Gunner Tool: Wrench Vs Spanner

[FredTheFifth]

Problem with a spanner is the fact that in this game a component at 1hp will be almost completely worthless as either it wont be able to do the intended task (guns and engines) or will go down very fast due to fire coming from the enemy ship(s).

In the case of being constantly disabled it makes no difference if you have a spanner or a wrench if your gun is always down, all you can do there is prebuild it and wait for the time to fire, if you have a spanner in that case an engineer needs to be nearby to mallet the gun.

A gunner will always be able to help with repairs with a wrench better than a spanner, thats why buff engineers take wrench/buff instead of spanner/buff

[Lydia Litvyak]

I actually experimented with taking spanner as a gunner for a long time because I wanted to make it work, but I really don't think it does. I would never take a spanner as a gunner now. You can get your gun back up a little (I think it's on the order of 1.5 seconds) faster, but it will still be so damaged you can barely even turn it and its rate of fire will be horrendous. If you're up against constant hwacha they'll have reloaded before you can accomplish anything anyway so you're better off just bringing a wrench, waiting for them to fire before finishing the rebuild, and then using those 12 seconds to do whatever you need to do.
Assuming they don't shoot your gun out right away, you'll have to keep hopping off the gun to hit it every 2 seconds trying to get it back up to full, which is murder on your concentration. This also makes dealing with even one or two stacks of fire rather difficult as the fire deals such a large proportion of your repair capability.

[sparklerfish]

Even if there might be a circumstance when it's better to have a spanner, I think the default novice loadout should still have the gunner with a wrench.  Isn't the point of a novice loadout to set you up with the most common configuration?

[Bronzium]

I myself have been using the spanner a lot as gunner, just because I find it has a much faster cooldown time for repairs once you get stuff moving along. I've debated trying a wrench, but in my time as an Engineer I always hate when Gunners use the wrench since the cooldown speed takes so much longer than the spanner when an Engineer needs to repair something. It somewhat helps if a Gunner uses a wrench (since the rebuild speed is alot faster than a spanner or mallet), but the cooldown takes too long for the Engineer, since in that timespan the enemy could easily take out something that you just repaired with a wrench, and then you have to rebuild it up again. It's always these tongue-n-cheek situations that I hate as an Engineer, since before I know it the enemy just obliterates our hull before the cooldown wears off.

Just giving my two cents to discussion, take what you will from it.

[Seka]

I personally prefer both, it's just a matter of my loadout, I generally prefer Spanner, Mallet and Fire extinguisher, then Pipe Wrench, Dynabuff, Chem spray, however it does depend on the ship whether I alter this loudout.

Mallet: Bad Rebuilding components but Great at Repairing.
Wrench: Balanced Rebuilding and Repairing
Spanner: Great at Rebuilding but not Repairing.

[Mr.Bando]

Situational but tending to use wrench more.

If I have a fellow engineer who visits often, then all they need to do is mallet it after I prebuilt it with spanner.

Facing lots of disables from opponent I bring spanner?

Backing up on hull on goldfish while both crew mates rebuild engines or during kerosene.

Not using lochnagar on heavy weapons. Usually bring mallet for that.

Keeping both turning engines up on galleon if engineers are too busy. Low cool down of spanner will allow you to maintain high HP on both engines.

I only use wrench when gunning on a mobula or with weak engineer crew members

[Kamoba]

Depends on the ship..
Assuming pub crews.

Pyramidion with gunner a wrench, if the gungineer is not at his gun when needed because he is helping the gunner then the window of opportunity (disables and or armour break) will likely be missed.

Squid with gunner (because pub crews are very rarely willing to take triple engineer..) Pipe wrench.
Taking an engineer away from vital balloon or engine repairs is very very deadly.

Goldfish gunner pipe wrench, but if they insisted on a spanner, its not the end of the world.

Galleon, same as fish.

Mobula, wrench, never spanner.

Junker, wrench never spanner.


In an ideal world a ship with high disable power where people think a spanner should be needed, its up to the pilot to make sure those disable weapons don't get good arcs on the ship...

[BlackenedPies]

I'm convinced pipe wrench is the only viable gunner tool. Components are more likely be damaged than destroyed and you can't afford a damaged gun. Relying on an engi nearby is wishful thinking and ties up valuable time. The engi can't do the gunner's job and neglect their own. Rebuilding faster doesn't matter if you don't immediately repair.

If your gun is being shot by a shatter weapon there is no substitute for an immediate repair. If you have a spanner and your engi isn't close enough your gun is dead from the next artemis. If your gun is damaged get off and repair no matter what. You cannot afford to have an active gun damaged. Rebuilding faster doesn't matter when you can't save it.

The only viable situation is on junker. Because the main engi stays close they can mallet on their cooldowns. Junker front isn't disable vulnerable while the bottom is so both can work together to rebuild bottom deck. Spanner also allows better hull rebuilding when double tanking. In order to make spanner junker viable the crew needs to be tight and not allow damage on bottom.

[BlackenedPies]

I did some testing comparing spanner and wrench when rebuilding and shooting a light gun. It takes 6 seconds to rebuild with spanner and 7 with wrench.

I tested gat first. The procedure was to rebuild and repair it once then start the timer: shoot, repair during reload, stop timer on end of reload. With spanner shooting a clip of regular and repairing during the reload took 18 seconds; wrench took 15 seconds. Gat has a long empty clip time and mid-short reload so the spanner was at a hefty disadvantage due to the damage during the empty time.

I then tested the mine launcher which has the shortest empty and reload time. Shooting 3 mines and repairing during reloads took 10 seconds with spanner and 9 seconds with wrench: equal when you add in the extra rebuild second of spanner. The reason for this is that the mine can be fully repaired during the first reload if you have good reload discipline.

In conclusion, the mine is the only gun that doesn't face a penalty when using a spanner. Despite the 1 second advantage in repair time the spanner slows down dps from damage and after rebuilding. I don't believe there's any viable situation for a spanner on a heavy weapon because you cannot rely on an engi immediately being there, and the only viable situation on a light gun is a very tight Junker (preferably Munker).

[Kamoba]

Good to see the figures, and I agree that relying on the engineer for repairing the front gun when you have a gunner is very impractical, especially keeping into consideration gunners lack chem, so the engineer spending time on extended chem cycles, and repairs would take them off of repairs, or secondary weapon shooting in too many situations.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

The more I think about it, the more I believe the spanner may be the correct choice on the Goldfish.  The lifeblood of the goldfish is getting that heavy gun up when it is disabled, and speeding that process up would be great.  I do think it is reasonable to believe that an engineer will be nearby at all times.  After all, even if both engis are at the back, it just takes one quick sprint to get there, and they can also fix the hull while they are there.  I'm not convinced it is good on any of the other ships though.

[BlackenedPies]

It takes 11 seconds to rebuild a heavy gun with spanner and 12 with wrench. Again it's only a 1 second difference and leaves you impotent if you don't have an immediate engi near. You can't save the gun when being shot by shatter and can't repair the hull.

[BlackenedPies]

I wanted to test if spanner would be viable on a mine pyra when using lochnagar: the only repair job is the gun, and spanner can help rebuild balloon or bottom deck. Shooting 2 loch mines in succession was slightly faster with spanner and shooting 6 mines the spanner was one second faster (58 vs 59). This is at the cost of the gun being about 1/4 damaged when shooting so the rotation speed is slow.

Because of the mine's quick reload and instant empty it isn't penalized in dps when using a spanner for rebuilding, but doesn't help when taking damage. When successively using lochnagar the spanner is slightly faster but requires three spanner hits after rebuild and has a slower rotation speed. On pyra the gunner's main job is repairing their gun and helping rebuild, so spanner is viable on mine pyra.

[Koali]

For me, always Wrench. Not as specialized as Spanner or Mallet, but since I don't have slots for both tools, I go with the jack of all trades.

[Extirminator]

I kind of refrained from commenting on this thread to not make it larger and contribute to it. Even though "Pipe Wrench is Satan.", I would have to agree with the opinions of people who use pipe wrench EXCLUSIVELY on their gunner rather than a spanner even for situational usage. Which is why I don't think this thread should even exist... sorry Fred.

As have been said before, on components such as main engines, light guns and heavy guns(the components usually maintained by gunners), while rebuilding alone, a pipe wrench is not that "out-classed" by the spanner in rebuild power and time. The difference in time of rebuild with spanner and pipe wrench, calculated from game code variables and delays is about 1.6 seconds on average between all those 3 components(ofc latency and game processing comes into effect which might make it scale a tad.).
The amount of time you gain from faster rebuilding with the spanner is far lower than the amount of time and mental capacity you lose while fully repairing the gun/engine back up. It is simply not worth it nor was it ever been, to grab a spanner - other than filling your desire of achievements because Muse doesn't like to update achievements to the 21st century.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the spanner may be the correct choice on the Goldfish.  The lifeblood of the goldfish is getting that heavy gun up when it is disabled, and speeding that process up would be great.  I do think it is reasonable to believe that an engineer will be nearby at all times.  After all, even if both engis are at the back, it just takes one quick sprint to get there, and they can also fix the hull while they are there.  I'm not convinced it is good on any of the other ships though.

I have mained on a fish long enough to know that a good fish will have the main engineer running around to the engines, side guns, and even balloon way too much to babysit the front gun. Sure, it's up there on the priority list, but there are a lot of things that can and will come before it to make the ship more adept.
Not to mention that when going to the engines, and the balloon engineer is busy with balloon, the front gunner is the only one able to quickly respond to hull HP decreasing rapidly, and to be able to efficiently make sure the armor survives longer it is simply not possible to give the gunner a spanner. No matter how much I curse the front gunner for pipe-wrenching the armor a second before I arrive making it gain less HP and the cooldown kills it, there will still be triple as many times as that scenario where the pipe wrench actually saves the armor.