Dukath
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Posted - 2004.03.10 08:50:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Dukath on 10/03/2004 09:43:35
I've been flying an interceptor since they came on the market and I have some things to say about them.
The way that I use an interceptor is
1) warp in, scramble long enough for backup to arrive so they can take over the scrambling and do the killing.
2) when at a gate, use fast lock to scramble someone before they can warp out
3) when in a battle someone manages to warp out follow him and try to grab him when he leaves warp on the other side, then goto 1
This is how i assumed the interceptor should work and it does seem to work fairly good for that. There are however some major problems here.
- target distance: the target distance of an interceptor ranges between 20km to about 27km, skills included. Since an inty will be using a mwd to get close to target fast this locking distance is way too short. I believe it should be increased at least to 35km to make it usefull in any way (unless you want to favour those with fast connection and computers more since the responsiveness of the game is affected by those things). Too much time is lost having to rightclick and select with a menu to target a ship and going at that speed. (not that using a weapon to get the crosshairs isn't always an option).
- drones: I believe this problem is relatively known, the drones don't seem to be affected by range or tracking once they have been within shooting distance. A solution i'd like to see, as suggested by someone else, would be to disable heavy drones against frigate sized ships OR by letting the drones be affected by tracking, optimal range and max range. On the other hand it would be good if drones would not only protect the owner of the drones but also anyone in the same gang as the owner of the drones. That way droneships could actually be used to protect miners or indies against frigates who warp in shoot once and warp out again.
- 1400mm projectile guns: This is the only large gun that has been able to hit me consistently and with high damage (500+ shots) while travelling at 15km from him on about 90 degree angle from him with an active MWD (speeds between 1000 to 3000m/sec) To be honest i haven't encountered neutron blasters yet but then again neutron blasters are a short range weapon while 1400 are long range (unless i'm badly mistaken). I don't know if its due to great tracking or some other hidden feature but it would be nice if long range guns would actually be bad shortrange so the shortrange guns would start to be usefull.
For the rest the interceptors are nicely better than their normal frigate counterparts but not too much better. (a kestrel with its 4 launchers is still better than all the inties due to being able to deal so much damage with missiles in short time)
One more small feature request :)
If you doubleclick on a warpable object you will warp to it, it would REALLY help if a double click on a non warpable object will start an appraoch. Even more than locking this rightclick approach command costs way too much time for an inty. This is especially so when going after an instajumper and your camera is all zoomed in so you can't even double click on empty space next to the ship to start moving. With the limited time available in such circumstances every second counts.
And finally some things you should always fit on an inty :)
1 mwd, forget about the shield and cap penalty, for a frig its not like it would matter once you start getting hit
1 scrambler: your task is most likely gonna be to hold someone till reinforcements arrive or to simply fast lock and scramble someone
1 armor repairer: only added this recently but a very good module to have fitted, you will be hit and one lucky hit can put you into armor damage, most shots will miss you or do only slight damage but the longer you stay the more chance you'll have of being shot badly (except against 1400 which seem to be able to hit real hard and real close). In almost all encounters you'll have some armor damage unless you are not targetted. Being able to repair in space is very convenient and will save you long trips to a station if you are deep in 0.0 space.
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