What do you guys use, I'm terrible at getting research done in a timely manner and I usually neglect either engines or armor. What do you guys tend to research and in what order, so I may improve. (Also can someone go over which armors are good, from what I've seen ingame they all suck)
Research is basically a joke right now. Here's a guide: 1. Get engines and armor in the same tree (not composite) 1a. if you like APCs get an anti-vehicle MG, if not go to 2 2. get heavies 3. get a weapon for heavies 4. ???, PROFIT etc. There are some little tricks you can do to cut corners, but most of the optimization barely makes a difference because research is so poorly designed atm
I can't figure out if you're trolling, but yes you need to get first and engines second. If you ask the question "should I get armor first and engines second" you don't understand the game well enough to deviate from that path.
I don't drive because everything happens 2 seconds after I press the buttons. Hence I have no fucking idea what the drivers want (and nobody ever tells you either, they just complain after you research)
Fair enough. Get armor, engines, vehicle MG, heavies, and either MLs or cannons depending on your faction in that order and you'll reduce the bitching by at least 50%.
Alright I'll try that next time. Generally I go for DU then a VF and then armor. That leaves me in physics for engine and armor, and while reflective is okay (and only a short research time if you have DU or vice versa) fission engines aren't my favourite since the tankers generally have no idea how to stop holding mouse1. I guess for NF maybe a chemistry open would be good for the missiles, although I hate chems armor and the engine has been terrible for a while now. NF is where I really have problems, with BE it's easy, you can open physics or electric (in any patch) and get your nice armor engine and cannon but I find the fact that NF are ML users makes their research a bit more tricky.
If you are northern faction get Electric, buy reactive, 3 phase, and homing missiles and get a new vehicle chassis(Heavys is top priority but if you spent too much time in the research tree get mediums). If you are Brenodi go for physics and get Reflective, fission reactor, Depleted uranium and Extended range then got a chassis. After getting the chassis either go to Biology to get bio diesel or go to chemistry to get advanced coolant. Then you can get nukes/rails. And if the enemy gets rails (this happens when you are on NF mostly) get absorbant armor from chemistry because it is really light, cost nothing, and rails can only take out .4 plates in one rail shot, and it means you can put full plates on a tank. It is basically composite that pwns rails. Get UMLS for nf, it has a 1 second cooldown and 3 seconds to reload the missiles, so on a heavy tank it can shoot 12 missiles in 6 seconds, and on homing it will shoot 12 missiles in 18 seconds because the cooldown is 3 seconds, plus the reload is 9 seconds. it is a huge advantage and the only disadvantage it has is that it deals 10 damage less, but it makes up for it in the reload/cooldown times.
Gas turbine is a freebie engine (since it's in mech) that you can get instead of advanced coolant, bio diesel, or any other engine that you don't like. Coolant is a total waste of time until you've got heavies and nothing better to research. Bio diesel is powerful in certain limited applications but is not really good for most situations. Gas turbine is doubly effective for NF because missiles do not generally create nearly as much heat as cannons and NF heavies can still function well without coolant. Absorbant is pretty strong now, actually. its special ability works well against the starting vehicle weapons, and when heavies come around the weight advantage kicks in, which gives an extra plate for every 4 plates of 15 wt armor and that mitigates the HP disadvantage.
Wow, this is absolutely retarded. Why would you get weapons before chassis if nothing can use them? Why are you recommending homing missiles over guided? Gross oversimplification. UML also can't hit a moving target at anything greater than point blank range. This is somewhat map dependent, but anyone who recommends UML over guided for tank combat does not understand the game very well. Hasn't been changed other than research times, but it's always been usable. I have no idea who started the idea that gas turbine sucks, it's clearly categorically better than bio diesel and advanced coolant before you get an upgraded chassis, and is situationally better than both three phase and fission (better moving cooling rate than fission, doesn't stall on damage like three phase). It can't cool a BE heavy tank well, but neither can most of the engines.
Someone who researches guided doesn't know how flamed you get for researching it. Plus I can hit a lot of things with umls, its the same a cannon, you just have to no where your enemy will be, play space invaders or battlestations pacific and you'll know what I mean, it only differs from the cannon because it goes in a straight line and cannons arch around, so you have to do guess work differently.
You're right, I don't know how flamed I get for researching it, because I don't get flamed for researching it.
The last time I had a commander who researched guided got attack by most of the team, especially anyone that was in a major empires clan.
That's ironic because I've flamed commanders for not researching guided and I am in a major empires clan.
Hey don't get me wrong, I like guided, but everytime peeps see guided under the commanders name everyone gets pissed. I like to keep the people happy. But guided can be kind of bad, because you can't assault two targets at once, which might be why homing missiles get researched more often, because you can use two weapon binds to switch between each salvo to shoot the two tanks at the same time.
I prefer UML because 90% of tank combat does happen at point blank range. But I can't see why guided would be seen as a bad decision.
I'm less perturbed by your conclusions than I am by your rationale. You want to use homing over guided because you can attack two different tanks? Are you fucking serious? Dispersion of fire is always a bad thing. I can't possibly fathom a situation where killing one tank quickly is not favorable to spreading out your fire between two different tanks to ensure maximum survivability for your opponent.
