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556

Guides / Re: redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions

« on: January 12, 2014, 07:50:25 pm »

Part Four: Fly Dumb
This is the one of the most important parts of running one of these builds. You will have to pursue and flee enemies. They will do everything they can to get away from you. This includes using the fact that your ship is less maneuverable than anything else but the galleon. They will be ducking behind buildings and cliff walls. They will be trying to back out and go under you to get behind you. They will do whatever it takes to not be in your arcs. So you need to be better.
Your task is going to be to take risks when you fly. See how close you can get to the ground at top speed burning kerosene. Find a small gap between 2 cliffs and see if you fit (at top speed). See how quickly you can circle the bottom of the globe using kerosene and phoenix claw on labyrinth/paritan rumble. See how close you can skirt around cliff walls on canyon ambush. Take risks and fly dumb. And do it all as fast as you can go. For one thing, flying will never have been as much fun. Second, you will start to get used to dancing in the Pyramidion. No corner is too sharp. No gap is too skinny. You can make every maneuver, and you can make it faster than anyone will expect. Your opponent can’t escape you if you can follow their “maneuverable” ship along the most complicated path through wreckage that they can find.
This is one thing I can’t teach. You have to learn the feel of the ship. The size of it. Where you will clip the scenery and where you won’t. If your crew is terrified then you are doing it right.
You will crash. You will instantly destroy your balloon or hull armor. You will probably kill yourself a few times. But you will come out of it with a better understanding of the map and what you are capable of. Just flying is more than worth it. I don’t even need things to kill. I could fly through canyon ambush for hours at max speed just skimming over the bottom of the canyons.
Learn to appreciate what your ship has to offer you, and you can get more out of it than you even expected. She is a beautiful creature.

557

Guides / Re: redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions

« on: January 12, 2014, 07:49:43 pm »

Part Three: Pick a Build
Your build, the ship loadout, will determine what type of role you play with your teammates and which ships you will try to target first. I will suggest my personal favorite 3 loadouts along with the tactics I use with them.
Bottom Deck:
As an introduction to my ships, I will tell you now, all my ships have a flame thrower in slot 3, and an artemis rocket launcher in slot 4. The flame thrower gives the main engineer a nice close range weapon to use to cause panic aboard an enemy ship if they get the opportunity, and the artemis can be used on the fly to take pot shots at enemies if you aren’t charging forwards already. Your side guns often won’t matter, so feel free to load them out however you like, though the flamer in slot 3 seems to be the best choice for the slot as a brawling ship.
Build One: Metamidion
When you observe other pilots flying a Pyramidion, you will often see them equip their ships with 2 specific guns: a gatling gun and a mortar. This is currently viewed as one of the most common and powerful loadouts for a Pyramidion.
Using this build, your 2 front guns will be a gatling gun and a mortar. I usually put the gatling gun in the top left slot (2) and the mortar in the top right (1) so my gunner can use multiple ammo types on the mortar, but it is a preference thing.
The concept behind the design is to charge forwards, start firing the gatling gun once in range to tear through the hull armor, then combine mortar fire with a ram to destroy the permahull of your opponent in a single pass. When used correctly, this build is very powerful, and can cause some of the fastest kills in the game.
Advantages:
-Very quick kills with coordinated firing from the front guns
-Both guns fire upwards respectably, allowing for a low altitude charge followed by rising up at the last moment with a burst of hydrogen to deliver an uppercut ram while firing both guns
Disadvantages:
-Heavily dependent on the gatling gun not being destroyed and on the gatling gunner landing enough bullets to destroy the hull armor
-Requires the Pyramidion be close enough to engage, sometimes causing you to charge a firing line of multiple sniper ships
-Performs poorly against junkers: junkers have a very thin hull. It is easy to miss gatling and mortar shots or to have the shots hit the balloon instead. If the shots are not landing on the hull, this build is almost completely ineffective.
-Fails to provide you with a positional advantage: this build only kills, and does not disable. If you fail to kill quickly, your opponent may have the opportunity to gain a positional advantage over you and maintain it.
Good against:
Spires: You will literally fly through spires 9 times out of 10. The gatling shreds their armor too fast and if the mortar doesn’t kill them by the time you reach it, your ram will obliterate it.
Mobulas:
Almost as weak as spires against solid charges. Try to give your gunners a shot at the Mobula’s hull instead of just the balloon. A single kerosene ram will destroy 100% of the permahull, but the hull has to be down first.
Pyramidions:
The gatling fire shreds their armor as they charge straight at you. Whoever lands more hits wins the ramming contest and breaks through the armor first, dealing more damage.
Goldfish:
Your ram should knock their main gun off angle, giving you time to rain down death upon their hull, giving you a respectably quick kill.
Neutral against:
Squid:
Ramming squids is a challenge. You will need to employ fancier flying and depend more on keeping your firing arcs on the squid. If you can keep fire on it, it will die.
Galleon:
Galleons have a lot of hull to shoot at, which is good, but in most positions being able to shoot a galleon’s hull means you are open to a broadside, which will leave you helpless most games. This is the best build to tear through all of the galleon’s ample armor and permahull, so fancy flying is needed to keep you safe.
Poor against:
Junker:
As mentioned before, you must fire at the hull. Junkers have small hulls and big balloons. You will find it more difficult than with any other ship to keep your arcs on the junker hull and have shots land. Additionally, ramming junkers bounces them around, but rarely actually deals hull damage, so ramming is rarely an option when approaching junkers. You just have to get in close and hope you kill it before it starts disabling your guns.
Build Two: Urz’s Flamer
This build, lifted off of the legendary Urz during a fight I had the pleasure of flying with him (thanks Urz! I love this one!), consists of a carronade on the top right slot and a flamer on the top left slot. It is much more of a disabling build than the classic metamidion, similar to a blenderfish or a Squid, but you are in a Pyramidion. You can still kill with it. Your ship is your weapon.
My game plan is to charge in similarly to the meta build and get close, then open up on the balloon and components with both front guns. Your opponents balloon will be destroyed rapidly, and the engines and guns should follow shortly. Nothing will cause more panic in a crew than everything being on fire, the balloon being destroyed, and the hull armor dropping fast. Except what you are about to do next.
The key to this build is to have the enemy spotted. Once their balloon dies, position yourself over them, so you can look down and see the white box of the enemy spot, and so you can see part of their ship through the grate under the helm. Your job as pilot is to maintain your position above your opponent and just drop. Push your ship down and use all the kerosene and phoenix claw you need to keep the nose of your ship over the opponent. Every time they get the balloon up and start to rise, you will smack down on top of them. Both flamers should be able to get arcs downwards and can continue lighting things on fire. Ride your opponent to the ground and sit on them: grind them into the ground until they shatter beneath you. Once you have your opponent under you, there should be no escape. If they get out from under you, your carronade will pop their balloon again and you can once again sit atop them.
This build is sadistic, hilarious, and probably one of the meanest builds I run. If your opponent doesn’t get serious help from an ally, there is no way for them to escape if you do your job right. The only challenge is the galleon due to its mass. It takes a little bit of patience and a lot of hull armor repairs on your own ship to grind them into the dirt enough for them to die.
Sniping out one of the front guns doesn’t cripple this build like the meta: both front guns can destroy balloons and components.
Ultimately, this is one of the best counters to junkers. When a balloon is destroyed, it effectively becomes hull armor. You suddenly get a very large target to ram and shoot at.
Advantages:
-Your gunners can aim at almost anything and be effective
-The side flamer can be used in tandem with the front guns to deliver a trifecta at the right angle
-Allows one shot ram kills of junkers
-Allows you to effectively keep any one ship out of the fight while your partner(s) fight.
-Gives you the opportunity to laugh maniacally while goomba stomping every ship
Disadvantages:
-Seriously close range: needs you to close in with the enemy which still may require you to charge firing lines
-Kills slowly until you can get your opponent on the ground: meta build kills much faster which allows you to assist your teammate much sooner
-Long killing time can allow you to get disabled by the free opponent while stomping your target. You must be wary of how your teammate is doing
-A gunner firing the carronade at anything but your enemy’s balloon while said balloon is alive can cause you to lose positional advantage. If you can’t regain positional advantage, you can die quickly
Good against:
Almost all ships. Once you begin opening fire, ram as necessary to keep gun arcs off of you until their balloon is down and you can stomp.
Neutral Against:
Spire:
Part of what makes Spire pilots fear Pyramidions is the ramming power that a Pyramidion has. A single ram can destroy all of a Spires armor or all of a Spires permahull. However, it will not destroy both. This build fails to provide quality hull damage to a Spire before and after rams. A spire’s balloon is small and much harder to attack. You should still win almost every engagement with a spire, but it will take longer than expected.
Build Three: Sir Yosh’s Hades Build
This one was hatched mostly by the great Sir Yosh (thanks!) in an effort to give me something to use at longer range while still giving me effective weapons for my style of flight. The top left gun is an artemis and top right is a hades manned by a gunner.
Tactics involve closing to midrange. The artemis aims for opponents weapons and tries to snipe them out, leaving them with no attacking power. The hades aims for balloon and hull, setting both on fire and taking out armor, balloon, and permahull. Once the hades destroys the hull armor, artemis shots start taking out permahull.
The trick to this build is to have a respectable gunner for your hades gun. These shots need to land as they deal the actual damage of the build. If your hades isn’t landing, you can’t close in and finish working them over.
Determine the appropriate range to the enemy by watching the hades fire. Hades shots have an arming time. You need to be at such a distance that when your hades shots land, they explode visibly. This means you are dealing maximum damage with the hades.
A note from Sir Yosh himself on why we choose a gunner to fire the hades: on long range maps you need both lesmok and greased ammo. Hades is surprisingly precise with lesmok at long range - you can start shooting early, destroying armor and balloon, while your secondary engineer disables their guns using the artemis. While getting close to enemy, your gunner should switch to greased ammo, which makes hades work pretty much like a mortar that deals more damage to balloon and hull. Since greased decreases the projectile speed, its shots arm earlier and you're able to shoot a closer target. Greased has provides an accelerated fire rate.
This build is new to me and needs practice, but when you feel that our opponent is properly disabled, approach and begin ramming/stomping. Our artemis will continue to work fine. Your hades will lose a lot of effectiveness, but it is not completely ineffective. Your gunner can also switch to your side flamer. Similar to the flamer build, you want to position yourself above your opponent and begin stomping them towards the ground. When done right they can’t escape. You are less effective at this close range that with the flamer build, but patience will let you finish them off on the ground.
Advantages:
-Allows for the approach of sniper bulds by taking out their guns with the artemis
-Can begin disabling ships at range giving you safer charging lines
-Can kill ships at range, keeping your hull safer from damage (mostly self inflicted) and giving you an opportunity to support your ally more readily if needed
Disadvantages:
-Less killing raw killing power than the meta build, and less panic inducing than the flamer build

558

Guides / Re: redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions

« on: January 12, 2014, 07:48:50 pm »

Part Two: Know Your Tools
You will need to be a pilot and you will need all 3 tools. The Pyramidion is a beautiful creature, a ballerina if treated right, but without the right tools, she maneuvers as well as a sky whale skates on ice.
You get 3 tools. Let’s make them count.
Kerosene:
Remember that bit about your engines dying and crew members getting worn out? This is part one of the explanation. Pyramidions have poor acceleration. Kerosene allows you to accelerate and decelerate faster. You can reach a higher top speed. It slows down unwanted turns and keeps you pointed mostly straight during rams. And the best part is that you can literally use it constantly. Your main engineer can keep your engines and hull in tip top shape by themselves. It is constant abuse of the engines and constant repairing work for your main engineer though, so be wary of who you let take this role. If they fail, your ship will flounder and die. Without engines, you are already dead.
Phoenix Claw:
Pyramidions can barely turn on their own. It’s sort of embarrassing how poorly they turn really. Luckily, you have a tool for that. Phoenix claw will allow you to turn significantly faster than regular engines. They damage the engines, yes, but at the same rate as kerosene. Your main engineer won’t even notice! You will need phoenix claw for any mildly complicated maneuvering, so it is a must. Some people may prefer to use moonshine over kerosene, but never leave the claw behind.
Hydrogen:
Pyramidions are strong and have good firepower. Their weaknesses are turning, acceleration, and vertical movement. We have already covered 2 of those weaknesses with tools, so let’s fix up the last one to make the perfect ship. Hydrogen lets you move upwards much more easily. It nearly prevents downward movement for a time, and it wrecks your balloon, so use it sparingly, but in a pinch, it will keep your front guns on the enemy or keep you on target for a ram.

559

Guides / Re: redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions

« on: January 12, 2014, 07:48:18 pm »

Part One: Know Your Ship
My Pyramidion is a brawler. I feel that the true spirit of the Pyramidion is to be a brawler. Get into a fight, deal out tons of damage, make everyone hate you, and still have hull left over. A Pyramidion should be able to close in and solo kill any other ship. In order to do so, your front guns need to be on the enemy AT ALL TIMES. If you can’t train both front guns on the enemy then you aren’t doing your job as a pilot. There will be moments where you will sacrifice that tactic to gain a positioning advantage, but 95% of the time, your bow should be pointed at the enemy. It follows then that you, the pilot, are the most important piece of the puzzle. If you can’t keep the front guns on the enemy, then your strongest source of firepower is sitting useless. We will go more into your job later. First, covering the rest of the crew.
Main Engineer: This will be the second most important person on your ship. They are responsible for your engines and hull. 99% of the time, they should be repairing your engines and hull. In rare circumstances, they may be allowed to fire one of your side guns. This is generally not to be encouraged. If your main engineer is on your side guns, your engines will die and you won’t be able to keep your front guns on the enemy anymore, causing swift death.
Top Engineer: Front left gun emplacement and balloon. They will be responsible for firing a single gun and topping off your balloon when it needs the help. You will have to communicate more with this engineer than your main engineer. In circumstances where you go into full flight mode, this engineer will need to go below and help make sure no engines die while running away.
Gunner/Extra Engineer: Top right gun emplacement. Gunners shoot things. You will make their job extra easy. Point the gun forwards and shoot. If you have the extra engineer, they can help make panic repairs in dire circumstances.
If your crew starts to deviate from their positions, you will have to relax your use of piloting tools and ask them to return to position. The Pyramidion is strongest in such a crew formation and is (in my mind) unique in the explicit roles it allows you to assign to your crew.
I suggest you let your crew determine for themselves what position they want to take. Certain roles are much more demanding and it will wear some people out. More on this soon.

560

Guides / redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions

« on: January 12, 2014, 07:46:40 pm »

Notes on this guide:
While making this guide and really thinking about how I flew, I felt that my level of piloting went down. This is meant as a guide, not a rulebook. Pyramidions must be flown on instinct. This will help you train your instincts towards the right responses, but you will fly best when it comes naturally. Don’t think too much.
23 Pages in a word document. Over 12000 words. I *almost* feel like I got everything I wanted to say into this.

Vocab:
Arcs - The space where a gun can aim, shoot, and hit a target
Breaking Arcs - Repositioning your ship such that guns that could previously land shots on you can no longer shoot you in any way.
Goomba Stomp - Lowering your ship down directly above another ship and pressing them into the ground until they are destroyed

redria’s Journal - A High Level Guide to Flying Pyramidions
In my time I have flown across the lands of our great world: skimming over the frigid waters of the north fjords, through the great dust storms of the dunes, in between the wreckage of abandoned buildings. If there is anything my experiences have taught me, its that Yesha got it right with at least one of their ship designs: the Pyramidion.
After keeping logs and analyzing previous engagements for over 1000 battles, I feel prepared to release a journal, for those pilots yet to come, on how to best utilize the strongest traits of our favorite ship, and how to cover up its few weaknesses. To you brave reader, I hope you are strong of will, quick of wit, and already tested in the flames of battle. For this will not be a beginner’s lesson, but an adventure into the smaller details of what it means to pilot the Pyramidion.
Welcome to redria’s crash course in… crashing.
To the one who reads, I want to help you move from being just another Pyramidion pilot to being one of *those* pyra pilots: the ones that crewmembers follow between lobbies, and that enemies curse as their ship falls to the ground in flames. You will fall, and you will make mistakes, and you will lose engagements, but in the process you will learn to truly fly, to hunt, and to laugh.
This journal will be long. It tries to put most of the things I have learned about flying Pyramidions over nearly 1000 matches into words and tries to guide you into how to use the strengths of the Pyramidion to cover the weaknesses. It is not the end-all-be-all guide of how to fly a Pyramidion. It will not let you start wrecking well coordinated teams with a random crew. It won’t give you the experience to get the timings right on everything. It won’t include every strategy involved in flying a Pyramidion simply because I don’t enjoy employing said tactics. But it will help you start moving forwards and teach you how, with this play style, you can start taking over almost any public engagement. So grab a drink, make a sandwich, let go of the wheel, and hold on to your butts. Let’s go smash some ships together.

Part Zero: 10 Rules to Follow when using this Guide
Repeat after me.
1. I will not gloat if I win, no matter how much I may win by. My opponents fought, and no matter how well they fought, they allowed me to play the game, and for this I am thankful.
2. I will not pout if I lose. It doesn’t matter if my crew spent the whole match jumping off my ship while I died again and again, or if my ally suicided into walls the entire match. I have given my all to the match and have gained experience.
3. I will not abandon my match. My opponent may be winning, but they deserve a good fight, and I have not lost yet. My team may be full of trolls, but I have not given up. If need be, I will leave the lobby after the match, but not until I have given everything I have to my current fight.
4. Every time I destroy a ship by ramming, I will laugh maniacally.
5. Every time I destroy a ship by goomba stomping them into the ground, I will laugh twice as hard. My crew will join in.
6. If I team kill an ally by ramming them into a wall, I will apologize profusely to them and my crew. I will laugh hysterically, but I will not repeat the act. My powers should be used only for good.
7. I will attempt to communicate with both my crew and my copilot through both text and voice. If they do not respond, I will do my best to support them.
8. I will achievement whore as hard as possible within the confines of still flying a competitive ship. I wish to level up, but I will do so with honor while winning matches.
9. I will keep an open ear to suggestions and requests in the lobby. I may not use ships modification suggestions from crew or teammates, but I will respect their judgements and try to convince them through my play that I have made the right decision.
10. I will have fun. This is a game first and foremost, and if I am no longer enjoying some aspect of the game, I will respectfully avoid that aspect if possible. This applies to, but is not limited to people, maps, ships, builds, and my own play style. I will not make a fuss about these things but will simply avoid them and move on.
We here in Guns of Icarus Online have an amazing community. I am making and posting this because I haven’t seen much in the way of intermediate-high level guides. A lot of guides go into the basics of something. I want to touch in depth on a specific style of play and help aspiring pilots grow in this area. Simultaneously, it gives those haunted by people like me an insight into how we move and play. I want to see what happens in game if non-pyra pilots read this guide and come up with ways to foil my strategies. I want the challenge of figuring out a new way to fight within my play style. Let’s get out there and grow up together.