The Rocket Carousel in 1.2.1

[Audie Murphy]

So the rocket carousel got a not-so-little buff in 1.2.1 to its ignition chance.

So where does this weapon fit into the strategy of GOIO? It doesn't seem to be completely unviable, but I've never seen anyone use it, and I'm not sure what role it's supposed to play. It doesn't do enough damage to function as a finisher weapon to a ship with its armor down...and with its range it seems to be a long range potshot weapon, but its damage type doesn't make it useful for that.

What do you guys think of this weapon? What purpose does it have, and how would one use it? Also, why doesn't it see much use, even after its ignition chance got a big boost?

[Plasmarobo]

I see it as a good addition to a harassment vessel.

Lighting stuff on fire with minor stacks is usually not an issue for an experienced engineer.
That said, if used in bulk (all banshee junker?) everything on the enemy ship will probably be on fire.

Combined with incendiary... well, that's enough to ruin someone's day.  I've heard of Banshee Squids winning matches.
I think it's one of those things you have to commit to. Half-done fire isn't going to bother anyone, but when your entire ship is burning...

I imagine you need an ally who's ready to take advantage of the chaos you cause, but I think it's just that: a chaos weapon.

[dragonmere]

I would recommend greased so you can dump full clips faster, or incendiary to buff the chance of flame stacks on each hit. The only goal is to add as many fire stacks to the hull armor as possible as quickly as possible by aiming directly for it.  The AOE fire chance, and the fact that the gun is wildly inaccurate, will insure that there are some fires on components other than the hull. ~1/3 chance of a fire stack on direct hit, ~1/4 chance of fire stack on AOE - not bad. The engineer(s) will then have the choice of running around to maintain the ship's components or babysitting the hull, which should all be in flames and taking direct/AOE/fire damage constantly. Even if they babysit hull, you should earn some component disables. Since the banshee is explosive/explosive, albeit low damage, once the hull inevitably goes down, you will get some health damage in there. Lather, rinse, repeat as desired.

That's the most effective way I've seen it used, but I'm actually in the "not enough experience with it" boat as well, so I'm looking forward to getting some other player's perspectives.

[RearAdmiralZill]

To me, it is very much a harass/panic weapon with a very large arc, so it's a great secondary weapon. You're right to say you don't see it often because it really doesn't have the dps to do much on its own. You're not using it to kill people, and instead using it to disable or make it that much easier for your teammate to take them out.

It is kind of like a flamethrower, in the sense that it isn't a great main gun, but a fantastic secondary because of the fire chance. Then you have the added bonus that if their hull does go down, it'll still plink a fair amount of perma damage.

Don't forget that even though it's explosive, hitting the balloon also gives that fire chance, which even one stack there is something to worry about.

[dragonmere]

Don't forget that even though it's explosive, hitting the balloon also gives that fire chance, which even one stack there is something to worry about.

I disagree about balloon fires. I'm FAR more worried about the gunning-engineer who thinks it's more important to remove 1 stack of fire from the balloon than to stay on guns and get the kill. That probably has a lot to do with my reckless do-or-die piloting approach, though.

[Chrinus]

This weapon is all about removing an engineer from his post, plain and simple. Running burst, this weapon can set every component of a ship on fire in one clip if your gunner can aim it (dragonmere's already explained the use with greased and incendiary). While it's a small stack, that's still damage to the component. With enough pressure by the weapon something's bound to fall through the cracks. Be it an engine fails, gun falls, gungineer leaves his post to deal with them, or better yet the hull engineer leaves his post to handle the ever increasing fires. The truth is, at some point the fires delivered have to be dealt with.

Despite a powerful weapon to apply pressure to the opposing team, the gat/flak is just too simple to use and effective to see the banshee take on more than a supporting role, and most players don't bring an airship to support, just kill.

[RomanKar]

I use it as the front gun on my Junker, with gat flack on the sides.  Great for the approach and then its really good at getting that trifecta due to its large firing arc.  I've had my guys using greased, but may switch to incendiary or burst, still experimenting.

[HamsterIV]

I favor greased when using it as a side weapon on a pyra, but largely abandoned it when I found the Gat/flack overlap trifecta. As for flying support, I find two Gatling guns offer far more support than two or more banshees. A good crew will ignore fire stacks when they are in the middle of a fight, but nobody in their right mind ignores broken hull armor. Even If I don't have killing weapons on my ship there is always the threat of my ally getting in a burst of explosive before they can recover.

[RomanKar]

I have found that 2 gats in a trifecta to be unnecessary.  The gat is only good for taking down armor, and one is plenty enough for that job.  The Banshee is perfect for that 3rd gun that can put out pretty good damage, light stuff on fire, and even take down perma hull.  As stated before, it causes chaos on the other ship while I am gat flakking away at it with my side guns. 

I think Banshee is a really good compliment to the gat/flak

[HamsterIV]

A two gat trifecta is absolutely necessary when facing a well engineered galleon, and nice to have when backing up a Hwacha fish.

[Echoez]

The new Banshee might replace the Artemis on my Sniper Spire loadout, it cases way more mayhem for the incoming ship and I still have a Mercury to disable guns, not sure about it though, I still have to use the Artemis with burst rounds and see if it can disable better with it. (Yes I know, I'm bad for not having tried that yet.)

[N-Sunderland]

The Artemis's disabling power is greatly heightened by burst rounds, I can assure you of that.

[Echoez]

The Artemis's disabling power is greatly heightened by burst rounds, I can assure you of that.

Ah, that I will do then. Thank you c: