Post by snoggy on Mar 17, 2013 4:14:35 GMT -8
Someone asked me about this today, so I thought I'd spread the word.
First, Certs:
First, acquisition timer. You don't need to spend a heck of a lot of points. A: You should stay alive long enough for this not to be an issue. B: If your timer is on 6 minutes, or whatnot, but you die so often.. you will run out of resources first. I get up to around the 400 cert mark, should suit you fine.
Utility: It's a toss up between fire suppression and afterburners. I recommend both, they suit different styles. Fire suppression, put only the first level in. It only kicks in when you are down, more to get you over that last little hill... if you have to use it and are still taking damage, chances are you will be dead anyways.
Afterburners are great as they get you from zero to max speed in an instant, and so you can zip out of the combat zone very quickly. I flip between the two personally.
For sake of argument, flares are useless. The amount of manpads locking onto you is silly, one missile won't make a difference if 6 more are following it. Better off to dodge behind a mountain as you egress.
Armor: Nanite repair and comp armor, forget the other one. Nanite repair is good for sitting back and shelling, you can easily pop out of range to repair quickly. It is also good for when we are ghost camping quiet continents, keeps you topped up between little skirmishes.
Composite armor is pretty much required for low level attacks. As soon as inf render for you (to be discussed later) you will take fire. And probably even before then.
Ejection... yeah ok, who really uses that?
Airframe: This... will depend on playstyle. I personally like agility.. so I go with the bomber airframe, you can turn on a dime and are about as agile as a mossy.. you just don't have the vertical thrust as much.. which isn't a problem if you keep an eye on your altitude.
Play around in the VR room and see what you like.
Weapons:
Zephyr will be your bread and butter, easy to use, doesn't require a sniper for a gunner... you can sit back and plink or go in low and get a few kills. I recommend maxing the reload speed and getting a moderate zoom, 2.5 or so.... and a few cert levels into ammo supplies... afterall, having all the ammo in the world won't save you from being shot down.
Dalton: Dalton is great for armor, fairly decent against infantry... a good weapon to learn on personally, gunners have to make every shot count.. if you get good with the dalton, you will be an expert with the zephyr. Don't dump too many certs into ammo, work on the zoom.. forget IR, you won't need it. Reload speed, i'd spend a few levels but don't bother maxing it. You will be mostly sitting back and plinking.
Shredder: Alright, I don't recommend certing it out too much. It's great for AA and such, but you need a darn good gunner.
Main guns: I prefer the tank buster... zip in, blast a clip into a tank and let the gunner finish it. Again, a few certs. just the onesies or so into ammo and maybe a zoom.. it's a secondary weapon basically.
Rear guns: Fairly useless overall, the AA guns won't save you. The basic gun is fine till you get 100 or so certs for that thunderer or whatnot, the grenade launcher. Not bad if you have a third to tag along, but finding even 1 gunner is hard enough. Again, a few certs into ammo, maybe 1 into reload and get the IR scope, all you need.
For AA, stay on the zephyr. Do not switch to the rear gun to engage enemy aircraft. Your gun is a peashooter regardless. It takes practice, but most libby pilots can point you at the enemy plane, if they are close enough 1 or 2 hits with the zephyr will liquify them. And most smart ESF's will flee with their tails between their legs if they see a libby roll over and point his belly gun at them. So it's a deterrent as well.
Basic tips for the pilot: This is most important, you MUST know what is going on with the objective. Where friendlies are and where the enemy is. There's a big difference between them being camped in the base and them pushing out. Mostly in the amount of AA fire. TR is TERRIBLE about putting out bursters to keep ESF's away, as well as AA suppression in general.
If you are fighting a tank zerg, hang back, get to Max alt, 1000 meters, and slew back and forth. Staying hovering will get you killed as it is terribly easy for AA fire to hone in and start taking you down, a moving target is far more difficult to hit than a stationary one.
Tanks will still render at 1000 meters. Fly in third person, you can see the tanks pop up if you look carefully. Once you see the first few render... or even before you think you will, start slowing down. BTW, infantry render around the 400m mark, so keep that in mind.
Also, flying generally. It is difficult, but you have to give a few seconds for your gunner to render targets... so you have to hover a bit. Hovering is bad, staying still is an easy way to die to an anti-tank rocket. So you zoom in, slow slightly, then take off. Takes a ton of practice and a good gunner to perfect. If you are pulling all sorts of acrobatics, your gunner will start getting dizzy and puking. Find a line you want to attack across and follow it, zig-zagging as needed but generally fly straight if the area is hot. I find it usefully to use the terrain, pop up over a feature, fly across and then disappear behind another terrain feature. Your gunner will only get 5-6 seconds to shoot, but it beats going back to the warpgate for another libby. And you objective is to wear them down, not kill everything on the ground.
Gunners: Pay attention. Q everything, let your pilot know that you can see targets. If I hear my gunner Q'ing targets, I'll slow down or hover to let him kill it. If he is firing blindly i'm more likely to ignore it as I don't know if he is just firing for funsies or if he sees a target.
Second, face forward, always. Your pilot is facing forward, so should you. You can tell because you will see the burners from his engines on either side of your sights... and you will look to be traveling forward =P Targets are always going to come from the front, the pilot will usually nose up a bit... but comms are important.
YOU MUST TALK TO THE PILOT! He can't see what you can, he is blind to pretty much everything below him... if you need him to nose up, tell him.. if you want him to hold a second.. tell him.. it's not a big deal.. but you can't sit quietly. If you can't see inf targets rendering, tell him he needs to get lower... on the next pass or whatnot... not difficult, the pilot can't see, you can... if he is flying to high on his passes, tell him to go lower.
Thirdly. Know the target. Usually there's a waypoint for the platoon, or somesuch, you can see it, there's no reason for you to be looking to one side or the other. Scanning is fine, but staring is not. You must be proactive as a gunner. If the pilot has to call targets, something is wrong. You've played these maps hundreds of times, you know where the spawns are and such, if he says there are infantry in the spawn area, look at it.
I can tell you the pilot can see targets as they render as you approach, so when he says look infront... look to your front.
As far as aiming goes, depending on angle and speed, your rounds will always drop short. Aim above, generally to the first notch below the sight. When hovering this is fairly easy.. and even easier at low altitudes. But with low altitudes comes a lot of flak, especially if their AA is not suppressed.
General Tips: If there are enemy aircraft over the target, forget it. Hover back, wait a bit till someone pipes up to say it is clear. You are easy meat for ESF's in a gangbang.
You are either high, or low. There is no middle. Hang back at max alt and plink at armor.. or come in low to take out infantry. The former is better for huge targets with lots of flak to start.. the latter is good once friendlies have pushed in and the enemy are too busy worrying about friendly groundies than they are about air. For the big bases, you have to rely on the groundies to take out the AA turrets. I know most of the tankers and inf ignore them, but if they aren't down, don't bother going in. Afterall, bursters don't stand a chance against infantry, if friendlies are crawling over the walls it is fairly safe for you to fly over.
Terrain.. trees and rocks and such are great for breaking manpad lock-ons. BTW, you can tell the difference between ground fire and AA fire. Ground fire makes a plinking sound, bullets hitting your airframe, don't worry about that. AA fire are the little explosions that whittle away your armor slowly. Avoid the latter, forget the former.
Also, it is generally an idea to fly with several libbys.. and mossies as cap (close air protection). Multiple libbies means AA fire will be divided amongst targets. One libby.. everyone will focus on you.... 4-5 libbies... they will all be targeting someone else... mossies keep the ESF's away.. and friendly AA does the same job.
Side note: Closer you get to the enemy warp gate, and the more "behind the lines" you are, the lesser your chances of survival. Also, if you need to rearm or repair.. go back.. waaaay back. One or two hexes doesn't count, you need to go waaaaaaay back. Better to take the extra 30 seconds flying time than to die on the pad to a rogue ESF or some nonsense.
edit: One last note, when you are in the warpgate, I do not recommend sitting around at the main spawn area. take your 300 resource libby and park it on the OTHER side. There are so many newbie mossies and galaxies and libbies flailing about you are likely to be rammed and tipped over. better to wait where the ground is clear, let your gunner run to you... and then go... Especially when it gets crowded during a galaxy drop or somesuch, not worth wasting a libby.
And if you do need to get re-flipped, the best way to do it is nose up.. err, down... point your tail into the air and have a mossy afterburn into it at a 90 degree angle, it'll flip you ass or tip and get you going. Once you do have a gunner, take off.... avoid the trolls, just hover behind the warpgate and wait for everyone else to get ready... but generally, keep clear of the landing areas.
First, Certs:
First, acquisition timer. You don't need to spend a heck of a lot of points. A: You should stay alive long enough for this not to be an issue. B: If your timer is on 6 minutes, or whatnot, but you die so often.. you will run out of resources first. I get up to around the 400 cert mark, should suit you fine.
Utility: It's a toss up between fire suppression and afterburners. I recommend both, they suit different styles. Fire suppression, put only the first level in. It only kicks in when you are down, more to get you over that last little hill... if you have to use it and are still taking damage, chances are you will be dead anyways.
Afterburners are great as they get you from zero to max speed in an instant, and so you can zip out of the combat zone very quickly. I flip between the two personally.
For sake of argument, flares are useless. The amount of manpads locking onto you is silly, one missile won't make a difference if 6 more are following it. Better off to dodge behind a mountain as you egress.
Armor: Nanite repair and comp armor, forget the other one. Nanite repair is good for sitting back and shelling, you can easily pop out of range to repair quickly. It is also good for when we are ghost camping quiet continents, keeps you topped up between little skirmishes.
Composite armor is pretty much required for low level attacks. As soon as inf render for you (to be discussed later) you will take fire. And probably even before then.
Ejection... yeah ok, who really uses that?
Airframe: This... will depend on playstyle. I personally like agility.. so I go with the bomber airframe, you can turn on a dime and are about as agile as a mossy.. you just don't have the vertical thrust as much.. which isn't a problem if you keep an eye on your altitude.
Play around in the VR room and see what you like.
Weapons:
Zephyr will be your bread and butter, easy to use, doesn't require a sniper for a gunner... you can sit back and plink or go in low and get a few kills. I recommend maxing the reload speed and getting a moderate zoom, 2.5 or so.... and a few cert levels into ammo supplies... afterall, having all the ammo in the world won't save you from being shot down.
Dalton: Dalton is great for armor, fairly decent against infantry... a good weapon to learn on personally, gunners have to make every shot count.. if you get good with the dalton, you will be an expert with the zephyr. Don't dump too many certs into ammo, work on the zoom.. forget IR, you won't need it. Reload speed, i'd spend a few levels but don't bother maxing it. You will be mostly sitting back and plinking.
Shredder: Alright, I don't recommend certing it out too much. It's great for AA and such, but you need a darn good gunner.
Main guns: I prefer the tank buster... zip in, blast a clip into a tank and let the gunner finish it. Again, a few certs. just the onesies or so into ammo and maybe a zoom.. it's a secondary weapon basically.
Rear guns: Fairly useless overall, the AA guns won't save you. The basic gun is fine till you get 100 or so certs for that thunderer or whatnot, the grenade launcher. Not bad if you have a third to tag along, but finding even 1 gunner is hard enough. Again, a few certs into ammo, maybe 1 into reload and get the IR scope, all you need.
For AA, stay on the zephyr. Do not switch to the rear gun to engage enemy aircraft. Your gun is a peashooter regardless. It takes practice, but most libby pilots can point you at the enemy plane, if they are close enough 1 or 2 hits with the zephyr will liquify them. And most smart ESF's will flee with their tails between their legs if they see a libby roll over and point his belly gun at them. So it's a deterrent as well.
Basic tips for the pilot: This is most important, you MUST know what is going on with the objective. Where friendlies are and where the enemy is. There's a big difference between them being camped in the base and them pushing out. Mostly in the amount of AA fire. TR is TERRIBLE about putting out bursters to keep ESF's away, as well as AA suppression in general.
If you are fighting a tank zerg, hang back, get to Max alt, 1000 meters, and slew back and forth. Staying hovering will get you killed as it is terribly easy for AA fire to hone in and start taking you down, a moving target is far more difficult to hit than a stationary one.
Tanks will still render at 1000 meters. Fly in third person, you can see the tanks pop up if you look carefully. Once you see the first few render... or even before you think you will, start slowing down. BTW, infantry render around the 400m mark, so keep that in mind.
Also, flying generally. It is difficult, but you have to give a few seconds for your gunner to render targets... so you have to hover a bit. Hovering is bad, staying still is an easy way to die to an anti-tank rocket. So you zoom in, slow slightly, then take off. Takes a ton of practice and a good gunner to perfect. If you are pulling all sorts of acrobatics, your gunner will start getting dizzy and puking. Find a line you want to attack across and follow it, zig-zagging as needed but generally fly straight if the area is hot. I find it usefully to use the terrain, pop up over a feature, fly across and then disappear behind another terrain feature. Your gunner will only get 5-6 seconds to shoot, but it beats going back to the warpgate for another libby. And you objective is to wear them down, not kill everything on the ground.
Gunners: Pay attention. Q everything, let your pilot know that you can see targets. If I hear my gunner Q'ing targets, I'll slow down or hover to let him kill it. If he is firing blindly i'm more likely to ignore it as I don't know if he is just firing for funsies or if he sees a target.
Second, face forward, always. Your pilot is facing forward, so should you. You can tell because you will see the burners from his engines on either side of your sights... and you will look to be traveling forward =P Targets are always going to come from the front, the pilot will usually nose up a bit... but comms are important.
YOU MUST TALK TO THE PILOT! He can't see what you can, he is blind to pretty much everything below him... if you need him to nose up, tell him.. if you want him to hold a second.. tell him.. it's not a big deal.. but you can't sit quietly. If you can't see inf targets rendering, tell him he needs to get lower... on the next pass or whatnot... not difficult, the pilot can't see, you can... if he is flying to high on his passes, tell him to go lower.
Thirdly. Know the target. Usually there's a waypoint for the platoon, or somesuch, you can see it, there's no reason for you to be looking to one side or the other. Scanning is fine, but staring is not. You must be proactive as a gunner. If the pilot has to call targets, something is wrong. You've played these maps hundreds of times, you know where the spawns are and such, if he says there are infantry in the spawn area, look at it.
I can tell you the pilot can see targets as they render as you approach, so when he says look infront... look to your front.
As far as aiming goes, depending on angle and speed, your rounds will always drop short. Aim above, generally to the first notch below the sight. When hovering this is fairly easy.. and even easier at low altitudes. But with low altitudes comes a lot of flak, especially if their AA is not suppressed.
General Tips: If there are enemy aircraft over the target, forget it. Hover back, wait a bit till someone pipes up to say it is clear. You are easy meat for ESF's in a gangbang.
You are either high, or low. There is no middle. Hang back at max alt and plink at armor.. or come in low to take out infantry. The former is better for huge targets with lots of flak to start.. the latter is good once friendlies have pushed in and the enemy are too busy worrying about friendly groundies than they are about air. For the big bases, you have to rely on the groundies to take out the AA turrets. I know most of the tankers and inf ignore them, but if they aren't down, don't bother going in. Afterall, bursters don't stand a chance against infantry, if friendlies are crawling over the walls it is fairly safe for you to fly over.
Terrain.. trees and rocks and such are great for breaking manpad lock-ons. BTW, you can tell the difference between ground fire and AA fire. Ground fire makes a plinking sound, bullets hitting your airframe, don't worry about that. AA fire are the little explosions that whittle away your armor slowly. Avoid the latter, forget the former.
Also, it is generally an idea to fly with several libbys.. and mossies as cap (close air protection). Multiple libbies means AA fire will be divided amongst targets. One libby.. everyone will focus on you.... 4-5 libbies... they will all be targeting someone else... mossies keep the ESF's away.. and friendly AA does the same job.
Side note: Closer you get to the enemy warp gate, and the more "behind the lines" you are, the lesser your chances of survival. Also, if you need to rearm or repair.. go back.. waaaay back. One or two hexes doesn't count, you need to go waaaaaaay back. Better to take the extra 30 seconds flying time than to die on the pad to a rogue ESF or some nonsense.
edit: One last note, when you are in the warpgate, I do not recommend sitting around at the main spawn area. take your 300 resource libby and park it on the OTHER side. There are so many newbie mossies and galaxies and libbies flailing about you are likely to be rammed and tipped over. better to wait where the ground is clear, let your gunner run to you... and then go... Especially when it gets crowded during a galaxy drop or somesuch, not worth wasting a libby.
And if you do need to get re-flipped, the best way to do it is nose up.. err, down... point your tail into the air and have a mossy afterburn into it at a 90 degree angle, it'll flip you ass or tip and get you going. Once you do have a gunner, take off.... avoid the trolls, just hover behind the warpgate and wait for everyone else to get ready... but generally, keep clear of the landing areas.
