Some obvious or not obvious inquiries

[Claxus]

I'm not saying I try to go full speed and dance around ships and stuff, but I do prefer to constantly move (at a controlled speed), while keeping my gun arcs as stable as I can (my top priority), and keeping a good position on our enemy, possibly forcing them to turn, trying to spread out our own taken damage, trying to maintain a position where we can take out their engines, etc.. If I just park, my crew gets DPS, but a lot of times I feel maintaining positioning, however minimal, can be more advantageous, and harder to react to, if we have the momentum to keep the pressure, or and can quickly make some distance if we lose our main offense. The quicker ships can tend to slip away if we have no acceleration.

I don't expect gunners to always hit, though, that's fine for me, I can accept a good 75%ish hit rate, more or less depending on the weapon and our position. But I take back what I said about not using mortar. The Lumberjack is completely different than the Scylla mortar, didn't know that. The light mortar was a nightmare... Lumberjack seems like a very solid weapon for mid to close range.

I really liked Junker's solid gatling + flak on one side... But what should I run on one side on the Galleon with heavy flak? The top port-side gun is a harpoon, so I'm not sure what to use as a heavy gun to get past armor (no heavy gun proficient at taking down armor?). Heavy flak + Lumberjack/Manticore? My friend loves the flak weapons and tends to be a great shot with them, so keeping it is preferable.

For starboard, I'm thinking of Carronade + Manticore for strong disabling power up close.

[Alistair MacBain]

gat flak is a pretty no-go.
Gat mortar. Hades Flak. Dont mix them.
Gat 450m range, flak 150 arming range

A standard galleon looks like this:
Flare Back, Merc/Hades on left+lumberjack+hflak and hwacha, carro on the other side.
The lumberjack is more of a mid to longrange gun than closerange. It works in that area aswell but below 300m you need greased or sth similiar to decrease the arming range of the lumberjack.
Same would go for the hflak.

Arming: Some guns need to have their shots traveled for a certain amount of time. After this time has run out the shot is "armed" meaning that it will deal full dmg (without arming only the primary damage is deakt). When using lochnagar rounds you can decrease that arming range. Or you use an ammunition to change the muzzle speed. That way the bullet is slower what leads to a shorter range traveled till the arming time has run out. Lesmok does it the other way around so you need to beware with lesmok at close range cause it increases your arming range.

[obliviondoll]

gat flak is a pretty no-go.
Gat mortar. Hades Flak. Dont mix them.
Gat 450m range, flak 150 arming range

That's still a 300m window in which both weapons are effective for their role. Fire with Gats until armour is broken (or nearly so) then add Flak fire, usually while the Gat reloads. By the time the armour is back up on the target, you Gat should be ready to fire again, and the Flak can reload while they wait. It isn't as reliable a pairing as Gat/Mortar, but it can work with the right crew and a good Junker pilot.

A standard galleon looks like this:
Flare Back, Merc/Hades on left+lumberjack+hflak and hwacha, carro on the other side.
The lumberjack is more of a mid to longrange gun than closerange. It works in that area aswell but below 300m you need greased or sth similiar to decrease the arming range of the lumberjack.
Same would go for the hflak.

Another option would be to have dual Hwachas on the port side with a Gatling Gun to strip the target's armour. At long range, Heavy Clip can allow Hwachas to snipe with moderate effectiveness, and if you have a friendly ship in close, they can strip armour and let you finish the job. When enemies come in close, the Gat lets you wreck armour and weapons then paired Hwachas with Burst or Charged ammo can shred the hull.

[Alistair MacBain]

Still ...
Why render your pair so hard when you could easily take a different pair that does the same much better. Gat Flak is just not a good choice atm that just cripples you for 0 benefit.
There is no benefit in having a flak over a mortar when planning for closerange.

[Claxus]

I finally forced myself to leave novice for good... It's been interesting. Started out pretty terrible... One match a Goldfish took out our balloon, and kept taking it down near instantly every time (carronade?), and so we were just stuck on the ground 'till they just swooped down with flamethrowers taking us out miserably and slowly on the ground, our balloon instantly going down repeatedly. I also got called a terrible captain. What am I supposed to do?

I changed our set later to four heavy flaks, and a hades cannon. Yeah, laugh. It was kinda hilarious, the crew went along with it, but we kinda steamrolled that much staying close to our ally. Wasn't serious, just experimenting with the game.

But in any case, how's heavy flak, manticore, and a hades cannon up top for port side? For long to mid range combat, and starboard will focus on more up close. Honestly though, I don't understand why flak + gatling is bad. What I liked about it on the Junker was that it's an accurate pair that hardly lets up on the offensive at variable ranges, and they're fairly easy to aim. To me, it felt like it struck a nice balance of anti-armor and anti-hull streams. But I'll probably go with hades as a Galleon.

So yeah, I'm really wondering what to do if a ship focuses on disabling your balloon.

[obliviondoll]

So yeah, I'm really wondering what to do if a ship focuses on disabling your balloon.

Drogue Chute is useful if you find your balloon dying a lot.

Making sure you target enemy weapons with Gat, Artemis or whatever other Shatter damage you can hit them with before they get close.

A dual Carronade Squid or a Heavy Carronade Goldfish can keep your balloon down pretty badly if you give them the chance. Using a Chute can help you to avoid that problem, and having Shatter weapons to stop their damage output can resolve it long-term.

[Alistair MacBain]

One heavy flak or one manticore is enough if you can time it correct. One clip of those can kill anything thats not goldfish or galleon in one clip. And if you face those two youve got other weapons to deal damage aswell. Dont just sit on one or two damage types. Mix them to get the highest amount of distraction and kill.

As said with the gat flak combination ...
The Flak does no damage agaisnt anything thats not permahull. Exlosive modifiers are just crap against anything except permahull (hp).
Yes a gatling can strip armor quite good but theres no point in doing that for a flak if the enemy is already at 450m where the gat has its maxrange.
Then you have the flak shooting once armor is stripped but theres that 300m window where the enemy just needs to get close to render your flak useless. Rather take a mortar ... 400m range and a even faster and safer kill than a flak. The flak has its use. But that isnt in closerange brawl fights. A good enemy will just abuse the weakness of your pair and you will rendered useless. A gat mortar as a closerange pair is way harder to abuse.

[obliviondoll]

Just remembered what you guys are forgetting when it comes to Gat/Flak... and what I had neglected to bring up as part of the reason the pairing can work well. I still won't say it's an ideal pairing, and for the most part, Hades/Flak at long range and Gat/Mortar in close are better options, but it's still something to consider.

Ammo types.

Lesmok in the Gat, and now you're landing hits beyond 600m. Load Incendiary or Greased Rounds for the Flak to reduce speed and thus arming range, and you just doubled your 300m firing window. Alternatively, you can load the Flak with Charged Rounds for a harder hit or maybe even Heatsink Clip to ignore that Flamer Squid that's bugging you while also widening your effective damage window AND adding ammo to your clip.

[Claxus]

I'll try out some better weapon combinations, and maybe suggest our crew to bring some of those ammo types if I do keep trying gatling+flak. And I honestly forgot about the chute, I never had a situation in Novice games where I really needed it, but I should probably have it on a Galleon due to it being such an easy target for flechette.

As a Galleon, do people expect a certain offensive role? i.e. do most people prefer a good Galleon to fight up close with mortars? Or is going with a heavy long range set a valid preference?

And for Galleon's starboard, is it more of a secondary resort? Having only heavy weapons on that side seems unable to get past armor...

Oh, and an irrelevant question. How's the Mercury Field Gun? I ran with Pyramidion's C preset in novice games, which has that and a flak as the fore guns, but it didn't feel too exceptional. Is it just for poking?

[Alistair MacBain]

even lesmok doesnt make it viable. The spread for a lesmok gatling is just way to big to reliably hit armor. If youre not shooting sth as big as a galleon (which btw has guns on the side which you rather dont want to hit when aiming for the kill) you almost always miss alot of the bullets.

[N-Sunderland]

As a Galleon, do people expect a certain offensive role? i.e. do most people prefer a good Galleon to fight up close with mortars? Or is going with a heavy long range set a valid preference?

Some people like running their Galleons entirely up close, but often you'll get more out of the ship if you bring a long range side. The Galleon functions best when it can focus a target down at mid-long range.

And for Galleon's starboard, is it more of a secondary resort? Having only heavy weapons on that side seems unable to get past armor...

The carronade-hwacha combo is actually amazingly good at both disabling and killing ships up close. The carronade deals a pretty sizeable amount of damage to the armour, not to mention that you can get ships on the ground with it.

Oh, and an irrelevant question. How's the Mercury Field Gun? I ran with Pyramidion's C preset in novice games, which has that and a flak as the fore guns, but it didn't feel too exceptional. Is it just for poking?

The mercury is a very strong gun if you use it right. At mid-range it's a bit clunky and gets outclassed by the Hades as an armour stripper, and up close its turning radius is a huge headache. At long ranges, however, it's fantastic for getting armour down quickly while also being extremely easy to hit with. In addition it disables engines and guns in a single hit, which is especially helpful for going up against ships with heavy guns (mostly Galleons) at long range.

[Neithrantulre]

Don't underestimate the Armor damage that the explosive guns do. Typhon Heavy Flak does more armor dps than the Mercury Field Gun, and similar component dps to the Lumberjack, even though Lumberjack does shatter damage. Piercing, Shatter, and Flechette definitely are more niche/have more disparate multipliers than Explosive. Galleon with nothing but flaks(light and heavy) can do 25% more dps to armor than a gatling, 230% more dps to hull than a light mortar, and similar component damage to an Artemis. All out to 1000 yards.

[Alistair MacBain]

Dont know how you think that can be.
Just as a comparison for the hflak/merc on armor.
A single heavy flak shot deals 99 dmg to armor.
A merc however does 172,5 dmg to armor.
Rate of Fire and Reload Speed arent that far from each other to come to the conclusion a hflak could deal more armor dmg.
And theres only a certain time needed to kill an opponents armor. At that point dmg per second doesnt matter. It only matters how many shots you need to kill armor.

I also doubt that an all flak galleon can outdps a gatling on armor.
A buffed greased gatling deals roughly 1.2k dmg to armor in a single clip. One clip of 2 heavy flaks deal deal about 400 dmg to armor. Sure i havent counted buffs and ammo in that but still ... There are 800 dmg missing at this point which probably wont come out of one single light flak and the correct ammo and buffs.

[Neithrantulre]

Dont know how you think that can be.
Just as a comparison for the hflak/merc on armor.
A single heavy flak shot deals 99 dmg to armor.
A merc however does 172,5 dmg to armor.
Rate of Fire and Reload Speed arent that far from each other to come to the conclusion a hflak could deal more armor dmg.
And theres only a certain time needed to kill an opponents armor. At that point dmg per second doesnt matter. It only matters how many shots you need to kill armor.

I also doubt that an all flak galleon can outdps a gatling on armor.
A buffed greased gatling deals roughly 1.2k dmg to armor in a single clip. One clip of 2 heavy flaks deal deal about 400 dmg to armor. Sure i havent counted buffs and ammo in that but still ... There are 800 dmg missing at this point which probably wont come out of one single light flak and the correct ammo and buffs.

Sorry about the Merc thing, I was using old data for the merc, but the fire rate and reload times compound, so the Heavy Flak does fire overall 34% faster. The Merc does 28% more armor DPS. My point is that the Heavy Flak armor damage is significant.

2 buffed Charged heavy flaks do about 624 damage in their clips, and can reload and fire a second volley before a greased Gatling can dump its clip. Thats 1248 damage to armor with just the heavies.

[Piemanlives]

You're also not taking into account the heavy flak's arming time, the heavy flak is a long range weapon it isn't nearly as effective at close range due to the fact it's only dealing a portion of it's possible damage, there are a few ammo types that do in fact where a weapon will deal it's damage but even if we account for those, at long range if the other captain is expecting it they can avoid it. Considering that a gat is a close range weapon and has a fairly hefty magazine, missed shots aren't that important, however with a heavy flak every shot must connect for it to deal any damage against hull armor, otherwise an engineer can just repair it.