The Dragon vehicle

[Maniac]

Pegasus posted a (more or less) unbiased analysis of the Dragon vehicle here: http://ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=664&p=9706#p9706
I am ready to try to modify it to match our expectations, but I want to see the opinions of experienced players and modders first.

I see the Dragon as a gunship-type flyer: the purpose of one is to deal moderate amount of damage to slow ground targets in a short period of time. What I want it to be is a source of fear for everything below, but with low air combat capabilities and low health. Something like a surgeon strike weapon - it can wipe out half of the map if used wisely, but any control error makes it an easy target).

I came up with such changes:
1) Acceleration and max speed:
- forward-backward: increase A x 2, S x 1.5 - so it can get to the target and away from it fast enough;
- left-right: decrease A x 0.5, so the air dodge can't be used as primary air combat defense
- top-down: decrease A x 0.5, as done in Dragon v3, for the same purpose
These changes are cloning the Minotaur tactics: you either stand on the spot and work as artillery, or move fast without slowing down, but you can't dodge and dance;
2) Bottom turret weapon:
- primary fire: Goliath primary (strong but slow) or Cobra primary (fast with moderate damage)
- change secondary fire (bomb) to the fire tank "fireball" shell (dirreduced damage, but small pieces of fire are left in the hit area); or Cobra secondary
The current bomb is heavily influenced by Dragon movement in not really predictable fashion, so it's often used more like spam then like single-target tactical weapon. I know there are couple of players who can control it, but they are too few.
3) Pilot weapons:
- charge turret
4) Top turret weapon:
- primary fire: hitscan lasers
- secondary fire: the Raptor missiles (both damage and reload time seems to be fine)

The purpose of these changes is to increase "stakes", or make Dragon more like specialist vehicle as Ion Tank, and less like spam vehicle.
- more damage dealt to ground targets on success, but more difficult to get away from danger if you did not plan it beforehand;
- ground weapons are damage-over-time ones instead of hit-and-run ones, but have better reach; so you are not forced to get so close to sources of danger as before, but you have more troubles to run away from one if it appears;
- air weapons are stronger in terms of DPS, but require a gunner and only work good in top hemisphere;
- the pilot is given a good first-contact weapon vs enemy aircraft (you can severely damage it if it's ahead of you and it didn't notice you yet)

Everyone is welcome to post suggestions, criticisms, examples from other vehicles/servers et cetera.
P.S.: I'll try my best to improve the vehicle if we have an agreement on it, but I will not waste my time if there would be many drawbacks or not enough interest for it: as I see it, the map with some flaws can be smoothed out to payable state, but a vehicle with design flaws can totally break the map experience and should be put out of misery instead of being transformed to Frankensteinen monster.

[Zon3r]

[-FuNkY-MoNk-UK-]

Never thought I'd see a Cicada with frickin' ion turrets by its side

Mani, Do you have to get permission from the author to mod this?

I've never liked the one shot beam on the dragon. The fire rate sucks and if you actually hit something the damage seems minimal. Pretty useless in my opinion.

[Maniac]

Mani, Do you have to get permission from the author to mod this?

I can't say I care much about it If there is enough materials to do this, I'll surely seek it; If not, better not to bother him/her while the only thing we have is an idea. And if the author is reluctant to give the permission, the original Cicada is still open for modding.

[Cat1981England]

Wormbo was the last person to edit it, so he would be the one to ask permission to mod it. I'm also not sure it was directly built from the Cicada, I think the original author just used some of it's code which led to problems later on.

Dragon_V3b is the latest version as far as I know.

[Turbo K]

I think the Dragon is close to being good already. The AA turret could be a twin beam turret instead to decrease spam and increase the skill needed to use it. Also, if the bomb could be shot down, that would open up a wide range of strategies. Another change might be replacing the rapid-fire mode of the lower turret to a zoom function.
The laser beam primary fire seems balanced already. It can take down other flyers fairly quickly if you get the drop on them.

Basically, if the auto-aiming turret is removed/changed, the dragon should require a lot more skill to use correctly, but still be effective in the right hands.