Cadet II/Gunship

Gunships and Corvettes

Psychosis calls them "Funships," others just call them "cheese." Once a measly $1, these beasts (and their older brothers, the Corvette) pack two skycap turrets, front-mounted AC, and quite a few missiles. Corvettes even pack prox! Yet some vets contend that a Gunship cannot keep up against any faction's enh tech. So how is it that one person's cheese is another person's underpowered? It all comes down to how you use it, of course!

Escort

Gunships have a speed of 80 mps and vettes have a base speed of 90 mps. 80mps is also the speed of enh constructors while bombers travel at 60mps. The biggest mistake I see gunship pilots make is they get too far in front of or behind the target of their escort. When you're escorting a con, it's pretty easy to lag behind the constructor as your speeds are the same, but you may drift slightly off course or have to stop/turn to take care of some attackers. When you are escorting a bomber, it's really easy to end up too far in *front* of the bbr, and then figs start pounding its ass with dumbfires from behind, then the commander starts screaming and boots you for incompetence. Not at all a happy situation for anyone.

So the first trick to escorting bbrs and constructors is to know your place. You're the pilot of this little bugger, not a turret: your job is to put those two chumps hitching a ride in a position where they can do some good. Remember one golden rule and you'll do just fine: in front of cons, and between the D and the bbr.

Constructors

Make sure you're IN FRONT of the constructor until you get to the rock. Unless your con is going to your backsectors (which is the lamest con push ever), all of the enemy fighters and ints will be coming from in front of the con. You want to encourage the attackers to boost past the gunship's turrets as fast as possible, which means going at a rather high speed into a cloud of prox since your nans are smart nans.

Once you're at the rock, this is when all hell breaks loose. Plant yourself about 500m shy of the rock, and just start picking off the offense. A pilot here is basically a glorified turret, firing missiles at incoming interceptors or fighters. Remember not to try and turn to follow the ships as they boost past you: that won't work, and also try not to fire your main gun. It's less super effective than skycap. Still, your thirty quickfires will make an enemy pilot piss themselves which is always fun.

Bombers

Bombers are a bit trickier. The first step you want to be right in front of them with a single nan (EVERYONE else should be on the bbr). In the immortal words of a commander, "I should boot that gs for letting the bbr enter first." Never EVER let that happen to you: a bbr alone in a sector is very much a bootable offense in many commander's books, and whether it's you, the bbr pilot, or the nans who need to be booted depends on the situation. By entering FIRST (gunship enters first with its singular nan, then ints, then bbr and nans) you ensure that a ) there's a clear aleph (your ship costs $250 compared to $500) and b ) you can start picking off enemy fighters the moment you enter.

Once you enter the sector, you're going to start moving towards the enemy base, but watch closely for your bbr. It should be behind you, like with con pushes, and you should be using your main guns/quickfires/hunters/turrets to blast anything in front of you heading towards the bbrs. This part is easy. Shortly after entry, or maybe a while after entry, the enemy defense will be behind the bbr (since, you know, that's where the nans are). At this point, you ALSO need to be behind the bbr. See, your job is to be between the defense and the bbr, because it makes it more difficult for the defense to shoot the bbr and it makes it much less difficult when your turret gunners don't have to try and shoot around the big 'ol honking bbr behind you.

With good turrets and heads up piloting (NEVER be more than 1k away from the bbr please), that enemy base is as good as toast. Excellent GS escorts can even make un-nanned bomb runs work (not that you should ever try this).

Defense

Gunships and vettes have very low speeds compared to most ships, and as such can't easily get from point A to point B. Corvettes in particular have an absurdly large rip time (25 seconds) which really hampers their ability to go on the offensive. However, an immobile gun emplacement is still a gun emplacement, and gunships are still very adept at defense. All forms of defense with Gunships and Corvettes, however, are pretty much the same thing you'd expect from defending with interceptors or figs: don't stray from the miner. Gunships and Corvettes are particularly powerful against tac, which has a util range of ~850m (skycap is 2000m) and sfs have pretty weak hull, and a bit weak against Expansion (ints are quick enough that they can boost from 2000m to minigun range almost absurdly quickly) but all in all a properly done gunship D will pretty much force the enemy to kill the GS before attacking the miners... at least assuming you brought nans. You brought nans, right?

For aleph camping, sit ~2k off an unproxed aleph, ~1.5k off a proxed aleph. You want to be closer if there's a scout proxing so you can D the scout if necessary, but otherwise let the ints come to you... they'll be in your face soon enough! Once the enemy ships enter, backpedal and fire at will! If you are in a corvette, drop prox (or plasgens) to make them angle their attack differently because a face full of figs is never fun. Use that range to your advantage!

Offense

Corvettes are deadly force. They enter a sector and most commanders are going to panic at least a little bit, and all commanders are going to get their miners out. Same holds true of funships, and this is the heart of GS offense. If you can get your gunship/corvette in an enemy sector which only has a ref, the miners will either run or die. If you can get your gunship/corvette in an enemy sector with a teleport or launch base (Op or techbase), the GS is likely to end up toast if you don't handle it right.

The first thing to remember is they ARE going to rush you. An important corollary though is this: while they are rushing your gunship, they are not attacking miners. Do the same backpedal trick as when you're camping alephs to kill as many as you can, and if it looks like you're going to be overwhelmed, start that ripcord ASAP! If you can kill all the enemy figs without taking a bit of hull you have just stopped their econ and miner offense, but if you have to rip out you have only stopped their miner offense. That last bit is sarcastic: if they're NOT attacking your miners, you are very likely to win! Also keep in mind that without light booster, miners are faster than you are (I mean, you're faster than TF miners, but yeah), so it'll be difficult to chase them down, if not impossible.

Perhaps the most important gunships in the game are the Bios gunships. Not only are they most common (because Bios start with a starbase), but they are also arguably the most powerful because of their ability to utilize a Heavy Cloak. This ability really does mean that you can cloak for up to thirty seconds^Verify, lowering your sig to something like 50%! Imagine being uneyed and then suddenly there's a fully-turreted gunship 1k from an undefended miner.