Corvette 101 Part1

TLDR: Be smart about picking targets, know the map, speed is greater than stealth, RE freaking LOAD, use your secondaries, watch the minimap for targets.

Corvettes take a special type of player. One who doesn’t mind games going incredibly well or having the terrible games, because there are so many variables playing corvette I would not recommend buying a corvette until you have at least one other ship you like to fly. Don’t let their size fool you though corvettes have some of the highest damage output in the game. Though with great power comes great fragility.(what did you think I was going to say responsability?) Corvettes are fragile, never be afraid to run from a fight you can harass the enemy into chaos, and/or pick off those your team weakens. The Trader Valcor is probably one of the best setup Trader ships in the game, go use it!

I will start with some quick pointers: #1 Know your targets, Artillery Cruisers and Tactical Cruisers are your easiest prey. #2 Avoid Destroyers and Dreadnoughts like the plague, their flak will rip through corvette shields and armor like paper in a paper shredder. #3 Learn the map, I know I say this in every overview but corvettes need to know how to break line of sight so you can survive longer. #4 Speed and stealth are your two biggest advantages, use them as much as possible. #5 Learn your firing angles, only the Fulgora can shoot any direction, the Valcor and Kreshnik have a cone shaped firing arc in the front. #6 Use your secondaries, they can be as good or better than your primary weapon. #7 RELOAD! Seriously I can’t count the times I started a run on someone only to realize I only had 5 rounds in the clip. #8 Watch that mini map, for solitary targets, easy pickings!

#1 You must know the enemy ships on the field and which to target. Your two primary targets should be Artillery and Tactical Cruisers depending on the situation. If the enemy has only one tactical cruiser or two separated more than 2.5km (2.5km or less is optimal healing range) you should be relatively safe destroying one of them. Artillery cruiser are generally easier to pick off than Tactical Cruisers because they do not have access to blast pulse or nuclear mine.

#2 Knowing who to kill is just as important as knowing who to avoid, like the plague. Number one ship to avoid should be obvious, Dreadnoughts, no just… no don’t even drive by. With the Tractor Beam ability able to grab and hold you, and their Flak is basically an executioner's axe. Almost as bad are the Destroyers, their abilities are slightly less frightening, but their speed and flak will be the end of you. Light destroyers are the bane of Corvettes, almost as fast as you, with some abilities faster, and more destructive power.

#3 Knowing the map will save you many a death. Use the terrain to escape not only direct fire, but also missiles. Use any terrain piece that is out of the ordinary to block shots, duck in and out of terrain. Don’t do the expected and use terrain to help you do the unexpected. If you have warp, use it to go through terrain.

#4 Speed and stealth are generally better than your shields, the faster you are away from danger the better. Yes your shields will block 100% of damage, but once they are gone you are very fragile ship. So which is better to be out of danger at low health or still in danger and at full health? I almost always choose to be out of danger and at low health, the exception is when I fly the Kreshnik that thing is a tank. As I said before, knowing the map is one part, speed gets you to those nooks that other ships just can’t chase you through.

#5 Know where your ships can fire, the Fulgora can shoot in any direction while the Valcor and Kreshnik fire in a forward facing cone. Knowing where your ship can and cannot fire is incredibly important because your primary weapon does significantly more damage than your secondary.

#6 Something that takes a while to learn is that your secondary weapons can be just as powerful sometimes more powerful than your primary weapons because they fire in all directions. On the Valcor and Kreshnik your secondary weapons give you a significant increase in your field of fire. This means you can engage targets that your primary weapons couldn't normally reach.

#7 After each and every gagement RELOAD, seriously I can’t say how many times I’ve seen corvette players engage with only a few rounds in their weapon. The ‘R’ button is right there, USE IT! It cannot be overstated reload each and every time you disengage from combat, this is something that will serve you well on all the other ships you captain.

#8 The mini map is your friend, it shows the Artillery Cruiser that has been left by his friends or the tactical cruiser making its way back to his turtled friends. Keep in mind, if any ship on your team can see an enemy ship, you will be able to see it on the minimap, and the same goes for the enemy team. Use this to your advantage, if your team is getting pressured show yourself from 7.2km away (no gun currently fires more than 7km) and just watch being ready to duck behind cover. Your team has the entire enemy team spotted, excellent you should know which will be the easiest one to pick off.

If you enjoyed the post swing by my stream I am generally live Monday-Friday starting about Noon Pacific to around 6pm.

Dreadnought Patch 2.0

Dreadnought Patch 2.0

Sory for the absence I'll be honest with the announcement of Dreadnought 2.0 patch I was thrown for a loop. Don't get me wrong, I thing it will be a good thing for Dreadnought in the end, but as for the way I was breaking down ships and abilities and the way I was writing this blog, it has made things... difficult for now. Without being able to play around with the UI and ship features in 2.0 I will have a hard time recommending ships, modules, and officer briefings.  So what I will do in the mean time is try and write more of a tactics oriented blog that will hopefully be helpful even after 2.0 is released.

For now I am (mostly) withholding my opinions of what 2.0 has in store for us. I prefer to hope the devs have our best interests at heart and will continue creating a fantastic game for us.

Again, I am sory for the extended break I took from maintaining this blog, but rest assured I will be back at it with fervor trying to figure out what to write about while we wait for 2.0 to be released.

As always, if you are interested in access to dreadnought while in beta please swing by my stream and throw me a follow, I'll give you a code for it!

Artillery Cruiser 101 Part1

TLDR: Tunnel vision will kill you! Watch the mini-map specifically for Corvette and Light Des players. Remember your range is 7km, beyond that don’t bother it’s a waste of time.

The Artillery Cruisers a ship class I both loathe in game and generally dislike playing, that doesn’t mean I don’t play them I just don’t play them well. As I stated in my previous posts I am a firm believer that everyone should play every class at least 5 full games to learn the basics of that class. What follows is what I have learned about Artillery Cruisers besides the fact that I dislike them. (Don’t take my word for it, go try them!)

I will start with some quick pointers: #1 Unlike every other ship class when you hold the RMB(Right Mouse Button) down you get NO aim assist on your primary or secondary weapons, so learn to lead your targets. #2 You are a delicate little flower, maybe not as fragile as a corvette, but your a fairly easy target that doesn’t move around nearly as much as a corvette does. #3 Only the light Artillery Cruiser can fire in any direction, the medium and heavy have a forward facing cone for their main weapon. Secondaries can fire in any direction so when a corvette gets behind you, and they will switch to secondaries! #4 Unfortunately as of v1.0.3 Artillery cruisers are matched by the Zmey and Gora. #5 Move with your team, bob and weave. #6 Know the maps. #7 Watch that mini map!

#1 With every ship in the Artillery Cruiser line when you hold the RMB down you will get no aim assist like other ships get. This goes not only for your primary weapon, but secondaries as well. This makes the learning curve a bit steeper because you need to learn to lead your targets correctly. The secondary weapons are the same across the AC line but the primary weapons systems will have different travel times to target so it is also important you learn the travel speed of your main gun.

#2 You are not the Dreadnought, you are much closer to a corvette as far as you hitpoints go. Though you lack the corvettes maneuverability and generally must rely on friendly ships to defend you against corvette attacks. Your surviveability goes up when you use some modules, like Armor Amp.

#3 Knowing your firing arc is immensely important for all but the light AC. When you aim it is not necessary to have your ship pointed directly at your target, but it must be pointed in that general direction. Often I find it helpful to aim slightly away and continue moving forward while firing at a target that is almost at max range.

#4 Speaking of range Artillery cruisers, as of the writing of this post, are not the longest range ships in the game. As of the writing of this article, you will be in range of all Artillery Cruisers, Zmey, and Gora class ships. Knowing this means you can watch out for ships trying to harass you using their similar range against you..

#5 Do not camp, I know you’ve been told 1000s of times but seriously, if you don’t you will die...a lot. Moving with the rest of the ships also makes you harder to be singled out and destroyed.

#6 I will say this for every ship, every time, know the map! It will save your life over and over again knowing where you can hide and where the enemy will be hiding.

#7 Corvettes will be the death of you, even more so if you don’t watch your mini map. I know, I know you can’t watch it 100% of the time but it needs to become something you are always glancing at.

If you enjoyed the post swing by my stream I am generally live Monday-Friday starting about Noon Pacific to around 6pm.

Tactical Cruiser 101 Part5

TLDR: $40 is a great deal for the Mercenary Founders pack. If you have the Kali use it until you can build custom Koschei’s at level 25. Know the map terrain. When playing the Aion Healing > Damage most of the time. Double Aion < Aion + Koschei < Double Koschei < SINGLE strong koschei player (because of damage output). Get to know every ship class (not type, CLASS).

A word on the Kali (Hero Koschei)

Tools: LMG, Stasis Beam, Repair Pod, Overclock Pulse, Emergency Evac with Retaliator, Weapons 101, Engine Rigger, and Adrenaline Shot. Lets face it, your Heavy Repair Beam and Overclock Pulse are what your on the battlefield for Adrenaline Shot will help keep your energy up. Repair Pod, Emergency Evac, and Retaliator give you some added survivability, just remember when you use Evac you are 100% inviz but healing points out your position to enemies. Engine Rigger gives you the ability to get into and out of cover quickly, just remember to keep healing as you go and you can go very far VERY fast. Finally Stasis Beam, no your primary doesn’t do damage but you can still stop a corvette in its tracks by hitting 1 and aiming your HRB at the vette, believe me this will scare the CRAP out of newer players and frustrate vets just as much. Trust me, if you have the money it is totally worth it to buy the Mercenary founder’s pack, you can re-skin ships you own with the hero skins and the Kali, Huscarl, skins, 3000 GP, and 30 days of Elite status are more than worth $40 if you were to buy all the stuff at the current in game GP to US$ conversion ratio.

Positioning

Knowing the terrain is important for every class, but as many things are for Tac Cruisers, it goes double for you. You must know firing lines and paths of escape. Where players are going to break line of sight(LOS) and where you can break LOS with the enemy. Rings of Saturn is one of my personal favorite maps because it has so many places for healers to snuggle up in and be quite safe for a time. Kappa base is probably the second best and Dry Dock is not far behind. All maps have great spots where you can turtle up and heal your team for the entire duration of the match timer. They also have plenty of place to dart from cover to cover with either power to engines or warp jump. Learn the maps, learn them well, use this knowledge to help position your team in an advantageous position to DESTROY the enemy healer that knows the terrain too.

Final thoughts

It can not be stressed enough, keep your head on a swivel! If you have the Kali don’t even bother getting the Aion, you can play Kali until you hit lvl 25 and the other hero ships as you see fit for a break, banking all that cash to outfit a Koschei completely as soon as you hit level 25. If you don’t want the $40 pack or can’t afford it, worry not the Aion will get you to 25 almost as fast. Just make sure you don’t blow your money on useless abilities / OB like the  Artillery Pod. Healing can be very rewarding or completely underwhelming. The more healers you have on your team the worse each of your score will be. If you only have an Aion and some one on your team brings a Koschei change ships, your not going to score well the best you can hope for is healing the Koschei up from time to time and getting a few repairs in here and there when the Koschei isn’t paying attention. My next pet peev is Double Koschei when your team has no DPS on the field, switch to the Trader Zmey or if you have it the Huscarl to up your teams DPS. Remember if your team can’t kill the enemy ships there is no point in healing, back to all of you playing Aions when there is a Koschei on the field you will get a better score playing a Trader Zmey than you will in that fully kitted out Aion. (unless you’re full on level 34 combat Aion) And finally, don’t lock yourself into playing only healer! Play every class at least until you understand their basic mechanics. If you have the Hunter Pack play the Huscarl and the Silesia if you don’t just play the Trader ships, honestly they are decent for what they are, the Mercenary ships just give a little better idea of high tier game play.

If you enjoyed the video swing by my stream I am generally live Monday-Friday from Noon Pacific to about 6pm.

Tactical Cruiser 101 Part5

BONSAI Time! June 29nd

Bonsai has been a hobby of mine for a little over 10 years now. I’ve killed a lot of trees and learned many valuable lessons in the process. The few tutors I have had have been fantastic, but most of my learning has been trial and error, from books, and online research. Once a month I will try and do a twitch stream devoted to bonsai where I work on a few trees or do something bonsai related. Once or twice a year I head back to the city I used to live in and teach a bonsai class at that high school for the horticulture class. If you would like to learn about bonsai or just watch me hack apart trees join me for my next bonsai stream June the 29nd on Twitch.