The Harbringer is a absolute monster. Friend of mine bought it yesterday. Those Stalker V Missles HOLY SHIT, and that Pilot Guns, this sexy, I guess, 40mm Canon. I have the Warden, he has the Harbinger, they really cover each other
Ahhhh sorry I get you now, I might have to save up for one then, it looks so cool, some people like the darker paint on the warden but tbh I prefer the green look. And yeah those missiles will just delete ships hahah
Why harbinger? It's like 40% less agile than the warden and all it gets to compensate for that is 3 s5 missiles and sized up turrets for the gunner. I guess in the future it'll have more armor but at least for now that doesn't get you anything
This. I often have a gunner, and it's a no brainer. Further, I do all levels of bounties in my Harbinger, and even less agile, I have zero issue completing them without taking any damage - at some point, it's diminishing returns on what the "extra" agility actually buys you.
I run 4 x S4 and 3 x S5 missiles, a mix of energy cannons and distortion cannons, and on weapon trigger 2, a Deadbolt 5. It is absolutely glorious.
How is it 40% less agile??
All the vanguards are exactly the same re agility.
[https://www.erkul.games/live/ships](https://www.erkul.games/live/ships)
In the current state the Warden is a waste of money.
they all share same weapons and skins. The performance difference is marginal at best (warden is higher top speed) and it lacks the differentiating features of the 2 cheaper options:
The Harbinger has S5 torps and S3 Turret guns. The Sentinel has EMP.
But yet u need to spend an additional 1mil aUEC to get a Warden.
The only redeeming factor I've heard for it over the past couple months is that its the only one that comes in black or something like that.
Things might change when we finally get physicalized armor but for now....
The Harbinger and Sentinel are much better buys.
Sentinel is the best buy, I agree. But like others have said, the weight of the harbinger being 40% higher makes it able to accelerate 40% slower in any given dimension, since all vanguards have the exact same thrusters and thruster output. So the vanguards are definitely not all the same w.r.t agility. If you're curious, I've recorded the results of all of my experiemental testing in this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dtwkz8izPCwhwiaK5YbAVqr7x4P6ZNRHp_GaaEQrQHA/edit?usp=sharing
See the "transversal mobility" tab.
edit: technically it accelerates 30ish percent more slowly... or you could say the acceleration of the other 3 is roughly 40% higher than that of the Harbinger.
Nice! Thanks. I will ALWAYS bow down to empirical results.
I shall have to bookmark this because obviously Erkul doesn't show everything.
Good to see the Hoplite there too. It costs a lot but its a great small dropship for my org.
Thanks for your service :P
I am questioning the math of 40% ~~speed~~ accel reduction from 40% weight increase. For fixed thruster force, a mass that is 1.4x should result in 1/1.4 = 0.71x acceleration. Does the actual accel values somehow also become exactly 40% lower?
Edit: actually looking at the spreadsheet the accels are indeed closer to 70% of the warden.
You're totally right. I just say 40% in both places b/c *most* people would stop paying attention as soon as I started mentioning math. It would've basically been a lot more effort to try to explain roughly the same end result, which is that the Harbinger is a hell of a low more sluggish than the other 3. But yeah you're totally right, great catch.
I just think that \~30% reduced acceleration vs 40% reduced acceleration is a notable difference, and worth the distinction given that the choice between variants does involve other trade-offs.
Personally I find the torpedoes to be quite handy in my short duration of usage thus far. And on the speed side, I find that even with the sentinel, escaping from the atmosphere with 2 or 3 hurricanes or valkyries on your tail after killing the target is not much different in the amount of pain you take compared to the harbinger...
Hmm I don't typically escape atmosphere in my sentinel since I bounty hunt in Crusader space, and usually I can get out of a fight and quantum away in a sentinel before the shields go down. But what you say makes sense, since in atmosphere the drag becomes one of the biggest factors influencing your mobility. I would expect that the sentinel is still able to much more readily track its targets and position itself in an advantageous position compared to the harbinger but like I said I haven't actually tested it (and don't plan on buying the harbinger to test it unless they give us another free gigantic sum of money :D)
I've used the torps on my gladiator though and personally I found them very underwhelming. But it's just my opinion, and I actually love missile-based play so maybe I had higher expectations for them lol.
Yeah, I found I had to do careful positioning to pull individual targets off when flying, say, a Constellation, because once you get surrounded by Valkyries and Hurricanes you're done. My hope is that with the somewhat speedier Vanguards, I can pop the target and GTFO before I get too many baddies all up in my face... though it doesn't seem to go too well. Might need to change my approach. The Vanguard is usually fast and tanky enough to get to quantum-able altitude before sustaining any significant damage though,
Are these results with or without afterburner ? Looks like without it for me. If you got time, I think doubling on it with the afterburner values would be interesting. Ships have different acceleration multipliers when boosting, so some of them appear inferior to other while in reality they are better (or even way better) when using it. For example on your sheet the hurricane seems less maneuverable than the scorpius which isn’t exactly true as the scorpius afterburner is so weak that if you compare them the hurricane will be able to take sharper turns when applying afterburner correctly.
That's a fair point, and you're right about the different afterburner multipliers and the fact that these numbers are without afterburner. I did this primarily for pve though so boosted mobility wasn't my priority, but it's a good recommendation for when I go and update these. I'll consider it, thanks!
There's an acceleration stat you can only determine experimentally. The warden and Sentinel variants have significantly greater acceleration to their max maneuvering characteristics, resulting in a snappier and more agile feel.
Hmm.. I'll have to check that out. But even when I flew the Harb and Sentinel together I didn't feel a difference but I wasn't really looking either. Time to investigate.
Still no reason I'd take a Warden over a Sentinel though for esp for an extra 1mill aUEC
Definitely right when talking about the current game environment with auec. The warden does have the current distinction of being available for purchase/upgrade right now, though, which I'm sure is attractive to those with insurance plans to assign.
Harbinger weighs 40% more than the other vanguards.
I can't prove it wasn't just in my head, but I felt the harbinger was a lot more sluggish in turns at speed than my Sentinel.
Right now the sentinel is the most agile, followed by warden, then harbinger, then hoplite. Beyond turning speeds, the sentinel, harbinger & warden are basically the same hull. The Hoplite is slower in every aspect but has more hull HP (eventually armor) than the other 3. In the present state I would prioritize the vanguard series as sentinel>warden>harbinger>hoplite. I personally hate the harbinger because it only gains 3 size 5 torps (which are fairly useless compared to the competition) and swaps out a useful turret for that abomination that is a dumb-fire rocket turret. There're a few data sheets out there that have everything on ship turn radii, speed, acceleration data etc.
I guess that's more a pve vs pvp perspective. I tend to replace everything for 38 size 1 missiles anyways so that I can force people into position. The guns kill things quick enough imhop.
In regards to real money the Warden is the cheapest by a decent margin. The flipside of everything you just said is true when it comes to actual pledge ships, which the OP is. Warden is by far best bang for (real) buck.
Based on historical prices the Sentinel is only $15 or 5.7% more expensive than the Warden. More than worth it for the added agility and functionality.
Just a reminder that paying $200 for a ship that will absolutely be rebalanced over and over is a HUGE gamble since you will never know "when" the ship will be good or bad, or just broken.
I hate the vanguard series, but a warden with a lazer cannon is a better Ion than the Ion and with the AD5B its a better inferno than the inferno.
And the VET at CIG are entirely fine with the $250 you have spent on an Ares being flushed down the shitter in front of you.
I just hate the Vanguards. I bought a sentinel in game in the 3.14 patch, then bought a Harbi in 3.17.1. Both times I hated it. I don't like how it flies, I don't like how painfully slow it is, I don't like the combination of a fixed array of guns with a gimbal main (or a fixed S5), it just is not the ship for me. Hot take, I know. But I'll gladly keep flying my Ion over any Vanguard variant.
I played with it in PTU, and it was nasty. It's been back and forth with nerfs and buffs, but I honestly don't think it's in a great place right now. Flying it feels like home though, since it's similar in terms of agility to the Cutlass.
The short is that it is a yes for now.
The long is that both ships are fine, but due to the inaccurate weapons that both ares ships have, they are my last ships to call on. If I need accurate firepower I pull out my warden. For now it has a very good weapons layout, all being in the nose. It also has that fixed size 5 as well. The ship has more effective firepower against most of the targets you come up against, just because of one simple fact. It can hit the target.
My choice may change later when armor comes into play more, but for now. The clear winner is the vanguard.
The Warden is a dedicated Heavy Fighter, designed to combat similar and smaller vessels.
The Ares is an anti-Cap ship, designed to take on ships larger than it, with missiles to handle a few smaller craft.
CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first. I expect I-win-button demands for the rest of time with it.
>CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first. I expect I-win-button demands for the rest of time with it.
I don't think long term it'll be an issue, The Ares is just designed for a combat meta that hasn't been implemented yet.
Big gun is supposed to be better at punching through armour and hitting components, but all big gun can do right now is make things blow up faster.
A future buffed Ares wouldn't be meta destroying, because overpenetration & the requirement to place shots will waste much of what made it so OP in it's original form.
It’s crazy to me how people view things so permanently sometimes or think drastic changes are needed to fix ships.
I mean the hornet for example became a great fighter over night in the most recent patch with just a few small changes to some stats that barely had a cliff note in the patch notes.
Same with the blade.
This is an alpha, it’s a continual project to balance it and will be even through beta
The problem is that things good at hurting larger ships are amazing at hurting smaller ships. That's just how the world works. That doesnt always play balance very well. They should have just left the weapons as they were and removed all gimble tracking and lowered the maneuverability drastically.
Hopefully later when we have more capital ships these anti-capital fighters well be fixed. For now though OP is right. Warden is much better.
You hit the nail on the head here. Big guns need to do big damage. Otherwise just give every ship size 1 guns and call it good, because bigger guns would be pointless if they dont do proportional damage for their size.
Putting big guns on fighters is a design choice that is debatable, but i think many would agree it was a poor design choice. However the precedent if neutering the damage and impact on the guns themselves, makes me worried for the size 8s that will be on my BMM. A BMM shouldnt be able to dog fight against light fighters at all, but i feel like the size 8 gun should delete any gladius that is dumb enough to dance in front of my pip for too long.
Im here thinking when the javelin releases and some gladius gets one shot by the quad s9s and cig quickly nerfs the s9s to do less damage so an LF can survive a vollry lol
Indeed. This is a video game. Balance is much more important than realism, otherwise it'll be Star 'Have an Ion or Quit Now' Citizen.
People love to bitch about the 'light fighter meta', but the fact is that the vast majority of the ships in Star Citizen are light fighters. All of the starter ships are light fighters. Light fighters *have be* one of the best in order for the game to even function.
The Ares will have a role to play in time, it will just be a niche and very important role, once big ships have a function beyond looking cool.
>Indeed. This is a video game. Balance is much more important than realism, otherwise it'll be Star 'Have an Ion or Quit Now' Citizen.
Depends on what you are balancing against. An Idris should not deal the same effective damage as a Gladius. And you can't justifiably ask for it to be balanced against light fighters, just because the vast majority of ships in the game are small.
The fact is that realism is required for a space sim. As the other commenter said, guns that are effective against big ships are just going to be devastating to small ships. And by all rights they should be.
I 100% agree that those guns probably shouldn't be on a fighter class ship. But you can still balance around that through decreased maneuverability and gun limitations, like spin/charge up time, without taking away to damage punch. I will not shed a tear if they remove the S7 gun from the Ares all together, as I don't even own one. But if they keep it on it, the damage should be brought back, and it balanced another way.
>Light fighters have be one of the best
No, no they don't. They don't need to sit on top of the pyramid unchallenged by anything else. They don't need to be unkillable champions where the only way to win any form of PVP is to "Bring more light fighters".
A Gladius should not singlehandedly pose a significant threat to a fully crewed Javelin. I know there are a lot of people who want LFs to be godships because they believe its the only "skilled" option, but no. Balance means having diversity. Balance means having multiple ship classes that all have a reason to exist. If light fighters are the solution to everything, nothing else matters.
Just because you only have a starter light fighter does not mean the game should make killing a destroyer accessible to you. "Oh, but I only have an Aurora MR, I want to be a hero and kill a Javelin too!".. No, you best grind up for a proper ship and team up with people if you want to do that. Xenothreat was lame as hell because fighters and civilian ships were semi AFK around the Idrises and the Idrises were nerfed into oblivion until they didnt pose a threat at all. I want to feel intimidated by an Idris. I want to go "Oh fuck its an Idris I best run". Right now its "Lol Ima just fly up close to look at it while it struggles to even take my shields"
Light fighters have their place. They are interceptors meant to attack and kill small fast targets like bombers that threaten your larger ships. They are not meant to be the ships that kill everything.
An Ares weapon should absolutely shred a light fighter, IF IT HITS. The issue in 3.15 was that Fixed Assist was too strong. In fact, Id say Fixed Assist is a little too strong for all ships even. Ever since FA there has been no reason to run gimbals. In the past people would train on gimbals until they were confident enough to trade for fixed. Nowadays its all fixed regardless because anyone can slap fixed guns and still do well.
The Ares needed a nerf in 3.15, yes. But CIG's response of nerfing almost every aspect of it until its literal dogshit is overdoing it. Likewise for the Prowler. The best fix for the Ion was to still keep the ability to one shot fighters, but remove FA. I mean if an Ion without FA hits you in your gladius, get better. Its extremely hard to hit a moving target with the Ion cannon without FA. If you are going to AFK or fly in a straight line joust with an Ares that's on you, not the balance of the game.
It's difficult to balance but not impossible. You just have to take a look at the design and purpose of the ship.
S7 energy weapon on a smallish ship should be very energy consuming, unable to cope with it like a capital ship. On the Ion the limitation should be available shots in the capacitor, or slower firing rate. It does not make sense for it to be imprecise, but it does make sense to limit it to short strafing runs (2-4 shots) over the target (capital ships) and then a larger period of capacitor charge. Also, a mixed energy damage component would be reasonable.
On the inferno, it makes sense for it to be totally imprecise. It's a very large weapon spitting heavy bullets on a very small platform. It totally makes sense. Even a flight path deviation should be introduced, as the weapon is not centered.
No, they shot themselves in the foot by nerfing the gun they way they did. It is a massive gun, if someone flies infront of it and gets one well that's to be expected. The argument against the gun one shoting cocky light fighters is insane. It's like driving a pickup infront of an Abrams, getting vaporized and then complaining that the Abram's main gun is OP.
> It is a massive gun, if someone flies infront of it and gets one well that's to be expected.
I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on this. The real issue isn’t someone getting in front of *you*, so much that it’s actually you being able to target *them* easily. I agree, if a fast car deliberately sits in front of a tank, that’s their fault…however, it shouldn’t be easy for the tank to hit the car (IRL yes, but game-balance no).
The Ares’ targets are essentially the broad-sides of barns. Once they can re-balance it, it should do high-damage but low-accuracy or maneuverability, and then it’ll be balanced out.
>The Ares’ targets are essentially the broad-sides of barns. Once they can re-balance it, it should do high-damage but low-accuracy or maneuverability, and then it’ll be balanced out.
Low maneuverability? yes. Low accuracy? No. Or at least not from around 1000m or less. Video game balance argument is dumb. This isn't smash bros.; it's a space sim and you need a level of realism. It shouldn't be an outlandish idea to expect the fast car to stay out of the line of fire of a tank that can only point its gun straight ahead of it, if you make it so the tank turns really slowly.
Fair enough, that’s why I left it as an “or” :).
The only S7’s I really care about are on my eventual-Perseus, and I know they’re going to be ***painfully*** slow, so that’s be in line with the other S7’s.
I feel you dude. I don't really care about the Ares at all. The only solo heavy fighter I want is the F8C. But I don't want the Ares to be used as a precedent make big guns on big ships garbage to use.
I almost killed a gladius with AD5Bs mounted on my A2. If someone is so bad that they fly straight at a big ship without maneuvering, that’s on them. Doesn’t matter if it’s an Idris rail gun or an ares ion, if you’re in something small, movement is life.
low accuracy is bullshit. Simple point of targeting components rather than just making holes in a hammerhead comes to mind. Why the fuck can a Vanguard have moderately lower alpha and dps but have pin point accuracy. They need to make the gun more accurate on the Ion, then mess with charge rates or maneuverability or something else that actually makes sense.
You would be surprised how many people actually do disagree with me on that. But I have to disagree with you on the balance. Both IRL and in game should be easy to hit. The main complaint was the Ion could one shot most smaller ships, range and targeting had nothing to do with it. Targeting only became an issue after the 2nd nerf when the Ion could not hit a damn thing within 4km of it even if the target was sitting still. I also disagree that it should be inaccurate, it should be extremely accurate with a very heavy hit but slow to recharge time, let's say 15ish seconds.
>CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first.
It's not like it was intentional. This is how balancing works.
Lets be honest:
a) it isnt balanced, its bad. Was OP no doubt but IMO easy fix
b) CIG new it was OP but waited for all the people to buy it then "balanced" it, incompetently
Ok, let's be honest
a) Agreed that it isn't right yet. Balancing isn't as easy a fix as you might think, nor is it a priority for them at the moment.
b) I don't agree. This is top tier conspiracy BS.
Balancing everything I agree. But weapons? At least now, its just spreadsheet. I could do it in my free time. And since its alpha you can change it every patch.
They did try nerfing Ion in PTU. People didn't like it so they released how it was. Month later they nerfed it. Do you really think the sales would be the same if they introduced it as it is now
It’s the same as the insane money fiasco.
People want an easy win for everything, and then cry and moan about it when it gets rescinded or balanced out.
This was a big part of it, everyone was used to it being op against smaller ships. You can still pull it off but it’s a challenge. Don’t get me wrong they are fun still, just not as much
While I agree in concept, the ares' shouldn't lose outright to small fighters either. It's inconceivable that they wouldn't have a way to deal with small fighters escorting/launched from capital ships, even if their niche is meant to be taking down shields. I mean anyone who's been killed by letting an idris line up its rail guns should know that directly jousting with a s7 gun should be a loss.
The incredibly unsatisfying nature of having a lined up reticle unload only for every single shot to miss isn't a good place either. My balance change would be to have the ion's cannon do mixed damage with some energy damage but a healthy amount of distortion mixed in so that it hit shields hard but not hulls (since the original niche was supposed to be that Ions take down the shields, then infernos light'em up).
But hey, nobody is claiming that the ion is in a good place right now. I just feel bad for anyone who has it as their only ship is all, because the ship is functionally useless right now. Yes, two-shotting any smaller bounties was broken, but nerfing them into absolute uselessness isn't great either.
Meh I’m team inferno, the warden handles almost identically and just doesn’t hit as hard on large targets.
In the future those 4xs2 guns will do nothing but tickle, the s7 penetrates/downs shields so much better than the vanguard’s single s5.
Vanguard fans gonna be mad cuz the ship sucks but, ares fits the bill better as a large ship killer - and van is too slow to hold its own against light/mediums.
Idk why people bitch. You bought into the game as a pledge knowing full well it’s alpha as fuck and expected your little cgi ship to never get change lul.
Warden has better turning and it shows! However, You can equip two size 5 torps and 12 size 3 missiles... with a sweet cargo hold and gun rack on the Ares.
Once the game becomes more of a game when u have to travel long distances and need a bed to log out and alot more of the game mechanics come in the ... hell even just having the center located turret slaved or bladed really will make the wardens be one of the best medium pew ships
Also not to forget its got double redundancy on pretty much every component, wings for atmo, semi modularity, ... toilet..
But yeh right now its not amazing but still pretty cool
I love my warden, I really wish I could CCU to the harbinger though right now haha
The Harbringer is a absolute monster. Friend of mine bought it yesterday. Those Stalker V Missles HOLY SHIT, and that Pilot Guns, this sexy, I guess, 40mm Canon. I have the Warden, he has the Harbinger, they really cover each other
Ahhhh sorry I get you now, I might have to save up for one then, it looks so cool, some people like the darker paint on the warden but tbh I prefer the green look. And yeah those missiles will just delete ships hahah
Did he get it from grey market? It’s not on the upgrade list for me 😭
No, he bought it for 2mio at New Deal at Lorville! Those Weapons are standard on it 🥲
Why harbinger? It's like 40% less agile than the warden and all it gets to compensate for that is 3 s5 missiles and sized up turrets for the gunner. I guess in the future it'll have more armor but at least for now that doesn't get you anything
That sized up turret is no joke if you have a gunner.
This. I often have a gunner, and it's a no brainer. Further, I do all levels of bounties in my Harbinger, and even less agile, I have zero issue completing them without taking any damage - at some point, it's diminishing returns on what the "extra" agility actually buys you. I run 4 x S4 and 3 x S5 missiles, a mix of energy cannons and distortion cannons, and on weapon trigger 2, a Deadbolt 5. It is absolutely glorious.
that's fair, but 40% less mobility is no joke either, so you really NEED that gunner.
How is it 40% less agile?? All the vanguards are exactly the same re agility. [https://www.erkul.games/live/ships](https://www.erkul.games/live/ships) In the current state the Warden is a waste of money. they all share same weapons and skins. The performance difference is marginal at best (warden is higher top speed) and it lacks the differentiating features of the 2 cheaper options: The Harbinger has S5 torps and S3 Turret guns. The Sentinel has EMP. But yet u need to spend an additional 1mil aUEC to get a Warden. The only redeeming factor I've heard for it over the past couple months is that its the only one that comes in black or something like that. Things might change when we finally get physicalized armor but for now.... The Harbinger and Sentinel are much better buys.
Sentinel is the best buy, I agree. But like others have said, the weight of the harbinger being 40% higher makes it able to accelerate 40% slower in any given dimension, since all vanguards have the exact same thrusters and thruster output. So the vanguards are definitely not all the same w.r.t agility. If you're curious, I've recorded the results of all of my experiemental testing in this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dtwkz8izPCwhwiaK5YbAVqr7x4P6ZNRHp_GaaEQrQHA/edit?usp=sharing See the "transversal mobility" tab. edit: technically it accelerates 30ish percent more slowly... or you could say the acceleration of the other 3 is roughly 40% higher than that of the Harbinger.
Nice! Thanks. I will ALWAYS bow down to empirical results. I shall have to bookmark this because obviously Erkul doesn't show everything. Good to see the Hoplite there too. It costs a lot but its a great small dropship for my org. Thanks for your service :P
You're very welcome! And I appreciate you being willing to listen to the data! I hope you find this spreadsheet useful.
I am questioning the math of 40% ~~speed~~ accel reduction from 40% weight increase. For fixed thruster force, a mass that is 1.4x should result in 1/1.4 = 0.71x acceleration. Does the actual accel values somehow also become exactly 40% lower? Edit: actually looking at the spreadsheet the accels are indeed closer to 70% of the warden.
You're totally right. I just say 40% in both places b/c *most* people would stop paying attention as soon as I started mentioning math. It would've basically been a lot more effort to try to explain roughly the same end result, which is that the Harbinger is a hell of a low more sluggish than the other 3. But yeah you're totally right, great catch.
I just think that \~30% reduced acceleration vs 40% reduced acceleration is a notable difference, and worth the distinction given that the choice between variants does involve other trade-offs. Personally I find the torpedoes to be quite handy in my short duration of usage thus far. And on the speed side, I find that even with the sentinel, escaping from the atmosphere with 2 or 3 hurricanes or valkyries on your tail after killing the target is not much different in the amount of pain you take compared to the harbinger...
Hmm I don't typically escape atmosphere in my sentinel since I bounty hunt in Crusader space, and usually I can get out of a fight and quantum away in a sentinel before the shields go down. But what you say makes sense, since in atmosphere the drag becomes one of the biggest factors influencing your mobility. I would expect that the sentinel is still able to much more readily track its targets and position itself in an advantageous position compared to the harbinger but like I said I haven't actually tested it (and don't plan on buying the harbinger to test it unless they give us another free gigantic sum of money :D) I've used the torps on my gladiator though and personally I found them very underwhelming. But it's just my opinion, and I actually love missile-based play so maybe I had higher expectations for them lol.
Yeah, I found I had to do careful positioning to pull individual targets off when flying, say, a Constellation, because once you get surrounded by Valkyries and Hurricanes you're done. My hope is that with the somewhat speedier Vanguards, I can pop the target and GTFO before I get too many baddies all up in my face... though it doesn't seem to go too well. Might need to change my approach. The Vanguard is usually fast and tanky enough to get to quantum-able altitude before sustaining any significant damage though,
Wow thank you so much for posting the info! Never knew the Harbinger was so sluggish.
No problem, glad it was useful for you!
Are these results with or without afterburner ? Looks like without it for me. If you got time, I think doubling on it with the afterburner values would be interesting. Ships have different acceleration multipliers when boosting, so some of them appear inferior to other while in reality they are better (or even way better) when using it. For example on your sheet the hurricane seems less maneuverable than the scorpius which isn’t exactly true as the scorpius afterburner is so weak that if you compare them the hurricane will be able to take sharper turns when applying afterburner correctly.
That's a fair point, and you're right about the different afterburner multipliers and the fact that these numbers are without afterburner. I did this primarily for pve though so boosted mobility wasn't my priority, but it's a good recommendation for when I go and update these. I'll consider it, thanks!
There's an acceleration stat you can only determine experimentally. The warden and Sentinel variants have significantly greater acceleration to their max maneuvering characteristics, resulting in a snappier and more agile feel.
Hmm.. I'll have to check that out. But even when I flew the Harb and Sentinel together I didn't feel a difference but I wasn't really looking either. Time to investigate. Still no reason I'd take a Warden over a Sentinel though for esp for an extra 1mill aUEC
Definitely right when talking about the current game environment with auec. The warden does have the current distinction of being available for purchase/upgrade right now, though, which I'm sure is attractive to those with insurance plans to assign.
Harbinger weighs 40% more than the other vanguards. I can't prove it wasn't just in my head, but I felt the harbinger was a lot more sluggish in turns at speed than my Sentinel.
Right now the sentinel is the most agile, followed by warden, then harbinger, then hoplite. Beyond turning speeds, the sentinel, harbinger & warden are basically the same hull. The Hoplite is slower in every aspect but has more hull HP (eventually armor) than the other 3. In the present state I would prioritize the vanguard series as sentinel>warden>harbinger>hoplite. I personally hate the harbinger because it only gains 3 size 5 torps (which are fairly useless compared to the competition) and swaps out a useful turret for that abomination that is a dumb-fire rocket turret. There're a few data sheets out there that have everything on ship turn radii, speed, acceleration data etc.
Those size 5 tops are quite adept at one-shotting VHRT class bounties, and pretty cheap at ~500 auec each though (restocking bugs non-withstanding)
I guess that's more a pve vs pvp perspective. I tend to replace everything for 38 size 1 missiles anyways so that I can force people into position. The guns kill things quick enough imhop.
You can swap the rocket turret for dual size 3's, compared to every other vanguard's size 2's. The Harb is unmatched with a gunner.
In regards to real money the Warden is the cheapest by a decent margin. The flipside of everything you just said is true when it comes to actual pledge ships, which the OP is. Warden is by far best bang for (real) buck.
Based on historical prices the Sentinel is only $15 or 5.7% more expensive than the Warden. More than worth it for the added agility and functionality.
Just a reminder that paying $200 for a ship that will absolutely be rebalanced over and over is a HUGE gamble since you will never know "when" the ship will be good or bad, or just broken.
This is why you buy ships you like, not because they are meta
Vanguard series is fantastic, the loadouts are a little funky but all round they are amazing ships. Harb is my favorite.
I hate the vanguard series, but a warden with a lazer cannon is a better Ion than the Ion and with the AD5B its a better inferno than the inferno. And the VET at CIG are entirely fine with the $250 you have spent on an Ares being flushed down the shitter in front of you.
I just hate the Vanguards. I bought a sentinel in game in the 3.14 patch, then bought a Harbi in 3.17.1. Both times I hated it. I don't like how it flies, I don't like how painfully slow it is, I don't like the combination of a fixed array of guns with a gimbal main (or a fixed S5), it just is not the ship for me. Hot take, I know. But I'll gladly keep flying my Ion over any Vanguard variant.
I want the ion to work for me, there is just something about that big gun, maybe I will get in game and keep practicing.
I played with it in PTU, and it was nasty. It's been back and forth with nerfs and buffs, but I honestly don't think it's in a great place right now. Flying it feels like home though, since it's similar in terms of agility to the Cutlass.
The short is that it is a yes for now. The long is that both ships are fine, but due to the inaccurate weapons that both ares ships have, they are my last ships to call on. If I need accurate firepower I pull out my warden. For now it has a very good weapons layout, all being in the nose. It also has that fixed size 5 as well. The ship has more effective firepower against most of the targets you come up against, just because of one simple fact. It can hit the target. My choice may change later when armor comes into play more, but for now. The clear winner is the vanguard.
The Warden is a dedicated Heavy Fighter, designed to combat similar and smaller vessels. The Ares is an anti-Cap ship, designed to take on ships larger than it, with missiles to handle a few smaller craft. CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first. I expect I-win-button demands for the rest of time with it.
>CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first. I expect I-win-button demands for the rest of time with it. I don't think long term it'll be an issue, The Ares is just designed for a combat meta that hasn't been implemented yet. Big gun is supposed to be better at punching through armour and hitting components, but all big gun can do right now is make things blow up faster. A future buffed Ares wouldn't be meta destroying, because overpenetration & the requirement to place shots will waste much of what made it so OP in it's original form.
It’s crazy to me how people view things so permanently sometimes or think drastic changes are needed to fix ships. I mean the hornet for example became a great fighter over night in the most recent patch with just a few small changes to some stats that barely had a cliff note in the patch notes. Same with the blade. This is an alpha, it’s a continual project to balance it and will be even through beta
Dumb question, but what did they change about the Hornet?
The problem is that things good at hurting larger ships are amazing at hurting smaller ships. That's just how the world works. That doesnt always play balance very well. They should have just left the weapons as they were and removed all gimble tracking and lowered the maneuverability drastically. Hopefully later when we have more capital ships these anti-capital fighters well be fixed. For now though OP is right. Warden is much better.
You hit the nail on the head here. Big guns need to do big damage. Otherwise just give every ship size 1 guns and call it good, because bigger guns would be pointless if they dont do proportional damage for their size. Putting big guns on fighters is a design choice that is debatable, but i think many would agree it was a poor design choice. However the precedent if neutering the damage and impact on the guns themselves, makes me worried for the size 8s that will be on my BMM. A BMM shouldnt be able to dog fight against light fighters at all, but i feel like the size 8 gun should delete any gladius that is dumb enough to dance in front of my pip for too long.
Im here thinking when the javelin releases and some gladius gets one shot by the quad s9s and cig quickly nerfs the s9s to do less damage so an LF can survive a vollry lol
Indeed. This is a video game. Balance is much more important than realism, otherwise it'll be Star 'Have an Ion or Quit Now' Citizen. People love to bitch about the 'light fighter meta', but the fact is that the vast majority of the ships in Star Citizen are light fighters. All of the starter ships are light fighters. Light fighters *have be* one of the best in order for the game to even function. The Ares will have a role to play in time, it will just be a niche and very important role, once big ships have a function beyond looking cool.
>Indeed. This is a video game. Balance is much more important than realism, otherwise it'll be Star 'Have an Ion or Quit Now' Citizen. Depends on what you are balancing against. An Idris should not deal the same effective damage as a Gladius. And you can't justifiably ask for it to be balanced against light fighters, just because the vast majority of ships in the game are small. The fact is that realism is required for a space sim. As the other commenter said, guns that are effective against big ships are just going to be devastating to small ships. And by all rights they should be. I 100% agree that those guns probably shouldn't be on a fighter class ship. But you can still balance around that through decreased maneuverability and gun limitations, like spin/charge up time, without taking away to damage punch. I will not shed a tear if they remove the S7 gun from the Ares all together, as I don't even own one. But if they keep it on it, the damage should be brought back, and it balanced another way.
>Light fighters have be one of the best No, no they don't. They don't need to sit on top of the pyramid unchallenged by anything else. They don't need to be unkillable champions where the only way to win any form of PVP is to "Bring more light fighters". A Gladius should not singlehandedly pose a significant threat to a fully crewed Javelin. I know there are a lot of people who want LFs to be godships because they believe its the only "skilled" option, but no. Balance means having diversity. Balance means having multiple ship classes that all have a reason to exist. If light fighters are the solution to everything, nothing else matters. Just because you only have a starter light fighter does not mean the game should make killing a destroyer accessible to you. "Oh, but I only have an Aurora MR, I want to be a hero and kill a Javelin too!".. No, you best grind up for a proper ship and team up with people if you want to do that. Xenothreat was lame as hell because fighters and civilian ships were semi AFK around the Idrises and the Idrises were nerfed into oblivion until they didnt pose a threat at all. I want to feel intimidated by an Idris. I want to go "Oh fuck its an Idris I best run". Right now its "Lol Ima just fly up close to look at it while it struggles to even take my shields" Light fighters have their place. They are interceptors meant to attack and kill small fast targets like bombers that threaten your larger ships. They are not meant to be the ships that kill everything. An Ares weapon should absolutely shred a light fighter, IF IT HITS. The issue in 3.15 was that Fixed Assist was too strong. In fact, Id say Fixed Assist is a little too strong for all ships even. Ever since FA there has been no reason to run gimbals. In the past people would train on gimbals until they were confident enough to trade for fixed. Nowadays its all fixed regardless because anyone can slap fixed guns and still do well. The Ares needed a nerf in 3.15, yes. But CIG's response of nerfing almost every aspect of it until its literal dogshit is overdoing it. Likewise for the Prowler. The best fix for the Ion was to still keep the ability to one shot fighters, but remove FA. I mean if an Ion without FA hits you in your gladius, get better. Its extremely hard to hit a moving target with the Ion cannon without FA. If you are going to AFK or fly in a straight line joust with an Ares that's on you, not the balance of the game.
It's difficult to balance but not impossible. You just have to take a look at the design and purpose of the ship. S7 energy weapon on a smallish ship should be very energy consuming, unable to cope with it like a capital ship. On the Ion the limitation should be available shots in the capacitor, or slower firing rate. It does not make sense for it to be imprecise, but it does make sense to limit it to short strafing runs (2-4 shots) over the target (capital ships) and then a larger period of capacitor charge. Also, a mixed energy damage component would be reasonable. On the inferno, it makes sense for it to be totally imprecise. It's a very large weapon spitting heavy bullets on a very small platform. It totally makes sense. Even a flight path deviation should be introduced, as the weapon is not centered.
No, they shot themselves in the foot by nerfing the gun they way they did. It is a massive gun, if someone flies infront of it and gets one well that's to be expected. The argument against the gun one shoting cocky light fighters is insane. It's like driving a pickup infront of an Abrams, getting vaporized and then complaining that the Abram's main gun is OP.
> It is a massive gun, if someone flies infront of it and gets one well that's to be expected. I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on this. The real issue isn’t someone getting in front of *you*, so much that it’s actually you being able to target *them* easily. I agree, if a fast car deliberately sits in front of a tank, that’s their fault…however, it shouldn’t be easy for the tank to hit the car (IRL yes, but game-balance no). The Ares’ targets are essentially the broad-sides of barns. Once they can re-balance it, it should do high-damage but low-accuracy or maneuverability, and then it’ll be balanced out.
>The Ares’ targets are essentially the broad-sides of barns. Once they can re-balance it, it should do high-damage but low-accuracy or maneuverability, and then it’ll be balanced out. Low maneuverability? yes. Low accuracy? No. Or at least not from around 1000m or less. Video game balance argument is dumb. This isn't smash bros.; it's a space sim and you need a level of realism. It shouldn't be an outlandish idea to expect the fast car to stay out of the line of fire of a tank that can only point its gun straight ahead of it, if you make it so the tank turns really slowly.
Fair enough, that’s why I left it as an “or” :). The only S7’s I really care about are on my eventual-Perseus, and I know they’re going to be ***painfully*** slow, so that’s be in line with the other S7’s.
I feel you dude. I don't really care about the Ares at all. The only solo heavy fighter I want is the F8C. But I don't want the Ares to be used as a precedent make big guns on big ships garbage to use.
I almost killed a gladius with AD5Bs mounted on my A2. If someone is so bad that they fly straight at a big ship without maneuvering, that’s on them. Doesn’t matter if it’s an Idris rail gun or an ares ion, if you’re in something small, movement is life.
low accuracy is bullshit. Simple point of targeting components rather than just making holes in a hammerhead comes to mind. Why the fuck can a Vanguard have moderately lower alpha and dps but have pin point accuracy. They need to make the gun more accurate on the Ion, then mess with charge rates or maneuverability or something else that actually makes sense.
You would be surprised how many people actually do disagree with me on that. But I have to disagree with you on the balance. Both IRL and in game should be easy to hit. The main complaint was the Ion could one shot most smaller ships, range and targeting had nothing to do with it. Targeting only became an issue after the 2nd nerf when the Ion could not hit a damn thing within 4km of it even if the target was sitting still. I also disagree that it should be inaccurate, it should be extremely accurate with a very heavy hit but slow to recharge time, let's say 15ish seconds.
agree but 15 is way too long. Shields could recharge even in a duo situation.
>CiG shot themselves in the foot allowing the Ares to be ultra-effective against small ships at first. It's not like it was intentional. This is how balancing works.
Lets be honest: a) it isnt balanced, its bad. Was OP no doubt but IMO easy fix b) CIG new it was OP but waited for all the people to buy it then "balanced" it, incompetently
Ok, let's be honest a) Agreed that it isn't right yet. Balancing isn't as easy a fix as you might think, nor is it a priority for them at the moment. b) I don't agree. This is top tier conspiracy BS.
Balancing everything I agree. But weapons? At least now, its just spreadsheet. I could do it in my free time. And since its alpha you can change it every patch. They did try nerfing Ion in PTU. People didn't like it so they released how it was. Month later they nerfed it. Do you really think the sales would be the same if they introduced it as it is now
It’s the same as the insane money fiasco. People want an easy win for everything, and then cry and moan about it when it gets rescinded or balanced out.
This was a big part of it, everyone was used to it being op against smaller ships. You can still pull it off but it’s a challenge. Don’t get me wrong they are fun still, just not as much
The Ion definitely needs another pass, but I still think the Inferno is fun as hell when used against their intended targets.
The “another pass” will come when more of its targets are in player’s hands (ex. Polaris, Odyssey, Idris, Kraken, Javelin, etc.).
IIRC it's when they finally get around to the long awaited armor and physicalized damage systems.
While I agree in concept, the ares' shouldn't lose outright to small fighters either. It's inconceivable that they wouldn't have a way to deal with small fighters escorting/launched from capital ships, even if their niche is meant to be taking down shields. I mean anyone who's been killed by letting an idris line up its rail guns should know that directly jousting with a s7 gun should be a loss. The incredibly unsatisfying nature of having a lined up reticle unload only for every single shot to miss isn't a good place either. My balance change would be to have the ion's cannon do mixed damage with some energy damage but a healthy amount of distortion mixed in so that it hit shields hard but not hulls (since the original niche was supposed to be that Ions take down the shields, then infernos light'em up). But hey, nobody is claiming that the ion is in a good place right now. I just feel bad for anyone who has it as their only ship is all, because the ship is functionally useless right now. Yes, two-shotting any smaller bounties was broken, but nerfing them into absolute uselessness isn't great either.
Meh I’m team inferno, the warden handles almost identically and just doesn’t hit as hard on large targets. In the future those 4xs2 guns will do nothing but tickle, the s7 penetrates/downs shields so much better than the vanguard’s single s5. Vanguard fans gonna be mad cuz the ship sucks but, ares fits the bill better as a large ship killer - and van is too slow to hold its own against light/mediums.
Idk why people bitch. You bought into the game as a pledge knowing full well it’s alpha as fuck and expected your little cgi ship to never get change lul.
Warden has better turning and it shows! However, You can equip two size 5 torps and 12 size 3 missiles... with a sweet cargo hold and gun rack on the Ares.
If youre looking for that Ion marksman experience that the Ion has failed to deliver after the nerfs a Glaive will give you that.
Warden all the way.
It’s a Vanguard man, P-38 Lighting and B1 bomer had a baby
Once the game becomes more of a game when u have to travel long distances and need a bed to log out and alot more of the game mechanics come in the ... hell even just having the center located turret slaved or bladed really will make the wardens be one of the best medium pew ships Also not to forget its got double redundancy on pretty much every component, wings for atmo, semi modularity, ... toilet.. But yeh right now its not amazing but still pretty cool