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 game ending tech is shooting the bomber/HTT first. The nanites heal up the bomber and the turrets make space dust of the defense. Result = dead techbase = lost game. Why?

The reason why is that when the target's nanites (henceforth called as Nans, for short) are alive, it is almost impossible to kill it. There are exceptions of course, mentioned later. Therefore, to kill your target, you have to first take out the Nans.

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 xnans for short). They will also 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?

Defenders in fighters and interceptors can take a wide arc of the bomber and then boost into the Nan cloud from behind to rapidly take out Nans. If you spotted the target before it entered your sector, then you must be camping ideally. Once the element of surprise is gone (fighters unload their first Dumbfire rack, yet the target lives; (the bomber successfully makes it out of your Int/prox camp), you need to concentrate on taking out the Nans.

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. Exceptions Belters

Almost every Belter ship can mount nanites except for the basic interceptor. This makes them a powerful bombing faction. A heavy interceptor that's nanning and pushing a Belter bomber is truly hard to take out as it has extreme amounts of hull and therefore, excellent survivability. 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. Heavy Interceptors with Mini3

Heavy Ints with Mini3 dish out an amazing amount of damage. So much that if you have spotted the enemy, it has no chance of making it into your sectors and staying alive for more than 10 seconds (provided the defending team isn't stupid/engaged/stranded elsewhere). 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. Advanced Fighters with Dumbfire3 + sup toys

Advanced fighters with Dumbfire3 can "spike" the bomber. This is where a group of fighters gather at a similar range and launch volleys of Dumbfires at the bomber. The huge damage potential of the DF3s, combined with the damage spikes due to the volley fire, can take out the bomber in a fraction of a second, which makes Nans pointless. This, along with tech that does extra damage to medium hull (Disruptor 3/Galvonic Blasters) and some skillful aleph proxing will destroy bombers so fast that it'll drain the morale of the enemy team. Combat Nans

Combat nanning is a technique where dogfighting ships are nanned actively while in combat. In these kind of situations, a single enemy ship 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, by watching for the "blue donuts" and listening, you can spot it real fast.

STFN comic (Shamelessly stolen from the Penny Arcade website)

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