Moonshine vs Kerosene

[MerkQT]

Hi all,

This is my first post since I've started playing this awesome game.

My friends and I have recently just started playing and have seemingly found our groove and playstyle. We love building the Pyra for ramming as I believe we are all in love with the concept of extremely aggressive in-your-face gameplay. However, I've got a few questions and was hoping someone could help me out with them.

At the moment our play-style is as follows; We have two mercury cannons situated on the upper deck and two gatling guns on our broadside. Our pilot flies with hydrogen, claw and kerosene and will maneuver us in a way that we are distanced enough to unload two clips of Mercury fire before impact. We have one engineer dedicated almost full time to the engines and hull and one that is almost always at our balloon repairs and sniping. I am dedicated with the task of gunner, and I will also run around buffing in our downtime. At the moment we are loving our build and have currently won 3 games consecutively without taking any direct hull damage.

We are wondering, however, how much better moonshine may be for us to take rather than kerosene. The idea of moving 50% faster than kerosene is appealing, but the extra damage to engines and maneuverability seems pretty hefty. We have found that ships that take out our balloon or engines immediately gain an upper hand, so losing engines or having extreme engine stress while under fire could potentially mean we lose.

Sorry if that was long winded, the game has that effect on me. It's really one of the best team orientated games I've played and it gets me pumped up! Any feedback or suggestions is greatly welcomed.

Thanks!

[Mill Wilkinson]

Considering that you pull a ram-build and ponder about the benefit of Moonshine, here's something:

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php?topic=1056.0

You'll find it interesting, but comments are probably unnecessary, as the thread seems dead.

[MerkQT]

Excellent, I very much appreciate the response and the link. By the looks of it, Kerosene and Moonshine seem to be a good choice to pick together rather than being exclusive to each other. I like that 

[Calico Jack]

There are two main differences between them - speed aside.

Moonshine will stop you from turning - a good thing if you have  glancing ram as your ship will not spin around and expose your engines to the enemy. Because of this property it is also used to counter rams.

Kerosene will allow you to turn - as it causes less damage you can start to use it earlier in the ram and adjust your aim if your target is moving away from you.

[N-Sunderland]

Kerosene and moonshine together was a thing back when kerosene increased turning speed. Now it's best to only bring one.

And just to note: moonshine does still allow you to turn, albeit at a greatly reduced rate. Kerosene does this too, but to a much lesser degree.

[MerkQT]

Thanks Calico and Sunderland.

It sounds like Moonshine would be the way to go then, Our pilot likes to use claw to compensate for the poor turning speed of the Pyra. If at all possible to answer, what sort of damage increase could we expect to see from the 50% increased speed? Is there somewhere to read up on the damage calculations of ramming?

[N-Sunderland]

The exact numbers aren't out there, but you'll certainly see a pretty major damage boost. In addition, thanks to moonshine's angular drag increase you'll be able to keep your guns on the enemy after a ram. When you ram without moonshine, your ship'll probably end up pointing in the wrong direction, but with moonshine you'll be held in place. Kerosene isn't as good at doing that.

[Calico Jack]

The trick to ramming as a pilot is to watch the damage log at the top left - the pilot should start ramming once a ship's armour goes. A visual clue is when you see a black cloud and wreckage dropping from the target ship. Once you get the timing right you can actually start a ram and have the front weapons take out the armour just as you impact on the target.

Practice on the target drones in the Sandbox to get the feel for what you should be doing as a crew.

[Calico Jack]

Personally I prefer kerosene - you can offset about 90% of bad bounces by steering into a target, in other words be turning into a target as you impact.

[James T. Kirk]

Moonshine rams will SERIOUSLY mess up a Spire.

[MerkQT]

Thanks Sunderland, I assume this also means that getting rammed with moonshine active also causes little movement? (Just want to confirm)

At the moment Calico we are using the Mercury guns to attempt to break hull amour before our ram. Both myself and the Gungineer will have two buffed guns and we will unload the first clip. We then report to our pilot as we are reloading and he activates Kerosene to ram (All engines are usually buffed at this time). After this we usually only have precious few moments to unload another clip before impact. at the moment it's not destroying a target upon contact, but the sustained fire (if possible) will drop the enemy after a few more hits.

It probably will be a good idea for us to go and practice on dummies as you suggested, because I feel at the moment with the increase Moonshine will give us that we can't unload another round. We will need to work on our timings.

Another quick question; Does angle of altitude play any part in damage, or is it only forward speed?

[MerkQT]

Just out of curiosity Calico, What buffs do you use as a pilot?

[Captain Smollett]

It's actually the relative velocity as far as I can tell that effects impact damage along with the relative weights of the ships.

So a head on collision, with both ships going full speed into each other does more damage and a Pyra (second heaviest ship) ramming into a Squid (lightest ship) will always result in way more damage to the squid.

Angle of attack doesn't matter but point of impact does.  If you hit the balloon with your ram, like you frequently will against a Junker, the balloon will take damage not the hull.  If you hit a gun with the ram, you'll actually break the enemy gun.  Relative angle of attack does matter though in determining the orientation the ships will have after the ram.

[MerkQT]

Gotcha, Thanks Smollett.

[Calico Jack]

Moonshine rams will SERIOUSLY mess up a Spire.

just Pyra seriously messses up a spire, you don't even need moonshine