Cadet I/Nanning II: Difference between revisions
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{{Nav|Deprobing|Week Three review}} | {{Nav|Deprobing|Week Three review}} | ||
{{Title|How to successfully nan a Bomb Run}} | {{Title|How to successfully nan a Bomb Run}} | ||
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===Regular nanning - Bomb runs=== | |||
Scouts equipped with the nanite repair system are referred to as Nans. They usually fly behind or beside the bomber and repair its hull as it gets damaged by defenders. The scouts generally fill their cargos with either prox or mine packs which they drop when things get hectic, to delay and damage defenders. Loading an extra round of countermeasures is best against a team relying on missiles. | |||
Bbr nans play many different roles: | |||
===1) Deprobing=== | |||
When a probe is spotted it must be taken out as soon as possible before the bomber gets spotted. The bomber stops all thrusters while one of the Nans or another escorting ship destroys the probe. It is important to keep a scout ranging ahead to spot probes before it's too late. Of course it's very possible that the bomber has already been detected in which case the turret gunners can handle the probes. | |||
===2) Aleph scouting=== | |||
Before entering [[aleph]]s it is always good to know what lies on the other side. It is up to one of the Nans to enter the aleph shortly before the bomber and report any mine/drone/camp (also called "peeking"). If a probe is close to the aleph the bomber must be notified to stop until the probe is destroyed. Of course, if there is indeed a camp, chances are that the Nan won't survive. The bomber may still have to go in because the run is crucial and the camp is small. In this case, you have to understand that a Nan going through to the other side of the aleph is often a sacrifice. | |||
{{Tip|If you're podded by a camp wait for the bbr to come through and then fly into him for a pickup. He's big and slow so shouldn't be hard to miss. Not only will it save you a 5 minute pod ride, your pod will continue to eye the enemy camp for your teammates.}} | |||
===3) Forward mine laying=== | |||
When the bomber has been spotted and defending ships are rushing to it, one or two Nans may go in front of the bomber into the defenders' flight path and lay mines, to disrupt their activities and possibly damage/destroy their ships. The Nan must ensure that he doesn't get so far ahead he is unable to assist with repairs, nor that he gets separated and picked off. | |||
{{Note|This is a dangerous maneuver as you will become "Nearest Enemy" to any defenders launching from base.}} | |||
===4) Nanning=== | |||
The Nans work in large groups. The more there are, the more time it will take the defenders to destroy them before they can inflict significant damage to the bomber. Nans have one purpose: delay the bomber's destruction enough so that the target station is destroyed. If possible, they must ensure the bomber's survival while it is ripcording out of the sector, either before (failure of the bomber run: the enemy forces are clearly superior and attackers have decided to retreat) or after (success of the bomber run) a station is destroyed. It will however occur very often that the bomber will be destroyed before the nans or the target is destroyed. Try and hide your scout to rescue the [[Cadet I/Pods and Killbonus|pods]] later. | |||
In order for the Nans to remain alive as long as possible they must use their [[Cadet I/Basic flying#Sidethrusters|sidethrusters]] (and boosters for [[Factions#Belters|Belter]] Nans) to avoid enemy fire, whilst using countermeasures to flee from missiles and mines to destroy enemy ships and disrupt their defending activities. Remember, you must have the the ship targeted to effectively repair it. | |||
===5) Pushing=== | |||
Nans are scouts and can therefore go much faster than the bomber. As a result they can make their extra speed useful by pushing the bomber. They keep a good distance, accelerate, ram the bomber from behind, and sidethrust to allow another scout to push. A good Nan team can get a bbr going from its stately 60mps to an average 90mps. If ships equipped with boosters are around they may boost and push the bomber to give it even more speed. Pushing can be tricky. | |||
First of all the bomber must NOT be on autopilot because the autopilot will automatically sidethrust to avoid collisions with other ships (i.e. the Nans trying to ram it) making pushing it nearly impossible. | |||
Secondly you must ram it straight which requires you to #1 hit the bbr from directly behind and #2 hit the "sweet spot". Certain ships require a push in the center, while others may be pushed on a wing on their top for the push to be most effective. Usually, try to push on a part of the ship that seems closest to its center of gravity. | |||
Third, Nans must alternate in their pushing. You get a lot of speed, you push, then you sidethrust out of the way to allow another ship to push with all the speed it has accumulated. If you remain constantly right behind the bomber you can push it slowly, while all the other Nans will try to but only run into you. Staying right behind the bomber doesn't allow you to get enough speed to push the bomber efficiently. Nans must take turns in pushing the bomber. | |||
{{Note|A single experienced scout can remain behind the bomber, keeping it at a steady 90 MPS or more, which is also excellent.}} | |||
Fourth, there are times when it is mandatory that you DO NOT RAM: | |||
*Before entering an aleph, unless it was recently confirmed that the aleph is perfectly cleared. | |||
*While the bomber is firing its anti-base missiles. As covered in the Dogfighting section, anti-base firing requires the ship to fly directly toward it's target. Pushing may result in the bomber going a bit off course and miss the target which is extremely costly to your whole team. | |||
*When the enemy has defending crafts that can lay minefields. There can easily be minefields directly ahead that have not been detected yet and thus your pushing may doom the bomber into taking a giant mouthful of mines at high speed. | |||
===6) Post-run rescue=== | |||
Whether a bomb run fails or succeeds, there generally will be a lot of ships destroyed on both sides. If you manage to save your ship make sure that you don't leave. Hide behind an asteroid, away from enemy sensors, and order friendly pods to come to you for rescue. This provides a huge advantage to your team by avoiding a long ride home that could incapacitate your team for a long time. Of course, defenders are aware of this, and will chase down any ship that may rescue the pods, even exploring further in space, on your side of an aleph, and behind rocks, to try and find possible rescue attempts. Make sure you hide well, including [[Cadet I/Cargo|unmounting]] your shields and missiles. | |||
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===Stealth Nanning=== | |||
We are not talking about nanning stealth bombers. We are mean nanning ''stealthily''. | |||
Some ships, such as [[Factions#Bios|BIOS]] bombers, heavy troop transports and assault ships will try and enter the enemy sector without getting spotted. Therefore as a Nan you must also remain unseen, as the enemy will become suspicious about a group of scouts hanging around in the same spot in their sector, and will investigate resulting in highly probable failure of your assault. You must therefore put some forethought into your loadout before launch. | |||
First put your shields in cargo. They raise your signature quite a lot and you need to be not seen until you proceed to the offensive. Keep them in cargo until the ship you are escorting mounts its own shields, which generally indicates it has been eyed itself. | |||
{{Note|Bios attack ships will use their hvy cloak and then mount their shields. They are an exception to the above rule in that although their shields are up they haven't been eyed yet. Do not mount your own shields until either they use the [[voice chat]] "Oh they see me, I've been spotted" or you seen a mass of defenders launch}} | |||
Second put your missiles in cargo. Once again they raise your signature quite a lot. They can be quite useful to destroy probes - do so from max range to avoid being eyed. | |||
If you are BIOS it is very important that you bring a heavy cloak, which you will use at the same time as the ship you are protecting (i.e. when passing through alephs and while you are attacking). However, make sure you don't cloak when you need to Nan because cloaking '''rapidly''' depletes the energy needed for the Nan. | |||
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As you know from the STFN lesson nans are essential to a bomb runs success. This lessons deals with what you can do to increase both the bbr's and your own chances of survival. In [[Allegiance]] you will encounter two kinds of bomb runs: | As you know from the STFN lesson nans are essential to a bomb runs success. This lessons deals with what you can do to increase both the bbr's and your own chances of survival. In [[Allegiance]] you will encounter two kinds of bomb runs: | ||
Revision as of 00:18, 2 October 2009
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| ← Deprobing | Week Three review → |
How to successfully nan a Bomb Run
As you know from the STFN lesson nans are essential to a bomb runs success. This lessons deals with what you can do to increase both the bbr's and your own chances of survival. In Allegiance you will encounter two kinds of bomb runs:
- The "Loud" ones, normally organised by the commander. These ones demand a lot of nans (usually with CAPITAL LETTERS) and attempt to destroy an enemy base through sheer weight of numbers. These bomb runs are sometimes called "Bomb trains".
- The "Quiet" ones. Think of these as small raiding parties - the bomber pilot may have noticed a base which is easy to bomb, or hopes to bomb while the majority of your team distracts the enemy elsewhere. Often they will only have 1 or zero turret gunners and minimal nans. These bomb runs are sometimes called "Suicide runs".
As a beginner pilot you should focus on the Loud runs.
Pre-launch
The commander will tell the team which base he wants bombed, sometimes even before bbrs have finished researching. The bomber pilot will use the "Need Scouts!" or "Need Repairs!" voice chat to ask for nans. When the call for nans starts, get ready! A good nan loadout is the following:
- Nan loaded.
- Seekers loaded.
- Gatt in cargo (to kill probes).
- A RP/Sanctuary loaded if available.
- Prox (or Minepack) mines.
- Extra countermeasures if your opponent is Tac.
When you are nanning a HTT trying to be stealthy you should also be stealthy and have a sig that's less than your friend's sig. To reduce your sig you'll need to unload your shields and missiles by using the Ctrl-5 and Ctrl-7 keys (bring up your F4 menu to ensure they're unloaded). Remember that you'll need cargo space free to unload mounted items. You can rotate cargo by using the s key and jettison cargo using the Ctrl-s key. Review the previous lessons on Signature and Managing Your Cargo if needed.
If you are flying as Belters you have a few interesting choices at this point. Almost all Belter ships can mount nans so you can mount a nan on your fighter. Not only will you have more hitpoints but you can load up with fuel in cargo for some boost-ramming fun. The same goes for Belter SFs and Heavy Ints.
Note Nanning in SFs is not recommended until you are extremely comfortable in that class of ship.
Getting to the target
When your bomber launches he might be eyed or uneyed. Most bomber pilots will call out very loudly that they are uneyed and they need nans pronto. This is because the uneyed bomb run is one of the most devastating moves in Allegiance. It catches the defenders unaware and can break a stalemate that otherwise requires significantly more firepower.
If your bomber is uneyed you need to keep it uneyed. If it is eyed you need to find what's eying it. A probe nearby? Review the previous lesson on deprobing if needed.
If your bombrun is eyed all the way (a scout following you perhaps), you'll be expected at your target sector. When you reach the aleph to the target sector the bomber pilot will ask for someone to "peek". This is the term for a single scout to fly through and gauge the size of the camp on the other side, amount of mines etc. You, the peeking scout, can go into the sector at a slow velocity so you don't die on mines instantly and then call out what you see: "MINES!", "PROX!", "Camped", "2 figs", "droned/towered", "Clear!" etc. You may die but the information is worth it.
Tip: Deploy your RP before you peek so even if you die you don't have to float far.
Killing the target
The hardest part of the bombrun is clearing the camp. A common mistake nans make is to trail behind the bbr and wait for it to disappear into the aleph before following. Often they get through to find the bbr dead and themselves easy pickings. Instead you want to fly alongside the bbr as it enters so you both enter at the same time, or even enter a second before the bbr. Of course you don't want to enter too early or the campers will kill you!
You can expect a lot of confusion on the other side. Even if you were facing the bbr when you entered chances are that he will no longer be on your screen on the other side. Explosions from minefields will be blocking your view and gunfire will be coming from every direction. The most important thing is to target the bbr before you enter the aleph; that way when you come out the other side you will have a nice big red arrow in the centre of your HUD telling you which way to spin your ship. Get the bbr back in your crosshairs and start giving him some nan-lovin'! You can drop prox mines here so that defenders rushing in will hit them and explode (or be heavily damaged, making easy kills for the turrets).
Once the bomber clears the camp you'll need to keep it alive till it destroys the base. A good way to avoid enemy fire is to orbit the bomber by using your sidethrusters. This allows you to maneuver your ship such that enemy fire will hit the bomber and not you - damage that you instantly repair. When you see defenders boosting at you drop prox mines but don't drop them all the time as enemy pods will use the mines to kill themselves.
Ramming
Allegiance allows you to impart momentum from your ship to another ship when you collide. This allows faster ships to "boost" slower ships by ramming them from directly behind.
Note If friendly fire is on (normally it isn't) then both ships will take damage from the ram - hit the bbr too hard and your scout will explode!
Every ship has a different "sweet spot" for ramming. You'll find these out from experience. One word of warning - if you do not know the sweet spot of the HTT you are about to ram - DON'T. You might throw him off course and make him miss the door of the base he is trying to cap. Another big no-no is staying at the rear of the bomber instead of strafing to the side after a ram because that prevents other nans from ramming the bomber.
Tip: Do NOT ram a bomber through an aleph unless specifically asked by the pilot. Many a bomber has gone -SPLAT- into a minefield from an over-enthusiastic ram!
Take turns ramming. While another nan is about to ram the ship you should be lining up and gathering speed. This will allow you to hit the bomber as the previous rammer flys away to the side. Four or five scouts ramming like this can take bombers to extremely high velocities. Belter heavy bombers have been sent to speeds higher than 200mps by boost ramming interceptors!
Crossnanning
Crossnanning (or xnanning) is the technique by which nans keep each other alive by nanning each other so they are not taken out easily by defenders. This is a very effective tactic when pulled off. Be careful though - bbrs have been known to die because the nans were too busy keeping each other alive!
A nice overhead view (F3) of a nan train and bomb run crossing a sector. Notice the bomber pilot asking NOT to get rammed into the aleph (OMFG)! Also note that the bomber is "eyed" in the upper right corner of the HUD. The screenshot was taken from a turret of the bomber.
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