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[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

 . . . That Lyran STL can fly solo without much fear from most any ship in that BPV range.  It can do close to 100 points at range 6 with its Mauler alone; after its raped you with 4 more Disr and 4 more ESg plus 10 PH 1's there's a good chance your ship blows up on the first pass unless your a Gorn or HAHA a Borg.

One thing that I always found interesting comparing Modern D2 to GSA play was this ship.  The STL dominates it's weight-class in GSA whereas in D2, limited-dreadnought modern rules, they don't.

I havent played D2 in over 2 years not by choice, I switched to DSl wireless (2WIRE) and couldnt do it anymore.  I discovered a few months back that I can request a "static" address from AT&T free (so they say) and maybe finally get to play again.  So its been all GSA for me since then.

But I do remember playing Slave Girls 6 and I found cheese was always to be had if you worked it.  I remember many Klings were flying their drone boat  (D5D?) or whatever it was.  Hated that SHip.  I was a minor player on that one cause I had trouble getting used to having AI ships getting in the way.  For some reason my AI ships always seemed to suck.  Those clever smelly Klings would hang around behind the AI's then go after you...bah. 

But I too found a nice cheesey ship when I switched race to Hydran (I was usually Gorn). The Hydran MKE. 

Ahhh...what a sweet Kling killer that was. The more drones the better.  5 gattlings, use em like Fusion plus they hold for nuthin and provide drone proof defense...plus 6 Hornets.    Bye Bye D5D.  Used to ambush em on the the border as they approached another battle.  The MKE could take on a C7, probably lose but damage it enough to send it back to space dock which sometimes can be just as good as a win in the DVERSE.

My point is no matter how much you try there will always be an exploit or some ship some will think is imbalanced.  All those Kling drone boats running Drone Anchor tactics vice Old School Sabre Dancing was pretty surreal if you ask me.

[FCM-Corbomite-XC]

The main reason for the STL being uber on GSA and not on the D2 is supplies. You can hang a lot longer with that ship with 25 spares and out maneuver it by getting it into an old style dogfighting tight turn. Once you get to the side of it you never let it get you into the Mauler arc again.

Tool and I pulled that trick once and I even managed to drop a NSM on the STL and only take enough damage to lose just one point of power (of course I had to sacrifice my PF's on those 4 ESG's to do it). The STL never got to use his Mauler once and was forced to disengage.

[Age]

The only wasy i could beat Z-CXA was to get in at very close range and had to turn off my heavy photons.I put the phaser to point defence with tractors the trick here is to get in as close as you can before the missles turn to mirvs.I tried with a R-XCA and had no luck with that or other plasma based ships only non plasma agian geting in at close range at 2 or 0.

The Z-XCA only had one load of drones to it.It might want to be relooked at and maybe some changes if the community agrees more b racks than U racks maybe. 

[FPF-DieHard]

The main reason for the STL being uber on GSA and not on the D2 is supplies. You can hang a lot longer with that ship with 25 spares and out maneuver it by getting it into an old style dogfighting tight turn. Once you get to the side of it you never let it get you into the Mauler arc again.

That and carriers always played more of a role in D2.   it makes sense, D2 is a war simulation and GSA is an arena.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

The main reason for the STL being uber on GSA and not on the D2 is supplies. You can hang a lot longer with that ship with 25 spares and out maneuver it by getting it into an old style dogfighting tight turn. Once you get to the side of it you never let it get you into the Mauler arc again.

That and carriers always played more of a role in D2.   it makes sense, D2 is a war simulation and GSA is an arena.

I'll address  Corby's post later but I agree. 

Actually in terms of imbalance I would rank Mauler ships as 3rd on my list of problems....(in "arena" play")

1.  Tugs.  Already explained.

2.  War Destroyers  (many have 6 transporter, great power curves, heavy weapons that exceed many Light Cruisers, too many fighters...how can TEN fighters fit on a destroyer hull?)

3.  Maulers.  Mostly in Team play.

4.  Escorts.  This problem (once cited in EAW) has almost gone away mostly due to the emergence of the other three classes of ships.

SHips that no one flies...

Monitors...

What are these things?  Slow and useless I would say.  Lol.  Prob not used in the Dverse that much either far as I know.  Any server ever feature or even offer monitors? Also they are badly misnamed...Mono mean one...ONE WEAPON...yet these ships are bristling with all kinds.  Lol.

Of the XSHIPS the

X Cruisers..imbalanced favoring direct fire races...the most balanced ship is the Kling XCA.  The Fed XCA should only have 4 Heavy Photes if we base our concept of "balance" with the Kling ships.

X Lights are actually very well done except for Hydran XDV...but it plays at higher BPV than most so really NOT.  An ADV 190-215 game can be a good BPV to play.

X Frigates are broken due to the Hydran Frigates having 4 G2's.

============================

Concerning Corbomites post....

Well in 1v1 most Mauler's are not a problem.  Only the STL can Solo and maybe the ROM FHF?  (I can't remember the Hull Designator but it has 2 S torps and the mauler HC).  The others are mostly death traps in 1 v 1 play.  I have defeated an STL 1v1 with the ROM KHK rather handily but I still took some damage.  The Gorn DNL/DFL is also well suited to battling the Lyran STL 1v1. The Hydran LGE is a great SHIP to run up against the STL and gnerally speaking all maulers have serious problems with fighters.

But in team play those tactics you mention are a throw of the dice.  A good mauler wing will not let you outmanuever his mauler.  They will chase with the wing in the lead and do a variation of the old Hydran "Grab and GO"...lead ship grabs you at whatever cost(either delivers a range 3 shot) while the follow on ship delivers the coup de grace range ZERO with fusion on suicide etc. Your wing either HETS around and tries to hit whatever ship you hit or you lose the match. 

But instead of a Hydran its a Mauler and instead of suicide overloads the weapon can't be destroyed, doesn't need to get below range 5 to deliver its maximum damage, and is far more resistant to ECm than fusion.

Or the Mauler with just hunker down for a time until it runs out of weasels (or if ROM even that doesn't matter) while the wing or wings circle about and use it as a base.   

In most 2v2 and even morso 3v3 Mauler generally dominate the tactics.  Ships of the line become "{Mauler escorts" and I do not think thats what was intended when they were designed. 

We try to limit 1 mauler per side and usually when one team uses it consistently the other team starts using fighters...etc.  Things start to escalate.

So yes in this context the Mauler is imblanced.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I hear you on the X-ships. Not only are they imbalanced, but there is a very small range of X-ships to choose to fly an advanced battle-- most of us probably aren't comfortable with every races' X, and some of the XCA variants are junky, or the XCAs themselves.

Compare this to, let's say a 115 late battle. If a player wanted to fly Klingon, they could fly an outfitted War Destroyer Leader, or an original D5. Many more options. In my opinion, the battles <201 bpv are always the most fun.

Rondo, do you mean the HDWs? Yeah, talk about cheap ;).

[FCM-Corbomite-XC]

War Destroyers  (many have 6 transporter, great power curves, heavy weapons that exceed many Light Cruisers, too many fighters...how can TEN fighters fit on a destroyer hull?)

I've never found these to be a problem. At the BPV needed to get them you usually can pick up a good heavy cruiser and just out hull them. They come out pretty late too. They are all SFB designs that Firesoul ported in and are basically a destroyer with heavy cruiser firepower much like a BCH is a heavy cruiser with dred firepower. The first generation X frigates have the same firepower to weight issue and even some of the battle frigates are pretty mean. Still, some are pretty OTT. Cheap carriers for some races are always going to be a problem on GSA in early and mid eras.

Monitors.... What are these things?  Slow and useless I would say.  Lol.  Prob not used in the Dverse that much either far as I know.  Any server ever feature or even offer monitors? Also they are badly misnamed...Mono mean one...ONE WEAPON...yet these ships are bristling with all kinds.  Lol.

Monitors are cheap dreds that were used to guard Starbase construction sites and occasionally guard convoys etc... anything that required some good protection, but was motionless or didn't need to go fast.

The Starbase Construction and Convoy Raid/Escort missions would have to be rewritten to use them effectively.

We used a Monitor in a PBR match playing Fed. It did what we wanted it to do; soak up fire while the wing ships wrecked the other team. They didn't know what to make of it and saw just the weapons loadout. They had no idea it had no power lol!

X Frigates are broken due to the Hydran Frigates having 4 G2's.

That is so easily fixed I'm surprised you haven't just gone ahead and done it.





My main concern with releasing a "fixed" shiplist is the difference between the two areas of play that have to be balanced. What's good for the D2 usually isn't good for GSA type play. Except for Hydrans you never see anyone flying a carrier on GSA because fighters get too expensive and you practically end up with no ship to fly them in. I can fix that with the fighter order of battle I have used on my single player shiplist for years, but it was designed to make the AI more of a challenge, not give live players a boost up. Carriers would become very dangerous at the listed BPV and players could fly right out of the barn with good combat worthy fighters (not all the best types mind you - there is usually a mix of squads between Patrol/Interceptor and Heavy/Assault fighters). Plus it actually requires four shiplists to do it - one for each era. There are several other places where crossover problems occur if modification for a D2 environment makes certain BPV's uber on GSA.



As far as attacking a Mauler "base" strategy; try flying three 1v1's instead of a 2v2/3v3. What I mean by that is your team must try to break them up and force them onto your terms, with the best ship for the job assaulting the Mauler. Batteries die off pretty fast. If you can take the first hit (or better yet avoid it altogether) and get a good shot in their fire power will go down. Failing that fight fire with fire and fly the STL yourself! 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

X Frigates are broken due to the Hydran Frigates having 4 G2's.

That is so easily fixed I'm surprised you haven't just gone ahead and done it.

Some of these balance issues can easily be fixed. The thing I'm worried about is getting GSA to accept a new shiplist. I haven't tried playing without the 2552 patch and OP+ 4.0, but people say it just doesn't work. To get a new shiplist into GSA, we would need to somehow have the Gamespy people change things (Or maybe I'm wrong, and players need only have the same list, no matter what it is, to play).

[FCM-Corbomite-XC]

X Frigates are broken due to the Hydran Frigates having 4 G2's.

That is so easily fixed I'm surprised you haven't just gone ahead and done it.

Some of these balance issues can easily be fixed. The thing I'm worried about is getting GSA to accept a new shiplist. I haven't tried playing without the 2552 patch and OP+ 4.0, but people say it just doesn't work. To get a new shiplist into GSA, we would need to somehow have the Gamespy people change things (Or maybe I'm wrong, and players need only have the same list, no matter what it is, to play).

GSA doesn't need to change a thing. If all players have the same list they all can play together just fine. You could make up all your own ships if you wanted.