A new meta is forthcoming! Okay not new but more retread.

I have grown quite fond of Artillery strike and Air Strike on my heavy mechs. I normally run seismic sensor and one of each now because it has become quite handy to have.

Uses on a single mech isn't anything to write home about. In large groups I can cause devastating damage and hurt quite a few mechs but where I have seen it used VERY, even PAINFULLY, effective was in pre-made light lances. I was unfortunately on the receiving end of one of these blitzkrieg nightmares.

By timing their fire through voice comms they are able to get around the one at a time limitation the game imposes to disastrous effect.

On Desert they went to where epsilon would be, knowing a large group would be near theta. Timing their drop they launched 3 simultaneous artillery strikes and then 4 seconds later 3 simultaneous air strikes that completely wrecked our entire team. Not one of us had even engaged the enemy yet but after that spread several were wrecks and the rest of us were walking wounded. I lost a leg and an arm and had criticals in my shoulder in the space of a few seconds. A couple more of our mechs were missing legs and one or two arms. In one swell foop they literally took 90% of our mechs out of fighting action.

Now while I do not mind dodging arty strikes having 3 simultaneous which the game tries to prevent seems a bit of an exploit to me. unlike macros which do not really give any tactical advantage and can be used by everyone (just simplify actions that you normally perform), these Artillery "alpha" strikes can only be accomplished through voice communication. I won't go so far as to call it an out and out exploit but it would be pretty darn close. And when 3 light mechs can destroy or render useless 90% of the enemy team in 4 seconds that to me is a huge and unsavory tactical advantage.

An example of how the game tries to limit, correctly in my opinion, Strike spamming is to impose a 1 at a time limit with about a 4 second cool down. If anyone on your team launches one then everyone on your team must wait 4 seconds before they can launch theirs.

Arty is very useful to me on Conquest maps as a hindrance, I often drop them on points I know they are capping. They have a choice get off and stop the cap or take significant damage. I have even managed to kill a few while they tried to cap stopping the cap altogether. Used like that or on large groups of mechs or as a "oh screw it Im surrounded and gonna die anyway" weapon it is a good thing to have. But grouping with your mates and destroying entire enemy teams through coordinated drops just seems cheap and wrong.

 

Very interesting read. This is something I will have to try out myself to see how effective it is.

 

oh, it's effective. I've seen it done twice now on terra at the ring opening. 2 lights sacrificed themselves but were able to get off 1 art and 1 air each before we killed them. We lost 12-2.

 

one thing i've been wondering, if you're on crimson underneath the garage and fire off a strike... I assume it hits those on top, right? I could swear there was no lights around up top but still got hit when around kappa.

 

Thats correct if you fire down below it has always hit up top for me.

 

Watch my latest video and you will see what arty can do now. I completely destroy a Jager with it stipping off 3 components before it finally killed him. Now imagine 3 of those hitting simultaneously in a group...naaaasty.

 

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

Watch Ian's last video on his page. Those strikes are WRECKING the enemy. And those were only coming from Ian, not three mechs coordinating.

 

Yep, I've been playing with it tonight and it is VERY effective.

 

Damn you IanSane, since your post do you have any idea how many artillery and air strikes i have had dropped on my head? Loads, I was trying to work out why all of a sudden I am copping them most matches, and then i remembered this thread... yes, effective.

 

Nobody believed me after the patch, so thanks for the fred

We need Orbital Bombardment, Cyclonics, Life-eater-Bombs. Bring out the good shit hear:

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Exterminatus

 

If I understood correctly you can't launch several strikes at the same time, there is a "cool-down" between successive strikes a team can launch.

 

I know thats the developers intent but they are getting around it, I suspect, by coordinating their strikes using a count down in voice comms. I am guessing that this game has the same issue many games have that when it receives simultaneous commands it doesn't try to differentiate the millisecond between em it just runs em all assuming its the same one. I wish I didn't delete that video now it showed it painfully clearly...looked like a squadron of B-52s flew over our heads judging by the massive impact area

 

Myself and some of my unit mates were using this last night and we would simply wait for the countdown and then go nuts with it. You just have to pay attention to your HUD when the timer is done then you can launch more down in there.

 

If they really wanted the game to get interesting, the developers could actually give the capability to thwart the strike.
Artillary has to come from somewhere, make it an actual installation that has to be set up before it can be used. For example a vehicle, or manned installation that can be taken out by a light.... It would bring a whole other aspect to scouting.
Airstrikes could actually fall from a plane that can be shot down or hit with a ppc to reduce the accuracy, instead of just falling from heaven. Have the team utilizing the airstrike be required to use a spotter that has to stay stationary with a targeting laser to improve accuracy byond a random drop.
Strikes have to be ordered through comms, so give the ability to disrupt the comms. Pull a whole Electronic/Counter Electronic Warfare aspect into the game.

Bring some sort of realism... here's a thought, make it a simulation.

 

I don't know about realism.. even 50 years ago and earlier, Naval guns could reach targets 15-20 miles away...
We all know that airfields could be pretty far away.

I do agree about overall team cooldownm, but even then, you would have similar results if your team bunches up. The game is about coordination, so it's good that you can wreak havoc on an enemy team this way. Lights are limited by the number of slots they have, so that is a bigger balancing factor. Technically speaking, with good team coordination, you can have a scout voice where the enemy is and everyone in the team unloads their artillery.. that's very realistic and you can win without so much as firing a shot.

Lights are pretty much kings in the game right now (personal opinion), the speed + ECM makes them pretty deadly. They can isolate an enemy and peck him to death, the enemy would focus on the 1 in front while 3 are coring him in the back (that doesn't sound too pleasant.... but you know what i mean). With more game modes, it would not be so, lights could never handle an assault mission or a base defense.

 

Naval guns use spotters to hit land targets. Even today.

[quote author=cs_kami link=topic=4796.msg30070#msg30070 date=1385392481]
Lights are pretty much kings in the game right now (personal opinion), the speed + ECM makes them pretty deadly. They can isolate an enemy and peck him to death, the enemy would focus on the 1 in front while 3 are coring him in the back (that doesn't sound too pleasant.... but you know what i mean). With more game modes, it would not be so, lights could never handle an assault mission or a base defense.
[/quote]

No doubt, getting torn apart in my Cat by three lights is a very humbling experience, but in different game modes lights would have a differen't role. With ECM and speed in a real assault lights would be tasked with scouting, taking down base defences and attrition. Base defence would be a role of scouting, demarcation by disrupting the enemy lines.... whatever, I'm tired of typing, and this is off topic anyway.

 

Yeah, I was in a super slow Battlemaster last night, so was trailing the rest of my team heading into Upper City. I looked back and saw a couple lights moving in towards our base. My communications were basically:

"2 lights at our base"

5 seconds later: "Correction, 4 lights directly behind us"

15 seconds later: *Sassafras has been killed by ___*

 

The good side is that these are consumables, so using them reduces your cbills income. And only f*king idiots would buy MC consumables.
I would rather lose a match or two than wasting my cbills on things like that.

 

So, basically, these players are trading CBills for XP.