I know this topic has been ongoing, the recent update from CIG simply made me want to respond. So thanks for tolerating this one!

Bait and switch, absolutely. There was an easy fix but they chose to change it out of what it was sold. All you can get is store credit. Never felt once ripped off until they did this and no refund only store credit because the money was spent.

for me the ares were just right , they are ment to punch way above their weight class , small fighter shouldn't approach them full on and especially solo , from what i have seen and experience people just got way too used to kill way bigger ship with small fighter and never anticipated an heavy fighter with the capability of one shooting them. when armor is gonna be in game for ship i cant wait to see people crying when a small projectile go through their cockpit and kill them instantly . its an heavy fighter with a big fuck off gun , make sure you are more then one small ass fighter to attack it , make sens for me XD of course its gonna be meta but eventually people go back to other ship because it become boring to only use the meta

The point of the Ares Ion's and Inferno's existence is to eliminate pay-to-win against capital ships. You shouldn't need a capital ship to destroy a capital ship, otherwise that would be pay-to-win. The Eclipse and Retaliator don't resonate with everyone because many prefer to use guns over missiles. I melted my Ion specifically because the accuracy was nerfed. I was expecting them to nerf one or more of its attributes (ammo count, fire-rate, range, and/or alpha damage), but not its accuracy since it was described as a sniper ship. As long as it was accurate, I would've kept it even if they nerfed everything else. With its current balance, I consider it as an assault ship, not a sniper ship, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they're an ace pilot or only flying it with a small fighter escort, because the Ion is too vulnerable to small fighters. I don't think the Ion should be able to 1-shot a Mustang or Aurora, but 3 shots should definitely destroy them (3 is not too few or too many imo), so if I were in charge of nerfing it, I would've kept the accuracy and just reduced the alpha damage so it'll 3-shot a Mustang, and add recoil to every shot so no one can shoot a small ship with 3 consecutive shots - so just enough recoil to necessitate re-aligning your aim for small ships, but not enough recoil to go off-target from large ships. Recoil would mean it really is a sniper ship, and Ion pilots would then avoid dog fights and try to land shots from the periphery, as a sniper should.

Hey, good video, thx... Im rather new to SC but lovin it. Im late to the Ares debacle but I agree with you. I very recently bought Ares Ion (then traded up for Inferno - looks and hits cooler 👀) for XT but Ive been doing a bit of random daily flying in it now. What Im seeing, which has been discussed here and everywhere else already, is the crazy inaccuracy, regardless of pip green or free aiming, the hits just dont register as much as I am visually seeing. Im still new enough to wonder if I just suck, or if Im missing something, which makes me want to consider not melting this and getting something more useful - for now but I dont have but 4 ships and I need something useful. Getting blown up by a Gladius' is not useful, esp with 3800 rounds in the 'air' ya know. Not lookin to be meta, but theres something wrong with that. I just love the way this ship looks n flies (same as Eclipse). Whats your opinion on this? Melt or not? Dont worry, I wont come back later and be like 'but you said...' Just looking for your own opinion. Thanks man, Nice SC suit too!

As a thought, maybe they could keep the same power, but massively cut down the range. that way it could still take on cap's but smaller, faster ships could dance out of the way.

I really liked the Ion just because it was the Star Citizen version of a Hunchback. One trick pony with a giant gun but I do think the ship moved a bit too well with said gun. I mean the gun is 1/3-1/2 of the ship. It probably should not fly very well at all honestly. I still like the Inferno as its just the space A10. I really suck with it but its cool. The Ion lost me though when it went back to the whole high rpm. I do hope cannons in general back away from the higher rpm they are at now. I really liked how they felt before the weapon rebalance where they fired slow but hit hard.

The issue I have with CIG is there desire to “destroy the meta”. It’s NEVER going to work, it’s like they have never played any other game before. Thanks for the video, it’s a refreshing presentation!

Dude. Love this format. Subscribed.

The issue with the Ares Ion is the fact that CIG does this with EVERY new combat ship. From the Saber, with its 4 size 1 shields, to its 3 size 1 shields now 2.... The Anvil Arrow with its 2 size 1 shields down to 1. Or all of the Gladiators that dominated Arena Commander back in the days of Missile Commander. To the Eclipse that could and did one shot anything while remaining invisible. And more recently the Talon, Prowler, and Banu Defender. CIG has a long, LONG track record of selling a ship and once the sale is over, nerfing the crap out of it just in time for the next ship to come out. Dont believe me watch the Scorpius for the next patch. It will come out it will be over powered as hell for about 2-3 months then it will get nerfed after the sale period is over. But during that time CIG will make a few hundred thousand if not a million dollars off of war bond sales and FOMO marketing. The Spectrum will do what it does and weaponize its autism and go full ree-ree for about a month then CIG will throw a new jpeg at them and they will oo and ahh over it and forget all about the nerf that just cost them 250-300 bucks. Sure a few will continue to harp on it till the gustopo moderation lead by Nightrider-CIG removes their post and quietly bans these people who dont lock step and fall in line. Because this is the way it has been and will continue to be.

I currently have both an Ares Ion and Inferno in my fleet. I never intended to keep them for my final fleet before release and just wanted to try each and see how I enjoyed one over the other. It was pretty great getting to one shot most smaller ships with the Ion, but I'm glad CIG nerfed it. I agree that they never should have been made. They're super cool, but like you said Gipsy, let the capital ships fight the capital ships. The Eclipse has more of a place than the Ares do imo. A bomber with a severely limited payload is a great option for going against capitals in a smaller ship, but the Ares kinda remove the negatives of a small payload on the Eclipse. I really hope CIG can find a good balance for the Ares line, but I'd rather they rework the ship to something more friendly to balance passes.

I don't mind the nerf, just the way they did it. It should be able to one-hit a small ship, but only if that small ship is flying in a straight line. Make the gun big, slow, accurate, very powerful, then make the ship difficult to maneuver and aim so that it will struggle against a small ship but do well against a large ship. The problem was never the gun. The problem was that it maneuvered too well, and it was too easy to dogfight in a ship that shouldn't be able to dogfight. Give it large ship handling to match the large ship gun. If small ships are still being killed, it's because their pilots suck.

Any ship like the Ares needs to be multi-crew and have several positions required to fire that big gun. Also I wonder what disadvantages of having a much smaller than required cooler, small computer, small ammo load out space. Remember this kind of gun normally requires a much larger ship to support. It should have things like fire rate and heat buildup severely compromised. Ever try to power a large motor with a small battery. It hardly moves. Same principle for this ship. I think the gun should be more like a size 5 or 6 max, maybe a 7 with 80% penalty to all stats because of the platform and supporting equipment. Except for damage. Yes if you walk upto a cannon and it fires you will be obliterated. But cannons are easy to see, hard to move, and harder to target with unless its a slow moving target that can't react. A fighter getting behind that ship and killing it should be easy. The only ships that should fear it are the ones too slow to maneuver from its targeting and kill time. This ship requires a larger tank ship as the main target. Thank You for the Content

I completely agree. No fighter should be able to kill a cap. it was a stupid idea.

Agree , never should have existed

I agree with a lot of your points, I would personally not call star citizen an MMO but rather an MMORPG. The difference here being that you are at least partially supposed to embody the "class" you choose. By this I mean a medic ship is supposed to be used for medical gameplay regardless of it's abilities. I would say star citizen is both an MMO and MMORPG depending on who you are as the player. I think cig can make multiple metas, I think the ares can be easily balanced to kill small ships IF it hits them, but to make it difficult to do so in realistic ways that don't feel cheap. A charged weapon for instance. In the inferno, wasting ammo pre spooling the repeater is a similar mechanic. For the ion, make it a charged ion Cannon. Difficult to line up a shot while managing charge time, still easy to use against a capital ship effectively. I do think turret rotation speed on multi crew larger ships can be balanced with light fighter maneuvering speeds to make the meta more of a grey zone that relies more on skill to decide the victor. Back to the MMO thing, star citizen is not a competitive game. There is no rank system, there is no real scarcity that forces people to be at odds with one another while remaining an MMORPG (because Technically medics for example could war against eachother for access to heal people, sounds a bit odd right?) Piracy (legitimate piracy where an in game benefit like cargo or money is being sought after), and PvP combat should absolutely exist in SC. PvPers who go to pvp-cargo events purely to PvP are not doing the mission or getting any in game benefits. Idc if we call it griefing or RPing as a terrorist, it's lame. Players can do what they want, but PvPers need to stop whining in chat when they PvP a mining ship and get treated like a psychopathic asshole, that's what they're RPing as isn't it? They didn't get/ask for money or the cargo so the goal was to sadistically murder a mole crew for no in game benefit? That's either griefing or RPing as an asshole. So expect the global to treat you like the character you're playing as. My issue with PvPers is when the time comes to face consequences for their game choices. I've made great friends with pirates who blockaded stations who I went to try to liberate. We were playing our roles, they were getting the in game benefit of charging players for passage, I was getting to RP as a hero figure. When I lost or won, we could still laugh and gg each other in chat. I'm not gonna gg someone who randomly attacks a mole with a 600i lol. I'm gonna call them an asshole. Because that's what they wanted to RP as.

What's more likely? (A) CIG was *clueless* about the Ares power (B) they knew and knew it would mean MANY sales (And they could always nerf it _after_ the refund period was over.) ;-)

I believe the Ion should hit like an m109a7 paladin (Howitzer), single accurate shots and devastating. BUT it should bloody fly like it, the equivalent like an A10, not fast, not agile and the recoil definitely should create enough force to effect the ships ballance/momentum. Newtonian physics, Honestly that's what I wanted and thought I'd get... Melted. Any pilot in a light anything should be eviscerated upon impact with that size 7.

I decided to get both the Ion and Inferno. I'm not a PVP-er, though...I got them for quickly rolling through bounty missions. Unfortunately, they're both sitting idle while I wait for the "balancing". In the mean time, I'm doing the bounty missions with the Sentinel. A lot of Ares are getting melted over this, and rightfully so. We were sold a bill of goods.

Played with Both. Liked Both for What they Could do. They Should have added it AFTER they Implemented Capital class ship's, Personally. ✌️😎🚬

I'd like to get the Ares ion because it is pretty tanky, with a cannon. Honestly, al id do is clear turrets to land and clear bunker missions all while looking badass.

this was cool

As a veteran of the MOBA genre I do not belive one thing that the developer of any game says (I am just used to, it's not even intentional) and instead look at the core idea and what could it be after it hits the game. For example the Endeavor or the "carrack killer" are surely exaggerated but I like the core idea of doing more roles (end) and the self-sustainability plus hangar (ody) of them and these aspect will not be removed, yes maybe nerfed or buffed but never removed. The ares series core concept was a tad wrong in my opinion but as of right now I think is wrong to cast a judgment simply because the game is still too early in development (the nerf story of the ares is accentuated by the fact that right now there are only 3/4 things to do in the game and few capital ships worth fighting). With more ways to play the game a ship with a big gun will only be good at one thing and the pilot ability will make the difference in a battle with bigger ships. The only BIG problem I have with the ares and the precedent that is creating Is that it only needs ONE (1) person to use such a perfect ship (fast, powerful, nimble, easy to use, ecc) for combact making simply ineffective a bigger ship that needs more people (why spending time and effort trying to multi crew a ship with 6/7 people to fight when you can just have more power with just 2/3 ares?). If the ares series were to be like the hurricane (1 pilot with missiles/size 1/2 guns and a gunner with the size 7 fixed) it would be much more balanced as you need good cordination between 2 people and a crew even if small. Sorry for the long comment. Btw nice background but the Hawk is a little bit unnerving, looking like a bounty hunter ready for you to leave the safe zone!

Best thing we could do is wait. Don't spend on concept ships for combat. Do what you want but Ion, Inferno and Redemer were changed before the next patch was ready. Also Montoya has a point about where the developers are pulling thier data from. Thing is its over with and will just watch and wait for the next ox to get gored.

I think the real problem was it was sold at a time where its intended use doesn't exist in game, we can't use a capital killer cause servers are so small and there are so few capital ships to kill, if this came out around xeno threat, or after server meshing when everyone is in org ships it would be better.

Yeah, the moment they revealed the Ares, I was like, "Cool. Cancel it." CIG will probably find the least-worst balances for it by debuffing the flight.

i feel they went the completelly wrong way with the ION. instead of making it a repeater by lowering alpha and increasing fire rate they should have done the oppostive, making it more alpha and possibly with a spool up time, or maybe switching it to a beam weapon with sustained beam with a charge up, then you would essentially have to line up each shot but once it actually goes off it would be instakill getting a hit on a small ship, but hitting the small ship would be more difficult. removing the targeting system and effectively making it a shit-repeater was the wrong way to go and not what people wanted.

Its not just the weapons, its the ship... It handles like a dump truck and fighting anything with it feels like I'm watching fly's fuck . Its painfully boring and the only reason people like saltemike and the limpnoodle were crying about it was because it was no longer them killing everything, plus they cry that it was all Ares but it was just all gladius before?. They like the gladius because its cheap so they can have one on every alt account ( limpnoodle has 4 alt accounts ) they cost little to claim or repair and they can put on any op weapon that comes along oh and its available all year round. Why are they not crying about the hurricane with its ability to melt an Ares in 2 seconds flat? or a Connie in 6? Also Its not good for content creation because there is nothing to change because the weapons are bespoke and fixed. In an mmo one gladius is be able to hold JT for 12 hours or more. no need to rearm or refuel...but That's not boring and op? A few tweaks to the ship and it would be a fun addition and give the backers what they pledged for, instead they killed it. Before 3.0 the flight model was good and this meant that anybody could kill everybody it just took skill. Now its get a gladius or die.

Hopefully once the physicalized components and armor and all that comes in, guns will do what they were designed to do with their respective sizes/calibers and masses of ships will react respectively requiring engines powerful enough and flight surfaces large enough to move them (design/chassis limiting of course). that will definitely bring a “logical” balance to the game. I was under the impression that this game is supposed to be a “pseudo realistic” space sim, I’d like to see it become so.

OMG....I have been saying this since it was concepted. It was inevitable....this ship should never have been created.

I thought it was fine the way it was... they could have just nerfed the alpha damage a lil bit and nerfed its turn rate slightly and I think it would been perfect. I think the next story should be how horrible the inferno is.

I think CIG's fear of the meta smacks of spaceship "equity" and the nerfing afterwards is more than a little dishonest. But the Ion debate has also enraged another vocal group... the pvp purists. I hate to shatter the illusion, but not all ships should be created equal. To both the inclusive developer and whiny pvp'r I say, the $250 fighter armed with super canon and flown by a mediocre pilot, should handily defeat the $90 fragile leaf flown by the diehard wannabe. What else would you expect?!

I think the whole Ares thing has been blown out of proportion aside from the game being too buggy to support any ship/gun capable of one shotting anything. Half the time people will just think they got desync rammed or some other buggy non-sense happened. There are lots of mechanics that could be used to make the Ares weapons harder to use against small fighters, and the ship it self was and is a bit too maneuverable, but I agree the whole big gun bomber concept either needs to be sub optimal as a multi-role out of the gate, or it will just be inherently overpowered.

Had both ,,, melted both.... both are situational and work for how you want but depends on you gumshoe as to beating that dead horse??? :beats it till there only glue left: and nobody gonna stop me.... joking keep up the good work ronin hope things look up soon for the hardware take care.

ares and meta you can't say this words in one sentcen , since ares is a gun platform for one special task , and not a light medium or heavy fighter

Remove the ares s7 and make a symmetrical 2xs5 version instead.. then i would consider one.. cause having to rely on a single weapon in combat makes you useless in "cqc" if it gets damaged/destroyed

The Ares is a mess. Even with two ways about it.

The Ares Ion is the definition of bait and switch or maybe false advertising.

I had an Ares and I melted it after flying the Ion. I refuse to own an Ares because of the mentality it brings about to the game and the people that use them. Call it a Boycott if you want. But as you said if there is one thing I understand most in my 28 years of online gaming experience. It is how PVP'ers think when it comes to Meta. We all saw this shit storm the moment the Ares concept sale started.