Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: MerkQT on August 08, 2013, 10:45:51 pm
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Hi all,
This is my first post since I've started playing this awesome game.
My friends and I have recently just started playing and have seemingly found our groove and playstyle. We love building the Pyra for ramming as I believe we are all in love with the concept of extremely aggressive in-your-face gameplay. However, I've got a few questions and was hoping someone could help me out with them.
At the moment our play-style is as follows; We have two mercury cannons situated on the upper deck and two gatling guns on our broadside. Our pilot flies with hydrogen, claw and kerosene and will maneuver us in a way that we are distanced enough to unload two clips of Mercury fire before impact. We have one engineer dedicated almost full time to the engines and hull and one that is almost always at our balloon repairs and sniping. I am dedicated with the task of gunner, and I will also run around buffing in our downtime. At the moment we are loving our build and have currently won 3 games consecutively without taking any direct hull damage.
We are wondering, however, how much better moonshine may be for us to take rather than kerosene. The idea of moving 50% faster than kerosene is appealing, but the extra damage to engines and maneuverability seems pretty hefty. We have found that ships that take out our balloon or engines immediately gain an upper hand, so losing engines or having extreme engine stress while under fire could potentially mean we lose.
Sorry if that was long winded, the game has that effect on me. It's really one of the best team orientated games I've played and it gets me pumped up! Any feedback or suggestions is greatly welcomed.
Thanks!
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Considering that you pull a ram-build and ponder about the benefit of Moonshine, here's something:
https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php?topic=1056.0
You'll find it interesting, but comments are probably unnecessary, as the thread seems dead. :)
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Excellent, I very much appreciate the response and the link. By the looks of it, Kerosene and Moonshine seem to be a good choice to pick together rather than being exclusive to each other. I like that 8)
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There are two main differences between them - speed aside.
Moonshine will stop you from turning - a good thing if you have glancing ram as your ship will not spin around and expose your engines to the enemy. Because of this property it is also used to counter rams.
Kerosene will allow you to turn - as it causes less damage you can start to use it earlier in the ram and adjust your aim if your target is moving away from you.
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Kerosene and moonshine together was a thing back when kerosene increased turning speed. Now it's best to only bring one.
And just to note: moonshine does still allow you to turn, albeit at a greatly reduced rate. Kerosene does this too, but to a much lesser degree.
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Thanks Calico and Sunderland.
It sounds like Moonshine would be the way to go then, Our pilot likes to use claw to compensate for the poor turning speed of the Pyra. If at all possible to answer, what sort of damage increase could we expect to see from the 50% increased speed? Is there somewhere to read up on the damage calculations of ramming?
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The exact numbers aren't out there, but you'll certainly see a pretty major damage boost. In addition, thanks to moonshine's angular drag increase you'll be able to keep your guns on the enemy after a ram. When you ram without moonshine, your ship'll probably end up pointing in the wrong direction, but with moonshine you'll be held in place. Kerosene isn't as good at doing that.
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The trick to ramming as a pilot is to watch the damage log at the top left - the pilot should start ramming once a ship's armour goes. A visual clue is when you see a black cloud and wreckage dropping from the target ship. Once you get the timing right you can actually start a ram and have the front weapons take out the armour just as you impact on the target.
Practice on the target drones in the Sandbox to get the feel for what you should be doing as a crew.
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Personally I prefer kerosene - you can offset about 90% of bad bounces by steering into a target, in other words be turning into a target as you impact.
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Moonshine rams will SERIOUSLY mess up a Spire.
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Thanks Sunderland, I assume this also means that getting rammed with moonshine active also causes little movement? (Just want to confirm)
At the moment Calico we are using the Mercury guns to attempt to break hull amour before our ram. Both myself and the Gungineer will have two buffed guns and we will unload the first clip. We then report to our pilot as we are reloading and he activates Kerosene to ram (All engines are usually buffed at this time). After this we usually only have precious few moments to unload another clip before impact. at the moment it's not destroying a target upon contact, but the sustained fire (if possible) will drop the enemy after a few more hits.
It probably will be a good idea for us to go and practice on dummies as you suggested, because I feel at the moment with the increase Moonshine will give us that we can't unload another round. We will need to work on our timings.
Another quick question; Does angle of altitude play any part in damage, or is it only forward speed?
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Just out of curiosity Calico, What buffs do you use as a pilot?
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It's actually the relative velocity as far as I can tell that effects impact damage along with the relative weights of the ships.
So a head on collision, with both ships going full speed into each other does more damage and a Pyra (second heaviest ship) ramming into a Squid (lightest ship) will always result in way more damage to the squid.
Angle of attack doesn't matter but point of impact does. If you hit the balloon with your ram, like you frequently will against a Junker, the balloon will take damage not the hull. If you hit a gun with the ram, you'll actually break the enemy gun. Relative angle of attack does matter though in determining the orientation the ships will have after the ram.
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Gotcha, Thanks Smollett.
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Moonshine rams will SERIOUSLY mess up a Spire.
just Pyra seriously messses up a spire, you don't even need moonshine :D
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Just out of curiosity Calico, What buffs do you use as a pilot?
for the pyra I use Claw, Kerosene and Hydrogen as a defensive measure. Hydrogen pulls you up above ships and often gun arcs if cllose in and I use the mortar on the front which can fire down.
Try experimenting with lochnagar ammo with the mercuries - the guns will go down but it might give you the tipping point for the ram close in.
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Same as us at the moment :D
I'll give the lochnagar ammo a shot, as the only gunner should I pick it up and have the Gungineer use charged shots?
EDIT: I feel like I may be asking to be spoonfed a bit with this questions, I think it may be better for us to just trial and error and learn from that.
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Nono, I think curiosity is rewarded. I think I should've asked more questions when I started playing, but it is true some tactics are custom-built for the style of certain players.
Still, hoping not to be on the receiving end of your rams now. :D
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And since you were asking earlier: using moonshine while being rammed will hold you straight, yes.
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Thanks guys,
We tried out moonshine and were pleasantly surprised by it's effectiveness in dishing out damage. Everything that was mentioned beforehand in this thread turned out to be very accurate, our pilot accidentally missed a few rams from being unable to turn as hard as normal and we lost a few engines due to the extra stress. However we managed to absolutely destroy a spire four times in a short span and win us the match in one of our test matches.
Our engineer noted how hard it is to actually keep engines going while moonshine is active, but I think he came to the conclusion that he's happy with the results but our pilot is still iffy on the whole thing. It's up to him ultimately in what he uses, but I could tell he had a blast utterly destroying a ship after a full speed ram.
Regarding the mercury guns, we both ended up taking charged shots and I don't think we will ever go back. Being able to snipe out the engines before collision made our final games walks in the park.
And Mill, if we meet in game, I hope it's on the same team! We could work out some awesome combos and win 5-0 :D
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Don't forget it's best to cycle Moonshine on and off with a careful eye on the engines. If they ever get below 60% health your pilot should turn it off and let the engi catch up.
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Don't forget it's best to cycle Moonshine on and off with a careful eye on the engines. If they ever get below 60% health your pilot should turn it off and let the engi catch up.
Yeah, it's easy to keep engines up while kerosene is left on, but moonshine is meant to be used in short bursts, not to just be left on. That way you still get its effectiveness and your engineer is able to keep up your engines as well.