Dunes: How to approach 2 Galleons / Spires ?

[Silvere]

^Title. Or galgal / spire2 ; As a fishy, in my part.
I tried going through the "tunnel" at the ground when they were camping there and got utterly destroyed as soon as I popped out and tried getting near them.

THEY WERE experienced pilots (im lvl 4) and got pretty good teamwork, so... dunno, how do you reach them without getting sniped/killed while approaching? Phoenix claw made it easy for them to keep up with me going around, while mymain engine got sniped away all the time in other cases ;-;

[Alistair MacBain]

If your enemy is fully relying on his sniping its kinda hard to approach him.
However there are ways.
With such immobile ships like Galleon and Spire a good idea is to split up.
Thats usually a pretty bad idea but against such a immobile enemy you dont want to make it to easy for them to shoot at both of you.
Second thing is kinda obvious. Use as much cover as possible.
They wont do alot to you when there is something in the way.
Either try to move with the clouds and shake the spots when they got vision of you.
But if you try and use the clouds dont stay in clouds that are close to them for to long. If they have a flare they will reveal you and kill you before you get to them. Stay far enough outside so you dont get revealed.
Or try and go low and use the soft cover there.
It totally depends what the setup is. What weapons do they have exactly, what ships do you have and which weapons are packed on your ships.
Dunes tends to be a quite sniper heavy map.
If you got a lumberjack or hwacha on your goldfish you can try to go for a quick disable (1200m range on hwacha, 2k+ on lj) and grab some distance.
Something else you can try is rush.
Catch them when they arent prepared. If you get them once in such a situation you can try to force a meatgrind. Kill them as fast as possible and whenever a new enemy respawns rush him down.
If you catch them fast enough they wont have the time to wear you down. Has a quite high risk but if you can pull it off you can manage to grind them down without giving them alot of chances. If they try and spawn far away at the jugger for example you can grab distance and approach from both sides. The jugger is a bad place for campers due to the smaller ranges.

But theres already an issue with that when you started.
Alot of highlvl teams tend to just change their ship when they have to fight a sniper on Dunes. This map favors snipers quite hard.

[Omniraptor]

Obviously you should move BEHIND the clouds (not inside them) for as long as possible so you don't get lit up by flares.

[Silvere]

Ye, usually I go hwatcha fish. I once tried carronade against snipers to constantly keep one down, but on dunes I had no hopes of reaching them.

one problem I would have against spire teams would be getting near them without my hwacha getting shot by their mercury. Maybe its cuz my crew is always repping it instantly and not just before they want to shoot it, but it seems I just cant get a sufficient job done.
Clouds and terrain are self explanatory, but I cant seem to grasp on how to approach them without getting completely demolished before getting in more "profitable" range. (Hwacha range with 1200m is good to know, thanks for that!)
cuz usually I reach a ship with ma fishy I am going to stay in their blind spot, no matter what, switching with gattling and hwacha on he cooldown.

I once tried in a pub that we split up, problem was that I (2nd time him) got destroyed shortly before reaching them, while the pyra-mate then was near them but had no way to hold his own against the 2. (Were 2 galleons in this case) I think one of them was lumberjacking and the other one flak+hwatcha, but I dont remember.

Whats a good way to "approach" when you are not in cover anymore? Go higher, shift your angles, throw in a hydro when you k ow the next hit is gonna do some bad dmg, ... ?
I just cant deal with snipers at dune and dont know how to approach this(Without going sniper mysepf )

[Alistair MacBain]

When you got someone with a buffhammer on your ship tell him to buff the balloon and "jump". Try to dodge by going up and down alot.
Your good with that hwacha. Try to tell your crew to preload the hwacha with heavy clip and get into range. Then try to disable the lumberjacks. Once that happened you can try and catch up.
The important thing against such a setup is not to rush blindly. When your way is to far you need to try and be able to get into cover for long enough to grab back up.
Goldfish just has the issue with the low amount of armor. But you got quite alot of permahull so you can take a bid of a beating. Just need to watch out for that heavy flak shots.

But even if you manage to find an approach once it can be a tough one.
Dunes is just an awful map against snipers. I like sniping alot but Dunes just favors this playstyle to much with that low amount of hard cover.

Another idea you can try is a artemis on one side and try to hold a midrange bifecta and disable their guns for a bid. Your ally might get the chance to charge in that window.

[Silvere]

Welp, thanks, Im gonna try a bit as soon as I find the time again, especially with a buffed balloon for some evading.

Maybe its gonna work out and then theres a big hooray, else I just switch back to fjords etc. :'D

[HamsterIV]

My knowledge of this tactic is from the receiving end.
One ship goes small sniper build, like a pyramididon or junker with two mercs, the other ship goes fast kill brawler (gat morter pyrammidion.) The sniper ship acts as the distraction hanging out at maximum range and/or behind cover taking pot shots and trying to stay alive. While both galleons are distracted by the sniper ship the fast kill brawler sneaks in behind a dust storm and takes one out. In the confusion the sniper ship sometimes moves into brawling range and uses close range weapons.

This mostly works against galleons because the entire crew are on weapons and not looking for the 2nd ship. Also the pilot has a horrible field of view from the helm, and it is very easy to sneak in low.

This will not work if the brawler pilot doesn't know how to maximize his damage out put or rams at the wrong time. It will also not work if the sniper ship gets killed because the galleon crews will be looking for new targets.

[Alistair MacBain]

Another thing that can work against such a ship. Beware this is totally theoretic now. I dont actually know if it can work out. In theory it can work in reality it might fail horrible.

Get a engineer with a buffkit and then grab a certain distance in his sight with one ship.
Get a buff on engines, especially the turning engines and the balloon.
And then play duck. Let them shoot you but try to force the enemy captain to use his phoenix claw.
On one side this hold the enemy busy which can force them to not shoot. Secondly the movement makes their aiming much harder.
And on one point you might get his engines by forcing him to use phoenix claw alot. Even if they break. Barely alive turning engines can be enough.
When you get this timing your ally can charge in and kill one of them really fast. Then you can advance and get into the real battle aswell.

As i said this is pure theory and might go horrible wrong. Not sure which distance is perfect for this. Cant be to far away but to close isnt helpful aswell.

[Captain Phil]

Well, if you want a cheese win vs a double galleon sniper build, run mobula with merc and arti. using lesmok rounds on the artis.

Obviously you should move BEHIND the clouds (not inside them) for as long as possible so you don't get lit up by flares.

There are sneaky ways of shooting flares to reveal enemies behind clouds.

[vyew]

Well, as mentioned previously Dunes is great for snipers, so if you want to take out a sniping team with your close range ship, you are already at a disadvantage

That being said, I think taking a sniping ship to counter another sniping ship gets old after doing it too often, so what I usually do is have me and my teammate agree on which one of the lanes we are going to rush down-the left side ribs/tunnel, the right side around the leviathan/juggernaut/crashed ship, or just straight down the center.

Skim the desert floor, because the sniper team will probably sit at maximum height to look over the clouds and get extra range on their guns. Try and remain hidden behind cover until you are as close as possible, then rush one enemy ship together. Increase altitude at the last possible second.

This doesn't always work, but it's more interesting than a 40 minute sniping match That being said, sometimes you'll just be up against a really entrenched and experienced sniper team and there is nothing you can do-not to mention an uncooperative or rush-happy teammate. Just try and have some fun

[Puppy Fur]

I always go for disabling in any build I choose. If we can disable them then we can kill them. For longer ranges you may need long range disabling. Hwacha with heavy clip might do it but it's not extremely long range. Artemis and Merc is a nice friend ship to support. Artemis, Hades(leamok rounds) might work as well.

[Alistair MacBain]

Actually if you dont plan on lesmok artemis the difference between artemis and hwacha isnt to big ...
134m ...
Thats all the difference.

[HamsterIV]

Also want to point out Dunes isn't flat. You can find some cover in the dunes themselves or hiding behind bits of wrecked ship. Some times you have to play Guns of Icarus like trench warfare: snipe, relocate, hide, wait, charge.

[Puppy Fur]

Actually if you dont plan on lesmok artemis the difference between artemis and hwacha isnt to big ...
134m ...
Thats all the difference.

Travel time. Hawacha shots are very slow allowing the enemy to dodge some/all of a volly at range.