Good ship for a new crew?

[Kouhei Sakurai]

So some of my friends got the game as well, but I'm a little stuck as to which ship I should use to show my friends the ropes. They're generally less inclined towards the 'boring work' (i.e. engineering), and I hope to do what I can to make engineering a little more interesting. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm not sure which one would be better, or if I should go for a different build instead.

1. Long Range Mobula/Spire
Probably the only ships I can think of that would allow the full crew (sans pilot) to be manning a gun. I have a Spire with a Merc on the port side of the top deck, an Artemis on the starboard side, plus Heavy Flak and Flamer on the bottom deck. No Mobula build in mind, and I have zero experience piloting a Mobula as well.

2. Metamidion
Simple and direct, though my main gripe is how this seems to be more effective with a full engineer crew (buffgi seems better than a gunner for the gatling). On the flip side there isn't much parkour needed.

[Dementio]

You could try flying Junker and Squid. With some inexperienced people on these ships, engineers will be jumping all around that ship to keep it together.

A typical long range Mobula has a Merc/Hades on top top, top, middle top with an artemis on either side. Usually the artemis is on the top wing, because of it's superior horizontal arcs, while the guns with less arcs are on the bottom deck. Burst rounds are usually good for the artemis, but if you wanna go to extreme ranges, lesmok rounds is probably an idea.
A tip for engineering a Mobula, if you don't already know, one engineer on the right side, repairing the balloon and one engineer on the left side, repairing the hull.
When everything works well, everybody can shoot all the time.

Long range ships usually are not that exciting to fly though, unless you want to brawl with them.

[Kamoba]

Metamidion focuses on fast killing and one guy doing the boring work who will sometimes get to shoot stuff..

You could work the main engineer on a rotation to share the 'boring' work.
Though if they want to do gunning I'd make them experience he hard side of gunning and avoid the meta, I'd make them work Hades Artemis (telling them to disable weapons) or Hades Flak... That's jut because I'm an arsehole though and am not keen on the concept of avoiding engineerin gameplay..

Sniper Spire only on certain maps if you have a team of avoid repairers...

Your best idea though was the mobula, all three gungineers, or two gungineers one gunner and rotate who ops the mid gun.

Or assuming you have three friends you could all start a clan try to recruit enough members to crew four ships and your mates could be pilots...

[Indreams]

These are some of the builds I use when I have new players or two many AI crews.

1. Blenderfish
Its a ship that has the one gun. No need to get bifectas or trifectas. The gunner stays on the front gun, and engineers need just enough awareness for the flamethrower.

2. Long-range Mobula
Mobula has five light guns, all facing the same way. I can have five different guns (I run flak, hades, merc, artemis, banshee) and give the entire crew a training camp on aiming. The only downside is that a Mobula cannot possibly be repaired by new players, as they won't even know where all the components are. The captain needs to keep the ship safe, possibly without damaging piloting tools.

3. Metamidion
Just like you've said. It's an easy and debatably OP ship. Everyone has a set role. Metamidion teaches a whole lot about the game including but not limited to: coordination, piercing damage, explosive damage, simple parkours, and engine maintenance. However, you need to have three attentive crews, or the ship does not function. One AI can also ruin your day.

4. Hwacha Galleon
You'll need at least one experienced engineer. Stick your powder monkey in the bottom deck (he'll love the hwacha), tell your newbie engineer to fix what you tell them to, and have the experienced engineer on the top deck. The two hwachas mean that gunner has a room for mistakes, the massive health pool means engineer has a room for mistakes. But beware, the low mobility means that pilot has little room for mistakes.

These are the ships I use to teach the ropes. I've mostly had a good time with these, except that one time...

[Kouhei Sakurai]

You could try flying Junker and Squid. With some inexperienced people on these ships, engineers will be jumping all around that ship to keep it together.

A typical long range Mobula has a Merc/Hades on top top, top, middle top with an artemis on either side. Usually the artemis is on the top wing, because of it's superior horizontal arcs, while the guns with less arcs are on the bottom deck. Burst rounds are usually good for the artemis, but if you wanna go to extreme ranges, lesmok rounds is probably an idea.
A tip for engineering a Mobula, if you don't already know, one engineer on the right side, repairing the balloon and one engineer on the left side, repairing the hull.
When everything works well, everybody can shoot all the time.

Long range ships usually are not that exciting to fly though, unless you want to brawl with them.

I have more faith piloting a Junker than a Squid... the placement of the four engines and how fragile the Squid's hull is makes me anxious. I don't even dare to say that I can engineer well on a Squid, and honestly I don't really trust my piloting skills to make up for anything. Which is sad because the Squid is my favourite ship in terms of its stats, strategy, and even aesthetics.

Mobula might be more boring... but if it keeps us alive I guess I don't mind.

Your best idea though was the mobula, all three gungineers, or two gungineers one gunner and rotate who ops the mid gun.

Or assuming you have three friends you could all start a clan try to recruit enough members to crew four ships and your mates could be pilots...

I guess I just might build a Pyra just to make them do a bit of engineering... and if all fails I can still fall back on a Mobula and let everyone have some fun shooting.

These are some of the builds I use when I have new players or two many AI crews.

1. Blenderfish
Its a ship that has the one gun. No need to get bifectas or trifectas. The gunner stays on the front gun, and engineers need just enough awareness for the flamethrower.

2. Long-range Mobula
Mobula has five light guns, all facing the same way. I can have five different guns (I run flak, hades, merc, artemis, banshee) and give the entire crew a training camp on aiming. The only downside is that a Mobula cannot possibly be repaired by new players, as they won't even know where all the components are. The captain needs to keep the ship safe, possibly without damaging piloting tools.

3. Metamidion
Just like you've said. It's an easy and debatably OP ship. Everyone has a set role. Metamidion teaches a whole lot about the game including but not limited to: coordination, piercing damage, explosive damage, simple parkours, and engine maintenance. However, you need to have three attentive crews, or the ship does not function. One AI can also ruin your day.

4. Hwacha Galleon
You'll need at least one experienced engineer. Stick your powder monkey in the bottom deck (he'll love the hwacha), tell your newbie engineer to fix what you tell them to, and have the experienced engineer on the top deck. The two hwachas mean that gunner has a room for mistakes, the massive health pool means engineer has a room for mistakes. But beware, the low mobility means that pilot has little room for mistakes.

These are the ships I use to teach the ropes. I've mostly had a good time with these, except that one time...

Blenderfish... I've actually not flown or crewed on one before if I'm not wrong... but it shouldn't be that different as compared to a carro/flamer Squid right?

Seems like Pyra is still ideal for teaching engineering. One of my friends might like engineering... I'm just guessing, but if he does then I guess I'll have a good Pyra crew.

As for the Galleon... don't the heavy weapons always get knocked out easily? They're a bit too close to each other and tend to get hit all at once...

[GeoRmr]

Blenderfish... I've actually not flown or crewed on one before if I'm not wrong... but it shouldn't be that different as compared to a carro/flamer Squid right?

Difference is when you ram them they die, instead of you dying.

[DJ Logicalia]

I played just about all of my first 100+ matches on a junker. It was a good boat to learn on, for me and my friends. Easy (enough) to pilot, gunning is pretty straight forward, engineering is good, and you can try all sorts of builds. It's a great ship

[Indreams]

As for the Galleon... don't the heavy weapons always get knocked out easily? They're a bit too close to each other and tend to get hit all at once...

Hence pilot can make no mistake... fights involving Hwacha Galleon revolve around who shot first. Pilot needs to give the gunner a perfect shot at the perfect moment.

And heavy weapons aren't too weak. They are just a pain to repair. Make sure you hwacha before they hwacha.

[Kouhei Sakurai]

I played just about all of my first 100+ matches on a junker. It was a good boat to learn on, for me and my friends. Easy (enough) to pilot, gunning is pretty straight forward, engineering is good, and you can try all sorts of builds. It's a great ship

I'm actually intending to try out the Junker in the near future: starboard gatling (top) and mortar (below), tentatively hades at the fore and flamers on the port side. Probably not the best build out there but I'll have to see how it fares before I know what it's lacking.

Hence pilot can make no mistake... fights involving Hwacha Galleon revolve around who shot first. Pilot needs to give the gunner a perfect shot at the perfect moment.

And heavy weapons aren't too weak. They are just a pain to repair. Make sure you hwacha before they hwacha.

I'm still a bad pilot >< so maybe I'll have to give the Galleon a miss until I have more games under my belt.

[DrTentacles]

Carro/Flame pyra is probably the most truly noob-proof ship build. It takes *effort* to screw one of those up.

Basic build is Flamer in 1, Light Carronade in 2, and flamer in 3. Slot 4 is up to you-go flare, perhaps. If you angle your ship, you can get both flamers, and your carronade on target at the same time. Don't ram unless their hull is down, and they're on the ground, just keep your ship in range and cook. You've got good downward arcs on the flamers, so park at their balloon height.

It works best with two buff engis and the main, IMO, but you can take a single gunner if it's hard to explain how gungineers work.

[GeoRmr]

Carro/Flame pyra is probably the most truly noob-proof ship build. It takes *effort* to screw one of those up.

Basic build is Flamer in 1, Light Carronade in 2, and flamer in 3. Slot 4 is up to you-go flare, perhaps. If you angle your ship, you can get both flamers, and your carronade on target at the same time. Don't ram unless their hull is down, and they're on the ground, just keep your ship in range and cook. You've got good downward arcs on the flamers, so park at their balloon height.

It works best with two buff engis and the main, IMO, but you can take a single gunner if it's hard to explain how gungineers work.

So you've got one buff engineer on the balloon and carronade, what do you need the second buff hammer for? Buffing the flamethrower does essentially nothing.

[DrTentacles]

20% is hardly nothing. It's more benefit than you're likely to get from an additional ammo type. (You can easily get away with lesmok and normal), then you add the benefit of a fire control tool if things go south.

[Ightrril]

The buff to the flamer only increases the damage from the actual hit, not the fire effect. The DPS from a normal ammo flamer direct hitting (I'll use the balloon for comparison) is just over 30. The artemis (almost ineffective against balloons) has just over 34. The balloon is the part that the flamer is most effective against and the direct hit does almost nothing so the buff has barely any bonus for it.

On the other hand having a second buff engineer is useful for buffing the rest of the ship, taking some pressure off the balloon engi.

What I prefer to do is swap over the positions of the front guns and have just one buff engineer on the starboard side.


Back to the main point of this thread however, if your entire crew wants to shoot then I'd support taking a Junker for some interesting matches for everyone. Be wary of enemy carronades though.

[Kouhei Sakurai]

Thanks for all the replies guys Most likely I'll try out both a Junker and a Pyra and see which one they prefer. Relatively easier to pilot and crew on as well.

[GeoRmr]

20% is hardly nothing. It's more benefit than you're likely to get from an additional ammo type. (You can easily get away with lesmok and normal), then you add the benefit of a fire control tool if things go south.

The flamethrower does an insignificant amount of actual damage (1.2 direct fire damage per shot- the flamethrower has only one damage type and no AOE damage, buffed that becomes 1.44 direct fire damage per shot - to put this into perspective the gatling does 7.5 direct piercing and 10 AOE shatter, a total of 17.5 per shot, + fire damage has worse modifiers than shatter and piercing) Buffing it by 20% isn't enough to make any real difference at all. All the usefulness of the famethrower is induced by the fire-stacks it creates which aren't affected by the buffs. Yes, lesmok flamethrower is useful, but by having the other option of using burst rounds in a flamethrower greatly increases its effectiveness (Burst rounds affect the flamethrower in an unusual way, they increase the size of each particle the flamethrower emits - each time a particle hits a component it has a chance to start a fire - larger particles pass through more components hence more fires) Heatsink is also a good third ammo type and performes better than neutral rounds when in range, because like burst it increases the clip-size allowing you to keep the heat on for longer and for the same reason buffing a flamethrower does essentially nothing, the heatsinks -17% damage reduction is negligible.

Hey look guys, another gun that functions better manned by a gunner than an engineer! Who would have thought!

I disagree with Ightrril - if a second buff engineer helps out it just makes the other buff engineer lazy and they will get less practice. It also has potential to block prebuffing through poor communication. =P