gate pairs are either not active or set to some really quite sectors.

Sure, you won't churn out IBLs like crazy, but it should be sufficient to not worry about losing a Panther/Tiger once in a while.

[1]
- Add all resources and products to Trading Station or Hub.
- Set one CAG as "Shopper" to buy necessary stuff with a decent jump range.
- Set one as Trader with jump range of 0 or 1.
- Buy IBLs manually or set up a CLS-Freighter to buy until cargo hold is full.

[Alith-Ahnar]

X was and is a soloplayer game all the talk about balance is overrated, atleast the way most use it here.

If a race has something more powerful then other so be it there has to be no toe to toe balance like in Multiplayer games in the end means of aquisition and/or cost can always balance a asset in a solo game.

But yes X³:TC did totaly srewed this up with OTAS easy to get the ships way stronger then the stock Argon and you don't have to pay more.

Balance in a solo game comes with diversity that makes sense and hands a player tools at hand that are good at certain tasks medicore at other and even bad a some.

Except for some stray bullets like the Tiger and Tresher all M7 are more or less Jack of all Traits.

The Griffon was in X³:TC the epitome of a player ship fast small and capabel of taking on waves of enemys plus a seizabel hangar to dock a bunch of fighters and large enough cargobay to go everywhere you wan't.

Ships like this are unbalancing factors for soloplayer games they don't have a real drawback (to not be capabel to dock at factories is M7 standard).

[Vim Razz]

There's just no reason to not fly a Tiger for that all one in M7.

Sure there is: It's boring to play the same way all the time.

And although I agree that ~serious~ balance debates are a bit silly in a single player game, it's certainly reasonable to look at what elements are balanced or imbalanced in relation to the rest of the game.

In this case, I honestly don't think it's the other M7s that have a ~problem~, it's the IBL itself.

IBLs are not frigate weapons. Period. People get so used to using them that they forget that. They're M2 weapons that happen to be mountable on many M7s.

They're just like OTAS ships, the Hyperion Vanguard, the Griffon, or any number of little deeply ~imbalanced~ elements that are ridiculously overpowered in relation to the rest of the game.

M7s, as a ship class, are diverse yet quite well balanced with each other in the absence of IBL. So... you can choose to use IBL or not... just like you can choose to use OTAS or not, etc. It's your game; do what makes you happy.

Granted, most people do choose to use them because it's nice to be able to solo half a dozen M2/M1 from the seat of an M7 without having to move up to a larger ship. But that doesn't mean ~all~ M7 should be revised just because one overpowered weapon exists in the game.

[Gazz]

IBLs are not frigate weapons. Period. People get so used to using them that they forget that. They're M2 weapons that happen to be mountable on many M7s.

They definitely are frigate weapons because they are intentionally worse than PPC in every possible way. Range, bullet speed, damage, energy use... you name it.

The problem is that M1/M2 can often mount them in addition to PPC.
That messes up the automatic loadout code and ships can run out of cargo space for the smaller lasers that they need for other turrets.

[Vim Razz]

Except nothing else frigates mount even come close to them, with the special exceptions of Gauss Cannons and PPC for the relevant ships -- and I can't recall anyone arguing that those belong on more frigates.

IBL are your pirate destroyer weapons. The fact that they're not as good at commonwealth or Terran destroyer weapons doesn't change that.

[Lelouch]

IBLs are not frigate weapons. Period. People get so used to using them that they forget that. They're M2 weapons that happen to be mountable on many M7s.

What ~is~ a proper weapon for a M7? Pre-Patch 1.1 I would have answered this question with CIG/ISR because they are able to sustain fire with them.

Apart from that there's not that much to choose from.

Gauss Cannon could be argued as a slightly less powerful version of the energy based M2 weapons, SSC / (Cluster)Flak are a possibility, Ion Pulse Generator may be a possibility. PSG is limited to paranid ships.

Edit: replaced 3.2 with 1.1, since we're talking about AP's latest change / not backported to X3TC

[Vim Razz]

CIG/IPG/ISR + flack equipped frigates do extremely well vs other frigates, corvettes, and fighters, but are seriously challenged in trying to deal 1 on 1 vs larger capitals.

That's what I call "good" game balance.

One frigate roasting through 3-6 M1/M2 without breaking a sweat is not what I call good balance between the ship classes.

Don't get me wrong, it's lots'a fun. I'm glad the option exists for when you're in the mood to play that way. Just like I like my Hype V and my OTAS toys.

But it's not anything I'd call "balanced" in relation to the rest of the game.

[Gazz]

It's not the Tiger that is not balanced. It's the strafe drive.
Every ship is insanely overpowered if you use it. It's only amplified by the longer ranges and longer bullet flight times in capital ship combat.

3-6 M1/M2? Can do that in a Panther, Shrike, whathaveyou.

Sure, the Tiger is one of the 4 or 5 "best" M7 but which one is the bestest of the best depends on who you ask. Just browse some "Best M7" threads. There are plenty.

[Nick Northern]

I agree with Vim Razz. Many M7's can mount ISR, IPG and CIG's as well. That doesn't mean they are specifically frigate weapons. IBL's should only be mountable on an M7 in low numbers, like the Cerberus, mounting 4 at the max. M7's should not be able to shoot down an M2 in one pass without giving something up. I like the Tiger, but to justify it's use of so many IBL's, and high laser energy and speed, I think it shouldn't be able to mount any Flak at all. Make it an anti-capital specifically to justify its use of 12? IBL's.

I like the boost of Cerberus, and the designation of many M7's as anti-fighter gunboats. I like Panther functioning as a light carrier. I like Shrike as a well-rounded jack of all trades, with high cargo and docking bay's, but sacrificing laser energy.

I think the trick with balance is you should be able to give something up to get more of something.

As far as the uniform flak boat designation of many M7's (Argon, Terran with SSC's) and the lack of diversity, I mostly disagree. I think M7's are balanced for the most part at the moment. I would like to see the Argon and Terran M7's vary a little more in what they can mount, and their other main stats, but as a whole I think there is enough variance in the M7 class to suit different play-styles and aesthetics. The Shrike, Deimos, Tiger, Panther, Yokohama, Cerberus and Thresher are quite different from one another. The Griffon and Astraeus are slight variations on the Cerberus, and the Aegir is a slight variation on the Yokohama. That's not bad.

The Tiger is probably the best anti-capital ship right now, and can still serve as an anti-fighter ship with flak mounted. Shrike is probably the best all-around M7 with very good anti-captial guns and anti-fighter flak, as well as a large cargo bay and hanger bay. My vote for best M7 goes to the Deimos though. A lot of people don't like using PSG's but I love them. They kill everything very well, and in a players hands, the range and friendly fire drawback is not an issue, for me anyways.

[Gazz]

Anything goes - at a price. That's what balancing is all about.

The Tiger is probably the best anti-capital ship right now, and can still serve as an anti-fighter ship with flak mounted. Shrike is probably the best all-around M7 with very good anti-captial guns and anti-fighter flak, as well as a large cargo bay and hanger bay. My vote for best M7 goes to the Deimos though.

To me, the Shrike is the best anti-capital ship. It simply has more firepower to beat down those powerful shields and hulls.
Not very flashy or elegant but hey - sometimes a blunt instrument works just fine. =)


And those "12 IBL" are just for show. After 13 sec the laser generator is dry and the firepower drops to 1/3 of that.

[Lelouch]

3-6 M1/M2? Can do that in a Panther, Shrike, whathaveyou.

Also Yokohama / Aegir? Without relying on Wraiths (imba) / Spectre (general availability)?

[Vim Razz]

It's not the Tiger that is not balanced. It's the strafe drive.
Every ship is insanely overpowered if you use it. It's only amplified by the longer ranges and longer bullet flight times in capital ship combat.

True fact.

3-6 M1/M2? Can do that in a Panther, Shrike, whathaveyou.

You can do it easily in a Tiger with IBL.
You can do it easily in a Panther with IBL.
Shrike is a special case, but it's still more challenging if you don't have IBL up front in addition to the GC.

Take IBL out of the equation with any frigate, and knocking out large targets becomes a lot more challenging. It's an awesome and powerful weapon. Just like the Hype V is an awesome and powerful M6, or just like the Boreas is an awesome and powerful M2.

But "awesome and powerful" isn't the same as "balance", and the OP implied ~re-balancing~ the entire M7 class just because of one overpowered weapon.

Changing every M7 to be as overpowered as an IBL-wielding Tiger/Panther/whatever is the part of the OP's tone that I disagree with.

Saying that a Cerberus can't compete with an IBL-weilding Tiger is like saying that a Centaur can't compete with a Hyperion, or that a Buster can't compete with a Solano. It's obvious and silly, because in each of these cases you're comparing a standard example from the game with a rare and uniquely overpowered example.

Only in this case, it's the weapon that's overpowered (compared with anything else it might replace) instead of the hull.

Just browse some "Best M7" threads. There are plenty.

heh, understatement of the day! Very true fact.

[Gazz]

Also Yokohama / Aegir? Without relying on Wraiths (imba) / Spectre (general availability)?

Terran M7 are not the same ship class as commonwealth M7. They are "M6 built bigger".
They have their uses but anti-capital work is not one of them.

Saying that a Cerberus can't compete with an IBL-weilding Tiger

*shrug* A Tiger can't compete with a Cerberus in it's area of expertise, so why should it be different the other way around?