Newbie needs advice and my introduction

[tb87670]

First, I'll admit I wanted this game months before the price drop, but never got around to buying it. Then came the price drop at the time after I spent all my holiday money already near christmas, so I waited some more. Now, I finally got the game and I am happy. This truly proves that you can't replace gameplay for graphics like most AAA companies do, this game has completely functional graphics and looks great IMO while running perfectly fast (except under an EMP, Fire, and Smoke mission all fired at once, those slow me down together) so here I am. I beat the first mission after getting used to the controls, but I still didn't memorize them yet.

Next up, I am not new to strategic thinking, more like a veteran. I played XCom, UFO: Aftermath, Aftershock, and Afterlight, I love Front Mission 1, 3, and 4, I wish I could run Total Annihilation still but TASpring is a good replacement, Space Empires 4 is the only good game in the 4x space strategies IMO, and Combat Mission Shock Force is badass since I get to shoot Serbians with helicopters, artillery, and Stryker batallions. I am also capable of whooping people in Starcraft but the RTS games end up as a click-fest more than strategic thinking.

Now that's out of the way, I need advice. Is there any certain spots to hit that do more damage, I seem to do little damage when I shoot an enemy vehicle on the rear armor, should I am for the tracks/wheels or the turret or does it even matter. Also, how many meters before AP rounds start to lose effectiveness, is it a few thousand meters or just a few hundred meters. Oh, and finally, should I beat the campaign before going online or should I just go online right off the bat as much as possible? Any other advice is welcome, since I never experienced a game like Drop Team before.

[152mmDumbRocket]

Yes, there are spots you should aim for, but they are not "more vulnerable". That term is used to refer to a cheap substitute for real armor and projectile ballistics. You should aim for the sides and rear, because the armor is thinner there and you have a better chance of penetration and doing damage, but remember, you're vulnerable as well. The only armor that gives you a reasonable chance of survival is your frontal armor, and that's what you should keep pointed toward the enemy. Where you shoot matters, as a shot to the side will cause some (potentially fatal) damage, and a shot to your turret will cause damage or destruction of your gunner, ballistics computer, or ammo (in the worst cases, your turret will blow up in spectacular fashion).

If it seems you're doing little damage, don't be fooled. What looks like a 120mm HEAT strike to the rear that causes sparks to fly and nothing more in reality could be an immobilizing hit that knocks out the engine and leaves the target a sitting duck.

In the realm of 120mm AP, it's really not effective beyond 4 km unless you're aiming for the rear end of a Paladin. At and beyond those ranges, you should use HEAT, and only if the target is sitting still. (My all-time record for a 120mm HEAT kill is 6,127 meters, set at Ice Field) This game requires a perfect mix of gunning and thinking, one that will hook you, guaranteed.

Finally, you should stick to campaign and also play the standalone scenarios, before you go online. The standalone scenarios have maps the campaign mode doesn't have, thus allowing you to get used to the diversity of environment. Once online, you can communicate with your allies via chat or, if you have a microphone and/or headset, by voice by holding down the P key.

We'll have an online battle tomorrow starting around 7:30-8 PM EST. I'll see you there.

[Phonan]

http://www.battlefront.com/products/dropteam/units.html

Here you can find unit schematics, and they actually do show weak points. For example, hit where the fuel is, and with luck you'll be payed back with a huge explosion. Shoot the driver, and the vehicle will just keep going in a straight line. If you hit the engine, the vehicle can't keep going. Hit ammo, and no more shooting. This even works with advanced systems. For example, hit a Command Track's targeting computer and it can't track mortar fire. Hit a Hermes in the right spot and it will stop sensor jamming. That's one of the things I love about this game. For example, you can deny air drops with a Paladin SAM vehicle, but the AA turret on it is very exposed. To get back air superiority, you don't have to kill the Paladin; just take out the missile launcher on top. This can help a lot when you are driving a weak vehicle and need to accomplish such a task. Congrats on getting the game working!

[tb87670]

LOL, I thought P was a make static button!!!

I do know dynamics of real life combat and how certain spots hit stuff, but I don't know where the pilots or engines are on these vehicles. I do wanna know if you can blow up an enemies ammunition and fuel supplies like you can in Mechwarrior tabletop or Titans of Steel, in those games flamers did little damage but caused enough heat to out power all other weapons in the same weight-class. Also, does hitting tires and treads immobilize vehicles or just cause generic damage to side armor?

[tb87670]

Oh, and I am in Central Timezone and my shifts are 11AM to 7PM, IDK if I can be there in time for tomorrows game.

[152mmDumbRocket]

Posted by tb87670

I do wanna know if you can blow up an enemies ammunition and fuel supplies like you can in Mechwarrior tabletop or Titans of Steel, in those games flamers did little damage but caused enough heat to out power all other weapons in the same weight-class. Also, does hitting tires and treads immobilize vehicles or just cause generic damage to side armor?

In a way, yes. You can hit their ammo or their fuel. If you hit the ammo, and its status light goes to red, everything else in the turret will go as well (in worst case scenario, blowing up in spectacular fashion). But if your fuel goes to red, the entire tank will go bye-bye. :eek: Odds are, though, that either will simply go yellow if hit, meaning that they continue to function at a degraded status.

I'm not certain about tracks, given I've almost never penetrated them from the front or rear, which are the only ways to penetrate them (I think). But the tires are not counted as side armor, and getting hit in them will adversely affect your mobility. For instance, if you're hit in one tire, and it goes red, you're either going to have degraded turning, or you're going to want to turn in one direction all the time, which requires that you constantly steer at high speed.

Hope that helps.

Edit: Thanks Phonan for correcting me about weakness. I thought tb87670 was talking about more general armor values, not armor and ballistics calculations.

[Phonan]

Originally posted by 152mmDumbRocket:

Edit: Thanks Phonan for correcting me about weakness. I thought tb87670 was talking about more general armor values, not armor and ballistics calculations.

Oops, I actually started and ended my post at, I suppose the same time you did. We must have posted at the same time. I wasn't intending to correct you, but... well, I hope having two simultaneous responses helped more, tb87670. Also, yes, if something goes yellow it will function worse. This makes, often, little difference with ammo. However, a damaged engine can slow you to a crawl, so you can't rest easy just because it didn't get shot out entirely.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Armor penetration; the absolute resource:

http://dropteam.johalla.de/Threats/100/Thor0.html

a few rules of thumb:

You cannot kill a thor from the front with 120mm HEAT or 20mm AP at any range.

76mm HE and 20mm HE exist in the game but arent useful for anything except killing infantry.

AP flies faster and "flatter" reducing the chance of being intercepted by ion towers. So let's say you're in a thor and have an enemy thor exposing its side in your sights at a medium range, say 2000m, you would use HEAT, because you have a higher chance of getting a one shot kill because HEAT has more explosive power. BUT if the enemy thor is under the protection of an ion tower or galaxy resupply ship your HEAT round will probably be intercepted.

At log range always use HEAT.

76mm AP (only in the 76mm Paladin and 76mm turrets) is useful for killing turrets, against other targets you usually need more than one shot.

120mm HE:

Good against wheeled vehicles. i.e in a CTF game the enemy has captured your flag and is running with a shrike or paladin. even a close miss will blow off half the tires and make the unit very difficult to control

the other use for 120mm HE is blowing up enemy buildings. An ion tower takes 15 120mm HE hits to be destroyed.

Don take any comfort in the designation "light tank" of the apollo. Its survival chances are lower than the paladin's.

EMW paladins are one of the most important units:

the autocannon can destroy incoming mortar rounds and missiles. In addition they are mobile sensor jammers.

some DT speak:

EMW paladin = hermes

SAM paladin = bacchus

bot wrangling = trying (!) to tell the bots what to do

There's more...

DT can be pretty overwhelming.

[ May 07, 2008, 02:36 AM: Message edited by: __Yossarian0815[jby] ]

[ May 07, 2008, 02:37 AM: Message edited by: __Yossarian0815[jby] ]

[poesel]

Well, jby said it all

Just my 2 eurocents:

- tires are modelled as single object and can thus be destroyed one by one. 20mm and ion are especially good at it. You can shoot through (!) a tire if your ammo overpenetrates (the 120mm do, 20mm doesn't)

- tracks cannot be destroyed but you can shoot through them. AFAIK they count as side armour.

[Junglist]

Hi tb87670, nice to have you aboard. Just in case you haven't figured it out yet, the main time we meet for multi-player battles is Sunday at 3 pm EST time - which I believe is 2 pm for you. Hope to see you there.