Some obvious or not obvious inquiries

[Claxus]

Kinda new, but I'll try to not bore you guys with overly obvious stuff. Some of this is opinionated, at any rate.

1.) Range finder. Okay, I know how it works, but... Is it as pointless as I think? As a pilot who could have a more intuitive skill, anyway. Good players should really be able to judge (roughly) distance and how to lead/arc shots, right? The biggest issue is this game is chock-full of clouds, and I've had entire games where it's been unusable because it seems even the most invisible clouds block it.

2.) Gunner ammo. I noticed a gunner can load ammo, then dismount, and the weapon will have the skill icon still. Can a gunner go around loading shots on weapons for anyone's use?

3.) Moonshine or... Kerokero. Is a 50% difference of moonshine worth the 200% more it hurts compared to kerosene? 200% thrust is no joke, but I activate it for two seconds and R.I.P. engines. It's saved me from ramming and flames... But did it save me? I wonder if engineers would have an easier time with our side getting burned than three engines burned up.

4.) Harpoon. Proof of concept or useful? I really like this thing, but I can't help but feel having firepower outweighs it in any case. How strong is the reel, really, and is the damage more than just 'well, it does something more than nothing?' Brainstorming, it feels like even a specialized close range ship is better off with a gun... Can a Squid save the day by reeling in a flamer away from a friend? Can it turn my ship into a decent ether lance if I focus on ramming with impact bumpers?

5.) Flak. Or... In general, really. Flak's effective against the hull, so... Does it pose very little threat against armor? If I shoot flak at a balloon, is it just laughable? Mostly using flak as a reference example, but I wonder how ineffectiveness works.

6.) How is a gunner useful? An engineer with the same skill is the same. But a gunner gets three... What if three engineers just collaborate skills? A dedicated gunner is good to have, but faster repairs/buff/chem spray fixes overall means more people on more guns more often, the ship will be crippled less and survive longer, and they still have a buffed ammo type. I feel like I'm missing something here...

[Alistair MacBain]

1. Yes currently the range finder is kinda useless. The theory is nice but usually ppl at higher level dont need it and inexperienced people dont get any benefit from it cause they barely know which dot is which range with which ammo for guns that have iron sights (lj, hades).

2. To load a ammo in a gun you have to load it in the gun at the end of the reload cycle. As long as you are there at that end point the ammo will be loaded and you can run around with the gun still saving the ammo. That is not tied to class.
Example: You are on the frontleft of a pyra. You just shot your whole clip and your reload starts. The balloon behind you took damage and you quickly dismount and repair the balloon. Then you go back to your gun which still reloads. You mount it again and make sure your ammo is selected and once the reload finishs with you on the gun and the ammo selected the ammo is loaded and you can happily leave your gun with your ammo loaded for you when you get back to it.

3. As engineer i prefer kerosene as its much easier to keep the health of the engines up high thus allowing more speed. But i admit i dont know at which point the more damaged moonshine engine gives less speed than the less damaged kerosene engine. As a general: Use moonshine for rams and only in short bursts. Kerosene can be used much more often and longer.

4. Sadly not useful. The physics just dont work and even after a recent buff its not more than a laugh for the enemy.

5. All explosive weapons (flaks and mortar) are only useful against permahull. There is barely any point at shooting those guns unless the hull armor of the enemy is destroyed. Yes they have a theoretic chance of causing firestacks but that does not matter to much. General idea: The longer range the more frequently you can shoot the gun even if armor is still up. As long as you get your shots in on the unarmored hull once armor dies youre fine. Then its additional damage that might caused a faster kill for you than your enemy was able to do with a not shooting gun. But those are minor things that only matter at the highest lvls. In a standard pug game youre fine with waiting for your other gun to kill the armor and then start to fire at the unarmored hull.

6. Situational. Yes often engineers are much better than a gunner. (max 1 gunner per ship) Atleast for most of the guns. But there are some guns where a gunner is just much better. When you bring a gunner youre aim is to be able to use a certain gun at different ranges. Those are often guns with arming. Those guns dont deal their full damage (secondary is missing) if they hit below a certain range (dependend on ammo loaded (muzzle speed)). This means that if you bring for example greased which reduces your muzzle speed you will get the damage on the enemy at a much closer range.
Guns which benefit from gunners: Hades, Lumberjack, Minelauncher, Heavy Flak, Hwacha, Heavy carronade, light carronade
All those guns are able to do much more if you have atleast 2 ammo types for them. Other guns like a gatling or mortar just need one ammo to do their job. Yes different ammo types allow them to do other tasks aswell (gatling with heavy clip could snipe components) but thats generally not needed.
To go with the gatling example. Why should you destroy a component when its usually better to just kill the enemy armor as fast as possible and then kill the enemy right away with a mortar. Theres no need to snipe a component if you could kill the enemy much faster.
A lumberjack instead to fully explain things can use lesmok when the enemy is far away to get easier hits and hits on a further range. On midrange it could use burst or normal to get the damage on the enemy. And once the enemy gets closer you could use greased or if enemy has flamers heatsink to get damage inside the standard arming range. And if things get really messy and the enemy is even inside greased range you could load lochnagar and get the enemy balloon where no other ammo would do the job to decrease the arming range the most.


Alot of things are situational and i am not to sure bout kero gainst moonshine myself so that might be better to let someone else explain it.

[Dutch Vanya]

The harpoon can be useful. Try it on the side of galleon with a hwacha and carronade.

[Claxus]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm gonna give up on the range finder.. I believe it can be useful, but 90% of the time I've never been able to use it because there's tiny pixels of cloud/fog constantly during fights. I hope they change that... Would it warrant use if it tracked (guided weapon leading) enemies even through clouds? Maybe too good? Oh well, it's just practically useless right now because it's obstructed the majority of the time.

So, I tried the Galleon. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it my primary ship (my other two favorites are Squid and Goldfish)... But I have to ask, do ships have any hidden stats? The Galleon feels so... Perfect to me. I thought it would be totally against my style because of its stats (I love versatility). But when I tried it in Practice, it seemed... Extremely responsive? It felt like it could transition from turning hard right to hard left very quick (even without the Claw, and it felt like changing the acceleration direction was also fast.

So is is the low maneuverability, in a way, a plus side? Do ships have different drag stats, or does the Galleon's mass have an effect on that? Or is it just my mind playing games and just somehow feeling very at home with how it controls?

And another question, what do pilots bring as engineer tools? I had a spanner, which sometimes I've used in emergencies if most of our controls are down (to either repair or rebuild whatever is nearest). Recently I started to run with a Dynabuff, and buff the engines and balloons when we're moving long stretches.

[obliviondoll]

And another question, what do pilots bring as engineer tools? I had a spanner, which sometimes I've used in emergencies if most of our controls are down (to either repair or rebuild whatever is nearest). Recently I started to run with a Dynabuff, and buff the engines and balloons when we're moving long stretches.

What I've gathered from experienced players is that a dynabuff kit is best handled by an Engineer. Taking yourself from the helm for the length of time it usually takes to buff is just too risky. Engineers can apply buffs and "pre-buffs" (stacking hits ready for a repeat buff at a moment's notice) while carrying out repairs - basically this means they're doing it without leaving their stations.

Whenever it's possible to micro-manage your engineers, it's a good idea to have the following combinations of tools:

Main Engineer:
Spanner
Mallet
Firefighting kit*

Secondary Engineer:
Wrench
Buff
Firefighting kit*

*Either one can take an Extinguisher or Chem Spray, in my opinion. Personally, the Extinguisher is more commonly found in my Engineer loadouts simply because of its ease of use against large fires. Whether you do one of each, or two the same, should be down to the Captain and Engineers and their preferences. I'd personally rather see one of each on my Engineers, but I won't object if they both prefer either one.

Usually, the only time I'll be using my Engineer tool as a Pilot is when things have gone VERY wrong and I need Engineers to stay on the hull AND weapons while we take damage, and I'll pop a Drogue Chute to give myself the time needed to rebuild a broken balloon. Any tool except the Spanner will come up short for this task, so that's my preferred option.

[Omniraptor]

As a galleon, don't expect any especially fancy flying- your high armor and hull are what keep you alive more than anything. For that reason, I usually pilot as an engineer with mallet/spanner/buff and phoenix claw as the helm tool. When traveling (not in combat) I tell the main-deck engineer burn kerosene.

It seems to work well enough- we get bonus repair/rebuild power for tanking, and maneuverability for combat, and I can buff things while we're traveling with kerosene. Of course, this setup only works if you can trust the gunners to spot targets.

For reference, this setup uses a pilot/engineer, a main engineer, a gungineer, and a gunner.

[Alistair MacBain]

For a pilot i either suggest a spanner or a wrench. If your needed to repair a close component (example junker or galleon balloon) and not just rebuild it when things get extremely messy then the wrench might give you more. In other cases when you only leave the helm to rebuild close components then your better with the spanner.

For a Galleon you need to learn to park. Sounds strange but thats it. Depending on your guns you can do this earlier or later. A moving Galleon is a nightmare for gunners and engineer cause they will get extremely hard shots. You want to move in range and arc fast and then wait for the enemy to die to your enormous firepower. You shouldnt do fancy flying or maneuevering. Get in position and get the kill.
You are a tank so you need to fly like that. Dont freak out when your armor dies once. You get an enormous Permahull to save you even longer. And its not like you can fly away from anyone.

[Hummin]

I would say the above is all solid advice for a novice-moderately experienced player, but don't let it limit you once you get really good.

For example, on a Galleon: As a gunner, I want a relatively steady ship w/ good arcs when the shot will count.  I can compensate for a predictably moving ship just fine when needed.  The Galleon does park well, and it's a good tank, but I've seen it used to successfully take and hold points on crazy king.  It can't chase squids, but it can move quickly enough with kerosene.  And it can certainly ram kill.

Flak (heavy and light) do non-negligible damage to armor.  When you've watched a full clip of gatling mostly hit the hull, and you know the hull's about down, you can often break hull and then kill with well-placed shots.  Waiting until hull break is safer, but a good gunner will know when to break the rules.

[Claxus]

Yeah, I'm not expecting to do much acrobatics, but the ship just felt very controlled to me. When I read 'the hulking tank' on the site, I expected a molasses cannon. But I think it's surprisingly agile for what it is.

In my time playing, I've really enjoyed playing the Junker. I love its survivability and broadside capabilities. I think by far I've been most successful with it. It's slow, but enough to squeeze out some maneuverability. Well, Galleon is pretty similar, I think, like a bigger Junker. It turns way slower, but I don't think it's much slower in speed. It felt steadier to me somehow.

I know I'm not nearly as experienced, but I really want to push the Galleon's capabilities to its limits! My top focus in combat is good arcs for the gunners, but I don't want to just rely on the armor if I can move well, you know? It has movement stats, I'll use them! I like to keep momentum, with the Junker, it's gotten me through some crazy stuff. Granted, Galleon's no Junker, but I feel it's enough for me! I mean, sure, I'll tank if I know we can pile some decisive shots (done some parking with Junker), but to me, the most important things as a pilot are survivability and momentum.

I trust my gunners can aim decently even while moving, with most weapons anyway. I gungineer'd a lot and had no trouble shooting some guns like flak or mercury field gun even as we flew at higher speeds... Honestly I don't plan to use something like mortar because it was too unreliable for me.

If a balloon is down, what happens if you shoot it? Will say, flak, still just hit the balloon if you shoot below you at a ship, and do nothing to the hull? Should I try to crush them at that point then?

[Alistair MacBain]

Once the balloon is destroyed all damage dealt to it will transfer directly to the hull using the modifiers for armor/permahull.

[obliviondoll]

I've heard a lot of people describe the Junker as a mini-Galleon. I think that's the first time I've seen the reference go the other way.

Sounds a lot like how I feel about both ships. I actually expected to dislike the Galleon when I first decided to pilot one anyway - a decision primarily motivated by a desire for FIREWORKS (I loaded up with Hwachas and Rocket Carousels for the 4th of July). I've also been very surprised at how much I've enjoyed being a crew member on board a Squid, which I thought would frustrate me.

But in terms of handling and playstyle, the two ships are very similar. The Galleon is more stable, while the Junker is more agile. Both are very focused on setting up broadsides, and both benefit from having a pair of complementary weapons (or more) firing into the same target. Both are extremely slow compared to the other ships out there, and they're the two most heavily-armoured ships in the game (although the Junker lacks the huge permahull of the Galleon).

[Hummin]

I trust my gunners can aim decently even while moving, with most weapons anyway. I gungineer'd a lot and had no trouble shooting some guns like flak or mercury field gun even as we flew at higher speeds... Honestly I don't plan to use something like mortar because it was too unreliable for me.

The galleon can move, and it often should.  However, I don't want to come across the wrong way here.  Accuracy will almost always be better when you have a stable platform.  Be cautious about how much moving you expect gunners to compensate for... it comes with experience.

Certain types of motion make certain shots nearly impossible.  Here are a few examples:

• flak/lumberjack + chute: I can hit something close and level, but that's it
• mine launcher + chute: usually direct impact, it drops very far
• gatling + anything: not a big deal
• lumberjack > 2km: can compensate for VERY predictable movements, but left/right rocking makes leading impossible. Unexpected altitude changes are also a problem.  Cannot reliably lead squids or fast-moving ships

[obliviondoll]

Most competent gunners can compensate for consistent and relatively slow movement. In most matches, I keep my Galleon moving ALMOST all the time, including while lining up AND taking shots. I rarely expect my crew to be landing shots while the throttle is above 2 points in any direction, unless I'm adding counter-thrust to slow us down.

The important think isn't so much the speed you're moving, but your STABILITY. I won't expect a gunner to land a shot outside of close range while I'm turning, and I won't expect them to land hits when I'm throwing their aim off with unexpected up- or downward movement.

As long as you keep any movement consistent and predictable, a gunner will usually compensate - often without even realising they're doing so. I've had a gunner ask after a fight "were we moving backwards?" when he'd been almost landing every single shot with a Heavy Hwacha at long range (Heavy Clip is awesome).

"Yeah. I thought you knew?"

[Captain Smollett]

The art of piloting a Galleon is three fold:

1 and the most important is positioning.  Understanding where you are in the map, where your ally is and where your enemies are and choosing the location to fight that leverages best your ships advantages will almost always win the engagement.

2 battlefield awareness.  The Galleon pilot has a commanding view of the battlefield as does his top deck engineer.  With a flare on the rear gun the pilot can flare up clouds and communicate to his allies what is happening on the battlefield and which target is priority.

3 Engineering.  Whether you choose to pilot as an engineer or not, the pilot of a galleon has more engineering duties than on most ships.  A good Galleon pilot should be maintaining the balloon, repairing top deck components when turning isn't required to allow the engineer to shoot more and rebuilding the hull when it breaks to further the ships tankiness.

At the end of the day the Galleon wins by firing more guns for more damage while having more health than their enemies.  If you can create the situation where you can engage while accurately firing all your guns at all times then you've essentially already won.

Don't forget to find yourself some good and trustworthy gunners to play with you consistently.  No matter how much firepower and health you have, poor gunnery will lose you the dps battle every time.

[GeoRmr]

1 yes it is useless

2 yes they can load ammo for other people to use

3 moonshine is always best

4 aft gun on a galleon + moonshine ram insta kills any ship - they're still working on the harpoon mechanics

5 explosive damage has a chance of setting fire stacks, but no its not really worth it.

6 don't even go there.