While your advice about the impulse engines is certainly a valid and clever idea, my point is that those very major systems are the only ones worth targetting right now. Also, damaging subsystems usually REQUIRES an alpha strike. I feel subsystem damage has been lacking in the last two games. SFC2 right now has it more than SFC3, but the double internals thing kind of weakens the effectiveness of some weapons, like photons. However, SFC2 is as good as it can be in my opinion, but SFC3 seems like it can take the subsystem damage thing to a whole new height.
Right now, impulse enginges, warp core, the tractor beam, and the cloak are the systems that people most want to hit. In my opinion, they are major systems, and should probably require that you slam them with alpha strikes, etc. However, the smaller systems, like weapons, require almost the same amount of power to stun or destroy. In SFC2, and i'm not trying to glorify the old system, mizia strikes had a pretty good effect on systems. If people laid the phaser shots down on me one at a time, i would witness many of my weapons randomly getting knocked out according to the arc. IT was good, I appreciated seeing my weapons getting damaged in the process. In SFC3, targetting the hull will usually get you stun affect on weapons after penetrating the armor, but when you actually target a weapon system, it seems like only an alpha strike will provide you with the results that you need. In the other games, I would get mizia attacked, even with my armor, and witness 3 of my phasers get knocked out. I enjoyed this, as it force me to decide how I would I repair things... do I want weapons first or do I want to fix the engines. SFC3 has this only to a certain extent. I can target certain weapons at will, but knocking them out requires all of my firepower in one shunt... and knocking out one weapon at a time is not very effective, especially if I have to commit all of my fire power into it. I might as well have just taken out the vital systems like impulse or warp core.
As it stands, I have found that it's actually easier to damage warp than it is to slow down opponents through the impulse enginges. SFC3 is seeing a lot of ship variants that move very fast. The Federation Intrepid class is an example of this. My brother usually loads out his ship with light phaser banks all around, photons in the front, and a quantum in the back, level 5 shields, and what not. He can fight with all of his weapons and travel at a speed of 60 constantly. this isn't so bad, but i could effectively slow him down using mizia strikes after i've weakened his shields, it would help a lot. I like to fly a k'tinga, despite the bad arcs. I actually like the arcs, they are very effective for giving the ship circular defense, however; because mizia strikes aren't so effective in this game, the k'tinga and the fek'lhr are considered weak. In fact, any ship with arcs that aren't pointed foward to provide alpha strike crunch are considered weak right now. I don't think it's the arcs that are hurting their power, it's the fact that shields and armor in this game are extremely difficult to penetrate with anything except a heavy alpha. I don't know if the patch will address the defensive power that many ships have in this game, but I hope Taldren will read this post in some way, or are already on their way to considering this issue. I feel ships like the k'tinga will be more favorable to fly, despite the low space and usual low speeds they will have compared to other ships, if mizia attack became more 'functional'.
I feel that if subsystems like the weapons were easily (yes, I said easily) stunned and destroyed, it would bring back a flavor of having to pilot well, and also allow us to knock out the opponents sometimes superior firepower out without having to use tremendous firepower ourselves. AS of now, I don't select a tachyon beam as a weapon because I know that I practically NEED all heavy firepower I can get to bring an enemy down. I don't have time to think about disabling warp, I need to crunch through their shields. If I could knock out several weapon systems more easily, then carrying around special tools like a tachyon beam would actually be useful. Anyway, that's my rant. I just wonder if Taldren is addressing any issues like this, I always have the deepest respect for their dedication to making the games better.
Topic: SFC3 subsystem targeting (Read 17353 times)