Is the Falcon OP?

[Pegasus]

[...]Falcon primary: 30 damage/shot, 7.7 shots/s -> 230 damage/s, 200 UU splash radius
Falcon secondary: 12 projectiles/shot, 30 damage/projectile -> up to 360 damage/shot, 0.77 shots/s -> up to 277 damage/s[...]

Ah shit. I was going off of my old notes, which go like this:

Code: Select all

Custom flyers:
--------------
Wasp Alt:  35*10/0.8 = 437hp/sec (25% more dmg)
Wasp Prim: 35* 5/0.5 = 350hp/sec
Falc Alt:  30*12/1.3 = 276hp/sec (~30% more dmg)
Falc Prim: 30*1/0.14 = 214hp/sec

At point blank always alt.fire; same proj for both firemodes, no vec dmg multiplier

... and I only focused on the final figures, then redid the per sec calcs for the alt-fire, effectively dividing by 1.3 twice. The second time you divide, you get 212, so between 212 and 214, I used 213 as the avg. Well, fuck. Guess that's what I get when juggling figures that late and on a New Year's full stomach and blood half-drained brain. Thanks for catching that, man. And, yeah, it's a pretty ridiculously strong flyer.

Just to add some informational value to the post, here's the agility comparisons (accelerations) for anyone interested too.

Raptor (benchmark)
MaxThrustForce=100.0
MaxStrafeForce=80.0
MaxRiseForce=50.0

Wasp
MaxThrustForce=180.000000
MaxStrafeForce=210.000000
MaxRiseForce=220.000000

[Fastest strafer (2.62x fast compared to a Raptor), fastest climber (4.4 times as fast as a Raptor's rate)]

Falcon
MaxThrustForce=240.000000
MaxStrafeForce=150.000000
MaxRiseForce=200.000000

[Fastest sprint burst (2.4x rate of Raptor), can change altitude 4 times as fast as a Raptor]

All 3 flyers have the same max speed (GroundSpeed) of 2000UU/s. It's the sudden, quick direction changes that essentially define their offensive/evasive potential. For reference, an AVRiL rocket takes off at 550, accels at 750UU/s per sec to reach its max speed of 2800UU/s in 3 secs after launch. Raptor rockets do 2000UU/s -> 2000UU/s² -> 4000UU/s (max) in 1 sec, but lose lock much more easily than anything a cunning human player can do.

[Xac]

Last week I was in the lucky position of flying a Falcon in Omaha and had a lot of fun, dodging Avrils, wiping out foot soldiers with one hit...zooming away, shooting Raptors out of the sky and putting down somewhere safe for repairs before re-joining the fun.

Today I played a few maps with the Raptor and it felt like flying a brick after being in the Falcon.

Pegasus, for comparison, could you give the same figures for the Cicada? I'm sure that can climb and dive faster than the Raptor.

[Pegasus]

Cicada
MaxRiseForce=200.0
MaxStrafeForce=65.0
MaxThrustForce=80.0

The Cicada is a subclass of the Raptor (small surprise there, both behave like helicopters) and since it has no specified GroundSpeed, it inherits the same one the Raptor has, i.e. 2000UU/s. They also have the same vehicle mass of 4.0, just like the Hellbender and SPMA. Also, for some reason, it has 3 exit positions. Yeah, I'm still hung up on that one :s...

[Wormbo]

GroundSpeed really only is an AI info for Onslaught vehicles. They actual maximum speed is determined by their maximum Karma physics speed, which is 2500UU/s. (The Cicada has 2000UU/s in its default properties, but for some reason that doesn't seem to be applied.) Wheeled ground vehicles have complex transmission calculations, so they might not reach their maximum Karma speed easily, but flyers and hovercrafts usually don't have that problem.

Those "agility numbers" of the Wasp and Falcon are quite high. I gave the Draco Strafe/Thrust forces of 120.0 and that already feels quite nice. The real "brick in jelly" flyer is the Dragon, though:
MaxStrafeForce=100.0
MaxRiseForce=80.0
MaxThrustForce=100.0
Doesn't look too bad on first glance, but the Dragon is twice as heavy as other flyers, so the values are only 50% as effective.

Pegasus: I took those values from the Falcon in the Omni loadout map, but yours could be just as correct. I noticed that various tweaked versions of the various vehicles exist. They may feel slightly different, depending on the map they are embedded in.

[Xac]

Cicada
MaxRiseForce=200.0
MaxStrafeForce=65.0
MaxThrustForce=80.0

The Cicada is a subclass of the Raptor (small surprise there, both behave like helicopters) and since it has no specified GroundSpeed, it inherits the same one the Raptor has, i.e. 2000UU/s. They also have the same vehicle mass of 4.0, just like the Hellbender and SPMA. Also, for some reason, it has 3 exit positions. Yeah, I'm still hung up on that one :s...

I thought as much...seems crazy for them to have the same mass, when the Raptor is a single seat...and why should the Raptor be slower to climb/dive?

[theEssenceOfNoob]

I think the Falcon and Wasp are both OP'd because of their maneuvering abilities. As mentioned they accelerate faster than an avril, giving low to mid skilled players zero chance to do even 1 pt of damage. The only way a player on foot can damage them is with a shock rifle, but you have to REALLY be a good shot. This is very frustrating to many players.... They should be able to do SOMETHING to stop that falcon, but they can't.

No vehicle should make infantry as obsolete as these vehicles do. I'd go so far as to say vehicle-less players can do more against a minotaur than against an adept falcon flier.

[[P]etya]

Problem with the Falcon is that there aren't many maps which have that Railgun Tank. Since the Railgun Tank's weapon hits immediately the target there is no escape from it. Also the Railgun Tank can destroy the Raptor like vehicles with 1 shot and Cicadas with 2 shots. I don't know about the heavier aircrafts because I haven't seen them on the map which has the Railgun Tank.

[Pegasus]

Funnily enough, the Railgun Tank too is also kinda OP against stock content. Interesting vec & weapon concept indeed, but a 375hp damaging hitscan on a 800hp tank is by no means sensible when it can take out half the common ONS vecs in one easy shot. If your answer to the imbalances introduced by an OP vec is to tackle it with another OP vec (at the expense of every other actor in the battlefield), keep in mind that this "arms race" paradigm has already been tried in other parts of the UT/ONS community thoroughly and for years, and the results it's delivered have proven to be little more than a slippery slope in terms of overall gameplay quality and balance. Differential testing/diagnosis theory says that if changing a non-essential factor in a problematic system worsens it, you don't keep the change with all the effects it's had and try to apply others on top of it to correct, rather, you reverse that first alteration and try something else.

[Karma_geddon]

I'd go so far as to say vehicle-less players can do more against a minotaur than against an adept falcon flier.

Yeah, I believe that this is THE problem. The Mino is OP too, but I can live with it: there is always a way to deal it some damage: mantas, flyers, well positioned infantry... Obviously it depends from the map, but (at least in the maps that we have here) there is always a way to attack it efficiently.
Even when I find myself IN FRONT of the Mino, at least I know that I can shoot it and deal some damage before my honorable death

[RottenToTheCore]

It isn't over powered in my opinion, you have to get quite close to do any real damage. It's speed is the biggest problem, but it's not that hard to take down with a LG and shock combined, 5-6 hits and its gone. Sometimes i can't last 2 minutes in the thing because it has low HP. The creator has made good counters, it's very fast and can deal a lot of damage but has low health, rather balanced in my opinion .

Any weapon or vehicle in the right hands can be devastating, that doesn't mean it's overpowered.

You can't be serious Monky.

1. You can do massive damage with random hits of the energy balls in mid-distance and kill a person within seconds with 2-5 shots.
2. In low-distance you kill a person instantly with a well aimed shot, even when the person got a shield.
3. You can easily outmanoeuver any person who shots with avrils at you with a little practice.
4. You can outmanoeuver Levis and kill them alone, as long as nobody uses the laser (what most people never do )
5. You can easily kill 3 or more people who are near a node with aimed shots and take down the node within seconds.
6. You can even flee from 3 avrils by quickly flying behind a barrier. After that you can repair it and reattack.

This is - next to the Poltergeist - the most overpowered vehicle in UT, and nearly unstoppable, when you dont have good long distance gunners or stationary / vehicle laser turrets.

You need to consider, that not everybody has you evasion and aiming skills! For most people a Falcon in the right hands is deadly without any hope left.

One exception, as already said: A map like Slated, where only these beasts fly around. There a Railgun Tank is the better thing .