Chem loop

[greendra]

Hello!

So I was recently given the role of doing a chem loop in a pyramidion, and I am a bit confused. Today I have been practising in matches with low levels, and I seem to be able to do it okay, but when I go into the harder lobbies, it is different. The hull armour goes down in 1 or two seconds, then the mortar comes in and destroys us. I have seen other people do it, so It must just be me doing something wrong. Is there a good method or a few rules to follow?

Thanks!

[BlackenedPies]

Here are my tips


Repairs on pyra bottom involve constantly moving around in a circle. Because it's possible to get stuck, make sure not to touch anything while going to the engines. The side gun should not be used if it sacrifices repairs.

Chem is mandatory on the armor all the time. Use the spanner to repair until significant damage is taken but don't sacrifice the cycle by constantly using spanner. When tanking armor, two mallets can be used before chemming again. On cooldown move to engines unless you know the armor will break.

If your captain is doing his job, the engines will constantly take damage. By that I mean they will be burning almost 100% of the time. Before being flamed you'll need chem on engines, but chem slows down repairs per second and isn't always necessary on engines (especially with moonshine).


It's very important to not mallet armor when getting shot by a piercing weapon until the armor has taken 250 damage. If you are dying quickly this is one of the 3 most likely problems. The other is the gunner using the wrong ammo (or missing hull) and the pilot not burning enough. When up against a tough fight you'll need 3 engineers preferably with 2 buffs. Gunners are completely useless on the gat and should never be used under any circumstance.

When shooting a pyra with gat, aim for their lower part to avoid hitting components. The exception is when shooting engines, and if you're shooting engines have both the gat and mortar shoot. One clip of buffed gat can break any armor even buffed galleon armor and even when being repaired.

[MagKel]

Main Chems/Repairs on a pyra are supposed to be easiest and account for most of the survivability of the ship even after the nerf. It just required more teamwork and better timing. also, if you are standing still as a main engineer on a pyra you are doing it wrong.

 A good chem on a pyra will take into account 5 things: The hull, the 3 engines and the side gun. With a good chem or swift extinguisher on the balloon and permahull left weapon, the pyra can run into as many fire as it wants.

Remember: animations and sounds are de-synced from the actual effect on the component. You don't need to stand there and wait. this applies to every engineer tool.

there are different types of chem loops, those are the ones I call on my ship:

Movement chem: Ship is approaching target, maneuvering into position, avoiding long range enemy fire. Your priority is the health of the engines but you will maintain the hull chem.
Defensive chem: Ship is under piercing assault (ping sound), hull breach expected, if available the second engineer drops down (you have to make the call at about half armor health) and sits on hull ready for rebuild. you will chem hull only if hull is not dropping (ie: the enemy gatling is reloading) or immediately after rebuild. Ignore all other fires and instead repair the engine components (fire damage on engines is negligible at this stage compared to permahull damage).
Assault chem: Ship is breaching enemy hull with piercing weapon, second engineer is ready at the weapon, you are taking damage in the process but in the next 30 seconds you could score a kill. Your objective is to keep a 70% efficiency of all components and full health on the side weapon. Don't be a perfectionist.
Tank chem: In situations where more than one opponent is firing on your ship the captain will call "tank" and rapidly disengage using all assortments of tools. Second Engineer will sit on balloon, Gunner will drop down and sit on hull, constantly spamming the wrench. You will make sure engines are healthy for disengagement and be next to the hull when it drops below 20%. The objective is survival.
Ram chem: The pilot will call for a ram in the next 12 seconds. it means the destruction of the enemy is imminent. it is a very tricky moment where you have more don't that do: Chems are irrelevant. Immediately repair all engines for the moonshine with mallet and don't touch them again until the ram is called off, you could modify the trajectory involuntarily. The second thing you have to make absolutely sure is that hull armor is going to hold up for the expected impact damage. You have one mallet hit, make it count: all 250 hp of repair must be used so you might want to wait for a sizable amount of armor to be drained (possibly mid ram) before hitting it. Once you mallet it, run for the engines, mallet them and use the side weapon on the just rammed target if it is too stubborn to die yet. congratulations, this is your kill more than anyone else on the ship.

I am short of time, so this is the Movement Chem also known as Pleasure Ride

T 0
You want to start with the hull. This is your "first chem run". You have now 25 seconds for the chem to wear off, the equivalent of 2 rubber mallet hits. You want to mentally count to 20 and spray the right engine, the main engine from the bottom, the left engine, the side gun and be back at the hull.

it took you less than 9 seconds to chem all components, if you did this right. Notify the crew "We are chemmed".

Now what? This is the moment where you have to make independent tactical choices that will define the engagement

T 10-14

• Component damaged? Skip chem. Either Spanner or Mallet depending on level of damage
• Side weapon's ammo not loaded? Skip chem. Load required ammo
• Component undamaged. Run chem, timer goes back to 0 when you chem the hull

if you made any of the first two choices, it means you are still counting from your first chem.

Any hit with mallet after T 14 means you will have to skip chem on that component.

T 15-24 is chem time. No matter what, you will chem. the component could have a slither of health, you will chem it.

Once you chem the hull, T is 0

[Indreams]

The standard Chem Cycle is Spray-Mallet-Mallet.

Here are my tips on Pyra hull.

1.) Buff engines.
Might sound weird since we are talking about hull, but buffed engines can make all the difference. Because, with buffed engines, the ship moves "better". Without buffs, it is almost impossible for the pilot to do anything but kamikaze.
It only takes four hits to buff engines. Buffing is independent of repair cool downs. And you can always prep a buff by hitting until you have one hit left to buff.

2.) Heatsink.
You know those side guns that doesn't get too much use? Put heatsink in them. It takes something off your mind. It also takes off unnecessary steps to chem the side guns. With Heatsink, by the time the side guns are needed, the gun would have stayed alive.

3.) Double Rebuild
That hull armor on Pyra? It's weak, impossible to rebuild, and always getting damaged (The entire ship is pretty much hull). It will go down, and it takes a long time to rebuild. You MUST have at least two people with spanner on it when it goes down. That first person should be the main engi (the one on the bottom deck). The second person could be the top deck engi (One in charge of shooting and the balloon) or the pilot (who's pretty close to the hull, and pretty useless when armor goes down).
If you can get two engineer and the pilot on the hull, that's even better.

4.) First Cycle
I like to do a lap around the ship right before we engage.
Before we engages, I have buffs preped on balloon, engines, and hull. (Prep is when you buff until you are one hit away from buffing).
If I am the main engi, I start from the third gun (lower side gun).
Run to the engines, buff/spray the engines, run to the hull, buff/spray the hull, and maybe run to the balloon, buff/spray that.
If I am the top deck engi, I start from the balloon.
Buff/Spray the balloon, jump down to hull. Buff/spray hull. Run to the engines, buff/spray all of them. Run back up to top deck, ready to shoot.


When I engineer, I am spanner-mallet-buff, spanner-mallet-spray. or monkey wrench-buff-spray. Other load outs are pretty substandard and inefficient. (mallet-spanner is heresy).
Not all the above tips can be followed at once. Choose your poison, I guess. Just keeping them in mind would make you a better engineer.

Engineering gets almost instinctive. Until than, good night and good luck!

[HamsterIV]

We are veering off topic a bit but with regard to double teaming hull repairs. When I captain, I insist that my top deck engineer keep shooting even if the hull drops. Instead I ghost fly the ship and help double team the repair myself.

A good lower deck engineer will announce the hull will drop 3 seconds before it does. This gives the captain or top deck engineer a chance to get to position as the hull drop happens. Given rate of damage, time since last enemy reload, and cool down time an observant engineer can predict hull drop with reasonable accuracy.

[Indreams]

A good lower deck engineer will announce the hull will drop 3 seconds before it does. This gives the captain or top deck engineer a chance to get to position as the hull drop happens. Given rate of damage, time since last enemy reload, and cool down time an observant engineer can predict hull drop with reasonable accuracy.

I divinate hull, engine, balloon failure when I pilot. I find that engineers have too many things blowing up in their face to keep an eye on the hull. Especially Pyra lower deck. They spend half their time on the engines or the side guns, and hull is often neglected.

Regardless of whoever does it, part divination is an important part to keeping the ship alive. And a big difference between bad crews and good crews.

[c-ponter]

We are veering off topic a bit but with regard to double teaming hull repairs. When I captain, I insist that my top deck engineer keep shooting even if the hull drops. Instead I ghost fly the ship and help double team the repair myself.

A good lower deck engineer will announce the hull will drop 3 seconds before it does. This gives the captain or top deck engineer a chance to get to position as the hull drop happens. Given rate of damage, time since last enemy reload, and cool down time an observant engineer can predict hull drop with reasonable accuracy.

Personally I can think of more situations where a pilot out-manoeuvring and avoiding perma-hull damage that way rather than helping repairs would be more beneficial. That way there is no risk of ending up in a bad situation because the auto-pilot broke XD
And it depends a lot on exactly who is on your crew but with a good situationaly aware crew you could argue they will all see the hull break in advance.
A good example of this was  our ship on the mad hatters, ZanC, Schwer, Tutu and myself. I think every time I ever had to call to tank the gungineer was always already on their way and the pilot was  already dodging. It seems kinda ridiculous thinking about it but our ship was practically silent other than calling gun arcs and parts we have destroyed on the enemy ship.
As stupid as it sounds, it works, obviously you wouldn't be able to do that in a pub match but if you have a crew you play with regularly its quite easy to just see what is happening and learn how your crew will react and where you are needed

[BlackenedPies]

Personally I can think of more situations where a pilot out-manoeuvring and avoiding perma-hull damage that way rather than helping repairs would be more beneficial.

Sometimes damage cannot be avoided. Unless maneuvers are needed the pilot should help repair armor. Make sure to leave the throttle in a safe position. I recommend not using the R F throttle keys, try mouse buttons.

Every wack on broken armor makes a difference, but there is no substitute for a pilot.
If top guns won't have arc the gunner should jump to the bottom and help repair/buff.

You want chem on the armor at the latest possible time (- cooldown) before taking damage. This allows up to 20 seconds of freedom.


Mallet, engines, mallet chem = about 25s

Mallet is 27.8 repair per sec, 2x mallet + chem is 21.7, and spanner is 20.

[greendra]

Thank you all very much! This really helped me understand, but now I have to pull it off in game xD Thanks a bunch guys!