Engineer Strategy Dicussion

[N-Sunderland]

In this thread you can discuss various topics relating to engineering strategy, e.g. how to best deal with Scrap sandstorms on the Junker, whether chem spray is better than the extinguisher, or various tricks on the Squid. If you use any unconventional methods, feel free to share them. There's always room for innovation.

So yeah, discuss!

[N-Sunderland]

All right, looks like I might need to get the ball rolling.

I prefer the extinguisher over chem (which my phone wants to autocorrect to Chen) spray. Let's look at some scenarios here.

1. Spray: You see the fires coming, and you spray the hull in advance to protect it. That'll take a couple of seconds, during which time you may or may not be getting attacked by other guns. Any components you didn't spray might get covered in several stacks, wasting a few seconds while you extinguish them.

Extinguisher: The fires hit, and you're able to quickly extinguish them. They may reignite, but then you can just wait until they become a problem and put them out again.

2. Spray: You don't use spray in advance. You get several stacks of fires on things. It takes forever to put the larger ones out.

Extinguisher: No change.


This is assuming that they even use flamers, which hardly anyone does. With fires coming from guns like the rocket carousel, there's hardly any difference between the two items, since those fires won't be doing any significant damage anyways. The flare gun is the only really significant fire-inducing gun right now. If you don't predict when a flare is coming, then your chem spray will take way, way too long to put the fire out while the component's health melts. The extinguisher, on the other hand, erases the fire before it can do any major damage.

Any thoughts?

[Charon]

Back when fire mattered quite a bit, the extinguisher was my best friend.

I didn't need to worry about my guns being destroyed. There was not a single hwacha gunner in the game that mattered. Nobody aimed whirlwind fire at manned positions. The heavy carronade never saw use. The lumberjack was tough for others to aim, and the heavy flak just didn't seem to knock my weapon out. One of the worst nightmares for the gunner community was a flamer with lesmok.

One single touch and your weapon was out of commission until you put that bastard out. Chemspray took out 3 at a time, but the fires placed by these flamers were often concentrated enough to keep you clicking, even with the extinguisher.

Nowadays, I maintain that while the chemspray does reduce the probability of fire-proc, it's not a large enough compensation for the ability to stop a problem right now. This is especially true in that flames have been reduced in effectiveness and are therefore taken onboard at a much lower rate than they used to. Heat sink is unnecessary for us gunner types, nowadays. The newbies probably haven't even heard of it following a couple of good matches, which says something major about where we're at right now.

The ability to handle a problem now instead of in several seconds is something to be desired. That's my angle, and I stand by it.

[Shukketsushi]

I don't use chem spray, ever. I used it for the low level achievements, back when it was more or less useless. I've not given it a chance since they upgraded its effects. I don't use it for much the same reason that I don't bother with a buff kit, I count on being the primary engineer and need to be able to get the job done. Spraying multiple times to put a fire out? Aint nobody got time for that. I'm usually cycling through components so frequently that I'll be around to put it out if it reignites.

There have definitely been some matches where the fire is just too much and I can't keep the ship in top shape because everything is on fire but they're few and far between.

Every now and again I'll think, "Maybe if they've got flamers this match, I'll give the chem spray a try..." but then they usually don't or I find another reason not to bother. I suppose that I'm set in my ways.

[Helmic]

I still chemspray incredibly useful as it stops those hugeass stacks in the first place.  You won't be able to chemspray everything, but you won't be able to extinguish everything either before they break.  With chemspray, you can protect more critical components without the need to babysit (chemspray the hull until it's put out, run to the engines to keep them online, keep moving back and forth while another engineer handles the balloon and guns).  With an extinguisher, at best you'll keep one thing in good condition or several in poor condition and you're much more likely to have a lot of dead components.

It's just such a huge advantage to be able to leave the hull without it reigniting and reaching level 15 while you run to keep your ship mobile, and it's so rare for a fire to reach a high level so quickly on a critical component without you noticing.  The flare gun is a notable exception that I'm now partial to, but my flamethrower isn't going to be so kind as to let you extinguish those fires one at a time.

But none of this matters if your opponent's fires are just accidents from other weapons.  Chemspray or extinguisher, that fire's going out in one click and it's not likely that the component is going to re-ignite anytime soon.

[Keon]

A chemspray is good for a hull-camper if you don't want to bring a buff hammer.

[N-Sunderland]

More likely to have dead components with the extinguisher? That's just plain wrong. If your hull is getting spammed with a flamer, then it'll take you several seconds to put it out with the chem spray. Meanwhile, every other component that's on fire will be dying. And while you're spending time using several sprays on each component, the hull protection will run out and it'll take damage anyways. With the extinguisher, on the other hand, you can spray one component once, run to the next one, spray it once or twice, etc. The repair from the mallet should be more than enough to counter any damage done by fire.

[Helmic]

Except you're going to be taking continuous damage in that situation.  You use the chemspray BEFORE it reaches 20 stacks (if it already has reached 20 stacks then the entire ship has likely reached 20 stacks, you're fucked anyways), that hull is now immune to fire so it's not re-igniting giving you time to reach other components.  You can't do that effectively with an extinguisher, as soon as you leave that hull it's going to start building stacks again on top of whatever else the enemy is tossing at you.

[N-Sunderland]

But in what situations are flamers even used in conjunction with other guns? You're not going to stick a flamer on the front of a Pyra, or on the side of a Junker. The fire has to be coming from the other ship. And if they're trying to focus you down, they honestly have much better guns they could be using than a flamer. And if it's just a flamer alone... Well, that's not hard to deal with at all.

[Sammy B. T.]

Primary engineer (main hull guy) should have chem spray. When repairing with a mallet, why not give that quick chem burst. With the increasing use of flares though, I may begin telling my crew to use the extinguisher more.

[N-Sunderland]

One of the reasons that flares are so effective is that a lot of people use chem spray. If you hit a Pyra's balloon, and their gungineer brought chem spray, they're going to be distracted for quite a while. If they brought an extinguisher, they'll be back on their gun in no time.

[Helmic]

But in what situations are flamers even used in conjunction with other guns?

...all the time.  They're absurdly effective trifecta guns: they don't require ammo switching so you can stick just about anyone on one, they have a wide turning arc, they can disable AND kill balloons with frightening efficiency, and they attack everything on a ship at once.  They don't need to be a primary gun to kick ass, I keep one of the front left of my Pyramidion for quick passes and to prevent enemy ships from fleeing when I catch them in a blind spot.  On my Squid it's a great complement to the front light carronade, able to help damage the balloon quickly while dealing damage to everything at once.  They're stupidly effective even against experienced crews, and Galleons make for easy targets should you keep your engines up after that inevitable Hwacha volley.  Flamethrowers can so very easily take out engines and balloons making them fairly helpless to avoid even MORE fire stacks.

Even if it's by itself, it's formidable.  While many other light guns will need another gun to be effective or have massive drawbacks like the Mercury's tiny rotation, the flamethrower deals respectable damage to all components and will force the enemy engineers to either allow the hull to take damage or sacrifice components.  It's the use you usually see out of it, a defensive weapon to push an enemy out of what would normally be a blind spot.  It's not hard to deal with for an experienced crew, but you have to actually deal with it unlike other light weapons which are simply a matter of repairing the hull or whatever gun got sniped out.

It's principal weakness is its range, but if you're not sniping it's not unusual at all for ships to rub shoulders.

I wasn't here to see flamethrower as instant killswitch for enemy guns, but I do know it's an awesome cross between a hwacha and a carronade.  Against people like me, you better fucking bring chemspray as that's the biggest thing keeping the flamethrower from being the OP terror it apparently once was.

[N-Sunderland]

The carronade and flamer combo is annoying, but it can't kill anywhere near as easily as other gun combos. If the other ship has drogue chute an good engineers, they'll be holding that ship together for a long, long time.

And a lone flamer being formidable? Not even slightly. If the other team has any idea what they're doing, they'll keep the components in good shape while they shoot you with guns that actually do significant damage. You're not going to hurt a Pyra with a flamer if it's firing gatflak in your face.

[Helmic]

The carronade and flamer combo is annoying, but it can't kill anywhere near as easily as other gun combos. If the other ship has drogue chute an good engineers, they'll be holding that ship together for a long, long time.

And a lone flamer being formidable? Not even slightly. If the other team has any idea what they're doing, they'll keep the components in good shape while they shoot you with guns that actually do significant damage. You're not going to hurt a Pyra with a flamer if it's firing gatflak in your face.

If a Pyra is shooting gatflak in your blindspot then you're not going to hurt it without help period, no matter what light weapon you happen to be using.  The idea isn't to kill the enemy ship, it's to survive, and the flamethrower is one of the more effective weapons for the job as it at least gives the enemy engineers and gunners something to worry about that isn't shooting you.  They have to move.

As for the use of drogue chute, while that applies to any carronade build it doesn't apply nearly as much to a carronade/flamer combo.  The balloon is just the cherry on top, that continuous fire damage at nearly any angle will make any crew that didn't bring chemspray cry tears of blood.  It'll kill hulls, engines, weapons, everything WHILE forcing the other captain to bring drogue chute instead of any of the other great pilot tools.  Might take a bit longer to kill, but that's a ship that isn't going to do shit in the meantime.

[N-Sunderland]

But if the other ship has a dedicated gunner, there should be very little difference in the amount of shooting they do. They might have to jump off to whack the gun during reloads, but that's it. Gungineers don't have to worry too much either. On the Pyra they can quickly fix the balloon and be back on the gun quickly. The rest of the ship can be handled with little trouble by the main engineer. Same goes for other ships.