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Shuttles...
captainoblivous
Member Posts: 2,284 Arc User
As it's shuttle weekend, I thought I'd give shuttles one last try. I've hated them in the past, but I figured that it would only be fair if I tried them once again.
I ran a few shuttle events and I have to say, I still hate them.
I hate the way they handle and I hate the whole "being 1 shotted"/"respawning multiple times" trope. I hate the way the camera behaves with shuttles in that you can either have it zoomed in far too closely to see what is around you or way to far out to be able to see your shuttle or which direction you're pointing clearly. There is no "happy medium" with the camera when it comes to shuttles.
Marks or no marks, I'm not touching shuttles again. Thanks, but no thanks. I feel that it's just something that was tacked on to the game play without much thought as to making it work well.
If they wanted to repeat the "increase the average quality of the game through removing stuff" theme, I nominate shuttles as a candidate for immediate removal.
I ran a few shuttle events and I have to say, I still hate them.
I hate the way they handle and I hate the whole "being 1 shotted"/"respawning multiple times" trope. I hate the way the camera behaves with shuttles in that you can either have it zoomed in far too closely to see what is around you or way to far out to be able to see your shuttle or which direction you're pointing clearly. There is no "happy medium" with the camera when it comes to shuttles.
Marks or no marks, I'm not touching shuttles again. Thanks, but no thanks. I feel that it's just something that was tacked on to the game play without much thought as to making it work well.
If they wanted to repeat the "increase the average quality of the game through removing stuff" theme, I nominate shuttles as a candidate for immediate removal.
I need a beer.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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As for the zooming: There is a little toy ingame called Holo-Emitter. Its cheap and makes your ship clearly visible. I have them, but dont use them anymore, as I did what any good player does: I adapted to shuttles.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Shuttles are something different to take our minds of our tanky starships and focus more on the real game.
If you dont like it ok, avoid using it but dont ask to delete them because you suck at flying.
As I have posted a few times, shuttles only work if you consider them as "small starships"... what I mean by that is this: you have very limited slots for everything and a crew of five, so everything you slot has to do double-duty. It's still a ship, that has to perform. It still has to survive. It still has to kill.
There is a rumor/myth that shuttles need to be fitted with Type-S equipment. Let's put this to rest: it's total garbage. In fact, the only good thing about most Type-S is that it scales with you. Apart from that, it's low-end equipment like any other. There is some unique Type-S equipment worth having (like that from c-store and lockbox/lobi shuttles, like the Tetryon-Plasma Impulse Engine and the Subatomic Deflector Array) but apart from this, you need to consider your shuttle as deserving of the best: something that you would add to your normal ship's equipment. And, Sets are your friend here, even more than on a normal ship: if a set offers a bonus such as the Obelisk Warp Core & Omnidirectional Antiproton Beam giving an extra 10% damage, that's like a whole extra small tactical weapon damge console with a built-in shield capacitor, like having an extra device slot for a "real emergency" battery.
If you approach Shuttle Build like that, you'll end up with a shuttle that's more like a small, nimble version of a ship than a "Oops the designer forgot to include warp capability" Type-8 shuttle, AKA the shopping trolley.
In terms of tactics, what I have found personally, is that shuttle weekend missions (such as starbase alert) work best if the team sticks together, goes after smaller-then-larger targets, and individuals work their power levels to put power into shields as required to stay alive, relying to an extent on torpedoes more than you do in a starship. You also become more keenly aware of your limitations versus enemies' powers. For example, in starbase alert, Escorts like the Prometheus tend to have point defense, which attacks if you are within 4km of the escort. Solution? Keep your distance. Ditto with the Typhoons and their repulsor beams.
In essence, shuttles provide an excellent challenge, and provide variety to play. If only we had more shuttle PvE to do, so it would be more regular and routine!
You know, every single post I've seen you make has been to bite someones head off and generally be a douchebag. Jar!
I'm not arguing that it is impossible. I'm simply saying that I dislike it (intensely).
I agree. I've seen you post this a few times and I can't find anything wrong with this. The problem is, it's so limited that I find it a PITA to even consider running a shuttle.
Indeed. I'm no newbie, I already know that type-s gear is utterly awful with few exception. I ran the time shuttle I have (on one toon. Others don't run shuttles) with some mk xii accx2 polo/dis arrays, rep gear, etc.
While the time-shuttle deflector beam is great in theory, I find it nigh impossible to use it. The shuttle is too twitchy to make the kind of fine aim adjustment needed to make use of it and the awkward camera behaviour which makes it very difficult to see precisely where I'm pointing. The stats on the deflector are pretty poor compared to other deflectors. The only thing it has over them is that beam.
I disagree with this, strongly. They're just a pain to fly and a pain to equip. There is "challenge" and then there is "un-fun PITA". I find using shuttles in this game closer to the latter than the former.
To be honest, I'm a cruiser driver. I find this game much better with boats that need a little longer to turn. Things like the fleet ambassador, fleet excelsior, fleet tork, etc. "Twitch style" gameplay isn't something I am fond of, heck if I wanted that I'd play COD or something :P
TL;DR
Thanks for the reasonable response, but shuttle game-play isn't for me.
I still think it should be deleted tough
EDIT
The "one shot" I mentioned happened mulitple times in fleet alert. It was basically either a torp spread, or an iso charge.
Hey if you enjoy it that's great for you. But me, I'm just not a fan. Not saying everything the game offers must meet my approval. :P JMHO.
Don't forget that you still have all your captain and trait abilities, and they can give a really helpful boost - enough to keep you alive until out of trouble anyway.
I do feel they should be more maneuverable though. My Steamrunner feels much more nimble, so does my Odyssey actually although that's probably an illusion from beam coverage.
I can understand that. I have the same feeling for PvP (and having looked at a few posts, I get the feeling it's not the PvP itself so much as the available maps, and the trash talk that a section of STO's PvP community engages in when winning that really irks me, but I digress...)
STO is more a "universe of various games" so I think we'll all love some aspects, be okay with others, and come to intensely dislike (hopefully only) a few. And all this happening in one MMO package makes for some very interesting encounters with a wide variety of gamers :cool:
EDIT: Just a few other notes - the timeship deflector is great for Atmos Assault against walkers but not much else. I tend to agree with you on cruisers... one reason I find the Armitage a real oddity is this huge carrier ship (face it, it's big) has a massive turnrate for its size which is a real immersion-breaker.
On cameras: not so much an issue for 360-beam but a real pain for the fighters (fighters need to just do the 'line up, go in firing, turn round, new enemy line up, go in firing thing... takes time to get used to), but if you play them long enough you get a feel for it.
Any which way, there aren't that many shuttle missions and I'd actually suggest the opposite: I think we need a few more shuttle missions (PvE, PvP, dailies) so that it becomes a regular aspect of STO rather than something people only notice on these weekends. The time to start finding out about shuttle mechanics, and whether it's for you or not, is not in the chaos of a starbase fleet alert!
Who pissed in your Cheerios.
That complaint is sometimes after hitting Evasive maneuvers the camera suddenly goes wacky moving back and forth, the only way to fix it is to open the options, change camera to free mode then back to chase mode. Actually this also happens to some escorts if their turn rate is high enough.