Fighting a Gatling on hull

[Gambrill]

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?

[Xemkobankavareniya]

Welcome to the basics of engineering, (: .

[Piemanlives]

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.

[N-Sunderland]

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.

[dragonmere]

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.

[N-Sunderland]

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.

[dragonmere]

I think I just got a salute from Sunderland...

[treseritops]

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?

[N-Sunderland]

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.

[Zenark]

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.

[N-Sunderland]

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.

[Gambrill]

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

[HamsterIV]

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.

[RaptorSystems]

spanner + wrench is good on squid. :p

[N-Sunderland]

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.