The Lumberjack Part 1 : Piloting a Lumberjack

[Phoebe]

Alright; so you want to Pilot a Lumberjack. 

First of all;- I'm really bad at guides.

Look at this post as a Phoebe's Perspective Post and not as an absolute guideline to how the Lumberjack should be used.


1. Before the match

First determine which ship you're going to use that can hold a Lumberjack.  The only ships that can are the Goldfish; Galleon and Spire.  Which map and enemy ship selections should have an impact on your choice.  I would generally recommend:

- Only use a "Lumberfish" if the Enemy takes a Spire or Galleon and you plan on scoring all your points against that ship; and that ship only.  Against a spire - just keep the lumberjack aimed steady at it and it will explode without the need to get it bouncing.  Galleons will likely drop and bounce a little before they are destroyed;- you can speed the process of kills up if you take a light flak with Charged ammo to use after your Lumberjack finished a clip on a bouncing Galleon.  They can bounce a long time if they have a full-time engineer on both hull and balloon;- so the light flak will make sure a single engineer on the hull is no longer enough to survive.  *if your team ship is nearby;- just keep using the Lumberjack to bounce the Galleon;- it will explode eventually;- but your team ship can easily finish it off while you make sure it can't recover.

Do not use "Lumberfishes" against other ships;- and try to avoid them if they are paired with a Spire or Galleon.

- Only use a Spire with a Lumberjack on Duel at Dawn or Fjords.  A Lumberjack Spire really has no buisness out in the open where it's just going to get destroyed by pretty much every other ship loadout.  On Fjords;- make sure you have spots but lose your own spots in the clouds.  Don't fly too high - just barely out of vision;- and use the long range available to you to support your team ship.   The only argument for using a Spire on Duel at Dawn is the improved control against the winds. 

- In almost all other situations;- use Lumberjacks on the port side of a Galleon with a mercury on top;- either a single Lumberjack with a Typhon or double Lumberjacks.   You *can* put a hwacha next to it;- but since you are going to play a role of Area Denial;- the hwacha won't come into action unless the enemy is carelessly flying in your apocalyptic zone of destruction.  Two Lumberjacks would almost always be better than a Hwacha next to one;- because destroying a ship that tries to get close is a lot more efficient than taking down their guns if they succeed to do so.  The typhon is there to brutally finish ships off at medium ranges;- something the Hwacha can't do and the Lumberjack is slightly less efficient at once Hull armor and Balloon are down.

2. The properties of a Lumberjack : What Pilots need to know.

Some bullet points you really really have to know and respect about Lumberjacks - each of these equally as important.

- The Lumberjack has an arming time of .8 seconds;- which means it will only do primary damage if the projectile takes longer than that to hit an enemy ship.   This translates to "Close is bad."  - You want the secundary damage to kick in.
      * If an enemy ship approaches you;- start full reversing very early to extend the time in which you have the advantage of                           distance.
      * If an enemy ship is in your face; don't keep your Lumber aimed at it.  Either point your other guns at it or simply flee and take cover at your team ship. It's pointless.  Just fleeing and gaining distance again or trying to shake them off is often the best choice.
      * Advise the Gunner to take ammo which allows them to play a little with projectile speeds to deal with distance issues.  (IE: Greased and Heavy short, Lesmok long)

- The lumberjack has a tiny downward angle; but a massive if not the biggest upward angle out of any other gun. It is a mortar after all.

      * This is very important to know.  You can still hit almost every ship if you are far below; hugging the ground - even if they are almost above you.  You lose gunner range on ships if you fly too high above however.  You can actually go very low to increase the distance and let the arming time kick in easier as an alternative tactic.  Just beware of carronades.
      * The lumberjack has massive arched shots.  The lower you fly;- the easier it is for your gunner to hit the target.  If you fly equally as high as a ship that is moving;- chances are your gunner will miss entire clips.  If you fly about 5 ship lengths below;- it gets gradually easier for them to hit in the exact same situation.

Why is this?

If you fly on equal level of the ship you are trying to hit;- the Lumberjack has to shoot straight ahead.   Now;- I don't know if you ever played any of the Worms games - but this gives the projectile a medium arch and starts descending very rapidly.  The gunner has to aim much higher than the ship to actually hit the target at larger distances;- and this can be very difficult - a tiny mouse movement can cause entire clips to start missing instead of hitting.

If you fly very low however;- the Lumberjack naturally already has to aim at a higher angle.  This flings the Projectile at a much greater arch;- almost straight up;- and due to gravity it will not start descending until it reaches a maximum height.  This allows the gunner to point pretty much at the ship itself and still hit - or only slightly above it at massive ranges.

Not sure if you're still with me.  Just remember :  Fly higher than target = Alright at distance.  Terrible close.  Fly equal = bad in every situation.  Fly a lot lower than target = excellent.

- The Lumberjack reacts extremely violent to ship movement.

   * If you are turning to a target;- don't counter steer until you're almost pointing at the ship directly.  If you counter steer continuesly;- the tiny ship movement will translate to the projectiles coming out of the Lumberjack;- and the first clip will just fly off in every direction based on which countersteer movement you're doing.  Just stop steering a single time;- and then counter steer very lightly to bring the turning accelerations to a complete stop;- then don't touch the turning engines at ALL unless your lumberjack completely loses firing range.
   * Once you set up a good camp to shoot at an enemy ship that is not firing back or posing an immediate threat - always cancel all throttle and try to come to a complete dead stop.  Don't keep traveling.

- The Lumberjack doesn't have a large cone of effect.

    * If your Lumberjack gunner isn't firing for a while and he or she doesn't communicate;- doublecheck your linings to make sure you're actually pointing it at the enemy ship.  It has a nasty small cone.  More experience with this gun will allow you to easier determine when your ship needs to turn.


3. Some additional features of the Lumberjack you might find interesting. 

- The Lumberjack;- if gunned by someone who hits with it, will always win against Mercuries.
- The Lumberjack destroys pretty much every balloon in two hits regardless of where you hit;- and will often destroy hull armor on the third or fourth successive hit. *At the same time*  This makes it a Hellhound Carronade for larger distances with an inbuilt Gatling gun.  Sounds powerful enough?
- The Lumberjack can kill a Spire in a single Burst Round clip (7 shots)  if their Engineer isn't quick enough.  It will almost surely kill a Spire in two clips even if one Engineer is fulltime on the Hull.  Yes;- this means from full health/spawn down to exploding.


Alright I'll add a Gunner part sometime later this week;- where I'll talk about my perspective on which Ammo to use; which aim angles to use;- how to use the map to aid your aiming, etcetera.  This was just for pilots.

[Connor Mc.]

*salute* needed that guide

[-Muse- Cullen]

Salute indeed! I've wanted to start trying out the Lumberjack on a ship, and with your guide, I can hopefully help my gunners do some damage.

[Lord Dick Tim]

I managed to get 15 minutes in game and used this guide in a practice mode to line a galleon up, and shoot the gun myself.  Got a good understanding of its limitations now.

[HamsterIV]

I don't often take the lumberjack into battle since I can't rely on pub game gunners to hit what they are aiming at. Thanks for the tips especially the high angle one. I played worms back in the day, but usually used grenades and ninja rope.

[Phoebe]

I don't often take the lumberjack into battle since I can't rely on pub game gunners to hit what they are aiming at. Thanks for the tips especially the high angle one. I played worms back in the day, but usually used grenades and ninja rope.

"Pub game gunners"  will never learn to aim a Lumberjack until captains man up and put them on their ships and provide reasonable learning curve through proper flying to get these gunners trained up on them.

That's exactly what this thread is trying to motivate.

Lumberjack is easily the one weapon that needs the MOST attention from a pilot in order to make it worth using for the gunner out of any weapon.   The pilots experience with it is even more impotant than the gunners experience with it.

I have been trying to save this weapon from it's position where it's only used in "fun games" by more advanced crews- and quickly discarded by everyone else because they think the weapon just sucks - because they can't utilize it and do not understand it's uses and limitations.

Train a local gunner up to be a beast ;- train yourself in piloting first.

[HamsterIV]

Lumberjack is easily the one weapon that needs the MOST attention from a pilot in order to make it worth using for the gunner out of any weapon.   The pilots experience with it is even more impotant than the gunners experience with it.

In my experience most weapons fit on a slope of pilot skill to gunner skill. The Hellhound requires almost no gunner skill but a ton of pilot skill, the Manticore requires a moderate ammount of both, and the Lumberjack/Heavy Flack require almost no pilot skill and a ton of gunner skill. I don't consider sitting still with the gun pointed in the direction of a target at range to be a very high skill maneuver. It is beyond the grasp of many new captains to park their ship and let their gunners do their job, but that is a failure at the tactical level not the pilot skill level.

Perhaps I am wrong, since I don't "man up" and utilize these difficult weapons.

[Phoebe]

and the Lumberjack/Heavy Flack require almost no pilot skill and a ton of gunner skill.


You are indeed very wrong here;- some of the recent pilots I'm jacking for can give you a rundown on how long it takes them for their lumbership to start being effective; in terms of how much they have to know and take into account as captains.

I've been teaching AquaMac and Lockheart to pilot LB ships - I know I can gun them;- they're not halfway yet to really have gotten everything down and I'm well 20 hours on my way;- and they are not exactly new players to GoIO

[RearAdmiralZill]

Its really just a matter of flying style. For instance, the way you fly a hwacha-fish is completely different from a lumber-fish. It requires much more pilot-to-gunner communication. That is attributed to the range (and arming time) as well as arc. Lumberjack's horizontal arc is tiny.

I will disagree that this requires more pilot skill than gunner skill. It is more even to me. Yea, it takes a good pilot to hold aim and get the right altitude and range, but the gunner has to compensate for the fact its an airship that doesnt just sit still all the time, and be able to make those extremely long range shots that it can manage.

The reason its not used in Pub games is that 1/2 the time, your gunner isnt saying anything to you. Then its like a 35% chance he's got lesmok for the long shots you need to make. I love the lumberjack, but you wont sell it as this easy thing to use. It takes practice, and fairly good gunning/piloting + communication between them to pull off correctly. Its fairly easier if youre rolling a galleon with them, ill admit, but nothing close to the ease of Hwacha or Carronade. Id also say the Flak is just as hard (effectively) to use now as Lumberjack.

[Moriarty]

Id also say the Flak is just as hard (effectively) to use now as Lumberjack.

You know what, Maybe your not so bad Zill.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Id also say the Flak is just as hard (effectively) to use now as Lumberjack.

You know what, Maybe your not so bad Zill.

Im going to assume that isnt sarcasm, hah. I try.

[Mowinckel]

Another thing, if you shoot the lumberjack with lesmoc rounds, each "tick" on the gun is what you need to counter the bullet drop on a distance of 1000 meter
1000 meter is the height/width of a Square on the map, so you can know where to aim with a quick look at your map

[Morblitz]

Sorry Mowinckel but that isn't accurate.

Squares are not the same size on every map. Every map has the same amount of squares (even duel at dawn), but no map is exactly the same size. Doing it by squares is an extremely rough and imperfect guide to aid visual sighting. It helps, but it's not precise.

The map in which it is the most accurate though is Dunes. It works pretty nicely on that map.

[Mowinckel]

huh... did not know that, thank you for telling me, will not make that mistake again :p

[Morblitz]

No problem, because KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!