Cadet I/STFN!
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Shoot the @#%$ing Nan! (STFN!)
Whenever you are facing enemy bombers, HTTs or capships, one of the main things people yell for is to "kill the nans". You already know what a nanite is - a scout mounted energy weapon (except for Belters, who can mount it on just about anything) which repairs the ship that you are shooting at. The #1 mistake new players make when defending against bomb runs and such is shooting the bomber. The nanites heal up the bomber and the turrets make space dust of the defense. Result = dead techbase = lost game.
Why STFN?
The reason why is that when the target's nanites (henceforth called Nans for short) are alive it is almost impossible to kill it. Therefore, to kill your target, you have to first take out the Nans. There are exceptions, of course, which we cover below.
The Nans will drop prox mines to slow you down or outright pod you. The smart ones keep the other Nans alive (called crossnanning or xnan for short). They will be taking potshots at you using their seekers, orbiting the target ship, and generally be a pain in the ass for you, the defender. When facing turreted ships, every second you spend in range is time for the gunners to blow you to pieces. Therefore, time is of the essence!
How do you STFN?
Ideally you have plenty of warning and are camping the aleph with at least one scout proxing it. As the bomber and nan train come through they will slow down to pass through the minefield, making themselves easy pickings for figs and ints. If the bomber is already in the sector then figs and ints can take a wide arc around the bomber and then boost into the Nan cloud from behind to rapidly take out Nans. Be careful of their prox though! Scouts are better off either docking to get a better ship or flying in front of the bomber and dropping prox directly ahead of it at about 500m. Sfs work best by flying alongside the bbr about 1200m out and targetting the nans at the rear of the nan cloud, as they are least likely to get xnanned.
You must also look out for known scout experts (like WyldKarde, Noir, Defi, for instance) and make their demise your priority. Look out for who's xnanning who. Take out the xnanners first or you'll vaporize under sustained turret fire before you can achieve any results. After you remove the Nans, concentrate fire on your target and take it out.
Tip: Not sure who to target? Target the very last nanite scout since chances are no one will be xnanning him.
When most if not all Nans are down, the commander will call "Attack Bombers!" (like how he might have said "Attack Scouts!" or "Attack Nanites!" earlier). This is your cue to switch to the bomber/HTT and focus your fire to bring it down.
Tip: During the initial rush to defend you will sometimes hear a vet player using a voice chat command "Attack my target". Hit your insert key and attack that target. Coordinated fire by multiple defenders can over come cross nanning.
Combat Nans
Combat nanning is a technique where a scout will escort a fig or int and nan it as they engage the enemy. With this kind of help a single dogfighter can beat overwhelming odds just because the enemy can't kill it. You must watch out for combat Nans and take them out before engaging the enemy ship itself.
Tip: Like any other Nan you can spot it real fast by watching for the "blue donuts" and listening.
Exceptions
Belters
Every Belter small class ship can mount nanites apart from the basic interceptor. This makes them a powerful bombing faction as their flexibility means that just about any ship that's escorting your target could be a Nan. Therefore, you must keep an eye out for any ships shooting the blue donuts of healing and take them out.
Mini3 over-damage
Heavy Ints with Mini3 dish out an amazing amount of damage. So much so that the nans have no chance of keeping something alive vs them - provided that you have at least a few hvy int pilots that can aim properly. A group of four or five heavy interceptors can ignore the Nans and just shoot the target, overpowering the Nans. If these ships catch the bombrun at the aleph, no amount of Nans can save the run.
Dumb spike
A group of figs can form together directly in front of the bbr and then launch a volley all together. By spiking the bbr with a very high damage level over a short period you can destroy the bbr before the nans even realise the first missiles hit. Advanced fighters with Dumbfire3 can "spike" the bomber. Of course dumb1 with no upgrades is far less likely to work than dumb3 with missile damage GA researched - choose your tactics based on your tech.
Aleph camp
When a bbr and nan train come through an aleph they will be disoriented for a few brief seconds, especially if they're stuck in the midst of an exploding minefield. This is an excellent opportunity to kill the bbr from under the nans noses. However it often doesn't work, you should switch back to STFN as soon as you see the hull increasing.
Ram kill
Sometimes an int pilot will boost full speed into the bbr attempting to knock it backwards. Not only does this deal a fair amount of damage, it also buys more time for defenders to launch from the base. More importantly it knocks the bbr out of its nan train - this is an excellent opportunity to attack the bbr and finish it off before the nans can get their aim back.
Note You shouldn't do this if your team is flying sup as it will just ruin your teammates attempts to dumb spike it and/or lay a minepack directly in front of it.
| Shamelessly stolen from the Penny Arcade website |
| ← Phases of the game III | Camping → |
