Have you been flagged as "afk" by the system while you were waiting?

Me. I am running repair drone with ammo refill on my Bloodmark, yet ammo refill doesn't work.

I do, but... ...be ready for some disappointment. I had a retard on a game calling me a cheater. So I decided to switch sides whenever he was qeuing to teach him a lesson. I was able to do this only once. Since then he just diisappeared and I have to ventilate my rage elsewhere. Or yesterday: Some I-enjoy-the-scenery-pilot-piece-of-junk was on my team and literally doing nothing except shooting at the sunset. He did that two games in a row so I jumped from my Imp to my Pub and started hunting him. I shot him down only once and then he disappeared. TL;DR: If they realize you are on to them they start avoiding games with you and you will be even more pissed than before.....well at least I am. Crazy

Yepp. EMP Field T4 right side. Missile break + 3 sec immunity to missile locks. Left side beeing 500m radius increase.

I tried it once on my Bloodmark with the idea in mind to aim it at a defense turret from a fairly safe distance. I expected or at least hoped that in theory the blast would kill most/all mines and dry out the bombers guarding the node. In reality the lock on time was long enough for the enemy to drive me away, the blast wasn't nearly as big as I anticipated, destroyed or disabled mines were easily replaced by the guarding bombers and due to the long cooldown I wasn't able to put a decent amount of pressure on the defender. Additionally I was missing some sort of decent missile when I had to defend myself against other shiptypes. So I switched back to thermites pretty quickly and have never used it since then. I asked Drakolich once if he could show EMP-Missile usage in one of his Request videos which he thankfully did. But even there I couldn't see any usefullness.

I didn't take it that way, don't worry. 25% accuracy comes with my shi**y aiming in addition to the nature of the Rapid Fire Lasers. Most of the time I just hold down the button, hoping that a few of those shots hit. The damage comes from the fact that the enemy was using a lot of strikes. To kill a Strike with RFLs you have to hit him a lot. And I didn't kill every opponent I engaged.

My first game on "The Bastion" in a stock Novadive And I am by far no "Drakolich"

You also might want to check out this: http://www.twitch.tv/drakolich/c/5237101

So, I flew a few games: Sting without any ammo upgrades: 10 Clustermissiles Sting with T4 ammo upgrade: 12 Clustermmissiles Sting with T4 ammo upgrade AND Lt. Pierce: 18 Clustermissiles

My Clustercount on my Sting is 12 with said upgrade. Do you have the "Ammo"crewmember in your ship (would be Pierce on impside, don't know his equivalent)?

Cluster Missiles T4 additional ammo not counting. And I am not 100% sure, but volley (T5) doesn't seem to work either

Now that explains why I can use Torps against Flashfires rather successfully the last two matches. And before a dev reading this, starts to get funny ideas, yeah those issues DO suck.

Shortly after I started with GSF in July I was looking for help in both the german and english forums looking for guides, builds all sorts of that stuff. I realized quickly that helpful threads can mostly be found here so a couple of weeks ago I decided to check out "The Bastion" and how I manage to fly among and against "the experts". So I hopped into my Novadive ready to get my butt kicked to oblivion....we lost...but: http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/firstbastionyb92cj0lu4.jpg

/sign PLUS Neonlights in the title

Most of the time it is not "my" counter, no. But I still have an Imperium and a Quell in my 5 ship loadout. They are both excellent in clearing minefields of all sorts, to kill or at least chase a gunship away that is using a minefield as cover and they are also pretty effective to force dug-in bombers out of their hideyholes underneath a satellite node. You can also pry open those Bomberfortresses in TDMs by firign up your defense abilites, shoot mines and sentrydrones and collect the remnants by just flying through the minefield. You will probably end up dead (not every time), killed by a defender of any kind but your teammates now have it a lot easier to go in and take out the bombers while they are vulnerable and/or the gunships are without their minecover. You have to deliberate about wether such a selfsacrifice is a contribution to your team or if it is just another point for the enemy. Another thing is: A Quell with Torps, Heavy Lasers and Clusters, An Imperium with Quads and Torps or even a Rycer with Heavies/Ions and Concussions and directional shields are also excellent in intercepting Bombers trying to reach a satellite you are guarding enabling your teams's scouts to go after other ships. Edit: Fixed the gun on the Imperium

Edit: Yes, yes I was too fast to see the context.... forget what I said..... /walksoutooftheroomwithhisheaddown....... ../stickshisheadbackin: "Although Rycers and Quells still are a valid choice to knock gunships out "

Ok, you got me there. I am a bit ashamed to admit it, since I have a mastered Bloodmark and a mastered Imperium, both with powerdive equipped, that I wasn't aware of the 0-engine cost. Now you can beat me, I deserved it. But...which brings me to the next part: Yes, I also agree and admit that my approaches are some sort of all-or-nothing scenarios. But I am and was doing surprisingly well with those. I really don't see a lot of gunships with disto though, maybe because missile break is T3 and everyone thinks feedback is superior. I like it that way. But when I see a competent gs-pilot on the field...seriously...I wouldn't challenge him with a strikefighter. Haven't used those.....should I try them? That I can subscribe.

Ok, then let's take a gs-heavy map. 1. Your Clarion will die. It will last longer than the other two, but it will die. And even with its supporting role, you won't stay in second line just to hit repair probes now and then. At some point you will want to dish out with it. And again, cause I have the impression everyone feels personally attacked when someone says something negative about holy-Clarion: I am NOT denyiing his ability to kill stuff. All I say is, you can also kill stuff with other stuff. 2. To charge, hunt and kill a gunship or to chase it over the map disabling his ability to stand still and snipe your teammates is another way of supporting your team. 3. I can return that: Debating yourself about a strikefighter supporting your team and then concluding that the best approach is a team of scouts, gunships and bombers is...what then? What I wanted to emphasize is, that despite the success you can achieve with Rycer and Quell your chances are greater in a Blackbolt or a Sting. Oh and since the OPs idea was to... ... I thought to tell new players that there are ship-specific counterbuilds on a Quell and on a Rycer (which everyone has) to counter gunships.

...is the death sentence to a lot of ships. But if a GS relies on his Ion to kill my Rycer or Quell, he will lose. At some point he has to switch to Railguns and charge those up (or BLCs and close in if he can equip them). Put your shields up front and keep hitting him. He will lose. And if you really are engine and weaponpower dry, even your Clarion is a sitting duck. That certain scoutbuilds outperform strikes is and was out of the question. We were talking about gunshipcounters in general and Verain's statement, the Clarion beeing the only viable strikechoice for doing that, is, imho, not correct. You can charge and bail out with barrelroll, too. But I would keep that for either closing the distance to a running GS or to get out of that scenario, when the gs receives help. Yes, so what? The element of suprise is for burstdamage delivering scouts. Barrelroll (Missile break 1), Distortion Field (Missile Break 2), wait 3 seconds...the torp will hit. And I see a lot of gunships using Feedbackshield. So in that case, after the barrelroll you can be certain your next lock won't break. On Lost shipyards or Kuat Mesas he will try to break LOS, there of course you have to switch to Clusters. And for those gunshippers who think they are invulnerable and stay where they are (and there are a lot of those out there due to all those imbatalk)...well...beepbeepbeepbeepbeep..swooooooosh......KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Anyone else thinks torp explosions are awesome?? Don't get me wrong. I am not denying the superior survivability of the Imperium/Clarion. I am just saying that the other two strikefighters in your garage can also be very nasty.

No, I disagree here. Because of your last sentence, the Clarion/Imperium wouldn't be my first choice of hunting/killing gunships because it lacks a thruster. Even with powerdive-chasing him, you will run out of enginepower before he does, giving him the opportunity to chose a new firing position and hit you with his railguns while you have to spin around helplessly. Your Clarion still has a chance then of course due to directionals and repairprobes, combined with your choice of weapons, to finish him but it is a lot more stressfull. Worst case would be, he runs into a friendly minefield where you don't want to follow him without engine power. At least I wouldn't. The Quell/Pike with its two secondary weapons and even the Rycer/Starguard with Ioncannons and Concussionmissiles are excellent gunshiphunters. You take your Rycer with driectional shields towards the GS, hit wingman and start locking your missile. If he runs, you can keep up with him because you also have a thruster component and barrelroll. Chase him, hit him with Quad Lasers, finish him with the missile. If he doesn't run, you hold your missilelock, take out his shields with Ions and finish him with your missile at pointblankrange. It's a laboratory scenario, I have to admit. But when I mastered my Rycer, I scored a lot of kills that way (alas I didn't use Ions at that time). The downside of that ship is, that you have no close quarter qualities. So if the GS is cuddling rocks, or starts to challenge you into a dogfight with his BLCs, you will be on the receiving end of a good beating. You can face these kinds of pilots by equipping retrothrusters. You give up a bit of a chasing abiility, yet you earn some dogfight enhancement. The Quell with two "missiles" is another very solid GS hunter. Heavy Lasers, Clusters, Torps, directional shields, barrelroll, wingman. Same scenario as above. Due to the torp range of about 11k you don't have to rush on him. You won't believe it but there are GS-pilots who are so hungry for their current target, that they don't care about their missile warning tone. At 6k you start hammering them with your heavies, and your clusters will do the rest. If he bails at any moment of your approach, chase him. If it's an open map, don't use barrelroll. Just chase him and try to target him with your torps. He just used one missilebreak and if he is also glittering, your next torp will hit. If it's a coverheavy map, stay close to him and hit him with clustermissiles while hitting him with your primary weapon. Even if he turns around to dance with you, your clusters will drive him crazy. And if you are their target in your Quell/Pike - Ryver/Starguard, you can withstand quite a beating with directional shields. And now the 1 Million Dollar question: If you are in a gunshipheavy scenario, are you jumping into one of your strikes to counter them? Answer: No, I would stick to my Blackbolt or Sting. Reason: My Overall survivability in those two is much higher when the hunted gunship gets support of another pilot no matter the ship type.

Mechwarrior:Online has something like that, if I understand you correctly. One Player can choose to be the Teamleader enabling him to place different marks on the map like "Flanking right", "Hold Position", "Move to..." and so on. In pug games it wouldn't work 90% of the time. Either the selfelected "Commander" was a tactical moron or some of the players would ignore every command and try to solo an entire lance of enemy mechs. The only occasion where I saw it working properly was, when I was in a 12-man premade. But even there it was only a graphical addition and most of the commands were given over teamspeak.

Directional shields are pretty effective, too. Making Strikes and even the Decimus/Sledgehammer pretty good at harassing, chasing and killing gunships. Yes, I know...the T2-Scout can also equip those, but I guess most of us/them won't give up DF for it. I used to ride the "GS-are-for-nobrainers"-train a couple of months ago, but after I started focusing on hunting them down, they lost a lot of their "boogiemantouch". And when you start making "hunting GS" the basic point of your existence, you will find a lot of tactics, strategies, builds or whatever you want to call it, with which you can hunt them and most of the time kill them. Yes, they still surprise me, and yes, they still manage to wipe me of the map. But when 2 or more gunships can focus me without beeing attacked, than it's not because of their "op-ness", it is because my team's inability to see them as the major threat when left unchecked. And that happens quite a lot to my disappointment.

TBH that was my first stop, when I started flying this big....piece of........imperial craftsmanship. No srsly, I had no idea what to do with it. I used Concussions Missiles and Mines, I used Interdiction Drone and I am about to switch to and test Proton Torps. I don't have nearly enough matches in it to make a final statement, but all these testruns I did, were mostly fun and I was doing...ok...BUT... every time I fought an enemy off of a satellite I was guarding, I thought: "Well...that would've gone easier in a Legion or Razorwire", and everytime I killed an enemy in a TDM with it, I thought: "Well with my Rycer it would have gone a bit....smoothier." So my hope was that I might overlook THE special build in which it outperforms its two brothers. But it seems I didn't Nevermind then. But still thanks for the info Crazy

Humble request (yeah another one). After Scouts and Strikes, I started to master Bombers but..... can you help me find a field of action for the Decimus and how its loadout should look like. It seems to me that everything I try to do with it I could do better with either another bomber or another strikefighter depending on the game mode I'm currently in. Is there a "niche" I am not seeing or is the Decimus the "BomberBloodmark"? Reagrds. Crazy

Holy Sh** did I get my tailpipes whipped I couldn't attend very long due to the time difference, but it was an experience