Main > Q&A

How does one effectively use (and counter) a Spire?

(1/2) > >>

UndyingUndyne:
I just plain can't figure out how to use this ship. The few times I have used it (it's currently my least-used ship), I wind up being the target of the majority of kills for the other team while being unable to get any kills myself. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against an enemy Spire, it always manages to kill me before I can even scratch it, and my only hope is to bring a Blenderfish and hope I can stay above the arc of its guns.

So how are you supposed to fly one of these things, and what kinds of guns are you supposed to bring with it? I've tried every loadout I can think of, but they're easily beaten by the enemy ships. It's easy enough to blame Novice Engineers who don't understand the concept of Gungineering, but my consistent failures seem to suggest I'm doing something completely wrong here. Not to mention I can't seem to figure out how to beat a Spire myself without resorting to a Blenderfish. How does everyone else manage to do it all?

DJ Logicalia:
I love the spire, but it has serious drawbacks, which is why I won't take it in competitive. It's my most flown ship.

With the spire, it's kill or be killed. It has the highest damage output of any single ship, but it's also very frail. So, when it's time to engage the enemy,  you need to be sure to take advantage or the spire's strengths. Make sure you're positioned advantageously, and your crew has to be shooting all the guns. Not off the guns repairing, they need to be shooting. If the hull goes down, the pilot can get off and fix it. Hwacha spires are the safest, because ideally you disable them before they take out anything major, like your guns or balloon.

However, the most effective counter to the spite is to shoot it. That's it. If your spire gets ambushed or disabled first RIP. It's a dangerous ship to fly, and it's not worth it in a lot of situations.

Schwalbe:
I probably speak bullshit, but this is how I remember I flied spires. Point out bullshit, please.

1. Long-kill build
Heavy Flak + gatling downstairs
Hades + artemis/banshee/gatling/mines (respectively left and right top)

Hades for long range armor strip, gatling/s for whenever on close range, so the flak can finish off.

Chute vent in case enemy ship tries to escape underneath, to which you skewer him to the ground
Bumpers instead of claw to fend against ramming.
Moonshine because this is deceptively good for ramming - imagine that.
If they have balloon poppers, switch either bumpers or shine for drogue chute.

Try keeping distance, strip armor, kill with good heavy flak shots. Classic.
When top right is gatling: when enemy closes too much, engie goes for second gat, so two can shoot at the same time.
When top right is artemis: both engies stay upstairs when in distance, one firing off hades, another destroying guns and components.
When top right is mines/banshee: this is captains gun. No, seriously. Wait for bastard to ram you with bumpers, and after he does, go for it, pack some punch for few seconds.

2. "Fuck you" build

Heavy carronade + mine launcher downstairs
Mine launcher + banshee/mine launcher topstairs.

Tools stays the same.

This is absolutely insane build invented by Disaster. Don't ask me how to handle that, I never tried it, just reporting that this exists and can be used in advantage. Short range, extremely aggressive. Carro pops balloon, mine launchers make sure every-fucking-thing stays down, including an ally.

3. Hwacha build

I don't remember it exactly, but I believe it's middle-short range, downstairs it's hwacha with gatling I believe, upstairs it's hades right and banshee or gatling right. Gatling for too-close-range armor strip, banshee to help secure the kill.

Believe it or not, but this is not aggresive build - you are trying to stay close enough to land hwacha and gatling shots downstairs, but yet, hades should have enough range to surpass the arming time. You are not getting too close with that thing. Unless there REALLY is a need, hwacha waits for armor break to maximize damage output both to hull and guns. The only excuse for shooting hwacha earlier is to make sure hwacha on the other side does not fuck you up.

(This is all I had time for, sorry if unsatisfactory)

Fynx:

--- Quote from: Schwalbe on February 06, 2016, 01:03:23 pm ---I probably speak bullshit, but this is how I remember I flied spires. Point out bullshit, please.

--- End quote ---

I apologise, but speaking from "effective" point of view, that'll be most of what you wrote.


--- Quote from: UndyingUndyne on February 06, 2016, 12:10:22 pm ---I just plain can't figure out how to use this ship. The few times I have used it (it's currently my least-used ship), I wind up being the target of the majority of kills for the other team while being unable to get any kills myself. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against an enemy Spire, it always manages to kill me before I can even scratch it, and my only hope is to bring a Blenderfish and hope I can stay above the arc of its guns.

--- End quote ---

First, as you noticed, the weakness of spire lies in it's structure. It's easy to hit it with hades or lumberjack and guns positions are focused so it's also easy to disable it. Long range ships armed with hades/lumberjack/mercury/artemis are going to be effective against spires.Anything that destroys balloons effectively from close range and rams the spire into the ground will work too.

Regarding loadouts: spire is not a good long range ship. If you want to use it effectively long range, bring a lumberjack and some long range guns. That requires a good crew as either the enemy will get disabled and killed or you will. It'll be still countered by mobulas and long range galleons. It might be effective against junkers, but then, spire is very easy to disable and vulnerable to hades and artemis. Still, it's a good and versatile loadout, due to enormous firepower that spires have.

In close range hwacha is the best option. Add some piercing (gatling/hades) and some explosive (flak/banshee/mortar) and you have an actual scary loadout that is viable in close range maps in competitive. It's an aggressive build that allows you to get close to the enemy ship, disable it, destroy its armour and deal a substantial permahull damage if it doesn't die instantly. Kill or be killed.

Heavy flak is less than effective at 1000m range, that pretty much forbids using flak spire as a long range loadout. However, so called Loch Spire that Schwalbe mentioned (heavy flak + at least two piercing guns) is occasionally seen. It's a rather close or at least medium range loadout. Heavy flak can kill really really fast. The problem is, you have to get the enemy armour down fast, count on your gunner doing good job on the heavy flak (that is probably the most difficult gun in the entire game) and finally, the only thing it can do is killing. Tryhard-wise hwacha spire is always preferred in close range.

Heavy carronade is not recommended as the heavy gun choice. It was nerfed, along with heavy clip in order to reduce the number of blenderfish flying around. Now, the blenderfish is balanced, the carronade spire isn't.

There were many successful attempts to use minotaur, but it's still unreliable and pilots prefer to use other heavy guns. If you want to use it, try experimenting on your own.

Daft Loon:
One of the keys to effective spire use is to recognize when not to use it. The classic situation being large open maps vs ships with long range loadouts, a spire on dunes vs a mobula with mercury + 2x artemis will lose unless its crew are much better at almost everything than their opponents.

The other main vulnerability is being charged down in closer range maps by blenderfish etc , my favorite solution to that is to have a minelauncher in the top right slot and fire it myself as pilot while the crew repair/shoot the other guns. It takes a bit of practice to time the mines right and leave the ships throttle in the right place for the situation but done right simply nullifies about 90% of attempts to ram etc.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page