Author Topic: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage  (Read 40206 times)

Offline seriouschess

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Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« on: December 30, 2014, 05:05:25 pm »
I have played a lot of GOI over the past week or so and I can’t really stop playing. I do quite enjoy the variety of weapons and have decided to make a list ranking them. Keep in mind this list is my opinion based on my play experience and listening to the opinions of other players. So read on, as I rate the weapons of GOI from golden to garbage:

-Golden

Banshee Light Rocket Carousel: This is one of the few weapons that can destroy a ship by itself. The range is anywhere from long distance to point blank, and the fires it starts allows a crew to paralyze a ship from a distance. It’s an easy shot with fast direct fire projectiles. It’s not even bad flat damage since the rockets shoot so quickly. It’s hard to think of any disadvantages to be honest. You know what your ship needs? A Rocket Carousel.

Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower: If you don’t think this weapon is useful you have never been attacked by it which makes you lucky. It will completely disable a ship sending its crew running to stop the fires that have been spread all over. If you decide to let it burn the next decision you will make will be which area to spawn next. The one disadvantage to this weapon is that it has a fantastically short range so at least captains can try to avoid it.

Hades Light Cannon: The heavy artillery that’s called light artillery. The hades is one of the few one man (woman?) show weapons that can take out a ship outright by itself. The only disadvantage of it is that it is difficult to aim. Still, the arc-meter makes things more manageable, and with enough of a skill climb, players can cut down mobulas and spires with it at a fair distance.

Scylla Double-barreled Mortar: The Scylla has one purpose: to deal heavy hull damage at close range. Its low armor damage makes it more of a finisher’s weapon that is best paired with something that damages ship armor/systems. It’s surprisingly not hard to aim at close range due to the high velocity projectiles and range of motion of the gun. Pretty effective for what it is designed to do, even if the range is short.

Whirlwind Light Gatling Gun: Possibly an underestimated weapon. The Gatling gun is probably the easiest of the weapons to use with a variety of possible ranges and near guaranteed accuracy with high velocity rapid fire projectiles. What makes this weapon so useful is its ability to strip armor. When used simultaneously with another weapon that deals hull damage it will destroy a ship with sure consistency.

Manticore Heavy Hwacha: Easy, deadly, and most enjoyable. This weapon is usable at a surprisingly versatile set of ranges and can deal lots of damage with little investment from the gunner. You can even shoot it quick and leave it to load by itself while you are off doing something else. The gunner “heavy clip” ability turns what would be a spread fire gun into a longer range bombard artillery piece. 20 AOE rockets in less than 5 seconds? Ouch.

Echidna Light Flack Gun: This weapon is a pretty average one with average damage, average difficulty of use, and average (medium) range. The major disadvantage of the light flack gun is that it will do a fraction of its damage up close and with no area of affect. Anywhere in the middle range though and you are going to be dealing some hull damage. It pairs well with certain weapons, but has a hard time standing alone.

Artemis Light Rocket Launcher: A weapon that’s pretty easy to do consistent damage with at very long range; like across the map long range. It has limited ship killing capability and any gunner that has pegged a Galleon for 2 minutes with it can find the damage wanting. A common misconception people have with it is that it is meant to kill ships. Anything short of a Mobula with 3 isn’t going to do that. In the right situation it’s a handy long ranged ship harassment tool, in other situations it’s better to go with something else.

Beacon Flare Gun: I don’t consider this a gun, but it’s worth mentioning. It is a utility tool and a useful one at that. It can change the tactical situation very quickly to reveal an enemy force in the clouds. If you have a weapon slot that does not do anything in your build consider using this instead.

Lumberjack Heavy Mortar: Not a bad weapon all things considered. It’s heavy, has a short turn radius and deals pretty disappointing damage up close. It is, however the only heavy weapon with the range to snipe with. The shots travel so fast it is easy to arc with even far off. The shots also do enough damage to eventually destroy anything with enough determination. It does, however, take a lot of determination or perhaps support from other ships/guns.

Phobos Mine launcher: Honestly, I have only used this weapon effectively once, but I hear players specifically call it out by name in anger so it must be effective for something. Most useful in capture games. A novel utility, but cannot be relied on for any consistent damage.

Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade: Yeah, it’s… ok. At very short range it will eventually deal the damage needed to wreck a ship. Being a heavy weapon though, it requires too much for the investment. It does not help that a Manticore is better in almost every way.

Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon: A quaint idea with a sub-par execution. Heavy cannon balls lobbed at range that explode? I’m in! Add that the cannon balls travel slowly and fall steeply at range and you will be lucky to hit anything. Up close? Sorry flack takes time in the air to arm so you have to shoot it from far away. Too long ranged to be considered a bombard cannon and too short ranged to be considered a sniper. You’re better off with something else.

Mercury Field Gun: I almost forgot to add this weapon because I don’t even consider using it after I found out how useless it is. It has an extremely narrow turn cone, takes forever to load, and does paltry damage. By the time your crew mates get the 2 shots off it’s time to use another weapon. Replace this with something more effective like the Artemis.

Barking Dog Light Cannonade: The worst of all guns: short range, light damage, wide spread and slow to load. If you still don’t believe it’s useless after reading this ask yourself: if you are equipping a Barking dog, why don’t you just use a flamethrower instead?

Javelin Light Harpoon gun: This is another novelty tool, but because I have never seen it used effectively before in all the games I have played and in all the research I have done it’s down here. “The harpoon gun was first invented to hunt skywhales.” Sounds about right.

-Garbage


So what do you think? Is this your assessment as well? Is the list out of order? Do you have a list of your own? Comments welcome.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2014, 05:18:53 pm by seriouschess »

Offline Arturo Sanchez

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2014, 05:41:28 pm »
Nop all wrong, no gun is garbage only the noob captain that creates terrible builds for it.

You gotta think in terms of competitive (you want the fastest kill because time is your enemy-the longer the enemy is alive the longer they have to being active enough to hurt you) and pub stomping (pretty play as the game is intended, playing mind games with the enemy on a 1 v 1 basis).

For example-Most noobs cannot handle a single freakin flame thrower.

So I add a novelty gun to partner with it. adding another flamer, gat or other hull breaker is funny to me.

When I was grinding poon achieves I used a Pyra with a poon on the engie side and the flame on gunner side and on the lower deck gun I put a mortar.

Using the natural physics of the harpoon gun, depending on where you hit. The enemy ship will either fly into my Pyra horn or swerve to my side guns (because of my playing the poon on the left side).

The the flamer will hull break, the ram will destroy permahull or the mortar will do so.

If you want to see a poon utilised properly that's an very good example. As a pilot I found bumpers, kero and claw to fully compliment that build.

Flame until hull break perfectly lining up your front guns, facing the ship directly. Poon whenever you feel like.

To control the direction where the ship goes use kero to physically move yourself into the correct position (a 3 second burst at worse-neither the enemy pilot nor you have any direct control where the ship goes, you can only predict where it goes as it goes on a set pattern). If you are gonna ram, use bumpers because you are gonna spam that poon ram like crazy.

Using a poon can easily replicate the grinding of enemy ships in map geography. Without ever actually being anywhere near map objects like mountains or buildings.


I can go on for the other guns, but I'm pretty much illustrating your attitude of best gun is based on a very huge lack of experience and technical information. No gun is better than any other.

PLus putting carronade as a rubbish gun. I oughta school you with my carron spire....
« Last Edit: December 30, 2014, 05:43:41 pm by Ceresbane »

Offline Sammy B. T.

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2014, 05:44:36 pm »
Yeah, carronades aren't exactly garbage.

Honestly with the exception of the harpoon and until recetnly the banshee, nearly all guns in this game have a role in some shape or form. I'll talk about the use of some of your lower guns real quick.


Carronade, large and small. These gun's do flechette and shatter damage. What that means is these guns completely annihilate balloons (the heavy carro used well can basically gurantee a one clip balloon pop) and in a pinch, with heavy clip can snipe out components. The big ballooned Junker, once believed by many to be overpowered was laid low (hah, what a pun!) by these bad boys.

Mercury Field Gun. This gun is the undisputed long range armor piercer and component disabler. If you're fighting on dunes and you want to be sniping away your enemy to bits from across the field, this gun is unbeatable. While I personally prefer the hades as I like more movement and the larger arcs allow for that, for static sniping the mercury is king

Heavy Flak. This gun may be the best example of high skill, high reward. It has to be maximised properly becasue it is all explosive. But against enemy perma hull, if you both buff it and load charged rounds one shot does an amazing 697 perma hull damage. For reference, a Pyramidion has 700 perma. Against many ships, with an accurate gunner waiting for armor breaks, you will only need one armor break.

Lumberjack Heavy Mortar. Like the carros this gun does Flechette damage. So like the Carronades, you can keep an enemy ship falling, except unlike the carro, you have absolute insane range to do so. Definitely a high skill high reward gun, that needs specialized ammo (lesmok for long and something that reduces shot speed for close) but hardly deserving of such a middle ranking.


Also you hold some weapons if far too high esteem.

Banshee and Flamer. I am grouping these together because they are countered by the same thing, good chem spray cycles. While certainly not rendered useless, they are hardly the best around. In fact I would say they are largely support guns, used to cause extra stress when ships are worrying about real guns.

Gatling and mortar should be at the top of the list. They're the bread and butter of GOIO for a reason, insanely quick kills.

Artemis is generally better than the flak. Flak is the better killer, but art does decent perma hull damage but it can also shoot out components. An artemis can be fired anytime, a flak is specialized, needing to wait for armor break.

And I think that's everything. The mine launcher is a silly weapon outside of cp maps. The harpoon is useless. The flare is more utility though do note, if you hit someone with a flare, it is 10 stacks of fire ont he component hit so while definitely not a main gun, can still be annoying to bad chem sprayers.



Keep playing and keep theory crafting though!

Offline DJ Logicalia

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2014, 06:34:37 pm »
It's super cool you came up with this, and it's obvious you put a lot of effort in. I feel this rating is pretty good as far as lower level play goes, but if you get a group of really experienced players together, all these kinda fall apart. Flamer is useless against chem spray, banshees really can't take out a ship by them selves, a heavy flak or a mine launcher in the hands of a good gunner is nightmare fuel if you're on the receiving end, and barking dogs are actually really good :P . It's nice to see players talking about the weapon scene in a broad sense, and you made a good effort, but I'd suggest playing with some high level players or watching some competitive games to really see how some of these weapons can shine

Offline Dementio

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2014, 07:47:33 pm »
Harpoon on Galleon back gun slot; Harpoon on Squid back gun slot; Good Game.

For my own ranking, the rank of guns depend on the ship, fly style, enemy and their fly style and how they are used in combination.
All the flechette weapons, excluding harpoons, and Artemis and Mercury are on top of my list, with everything else following in second place.
I don't rank utility guns, btw, since they are weird.

Offline Schwalbe

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2014, 08:34:41 pm »


The day before I encountered spire armed with mercury+charged and heavy flak+charged on fjords. It was painful. So don't tell me those guns are so low for you dawg. On the other hand it's no surprise you're putting most of those gun that are hard to handle on the bottom. This game, as I say propably too frequently REQUIRES PATIENCE to master.

I like banshees and flamethrowers though, because I usually get psychotic handling them and scare those crewmembers who doesn't know me yet. Single banshee is not able to tear enemy into the shreds. Five of them - yes. And this is just an example.

Offline ZnC

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2014, 12:24:04 am »
I've spent a lot of time studying all the core guns and frankly speaking, mostly disagree with the ranking and rationale. This seems to be a list of personal favourites, and I'm sure it will change as you learn more about how to optimize guns and gun combinations.

Sammy B.T and Logicalia has made really good points, but to be specific, here are some things to try if you haven't already:
Barking Dog (/w Gatling on Pyra) - Buffed Heavy/Greased (takes out Balloon under 4 seconds; any ship without Hull and Balloon is a dead ship)
Mercury (/w Double Artemis on Mobula) - Charged, Lesmok (don't under-estimate the armor striping power and sheer range of this beauty)
Typhon (/w Hades on Spire) - Charged, Loch (Loch reduces 60% arming time, the killing power of the Typhon is second to none)
Hellhound (Goldfish) - Heavy, Charged, Incendiary (especially against ships with no active chems like Mobula, Spire)
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 12:27:23 am by ZanC »

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #7 on: December 31, 2014, 08:42:12 am »
Heavy flak and Mines are golden in my books.

Ive had too many glorios one hit kills with the heavy flak that killed 2 ships under a minute without the ally.


The harder guns usually give off best results. Ive still yett to see any one use the harpoon because imo its quite garbage. But there were these very specific times i did manage to flip a ship away from our ally with jst one harpoon. So i encourage some experimentation with the harpoon even though i dont wanna use it myself.

Offline Alistair MacBain

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #8 on: December 31, 2014, 10:14:55 am »
In the correct loadout every gun can be devastating. Except the harpoon which is just not working.
My gun rating is as follows ...
mine>lj>hflak>hades>rest
But this doesnt say anything about usefulness as you cant compare a hflak with a lumberjack. Those two fit a totally different role.
I cant say any gun is useless. You just need the appropiate loadout, mindset and tactic to make it work.
Actually the flamer is one of the weaker guns as you can counter it much easier than any other gun by simply having decent chem cycles on your ship.

From what I read in the OPs post is just that you didnt know what do to with which gun and how damage types and armor/permahull works.

Banshee is a nice and rather niche weapon. Good gunarcs, decent permahull dmg and a nice distraction from the firestacks. Even if I havent really tested the current banshee as I dont play that often recently.
It shines at close to midrange. (~800m)
Flamers are noobstompers. Simple as that. A flamer can light up a whole ship and be extremely annoying leaving the enemy in panic. But a good chem cycle neglects 90% of its job leaving your own ship rather useless. Its only meant to be closerange. (~350m)
A Hades is an amazing good armorstrip with a decent distaction ability. But taking it alone will give you long and slow kills. Its great at almost any range if you have a competent guy shooting it. Only at superlongrange against moving targets and at supercloserange (inside arming) its not good. (~120m - 1.4km)
Mortar does what its supposed to do. But only this. Kill an unarmored enemy in seconds without him being able to do anything if you keep arc. Its closerange only. (400m)
The gatling is actually one of the most used weapons in combination with the mortar (metamidion). It strips enemy armor in seconds and can take out components aswell. Its closerange only. (450m)
The hwacha disables a whole ship in a single volley and if you happen to hit the permahull with it it will also deal good damage. The high reload time however renders it a bid. Its good for close to longrange (~1,2k) with heavy clip.
The light flak is the goto weapon for midrange fights to finish of an unarmored enemy. The bigger brother of the mortar. (~1.2km)
The artemis is the annoying disabler that will leave you dead in the air if multiple are pointed at you. One alone will keep your important components disabled making you do something to get out. It deals consistent permahull damage. Best suited for mid to longrange due to its low turning speed. (~500m - 2k with lesmok)
The flare is a utility and emergency weapon. Enlightens clouds and allows you to keep track on your enemy. If ever happening shoot the balloon or hull if they arent chemsprayed and the enemy got 10stacks of fire on the component.
The lumberjack is the goto balloon killer for mid to longrange and also does its job at closer range but due to its arming time not to close. 2-3 shots on an enemy balloon and the balloon is down. Keep an enemy balloon locked and have him slowly sink into the terrain and die to that. But more meant to disable one target and go for his ally with 2 ships and it takes some practice to consistently hit with. (~220m - 1.8km)
The mine. The beloved child of most veterans and their toy to play around with. Hard to utilize in an even deathmatch but devastating if done correctly. Flip an enemy around, knock them in terrain, deal lots of damage all over the enemy ship, start fires ... It does everything pretty decent but can be countered by either getting inside arming fast or staying out of its low range. Closerange only (~300m)
The heavy carronade. Probably one of the most hated weapons. Get in close to the enemy and balloonlock him for ages. It can also kill components rather easy and with heavy clip in one shot. Closerange only aswell. (~425m)
The hflak is the BIG brother of the mortar and light flak. Instakill or oneclipkill any unarmored enemy. Hard to hit but deals alot of damage. Ignorable when hitting armor but devastating against permahull.
Its range is similiar to a lumberjack but due to its lower muzzle speed harder to hit. (~220m - 1.6km)
The mercury is the longrange counterpart for the gatling. Strip the armor at long ranges. Easy to hit. Can disable components and be annoying. Due to its bad arcs its pretty much midrange to longrange only. (~800m - 2km)
The light carronade. The light brother of the heavy carronade. Kill an enemy balloon in a few seconds and keep him low. Similiar to its bigger brother it can kill components in 2 shots when using heavy clip. On the right ships its extremely annoying. Closerange only (~325m)

The harpoon is as stated not working and shouldnt even be considered atm.

Ive just used the ops list and stated my opinion about every gun. Others opinion might differ at certain points ...
The ranges I gave for the guns should all be approximatly correct. Havent checked ingame for them (wilsons notes). Some ranges arent the actual maxrange but rather the effective ranges where it makes sense to shoot it.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2014, 10:52:21 am »
The light carronade. The light brother of the heavy carronade. Kill an enemy balloon in a few seconds and keep him low. Similiar to its bigger brother it can kill components in 2 shots when using heavy clip. On the right ships its extremely annoying.
I thought it only takes one hit to destroy any component other than armor/hull and balloon., with heavy clip.


The harpoon is as stated not working and shouldnt even be considered atm.
Seriously, on the back gun slot of a Galleon or Squid, don't tell me you can't see it! Seriously.

Offline Alistair MacBain

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2014, 11:06:53 am »
K might mix things up on the carro disables ...
Thought it was 2 for light and 1 for heavy but whatever. Its not much.
And yes I dont see the reason of taking a poon on the back of a galleon. Just makes your turning harder. A flare or mine is much better for what I want my backgun on a gally do.

Offline Dementio

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2014, 11:55:23 am »
The Galleons inability to turn makes it a very vulnerable target for a great many ships (Junkers, Squids). So instead of a mine that either never hits or doesn't do enough damage or an additional flare to my ally to do nothing with, I have a harpoon so I can stop the enemy from circling my ship by throwing them either into me or past me into my gun arcs. With a superior mass, armor and hull you usually win if a ship gets thrown into you or even destroy their balloon so they lose all their height advantage. Not so effective against most other Pyramidions since their own mass makes them able to endure a ram and their balloon is protected, but a little piloting of the Galleon itself and suddenly all the guns of the Pyramidion point in the wrong direction.
On a Squid the harpoon on the back is the ultimate special emergency evasion manouver tool. Harpooning an enemy ship and using the Squids superior manouverability, one is able to easily slingshot chasing enemies past the own Squid and have their back turned towards your front gun or even have them in the bifecta of your side gun immediately. Of course it is questionable wether this tool is more worth than a gun that can actually damage the enemy to a decent degree, but out of experience, in competive-ish matches as well, I can say it works rather well.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 12:02:29 pm by Dementio »

Offline Arturo Sanchez

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2014, 12:48:11 pm »
A poon has the unique attribute of stealing direct control of an enemy ship's movements. If used correctly, it is fatal.

Its not a competitive weapon, but its definitely as much as a noob stomper as a flare gun is.

Offline nanoduckling

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2014, 01:53:36 pm »
This is a nice effort at a list and it is great you put the time in to compiling it. I think newer players will generally have the kinds of experience you seem to have had seriouschess, but I also think your ratings are very much a reflection of the learning curves of the weapons you are listing, the opposition you are facing and your understanding of how to use these weapons. Here are a few responses to your observations.

Banshee
Run with a couple of very skilled engineers and I promise the banshee will seem less powerful. Since the last patch it is a useful gun, but they are all useful (I've even managed to get the darn harpoon to 'work' sometimes on a ramming pyra, and especially on a squid or galleon, although it is frankly broken). I use a banshee as a backup weapon for additional killing power or to start sowing chaos after my primary attack has disrupted chem cycles. Fire doesn't scare vets.

Flamer
Weak DPS and largely useless against a properly chemmed ship. I bring this with a weapon that disrupts chem cycles (barking dog is good for this), against people who bring only fire extinguishers, or as an alternative to the Banshee.

Hades
Yup.

Mortar
Yup.

Gat
The tracer bug (tracers don't go where bullets go) makes this surprisingly hard for new players to hit with at range when the ship is moving. Your summary is otherwise good but I would add that it can effectively disable too, especially nice juicy targets like the front gun on a fish.

Hwacha
Yup.

Light Flak
I would move this down my list. It pairs nicely with a hades, less well with a gat or merc. I'd usually have another hades with a hades, a art with a merc and a mortar, banshee or carronade with a gat. I really dislike this weapon since a mortar is better if you move a little closer, and there are more versatile sources of ranged explosive damage. It functions, but I don't use it much.

Artemis
One burst artemis in the hands of a good gunner can lock down the side guns of a galleon indefinitely. Two can lock down an entire ship, any ship. Once the enemy is unable to move turn a gat on them and break their hull. As you say the weakness here is kill time, but if you are in no danger it makes little difference.

Flare
Utility, yup. Don't underestimate the chaos 10 stacks of fire can cause though. I've had aware main engineers overheat guns and save ships with this thing, and 10 stacks on a fish balloon will pull one engineer away from the hull (or if not one ship into the ground eventually).

Lumberjack
You say it is the only heavy gun you can snipe with, a good gunner can snipe with a hwacha. The lumberjack is considered one of the harder guns to use so from the sounds of things you have had some good experiences with it, this is not typical. If you are either gifted with it or take time to learn to use it it is very effective though. Tactically a lumberjack is awesome because it allows you to shape an engagement from afar. Galleon threatening your ally? Tell them to gain altitude and pop the balloon. One of my favourite weapons but the learning curve is steep. For up close damage remember lochnager.

Mine Launcher
I'm biased, I love the mine launcher. One of my crew once suggested that if there was a ship with only one light gun slot on it I'd put a mine launcher there. In skilled hands and in CQC this weapons is terrifying. It will knock enemy gun arcs off when it hits. It restricts enemy movement. It does serious damage. Spend time in the blast yard learning when and where these things deploy and how to manage ranges (the pilot has to do this by the way, making this a weapon dependent on the entire crew being skilled) and you can make life miserable. On crazy king watch the routes people take between points and mine them as you go, it is surprising how many people will crash into them. And if you see a skilled crew with a junker check if they have mine launchers. More than 2, bring something like double hades because that will not be a ship you want to get close to.

Hellhound
I suggest you search the forums for guides on how to use a blenderfish. This gun is the bane of junker and galleon pilots everywhere, putting them on the deck and slowly grinding them into dust.

Typhon
A single shot from the typhon with lochnager will typically kill any ship except a galleon. If you ever see a spire with 3 armour stripping light guns and a typhon do not get in front of it. Even without loch once an enemy hull breaks the typhon will do massive damage in the right hands. It is a hard gun to use however.

Mercury
Merc is a very effective sniper, but requires the pilot to help you aim. It can one shot most components (say the front gun on a fish or the gat on a meta), and will strip armor at distance. You suggest replacing with an artemis but consider a pyra which has an artemis in the top left. Putting a second artemis on the ship will not break the enemy hull as you observe. You could put a hades there, but say the enemy brought a double hwacha galleon. You might decide prioritizing component damage was vitally important. The obvious choice would therefore be a mercury.

Light Cannonade
That this gun appears this low in your list is somewhat sad to me, because it is a very, very effective CQC tool. A single clip of heavy at intermediate ranges will pop a balloon, and few things are more effective at preventing a squid escaping like a few greased rounds at their engines. A good gunner can pop balloons on any ship at almost any angle with this gun and it can be used to quickly snipe out enemy guns.

Javelin
Not totally useless as some think, but the physics for it is largely broken.

Offline ShadedExalt

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Re: Weapon Ratings: From Golden to Garbage
« Reply #14 on: January 01, 2015, 10:04:28 pm »
The only gun easier to use than the flamer is the carronade.  Well, not really, but tell your gunner these few things:

Aim for the balloon, except when I say to aim for something else.  Unless I say 'Aim for hull', once it starts smoking, go back to balloon.

Use heavy, incendiary, or greased.

Close range weapon- basically an anti-balloon shotgun.

As for the LJ, lesmok for long range, and that's all I know for ammo.  Other than that...

Learn when it starts to arc.

Learn the ranges for the sights.

Train your captain to NOT put you at 2000m and expect you to consistently hit.