Cadet I/Miner defense

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Miner defense (aka How to keep your money coming in!)

Miner Defense: The most important and least recognized role in Allegiance. Many believe it is also the hardest to do. Good miner defense is invaluable to your team's chances of winning.

Objective

Your task is to deliver the miner to a destination asteroid and patrol the area making sure it can mine undisturbed. Optionally, try to ensure the miners are mining as efficiently as possible. Sounds simple? Well, think again. The enemy team will do whatever they can to destroy the miners or at least slow your team's economy by making your miners run away scared.

Loadout

There are two ways in which you can aid miner: you can either avoid it's destruction by Nanning it or by shooting down the attackers trying to destroy it. In this introductory lesson, only the scout application for miner escort will be covered. Fighter/interceptor escort is covered in the Cadet II course.

Scout Loadout

1. Take a nanite gun. Always. Your scout is almost rendered useless without one. Either mount it in your gun slot, or at least pack it into cargo. Never escort miners in a scout without a nanite gun.
2. Proximity mines. They are your friends, take a bunch. Preferably fill your cargo with them. Some pilots don't even take any offensive guns to free up a slot for an extra prox.
3. Missiles. Take one rack of seekers. They are good for shooting that probe 1k away and, if need be, you can lob them at attacking ships. Don't pack any more missiles, you are not going out there to dogfight... you have fighter or interceptor cover for that.

Miners outbound

So your commander has ordered your miners into a neighboring sector and you're escorting them there. At this point you should be flying in front of the miners using your scout's sensors to sweep for hostiles ahead. Don't venture more than 2k away from the miners though. Destroy any probes you encounter to keep the miner from being seen. If the enemy doesn't know where your miners are they won't be out in force to kill them.

Once you make it to the destination sector, the miners will split up and head to the various HE asteroids in the sector. This is where your job gets tough. Usually the HE rocks are spread far enough apart that you can only cover one miner at a time. The challenge is picking which miner is going to need the cover. Normally a good bet is to cover the miner heading for rock closest to enemy controlled territory. Fly ahead of your chosen miner to its rock and fly a quick circuit around the HE rock checking for probes.

Miners mining

Now your miner is at the rock mining merrily. You need to be at your most alert now. The enemy will quickly detect the drop in HE in the sector and come in to interrupt your mining operations. Be prepared. Keep turning your scout around so your powerful forward sensors cover all approaches. Pay particular attention to the rear of the miner where stealth fighters like to approach from.

Action stations (Small attack)

So your scanners have picked up a small incoming enemy attack group. Your job is simple. Stay back away from the fight until the miner starts taking hull damage. Then rush in and repair it. For small assaults (2-3 fighters) by the time you need to start repairing your escort should have killed at least one of the attackers.

Seeing you repair the miner is liable to annoy the attackers and they'll probably switch to shooting at you. Good. Now your job is to lead them as far from the miner as possible. With a bit of luck they'll be so busy shooting at you they won't realize you're leading them away from the miner.

The more likely scenario is the one of the attackers will be gunning for you while the other keeps pounding on the miner. In this situation you cannot afford to leave the miner for too long. I like to start doing flybys. Head away from the miner for 2-3 seconds then turn and face it again. Nan it as you pass it. Keep going out the other side then turn and do another pass. Keep moving in a S pattern repairing on each pass. A stationary scout is a dead scout.

Battle stations (Large assault)

For larger assaults you are going to need some more cunning. (Make sure the commander knows to move the miner) When the miner starts running away and then get in front of it. Engage vector lock and turn around flying backwards. For most scouts your speed in reverse will be a close match to the miner's top speed. Start dropping your prox mines. The attackers should fly through it as they normally tail along behind the miner.

Again once the miner starts taking hull damage you need to repair it. Use you left/right and up/down thrusters to keep yourself moving at all times making yourself as difficult a target as possible. Keep those blue donuts of love on the miner. Your job is to keep that miner alive an extra 10-20seconds to buy time for your reinforcements to arrive. You'll likely be in a pod by the time they arrive. But as long as the miner lives you don't mind the pod ride home.

If time allows, don't forget to give your defenders a little loving too. Swing and give them a blast of the nanite gun as you swing by if the miner has enough hull. Remember the miner is #1 priority

Sometimes if there are enough scouts defending the miner. One of you will go to the aleph where you expect the attack to come from and camp it. Dropping prox to kill the inbound fighters. Coordinate with the commander or someone in base who can give you good Intel.

Rinse cycle

Congratulations your miner has topped off its tanks with HE and is just about back in base to unload. Job finished right? Time to grab a fighter and go shoot stuff right? Wrong! It is time to dock and replenish any missiles or prox mines you used on your last outing. Before launching to do it all over again. This is the most common mistake made by new pilots in Allegiance. They think that just because the miners have not been attacked in the last few minutes that the dangers gone and they can leave the miners undefended. That is just what pilots like me rely on. We lurk around the miners waiting for the defenders to get bored and leave and then we swoop in and kill the miners uncontested.

Once you're on miner D you're on miner D until your commander tells you otherwise. It is a boring job most of the time. But someone has to do it. Plus the recognition you will gain by other pilots will pay off in the long run for you!

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