New Guy Questions

[Burius]

Picked this game up the other day and I'm having a great time with it; even managed to collect a regular crew.

But I am decidedly new at this and would like some opinions from those who have a bit more experience.  I should probably mention that I was elected as pilot/captain because I'm told I am the least terrible at it.

First, I am running a Pyramidion with twin light flaks on the front, gatling on the rear and well I'm still undecided on the mid port position.  I've tried the gatling, flamethower, carronade, and grenade launcher.  I'm not sure what to run there.  General strategy has been to make head on runs letting my gunners beat up opponents with the flaks while trying to get into their blind spot.  I run kerosine for ramming when I feel it is advantageous.  I have been trying other options for the other items but haven't decided on anything.  So opinions on this set up?  I know that most of the players in my matches are also new, but we have been doing really well with this set up.  Easily taking two to four kills in DM with out going down ourselves.

Second, we tried the Goldfish with the heavy rockets on the front and just couldn't make anything happen with it.  It seemed like the opposing ships just repaired faster than we could do damage.  Conversely we were not in much danger unless we got boxed in and two of them got on us.  I like the speed/maneuverability but I haven't found a setup that works for me yet.  What are some good setups and strategies for this ship?

Third, The Galleon.  Tried it once, had two heavy flaks and field gun on the left with a heavy carronade and heavy rocket on the right.  Different crew, a bit greener than my regular guys but it seemed like we were just hanging in the sky not doing much.  I see potential in this ship but how do I exploit it?  Does it require experienced gunners?  Is there a good setup for rookie gunners or should I stay away from this ship with a rookie crew?

[Malarosa Agresti]

For your front weapons you would be better served picking weapons that compliment each others function rather than overlap.  Flak Cannons do explosive type damage, which is great for finishing off an opponent who's armor has been taken down, but will take a long time to take down that armor in the first place.  Gatling guns take down armor, but struggle to deal hull damage.  Pair these two guns up and you have one the most stable and consistently useful weapon combo's in the game.

For side guns take whatever you feel comfortable with, but a gun with good rotational firing arcs are ideal on the first port side weapon, cause with some careful flying you can potentially line it up along side the front two guns and form a three weapon trifecta.

For back guns go with something with utility (beacon, for example) or something to dissuade pursuit, such as an Artemis or Dragon Tongue.

The Manticore on a Goldfish is very, very good at burst disabling an enemy ship, but the long reload makes actually delivering a death blow difficult.  You'll need to bring you side guns to bear, realinging the front weapon only when it's ready to fire.  Or have an ally finish off the crippled enemy.  The Goldfish does well with any heavy weapon, but the Manticore is the most common, followed closely by the Hellhound.

Galleon is all about having good gunners.  Practice with the different weapons.  You also might do yourself a favor by putting all long range guns on the port side (Mercury, 2xLumbers or Flaks) and Manticores on the starboard.  Try to fight from range as long as possible.  Get into position fast and then hold the ship steady, as shooting at range from a moving ship takes a lot of practice.  In my opinion though I would avoid the Galleon with an inexperienced crew.  Even though it has a ton of durability it's far from invincible and requires a lot of knowledge to make the right calls, as you often need to anticipate opponents actions and positions.  It's cause the ship is so slow, you need to be moving before it comes too late, and the window is very small with the Galleon.  Also the heavy weapons tend to be harder to use in general (except for maybe the Hellhound, which isn't a very good pick on the Galleon anyway).

Hope this all helps!

[HamsterIV]

Welcome to the game Burius. Some of your builds are not in keeping with the current meta game, but that changes so often that any specific advice I give you may be outdated in a few months. In general if you are loosing badly to an enemy ship, click on their ship name in the lobby to see how they equipped their ship. No one will begrudge you stealing their ship build since they most likely stole it from some one else.

Secondly read up on the damage types here:
http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/weapons/

For a quick take down you will need to pair piercing with explosive, which is why the flack gat is currently so popular. Another method of getting a kill is to use Flechette damage to destroy the balloon and let the ground impact take care of your enemy. If you simply must go for shatter damage try and fly with an ally that is equipped for piercing and explosive so you can render an enemy helpless while you ally finishes them off.

Have fun learning how to use the ships effectively. Don't be afraid to try out new combo's on practice mode.

[Burius]

For your front weapons you would be better served picking weapons that compliment each others function rather than overlap.  Flak Cannons do explosive type damage, which is great for finishing off an opponent who's armor has been taken down, but will take a long time to take down that armor in the first place.  Gatling guns take down armor, but struggle to deal hull damage.  Pair these two guns up and you have one the most stable and consistently useful weapon combo's in the game.

For side guns take whatever you feel comfortable with, but a gun with good rotational firing arcs are ideal on the first port side weapon, cause with some careful flying you can potentially line it up along side the front two guns and form a three weapon trifecta.

For back guns go with something with utility (beacon, for example) or something to dissuade pursuit, such as an Artemis or Dragon Tongue.

Thanks for the info, I think the fact that I am quite keen on ramming an enemy ship and consequently taking a chunk out of their armor is probably why the dual flaks have worked out so well.  Will definitely try out the gatling/flak combo.

The Manticore on a Goldfish is very, very good at burst disabling an enemy ship, but the long reload makes actually delivering a death blow difficult.  You'll need to bring you side guns to bear, realinging the front weapon only when it's ready to fire.  Or have an ally finish off the crippled enemy.  The Goldfish does well with any heavy weapon, but the Manticore is the most common, followed closely by the Hellhound.

I was running the Manticore on the front with gatlings on the sides.  I was turning to put my side guns on target and had the gunner let me know when he had re-loaded so i could turn to give him a good shot.  We had a good rhythm going but just couldn't bring anything down until the other boat on our team got a bit more vocal on comms and coordinated with us a bit.  (They were on a galleon, our opponents were a pair of goldfish(1 manticore, 1 heavy flak), we started working as bait and chasers and managed to go from being down 0-3 to winning after that.  Even in the 1v1 situations while using good team coordination we couldn't quite bring anything down.  I'll have a closer look at weapon stats for the side guns.

Galleon is all about having good gunners.  Practice with the different weapons.  You also might do yourself a favor by putting all long range guns on the port side (Mercury, 2xLumbers or Flaks) and Manticores on the starboard.  Try to fight from range as long as possible.  Get into position fast and then hold the ship steady, as shooting at range from a moving ship takes a lot of practice.  In my opinion though I would avoid the Galleon with an inexperienced crew.  Even though it has a ton of durability it's far from invincible and requires a lot of knowledge to make the right calls, as you often need to anticipate opponents actions and positions.  It's cause the ship is so slow, you need to be moving before it comes too late, and the window is very small with the Galleon.  Also the heavy weapons tend to be harder to use in general (except for maybe the Hellhound, which isn't a very good pick on the Galleon anyway).

Hope this all helps!

That is pretty much what I expected to hear concerning the Galleon.  I think I'll steer clear of it for a bit until and get a feel for some of the other ships.

Thanks again for the info.

[Burius]

Another question; how do you practice gunnery?

I made a practice match on a Galleon with 6 different weapons as a Gunner.  I'd get the boat lined up and take a few shots but pretty soon the ship had turned so far that the dummy target was out of my arc.  Is there wind in the game or could it be recoil from the weapons or something else entirely?

I wanted to try out different weapons with different ammo types to get a feel for them at different ranges but I kept having to run up to the helm and correct my position.  Do I need to find a buddy to man the helm while I practice shooting?  I figured I would need one to practice shooting on the move but at this point I just want to get a good basic feel for the different weapons and ammo.

[Captain Smollett]

Wind and ship momentum will definitely move you around.  Try playing during the training matches on Wednesday and I'm sure you can get someone to fly you around behind different guns.

[N-Sunderland]

A big part of the reason you're losing arc is residual turning. No matter how hard you try to negate it, your ship will probably have angular momentum left over after being lined up. To get rid of this, bring moonshine. Once you're lined up, used it for a couple of seconds (with the engines obviously on neutral). Moonshine's secondary effect is to drastically reduce angular momentum; by doing that, the ship should stay straighter.