Rate my goldfish stratergy

[Puggerugger]

Hello everybody. I am new to the main goi community and can't wait to start. Whenever I join a forum for a multi player game I play my favourite thing to for my first post is to throw out my tactics and ideas and see how everybody reacts. I am still low ranking right now but me and my crew have got our strategy.

We tried out all the ships, if we liked them in practise we went into a game with them. If the game went awfully we reconsidered our strategy. We have finally found a way too recover from our permanent losing spree with this battle plan and haven't lost a game since apart from that one time our pilot had to go and we got some stupid engineer who wouldn't let our gunner go on the manticore. So please, no questions till the end then bombard me with constructive criticisms and have a good laugh at this likely terrible strategy.

Ship

The fairy cake is, as I said, a goldfish. Our gun arrangement. sound quite odd but please, as I said, no questions till the end. Our front gun, manticore. Both our side guns, flamethrowers (hands down.)

Crew

Pilot & Captain, Mojo. Loadout: Tar, Kerosene, impact bumpers, spanner, charged rounds.

Mojo stays on the wheel the whole time. He uses Tar for when we pass right by them to leave them choking in it, Kerosene to get us moving when damaged and to close distances when we are exposed to heavy weaponry and bumpers for ramming and being rammed. The spanner is there just in case worst comes worst and all engies are busy and he has to just quickly rebuild the balloon also he however gets on a gun but just for whatever reason he needs to go on the flamethrower for a sec he has charged rounds. As I said though, he always stays on the wheel.

Gunner (me,) Pugg. Loadout: Spyglass, wrench, burst rounds, incendiary rounds, low-recoil rounds.

I stay on the manticore pretty much the whole time but I use the spyglass to help mark targets when my gun is reloading. I have the wrench because it’s a good all rounder for rebuilding and repairing meaning I can help out decently in an emergency or smack my gun if it’s damaged when it’s reloading. I mainly use the burst rounds when bombarding enemy ships so that no matter where I hit the entire vessel takes a lot of damage. I use the incendiary rounds on the balloon to mix things up every once in a while if the enemy are taking a lot of damage. The low recoil rounds turn the spread from “if it’s past mid range cross your fingers” to basically none at all. This means I can attack from long range if I predict my target well.

Engie A, Ash. Loadout: Spyglass, Mallet, Spanner, Extinguisher, charged rounds.

Ash spends most of his time on deck keeping things ship shape, jumping on the flamethrower from now to then when a target is in range. We use the charged rounds with the flamethrower in order to maximize the damage we can perform in the window of time he has to attack the target. Like me, he has the spyglass to spot a target if he sees one. He uses a spanner for rebuilding and a mallet for repairing and in the event of a fire he runs to put it out. As for how he works with pineapple, they spread out in an emergency. Usually pineapple gets the guns and hull and ash gets the engines and balloon.

Engie B, Pineapple. Loadout: Spyglass, Mallet, Spanner, Hammer, charged rounds.

Same as above but when he isn’t fixing things or setting things on fire he keeps the manticore and hull armour buffed.

Battle plan

When we spawn, or we are just out of the action and ship shape, engineer A loads up the flame-throwers with charged rounds engineer B starts buffing the main engine and I Start loading up the manticore with low recoil rounds. Ash then stays on the main deck on standby, pineapple continues with buffing several components and I head the roof to go on lookout duty. We then head towards the battle. If any of us spot a target we mark them and go into our battle formation. I will get on the manticore and as soon as I am pointing at the target I open fire. I will keep on firing the low recoil rounds until we get to mid range. Mojo will get us behind them (if we are in front of our target when we get near he will drop some tar for them to go head first into.) It's at this point that I will keep bombarding them with burst rounds. Eventually I will have destroyed there engines, hopefully some guns and at least badly damaged their hull armour (If they are taking a while or we are in the rinse and repeat phase of our attack I will throw in some incendiary rounds at the balloon to mix things up). Due to their destroyed engines they will come to a rapid halt. We don't. Mojo goes full speed ahead and rams them with impact bumpers on. They then unpredictably (why we need two flamethrowers) slide to either our port or our starboard. Either I or Mojo will call which side they will be at. We then slow down to maximize the time they are stuck next to us and one of the engineers gets them with the corresponding flamethrower. This will severely damage, if not destroy the balloon causing them to fall and take damage and does lots of damage to their hull. When they are out of flamethrower range we turn around and I hit them with the manticore burst rounds again. The situation for them just keeps getting worse and worse until they are destroyed.

In the event that…

We are being circled

Drop tar for them to fly into and then turn around to attack or stall them to give us time to turn round to attack. Once I hit them once with the manticore they lose their engines and there all ours.

At the broadside of a galleon

Go low until out of range. Get in front of them then ascend until level with them. Drop tar. Keep ascending until on top on target. Then go behind them, turn around and begin the chase.

Being chased

Ironically we are also very weak from behind. If we are being chased we go around a dust cloud, we might use kerosene to get closer. Our pursuers either go through it in which case we turn and attack their engines so that they are stuck in there. Or if they follow us round we drop tar for them to go into then we turn and attack or if they go around that tar we usually have enough time to turn before they can attack again.

We are in a dust/tar cloud

Unless we’d rather be in there than outside and facing our enemies, we just kerosene out of there.

So please tell me what you think but don’t be too mean.
It can't be too bad, after all we've won at beginner level using this tactic.

[dragonmere]

Welcome to GoIO, and more importantly, the community!

Your strategy is entirely sound, wonderfully so for a brand new player, so I'm going to be critical. Again: GOOD strategy, but criticism the the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Not too sure about the side flame throwers. My standard loadout for a Goldfish is Manticore and 2 gatling guns. Since chain guns have piercing damage, you will be ripping their hull armor down quickly, which throws their engineers into a state of panic, and opens them up for the kill from your teammate. Strategy is to disable whenever possible with the Manticore, just as you already are doing, and when reloading or out of arc, strip their hull armor with the chain guns. Chaingun gives you quite a bit more range than flamethrower, so it helps your role as support ship. If your teammate is going in for the kill, you can disable the enemy so he is a sitting duck (quack quack) then switch to side guns to help him finish the enemy off much faster.

I'm assuming you enjoy having the flames on the sides, and if it's fun and works for you, definitely ignore what I said about side gats, and keep it up! I am having some second thoughts about charged for flamethrower, however. The main role for flame is to spread high stacks of fire all over their ship. You aren't exactly going for outright damage, which is what Charged Rounds give you. As such, you might have better luck with other ammo types. Greased rounds will give you some extra ammo and let  you dump your entire clip faster. More ammo shot faster means a chance at more stacks of fire. Lesmok round will give your flamethrowers a little more reach, and for quite a while has been the 'standard' go-to clip for flamethrowers as far as I'm aware.

You are definitely good on with your ammo choice for the Manticore. Heavy Clip for anything beyond close range, and burst to quickly disable damn near everything on their ship in one go. I have no comment on incendiary rounds, as they were very recently tweaked, and might be fully viable now. If you can get the balloon down quickly with one clip on a regular basis, I'd say stick with it. Otherwise I'd suggest charged rounds for the scenario where you have already disabled their entire ship with burst, but still have a good close-range shot. If components are disabled, all the damage that hits them gets transferred to the hull, so charged round Manticore on a disabled ship can lay out quite a bit of hull abuse.

Outside of your loadouts, you and your crew have a very good grasp on teamwork and strategy. The only questionable bit would be ramming with the Goldfish. It sounds like your primary goal is not damage, but just to give yourself an advantageous facing. This may work well now, but you will be running into pilots that use moonshine to prevent their ships from turning due to rams. If the ship you are ramming has moonshine activated during the time of impact, the moonshine conveys a 1000% 'penalty' to angular drag (turn) the enemy will not spin at all. You will most likely be the ones getting the full torque from the impact, and the only one turing. If it IS your plan to spin your own ship in order to get a side-gun facing, this might not be that bad. Just some food for thought. Here is my post about the use of moonshine for ship stabilization; https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1056.msg17422.html

All in all, I would highly recommend jumping out of the beginner rooms and playing some matches against higher leveled players. There is a good chance you will get destroyed, but if you are already bringing that much thoughtful strategy and coordinated teamwork to your ship, I'd say you are fully ready for it. Getting your face stomped into the dirt, then asking for suggestions/tips/criticism from the enemy/ally ships is the best way to learn this game!

Welcome to the community, and hope to see you in the skies soon!

[HamsterIV]

Ship layout: manticore is a very good all round weapon, it will take a while to bring down the hull armor but once it is down the manticore will wipe out permahull very quickly, try teaming up with a ship that does piercing or flechette damage for stripping hull armor. The flamethrowers were nerfed out of the meta a couple of patches ago, but the most recent patch has buffed them some and they may have a comeback.

Pilot: very good loadout, but impact bumpers are only useful if you intend on ramming a lot (which is not the goldfish's strength). Try experimenting with hydrogen or chute vent. When used at the right time, they can save you ship.

Gunner: Most of us call "recoil reduction rounds," "heavy clip." Heavy clip and burst are the two best ammo types for the manticore. Ideally the gunner would never leave his post so the side guns will always be manned by an engie. The gunner should take the same ammo type as the engies as to not unload their ammo if the gunner has to run to a side gun for some strange reason.

Engineers: Engineers should carry the same ammo so as to not unload the other person's ammo type when they jump on a side gun. Lesmok extends the range of the flame throwers where as greased increases the particles per second (more fire stacks faster). Don't use charged rounds in the flame thrower since the gun does not do direct damage. Decide before hand if range or dps is more important for the flame thrower and have everyone take the corresponding ammo.

Battle Plan: On a goldfish there is usually one dedicated hull engie, and one roiving engie. Things can be pretty fluid but due to the ship's low hull armor you need at least one engie within two meters of the hull at all times during combat. Any further away and a good enemy can drop your hull armor before you can get to it. Ramming can be a legitimate strategy, but it has its down sides especially for a front weapon ship like the goldfish. Every second your front gun is loaded but not aimed at the enemy is lost DPS. I prefer to park at close range and unload the manticore, then swivel for a side gun until the manticore is reloaded, then unload again. Ramming is usually reserved for the final blow, or to bump my enemies guns out of firing arc.

[Shinkurex]

Yup pretty much agree with Dragonmere here.... It's a solid build (Personally I like flares over flame throwers but meh).... with the rise of tar, and the physics fix making hydrogen a bit underpowered. I tend to run with chute vent. This usually lets me escape rams and tar clouds... most of the time keeping you still in arc of my guns (Dragonmere, you may have fallen victim to this once or twice ^_^)... how do you handle the team tactics? that may be the one thing that will kill you quickly in the higher matches... If you guys rush in with that ram, while your allies are sticking back, you're going to be in a world of hurt (usually).

[JaegerDelta]

I, personally, love the missle flamer combo, though that may be more nostalgia for the flamer glory days than anything but it still remains a solid close range disable, good job

However, if you are going for kills and not a support role, dragonmere is absolutely right about the gatling guns.

Also a good tip for goldfish combat is to fly it like it is a fish. fish swim side to side, you mimic that movement in your flying and you get max dps (there is a reason it is named the goldfish). during the reloads on the hwatcha point your side gun at them, it only takes a slight turn to get the enemy in arc. this works well with gatlings on the side during a chase or approach, but works just as well in a flamer brawl.

[RomanKar]

One more piece of advice that I have found is critical in more competitive matches -- buff the Manticore.  If you have a good crew, this should not be a problem.  Seems that you're buffing most everything else. 

For those that don't know, you can fill up the bar on the left all the way to the last hit and it will stay that high until another buff hammer hits it, and then the buff will start on the right side bar.

Buffed Burst Manticore shots are just brutal.  When I run my goldfish, it is rare that a Manticopre shot goes off without being buffed.

I've been experimenting with the side guns quite a bit.  Good thing about Gats or even the newly buffed Banshee is the turn radius.  IMO, flamethrowers just don't do enough. 

[HamsterIV]

Last I checked the banshee and flamethrower have approximately equal turn radii. The gat is slightly smaller. If you want to talk king of the turn radius, talk flare gun. I have flares on both sides of my goldfish. Watching a ship loose its balloon because the engineers didn't notice the flare you shot them with is one of the game's great joys.

[N-Sunderland]

The flamer has a good turning radius, but the turning speed hurts it quite a bit, especially after equipping lesmok.