Hardcore Parkour: A Quick and Dirty Engineer's Guide to Getting Around

[Roderick Archer]

(Pictures will come at some point, for now, I'll just have to explain it)

Quick! The Hull's taking a beating, the engines are out, and the gunner is screaming in your ear to help him get the forward guns up. What do you do?

Whoops, time's up. You took too long banging on the engines to notice that the balloon was in shambles and the ship just made an unscheduled landing into a mountainside.

Hi, I'm Roderick Archer and I'm Engineer and this happens more often than you think. When I first started playing Guns of Icarus Online, I realized that I couldn't keep everything in running order if I couldn't get to it quick enough. So I, like many Engineers, have started to use clever jumps and falls to get us to places a quickly as possible. And so, I write this guide to help those Engineers out who want to get to whatever parts on fire faster than you can say "Chemical Spray".

First and foremost, is first person perspective. The one thing you need to learn before starting is where your feet are. This isn't easy, especially when you're platforming from a first person perspective, but it is possible. Third Person is a little better if you can't exactly nail down where your feet are in first, but in the end, it all comes down to preference. The easiest way, to me at least, know where your feet are is to practice jumping onto things like railings and such in one jump. Once you can do this without fail, you're ready for the harder stuff.

Now, there are a few well known parkour spots that most Engineers should know, but others are tricky. Let's go over two of them; one simple and one a bit harder.

First is the Rail Jump on the Pyramidion, something most Engineers figure out on their own.

Any Engineer on the Pyramidion knows how much of a hassle it is when you're the only engineer on duty. So here's something you should remember next time you're on the forward gun deck repairing the balloon: You can jump over the railing and down on to the main deck in one jump and land right next to the hull. It's that simple. You've gone from balloon to hull in about a second, giving you more than enough to get on that damaged hull. And if you're good at chaining repairs, you can hit the balloon, jump down to the hull, hit that, run to the back engines and hit all three of them, passing by the side gun before getting back on the balloon.

Next is something I don't think many people knew they could do while on a Goldfish... I call it "The Underbelly"

Alright. Again, you're starting at the Balloon repair point. But now, you don't want to go to the Hull, you want to get to the lower engines. Looking over the side, you should be able to see the port (left) engine. Now, throw caution to the wind and jump. You should hopefully be landing on the support strut that connects the port engine to the ship. It's solid and so is the engine, so run across it and the engine before jumping over to the lower deck of the Goldfish. I've timed myself and I can get down to the engines from the balloon in about 2 seconds, when running down the stairs and to the engines is about 4-5 seconds.

And in Guns of Icarus, that extra 2-3 seconds can mean the difference between winning or ending up as someone's ornament on a mantlepiece.

Here's the final tip I have to offer... Experiment.

You'll never get anywhere if you don't give in and just try something new. Go ahead and jump off the side of a Galleon, hoping, praying that you'll land on something solid that isn't terra firma.

So good luck, fellow Engineers!

[HamsterIV]

Excellent guide good Sir, I Salute you!

You can always tell if you have a good engineer aboard by his Parkour. The best are but a blur of healing effectiveness.

Here are a few of jumps you have missed:
Spire top deck to middle deck gun: Stand on the catwalk of the forward facing light gun left of the helm. Jump off the right side. You should land on the main gun (which you can walk on). Very good if you are gungineering and notice the main gun go down/ catch fire.

Spire Top engine to bottom engine/hull: Jump off either side of the top engine railing. You should land next to one of the turning engines. Effective if you are the main engineer fixing stuff after a fight when a new fight unexpectedly starts.

Spire Top Deck to bottom deck: There is a ladder to the port side of the ramp that leads to the top engine. (I did not know this the first few times I flew on a spire). The ladder goes strait to the bottom deck. Going down a good engineer does not use the rungs he or she leaps into the cage and thinks skinny thoughts until they hit bottom.

Galleon balloon to hull: Jump over the railing in front of the helm. It doesn't save much time but it impresses the captain. Also if you are feeling fancy you can run backward after hitting the balloon, jump over the rail going backward, then turn in midair to hit the hull as you land.

[N-Sunderland]

To get down from the balloon to the engines on the Goldfish, I prefer to jump off the right side, so that I can land next to an engine rather than on top, saving a bit of time. It's also easier to pull off.

Some other good ones:

-Squid: top engines to bottom engines. You can throw yourself over the rails right behind the main engines and land on the platforms below. Saves loads of time
-Squid: You can hit the right main engine and right turning engine in quick succession if you jump onto the rail next to the staircase, jump and hit the engine in mid-air, land on the walkway, and run to the turning engine.
Squid: You can get from the front gun to the right gun quickly by jumping onto the rail (with a bit of momentum), jumping over the gap onto the rail on the other side, and jumping to the gun.

There are others, I might mention them later.

[Captain Smollett]

-Squid: top engines to bottom engines. You can throw yourself over the rails right behind the main engines and land on the platforms below. Saves loads of time
-Squid: You can hit the right main engine and right turning engine in quick succession if you jump onto the rail next to the staircase, jump and hit the engine in mid-air, land on the walkway, and run to the turning engine.
Squid: You can get from the front gun to the right gun quickly by jumping onto the rail (with a bit of momentum), jumping over the gap onto the rail on the other side, and jumping to the

Whoa, I didn't even know the front gun to side gun squid jump. No wonder Sunderland is such an engineering ninja. Wonder what other ones I've been missing.

[N-Sunderland]

-Squid: top engines to bottom engines. You can throw yourself over the rails right behind the main engines and land on the platforms below. Saves loads of time
-Squid: You can hit the right main engine and right turning engine in quick succession if you jump onto the rail next to the staircase, jump and hit the engine in mid-air, land on the walkway, and run to the turning engine.
Squid: You can get from the front gun to the right gun quickly by jumping onto the rail (with a bit of momentum), jumping over the gap onto the rail on the other side, and jumping to the gun.

Whoa, I didn't even know the front gun to side gun squid jump. No wonder Sunderland is such an engineering ninja. Wonder what other ones I've been missing.

Funny thing is, I actually figured out and started using that method while crewing on your ship. You aren't missing any particularly significant ones; the others that I know are fairly minor.

[Keon]

Squid engine jump and the pyra hull jump are the ones I use most. The squid jump is really helpful when your captain is moonshining.

The other really major one is getting down to the lower side guns on a junker. Just jump off the side and land right on the gun and hit e. It saves a lot of time.

[Coldcurse]

you can climb some of the ropes on a galleon, and actually getting in the balloon

[N-Sunderland]

The Destructoid Flayed match yesterday was unbearably slow, so I used that time to work on some Squid parkour. As I stated earlier in the thread, it's really easy to hit the two right engines in quick succession by jumping off the rail before the staircase, but because of the balloon placement it's harder to do that on the left side. What I found:

-You can pull off a similar jump to the one achievable on the right side, but there's a much smaller angle in which you can do it, and even when you do there's a good chance you'll bump into the balloon and miss the thrust engine. Might require more practice, but still wouldn't be all that great.
-You can jump onto the balloon and then hit the thrust engine while jumping off, but this is pretty awkward and is questionably efficient.
-The best method I could find was a simple variation of the classic engine jump. Go up to the rear deck, but instead of going up to the engine, throw yourself off immediately and get it in mid-air. This keeps you from having to walk up, hit it, back up, and jump down.

I'll see how I can develop all that in the future.

[N-Sunderland]

After what happened in Cogs today, I decided to play around with the Squid in Practice mode for a bit. After a few minutes trying different engine jumps, this is what I got:

-My above ideas for getting the left engines in quick succession should be ignored. I thought of something better. The best method is to jump onto the rail lining the walkway, and hit the thrust engine while jumping. I previously assumed that you wouldn't be able to get high enough, but it works.
-By combining that with the rail jump I use for the right side, I've figured out a streamlined repair circuit for the engines. Starting at the top of the hull staircase, I was able to do a circuit in 8 seconds. By comparison, a standard Squid repair circuit (think SpaceSebi-style) takes 11 seconds. I can probably get a bit more time out of it with practice, too.

[Keon]

What does a repair circuit repair?

[N-Sunderland]

What does a repair circuit repair?

Any set of components. For example, under sandstorm on a Pyra, I use a repair circuit by going hull-engines-lower left gun-hull-etc. You just run between the components in sequence. The above repair circuit is for engines, probably while using moonshine.

[Keon]

So 11 seconds for the engines of a squid? I'll have to try it.

[N-Sunderland]

11 seconds using the classic method. I can pull off just under 8 seconds with my method now.

[Splorer]

I found this thread helpful when I first started playing Guns of Icarus, so I figured I'd contribute the tricks I've learned since then that aren't already mentioned.

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Galleon

Balloon to Main Engine: Looking forward and standing slightly right of the balloon, jump backward over the rail, then move forward while falling. You'll land on a metal platform with the main engine on your right side. This is useful for forming an efficient circuit of the balloon, main engine, and hull.

Main Engine to Turning Engines: From the position you landed in the previous jump, walk forward until you hit a corner formed by a black support meeting the main engine. Strafe left slightly and fall off the edge. You're now on top of the port turning engine and can easily hop off onto the bottom deck. Don't use this jump just to get from the hull to the turning engines; it doesn't save time over the stairs.

Middle Deck to Aft Medium Guns: Hop off either side of the ship onto the top of an aft medium gun. Looking towards the ship, walk backward off the gun until you're falling. Wait until the screen just starts to dim, then mount the gun. If performed correctly the screen will appear dimmed while using the gun, and upon dismounting you will reappear by the hull instantly. You can sort of do this with the forward medium guns, but upon dismounting you have to wait for the full duration of the fall to reappear. You can also do this with the port light gun, but it's relatively useless. For convenience’s sake, I will use the phrase “fall mount” to refer to this technique in the future.

Goldfish

Balloon to Hull: Rather than going back down the stairs, walk forward from the balloon through the overhang and fall off the starboard edge behind the helm. Fairly obvious, but I didn't see it mentioned, and it saves a good second or two.

Fall Mount Light Guns: Choose a light gun. Facing it, slowly walk away from the ship's center. You shouldn't have to fall for your screen to dim. Once it is dim, mount the gun. This is useless due to the structure of the goldfish; you will reappear in inconvenient positions.

Medium Gun to Helm: You're on the medium gun, your captain just disconnected, you're about to crash into a mountain, and you're the last remaining person on your team. Well shit: you're having a bad game. Anyway, facing aft, jump onto the black fence on either side of you. Hop across the two armor plates and then onto the black support beam. From there you can mount the helm and prevent your crash into the oncoming mountain. Had you used the stairs, your ship would be a pile of rubble.

Junker

Different Hull Angle: Standing on the ramp that leads to the bottom deck, you can repair the hull from below. This isn't parkour, but since it is useful information for creating circuits I'm including it. I won't include the more commonly known angles, but I will include the ones that weren't intuitive to me at first.

Fall Mount Middle Deck Light Guns: Hop on top of either of the light guns. Face the center of the ship and walk backward off the gun. Mount the gun when the screen is dimmed. Once again, this is relatively useless. You can sort of fall mount the light guns on the bottom deck and the front light gun, but you have to wait the full fall duration to reappear.

Pyramidion

Hull to Main Engine: Facing aft, use the rail that's forward of the hull to jump onto it. Leap from the hull onto the main engine platform. Useless since you can hit the main engine from the bottom anyways, but I had to put something under pyramidion.

Spire

Fall Mount Medium Gun: Using the technique described in Hamster's post, get on top of the medium gun. Facing aft, walk backward until you fall off the gun. Mount the gun when your screen starts to dim. Arguably useless since you reappear at the helm (right in front of the pilot's face too .) You can fall mount the port and starboard light guns using the technique described under junker. The fall mount for the port gun is potentially useful.

Top Deck Starboard Light Gun to Hull: Before you mount the gun, get on the aft side of it and stand on the silver metal plating that is adjacent to the black fence. When you dismount, facing aft walk forward and fall onto the spiraling black fence below you, then walk forward again. You should fall just next to the starboard turning engine. You can do it differently, I just find this is the most reliable way of not falling off the ship.

Squid

Different Hull Angle: You're the pilot, fleeing an enemy, when all of a sudden your hull armor disappears! You look over to see where your engineer is, but he disconnected and the god damned AI is repairing the port turning engine instead of fixing the armor. Deep breath. Dismount the helm, turn starboard and jump over the rail onto the slope. That's it! You can repair the hull through the bars here then get back to flying.

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That's all I've got. As for my take on “Fall Mounting: Bug or Feature?”, I think it provides a minor buff to ships that don't see enough use, so there's no harm in letting it stay. I hope a few people learn something new from reading this, and contribute back to the thread when they find a new trick.

[Infectedshroom]

Not really a park hour kinda tip but I found this very useful when I was in the Spire. There's that ladder beside the hull so if you want to go straight to the balloon and to the hull that ladder is extremely useful and saves a lot of time.