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Some obvious or not obvious inquiries

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Claxus:
Kinda new, but I'll try to not bore you guys with overly obvious stuff. Some of this is opinionated, at any rate.

1.) Range finder. Okay, I know how it works, but... Is it as pointless as I think? As a pilot who could have a more intuitive skill, anyway. Good players should really be able to judge (roughly) distance and how to lead/arc shots, right? The biggest issue is this game is chock-full of clouds, and I've had entire games where it's been unusable because it seems even the most invisible clouds block it.

2.) Gunner ammo. I noticed a gunner can load ammo, then dismount, and the weapon will have the skill icon still. Can a gunner go around loading shots on weapons for anyone's use?

3.) Moonshine or... Kerokero. Is a 50% difference of moonshine worth the 200% more it hurts compared to kerosene? 200% thrust is no joke, but I activate it for two seconds and R.I.P. engines. It's saved me from ramming and flames... But did it save me? I wonder if engineers would have an easier time with our side getting burned than three engines burned up.

4.) Harpoon. Proof of concept or useful? I really like this thing, but I can't help but feel having firepower outweighs it in any case. How strong is the reel, really, and is the damage more than just 'well, it does something more than nothing?' Brainstorming, it feels like even a specialized close range ship is better off with a gun... Can a Squid save the day by reeling in a flamer away from a friend? Can it turn my ship into a decent ether lance if I focus on ramming with impact bumpers?

5.) Flak. Or... In general, really. Flak's effective against the hull, so... Does it pose very little threat against armor? If I shoot flak at a balloon, is it just laughable? Mostly using flak as a reference example, but I wonder how ineffectiveness works.

6.) How is a gunner useful? An engineer with the same skill is the same. But a gunner gets three... What if three engineers just collaborate skills? A dedicated gunner is good to have, but faster repairs/buff/chem spray fixes overall means more people on more guns more often, the ship will be crippled less and survive longer, and they still have a buffed ammo type. I feel like I'm missing something here...

Alistair MacBain:
1. Yes currently the range finder is kinda useless. The theory is nice but usually ppl at higher level dont need it and inexperienced people dont get any benefit from it cause they barely know which dot is which range with which ammo for guns that have iron sights (lj, hades).

2. To load a ammo in a gun you have to load it in the gun at the end of the reload cycle. As long as you are there at that end point the ammo will be loaded and you can run around with the gun still saving the ammo. That is not tied to class.
Example: You are on the frontleft of a pyra. You just shot your whole clip and your reload starts. The balloon behind you took damage and you quickly dismount and repair the balloon. Then you go back to your gun which still reloads. You mount it again and make sure your ammo is selected and once the reload finishs with you on the gun and the ammo selected the ammo is loaded and you can happily leave your gun with your ammo loaded for you when you get back to it.

3. As engineer i prefer kerosene as its much easier to keep the health of the engines up high thus allowing more speed. But i admit i dont know at which point the more damaged moonshine engine gives less speed than the less damaged kerosene engine. As a general: Use moonshine for rams and only in short bursts. Kerosene can be used much more often and longer.

4. Sadly not useful. The physics just dont work and even after a recent buff its not more than a laugh for the enemy.

5. All explosive weapons (flaks and mortar) are only useful against permahull. There is barely any point at shooting those guns unless the hull armor of the enemy is destroyed. Yes they have a theoretic chance of causing firestacks but that does not matter to much. General idea: The longer range the more frequently you can shoot the gun even if armor is still up. As long as you get your shots in on the unarmored hull once armor dies youre fine. Then its additional damage that might caused a faster kill for you than your enemy was able to do with a not shooting gun. But those are minor things that only matter at the highest lvls. In a standard pug game youre fine with waiting for your other gun to kill the armor and then start to fire at the unarmored hull.

6. Situational. Yes often engineers are much better than a gunner. (max 1 gunner per ship) Atleast for most of the guns. But there are some guns where a gunner is just much better. When you bring a gunner youre aim is to be able to use a certain gun at different ranges. Those are often guns with arming. Those guns dont deal their full damage (secondary is missing) if they hit below a certain range (dependend on ammo loaded (muzzle speed)). This means that if you bring for example greased which reduces your muzzle speed you will get the damage on the enemy at a much closer range.
Guns which benefit from gunners: Hades, Lumberjack, Minelauncher, Heavy Flak, Hwacha, Heavy carronade, light carronade
All those guns are able to do much more if you have atleast 2 ammo types for them. Other guns like a gatling or mortar just need one ammo to do their job. Yes different ammo types allow them to do other tasks aswell (gatling with heavy clip could snipe components) but thats generally not needed.
To go with the gatling example. Why should you destroy a component when its usually better to just kill the enemy armor as fast as possible and then kill the enemy right away with a mortar. Theres no need to snipe a component if you could kill the enemy much faster.
A lumberjack instead to fully explain things can use lesmok when the enemy is far away to get easier hits and hits on a further range. On midrange it could use burst or normal to get the damage on the enemy. And once the enemy gets closer you could use greased or if enemy has flamers heatsink to get damage inside the standard arming range. And if things get really messy and the enemy is even inside greased range you could load lochnagar and get the enemy balloon where no other ammo would do the job to decrease the arming range the most.


Alot of things are situational and i am not to sure bout kero gainst moonshine myself so that might be better to let someone else explain it.

Dutch Vanya:
The harpoon can be useful. Try it on the side of galleon with a hwacha and carronade.

Claxus:
Thanks for the replies. I think I'm gonna give up on the range finder.. I believe it can be useful, but 90% of the time I've never been able to use it because there's tiny pixels of cloud/fog constantly during fights. I hope they change that... Would it warrant use if it tracked (guided weapon leading) enemies even through clouds? Maybe too good? Oh well, it's just practically useless right now because it's obstructed the majority of the time.

So, I tried the Galleon. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it my primary ship (my other two favorites are Squid and Goldfish)... But I have to ask, do ships have any hidden stats? The Galleon feels so... Perfect to me. I thought it would be totally against my style because of its stats (I love versatility). But when I tried it in Practice, it seemed... Extremely responsive? It felt like it could transition from turning hard right to hard left very quick (even without the Claw, and it felt like changing the acceleration direction was also fast.

So is is the low maneuverability, in a way, a plus side? Do ships have different drag stats, or does the Galleon's mass have an effect on that? Or is it just my mind playing games and just somehow feeling very at home with how it controls?

And another question, what do pilots bring as engineer tools? I had a spanner, which sometimes I've used in emergencies if most of our controls are down (to either repair or rebuild whatever is nearest). Recently I started to run with a Dynabuff, and buff the engines and balloons when we're moving long stretches.

obliviondoll:

--- Quote from: Claxus on July 06, 2014, 09:36:23 pm ---And another question, what do pilots bring as engineer tools? I had a spanner, which sometimes I've used in emergencies if most of our controls are down (to either repair or rebuild whatever is nearest). Recently I started to run with a Dynabuff, and buff the engines and balloons when we're moving long stretches.
--- End quote ---

What I've gathered from experienced players is that a dynabuff kit is best handled by an Engineer. Taking yourself from the helm for the length of time it usually takes to buff is just too risky. Engineers can apply buffs and "pre-buffs" (stacking hits ready for a repeat buff at a moment's notice) while carrying out repairs - basically this means they're doing it without leaving their stations.

Whenever it's possible to micro-manage your engineers, it's a good idea to have the following combinations of tools:

Main Engineer:
Spanner
Mallet
Firefighting kit*

Secondary Engineer:
Wrench
Buff
Firefighting kit*

*Either one can take an Extinguisher or Chem Spray, in my opinion. Personally, the Extinguisher is more commonly found in my Engineer loadouts simply because of its ease of use against large fires. Whether you do one of each, or two the same, should be down to the Captain and Engineers and their preferences. I'd personally rather see one of each on my Engineers, but I won't object if they both prefer either one.

Usually, the only time I'll be using my Engineer tool as a Pilot is when things have gone VERY wrong and I need Engineers to stay on the hull AND weapons while we take damage, and I'll pop a Drogue Chute to give myself the time needed to rebuild a broken balloon. Any tool except the Spanner will come up short for this task, so that's my preferred option.

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