This may have been the case before, but it's painfully apparent now with the new patch that the lerk can only go his max flying speed while going straight down. Maybe this doesn't affect NS too much, but I was playing one of those stupid freefall maps and if a jp wanted to avoid you, all he had to do was stop going up and gravity would take him away much much faster than I could fly down. Ideally, I would like for the lerk to be able to accelerate downwards by using gravity, then be able to keep that speed for a while flying straight. Think of the movement as vertical bunnyhopping. (or don't if you think bhop is bad) As it is, diving will only let you get to the lerks top flying speed faster. I don't think it's bad to ask for more realistic physics in this case.

It's as simple as removing a cap on the lerk speed, but making it so that flapping will only accelerate you to 600 u/s or whatever its top speed is now.

nvm

not a bad idea.

First, be glad your not still using the 2.01 flight model, where the Lerk couldnt fall AND couldnt dive...he would just kind of float gently downwards if you stopped flapping for awhile.

Second, that idea may not be bad, but I don't think it will matter much except on freefall maps.

Actually, thinking about it more it would help out a lot. On eclipse, lerk coming from marine start then dropping down to triad gen could pick up a lot of speed and carry it into the next hallway for a safe getaway. I'm sure plenty of other maps have drops that big or greater.

I agree that the current flight model is better than 2.01, but there is room for improvement. I actually agree with this idea even though the title is misleading. So good idea.



vote yes



Come to think of it... What do you all think about allowing the lerk to pull a hard double-back bank maneuver. If you do a quick 180 you normally loose all momentum right infront of your enemies, and you can't quickly accelerate to a fast enough velocity to escape. You basically stop dead in the water. I would like to see it where you could bank and roll such where you can "spring" out of a sharp turn. Think of for example if you have a ninja running at a wall at full sprint, and the last moment, he/she jumps up and kicks off of the wall with sudden rapid acceleration in the other direction allowing for a flip or a flying kick at the person chasing him. Adding that to the flight model would complement this idea well I think.



PS: Can we phase/move this topic to the I&S forum?

I'd rather not so that more people see this.

Lots of people go to the I&S forums... and they are meant for exactly these kinds of threads.

Lots of people?

By the way, the lerk could use this boost.

As this *is* a suggestion, it has been moved to the correct forum.

From my experiences with both the I&S and the main forums, seems like not that much less of people frequent the former. Good or bad, the threads in I&S get tons of replies.

I don't think accelerating using gravity would work, because then youd have to constantly aim up to go straight, and with the current physics it could probably be used to speed up without flapping(ever) by just diving briefly.
Fixing the max speed issue would be nice, but wasn't this removed because of pancaking?

Weaken gravity whilst +jump is being executed, but have it take full effect the rest of the time. Simple, really.

You could still accelerate to very high speeds by falling and then holding +jump though.

the only things that lerk needs is to take less damage from hand nades, im pretty sure 2 nades will kill a lerk, or at least get it really really low, ive always thought that lerks were way too strong if used properly, right now they are fine

How are we supposed to flush them out of vents then?

Lerks need a speed increase. Period. They have a weaker bite, spores do not affect heavies, umbra is teh weaksauce once marines have GL's (CO GL Spam anyone?) and Primal isn't as useful as one would think. Add in the ammount of energy flapping those stubby wings uses, and yeah, you got yourself a real duhdundur there ala Carlos Mencia. Even WITH celerity, the lerk feels INCREDIBLY slow.

Reduce lerk bite damage by another 15, increase it's base speed by 50 u/s and increase the celerity boost by an extra 10-15% per level. Give it a -100 u/s penalty when going straight up or nearly vertical, and give it another 25 u/s boost when diving.

This will make lerks the dive-bombing buggers they probably were meant to be... as paper thin as they are and all...

What makes you think lerks are supposed to be a close combat unit? 3 of it's 4 abilities are support abilities, and previously, it had spikes instead of bite. How can you compare spores, a 1 hive ability, to heavies, which are the apex of the marine tech tree? Umbra turns alien lifeforms into complete tanks, especially paired up with DCs, GLs are completely useless against fades/onoses. The game is balanced for NS, not combat.

I personally feel that the lerk "pancake", as in any form of going up and down, makes the lerk extremely difficult to hit, especially for nubcakes like me. This would make these "pancakes" extremely harder to hit, so from my perspective I would be against this. As underwhelmd has said, lerk is meant as a backup/support unit and this sort of thing would make better for close range combat, which imo, is not the purpose of it.

Thing is so few people play NS anymore, it makes me cry I love NS, but I find myself having to settle with CO unless I want ns_nubsiegecuppycaekgumdrops

As for spores and heavies, was just a comparison

Umbra isn't as great as you think - I believe it's 1 in 7 bullets it blocks? That's nothing when you have HMG's and SG's And GL's spank skulks, which are the primary lifeform in both combat and NS- don't try to tell me you don't spend at least 50% of your time as a skulk for one reason or another.

LerkBite is good, higher RoF for better damage over time, but the low initial damage means a single SG'er can WTHbishslap you before you get one kill in if he has any idea as to how to aim.

About pancaking- I believe that has more to do with the hitbox going wonky than with the speed of the lerk- to counter it, I propose the lerk has to "decelerate" a little to turn, slowing more depending on how sharp the turn. A direct 90 degree turn, only a slight deceleration (with a cool little banking animation to accompany). A 180 degree pancake, you nearly slow to a stop. This does NOT make them less manuverable, it simply takes the cannon out of their ###### and replaces it with a rocket engine