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Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

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Agent Of Change:
Ok so I am brand new to this forum and the game (only playing for about a week now) and my Clan has jumped in enmasse so we've been playing with different strategies and builds as n00bs are wont to do. Now in case this has been discussed before I did a couple quick searches to see if this had come up and didn't find anything so i apologize if I'm duplicating something.

What I wanted to ask about/comment on was what we have come to call the Gunmander postion.  I would be shocked into a heart attack if we were the first to  experiment with the pilot NOT being the captain, but as i said I didn't see it mentioned in my quick searches.

The Gunmander: A Primary Gunner who acts in all cases as the captain, directing the ship, selecting the targets and coordinating with friendly captains in addition to manning the guns.

We have discovered on smaller or more open ships (Goldfish, junker, and squid so far) Having the Gunner call the shots works very well.  It requires good communication with your pilot and a good amount of chemistry with your crew (as does pretty much any effective crew really) but it has allowed us to be quite successful in our own estimation early on and certainly no worse off than other ships with pilots as their captain.

The pitfalls we've seen have mostly been in properly relaying friendly ship communication and miscommunication/misunderstandings on deck but those are getting less and less frequent with practice.

I'm curious if other folks have experimented with this?  If you have other ships it might work/not work on?  If you have played around with other roles as captain?

Alistair MacBain:
Hard but true thing ... No.
The one who makes the first move/decision is the pilot thus it makes most sense to have him actually deciding what to do. Its his job to watch the map and know what the enemy does. As engineer youre to busy repairing and as gunner you should also observe whats happening on your ship.
The pilot has to keep the terrain in mind and know where his ally and the enemy is and how they are positioned.
It doesnt make sense to have the gunner give the call to burn hydro to stay alive when its the pilot who will most likely observe the situation first and who should realize the hp and armor of his ship.
If the gunner is the one making the call you just prolong the decision which is pretty bad when youre fighting kill builds which can kill you in a matter of seconds.
He is also the one with the easiest communication with his allied ship. Youre fighting with 2 ships on each side. Not 1.

On your current lvl it might work out that way but as soon as people get more experienced you will suffer as the prolonged decision is all what a decent opponent needs to kill you.
It doesnt mean that you can mix things up but in the end its the pilot who does the move and not the gunner.

HamsterIV:
It is possible to boss people about from any position on the ship. There have been times when flying with an all noob crew that I have directed the ship from the position of main engineer, telling the captain which direction to turn and what throttle setting he should be at. If the person who is flying the ship is OK with another player usurping their authority the more power to you.

By convention pubic games have the person in the Commander slot be a pilot and be in charge of the ship. If you are with your clan you can fly however you like. I remember flying with Charon and Sushi (two of the founders of the ducks) where Charon would gun and Sushi would fly. Caron would take the captain slot because he has a much more commanding presence on the mic, and direct the team and ship from the nose gun of a goldfish.

Pilot captains tend to be the norm because the pilot has more time to look around and asses the over all situation. This includes what the other ships are doing and if there are any crewmen out of place. Gunners tend to suffer tunnel vision when there is a hard to hit target, and engineers are too busy with their Parkour when things get hot. While this Gunmander is not a horrible idea I don't think you have stumbled upon the new meta.

Agent Of Change:
I suspect that that might become a barrier.

We tried it as an experiment and were surprised at how well it did work.  It's actually been an interesting partnership between the gunner and the captain when we run that.  I suspect it might work to better or worse degrees depending on the people involved as well.

The way it's been mostly working is that the Gunmander doesn't dictate how the flying is done just what he needs for guns and the larger strategic picture, the pilot provides information, and directs the engineers where necessary.  That might create some lag, as for inter ship communication we just drop the gunner into the captain slot and let him speak to the other ships and go from there.

I can see where that might create lag or delay against 'kill builds' but it'll be interesting to see how far this can take us I suppose.

Agent Of Change:

--- Quote from: HamsterIV on December 08, 2014, 02:30:40 pm ---It is possible to boss people about from any position on the ship. There have been times when flying with an all noob crew that I have directed the ship from the position of main engineer, telling the captain which direction to turn and what throttle setting he should be at. If the person who is flying the ship is OK with another player usurping their authority the more power to you.

By convention pubic games have the person in the Commander slot be a pilot and be in charge of the ship. If you are with your clan you can fly however you like. I remember flying with Charon and Sushi (two of the founders of the ducks) where Charon would gun and Sushi would fly. Caron would take the captain slot because he has a much more commanding presence on the mic, and direct the team and ship from the nose gun of a goldfish.

Pilot captains tend to be the norm because the pilot has more time to look around and asses the over all situation. This includes what the other ships are doing and if there are any crewmen out of place. Gunners tend to suffer tunnel vision when there is a hard to hit target, and engineers are too busy with their Parkour when things get hot. While this Gunmander is not a horrible idea I don't think you have stumbled upon the new meta.

--- End quote ---

Thanks for the feed back.  We don't really PUG at all there are enough of us that that will rarely be an issue for now but I see what you are saying.  your example is exactly the situation that led me to try this, my pilot wanted to fly but nothing else and I'm the groups founder so people tend to listen to me anyway so it made sense to see if it would work.  And on a goldfish too no less. :)

Your points are well taken though and definitely things to consider.  I appreciate the feedback.  I'm not looking to create a new meta, just figure out what works first... then we'll figure out the new meta. :)

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