Cadet PRS Killing Miners

Introduction

In this section we will take a look at why and how you kill miners.

Thier miners must Die

In the conquest game mode on average settings(med/med) a full miner will bring dock around 5000-7000 credits depending on faction, that's enough for a small con or half a tech base or some tech upgrades or a capship, get where this is going. This is bad news for your team so what are you gona do about it?

Allegiance games are won by having a better economy than the enemy. Miner defense and miner offense are crucial.

Finding the enemy miners

First of all, you need to know where the enemy miners are. The enemy will try to mine a safe sector. In the beginning of the game, this will typically be the sector behind his outpost.

The "miner spotter" scout is a critical role for miner offense. Eyed miners have a very short life expectancy against any team that still has two warm neurons left to rub together. Your goal is to get a scout into the sector and REMAIN HIDDEN: reduce your signature by removing shields and missles, and give a wide berth to bases (about 2000m) and high-scan range enemy ships.

Miner spotters should also:

• Drop probes near helium rocks and alephs.
• Communicate with the rest of the team. What's the miner doing? Is it at the rock? Docking at base? In transit? Which aleph is it closest to?
• Be available to pick up pods after the miner rush, or assist in finishing off a nearly-dead miner, as appropriate.

• When docked, check f3. On the minimap, you can see how much he3 was left in the sector the last time it has been scouted. If there is little he3, the sector has been mined, and probably won't be revisted any time soon by a miner.
• Learn about mining plans and miner AI by defending your own miners.
  • Only one miner can mine a rock at any time.
  • The miner will travel to the closest secure rock that will fill half it's hold when not ordered otherwise.
  • It will mine on the side of the rock where it came from until it is full.
  • If the miner does not get at least half full from the first rock, it will continue to the next nearest rock.

If you follow this advice, you should be able to find the enemy miners with the short scan range of an interceptor or fighter, even if there is no friendly scout nearby. If the miner isn't at the rock any more, as you approach, follow the path the miner will go from there (i.e. To the nearest offload point, or base it will run to for cover).

Loadout and weapons for various ships

The next step will be to get your ship to the miner. You want to bring a loadout, that is perfect for killing the miner. This is:

• Scout: gattling guns, dumbfires and prox
• Fighter: gattling guns and dumbfires
• Interceptors: miniguns
• Stealth Fighters: utility cannons and hunters.

Tip: If you're using a stealth fighter, leave the shields at home, and missles unmounted -- shields and missles raise your signature and make you easier to spot, defeating the purpose of using a STEALTH ship.

Tip: Check the Damage chart for more info on weapon classes vs armor classes.

If the miner is more than a sector away from your nearest base you should consider bringing extra fuel on your interceptor or fighter. Boosting is often crucial to get there before the party is over.

Dealing damage

When shooting at the miner you want to do as much damage as possible. Watch your aim and make sure all your bullets and missiles hit. Here are some tricks:

• Guns: look very carefully. Make sure your bullets actually hit the miner. Don't get overconfident just because the target seems easy to hit. Some miners have a very thin profile from the back -- you can land more bullets by flying parallel to the miner (using sidethrusters) on either side.
• Dumbfires: Treat your missiles like rockets. Only fire when they would hit a stationary target. So, if the miner is mining, fire away! (the same applies for hunters and killers) If the miner is moving, don't fire unless you are right behind the miner and it is moving directly away from you. Your goal is to be moving at the same speed as the miner, 300-400 meters directly behind it. Don't waste your missiles.
• Prox: There are only a few situations where your prox will do significant damage to the miner: Drop the prox around it when it is on the rock, or setting up to dock at a base. The miner ai will slow to avoid damage, so you need to push it through the minefield. Also dropping on the other side of an aleph will hurt the miner badly. As it doesn't see the mines, it will go full speed with the aleph even accelerating by 15 mps.
• Ramming: Ramming can make the difference. Ram a miner into the rock from behind to make it suffer the damage of 2 collisions. Ram the miner on the green door to stop it from docking. Ram the miner to finish it off, when it has only a sliver of hull left and pop it, just as the nan arrives. You can also ram the miner from behind to speed it up. This will make the enemy miner nans "overboost". But pay attention! Ramming the miner also damages you and makes you an easy kill for the defenders. Ramming it out of position can make your buddies miss it and even ramming the miner into the green door is possible.

Tactics

The miner is undefended

Try to get as close as possible without being noticed by approaching from behind the miner or using a rock to mask your approach. Once that eye icon pops up, hit booster and get in missiles range ASAP. At full boost you can start lobbing dumbs as far as 1400m from a stationary target. Do so.

Tip: If you're part of an uneyed pack of fighters make sure you aren't eyed before everyone else. If you're in the lead, tap your backthrust key to bleed off speed and let your teammates catch up.

At this point, start braking because you don't overboost and waste precious time. Get 300m behind it and feed it dumbs up the tailpipe while hitting it with gatts. Voila, dead miner.

The miner has light defense

If there is a nan present lob two dumbs into the miner to get it's shields down, then kill the scout using your gattlings. The nan can't repair shields so you're not wasting shots; if you set up well you're on a good approach angle so they're easy to land; and it will make the nan think you're focussing on the miner so he'll hang around instead and make himself an easy target. If he is already in line don't bother with the fancy stuff and simply kill it first. Don't waste dumbs on the scout as he'll just dodge them, and your gatts should finish him off quickly anyway. If there is just one interceptor or fighter with the miner boost at the miner, hit sidethrust, boosters and up- / downthust to fly in a spiral around miner miner, making it hard for the enemy to shoot you. You have a good chance at killing the miner before you get killed unless the defender is quite good. If there is an int/fighter and a nan don't bother attacking alone. If the int pilot has half a clue, he'll pop you as you get rid of the nan. As you become more skilled with a fighter this may not be the case, but for the moment things are different. Get 1 or 2 wingmates and if you have time, say on team chat who is going to get the nan.

The miner has heavy defense

If the miner has heavy defense (aka squad game level) you will a need coordinated run to toast it. Bring plenty of friends along. Take a scout buddy along to eye things, to confuse the defenders with prox, and act as pod pickup. Get in the mining sector, locate the miner, and get all over it. One of you will want to shoot the miner directly to ensure that the nans have to keep nearby and worrying about the miner instead of dodging. But the main point is, that you kill the nans in order to get the miner. Once the nans are down ignore enemy fighters and concentrate your fire on the miner. It should die.

You don't have the power to kill the miner?

If you can't kill the miner, you still can disrupt the enemy's mining. To do so you need to damage the miner's hull. This makes the miner run back to base. Even if it gets sent to keep mining manually, it will periodically leave the rock to dock at an op or techbase until it gets nanned back to full hull. This can best be done in a quick ship such as a scout. Hide in the sector and wait until the miner is on the rock. When it starts mining close in and damage its hull, then hide again. When a new miner enters, repeat. Make sure you don't suicide. If there are interceptors or fighters on the way to help you, don't make the miner run from your offense, but keep eying the miner and defense to get the kill. Bouncing miners can be done in any ship. If the miner has a nan, kill the nan and damage the hull to make it run back to base.

Tip: These strategies apply mainly for fighters and interceptors. Keep this info in mind when you read the stealth fighter lesson (future week), and the offensive scout lesson (next lesson).

Miners of different Factions

Iron coalition

Iron Coalition miners can ripcord and thus generally will manage to flee before you can kill them. It takes them 30 seconds to rip out, so you should try to sneak up on them, take a friend, and ram them into the asteroid as they initiate their ripcord to deal as much damage as possible in the timespan between getting eyed and the miner ripcording. Getting someone else on the team to camp enemy teleports can work wonders too.

Technoflux

Technoflux miners can be ripped to by defenders, making them quite dangerous - especially if the TF team went Supremacy. Take a friend or two, one of you kill the nan that rips in while the other continues pounding on the miners.

Ga'taraan Federation and Belters

Their miners profit from the good hull of said factions making it harder to kill them.

Gigacorp

Giga starts with enhanced miners. Keep that in mind when trying to kill their opening miners.

Dreghklar Empire

Their miners profit from the speed perk of the faction. This is especially true for their upgraded miners so save some fuel, or the miner will outrun your ship.

Bios

Easiest miners to hit from behind (huge cross-section).