The Weasel Dilemma

[dofus]

Ship 6 has gone through many changes, and they still don't get it right.
The current Weasel settings are absolutely awful.

Not only are Weasel pilots fucked over, it's become even less seen than before.
If anyone tries it out, they never come back because it's a terrible ship to play.
It doesn't have any role, not any function.
The Weasel has become a myth, a legend, it's rarely used at all.

1. It's the second slowest ship
2. It has the second worst rotation speed.
3. The bullets travel so slow that you need to be literally on top of an enemy to hit him,
or hope that the enemy travels across your path and doesn't suddenly change direction.

It sucks in base.
Flagroom battles are a clusterfuck. Bullets, bombs, shrapnel, EMP, mines, bursts, and constantly getting repped around like a ragdoll by Sharks.
Combined with the fact that the flagroom is very small and claustrophobic, and that the Weasel is as big as other ships, this makes it one of the most useless ships in FR battles.
It's so fragile, slow and its one unique feature (Cloaking) is rendered useless because you get constantly hit by things and have to deactivate it to recharge energy.
Bullets cover the entire room so you can't do any ambushing either.

It can't do anything. It's useless.

You shoot, you die. Every kill you get, you have no time to retreat (too slow) or hide (no energy to cloak, or they can still get you cloaked).
It's basically a kamikaze laming shit ship.

It sucks in open space.
Everyone is faster than you. Kills are completely luck-based, you are relying on your enemy's momentum to catch him.

Stray bullet coming towards you?
A) Waste your Repel
B) Use afterburners to dodge the bullet, which takes up your entire energy bar, which forces you to turn off Cloak/Stealth to recharge
C) B, but wait untill nobody is near you before decloaking.

If you chose A or B, you are now the prime target of anyone on-screen, good luck surviving that Spider/Lancaster.
With your terrible maneuverability and acceleration, you're dead.

If you chose C, you spend a million years looking for safety and recharging energy, then slowly flying back to the action,
only to struggle with getting any kills or doing anything useful to your team.

The only thing it can do is hunt defenceless Leviathans.

At its current state, the Weasel is the worst ship. There is nothing it excels at.
All it can do is Rocket lame or hunt Levis. It doesn't serve any purpose otherwise.
It can't do anything to help its team that another ship can't do better.

I remember easily dodging Terriers and duelling Warbirds without cloak when the Weasel was small,
capable of firing fast bullets by using afterburners+CTRL.
But now? I feel like a sitting duck. I feel useless.

My proposition
Give the Weasel a distinct role. It currently has nothing worthwhile going for it, both in spawn and in base.
Every ship has a role, Weasel is supposed to be an 'assassin' taking out key targets, but it doesn't live up to that at all.

Don't give it Bricks or add/remove Repel/Rocket.
It suffers from a flying problem, not an item problem.

Either:
A) Make it faster, with faster rotation and thrust/acceleration, so that it doesn't feel like a fat whale.
or
B) Keep it the way it is, but increase the bullet speed.Make the bullet travel as fast as a Spider's bullet.

Big size, small size, I don't care, just make it USABLE and HELPFUL to the team without getting a negative K/D.

[Crescent Seal]

lol

[idkidc1233]

Weasel is like LoL meta shifts. Wzl was good once and then got changed and now it's terrible.

[forwards]

Ship 6 has gone through many changes, and they still don't get it right.
The current Weasel settings are absolutely awful.

Not only are Weasel pilots fucked over, it's become even less seen than before.
If anyone tries it out, they never come back because it's a terrible ship to play.
It doesn't have any role, not any function.
The Weasel has become a myth, a legend, it's rarely used at all.

1. It's the second slowest ship
2. It has the second worst rotation speed.
3. The bullets travel so slow that you need to be literally on top of an enemy to hit him,
or hope that the enemy travels across your path and doesn't suddenly change direction.

It sucks in base.
Flagroom battles are a clusterfuck. Bullets, bombs, shrapnel, EMP, mines, bursts, and constantly getting repped around like a ragdoll by Sharks.
Combined with the fact that the flagroom is very small and claustrophobic, and that the Weasel is as big as other ships, this makes it one of the most useless ships in FR battles.
It's so fragile, slow and its one unique feature (Cloaking) is rendered useless because you get constantly hit by things and have to deactivate it to recharge energy.
Bullets cover the entire room so you can't do any ambushing either.

It can't do anything. It's useless.

You shoot, you die. Every kill you get, you have no time to retreat (too slow) or hide (no energy to cloak, or they can still get you cloaked).
It's basically a kamikaze laming shit ship.

It sucks in open space.
Everyone is faster than you. Kills are completely luck-based, you are relying on your enemy's momentum to catch him.

Stray bullet coming towards you?
A) Waste your Repel
B) Use afterburners to dodge the bullet, which takes up your entire energy bar, which forces you to turn off Cloak/Stealth to recharge
C) B, but wait untill nobody is near you before decloaking.

If you chose A or B, you are now the prime target of anyone on-screen, good luck surviving that Spider/Lancaster.
With your terrible maneuverability and acceleration, you're dead.

If you chose C, you spend a million years looking for safety and recharging energy, then slowly flying back to the action,
only to struggle with getting any kills or doing anything useful to your team.

The only thing it can do is hunt defenceless Leviathans.

At its current state, the Weasel is the worst ship. There is nothing it excels at.
All it can do is Rocket lame or hunt Levis. It doesn't serve any purpose otherwise.
It can't do anything to help its team that another ship can't do better.

I remember easily dodging Terriers and duelling Warbirds without cloak when the Weasel was small,
capable of firing fast bullets by using afterburners+CTRL.
But now? I feel like a sitting duck. I feel useless.

My proposition
Give the Weasel a distinct role. It currently has nothing worthwhile going for it, both in spawn and in base.
Every ship has a role, Weasel is supposed to be an 'assassin' taking out key targets, but it doesn't live up to that at all.

Don't give it Bricks or add/remove Repel/Rocket.
It suffers from a flying problem, not an item problem.

Either:
A) Make it faster, with faster rotation and thrust/acceleration, so that it doesn't feel like a fat whale.
or
B) Keep it the way it is, but increase the bullet speed.Make the bullet travel as fast as a Spider's bullet.

Big size, small size, I don't care, just make it USABLE and HELPFUL to the team without getting a negative K/D.

are you spock? in-game?

[big eater]

Not everyone who cares is going to have/make a forum account to talk about this, but anyone can quickly make a !comment while playing. Here's a selection of the comments mentioning :ship6: (green = likes big/dislikes small/wants stealth; red = likes small/dislikes big/wants no stealth; yellow = other comments)

when it was made small again:
#0002: 25 Oct 2013 09:08:52: small weasel is no good, change it back to normal size
#0006: 25 Oct 2013 09:34:41: I'm not a huge fan of the small weasel...
#0008: 25 Oct 2013 09:56:04: The x needs to be more powerful and keep it small
#0010: 25 Oct 2013 11:18:20: The old levi (at the least) and weasel should be put back with slight changes to make them less harmful.
#0020: 25 Oct 2013 15:03:00: ...Don't mind the smaller weasel as much. But should go back to old settings...
#0043: 25 Oct 2013 21:14:41: i think the small x is unconclusive to basing, and pure base should be once a week
#0045: 25 Oct 2013 21:33:37: I think weasel ship should rotate just a bit faster, it makes it hard to kill anyone
#0069: 26 Oct 2013 12:13:13: x sucks make it big and full stealth and cloak again
#0074: 26 Oct 2013 14:44:14: good to se the tiny x is back...
#0077: 26 Oct 2013 15:46:40: the small weasel makes basing boring, less and less basing has been occuring since the reintroduction
#0098: 27 Oct 2013 08:40:30: Turning the weasel to small again has ruined pub.
#0101: 27 Oct 2013 13:18:01: the small x is good...
#0104: 27 Oct 2013 17:51:02: the x sucks
#0106: 27 Oct 2013 19:34:37: ...However I applaud the stealthless weasels. There needed to be some sort of way for them to have to give away their position
#0111: 28 Oct 2013 01:40:23: Yes I like the changes especially love that you brought back the small weasel. Thanks
#0122: 28 Oct 2013 19:03:46: bring back old (original) lev ter and weasel settings :P
#0123: 28 Oct 2013 19:12:43: pick a setting and leave it at that. preferrably one that doesnt favor levis and weazels. this constant changing is shit and scares (new) people off.
#0126: 29 Oct 2013 07:15:45: Very happy that the small x is back... Nice changes!
#0141: 29 Oct 2013 20:26:56: take away rockets from x if they stay small please
#0149: 30 Oct 2013 14:09:26: Love the small X!
#0171: 01 Nov 2013 11:08:32: I like how the weasel is small though!
#0177: 01 Nov 2013 18:45:44: the weasle needs to be buffed
#0220: 04 Nov 2013 16:46:50: these changes are bad... fix the levi and weasel...
#0259: 08 Nov 2013 19:30:22: if its possible to add things to buy with pubbux...Shields like 30 secs for 5k or buy Stealth for Weasel for a set time ...
#0330: 18 Nov 2013 10:57:12: Bring back old weasels and allow both (weasels and levis) to buy outside safe
#0367: 25 Nov 2013 16:26:08: The Weasel should be able to buy rocket out of safe...it wouldn't have much affect on basing and would really help it in getting kills out in the open...if you look at pub stats it has a pretty shitty K/D ratio.............
#0377: 30 Nov 2013 16:25:44: restore stealth in x
#0477: 16 Dec 2013 16:37:49: please restore original settings as of 3 months ago: ...for weasal, stealth and cloak with no limitation on energy. i.e. remove the fucked up settings
#0490: 21 Dec 2013 14:27:32: Weasels should be allowed to buy anywhere.
#0510: 23 Dec 2013 14:44:12: and how about (stealth) for cloakers? wtf...
#0515: 23 Dec 2013 14:51:41: why do weasels have to be in safe to buy
#0531: 25 Dec 2013 15:26:17: return lev and x settings to standard
#0789: 20 Feb 2014 15:19:22: fuck you for making weasel useless, fis.
#0884: 28 Feb 2014 10:27:18: hi,i think this weasel could have stealth or atleast option to buy it.It would still be very vulnerable.
#0928: 05 Mar 2014 15:48:02: BTW, some more suggested changes: for weasel - no rocket, no starting rep (can buy/green), slower recharge. Faster speed, higher max energy (possible two immediate single shots per full charge), 1 port.
#1012: 23 Mar 2014 21:32:50: get old powers to the X?
#1046: 29 Mar 2014 20:36:56: give weasel their full cloaking ability back please
#1074: 30 Apr 2014 11:34:52: add stealth back to weasels
#1198: 23 Jun 2014 17:22:01: cloakers should have to buy cloak each time they use it, like 5 or 10k each time
#1299: 27 Nov 2014 13:27:21: ban levis and cloakers, or have a no cloaker no levi theme week pls
#1341: 03 Mar 2015 21:52:17: weasels are to powerful, a team should be succesful at holding flag by defending flagroom entrance and if all losing team has to do is get 2 people to weasel and rush flag there is potentailly no way to win.
#1379: 21 Apr 2015 16:35:36: take the damn weasels out of the game.
#1440: 07 Jun 2015 21:15:38: x's better not have rockets in steam launch or i'll shut down TW


!comments since it was made big again last month:
#1449: 11 Jun 2015 03:13:40: bring back small weasel
#1451: 11 Jun 2015 10:26:39: weasels are bugged, sometimes when respawning you can't cloak
#1459: 12 Jun 2015 23:59:12: fat weasel makes no sense. nobody uses it anymore. to big for holes. and always dies in cram
#1462: 13 Jun 2015 02:33:45: remove repel from x's - leave it buyable?
#1473: 19 Jun 2015 16:17:34: change the weasels back please! This is my official vote to change the weasels back
#1479: 22 Jun 2015 20:13:04: Change the weasel back please thanks
#1487: 25 Jun 2015 14:29:33: ...new weasel has unfair advantage with cloak and stealth...
#1490: 27 Jun 2015 19:34:56: Weasel used to be fun to play please change it back
#1491: 28 Jun 2015 09:42:25: hate the new weasel.
#1493: 28 Jun 2015 09:58:46: bring back little weasle
#1513: 03 Jul 2015 23:51:54: Fix the weasel funhaters
#1520: 05 Jul 2015 19:34:24: Revert changes to weasel please thanks
#1526: 07 Jul 2015 07:00:41: this big x is bs i cant see it


TLDR: mixed reaction to reintroduction of nostealth little weasel in 2013; no positive comments at all on reintroduction of big stealth weasel in 2015. :smart:

[dofus]

The main complaint about small Weasel is that it was abused to reset flag constantly.
Solution: Remove Rocket.

Heck, I'm fine with having no items at all, just make the ship more agile.
It controls so cumbersome and you can't dodge shit. It feels like a Leviathan v2

I haven't seen ANY player do succesful with the current settings.
It doesn't matter how skilled you are, the ship is handicapped to hell.

[Viruk]

Here is my suggestion for the Weasel based on years of pub basing and memories of previous pub and Distension settings:

• Main Roles: Base-Infiltrator, Assassin, Team-Disruptor, Flag-Saver, Anti-Roofer, Lamer or Drifter. Why? - Pub basing is the most important part of TW because most other things in the zone depend on it. It makes sense that every ship should have a basing purpose. However doing slightly overpowered or lame things is fun to do and killing a hated player also gives reason for playing. Pub is also the place for doing your own thing.
• Style: Sneaky, lurker, gadget-freak, annoying, assassin.
• Size: Small. Why? - Can use holes to evade defences and open up a boring one-sided flag game. Fun to snipe at. Can engage roofers by moving out of flag room. Another feature that might impress newbies.
• Cloak: Yes and loaded on spawn. Why? - Cloak is the main reason for this ship, the thing that makes it special.
• Cloak Drain: Low - around 20% of recharge. Why? - Because the ship's main feature should be easy for a newbie to use.
• Stealth: Yes but never loaded. An expensive special buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? Cloak and Stealth makes a very powerful combination which needs lots of balancing. Casual attacks that require use of specials to thwart should be discouraged.
• Stealth Drain: Very High. Should not be able to cloak-stealth for more than 3 seconds and still fire. Why? - Balances power of cloak-stealth but makes undetectable attacks possible for a skilled player in certain situations or combined with other specials. Can be blipped by a skilled player so that a wary enemy would know they are there but maybe not where they are going.
• Repels: None. Why? - Repels make it too easy for them to hold and switch flag if they can avoid defences, approach it and repel multiple defenders. Sharks already have repels as their main feature and we don't need a mini-shark if we have small infiltrating Weasels. Repels cause extra TKing and having too many makes everything so random that they need to be limited to preserve skillful play. Mining the flag should defend against an infiltrator unless they can team with a rammer or repper or sneak between gaps in mines. Weasels should be sneaky but repels encourage making direct attacks.
• Rockets: 3 slots, 1 loaded. A cheap consumable buyable in safezone, greenable or as a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is a ship for players who like to use gizmos and might want to stock up on a few extra for a special attack. Rocket is useful for extending an attack run, making an escape or shooting fast bullets.
• Rocket Duration: Very Low. 1 second. Why? - Because speed and invisibility makes a very powerful combination that needs to be limited. Casual Weasel players would have less rocket than they do with current settings (appears to be ~3 sec). Rockets should not help much in getting to base (or safezone) faster from spawn. Even players who have bought extras would not be able to rocket right across the flagroom. Rockets should require skilled timing to use effectively in attacks.
• Decoys: Yes. 1 or 2 slots but never loaded. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? - Sometimes fun or tactically useful but these are horrible when spammed and should continue to be limited.
• Bursts and Portals: None. Why? - Other ships have them already. Too powerful. Too random. Need to be limited.
• Thors: Yes but never loaded, greenable or winnable. Same for all ships. 1 slot buyable as a mega-expensive only-one-available-per-day-for the-whole-arena bot-purchase when the bot-coders have nothing else they want to do. Why? - Just for that "WTF!" factor. As a a sink for spacebux. Just so we can say the zone has them.
• Bricks: 1 slot but never loaded. Lays a 1-tile brick lasting about 2 seconds. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone, a rare green or a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is an annoying gizmo ship and this is an annoying gizmo. A less powerful replacement for their repel. Works well with sneakiness for brickwarping key ships on extended attack runs or when too damaged to fire. May help with escapes through holes and tubes. Other tactical uses in a basing game (and they cause TKs and look terrible) so needs to be limited by availability. Needs more skill to use than a repel. Adds another feature to the zone to attract newbies.
• Antiwarp: None. Why? Disrupts normal basing activity so needs to be limited. Spiders can already buy it.
• X-Radar: Yes but never loaded. High-drain. An expensive special buyable in safezone or a rare green.Why? Gives an option for streaking weasels to more easily spot rival cloak-stealthers or hunt/avoid/defend FR-against stealthed Levis. Harder to use on a low recharge ship.
• Energy: Low. Should be able to narrowly survive 90% of L2 bullet hits at full energy. Why? - Discourages them from making frontal attacks and encourages skillful dodging. Makes it easy to defend flag against them with bullets. Should make them vulnerable to bombs so bomb ships can defend themselves and their flag despite their slower recharge (and would not be thwarted by reps). Still not a 1-shot kill for a Lanc or Levi bullet most times.
• Recharge: Very low. Should take them around as long as a levi to fully recharge while cloaked despite their low energy and low cloak drain. Why? - This makes them more of a hit-and-run ship. Most other ships should beat them in straight combat. They should rely on small size, dodging, invisibility or ducking out through holes to survive to recharge. They can still green a full-charge, take the flag or possibly brick-warp so remain a threat in flagroom when damaged.
• Speed: Slow. Faster than a Levi but a tiny bit slower than the next-slowest ship. Why? - Limits massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations. Most wary ships can avoid them. They can hide but they can't run!
• Thrust: High. It should be possible to comfortably dodge a bullet at medium range without afterburn if not busy doing something else. Why? - It needs to be able to navigate quickly through holes. It ought to be fairly painless for a (patient) newbie to fly, even with low recharge. It may need all its energy for surviving or attacking.
• Rotation: Average. Why? - I find rotation accuracy to be very random so best to have a balance between rapid rotation for defence and dodging and slow rotation for accurate aiming.
• Gun: L3 bullets. Why? - Can assassinate anyone even if at full energy.
• Bullet speed: Very slow. Why? - It makes weasel mainly a short range ship. Balances power of L3 bullets. We already have other long-range ships and the Warbird to fire fast L3s.
• Bullet cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Why? - Its a very powerful bullet for such a small ship. They shouldn't be able to afterburn for very long and still fire it. Even if a full-charge is greened they should not be able to re-fire rapidly. A surviving target should know they are safe for while.
• Multifire: Yes but not loaded. Commonly greenable and cheaply buyable in (or out of) safezone. Why? - Compensates for the slow bullet speed in some combat situations. An area-denial weapon in narrow choke points. Can combine with rockets for a limited number of fast, spread, lethal shots. Limited availability discourages reliance on it and limits the power of massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations.
• Multifire cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Should not be able to use multifire with afterburn or stealth. Why? - Combined with the low recharge this should encourage skillful use of single bullets while still making it possible for newbies to multi-bullet unwary players.
• Bombs: None. Why? - It has good bullets. Other ships already have bombs.
• Other ships' cloaking countermeasures: Terrier is loaded with low-drain X-radar. Jav and Levi should load with high-drain X-radar. Warbird and Shark should be able to buy high-drain X-Radar as an expensive special in safezone (or find a rare green). Streaking Spids and Lancs would have to watch for suspicious disappearances on radar, zigzag and spam bullets. Why? - Cloak and stealth and base-infiltration is a powerful combination. Seems only fair to give all ships some means of defending themselves. Only Terriers are important enough for basing to make this easy to use.

Disadvantages to these settings.

• Probably needs rocket (and perhaps stealth and brick) keys remapped from the defaults to control it efficiently. (But so do other ships.)
• Ship has lots of powerful features so easy to unbalance with tiny mistakes or changes.
• Ship has lots of specials so reinstating the old bot buying system could make it overpowered in the hands of rich players.
• Relying on safe-buying limitations may encourage multi-clienting safezone-Terrs to evade them.
• Unsure about correct thrust level so did not try to describe in detail.
• Unsure how base-Terrs would find it - they are probably the most important players for keeping the flag game going.
• Impatient Weasel players would hate it as it is a slow-recharging, slow-moving ship that requires skill, safezone-visiting and spacebux to be fully effective. (But there are other ships for the impatient and you can't please everyone.)
• Roofers would hate it (but too many roofers can kill flag game anyway.)
• Not very good at balancing the overpowered Levi-Terr combination. Could think of no way to do it in this style without making it overpowered vs single ships, flaggers and base-Terrs.
• Other lamers would hate it (but they probably should have watched/bought radar and we hate them too!)
• People who were killed by cloakers while "on-fire" would really hate it. (But is one of many lame ways to die. Scope for some bot-driven vengeance rewards here?)

Probably needs testing and player feedback.

[dofus]

Good point on Repel, if the Weasel is going to be small, it doesn't need it.
It encourages "rushing" into the flagroom and just repelling everything and causing unnecesary teamkills on the enemy team.
That's a Shark's job. Weasels already have Cloak and Stealth to avoid detection, so Repels are just redundant.

As for C/S, I belief Cloak OR Stealth on should be free (same way Terriers can turn on X-Radar without any penalty).
Energy recharge will ofcourse be slower, so you have to toggle to speed up the recharge. But drain? No way.
Energy drain should only happen if you have both Cloak and Stealth on at the same time. The speed of the drain depends on how maneuverable the ship is.

I agree with Thrust, that's my main issue with the current fat slow ass Weasel.
You can see projectiles coming your way but you can't do anything about it.
You can't 'fake' or 'juke' like Warbirds/Lancasters can, you're at your opponent's mercy.

I'm also fine with L2 bullets oneshotting Weasels like it did before.
Small, nimble but fragile.

I think the TW staff doesn't have any vision for the Weasel, it's so neglected.
Like Viruk said, every ship needs to have a role when it comes to basing. Spawn fights are secondary.

[Crescent Seal]

Here is my suggestion for the Weasel based on years of pub basing and memories of previous pub and Distension settings:

• Main Roles: Base-Infiltrator, Assassin, Team-Disruptor, Flag-Saver, Anti-Roofer, Lamer or Drifter. Why? - Pub basing is the most important part of TW because most other things in the zone depend on it. It makes sense that every ship should have a basing purpose. However doing slightly overpowered or lame things is fun to do and killing a hated player also gives reason for playing. Pub is also the place for doing your own thing.
• Style: Sneaky, lurker, gadget-freak, annoying, assassin.
• Size: Small. Why? - Can use holes to evade defences and open up a boring one-sided flag game. Fun to snipe at. Can engage roofers by moving out of flag room. Another feature that might impress newbies.
• Cloak: Yes and loaded on spawn. Why? - Cloak is the main reason for this ship, the thing that makes it special.
• Cloak Drain: Low - around 20% of recharge. Why? - Because the ship's main feature should be easy for a newbie to use.
• Stealth: Yes but never loaded. An expensive special buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? Cloak and Stealth makes a very powerful combination which needs lots of balancing. Casual attacks that require use of specials to thwart should be discouraged.
• Stealth Drain: Very High. Should not be able to cloak-stealth for more than 3 seconds and still fire. Why? - Balances power of cloak-stealth but makes undetectable attacks possible for a skilled player in certain situations or combined with other specials. Can be blipped by a skilled player so that a wary enemy would know they are there but maybe not where they are going.
• Repels: None. Why? - Repels make it too easy for them to hold and switch flag if they can avoid defences, approach it and repel multiple defenders. Sharks already have repels as their main feature and we don't need a mini-shark if we have small infiltrating Weasels. Repels cause extra TKing and having too many makes everything so random that they need to be limited to preserve skillful play. Mining the flag should defend against an infiltrator unless they can team with a rammer or repper or sneak between gaps in mines. Weasels should be sneaky but repels encourage making direct attacks.
• Rockets: 3 slots, 1 loaded. A cheap consumable buyable in safezone, greenable or as a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is a ship for players who like to use gizmos and might want to stock up on a few extra for a special attack. Rocket is useful for extending an attack run, making an escape or shooting fast bullets.
• Rocket Duration: Very Low. 1 second. Why? - Because speed and invisibility makes a very powerful combination that needs to be limited. Casual Weasel players would have less rocket than they do with current settings (appears to be ~3 sec). Rockets should not help much in getting to base (or safezone) faster from spawn. Even players who have bought extras would not be able to rocket right across the flagroom. Rockets should require skilled timing to use effectively in attacks.
• Decoys: Yes. 1 or 2 slots but never loaded. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? - Sometimes fun or tactically useful but these are horrible when spammed and should continue to be limited.
• Bursts and Portals: None. Why? - Other ships have them already. Too powerful. Too random. Need to be limited.
• Thors: Yes but never loaded, greenable or winnable. Same for all ships. 1 slot buyable as a mega-expensive only-one-available-per-day-for the-whole-arena bot-purchase when the bot-coders have nothing else they want to do. Why? - Just for that "WTF!" factor. As a a sink for spacebux. Just so we can say the zone has them.
• Bricks: 1 slot but never loaded. Lays a 1-tile brick lasting about 2 seconds. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone, a rare green or a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is an annoying gizmo ship and this is an annoying gizmo. A less powerful replacement for their repel. Works well with sneakiness for brickwarping key ships on extended attack runs or when too damaged to fire. May help with escapes through holes and tubes. Other tactical uses in a basing game (and they cause TKs and look terrible) so needs to be limited by availability. Needs more skill to use than a repel. Adds another feature to the zone to attract newbies.
• Antiwarp: None. Why? Disrupts normal basing activity so needs to be limited. Spiders can already buy it.
• X-Radar: Yes but never loaded. High-drain. An expensive special buyable in safezone or a rare green.Why? Gives an option for streaking weasels to more easily spot rival cloak-stealthers or hunt/avoid/defend FR-against stealthed Levis. Harder to use on a low recharge ship.
• Energy: Low. Should be able to narrowly survive 90% of L2 bullet hits at full energy. Why? - Discourages them from making frontal attacks and encourages skillful dodging. Makes it easy to defend flag against them with bullets. Should make them vulnerable to bombs so bomb ships can defend themselves and their flag despite their slower recharge (and would not be thwarted by reps). Still not a 1-shot kill for a Lanc or Levi bullet most times.
• Recharge: Very low. Should take them around as long as a levi to fully recharge while cloaked despite their low energy and low cloak drain. Why? - This makes them more of a hit-and-run ship. Most other ships should beat them in straight combat. They should rely on small size, dodging, invisibility or ducking out through holes to survive to recharge. They can still green a full-charge, take the flag or possibly brick-warp so remain a threat in flagroom when damaged.
• Speed: Slow. Faster than a Levi but a tiny bit slower than the next-slowest ship. Why? - Limits massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations. Most wary ships can avoid them. They can hide but they can't run!
• Thrust: High. It should be possible to comfortably dodge a bullet at medium range without afterburn if not busy doing something else. Why? - It needs to be able to navigate quickly through holes. It ought to be fairly painless for a (patient) newbie to fly, even with low recharge. It may need all its energy for surviving or attacking.
• Rotation: Average. Why? - I find rotation accuracy to be very random so best to have a balance between rapid rotation for defence and dodging and slow rotation for accurate aiming.
• Gun: L3 bullets. Why? - Can assassinate anyone even if at full energy.
• Bullet speed: Very slow. Why? - It makes weasel mainly a short range ship. Balances power of L3 bullets. We already have other long-range ships and the Warbird to fire fast L3s.
• Bullet cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Why? - Its a very powerful bullet for such a small ship. They shouldn't be able to afterburn for very long and still fire it. Even if a full-charge is greened they should not be able to re-fire rapidly. A surviving target should know they are safe for while.
• Multifire: Yes but not loaded. Commonly greenable and cheaply buyable in (or out of) safezone. Why? - Compensates for the slow bullet speed in some combat situations. An area-denial weapon in narrow choke points. Can combine with rockets for a limited number of fast, spread, lethal shots. Limited availability discourages reliance on it and limits the power of massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations.
• Multifire cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Should not be able to use multifire with afterburn or stealth. Why? - Combined with the low recharge this should encourage skillful use of single bullets while still making it possible for newbies to multi-bullet unwary players.
• Bombs: None. Why? - It has good bullets. Other ships already have bombs.
• Other ships' cloaking countermeasures: Terrier is loaded with low-drain X-radar. Jav and Levi should load with high-drain X-radar. Warbird and Shark should be able to buy high-drain X-Radar as an expensive special in safezone (or find a rare green). Streaking Spids and Lancs would have to watch for suspicious disappearances on radar, zigzag and spam bullets. Why? - Cloak and stealth and base-infiltration is a powerful combination. Seems only fair to give all ships some means of defending themselves. Only Terriers are important enough for basing to make this easy to use.

Disadvantages to these settings.

• Probably needs rocket (and perhaps stealth and brick) keys remapped from the defaults to control it efficiently. (But so do other ships.)
• Ship has lots of powerful features so easy to unbalance with tiny mistakes or changes.
• Ship has lots of specials so reinstating the old bot buying system could make it overpowered in the hands of rich players.
• Relying on safe-buying limitations may encourage multi-clienting safezone-Terrs to evade them.
• Unsure about correct thrust level so did not try to describe in detail.
• Unsure how base-Terrs would find it - they are probably the most important players for keeping the flag game going.
• Impatient Weasel players would hate it as it is a slow-recharging, slow-moving ship that requires skill, safezone-visiting and spacebux to be fully effective. (But there are other ships for the impatient and you can't please everyone.)
• Roofers would hate it (but too many roofers can kill flag game anyway.)
• Not very good at balancing the overpowered Levi-Terr combination. Could think of no way to do it in this style without making it overpowered vs single ships, flaggers and base-Terrs.
• Other lamers would hate it (but they probably should have watched/bought radar and we hate them too!)
• People who were killed by cloakers while "on-fire" would really hate it. (But is one of many lame ways to die. Scope for some bot-driven vengeance rewards here?)

Probably needs testing and player feedback.

???

[Rough]

Here is my suggestion for the Weasel based on years of pub basing and memories of previous pub and Distension settings:

• Main Roles: Base-Infiltrator, Assassin, Team-Disruptor, Flag-Saver, Anti-Roofer, Lamer or Drifter. Why? - Pub basing is the most important part of TW because most other things in the zone depend on it. It makes sense that every ship should have a basing purpose. However doing slightly overpowered or lame things is fun to do and killing a hated player also gives reason for playing. Pub is also the place for doing your own thing.
• Style: Sneaky, lurker, gadget-freak, annoying, assassin.
• Size: Small. Why? - Can use holes to evade defences and open up a boring one-sided flag game. Fun to snipe at. Can engage roofers by moving out of flag room. Another feature that might impress newbies.
• Cloak: Yes and loaded on spawn. Why? - Cloak is the main reason for this ship, the thing that makes it special.
• Cloak Drain: Low - around 20% of recharge. Why? - Because the ship's main feature should be easy for a newbie to use.
• Stealth: Yes but never loaded. An expensive special buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? Cloak and Stealth makes a very powerful combination which needs lots of balancing. Casual attacks that require use of specials to thwart should be discouraged.
• Stealth Drain: Very High. Should not be able to cloak-stealth for more than 3 seconds and still fire. Why? - Balances power of cloak-stealth but makes undetectable attacks possible for a skilled player in certain situations or combined with other specials. Can be blipped by a skilled player so that a wary enemy would know they are there but maybe not where they are going.
• Repels: None. Why? - Repels make it too easy for them to hold and switch flag if they can avoid defences, approach it and repel multiple defenders. Sharks already have repels as their main feature and we don't need a mini-shark if we have small infiltrating Weasels. Repels cause extra TKing and having too many makes everything so random that they need to be limited to preserve skillful play. Mining the flag should defend against an infiltrator unless they can team with a rammer or repper or sneak between gaps in mines. Weasels should be sneaky but repels encourage making direct attacks.
• Rockets: 3 slots, 1 loaded. A cheap consumable buyable in safezone, greenable or as a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is a ship for players who like to use gizmos and might want to stock up on a few extra for a special attack. Rocket is useful for extending an attack run, making an escape or shooting fast bullets.
• Rocket Duration: Very Low. 1 second. Why? - Because speed and invisibility makes a very powerful combination that needs to be limited. Casual Weasel players would have less rocket than they do with current settings (appears to be ~3 sec). Rockets should not help much in getting to base (or safezone) faster from spawn. Even players who have bought extras would not be able to rocket right across the flagroom. Rockets should require skilled timing to use effectively in attacks.
• Decoys: Yes. 1 or 2 slots but never loaded. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? - Sometimes fun or tactically useful but these are horrible when spammed and should continue to be limited.
• Bursts and Portals: None. Why? - Other ships have them already. Too powerful. Too random. Need to be limited.
• Thors: Yes but never loaded, greenable or winnable. Same for all ships. 1 slot buyable as a mega-expensive only-one-available-per-day-for the-whole-arena bot-purchase when the bot-coders have nothing else they want to do. Why? - Just for that "WTF!" factor. As a a sink for spacebux. Just so we can say the zone has them.
• Bricks: 1 slot but never loaded. Lays a 1-tile brick lasting about 2 seconds. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone, a rare green or a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is an annoying gizmo ship and this is an annoying gizmo. A less powerful replacement for their repel. Works well with sneakiness for brickwarping key ships on extended attack runs or when too damaged to fire. May help with escapes through holes and tubes. Other tactical uses in a basing game (and they cause TKs and look terrible) so needs to be limited by availability. Needs more skill to use than a repel. Adds another feature to the zone to attract newbies.
• Antiwarp: None. Why? Disrupts normal basing activity so needs to be limited. Spiders can already buy it.
• X-Radar: Yes but never loaded. High-drain. An expensive special buyable in safezone or a rare green.Why? Gives an option for streaking weasels to more easily spot rival cloak-stealthers or hunt/avoid/defend FR-against stealthed Levis. Harder to use on a low recharge ship.
• Energy: Low. Should be able to narrowly survive 90% of L2 bullet hits at full energy. Why? - Discourages them from making frontal attacks and encourages skillful dodging. Makes it easy to defend flag against them with bullets. Should make them vulnerable to bombs so bomb ships can defend themselves and their flag despite their slower recharge (and would not be thwarted by reps). Still not a 1-shot kill for a Lanc or Levi bullet most times.
• Recharge: Very low. Should take them around as long as a levi to fully recharge while cloaked despite their low energy and low cloak drain. Why? - This makes them more of a hit-and-run ship. Most other ships should beat them in straight combat. They should rely on small size, dodging, invisibility or ducking out through holes to survive to recharge. They can still green a full-charge, take the flag or possibly brick-warp so remain a threat in flagroom when damaged.
• Speed: Slow. Faster than a Levi but a tiny bit slower than the next-slowest ship. Why? - Limits massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations. Most wary ships can avoid them. They can hide but they can't run!
• Thrust: High. It should be possible to comfortably dodge a bullet at medium range without afterburn if not busy doing something else. Why? - It needs to be able to navigate quickly through holes. It ought to be fairly painless for a (patient) newbie to fly, even with low recharge. It may need all its energy for surviving or attacking.
• Rotation: Average. Why? - I find rotation accuracy to be very random so best to have a balance between rapid rotation for defence and dodging and slow rotation for accurate aiming.
• Gun: L3 bullets. Why? - Can assassinate anyone even if at full energy.
• Bullet speed: Very slow. Why? - It makes weasel mainly a short range ship. Balances power of L3 bullets. We already have other long-range ships and the Warbird to fire fast L3s.
• Bullet cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Why? - Its a very powerful bullet for such a small ship. They shouldn't be able to afterburn for very long and still fire it. Even if a full-charge is greened they should not be able to re-fire rapidly. A surviving target should know they are safe for while.
• Multifire: Yes but not loaded. Commonly greenable and cheaply buyable in (or out of) safezone. Why? - Compensates for the slow bullet speed in some combat situations. An area-denial weapon in narrow choke points. Can combine with rockets for a limited number of fast, spread, lethal shots. Limited availability discourages reliance on it and limits the power of massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations.
• Multifire cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Should not be able to use multifire with afterburn or stealth. Why? - Combined with the low recharge this should encourage skillful use of single bullets while still making it possible for newbies to multi-bullet unwary players.
• Bombs: None. Why? - It has good bullets. Other ships already have bombs.
• Other ships' cloaking countermeasures: Terrier is loaded with low-drain X-radar. Jav and Levi should load with high-drain X-radar. Warbird and Shark should be able to buy high-drain X-Radar as an expensive special in safezone (or find a rare green). Streaking Spids and Lancs would have to watch for suspicious disappearances on radar, zigzag and spam bullets. Why? - Cloak and stealth and base-infiltration is a powerful combination. Seems only fair to give all ships some means of defending themselves. Only Terriers are important enough for basing to make this easy to use.

Disadvantages to these settings.

• Probably needs rocket (and perhaps stealth and brick) keys remapped from the defaults to control it efficiently. (But so do other ships.)
• Ship has lots of powerful features so easy to unbalance with tiny mistakes or changes.
• Ship has lots of specials so reinstating the old bot buying system could make it overpowered in the hands of rich players.
• Relying on safe-buying limitations may encourage multi-clienting safezone-Terrs to evade them.
• Unsure about correct thrust level so did not try to describe in detail.
• Unsure how base-Terrs would find it - they are probably the most important players for keeping the flag game going.
• Impatient Weasel players would hate it as it is a slow-recharging, slow-moving ship that requires skill, safezone-visiting and spacebux to be fully effective. (But there are other ships for the impatient and you can't please everyone.)
• Roofers would hate it (but too many roofers can kill flag game anyway.)
• Not very good at balancing the overpowered Levi-Terr combination. Could think of no way to do it in this style without making it overpowered vs single ships, flaggers and base-Terrs.
• Other lamers would hate it (but they probably should have watched/bought radar and we hate them too!)
• People who were killed by cloakers while "on-fire" would really hate it. (But is one of many lame ways to die. Scope for some bot-driven vengeance rewards here?)

Probably needs testing and player feedback.

? Get a job..

[roxxkatt]

Here is my suggestion for the Weasel based on years of pub basing and memories of previous pub and Distension settings:

• Main Roles: Base-Infiltrator, Assassin, Team-Disruptor, Flag-Saver, Anti-Roofer, Lamer or Drifter. Why? - Pub basing is the most important part of TW because most other things in the zone depend on it. It makes sense that every ship should have a basing purpose. However doing slightly overpowered or lame things is fun to do and killing a hated player also gives reason for playing. Pub is also the place for doing your own thing.
• Style: Sneaky, lurker, gadget-freak, annoying, assassin.
• Size: Small. Why? - Can use holes to evade defences and open up a boring one-sided flag game. Fun to snipe at. Can engage roofers by moving out of flag room. Another feature that might impress newbies.
• Cloak: Yes and loaded on spawn. Why? - Cloak is the main reason for this ship, the thing that makes it special.
• Cloak Drain: Low - around 20% of recharge. Why? - Because the ship's main feature should be easy for a newbie to use.
• Stealth: Yes but never loaded. An expensive special buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? Cloak and Stealth makes a very powerful combination which needs lots of balancing. Casual attacks that require use of specials to thwart should be discouraged.
• Stealth Drain: Very High. Should not be able to cloak-stealth for more than 3 seconds and still fire. Why? - Balances power of cloak-stealth but makes undetectable attacks possible for a skilled player in certain situations or combined with other specials. Can be blipped by a skilled player so that a wary enemy would know they are there but maybe not where they are going.
• Repels: None. Why? - Repels make it too easy for them to hold and switch flag if they can avoid defences, approach it and repel multiple defenders. Sharks already have repels as their main feature and we don't need a mini-shark if we have small infiltrating Weasels. Repels cause extra TKing and having too many makes everything so random that they need to be limited to preserve skillful play. Mining the flag should defend against an infiltrator unless they can team with a rammer or repper or sneak between gaps in mines. Weasels should be sneaky but repels encourage making direct attacks.
• Rockets: 3 slots, 1 loaded. A cheap consumable buyable in safezone, greenable or as a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is a ship for players who like to use gizmos and might want to stock up on a few extra for a special attack. Rocket is useful for extending an attack run, making an escape or shooting fast bullets.
• Rocket Duration: Very Low. 1 second. Why? - Because speed and invisibility makes a very powerful combination that needs to be limited. Casual Weasel players would have less rocket than they do with current settings (appears to be ~3 sec). Rockets should not help much in getting to base (or safezone) faster from spawn. Even players who have bought extras would not be able to rocket right across the flagroom. Rockets should require skilled timing to use effectively in attacks.
• Decoys: Yes. 1 or 2 slots but never loaded. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone or as a rare green. Why? - Sometimes fun or tactically useful but these are horrible when spammed and should continue to be limited.
• Bursts and Portals: None. Why? - Other ships have them already. Too powerful. Too random. Need to be limited.
• Thors: Yes but never loaded, greenable or winnable. Same for all ships. 1 slot buyable as a mega-expensive only-one-available-per-day-for the-whole-arena bot-purchase when the bot-coders have nothing else they want to do. Why? - Just for that "WTF!" factor. As a a sink for spacebux. Just so we can say the zone has them.
• Bricks: 1 slot but never loaded. Lays a 1-tile brick lasting about 2 seconds. An expensive consumable buyable in safezone, a rare green or a basing victory reward. Why? - Weasel is an annoying gizmo ship and this is an annoying gizmo. A less powerful replacement for their repel. Works well with sneakiness for brickwarping key ships on extended attack runs or when too damaged to fire. May help with escapes through holes and tubes. Other tactical uses in a basing game (and they cause TKs and look terrible) so needs to be limited by availability. Needs more skill to use than a repel. Adds another feature to the zone to attract newbies.
• Antiwarp: None. Why? Disrupts normal basing activity so needs to be limited. Spiders can already buy it.
• X-Radar: Yes but never loaded. High-drain. An expensive special buyable in safezone or a rare green.Why? Gives an option for streaking weasels to more easily spot rival cloak-stealthers or hunt/avoid/defend FR-against stealthed Levis. Harder to use on a low recharge ship.
• Energy: Low. Should be able to narrowly survive 90% of L2 bullet hits at full energy. Why? - Discourages them from making frontal attacks and encourages skillful dodging. Makes it easy to defend flag against them with bullets. Should make them vulnerable to bombs so bomb ships can defend themselves and their flag despite their slower recharge (and would not be thwarted by reps). Still not a 1-shot kill for a Lanc or Levi bullet most times.
• Recharge: Very low. Should take them around as long as a levi to fully recharge while cloaked despite their low energy and low cloak drain. Why? - This makes them more of a hit-and-run ship. Most other ships should beat them in straight combat. They should rely on small size, dodging, invisibility or ducking out through holes to survive to recharge. They can still green a full-charge, take the flag or possibly brick-warp so remain a threat in flagroom when damaged.
• Speed: Slow. Faster than a Levi but a tiny bit slower than the next-slowest ship. Why? - Limits massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations. Most wary ships can avoid them. They can hide but they can't run!
• Thrust: High. It should be possible to comfortably dodge a bullet at medium range without afterburn if not busy doing something else. Why? - It needs to be able to navigate quickly through holes. It ought to be fairly painless for a (patient) newbie to fly, even with low recharge. It may need all its energy for surviving or attacking.
• Rotation: Average. Why? - I find rotation accuracy to be very random so best to have a balance between rapid rotation for defence and dodging and slow rotation for accurate aiming.
• Gun: L3 bullets. Why? - Can assassinate anyone even if at full energy.
• Bullet speed: Very slow. Why? - It makes weasel mainly a short range ship. Balances power of L3 bullets. We already have other long-range ships and the Warbird to fire fast L3s.
• Bullet cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Why? - Its a very powerful bullet for such a small ship. They shouldn't be able to afterburn for very long and still fire it. Even if a full-charge is greened they should not be able to re-fire rapidly. A surviving target should know they are safe for while.
• Multifire: Yes but not loaded. Commonly greenable and cheaply buyable in (or out of) safezone. Why? - Compensates for the slow bullet speed in some combat situations. An area-denial weapon in narrow choke points. Can combine with rockets for a limited number of fast, spread, lethal shots. Limited availability discourages reliance on it and limits the power of massive ongoing flagroom infiltrations.
• Multifire cost: High and with a delay that prevents rapid refiring. Should not be able to use multifire with afterburn or stealth. Why? - Combined with the low recharge this should encourage skillful use of single bullets while still making it possible for newbies to multi-bullet unwary players.
• Bombs: None. Why? - It has good bullets. Other ships already have bombs.
• Other ships' cloaking countermeasures: Terrier is loaded with low-drain X-radar. Jav and Levi should load with high-drain X-radar. Warbird and Shark should be able to buy high-drain X-Radar as an expensive special in safezone (or find a rare green). Streaking Spids and Lancs would have to watch for suspicious disappearances on radar, zigzag and spam bullets. Why? - Cloak and stealth and base-infiltration is a powerful combination. Seems only fair to give all ships some means of defending themselves. Only Terriers are important enough for basing to make this easy to use.

Disadvantages to these settings.

• Probably needs rocket (and perhaps stealth and brick) keys remapped from the defaults to control it efficiently. (But so do other ships.)
• Ship has lots of powerful features so easy to unbalance with tiny mistakes or changes.
• Ship has lots of specials so reinstating the old bot buying system could make it overpowered in the hands of rich players.
• Relying on safe-buying limitations may encourage multi-clienting safezone-Terrs to evade them.
• Unsure about correct thrust level so did not try to describe in detail.
• Unsure how base-Terrs would find it - they are probably the most important players for keeping the flag game going.
• Impatient Weasel players would hate it as it is a slow-recharging, slow-moving ship that requires skill, safezone-visiting and spacebux to be fully effective. (But there are other ships for the impatient and you can't please everyone.)
• Roofers would hate it (but too many roofers can kill flag game anyway.)
• Not very good at balancing the overpowered Levi-Terr combination. Could think of no way to do it in this style without making it overpowered vs single ships, flaggers and base-Terrs.
• Other lamers would hate it (but they probably should have watched/bought radar and we hate them too!)
• People who were killed by cloakers while "on-fire" would really hate it. (But is one of many lame ways to die. Scope for some bot-driven vengeance rewards here?)

Probably needs testing and player feedback.

?

as an unintelligent person i will also quote a large post and add a question mark at the end because i know noone will delete my post

[c00l_b0y]

Either return the weasel to how it was or make it useful, the current iteration is terrible.

I've already listed my reasoning elsewhere just fucking do it come on

[Eren]

wsl is better in distension

[forwards]

wsl is better in distension

in what

[Spacely]

or swap the weasel out for what was it the wasp?