Buff raptors

[Veritas]

title. They're not really worth using over a viper squad, as by the time raptors get into sensor range to detect enemies you are already engaged with them. Rockets only have 4 shots and miss often, and comparing the 24 raptors to 40 vipers, you get far more milage out of a viper sqaud.. and the additional firewall buff is difficult to use due to raptors not being fast enough to really make a difference, in addition to the firewall buff not being significant enough to slow the toasters down by an appreciable amount

[Simulacra_53]

Originally posted by Shards:

FWIW, my favourite use of raptors is their increased Dradis range. I use them to get a dradis solution on ships in the enemy backfield so I can plan and nuke them before the enemy expects me to be able to!

Some missions require other usage, but in general that's my use of Vipers as well - fast recon, interception of raiders and last attrition. Recon gives me a first missile strike capability and it lets me know on what target to concentrate early in the engagement. This makes Vipers an effective force multiplier.

[Steven]

Give them torps, about 2-4 per raptor and make the raptor squadron size 8-10. Mybe then they can do some damage but they still have to go restock (recall) after each volley :P

[Muzzleflash]

Here is an idea. Since the Raptors have ECM and jamming signals, how about either:

A. Instead of docking to aid a friendly vehicle, why not allow them to jam enemy ships, preventing them from hacking you (you don't degrade them, just stop that single ship from hacking yours).

or

B. Make them disrupt guided missiles somehow. Could be temporary disabling the "guiding" part of guided missile while close to the raptor.

[Steven]

Originally posted by Muzzleflash:

Here is an idea. Since the Raptors have ECM and jamming signals, how about either:

A. Instead of docking to aid a friendly vehicle, why not allow them to jam enemy ships, preventing them from hacking you (you don't degrade them, just stop that single ship from hacking yours).

or

B. Make them disrupt guided missiles somehow. Could be temporary disabling the "guiding" part of guided missile while close to the raptor.

+1

[Felinewolfie]

- The Chaff is a DIFFERENT kind of Raptor. Called a Sweeper?
- Vipers are 10 per squad (Mk1) 8 per squad (Mk2) and Raptors are 2 per squad.

40, 32 and 24 are the lifepoints of *ONE* unit.

[Felinewolfie]

Originally posted by Steven:

Originally posted by Muzzleflash:

Here is an idea. Since the Raptors have ECM and jamming signals, how about either:

A. Instead of docking to aid a friendly vehicle, why not allow them to jam enemy ships, preventing them from hacking you (you don't degrade them, just stop that single ship from hacking yours).

or

B. Make them disrupt guided missiles somehow. Could be temporary disabling the "guiding" part of guided missile while close to the raptor.

+1

I like that a lot.
I strongly dislike the docking mechanic

The way you describe would be great.

[Sam_]

In the show you saw rocket varients and which were used to fire decoy rockets to mimic the Dradis signal for a battlestar during the battle where the Pegasus was eventually lost.

Perhaps they could deploy a similar tactic where the AI now has to account for a battlestar that has shown up to battle late. The rockets would need to be deployed outside of their scanning range to act as an unidentified contact, so you use the move order for the raptors to move away from the battle.

It would be interesting to see how the AI would react anyway. My Battlestars always get ganged up, despite my other ships closer so it would be cool to see the Cylon fleet divide as they chase bogus signals.

[TranquilClaws]

Originally posted by Muzzleflash:

Here is an idea. Since the Raptors have ECM and jamming signals, how about either:

A. Instead of docking to aid a friendly vehicle, why not allow them to jam enemy ships, preventing them from hacking you (you don't degrade them, just stop that single ship from hacking yours).

or

B. Make them disrupt guided missiles somehow. Could be temporary disabling the "guiding" part of guided missile while close to the raptor.

+1 personally I love idea A.

[Enderminion]

or C, let them deploy nuclear warheads

[Shards]

Hi,

Just to say, we're reading all of this and we also love our Raptors. I'm sure they'll get expanded upon in the future.

In the meanwhile, in the 1.09 patch the team have fixed some issues that were causing the Hack Defence to underperform. In a test game, I had a Manticore with a Docked Raptor completely resisting a hack from a Nemesis corvette (firewalls at 124% and holding).

[Dread Pirate]

I have to agree that Raptors are not worth taking over Vipers. Every ship that has fighter squadrons should have a separate squadron slot dedicated to Raptors.

Also, I personally hate the docking mechanic for hacking defense. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't the Colonials just take the ECM suite out of the Raptors and install them in every ship instead of building it into a slow fighter sized unit that has to dock with the ship to protect it?

Raptors should generate an ECM bubble surrounding them that degrades any hacking attack passing through the bubble and any guided missiles passing through should lose guidance and become ballistic like torps.

[Shards]

Ref the last point, there is the first steps towards that skill in 1.09 as well.

The Wardrivers have a new "Jammer" ability that will cause guided munitions to lose guidance temporarily. It's only temporary right now, so they'll come back and strike later on, but it does give any defensive raiders more of a chance to intercept and pushes damage onto other flanks.

There's more potential in there though, so we'll probably improve on it for later updates.

That's what causes the missiles in this to arc around my Arachne
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1139886268

[Dread Pirate]

Thanks for keeping us up to date Shards. I'm glad to see you guys are experimenting with heavy fighter improvements.

I think the temporary loss of guidance might actually prove to be more harmful than helpful. More often than not ships will be positioning themselves such that their weak armor is away from the threat. If incoming missiles temporarily lose guidance and recover in time to re-acquire their target and hit it on the opposite side it will likely end up doing even more system damage than if the jamming weren't in effect. It will look cool, but jamming will be too risky to actually use.

Instead, a better option might be that each missile passing through the ECM bubble has a chance of permanently losing guidance and going ballistic. Some missiles might make it through with guidance intact and some of the now ballistic missiles might still hit their intended or some other target. Those distinctions are different enough from chaff or flak to make this feel like a unique ability with its own set of pros and cons. It would be useful without making the other missile defenses obsolete.

[Shards]

Good ideas I think.

In that gif, I was actually grateful if the spread of damage, all those missile hits would have got close to taking that Arachne down in one turn

[Daddy Kon]

They should be able to dock with your ships to repair armor (repair team) or, dock with a DAMAGED enemy ship to take control of it (marine boarding party). Do ya think?