Level a Gunship- A fast guide for efficient use of req

[Verain]

Having mostly leveled two gunships, I can offer some advice here.

 

First- this guide will get you to what is generally the best gunship in the current meta. Buffs and nerfs, introduction of new game modes, and many other things could change this. You can also stray if you really prefer something else, but understand- you will generally be less effective.

 

The gunship build you are targeting looks sort of like this:

 

 

Primary: Burst Laser (recommended)

Secondary 1: Slug Railgun (absolutely mandatory)

Secondary 2: Ion Railgun (strongly recommended)

Engine: Barrel Roll (mandatory)

Shield: Distortion (mandatory)

Sensor: Dampening (strongly recommended)

Reactor: Your call, probably Large

Armor: Light Armor (strongly recommended)

Magazine: Your call, probably Rapid

 

Copilot ability: Bypass (absolutely mandatory, no arguments or hydro spanner)

 

So, nothing shocking there- everyone who talks about gunships mentions these things. But, I'm going to tell you how to get there.

 

 

So, lets get started!

 

 

Your fresh ship has many of the powers of a grownup gunship: it has long range, medium shields and hull, and it has bypass. If you play a 0 req gunship, you won't have much in the way of defenses. You'll start with "feedback shield", a really rough shield effect that you should use when attacked to do a little damage as you die, and you'll start without any evasion at all. Your gun is powerful, but is defeated by most things.

 

 

A 0 req gunship should normally open with a fully charged ion blast. This will strip shields. Immediately jam 1 and begin charging up your slug, which will hit the hull of the ship. You will probably need 3 or 4 shots to defeat anything, and don't be discouraged if some ships evade (there's no flytext, sadly).

 

Beginning:

Your first req should be "Reduced Charge Time" in slug railgun. This reduces your charge to 2.7 seconds, a huge boost.

Next, switch to distortion field. Begin practicing this.

(1000 req total)

 

 

Early:

In some order, grab the following cheap upgrades:

Grab the first two tiers of barrel roll. This will allow you to barrel roll very often, and these tiers are cheap.

Grab the first tier of distortion field. This will greatly increase the power of the ability, as there aren't many hit chances left on the table to begin with.

If you find yourself having to hug sats- behavior that isn't normally good for the team (it's not the gunship role), but it IS a behavior that makes req, and if your teammates are often derp, you'll need to do it if no one else will- then buy burst laser cannon. You can even get the first upgrade, which is very cheap.

(7000 to 9000 spent)

 

Next:

Buy the slug railgun upgrades 2 and 3. This will grant you shield piercing and armor ignoring. These are a bit more expensive, but are the most efficient offensive upgrades beyond reduced charge time. At this point, you will likely not bother with ion railgun in your rotation until later. You should be able to very effectively use bypass at this point, as you can now one-shot some popular builds (many ships ignore extra health hull in favor of lightweight armor).

If you didn't swap over to burst laser cannon, do that now. Grab the first and second tiers of that.

Get the second tier of distortion field.

(21500 spent)

 

If you followed the guide up until this point, you should have 1-2 points in distortion field, barrel roll, and burst laser cannons. You should have THREE points in slug railgun, such that it pierces some shields and also ignores all armor.

 

 

Now focus on secondaries a bit:

The secondary upgrades are a good deal. Change your shield to large (recommended, but your call), and in any event, buy some shield ranks. Definitely switch your armor to lightweight armor, and buy some ranks in that too. Though less important, you can also begin upgrading your magazine and sensors. I have played with and without dampening sensors, and with is a bit better, but most enemies will rapidly locate you, or have their own sensors or close allies to broadcast your position, so now is a better time to work on them than right away. Note that the other sensor types can actually work just fine for you, but if dampening results in even one strike fighter being blind to you, it's probably worth it.

 

Secondaries make a lot of difference for not much req at all. Definitely spend time here getting at least the first two ranks of each. You will spend around 13000 here. This will up your total needed req from 21500 to around 34500.

 

 

At this point, your ship doesn't suck to fly, and you have an ok offense.

 

33500 is how much it costs to fully upgrade a single path of a weapon, so instead of doing that (say, tunneling ion and being pretty useless), you have a ship that does stuff. At this point, you have a couple paths to your fully mastered ship. A fully mastered ship will cost a total of 154,000 (that doesn't include components like light laser and plasma- a complete gunship will cost you 333,500).

 

So, some choices:

 

First, you can max out slug. This will cost you 25,000 req and will make you devastating with slug. Your crits with bypass can one-shot some strike fighters, and leave many targets with a sliver of life, and quick tap crits can get kills when you don't really deserve it. Your non-bypass crits can even start taking things out, and the extra accuracy is a solid boost.

 

Second, you could chase down ion instead. This will cost you 33,500 req and enable you to really devastate a swarmed node by shutting down engines or snaring, and of course, you'll hit EVERYTHING, normally totally wasting shields. You can also use this trick to "stunlock" an enemy, but mostly, this is a support trick, and a very powerful one.

 

Third, and what I recommend, is to first grab the last tier of distortion. This should be a missile lock break. The 6 second field can help you duel an ion gunship, but that doesn't help you win matches or tunnel down scouts swarming an objective while being attacked. This is a bargain at 10k, but still quite expensive.

 

 

Of course, you want to do all of these things, and finish off your final tier of secondaries (2500 each makes them bad deals compared to their 1500 and 1000 earlier versions). The final tier of engine is powerful- extra speed or turning- but at 10k, it is a very pricey tier, and probably worth less than any other use of 10,000 req.

 

 

 

Some points:

 

Slug can one-shot many ships with bypass, and devastate them even without, normally stripping off most of a front or rear shield and dealing hull damage. A ship hit with bypass will normally evade or chase you, ceasing what they are doing, which is a huge win. Most of your play should be with slug, as it deals damage and changes the game.

 

Ion can shut down options that an opposing team has. It's very hard to get a kill with, however, and your kill cycle will take longer. The aoe talent in the 10k tier is absolutely amazing, as the description is "hits do area damage", and then it also mentions that it now drains a bunch of energy types too. The final tier is close, but the generally better talent is the one that shuts the engine down. The snare will often result in panicked foes barrel rolling away from a satellite, however, and that is also very valuable.

 

Plasma starts out being the highest damage option, but with a dot based disadvantage. The talents simply do not compare with the other guns, however. If you were only going to spend 40k req on your gunship ever, plasma might have a purpose. But, currently, do not spend points on it. It needs some other passive benefits, or the other railguns need to be nerfed, before you should consider setting down this expensive path.

 

Bypass is the only secondary worth using. When you die, you spawn with a fresh bypass, and it can almost always get a kill or devastate a hull. Sometimes, you'll get MULTIPLE kills. Hydro Spanner in particular is a trap, as many players try to justify throwing away the valuable copilot skill for a 20% or less hull heal. With bypass active, your first slug on an enemy gunship will take them to 15% hull, and your second (with essentially no charge at all) will destroy them if they are too slow on their distortion field. Sometimes your opponent will die with +35 ticking from hydro spanner. If there was a penalty for dying, this extraordinary weak and expensive heal might have a point, but, it does not, as there is no death penalty with any meaning. Khem Val should supply this on impside, and the reps should focus on Nadia. Note that this means that imps are stuck with one useless passive, as Khem Val is offensive and one of his two boosts is worthless to gunships. You take Qyzen Fess on Rep side, as both of his passives are actually helpful. Every other offensive companion brings at least one worthless secondary (extra ammo and reduced reload time).

 

 

 

Burst laser cannon is worth taking some points in early because they are cheap and it really increases your viability close. I made this mistake on my first gunship. You will use your burst laser cannon, there are times you will dogfight or chicken enemy ships. Light laser cannon is similar to burst, in that it's a decently strong up front attack that falls off with range. The light laser, however, is more frequent, and generally weaker, than the burst, which can threaten or kill a scout on a sat. The full cycle of it is expensive, and should wait until you have upgraded things you use much more, such as secondaries, escapes, and of course, at least one ion cannon. The fully upgraded version also manages to ignore hull, but that upgrade should come late, as it is very pricey.

 

 

 

Happy Gunning, new gunners!

 

 

Note that parts of this guide will become obsolete with balance changes and a shifting meta.

[renegadeimp]

Solid guide, but i tend to advise people to be able to play without bypass. If you get a new player to use it from the start, they become too reliant on it and will stop playing when it inevitably gets nerfed. Edited January 10, 2014 by renegadeimp

[ToMyMa]

Pff, I use Fortress Shields...

 

Why? Power Regen, I love being able to hold my shot a little longer to hit that pesky scout hiding behind a rock. I ain't jumping on the evasion bandwagon, I just ain't

[renegadeimp]

Pff, I use Fortress Shields...

 

Why? Power Regen, I love being able to hold my shot a little longer to hit that pesky scout hiding behind a rock. I ain't jumping on the evasion bandwagon, I just ain't

 

Fortress shields are good.... Until you face a decent scout or a decent GS pilot. The scout will chew through you in no time. And thats with fortress and your power to shields.

Edited January 10, 2014 by renegadeimp