under review Gauss's Large Caliber Augment.

[Abuleil 2]

It may be a lengthy suggestion, it is a balance suggestion regarding the Augment, please do read it all and respond to me I would gladly hear feedback.
I sure hope this suggestion is taken into consideration because I am more than disappointed when I bought the augment.

The augment is a 245k gem cost with only a 27% damage increase and a 29% critical damage increase at the cost of slowing the attack rate by 57% and this augment does not affect sniping mode.
Now in fact the Gauss will deal way more damage over time without the augment so technically this augment is bad stats wise, as it slows the rate of fire by a lot and increases the damage by so little, the critical damage boost is almost useless as you rarely deal a critical hit, even if you would do it on every attack it's not gonna help much with Gauss due to the slower rate of firing.

I would suggest this augment to be a proper larger caliber, make it affect both sniping and normal attack, make it give more damage but slow down the reload time even further, disable critical chance entirely but give a good amount of damage, results in more consistency, make the shot have a stronger recoil so light hulls would easily flip, forcing the player with this augment to use a steadier, slower and heavier hull.(advanced details are down the post, and explained a lot more)

I know that Gauss isn't supposed to be a glorified version of a pre-existing turret, say Thunder or Shaft but at least make the grind worth it, I am pretty sure Shaft would still be picked over Gauss with this augment, and I'm pretty sure Thunder would always be favored in many cases over Gauss even if they had the augment for Gauss because they are all unique and have their own Cons and Pros.

I suggest that this augment should offer: +50% damage for non-sniping, 100% damage for sniping mode. At the drawbacks of: 250% recoil (or more) for both sniping and non-sniping modes, 75% reload time increase for non-sniping mode, 125% reload time for sniping mode, removes critical chance entirely, 33% more time to lock onto target,

Why would people use Shaft over Gauss with this augment?
Answer:
1) Shaft doesn't have such a heavy recoil and can be used on a light hull to allow ease of use, and can still fire even if you shot a sniper shot.
2) Shaft pretty much can deal a huge burst without having to lock into a target and will not suffer from those who shoot & hide.
3) The Shaft doesn't need an augment to be a proper sniper while Shaft is already a sniper.
4) Shaft's primary has more DPS and can deal a critical damage on both primary and sniping mode to deal even more devastating damage while Gauss with this Augment trades the chance of doing a devastating shot for more consistency.

Now why would you use Thunder over Gauss with this augment?
Answer: 
1) Again I say, the recoil is far less so you can pretty much use any hull to your satisfaction.
2) Thunder has a far greater AoE without the need to wait lock into a target to shoot a sniper shot.
3) The Thunder without an augment can still deliver a Critical hit, dealing a pretty devastating shot given that it has high damage already.
4) Thunder's AoE can be used far more often than hitting multiple targets as you can hit the wall or the ground and deal the damage to your opponent while Gauss pretty much can't do that.
5) Thunder has more DPS so it would help a lot to fend off opponents from grouping to capture a point or a gold box and it's not a single target shot like Gauss's sniper with this augment.

Now this might sound convincing to some and not to others, and those who find it convincing probably wonder why would you want this augment and not use Thunder or Shaft?
Answer:
1) Gauss currently struggles from doing a high burst even if you successfully lock into a target after shooting it a few times it can be not enough and the AoE doesn't always make up for it, with this augment it's pretty likely that you would do enough damage to your satisfaction.
2) While Shaft is a sniper that does a very good damage on single target, Gauss with this augment can potentially help a lot to take a horde grouping for a gold-box or trying to capture a point, not necessarily in need of some assistance from bomb or another tanker while still welcoming it.
3) You can easily now one-shot those who's armor boost has ran out or don't have it applied to them unlike not having this augment, assuming the tank that you're shooting has full HP and you have damage boost.
4) You are technically not losing on anything other than critical shots by using this augment and a heavy hull, and now are capable of dealing heavier damage faster.
5) Unlike Thunder, your Gauss is effective even against targets that are far away from you and you always have the option to lock in a devastating shot to finish off opposing tanks.

The augment currently is super disappointing, I grinded for it hoping it would be pretty good and I was shocked when I saw it was more negative than positive, I felt scammed and I was truly disappointed, I was thinking this augment was made weak by accident because I'm pretty sure other augments are far more useful, and if people would come to choose between this augment and literally any other... this one would NOT be chosen by anyone, and if it was I am pretty sure people would unequip it entirely or change to another one.

Now I know that later in the game and at high ranks it will be very likely that most or all tankers or at worst half the tankers will have damage reduction from all weapons and from critical and such so it will be really difficult to one-shot but this still doesn't mean my points are invalid.

[Maf 32,324]

Under review

[Maf 32,324]

On 10/28/2024 at 10:13 PM, Abuleil said:

The augment is a 245k gem cost

On 10/28/2024 at 10:13 PM, Abuleil said:

I suggest that this augment should offer: +50% damage for non-sniping, 100% damage for sniping mode.

These two things are mutually exclusive. Any epic-tier augment for crystals is considered to be less powerful compared to a legendary augment from containers. Epic augments merely adjust the turret's gameplay to provide some variety, whereas legendary augments actually make the turret more powerful. So the only way this augment's power would get increased is if the augment gets moved up to legendary tier. Gauss already has powerful legendary augments, such as Super Solenoids, so moving Large Caliber up to legendary tier seems unnecessary.

[TheCongoSpider 8,963]

On 10/28/2024 at 2:13 PM, Abuleil said:

I was thinking this augment was made weak by accident because I'm pretty sure other augments are far more useful

It is part of a select few augments whose damage and firing rates are equalised to that of the Stock Thunder turret (900 normal, 1,160 critical). The other augments are/were Short-Band Emitters for Shaft (2022-2023), Electromagnetic Scout for Railgun (2022-2022), and the most recent addition High-Precision Aiming System for Smoky.

Each of them while having the same firing rate and damage numbers had different attributes to them. For example Shaft is hitscan with longer range and has access to an alternate firing mode, Gauss has the alternate firing mode , Thunder has splash damage and the ability to advance critical chance on misses. Smoky unfortunately does not have anything unique. It is just directly worse. 

 

So basically as of right now it's tied to Thunder for the foreseeable future. If it does get a change that makes it more unique, it very likely won't be as extensive as you have suggested here. And yes I too think Gauss' garage augments are very underwhelming. 

[Abuleil 2]

On 10/28/2024 at 11:22 PM, Maf said:

Epic augments merely adjust the turret's gameplay to provide some variety, whereas legendary augments actually make the turret more powerful. 

Why is the augment more negative than positive?
And what do you mean epic adjusts gameplay? This one statistically makes it worse, under what circumstances would I want a very slight increase in damage and critical strike damage by trading more than half my firing rate??
I am genuinely tweaking right now.

I want an explanation on why this augment is very weak and why it won't get buffed.

[AcnoIogia 46]

On 10/29/2024 at 5:38 AM, Abuleil said:

Why is the augment more negative than positive?
And what do you mean epic adjusts gameplay? This one statistically makes it worse, under what circumstances would I want a very slight increase in damage and critical strike damage by trading more than half my firing rate??
I am genuinely tweaking right now.

I want an explanation on why this augment is very weak and why it won't get buffed.

The large caliber augment makes Gauss act like Thunder. 900 damage 1160 critical damage 2sec reload. With booster or Crisis drone, it is actually able to deal 1012 damage which can 2 shoot light hulls 3 shot medium hulls and 4 shot heavy hulls. Plus I agree that augments for crystals should be this powerful as you said +50% damage and +100% damage… if this happens the salvo reload should be +150%, because it would do 3400 damage one shooting medium hulls is crazy… and your aiming time is one second as well… you expect too much from a crystal augment! The one you saying should be a legendary augment! 

[Abuleil 2]

On 10/29/2024 at 4:11 PM, AcnoIogia said:

The large caliber augment makes Gauss act like Thunder. 900 damage 1160 critical damage 2sec reload. With booster or Crisis drone, it is actually able to deal 1012 damage which can 2 shoot light hulls 3 shot medium hulls and 4 shot heavy hulls. Plus I agree that augments for crystals should be this powerful as you said +50% damage and +100% damage… if this happens the salvo reload should be +150%, because it would do 3400 damage one shooting medium hulls is crazy… and your aiming time is one second as well… you expect too much from a crystal augment! The one you saying should be a legendary augment! 

Well you are right it would oneshot medium hulls but it would have a crazy cooldown as well which is very probably fair enough, given that it would give insane recoil and force the player to pick a very steady medium hull or a heavy hull means they cannot relocate often, and then again the high reload time increase means they can't fight at all, so typically they would either wait a lot for another shot or get destroyed.

I do think my suggestion is on point, but to be completely fair I am not aware of any legendary augment that's good, so might as well actually have a low tier one that's good, also 245k crystals is genuienly a lot I spent a full week of 8+ hours of grinding, please.

[Maf 32,324]

On 10/29/2024 at 8:38 AM, Abuleil said:

And what do you mean epic adjusts gameplay? This one statistically makes it worse, under what circumstances would I want a very slight increase in damage and critical strike damage by trading more than half my firing rate??

You don't trade more than half of your firing rate. +54% reload time means that if your shot takes 1.00s to reload, then with the augment it will take 1.54 seconds. So instead of 60 shots per minute, you'll fire 38 shots, which is a 37% lower firing rate.

Combined with the fact that the higher damage allows you to cross some important thresholds (like dealing over 1k damage), the damage and fire rate trade-off is actually quite reasonable.

[TheCongoSpider 8,963]

On 10/29/2024 at 10:55 AM, Abuleil said:

I do think my suggestion is on point,

Your suggestion is very ambitious and would suit a new augment on the turret, not a crystal one. A more reasonable suggestion would be to increase its arcade splash damage radius or its firing rate, and maybe a cherry on top would increased impact force on sniping shots. 

 

On 10/28/2024 at 2:13 PM, Abuleil said:

Shaft's primary has more DPS and can deal a critical damage on both primary and sniping mode to deal even more devastating damage

Shaft does not deal critical damage with sniping shots. 

[Abuleil 2]

On 10/29/2024 at 6:10 PM, TheCongoSpider said:

Shaft does not deal critical damage with sniping shots. 

Wait can't it?
I would have sworn I remember it doing that, my bad.

 

On 10/29/2024 at 6:04 PM, Maf said:

Combined with the fact that the higher damage allows you to cross some important thresholds (like dealing over 1k damage), the damage and fire rate trade-off is actually quite reasonable.

I am not saying that the logic of this augment is flawed but I'm pretty sure these numbers would need to be changed for your statement to be completely right, passing threshold of dealing 1k damage? definitely. but the tradeoff being reasonable? I don't think so, if this augment would give consistent damage and not random damage that'd be fine but in fact it is taking out your consistency when it reduces the firing rate, someone before said this makes it like Thunder, I very much disagree because I would rather use the proper Thunder with no Augment than get an Augment to get a worse Thunder only for a sniping option, or rather use default Gauss.

The fact that people would get this augment and probably unequip it the next battle should mean that this one isn't fine, sure, I may have been ambitious but that doesn't mean I was totally wrong, the numbers I have posted may be flawed for a reasonably easy to get augment compared to a legendary that is completely random and such but this doesn't mean the concept is.

I then again wish that my idea is taken into consideration as I have totally no intention of using this augment that I spent weeks on grinding for, which is very sad and disappointing and I am sure others would probably even consider quitting the game and not returning until later or ever, which I think is a sad thing to happen because this game has become very much better and better over time...  

[TheCongoSpider 8,963]

On 10/29/2024 at 11:37 AM, Abuleil said:

I then again wish that my idea is taken into consideration as I have totally no intention of using this augment that I spent weeks on grinding for, which is very sad and disappointing and I am sure others would probably even consider quitting the game and not returning until later or ever, which I think is a sad thing to happen because this game has become very much better and better over time...  

Use this as a lesson to ask questions before making big decisions like that. Preferably on the forum or in a Tanki-related Discord server. 

[Abuleil 2]

That's just tough though.
Why would an augment be this bad come on.

[TheCongoSpider 8,963]

On 10/29/2024 at 4:18 PM, Abuleil said:

That's just tough though.
Why would an augment be this bad come on.

You seem to think this is a Large Calibre Gauss specific problem? There are many garage augments that, while decent on their own, aren't worth paying the price for it, especially when you're still progressing through the game and every economic decision counts. There are certain ones that are worth actually paying to have over others. And I hope you didn't pay full price for the augment. You should wait for sales to make big purchases like that. Gauss unfortunately does not have any worth paying for.

However balance changes occur and an augment that seems useless or has the short end of the stick design wise could suddenly become something decent or great to use. This goes for every turret. 

[Abuleil 2]

I love the hating comment that got deleted it's so funny.

I can't believe people still think this game is just a nasty p2w like it was long ago, some things are questionable in the game but it's really far better than it was and I like how it's going, I still think the augment needs a change tho.

[Abuleil 2]

Can I get a confirmation that my idea is at least taken into consideration of possible modification to the augment?
Or at the very least a new augment for the Gauss?

[NikmanGT 4,417]

On 10/31/2024 at 5:24 PM, Abuleil said:

 

Your Idea will be forwarded to the Developers, no need for concern.

After that, it's up to them on how they proceed with the turret.