Inter-Clan Coalition of Awesome Really Useful Science (I.C.C.A.R.U.S)

[Mod Josie]

Welcome to the first symposium of the Inter-Clan Coalition of Awesome Really Useful Science (I.C.C.A.R.U.S)! We’re here today to hear a lot of very brilliant minds express themselves to further the way that we wage war in the skies – scientifically!
We will be hearing from many different researchers throughout this process and we would appreciate it if you respect everyone’s work as you would wish them to respect your own.

Please present your papers on the scientific advancements that you have made in your travels around this harsh world. We are looking for:

Interesting Gameplay – any style of gameplay and/or teamwork that breaks from the ordinary.
Innovative Designs – Marrying weapons together that aren’t typically paired and seeing how they could be used to perform intense destruction.
Unorthodox Methods – How would you go about confusing your enemies with your strange new tactics? Tell us how!

When you present your ideas and results, please make sure they are well documented such that other crews could reproduce your findings based purely on what you have written. We want your conclusions to be testable so that they can be verified, much to our amusement.
Thank you for listening to our introduction. I would like to thank Captain RethBurn, Patched Wizard and Pavel Dzhons for getting this symposium started with me. We proudly open the floor to our first brave scientific mind!

[RethBurn]

In order to get this symposium rolling. I have devised the Abraham to this coalition. I proudly present the ship that started this:

The Scientific Approach!


Hypothesis:
Originally conceived as the Munker, the Scientific approach is ment to bring enemy teams into disarray by charging in with a lesmok harpoon (To conserve turning engines) and sow the Battlefield with Mines.

Theory:
As many know. The Mine Launcher is a fierce area-of-control type weapon, capable of shredding a formation and stopping a charge. With its variety in arcs and arming times, this is essentially the strongest negation tool known to man. Breaking down the ship design, there is 3 different pieces. Let us begin with the engagement tool:

First-phase engagement tools:

The Front Harpoon. As of version 1.3.9 (456), the harpoon functions for most small ships as gap-closer. On Junkers, it has the added effect of rising the ship to maximum speed in an unstoppable charge (Only directly frontally placed mines can stop this, Source: I tried).  With a normal range of 800, the Harpoon reaches its potential with Lesmok, increasing the harpoon shoot to 1,360 Metres. Essentially this means that ultimately calculated shots can give the Junker momentum very early on, while also bringing the enemy ship out of balance. The harpooned ship will turn the hit spot towards the original location of the Javelin, and provides the Junker in most cases a safe entry to the side of the ship. Next up comes the entry angle, and depending on which side is bared, the two other parts come into play.

Second-phase engagement tools

Double Mine-launcher side: Perhaps the most interesting option for second-phase engagement is the double Phobos Mine Launcher side that with a Gunner (Lesmok, Incendiary, Lochnagar) on lower deck and a Lesmok engineer on top deck will provide a barrage of mines into the vicinity of the enemy. Depending on the gunners’ skills and the ship-type, this can very fast turn ugly for both sides, however often case a single mine can negate the enemies’ boon.
This side is used after the initial harpoon tow to sow destruction in the ranks. Will throw enemies into repair and create a distraction for more boring conventional builds to pick up the slacks. In the case a first-phase engagement fails, immediately drop to mine-launcher side and disable the enemy before they get a chance to compose themselves.

Carronade-Flamer Combo:
The most Boring conventional side of the ship. In the case of a successful engagement, this side can be brought up on a single-target enemy with the intention of softening them up for a present ally to finish the job. The reason for this side is to provide a steady Plan B, should the First and second-phase fail to emergy victorious.
On the top, a flamer used and staffed by the same Engineer with Lesmok as on the mine. Essentially both Engineers should bring Lesmok, so that there may never be need for one man to be tied down doing one thing.

Loadouts:
Captain (pilot): Kerosene, Tar Barrel, and Hydrogen.
Kerosene is helpful if the Harpoon engagement fails, and a steady speed increase is needed. Will also help in tricky situation while engaged. Interchangable.
Tar Barrel proved irreplaceable in the heat of battle. As the ship dicates, all sides are capable of fighting back (Front gun can be used to latch onto enemies and swing out of combat) but the aft. For this purpose, and for any enemies that may attempt to succeed the Scientific Approach, Tar proved more than helpful. Considering the enemies may already have taken Mine hits, the tar will be a final stopper for any pesky intruders.
As the build has a constant engineer flow, balloon Is garuanteed to be under repair mid-combat, and therefore Hydrogen is a resource the Captain can tap into for emergency dodges.

Gunner: Lesmok, Incendiary/Greased, Lochnagar and Pipe Wrench
Lesmok is the essential to the First-phase engagement, and should be loaded into the Harpoon at all times. This gives it the reach and easier firing arcs that gunners may need to succeed at range. This is also helpful for the Mine-launcher
Incendiary: Incendiary proved useful for the mine-launcher in close, as it made the escape from Slingshot have both ships very close, but not in Loch-range. Therefore is a must if you prefer the Mine-launcher pass.
Greased: For the crews that prefer the Carro-flamer pass. This is very useful in the close range to leave the enemy dropping as you pass by, making it harder for them to retaliate against your cobra-like assault.
Lochnagar: An essential mine-ammo type. This gives you the absolute dominance in closerange, as it will be the last line of defense against any charging enemies. May be switched out for Incendiary / Greased for a more rounded out build spec.

Engineer (2x): Spanner, Mallet, Chem Spray and Lesmok
Repair tools: As the ship is bound to take massive hits during the combat, the strongest repairs will be necessary to keep the scientific target-dummy afloat while it confuses the enemies. For the purpose of negating the fire-blowback from a mine exploding in your face, Chem spray will keep the ship safe.
Lesmok : Provides range for the Flamer on the Carronade-flamer side, while also allowing the engineer further range on Mines within longer-range engagements. NOTE: It should be known that an engineer can take over for the gunner on the front gun with this ammo, should it be needed.

Conclusion: The build proved highly ineffectual at making a dent in the kills for the team, but it provided cover and support for long enough that more kill-centric builds were allowed in close against helpless and mined enemies. Proved to be an engagement-starting support ship with strong abilities in close range.

This Ship loadout brought to you by: Captain Rethburn, in association with Mark Abrams, Genozide, Delirium Tremens, Jacob Fii, Patched Wizard and Pavel Dzhons

[Goldenglade]

 Inter-Clan Coalition of Awesome Really Useful Science??? it just doesn't flow i think the A should be Amazingly

[Crafeksterty]

As a spire loyalist, and a veteran (Dont know how far in time we would go to call ourselves veterans).

I have tons of builds and uses with the spire. But my most enjoyable and unorthodoks build i want to teach people is this:

The build



2xGattlings on Sides
MineLauncher Front
Heavy Flak Main

Ammo type importance-
Pilot: Lesmok
Gunner: Charged, Lesmok, Lochnagar
Buff engineer: Lesmok
Main engineer: Lesmok
---

Positions
Buff engineer holds his buff hammer and wrench down with the baloon and Side engines along with his Gattling gun.
Engineer holds a ready pose by the Upper gattling in reaction for shooting and running for the hull.
Gunner Takes constant and well timed shots with Heavy flak with a ready pose for the hull.

Instructions
It is expected on a spire that you have competent crew. By that, crew that can listen and obey, yett know how to repair and shoot moderatly enough.

Your main goal with this is to keep other brawling ships at bay. You as a pilot is responsible for calling Targets and commanding the engineers to be on the guns despite heavy fire if that is a neccesary action. You are also responsible for making enemy ships not get too close. If it happens that they are too close, your buff engineers buff on the baloon should give you a form of escape. Other than that, learn to jump out of helm and shoot the minelauncher to make ships that try to get close have a difficult time getting close. Also serves as a good weapon to take down an armor if it hits.


So... Confirm your crews positions and Command the engineers to fire their gattlings on command. 2 Lesmok gattlings can be fired from quite far away yett still be a good threat to the enemies armor. With Lesmok mines being fired torwards ships approaching you, you will always have an advantage, even against two brawling ships, specialy for the sake of getting more time or range. If they hit a mine, usually its the enmies fault, but still your doing.

A constant barrage with the lesmok gattlings will take out armor as if it is 1 gattling firing at the armor. This is if it is far away. The closer the enemy ship gets the more damage hes getting.

The next stage is the heavy flak hitting at the right time, and perhaps with the right ammo. Preferebly always on charged, but switches to Lochnagar on an armor down prediction. Lesmok is to compensate difficult shots.

This build will land you kills without another armor down if you get good with it.

Remember: Mines to create a difficult path, oh and remember to reverse and be aware of your own ship then.
Gattlings to be shooting from a safe distance versus other close range weapons.
Heavy flak landing kills before another armor up (Excluding healthy goldfishies and galleons)

In the know
This works well versus: Close range ships in order of difficulty, from easiest to hardest.
Pyramideon (They take an easy to predict path)
Junker (tiny bit more difficult, but with the heavy flak, one buffed lesmok shot can kill it)
Spire (Unlikely, but you can quickly make of a spire on range. But can proove difficult if it has a hwacha)
Mobula (Mobulas can navigate mines pretty well, your in good luck if he goes below you. He will navigate mines better but you have the shots on him. If hes above, you dont have shots but mines will better hit. You will have to mind game him more)
Squid (Recommended if the heavy flak shots are true. May even recommend Lochnagar mines instead)
Goldfish (sort of Recommended but difficult, carronades or hwachas will be difficult)
Galleon (Not recommended against, unless the mines are replaced with a mercury or artemis)

A team with a close + medium range ships can still be viable with this. Dont forget you have an ally ship yourself.
It is super weak to long range ships unless the long range ship is harrased by your own teamate.

The best maps it is used in is close to medium sized maps or maps that clutter, not large at all (unless the enemy team does still go close range).
Also works awesomely if you have a teamate that can help or attack the enemy team up close. So you are in the safe with 2 gattlings while helping your ally kill quickly.

Take it from me "3 ships down within a minute" -Me

I have loads of more builds but this one is by far my most favourite and odd for everyone else.

[Patched Wizard]

The Tothian Minefield
I would like to propose a glorious expedition of scientific inquiry to the cutting edge of airship warfare. At this moment of breathless anticipation it is unknown whether or not such bold tactics are possible within the diesel choked clouds of our skies. So in the spirit of the furthering of knowledge, I would like to form a motley crew of fearless pioneers to test my hypothesis or at least encourage other brave souls to explore for themselves these uncharted waters.

Hypothesis
Is it possible to trap and kill a target in a pre-prepared minefield?

Theory
Mines, devastation wrapped up in a ball of iron and malice. At present, the mine is a overwhelming deterrent against the wild charge of torpedoing ships and an effective killer during chaotic scraps. However, is it possible to turn this static explosive into a instant killing bear-trap?
I theorise that a Spire equip itself with a Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade and three Phobos Mine Launchers. Using the mine launchers, the crew can lay a dense field of fifteen mines over a small area to increase the success of complete hull disintegration. The pilot can then present the ship as a tempting lure for an unsuspecting opponent to brazenly charge at. Finally the gunner, applying the heavy carronade's flechette darts to the charging ship's balloons, drives the target's ship into the minefield below followed by swift destruction and much lamentation.

Loadout
These suggestions cover, what I believe, to be the essential components to achieving success in the field of combat. As for any tools not mentioned, I recommend that the team apply common sense when deciding what equipment to bring with them.

Spire
1. Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade - The heavy carronade is required to guarantee that an target's ship falls in a controlled pattern towards your prepared trap below.
2. Phobos Mine Launcher - The mine launcher is essential for preparing the minefield trap before the engagement. Mines should be placed in a tight pattern to ensure sufficient splash damage and increase killing potential. Consideration also needs to go towards how wide the net should be cast to account for drift error and an opponent's attempts to avoid the minefield.
3. Phobos Mine Launcher - See slot 2.
4. Phobos Mine Launcher - See slot 3.

Pilot
1. Lucky Phoenix Claw - Essential to assist the Spire in avoiding any potential flanking manoeuvres or to lure the target into a false sense of security.
2. Moonshine - In case of imminent impact with the target's ship, moonshine can be applied to mitigate damage away from the hull and minimise chances of catastrophic mission failure.
3. Impact Bumpers - During the procedure the Spire might be required to assist the target into the correct position for the trap. Impact bumpers can be activated to limit any permanent damage to the hull.

Gunner
1. Heavy Clip - Two shots directly to the fragile balloon will send any ship hurtling towards the earth.
2. Charged Rounds - If you're having trouble hitting your target, the extra 30% damage increase and wider flechette spread should help with disabling the target's balloon.
3. Lochanagar Shot - If a target is resistant to your attempts to put them down, a single Lochanagar round is more than enough to shred their balloon and a bit of their hull too. The benefit is that while the carronade will be damaged, it won't be completely destroyed by the Lochanagar's experimental cocktail.

Engineer
1. Burst Rounds - Deployed mines should be pre-loaded with nitroglycerin so that the 50% increase in the explosion radius can set off all adjacent mines simultaneously.

Conclusion
Presently, this theoretical stratagem has not been tested by an I.C.C.A.R.U.S approved team or confirmed by an independent study. No definitive conclusions are available at this stage.


Final Consideration
Key features of this paper, from ships to weapon loadouts and crew equipment, might need to be adjusted to allow for greater flexibility and potential for success in achieving the hypothesised goal.

[Kamoba]

The Drunken Sailor
Theory: The theory behind the Drunken sailor is to use dangerous liquids and crazy tactics to secure the win by "stumbling" into the enemy when they least expect it.

Ship: Mobula.
Weapons: Harpoons, only.
Pilot tools: Kerosene (for reasons) Moonshine (for better reasons) Hydrogen (for other reasons)

Tactics: Try to face the enemy, and latch onto them with your harpoons (you may feel an awkward inability to travel in a straight line.)
Press moonshine, once the ram connects, switch to kerosene. (this allows one person on each turning engine, switching to hull and balloon and one person camping the hull)
Once enemy is squished, use hydrogen to avoid face planting the floor.

Effective against anything which barely classes as air worthy....

Should be used rarely.



Anti-metamidion.

Theory: A ship specifically designed to take out a metamidion (gat mortar) in the metamidions ranges.

Ship: Pyramidion.
Weapons: Gatling (For continued damage.) Artemis (To keep the metamidions gatling disabled.) side Artemis (Tri-fecta and double Artemis sniping at mid and long range.) fourth slot, flare.

Tactics: This build is very reliant on the Artemis gunner keeping the enemy weapons disabled, communications are paramount. Due to Artemis arcs you must also ensure to keep height, bring hydrogen and if the enemy is packing balloon poppers, consider bringing drogue chute.

Because the Artemis will not be waiting for armour to he stripped as irs primary goal is stopping your ship taking damage, the pilot -must- watch enemy armour, once stripped, ram.
Given a good crew and pilot this ship will work very effectively against many ships, its weaknesses are Junkers and mobulas.

Pilot tools: Regular engagements, kero, claw, hydro.
Against balloon poppers swap hydro for drogue chute.
Advanced pilots and crews, swap kero for moonshine, this will ensure.stronger rams.

[nanoduckling]

FOR SCIENCE!

I've used a few of these, or variants on a few of these, so I give some post implementation reports.

Gat/Art/Art Pyra aka Anti-metamidion
Works very well against some Galleons because the arts and gat let you lock down the side of the ship and hit turning engines. Top deck engineer on the galleon is usually too concerned with the hull stripping to shoot back, and paired with a fast killer this can work very well. Also works against metas but watch out for ones hydroing out of your arcs or with chute vent approaching from above.

Mine/Mine/Mine/Carro Spire aka The Tothian Minefield
Tried this exact loadout gun wise on Desert Scrap. It seems more effective against ships with large easy to hit balloons. In the form I took it I had the pilot bring heavy and the gunner take a standard mine load-out (les/incend/loch), burst mines might be critical. Engis had lesmok. This is vulnerable to  mercs, arts, lumberjacks and especially hades. I wouldn't describe my version as 'working' so I'm keen to hear if Patch's modifications make it more effective. Tried the Mine/Mine/Mine/Hwacha variant on canyon ambush, that was surprisingly effective because the hwacha would typically disable the enemy ships engines leaving their trajectory maximally predictable for the mine gunners.

Gat/Gat/Mine/Flak Spire aka The Build
Okay so Crafe didn't actually give this one a name but I like it so much I'm going to interpret that subtitle as a moniker. This one is fun (I'm pretty sure I tried this one after the Thralls kicked the crap out of the team I was on with it one time), especially the first time some metamidion decides charging you head on is a good idea, the result is typically short and incredibly violent as they bounce off a mine into two gatling arcs and explode. Expect comments to the effect of 'WTF' (I assume this mean 'What The Fish') from the enemy.

[Replaceable]

Saluted for what the fish xD

[MightyKeb]

The I-can-shoot-anywhere loadout That was the best I could come up with. Also Crafek, I love that loadout and I've used it a few times before. Heck, I've been using that with DrZan and OverlordEgg when Zan suggested a hades in slot 2 and after the match I sort of started experimenting on it.



The idea of this build is to take advantage of the spire's unique 2 light guns+heavy gun feature to achieve a powerful combination.


Playstyle: You close in until your hades gunner starts getting consistent shots, your lumberjack gunner should first sink the balloon to provide the hades a bigger hitbox while artemis takes care of any charging ships' guns and engines. Once the hull armor is down, the hades and artemis are free to pelt it to death. Gatling is sort of a backup gun that the hades engi will switch to once the enemy is past arming range and turns the ship into a pseudo-gat art pyra. Though the loadout isnt perfect and I'm thinking of putting something else in the place of gatling.



Pros:

- You can aim at any height! Gatling has good downward arcs, Hades has slightly better downwards arcs than up, artemis has average-ish downward arcs and Lumberjack has powerful upward arcs. Its possible to use lumber to bring down and enemy ship in your arcs from above aswell!


- Very effective against ships with exposed balloons (Other spires, galleons, mobulas, junkers) as long as you keep distance!

- Also somewhat effective against charging ships (pyra) As the hades can pelt their armor down and artemis can disable/do permahull before they get in range!


Cons:

 - The different arcs on all guns is actually a downside in itself. To achieve maximum firepower you need to be at equal height with your enemy.

- Spire's shape inevitably leaves it vulnerable to high arcing weapons like Hades, Lumberjack etc



Tools:

Hydrogen, most of your weapons benefit from height advantage and lumberjack can bring an enemy to equal height if you fly below, which also allows more room to rise with hydrogen


Drouge/Tar

Drouge incase of blenders, Tar for charging ships. I find in pubs its viable to fly low-mid ish level with close range spires like Crafek's, charge at the ship closing in on you (Mostly hwachafishes and pyras), then hydro up when you're close enough, leave a tar cloud at where you expect them to rise and turn around.


Kero/Moonshine for obvious reasons

[Crafeksterty]

Change the artemis into a light flak, and put it in slot 4.
That way, as a pilot you can jump on the upper right light flak and fire shots that will kill.
And you will also remove

- The different arcs on all guns is actually a downside in itself. To achieve maximum firepower you need to be at equal height with your enemy.

Have your buff engineer on the gattling with... Lesmok or Heavyclip, depends on your usual distance with the build.
The lesmok (or heavy clip) on gattling is for the sake of helping the hades take out the armor. While the lumberjack helps out aswell.
With that, every gun should be aiming at the baloon (If it is an obvious one, junker, spire, galleon, pyra) just for the sake of helping eachother out.
Hades and gat helps lumber on the baloon.
Lumber helps hades and gat on the armor when the baloon is down.

My version has 2 light flaks, but thats just because i want killing power when their armor is down

Okay so Crafe didn't actually give this one a name but I like it so much I'm going to interpret that subtitle as a moniker.

Shit. Ok... uh lemme dub it... ... The MineFlak Ranger

Oooo yess Mineflak ranger! It keeps opponents at range with mines and lesmok gattlings, and theres a heavy flak.
And its a sharpshooter cowboy style killah

[MightyKeb]

Change the artemis into a light flak, and put it in slot 4.
That way, as a pilot you can jump on the upper right light flak and fire shots that will kill.
And you will also remove

- The different arcs on all guns is actually a downside in itself. To achieve maximum firepower you need to be at equal height with your enemy.

Have your buff engineer on the gattling with... Lesmok or Heavyclip, depends on your usual distance with the build.
The lesmok (or heavy clip) on gattling is for the sake of helping the hades take out the armor. While the lumberjack helps out aswell.
With that, every gun should be aiming at the baloon (If it is an obvious one, junker, spire, galleon, pyra) just for the sake of helping eachother out.
Hades and gat helps lumber on the baloon.
Lumber helps hades and gat on the armor when the baloon is down.

My version has 2 light flaks, but thats just because i want killing power when their armor is down

Okay so Crafe didn't actually give this one a name but I like it so much I'm going to interpret that subtitle as a moniker.

Shit. Ok... uh lemme dub it... ... The MineFlak Ranger

Oooo yess Mineflak ranger! It keeps opponents at range with mines and lesmok gattlings, and theres a heavy flak.
And its a sharpshooter cowboy style killah

Aye, I've been experimenting with it for a bit, unsure what to place on all sides, but hades flak on top and artemis near the lumberjack sounds prety great! It robs you of your close range backup but dem fast kiiiillls~

[Crafeksterty]

unsure what to place on all sides, but hades flak on top and artemis near the lumberjack sounds prety great!

No i ment that you still keep a gattling by the lumberjack to be used by the buff engineer. And he uses lesmok/heavyclip.
That way you have 3 guns working togheter to take out the armor/baloon. The light flak is for the pilot to jump on and finish it.


Just as a future build.

The FlakyTaur (spire)

Hades
Minotaur (Soon to release)
2x Light flaks

No more will ships with hades guns give the spire a problem, now the tables have turned! The minotaur will constantly make the enemy have a difficult time firing their hades or medium/long range guns while it helps the hades on the armor down. The side guns are there for the kill.

(Super succesfull i gurantee with the added spire buff its going to rek and be assumed OP)

[Kamoba]

Any time we took a non-meta build last night, Patched would not day GG at victory screen, but instead "FOR SCIENCE!"
I blame this thread.
 

[RethBurn]

Any time we took a non-meta build last night, Patched would not day GG at victory screen, but instead "FOR SCIENCE!"
I blame this thread.
 

Sorry uhh.. ..The "White Coats" took him.

..I may or may not be one of them.

[Kamoba]

Any time we took a non-meta build last night, Patched would not day GG at victory screen, but instead "FOR SCIENCE!"
I blame this thread.
 

Sorry uhh.. ..The "White Coats" took him.

..I may or may not be one of them.

Hands off my wizard!
I know he gets around but I Will make him a Sky Slicer! (one day when....)