Messages

1

Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 10, 2014, 12:37:42 pm »

If you think it could work, do what you will.  You really should try flying sometime though.  It's very... liberating.  Also it's fun as hell.  If you find me in game, I'd be interested in spectating a match, crewing on your ship, or even captaining an ally ship with your team.  Just friend me!

will do

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 10, 2014, 08:32:28 am »

Oh i didn't reallise this was a -

press W for 2 seconds
tap hydrogen for 1 second
look left with the mouse
press F twice press 1 once and then hold D for 5 seconds before pressing 0 and then R twice
wipe your arse from front to back not back to front

- type deal about gunners being in charge.

My first point still stands though.
1. When flying with newbie pilots who are less experienced than the gunner.

It's not at all the case at least as i have meant it.  As we have been working it I tell my pilot roughly where I want to go what target i am planning on engaging, what gun i want on target and how far away i want it.  The pilot uses his discretion on his abilities and evasive maneuvers.  I'm responsible for communicating and coordinating with the other commander and directing fire from our boat in regards to engineers not actively repairing stuff.

Where the ship is wounded or escape is necessary the pilots authority trumps mine (that is understood), in all other cases it is my ship to direct.  Sometimes in close engagements I'll tell the pilot what i need him to do to keep my guns on target but short of that he's flying the boat.

we all started playing at the same time so I'm not more experienced than my pilot but I am nominally the leader of our clan so it was unlikely i wouldn't find myself in a command role, I just didn't want to pilot, my pilot wanted to fly but not really to command.  So we began this experiment, now we are just trying to find the best ways to make it work and refine it as a strategy.

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 09, 2014, 04:24:14 pm »

Generally, you don't want a gunner on a squid at all. Almost everyone runs triple engi squid, because A) A you don't need that many ammo types and B) sooooooo many things to repair and buff. Having two buff engis and a standard engi makes for a happy squid. In terms of the whole "gunmander", I can't think of a single scenario where it would be more efficient to have a gunner in charge than a pilot. It might be fun, for sure! A nice change to the normal gameplay, but less efficient, to be sure

I take your point, I've only been on a squid twice, but thinking about it in that light I think you are right. Ok on to finding other approaches for the squid.

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 09, 2014, 02:08:51 pm »

So what i'm getting is that a Flakfish can be fun, mostly for support if used, viable for a gunmander BUT not recommended due to weakness up close and the inability to 1v1 well.

That's some good info as we toy around with stuff.

Now we've been doing this well with a junker as well so far, But I suspect the Squid Might just be a good ship to try this with given the location of the helm.

Any thoughts on potentially Gunmandering a squid?  builds, thoughts?  I know that you may not think it's a great idea but just humor me here and brain storm what 'might' work.

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 09, 2014, 10:59:56 am »

does it burn good?

it sounds delicious.

but yus the vet have a valid point. Whenever I face this "gumander", I notice the slow reaction and take full advantage. Especially if its a low level player who is easily panicked by multiple part breaks.

Further practice has ensued and we are seeing a little of this when we shuffle crews as folks get used to the new arrangement.  I think upon further reflection it's definitely less of a traditional setup and as everyone starts to get a little better at their roles this set up works a little better.  The Pilot is given lots of latitude and the Gunner is largely responsible for dictating desired target and range.

Gunmander works well on Flakfish and Lumberfish.

I've faced a fair few, and I've flown on it once (as an Engineer). Gunmander on Flakfish and Lumberfish is usually a sharpshooter who are confident in his/her skills.

He/she constantly communicates with the pilot to line up perfect shots. Engineers are usually set to the side, either told to buff engine/balloon or "get off the gun b*tch".


But I think Gunmander only works on a long-range ships. In short-range combat, the pilot, who has the superior vision, needs to call the shots.

I'm not familiar with the Flakfish or Lumberfish but I'm inclined to agree with you on the ranged part of it.  What has started to happen organically is we are handing off command of the ship as needed between gunner and pilot basically along the lines of whether shooting or maneuvering is more important at the time.  We are just starting to poke our heads into the public queue last night and we did pretty well 1 loss 3 wins using this setup and good coordination with our sister ship. 

I would like to take it out to range to see if that works a little better.


Further addressing those who are saying there is a problem with communication lag, you are likely right we see it a little already but I think there are lessons to be learned.  I'm going to use this thread to discuss this as we go forward and out line our successes and failures with this for the benefit of any one else who might want to try it.

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 08, 2014, 02:37:15 pm »

It is possible to boss people about from any position on the ship. There have been times when flying with an all noob crew that I have directed the ship from the position of main engineer, telling the captain which direction to turn and what throttle setting he should be at. If the person who is flying the ship is OK with another player usurping their authority the more power to you.

By convention pubic games have the person in the Commander slot be a pilot and be in charge of the ship. If you are with your clan you can fly however you like. I remember flying with Charon and Sushi (two of the founders of the ducks) where Charon would gun and Sushi would fly. Caron would take the captain slot because he has a much more commanding presence on the mic, and direct the team and ship from the nose gun of a goldfish.

Pilot captains tend to be the norm because the pilot has more time to look around and asses the over all situation. This includes what the other ships are doing and if there are any crewmen out of place. Gunners tend to suffer tunnel vision when there is a hard to hit target, and engineers are too busy with their Parkour when things get hot. While this Gunmander is not a horrible idea I don't think you have stumbled upon the new meta.

Thanks for the feed back.  We don't really PUG at all there are enough of us that that will rarely be an issue for now but I see what you are saying.  your example is exactly the situation that led me to try this, my pilot wanted to fly but nothing else and I'm the groups founder so people tend to listen to me anyway so it made sense to see if it would work.  And on a goldfish too no less.

Your points are well taken though and definitely things to consider.  I appreciate the feedback.  I'm not looking to create a new meta, just figure out what works first... then we'll figure out the new meta.

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Q&A / Re: Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 08, 2014, 02:31:49 pm »

I suspect that that might become a barrier.

We tried it as an experiment and were surprised at how well it did work.  It's actually been an interesting partnership between the gunner and the captain when we run that.  I suspect it might work to better or worse degrees depending on the people involved as well.

The way it's been mostly working is that the Gunmander doesn't dictate how the flying is done just what he needs for guns and the larger strategic picture, the pilot provides information, and directs the engineers where necessary.  That might create some lag, as for inter ship communication we just drop the gunner into the captain slot and let him speak to the other ships and go from there.

I can see where that might create lag or delay against 'kill builds' but it'll be interesting to see how far this can take us I suppose.

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Q&A / Gunmander - Captaining from the deck

« on: December 08, 2014, 02:15:31 pm »

Ok so I am brand new to this forum and the game (only playing for about a week now) and my Clan has jumped in enmasse so we've been playing with different strategies and builds as n00bs are wont to do. Now in case this has been discussed before I did a couple quick searches to see if this had come up and didn't find anything so i apologize if I'm duplicating something.

What I wanted to ask about/comment on was what we have come to call the Gunmander postion.  I would be shocked into a heart attack if we were the first to  experiment with the pilot NOT being the captain, but as i said I didn't see it mentioned in my quick searches.

The Gunmander: A Primary Gunner who acts in all cases as the captain, directing the ship, selecting the targets and coordinating with friendly captains in addition to manning the guns.

We have discovered on smaller or more open ships (Goldfish, junker, and squid so far) Having the Gunner call the shots works very well.  It requires good communication with your pilot and a good amount of chemistry with your crew (as does pretty much any effective crew really) but it has allowed us to be quite successful in our own estimation early on and certainly no worse off than other ships with pilots as their captain.

The pitfalls we've seen have mostly been in properly relaying friendly ship communication and miscommunication/misunderstandings on deck but those are getting less and less frequent with practice.

I'm curious if other folks have experimented with this?  If you have other ships it might work/not work on?  If you have played around with other roles as captain?