Biplane suggestion

[Stormich]

I've had a nice convo with Hurri about the biplane and what I've realised from the talk is that one of the biplanes weaknesses lies in not having a way to defend your ass. Bomber has tailgun, explodet has mines, miranda can 180 or teleport behind you and loopy can emp you and run away. The biplane has no real way of escaping once a plane is on its 6 except trying to find cover and wait for it behind the corner.

What I propose is to make biplane accelerate/deccelerate faster giving it an opportunity to make a full stop as fast as with reverse thrust and the having the opponent fly in front giving you a great F+D shot. It would probably be high level enough not to imbalance everything seeing as you have to fight with a stall after you F+D but would give the biplane a fighting chance when opposition comes from the rear.

[CCN]

Originally Posted by Stormich

I've had a nice convo with Hurri about the biplane and what I've realised from the talk is that one of the biplanes weaknesses lies in not having a way to defend your ass. Bomber has tailgun, explodet has mines, miranda can 180 or teleport behind you and loopy can emp you and run away. The biplane has no real way of escaping once a plane is on its 6 except trying to find cover and wait for it behind the corner.

What I propose is to make biplane accelerate/deccelerate faster giving it an opportunity to make a full stop as fast as with reverse thrust and the having the opponent fly in front giving you a great F+D shot. It would probably be high level enough not to imbalance everything seeing as you have to fight with a stall after you F+D but would give the biplane a fighting chance when opposition comes from the rear.

Loopy is a huge stretch, with having to turn 180 degrees, emp, turn back 180 degrees and run away when you have 2nd lowest health to survive all of that with.

But since you think all planes have an ass protection give acid loopy, acid out his back too.

[Stormich]

Ya but to be fair loopies are a lot faster than the biplane + they have a smaller hitbox

[Greekjr14]

I agree with this. Its a real pain in the butt when an emp loopy hits u and then even with flexi wings you cannot turn around fast enough to shoot him. So by the time you made a 180 degree turn, you would already be dead by then.

[mlopes]

Originally Posted by Stormich

Ya but to be fair loopies are a lot faster than the biplane + they have a smaller hitbox

Plus acid is a choice, and on the biplane you don't really have one.

[Element]

a biplane could have something like flares. it could destroy the loopys missile etc.

[Stormich]

The biplane has F+D which is pretty awesome as an idea, removing secondary from biplane would make the plane less fun. That's why I thought of something other than messing with damage/weapons.

[CCN]

thinking this through, i like this idea, and it would give dogfighter more viability, as you can FD yourself out of the stall on the way out.

Maybe some slight burst damage nerf to compensate for the more capability.

[hurripilot]

I don't think the idea was to nerf anything to compensate. Biplane is still in a kind of limbo for reasons that I elaborated to Storm and am to lazy to put here :P. Basically, I pointed out that Biplane doesn't have a "save my ass" button, a gimmick like explo mines or miranda warp that allows it to escape a bad situation by just pressing something. As it is, I don't see any problem with this, and I don't view it as a deficiency in any way, but obviously the Biplane is still not being accepted by the competitive community, so I'm all for Storm's buff suggestion. The plain fact is, the Biplane is the most logical plane to fly in this game, but it's style is made illogical because players are trained from the start to use planes that have special tricks and gimmicks to fight and survive. If the competitive community need a magic help button to fly the Biplane right, then this is the least obtrusive idea I've heard yet.

[mlopes]

I think the buff should come first to try and bring a competitive purpose to biplane, and only then should de nerf come, if needed. Buffing on one side and nerfing on the other can result in failure to bring it to competition.

[gameguard]

Its not biplane's defensive capabilities that makes it an unpopular choice. Its the lack of overall impack on the flow of the game. Its amazing in pubs when u can rack up kills on baddies and zoom around the map feeling OP. But in competitive play, its much harder to come across those free kills and consequently your pretty much like other planes exept you have less ways to help the team secure map control.

I do like the accel idea a bit cus it will make biplane a better bomb runner, a role that has been stolen by the versatile miranda. But giving out free perks is pretty meh. What happens if this buff gets implemented and u use reverse thrust on top of it. Do u like stop on a dime then burst to full speed in split seconds?

[innerlyte]

I agree with Game regarding perk redundancy. The proposed idea may overlap too much. I always liked the idea of dropping HC's secondary (I don't know how dogfighter or recoilless would stand without their secondaries) and replacing it with either tail smoke which would have some type of status effect (or maybe lessen damage of enemy projectiles passing through it?) or a barrel roll which could render the biplane unhitable for a fraction of a second (might be difficult to time when accounting for lag). I don't know. Something different along those lines might be worth trying to shake things up. ^^

[hurripilot]

I don't like the idea of making such a big change to Biplane, particularly HC, as it is the most "useful" of the Biplane red perks already. Biplane provides a much needed contrast to the other planes in that it requires aim, shoots out of only one part of it's body, and doesn't have any strange movements. It just flies and shoots, and there's a great beauty and depth in that simplicity. IMHO, taking away one of the cornerstones of the Biplane's style and giving it a support weapon like smoke is not really the best direction to take the plane in.

[gemigemi]

I have been playing the Biplane recently and I effectively came to the same conclusion: Biplane should probably either move faster or accelerate faster.

I didn't think it from the point of view that it lacks rear defense, but from the point of view that it lacks a certain role to fill. While the other planes have specific roles, Biplane is generally agreed to be sort of a role-less plane. What the speed or acceleration buff would do is give the Biplane a ball carrier / bomb runner role due to good speed and good hp.

Before someone says that this fast ball moving etc is the Loopys role, I would argue that the Loopy still has the role of team support with EMP/Acid in addition to being a fast plane, so buffing the Biplane to take part in this role of a fast plane would not make Loopy a bad choice for a player in either ball or TBD. This would also probably mean that since Biplane would usually be a better choice for ball/bomb carrying than Loopy, this would actually push the Loopy more into this EMP/Acid support role, defining this play style more and making it more reasonable that EMP is such a good weapon. Maybe we'd see less of the "nerf EMP" topics when EMP would be the main role of the plane instead of the secondary role after ball handling.

After the speed/acceleration would be buffed and tried out we would see if the killing power needs to be reduced in compensation, but currently I don't think it would need a great change in either direction.

[innerlyte]

I don't see why a big change is necessarily a bad thing. In the eyes of many, dogfighter and recoilless are already too similar. Even with the recent buffs, the biplane is still probably the least viable plane in competitive play. Honestly, I think the buffs have to be different in nature than a simple DPS or range increase. An appropriate buff would have to make the bip better in a one-to-many situation since it is already a beast in a one-to-one. Damage increases really only make it even more OP in the latter situation. Regarding HC, I've been using it since beta, and that was pretty much the only time its secondary felt useful (even if it was OP). Through the various nerfs since, HC's role has moved toward a mid/long distance fighter. I don't think changing secondary completely at this point would negatively affect its play at all.

[Fartface]

I like this idea. Right now, the biplane doesn't really have much of a purpose in competitive TBD, so it isn't used enough. But giving it stall control could make it more useful, and could possibly even add interesting strategic stalling to biplane bomb running.

[wolf'j'max]

Yes, this, 'stall control' if new perks are ever implented. Use this thing.

[Sarah Palin]

Biplane was just buffed soooo.... no

[hurripilot]

Originally Posted by innerlyte

I don't see why a big change is necessarily a bad thing. In the eyes of many, dogfighter and recoilless are already too similar. Even with the recent buffs, the biplane is still probably the least viable plane in competitive play. Honestly, I think the buffs have to be different in nature than a simple DPS or range increase. An appropriate buff would have to make the bip better in a one-to-many situation since it is already a beast in a one-to-one. Damage increases really only make it even more OP in the latter situation. Regarding HC, I've been using it since beta, and that was pretty much the only time its secondary felt useful (even if it was OP). Through the various nerfs since, HC's role has moved toward a mid/long distance fighter. I don't think changing secondary completely at this point would negatively affect its play at all.

Uh, HC has the highest DPS of all the Biplane red perks. F+D with HC rapes face, shifty. I still say that removing it's secondary and replacing it with some kind of weaponless weapon is going to kill it as a red perk, not make it "useful". Might I take this time to suggest bringing back sniper/pistol?

[innerlyte]

If this is true, it is because of the HC and not the secondary. You can certainly hold your own without ever touching D. But when a recoilless/dogfighter and a HC engage each other at close range, more often than not, HC will lose. This is because the build discourages dogfighting, and it's why I believe the build can afford to lose its current secondary for something else. It may be worth a try. That's all I'm saying ^^

[hurripilot]

Oh what the hell, I'm gonna get back on the old wagon. Bring Sniper/Pistol back!!!