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[Kagus]

I remember doing some calculations, and I figured out that you could strip upgraded armor from just about any ship without reloading as the galleon.

Two minotaurs on one side, using Lochnagar shot. The round-chambering delay on the minotaur gives you just about enough time to fire, jump out, bap the gun with a wrench/mallet, then hop back in. I don't remember the specifics, but I think that 2-3 shots of Loch from a minotaur will deal enough damage to ruin just about anyone's armor, not to mention any components you hit. The fun part here is that the minotaur actually has a huge range, but normally it scatters way too much to make use of... With Loch's jitter reduction, you get a narrow cone of raycast (no bullet drop!) death.

This may have been before the Loch changes rolled out, so I don't know how it'd work anymore. You'd also still need a kill weapon, but just shattering armor from long range while also punting their ship around with the force effect is pretty neat.


I'm curious to hear how the laser got balanced though, as when I was checking out the game its only downsides were extremely slow tracking while firing and a bunch of smoke spewing out when you use incendiary, but that's really not enough to mitigate the sheer destructive power of a burny beem.

[Ygdrad]

I love the minotaur cannon. In Pve I actually like to run it with heavy clip for pinpoint long range armor and equipment sniping. I can mount 2 of them on the front of the Crusader and have a forward overlap of 2 minotaurs and 2 flak canons. Suffice to say most things in front of a crusader don't stay there long. I have yet to re-unlock the laser as some changes to achievements since I last had played caused me to lose my unlocks and have to work the grandmaster line again to unlock other factions' stuff. If you want something overpowered in pve though you don't have to look much further than the Fjord Baronies guided missiles. I'm pretty sure those are never making t into pvp.

[milo christiansen]

I got a free key from another Bay12 denizen who bought the four pack during the sale, and so far I'm really liking it.

I happened to be online when the PS4 version went live, and player population jumped from ~300 to ~1300 over the course of a single match. Now it is low level noobs as far as the eye can see... Most of them picked it up at least as quickly as I did, but I still run into a captain or two who have no idea what they are doing at times. Also, I was playing on hard and winning more often than not before the PS4 rush, now it is really hard to find a crew that can play to that level.

Anyway, I managed to get to #6 on the faction leader list, with ~6 hours to go until the cycle ends, so it is quite likely that the Order Of Chaladon will have a total noob with 3-4 days of playing as one of their glorious leaders by tomorrow... Well, "noob" isn't quite right, after all I had to play 70+ matches to get to that point, so I picked up quite a bit.

[Ygdrad]

Just had a lot of fun playing with some other B12ers today. Sensei and Burnt Pies were great to fly with and brought us many a victory. Actually managed to climb up to the top of the Fjord Baronies score  with them today and I'm once again in line to become our fabulous leader. We tried a lot of experimental loadouts(sorry and thanks for putting up with me, it was hilarious) and eventually landed on the most unholy of combos. A junker with the MkII gas launcher and MkI fjord guided missiles, it just chewed through everything at medium range, stripping the armor from multiple targets in seconds with the gas and then the missiles just cleaned up.

[Akura]

All hail Pope Ygdrad?

[milo christiansen]

Is there an existing Bay12 clan? If not, I would like to point to [BY12], the "Bay 12 Aeronauts" formed by some guys from an arms race game running over in FGRP.

Anyway, the majority of PS4 players are finally getting to the point where a game on hard isn't suicide, but I'm still racking up achievements for winning with new players on the same crew...

I managed to make faction leader, and if things continue at the same rate, I will be leader again next time. Honestly, it seems kinda pointless, but it isn't like I have to do anything special to make the cut.


I found an awesome loadout last night. A spire with a Nemesis cannon on the heavy slot, a gatling on the lower deck, that anti-armor sniper cannon (forgot its name) on the left side top deck, and any-ol' thing on the right side top.

The basic tactic is simple: Strip the armor with the sniper cannon, and blow them away with the Nemesis. For lighter ships the Nemesis can strip armor by itself, but when going against the boss it isn't enough. The gatling can be manned by one of the engineers, or the gunner when the Nemesis can't get an angle. The right side top weapon is there for cases where the captain can leave the helm, so something with decent range is useful (A missile launcher works well).

I played gunner, and the captain who's ship I was on took that combo to victory over, and over again.

[Ygdrad]

I'm not a fan of the spire in pve unless you have 2 engineers coordinating and separating workload as moving between different sections can be awkward. The main problem with the spire is just how fragile it is and just how much damage there is flying around in pve missions. It doesn't help that enemies tend to miss vertically while being fairly accurate horizontally. They don't miss the spire as much. I find it works fine on normal, it's ok if another ship babysits you on hard, otherwise it dies too quickly once things get within chaingun range, and good luck with veteran or hell. Solo it might ok since you only have to contend with your own share of ships and as long as you kill them fast enough at range you're safe, but when playing in a match of 3-4 ships my experience is that you're simply doomed unless everyone pulls their weight and that rarely happens. It probably needs a pve-only survival buff.

Out of curiosity, what difficulty were you winning on with that spire and how many allied ships did you run with?

[milo christiansen]

Some normal, lots of hard. Mostly with three ships.

See, the thing is the captain was good and kept the ship pointed at the nearest threat most of the time, and the nemesis cannon can wipe most ships very quickly if well directed and armor is at least weakened by something else (like, say, the top deck field gun). Yes, it is a bit squishy, but it can achieve safety through superior firepower.

[Akura]

I just misread the thread title as "Guns of Icarus Alliance: Console launch live! First PC/PS4 cosplay game".

...This had me a little more excited then it probably should have.

[milo christiansen]

I have just finished one of the worst Guns of Icarus matches I have ever played. 2 engineers (levels 5 and 7) who didn't know which end of the wrench was which (they seemed to think they were gunners, even when the hull armor was down and the balloon was on fire), a captain (level 4) who was flying a spire, but didn't seem to realize he had to point the bow at the desired target, and all three captains seemed to feel the need to run in a tight pack to one drill at a time (on normal difficulty, where one ship per drill is more than enough).

I was playing gunner, so all I could do is watch the slow-moving disaster while unloading on anything that managed to blunder into the firing arc. It was awful.

Please, oh gods of matchmaking, find me a captain who knows what he is doing and can direct his crew.

[Ygdrad]

I have just finished one of the worst Guns of Icarus matches I have ever played. 2 engineers (levels 5 and 7) who didn't know which end of the wrench was which (they seemed to think they were gunners, even when the hull armor was down and the balloon was on fire), a captain (level 4) who was flying a spire, but didn't seem to realize he had to point the bow at the desired target, and all three captains seemed to feel the need to run in a tight pack to one drill at a time (on normal difficulty, where one ship per drill is more than enough).

I was playing gunner, so all I could do is watch the slow-moving disaster while unloading on anything that managed to blunder into the firing arc. It was awful.

Please, oh gods of matchmaking, find me a captain who knows what he is doing and can direct his crew.

I'll captain for you, add me on steam: Ygdrad

[wierd]

If it were not for my 3rd shift schedule (9:30pm to 6:15am, GMT-6) I would consider getting this from steam, and learning to be an engineer. (I gravitate to support roles naturally anyway. I suspect I would pick it up quickly.)

However, hearing this makes me worried I missed the boat.. (heh.)

[wierd]

Is there an existing Bay12 clan? If not, I would like to point to [BY12], the "Bay 12 Aeronauts" formed by some guys from an arms race game running over in FGRP.

Anyway, the majority of PS4 players are finally getting to the point where a game on hard isn't suicide, but I'm still racking up achievements for winning with new players on the same crew...

I managed to make faction leader, and if things continue at the same rate, I will be leader again next time. Honestly, it seems kinda pointless, but it isn't like I have to do anything special to make the cut.


I found an awesome loadout last night. A spire with a Nemesis cannon on the heavy slot, a gatling on the lower deck, that anti-armor sniper cannon (forgot its name) on the left side top deck, and any-ol' thing on the right side top.

The basic tactic is simple: Strip the armor with the sniper cannon, and blow them away with the Nemesis. For lighter ships the Nemesis can strip armor by itself, but when going against the boss it isn't enough. The gatling can be manned by one of the engineers, or the gunner when the Nemesis can't get an angle. The right side top weapon is there for cases where the captain can leave the helm, so something with decent range is useful (A missile launcher works well).

I played gunner, and the captain who's ship I was on took that combo to victory over, and over again.

I was approached to do a pixel art clan image for a Bay12 Guns of Icarus group... It was a few years back.. I forget who commissioned it.  Let me see if I can dig it out.

Spoiler: here it is (click to show/hide)

[milo christiansen]

hearing this makes me worried I missed the boat.. (heh.)

Don't worry, it is easy to learn. The hard part is working together, and that is made much simpler if you have a good captain and/or are playing with friends.

Generally most random crews are ok, and a new player can slot in pretty quickly. However, if you get a bad crew it is very frustrating, you can do everything right and still lose horribly. If that happens you can come here to blow off a bit of steam, then hope the match maker drops you on an excellent crew for the next game

Actually, it is surprising to me how quickly new players pick things up. It only took me a few matches to be pretty comfortable with the basics, and watching all the PS4 players stream in leads me to believe that is pretty typical.


Pet peeve #1 when playing engineer: The other engineer taking a buff hammer and removing my carefully applied crowbar armor prebuff.

The crowbar is amazing for keeping parts alive, making it the best possible thing to use on the hull armor. I always apply crowbar armor to the hull, then apply a "prebuff" so I can refresh the armor with a single crowbar hit. This has saved the hull armor from going down in a sticky situation more times than I can count.

The problem is that some "genius" engineers take a buff hammer and destroy my work (sometimes even stripping off an active armor buff), then wander off. Meanwhile, I notice the hull taking damage, so I rush over to refresh its protective coating only to discover it is gone. Where before I could use a single crowbar hit to give myself a nice bit of breathing room to put out the fire or repair the damage, now I'm stuck scrambling to fix the problem before the ship blows up.

Luckily the kind of engineer who does this is pretty rare. They tend to be level 3-7, just far enough in to have discovered the buff hammer, but not far enough in to have figured out what the crowbar does. So far asking them to please not buff the hull is enough.

shudder That one captain who yelled at me for "not doing anything" when I was the only thing keeping his ship alive was worse (I was constantly refreshing the hull armor crowbar buff, since he was flying straight into the enemy guns with no regard for damage. As soon as it was buffed the previous layer was basically gone).

Anyway, don't let my horror stories discourage you, for every oblivious player there are many, many smart/helpful/nice players.

[Kagus]

I'm not familiar with the crowbar, was it a recent addition? I seriously can't remember ever seeing a crowbar ingame... I'm really beginning to wonder what the hell kind of version of Alliance I actually played.

I do remember buffing and prebuffing armor on ships like the galleon or junker because hey, +40% effective armor (and repair if you're repairing it while it's being shot at), and I was pissed enough by lagging and ruining the prebuff myself... Can't imagine the frustration of having someone else fuck it up. Repeatedly.

And yeah, always fun when you get blamed for not doing enough when you're the only one doing anything. Especially fun when you don't have a mic and as such can't stop to defend yourself because, y'know, you're a little too busy fixing the damn ship...

Also, another peeve: engies with chemspray+dynabuff, or some strange abomination like monkey+mallet. One thing is people who just don't know what does what, but when they argue with you and refuse to switch... Eh.

Captain is always right, even when they're wrong. Just do what they say.

Oh, yeah... And folks going two or three gunners on one ship. Or going engie and never leaving their gun. Buh.