Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: dragonmere on May 18, 2013, 12:20:57 pm
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I've noticed something about Moonshine. The Angular Drag +1000% (HUGE penalty to turning) is almost as important, if not more so, than the speed boost.
Up until recently, I had been using Moonshine at mid-close range just to get my pyramidion speed up, then switching to impact bumpers to ram enemy ships. I would usually disable balloon or armor (or kill the spire :P), before bouncing haphazardly off the enemy, and quickly scrambling with the monkey paw to regain a good facing.
Lately I've just been popping the Moonshine on while I make contact with them. While this basically will kill your engines without a hoopy frood for an engineer, the addition of +1000% angular drag causes you to keep face the ENTIRE time. No spinning. If you aim for their center of mass, you will just repeatedly bounce, with a good front facing for pyra weapons. Multiple quick rams, all the while guns are stripping hull and health. Very deadly.
This can be taken a little further. If a ship is incoming at forward face to attempt a ram on me, I will cut engines entirely, maybe even 1 notch reverse, and pop Moonshine on and off at the last moment. 1000% angular drag for 3 seconds. No spinning. On a head-on ram, the enemy will be the one to get the full torque from the impact, and lose face or even spin out of control.
Other times the enemy is intentionally side-ramming to get me off my target. Again, zero throttle, pop moonshine. I keep my face, and unless the enemy is using the same tactic, they will get one damaging ram on me, and then lose their facing. This also works the other way. Moonshine ram THROUGH an enemy, right on the nose or tail, and they're gonna need at least a few seconds just to stabilize the crazy spin while you zip off to an advantageous position.
Some of you may know of my rock/structure tapping exploits. If it's there, I'm going to tap it with my ship at some point during the match. There are times when, again, zero throttle and quick moonshine pop will stop me from excessive turning on a simple paint-scrape. This prevents the necessity of an intentional 'second tap' to readjust.
The benefits of just the angular drag, to me, outweigh some of the other perks. I've actually been equipping both kerosene and moonshine on my ramming pyramidion lately.The kerosene is used for speed boost, while the moonshine is used ONLY for controlling turns during impacts, and at the last second before a ram. While having both speed items has got me some concerned comments from spectators, I find it works quite well.
Opinions? Comments? Was this already common knowledge/usage?
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I too use kerosene and moonshin although I didn't use it in a defensive way as you did, I just found out the kerosene was more useful for quick travel while the moonshine more efficient for raming for the reason you just gave.
Although I never used it as you said to break off an enemy trying to ram you, might be fun.
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I've actually been sort of doing this without realizing it.
I wield my Pyr like a knife most of the time, and I never even thought about the angular drag. It just sort of was, and I was pretty happy getting multiple rams without massive torque. This would support the dual-whirlwind strategy my friends and I have been playing with lately.
The problem is once you use it defensively, you have a three second delay until you can change your facing. Three seconds can be a long time without turning. In most cases that would be largely irrelevant.
But! I notice that more maneuverable ships are able to slip out from under a ram quite easily. If you're a Goldfish or Squid pilot paying any kind of attention, you should be able to avoid the ram, and since I can't turn, you can easily slip behind me and disable my engines completely. So it's not without counter move.
But overall, solid strategy in my book!
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Right, so now that we've covered the secondary use, let's talk about its primary use. Someone pass me the moonshine.
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We all know what happens when you get on the moonshine Smollett. Suddenly pyras can't turn and the spire gets a trifecta.
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Ha, suppose that's true.
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So I used the moonshine today like suggested, to stop me from veering off during a ram. My god, that's a bit scary, full bore ram, chain and flak gun screaming, slam into an enemy ship sending them off course and my guns are still firing on it without a break. It was pretty much an instant pop unless the enemy ship peeled off to the right and managed to get behind me.
... Like shink did... With a Manticore. Didn't do much of anything else that spawn.
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SLIGHT addition... If you're using monkey paw (phoenix claw) to turn at maximum rate, chances are you're jamming the opposite direction on the wheel once you get a good face. Try popping moonshine for one second. INSTANT stop, and if you just pop it, there's minimal/no damage to engines.
Between kerosine, moonshine, and monkey paw... pyramidion is like it used to be before the ship mass correction.
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To use a ship like a spire or squid as a stable sniping platform I drop a touch of moonshine into the engines to cancel out any residual turning drift. Especially in the spire where I need to leave the helm to man the 2nd forward(ish) facing light gun. I don't do that very often as I favor close in tactics. I may have to try out your moonshine ramming technique, it sounds fun.
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I just tried the ramming technique out and it works wonders. Moonshine has replaced Kerosine for the time being as my speed boost captain's item.
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To be honest I find that it's more worth it to have kerosene, since it acts as a speed boost and a phoenix claw.
But on the Pyramidion, I take both :D
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oh fk now i know why veyka called me op, if been practicing that ramming technique ever since, works wonders, also no impact bumpers for me, pzychos live dangerous
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secondary use for the moonshine is to get rid of the burning effect on your engines.
reason:
if the engines are down, you can't burn them.
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Another use for moonshine: avoiding crashes and allowing you to go quickly through tight turns. You know when you're turning in between two rocks at high speed, but you drift sideways towards the outside one? You can prevent the crash there by turning away from the wall and hitting moonshine. Because of the huge angular drag increase, the ship actually stops drifting to the side.
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I always use drifting to my advantage, though.
However, I'll use Moonshine (when not using it to ram, of course) to accelerate forward or back before I get rammed or broadsided. I also use it to come to a dead stop if I'm about to hit a dust cloud or wall.
Seems to be a better emergency item than a speed boost for me.
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My god!
I didn't know how effective moonshine was for ramming until I read this thread and tried it myself. And now I always take moonshine when using a Pyra and am having a blast. You don't even need impact bumpers as the damage dealt to you is negligible. Goodbye kerosene and impact bumpers and hello Moonshine.
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I use both kerosene and moonshine on my ramming build: kerosene for positioning and accelerating, moonshine for locking on target, hitting full speed, and keeping the ship pointed forwards.
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I've been trying this out since I read this thread, with great results.
One thing that did take me by surprise though was going against another pyra which I can only assume was using the same technique, given it's speed. They began to beeline towards us, so I killed the engines and switched over to moonshine to prevent us spinning away, only to have not only our hull armour totally destroyed, but also our health. Insta-death!
Not sure if this was just unfortunate circumstances or moonshine vs. moonshine creates some sort of force deadlock causing more damage... more testing needed!