Guns Of Icarus Online

Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Gambrill on August 30, 2013, 02:23:24 am

Title: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Gambrill on August 30, 2013, 02:23:24 am
Hey people, you've probably all seen me at one time o another filling up your chat logs or crew slots :)

As a main engie i've come to learn of a new trick that really helps keep my ships Armour in good nick.

all to many times i see engies rubber malleting something that could take 3 or 4 spanner hits. leaving a MASSIVE cooldown, i usually end up taking the long route of a spanner (if nothing else is damaged too badly) and when the enemy are trying to gatling the armour down. which keeps the armour roughly on par / slightly less than it was on before their barrage. at which point i'll rubber mallet at the end keeping our pretty ship still looking pretty :)

What are your thoughts on this?
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Xemkobankavareniya on August 30, 2013, 02:35:25 am
Welcome to the basics of engineering, (: .
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Piemanlives on August 30, 2013, 02:46:21 am
Welcome to the basics of engineering, lol.

I'm pretty sure the first law of engineering is "If you can't fix it, you aren't using a big enough hammer."

Also note, just because you figured out something doesn't mean everyone else did. General rule for just about everything.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on August 30, 2013, 09:04:54 am
That's always been a popular way to lengthen armour uptime ever since the gat came to prominence. It makes a huge difference. You just have to be careful about the final spanner hit you make, since two seconds is long enough for you to miss the optimal mallet hit.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: dragonmere on August 30, 2013, 12:06:31 pm

My general introduction of spanner usage on hull to new engineers revolves around the "S" sound;
Spanner is used to rebuild the circle through spamming clicks. It has a short cooldown, gives you a small bar repair, so use it to sustain hull armor while taking hits.

The general rule on mallet is never over-heal the hull. Simple as that. If there isn't enough damage for an entire mallet repair, don't use it. Only use the mallet when you mean it.

Only other thing to mention is spamming the spanner during the mallet cooldown if you're the hull-only engineer. That way you can begin repair immediately if you happen to lose armor during the mallet cooldown.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on August 30, 2013, 12:12:15 pm
Nailed it, dragonmere. The three keys to being a good hull engi are knowing when to switch from spanner to mallet, switching to spanner in the cooldown where the armour is about to go down, and switching back to the mallet almost simultaneously with your final spanner rebuild hit (note: right after the rebuild is over. I know that some people like to finish the rebuild with the mallet, but that just slows it down a lot) in order to save a fraction of a second on that first repair hit.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: dragonmere on August 30, 2013, 12:16:05 pm
I think I just got a salute from Sunderland...
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: treseritops on August 30, 2013, 01:04:06 pm
Has anyone ever run a full repair set up? Mallet, wrench, and spanner? I've wanted to try this just for the reason of never over repairing. Unfortunately you'd have to be on a ship that had easy access to the other engi (who presumably has an ext). Has anyone run this?
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on August 30, 2013, 01:22:13 pm
I know that Urz experimented with it. It's not a great idea to be honest. The difference is negligible, and if you want to ditch the fire tool to get better at repairing the armour, you're better off taking a buff hammer.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Zenark on August 30, 2013, 02:55:18 pm
I generally use this technique on engines since I'm more often a gungineer than a main. Bottom of a Junker, for instance, I'll smack the engine as the captain burns kerosene or shine. Same strategy on the Mobula.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on August 30, 2013, 02:59:47 pm
Along with minor/early hull damage and kerosene/moonshine/claw, it's also good if you're only handling one or two (maybe three) components in a sandstorm.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Gambrill on September 04, 2013, 10:00:19 am
Its just as an engineer it really annoys me when I am sustaining three things well and someone comes along with a mallet and ruins my whole game plan xD
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: HamsterIV on September 04, 2013, 02:08:32 pm
Welcome to the basics of engineering, (: .

To be fair, this is more of an advanced engineering trick. Basic engineering is "Mallet for yellow, spanner for red. Priority hull, then turning engines, then guns." That is my new engineer spiel and it is enough to get a newbie to become a productive member of a crew.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: RaptorSystems on September 08, 2013, 06:31:35 am
spanner + wrench is good on squid. :p
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on September 08, 2013, 08:06:28 am
I've been thinking about mythbusting the wrench on Squid thing for a while now... I need to get around to looking at that in more detail.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: naufrago on September 09, 2013, 12:43:05 am
I've been thinking about mythbusting the wrench on Squid thing for a while now... I need to get around to looking at that in more detail.

On a Squid, if you're taking accurate gat fire consistently, I think I'd actually agree with you that mallet would be better since a gat can strip the armor during the 5sec cd of the wrench. However, with the overhealing of the mallet and inconsistent incoming damage, that 9sec cd can be brutal. Imo, it depends on how good the enemy gunners are and how good your pilot is.

EDIT: Although if you buff the hull, you can completely, or almost completely, mitigate the overhealing. Hm.... normally I wouldn't think it's worth buffing the hull of a squid since it increases the rebuild time by one whack, but a full mallet hit might be worth it. Hard to say.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Mr. Ace Rimmer on September 09, 2013, 11:33:02 am
The amount of times I've had people say something similar to 'why isn't that squid dead' It's because I've been babysitting the hull with the spanner... Not the wrench, not the mallet, the spanner
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: dragonmere on September 09, 2013, 01:12:32 pm
My loadout for squid hull is Spanner, Wrench, Chem. Any time I throw any kind of a cooldown on a squid hull, it spells immediate armor death. Heck, I never even put out fires with the chem spray, only use it to pre-spray outside of combat.

I've seen some maths that strongly suggest using the wrench is better for rebuild as long as you're not overhealing, but in practice I've had little luck. I'll maybe get a small handful of opportunities where I feel the wrench is the appropriate option.  I usually just spam spanner the entire time, and it works quite well. 4 clicks to rebuild armor means you're pretty much safe outside of a literal 1/2 second of armor down ...  as long as you're already ready and clicking with the spanner right before the hull armor goes down.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Alistair MacBain on September 09, 2013, 03:55:22 pm
Mallet on Squidhull isnt of any use. That long cooldown giving u not much more armor isnt of any use. It just hardens ur repairs. U cant affort such a long cooldown the mallet has on a squid hull. The wrench will repair nearly the completly hull anyway so there is no point in using a mallet when u can have a lower cooldown on a similiar repair.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on September 09, 2013, 04:11:59 pm
Any time I throw any kind of a cooldown on a squid hull, it spells immediate armor death.

This is a big part of my argument in favour of the mallet. Let's say you're under gat fire for example. Buffed gat does 127.5 armour DPS if all shots hit. It'll take just under two seconds to take the 230 armour down. Let's say you get approximately an optimal wrench hit (when 120 armour damage has been dealt). First it'll take about a second for the gat to bring it down to that level. Then after your wrench hit, it'll take about two seconds for the gat to finish your armour. That's three seconds from first gat hit to the armour break. Now try the mallet. An optimal mallet hit would be just before the armour hits 0. So that's almost two seconds before you make your first hit. Then it'll take almost two seconds for it to bring you down to 0 armour. Four seconds armour uptime. In addition, the optimal hit coming later means that you get more spanner time in. The mallet also helps immensely on balloon repairs.

Also, you can try different numbers (unbuffed gat, greased gat, gat with a couple of shots missing per second...), but no matter which way you put it, the mallet gets superior armour uptime, and comes with the benefit of being better at repairing other components.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: naufrago on September 09, 2013, 05:13:26 pm
Any time I throw any kind of a cooldown on a squid hull, it spells immediate armor death.

This is a big part of my argument in favour of the mallet. Let's say you're under gat fire for example. Buffed gat does 127.5 armour DPS if all shots hit. It'll take just under two seconds to take the 230 armour down. Let's say you get approximately an optimal wrench hit (when 120 armour damage has been dealt). First it'll take about a second for the gat to bring it down to that level. Then after your wrench hit, it'll take about two seconds for the gat to finish your armour. That's three seconds from first gat hit to the armour break. Now try the mallet. An optimal mallet hit would be just before the armour hits 0. So that's almost two seconds before you make your first hit. Then it'll take almost two seconds for it to bring you down to 0 armour. Four seconds armour uptime. In addition, the optimal hit coming later means that you get more spanner time in. The mallet also helps immensely on balloon repairs.

Also, you can try different numbers (unbuffed gat, greased gat, gat with a couple of shots missing per second...), but no matter which way you put it, the mallet gets superior armour uptime, and comes with the benefit of being better at repairing other components.

That's assuming consistent hits. Depending on the skill of your pilot and the skill of the enemy gunners, those hits may not be consistent, which means that the overhealing + 9sec cd means that your armor might drop when you otherwise would be able to keep it up a few seconds longer with spanner + wrench.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on September 09, 2013, 05:16:40 pm
Any time I throw any kind of a cooldown on a squid hull, it spells immediate armor death.

This is a big part of my argument in favour of the mallet. Let's say you're under gat fire for example. Buffed gat does 127.5 armour DPS if all shots hit. It'll take just under two seconds to take the 230 armour down. Let's say you get approximately an optimal wrench hit (when 120 armour damage has been dealt). First it'll take about a second for the gat to bring it down to that level. Then after your wrench hit, it'll take about two seconds for the gat to finish your armour. That's three seconds from first gat hit to the armour break. Now try the mallet. An optimal mallet hit would be just before the armour hits 0. So that's almost two seconds before you make your first hit. Then it'll take almost two seconds for it to bring you down to 0 armour. Four seconds armour uptime. In addition, the optimal hit coming later means that you get more spanner time in. The mallet also helps immensely on balloon repairs.

Also, you can try different numbers (unbuffed gat, greased gat, gat with a couple of shots missing per second...), but no matter which way you put it, the mallet gets superior armour uptime, and comes with the benefit of being better at repairing other components.


That's assuming consistent hits. Depending on the skill of your pilot and the skill of the enemy gunners, those hits may not be consistent, which means that the overhealing + 9sec cd means that your armor might drop when you otherwise would be able to keep it up a few seconds longer with spanner + wrench.

That's true, and that's one of the reasons why I want to start testing this more.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Captain Smollett on September 09, 2013, 05:42:44 pm
I still think the mallet method is risky brinksmanship.

It depends highly on the gattling being the only thing hitting your hull.  If something else happens to hit your hull right before it goes down, like a mortar hit, than you'll lose the opportunity to hit with the mallet that you were waiting for and doom your ship.

Furthermore, as I've postulated previously with Sunder; what gosh darned squid captain will subject themselves to 4 seconds of uninterrupted chaingun fire.

Pipe wrench to me is just more versatile.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: HamsterIV on September 09, 2013, 05:56:35 pm
I ask my Engies to bring mallet on the squid because the hull is only a small part of the package. The balloon and engines need the mallet's attention especially if the pilot is ducking an weaving to stay out of gun arcs. The Squid was never meant to toe to toe an opponent and theory crafting around that possibility will not get us anything useful.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Captain Smollett on September 09, 2013, 07:45:10 pm
I ask my Engies to bring mallet on the squid because the hull is only a small part of the package. The balloon and engines need the mallet's attention especially if the pilot is ducking an weaving to stay out of gun arcs. The Squid was never meant to toe to toe an opponent and theory crafting around that possibility will not get us anything useful.

Ahh but I have three engineers on my ship, and one of them pretty much only does the hull and balloon.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: HamsterIV on September 10, 2013, 11:33:09 am
If my crew listens to me I have three engines too. Sometimes they are all fixing engines when I hit the juice, or running around screaming if a manticore catches us. I will admit the mallet is less than optimal for hull only repairs, but the few seconds it looses in cool down is more than offset by the over all repair speed if I need that engineer to fix a balloon or engine.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Gambrill on September 11, 2013, 12:46:04 am
Have i just opened Pandoras box of engineer techniques? heh heh :)

I'm liking all the different way captains prefer their engineers loadouts on certain ships/plans :)
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: RaptorSystems on September 13, 2013, 11:08:03 am
Honestly the part that sucks the most about using spanner + wrench on a squid is if going against say a blender fish, because the balloon has such a huge 'health' bar compared to everything else.
Anyway on topic, I've found that sometimes buffing the hull can also be a saving grace. What I mean is not necessarily before but during battle when it is being pummelled, by being able to boost health at the right time.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Spud Nick on September 13, 2013, 11:19:37 am
When you guys run 3 engineers on the squid what tools do you tell them to bring and what do you have them repair?
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: HamsterIV on September 13, 2013, 11:57:08 am
My squid is run like this:
Spanner mallet extinguisher bullets for front gun
Spanner mallet extinguisher bullets for rear gun
Spanner mallet Buffkit Bullets for side gun.

When I play serious in a squid, I take gat front, gat side, merc rear. Most of the game I have the merc engineer sit on the hull while the front and side gunners chew up the opponents hull armor. If I need to do long range I point my tail at the enemy get my hull engineer (who has charged) on the rear gun. Front engineer becomes main engie and the buffer buffs the rear gun. While buffed merc shooting charged rounds aren't enough to kill another ship in a reasonable time, they are enough to tip a brawl in my ally's favor. With the exception of the rear gun I don't expect any components to be buffed. When I have to run I can have two engineers fix the engines while the third watches the hull and balloon, or I could have my entire engie force teaming up on the balloon if I am caught out by a blenderfish.

I prefer to team this squid with a Manticore Goldfish or Galleon. The squid is too easily ignore for it to run mid field interference to a spire. Most light gun only ships come equipped to make solo kills so they don't need an armor stripper as much as they need an ally to keep them from getting double teamed.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Alistair MacBain on September 13, 2013, 04:25:41 pm
A mallet spanner ext engi.
A mallet spanner buff engi.
And a spanner wrench ext engi for hull.
The mallet doesnt get u anything for the hull cause of the low health u can pretty much repair it full with 1 wrench hit and have a way lower cd than the mallet.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: N-Sunderland on September 13, 2013, 04:37:49 pm
A mallet spanner ext engi.
A mallet spanner buff engi.
And a spanner wrench ext engi for hull.
The mallet doesnt get u anything for the hull cause of the low health u can pretty much repair it full with 1 wrench hit and have a way lower cd than the mallet.

You get just over half health from wrench, not really full at all.

I personally like a mallet/spanner/extinguisher engi and two mallet/spanner/buff engis, because honestly, on a ship with the balloon and hull so close to each other, why in the world would you need more than one fire extinguisher? Especially considering that the Squid is the least likely ship to end up getting hit consistently by fire weapons.
Title: Re: Fighting a Gatling on hull
Post by: Captain Smollett on September 13, 2013, 10:36:13 pm
Ok, I wasn't going to divulge all my tricks but I run the Squid a lot, this is how you run one and why.

Gungineer-Pipe wrench buff hammer, extinguisher and front gun ammo: It's good to have an extinguisher aboard in case you get flared. Buff hammer is mainly for self buffing of the front gun as well as rapidly getting ship components rebuffed after an extended engagement period. 

Main engineer-Pipe wrench, spanner, chem spray:  This person repairs and chem sprays the hull and balloon, rebuilds the hull and if they're a ninja, repair some engines from time to time. The pipe wrench is the most efficient way to repair a squid hull and with the balloon and hull so close together it's incredibly easy to keep chem sprayed so your ship will almost never catch on fire. 

The everything else guy-Mallet spanner buff starboard side ammo:  This guy has to be good, he keeps your engines up (with the help of other crew for extended kerosene burns), rebuilds broken balloons, keeps the ship buffed and fires off the side gun.

Captain-Spanner-If you screw up so bad that you eat a full clip of Hwacha into your rear, better role up your sleeves and fix it yourself you screw up. The lower port engine, balloon and even the hull (if you know the sneaky trick) are really close to the pilot. I've gotten myself out of more than a few tricky situations with a couple of well timed spanner hits.

This load out gives you two buff hammers, chem spray on the ships vitals, an extinguisher and a metric ton of engineering tools.  Everything a little squid needs.