So either the guys were playing against last night were really good, or I'm a horrible engineer. I'm guessing it's the latter, we lost 0-5 three times. What am I doing wrong? Run around the ship hit stuff with mallet and wrench, put out the occasional fire?
Buff during breaks or after deaths, use the mallet on the guns or when you're out of danger, use the spanner (wrench?) on stuff that needs to be repaired quickly or after something totally breaks. Sometimes there is going to be nothing you can do. I've watched the armor bar drop from full and just stated "we're going to die".
2
midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
I'm also not the best captain ever. We also didn't have a very good partner. We were also relying on AI for some stuff. The opponents were also pretty damn good. It was a lot of things. As an engineer, your two biggest priorities over everything else ever are the balloon and the hull. Without the hull, you die. Without the balloon, you fall to the ground and hit your hull and your hull breaks and you die.
Also, @_k_, I'm sorry we passed like airships in the night. I should have dropped the reconfig I was doing and gotten you in there, but my brain didn't react that quickly.
I'm freaking loving this game, and the community is pretty decent. Seriously, anyone who's on the fence about it really needs to get off the damn fence and into an airship.
Tonight I will be trying to learn to fly a pyramid
Yeah, I think I loitered around the engines too much. Should of just gave them a hit with the mallet and ran up to the hull. Tried to repair them during firefights when the hull was fine, I think I should be camping the hull during fights?
The 2 loadouts I have been playing engie with, since that is my main focus right now until I get to level 5, is mallet-spanner-chemical sprayer or hammer-spanner-chemical sprayer. The big draw back on using the hammer is repairing the hull you are pretty much worthless because it has to much HP to effectively build with just the spanner. Being able to buff the balloon and the guns can win some fire fights but it is a big trade off.
Normally there should be a team make up of 2 engies, 1 pilot, 1 gunner. The engies spread out on two different decks where the person handling the hull that is their primary focus and if they are busy the second engie should jump down and whack stuff, the mallet is great for this because it tops components off with health and has a long cool down so you can make rounds on the ship before you can hit something again allowing for circuit healing. When the hull needs to be rebuilt everyone should focus there unless the balloon is failing because if the hull goes then you die but if the balloon is almost down someone needs to be there to try and keep the extra damage from falling hitting the hull....but if you are really high up there should be time to let it fail and then rebuild.....this takes practice and knowledge.
Don't forget to fire the guns if you aren't really taking damage and parts in good repair.
@midga I just got home from a run and was only going to play one because I was tired and it was midnight, non-issue.
I find that Pipe wrench, Dynabuff and extinguisher makes for a decent support engine as long as there is a "traditional" engie on board with spanner and mallet. I can intermittently maintain things while trying to help as a second gunner. Plus I can buff while waiting for a reload.
@trooster89 knows what is up. Engineers need to have tools that cover gaps that the other one isn't carrying. Everything in this game is an extreme give and take.
I've always felt that double spanner for maximum rebuild ability with one mallet, one buff. pipe wrench is great for a gunner or pilot but in a crisis situation rebuild is priority, the mallet has huge repair for the cooldown and in the time before the mallet man can whack it again buff Bro can already have that component running at 110%
tldr when your hull is exploding you need that second spanner.
I'm not sure who all would need this, but since you guys are passing around advice I think that I'll give you all a special list.
This is Zealock's generally awesome generally accurate, but possibly not spot on list of guns (of Icarus) and their respective uses.
Light guns.
The Artemis light rocket launcher
This is a long range single shot rocket launcher as the name implies. It is useful for a small degree of splash damage and the fact that it is accurate at long range so long as you lead shot some. Always fire at the engines or at the guns that are facing you to take them offline and give you a deceptive advantage.
Echidna flak gun
A long range small clipped anti air gun. It is useful on hulls, but not much else. Good for long range support when the enemy ship's hull armor is down. Outside of that it's rather basic. Always aim for the hull not the balloon. It's not effective on the balloon.
Whirlwind light Gatling gun
This is a gun that almost any ship SHOULD have. It has a nice medium to long range that can work well with almost any type of ammo. It is highly destructive to hull armor which makes it invaluable due to it's range and the fact that there aren't many guns that are effective at removing hull armor so efficiently. It can also be used to take out engines and other guns quite well. ALWAYS aim for the hull if you aim at the balloon then you are wasting bullets, and more importantly time.
Dragon tongue light flame thrower
The bane of any what calls themselves engineer. This is quite possibly the most terrifyingly effective gun in this game. It will melt guns, engines, and balloons as if they were made of butter. It's only draw backs are that it barely does anything to the hull armor aside from setting it on fire and it's biggest drawback is its range (which is still deceptively long). Damage to the hull is nasty though. All ships have more engines and guns than engineers so when using this one strafe everything that you can see on their ship to easily overwhelm the engineers, and then focus on the balloon to stop that boat in its tracks until the armor is worn away by the Gatling gun then focus on the hull.
Barking dog light carronade
It's a shotgun, and that being said it is all around a very well balanced gun. It is nasty to guns, engines, and especially balloons. Nothing special to the hull or the hull armor though so don't expect it to do much killing all by itself. Aim for whatever is tactically important at the time. If a flame thrower is burning you to death aim for the flame thrower. Engines trying to get away then shoot the engines. Need knock him out of the sky then shoot the balloon.
Javelin light harpoon gun
Here's a mean one if I've ever seen one. It does a reasonable amount of damage to both the hull armor, and to the balloon, but that is hardly what it's memorable for. At closer ranges the harpoon gun tethers your ship to the enemy ship! Useful on the port side of a Galleon to hold the poor bastard there while the two large cannons blow the besieges out of the sorry bastard. I really can't feel sorry enough for anyone caught in that tactic.
Beacon flare gun
Now here is a support gun if there ever was one. Want to know if there is anyone in that cloud? Shoot the flare gun, and the entire cloud will be illuminated revealing anyone hiding inside. Outside of that though it has a very good range, and can be used to light components on fire from a good distance. In combat always aim for what you can hit fire is nice so long as it's not you that's burning.
Mercury field gun
A veritable sniper rifle complete with scope. It's sole purpose is taking out parts at a distance. It does nice damage to armor, and anything that considers itself a machine. Don't need that flamethrower burning your ally? One trick shot and you bought you friend some time. Need that boat slowed down? Start popping engines. It's power is all in its range, and accuracy so it's more effective on a long range support ship.
Skylla double barreled mortar
It's a mortar so it does a reasonable amount of damage to parts and it's rapid fire capabilities ensures that it can keep the heat on, but its real power is that it makes mince meat out of hulls. Once the armor comes off it can ravage a ship like a polish city, and it's pretty easy to hit things with it considering that the only thing you should ever hit with it is the hull itself.
Banshee light rocket carousel
Long range rapid fire rocket launcher. It sounds like a party when you fire off a volley of these damned things, but it's not terribly accurate at the longest of ranges. The most horrifying thing about this birthday party-esque monstrosity is that it deals fire damage. Aim for what you can hit at a distance, but when things get close hit the hull as it does extra damage to the hull itself, and it's inaccurate explosive nature will ensure that you light some things up.
Phobos light mine launcher
Now here's and odd one that is generally used for escapes. A good place for one of these is the back of a galleon. It fires a floating mine that will deploy at short-medium range and sit for several minutes or until five more mines have been fired. A single mine launcher will only support five mines at one time. Hitting these mines will cause the enemy ship to take a small amount of explosive damage, but will also knock it backwards. Giving chase into a field of these mines is both disorienting and impossible, and will give the other ship a beautiful opportunity to double back on you while your pants are down.
Hades light cannon
The latest addition to the line of guns (of Icarus) it fires on an odd arc that is difficult to aim at first. The shots are a bit slow, but the gun itself is very effective. It deals AOE (area of effect) damage against the hull armor and the balloon. It is my preferred replacement to the Gatling gun due to it's versatility. Aim for the upper hull with this one with any luck you'll do damage to both the balloon and the hull.
Heavy guns
Typhon heavy flak cannon
The big brother of the Echidna flak gun. It is the effectively the same gun, but much bigger. It does nasty damage to hull and good AOE damage in general. Shoot at the hull at long range.
Manticore Heavy Hwacha
Guns of Icarus states that this gun is a long range gun. I disagree I find that it can hit things at long range, but it is only effective at medium range. Just one volley from this monster can destroy all parts on the side it hits. Engines die, guns rendered useless, and pants thoroughly filled. It doesn't do much to hull armor though, but if your enemy can't shoot back or run away that's not much of a bad thing now is it? Always aim for the hull the continuous shotgun blast will do all the aiming for you so long as you don't waste it all on their balloon.
Hellhound twin heavy carronade
What's the most devastating shotgun in all of gaming? A double barreled sawn off correct. That is what this gun is. Kills balloons damned near instantly, and effectively breaks all the parts and is decent at hull damage just not hull armor. You have to get close to use it though so that's it's downside...yo dawg I heard you like carronades...so I put carronades on yo carronades so you can carronade while you carronade.
Lumberjack heavy mortar
It fires one big explosive shot that does mean things to the boat. It is VERY strait forward. Keep shooting, lead the shot and hit the boat not the balloon.
Wow that came out a lot longer than I thought it would. I actually made this because I'm sick of seeing people shoot balloons with Gatling guns.
7
midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
That was amazingly useful and answered a lot of questions I'd been having. Thank you!
Last night was a blast. I'm really getting the hang of the engineer, although I really need to remind myself to let let the gunners have priority on the guns. Also, need to remember to hop off guns and repair the hull before the ship explodes. That's crucial. The fire extinguisher is extremely useful, but man I feel useless at the start of the round just standing around without a buff hammer.
2
midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
Last night was indeed fantastic. Pyramid really isn't my thing, but I'm getting pretty alright with that fish. It's all dependent on crew and partner, though.
Honestly, I'd prefer to have a guarantee of good repairs during intense battles than to have buffs on anything. And really, if you want something to do before we get there, all you gotta do is ask
I have a burning desire to throw a Lochdanagn shot onto a Lumberjack heavy Mortar and see how quickly I can dissolve an enemy flyer's armour.
Didn't think I'd enjoy gunner quite as much as I did though I have to remember that I'm not an engineer so scrambling all around the ship with a pipe wrench is not on.
Didn't think I'd enjoy gunner quite as much as I did though I have to remember that I'm not an engineer so scrambling all around the ship with a pipe wrench is not on.
Yeah, we were doing each others jobs a few times. You'd be hitting something with a wrench when I could have hit it with the mallet. I was firing the main gun, ran it out of ammo, went to go repair something, and you hopped on trying to shoot only to find an empty gun.
@Ilriyas Yes. When you have a bullet next to your name, you are not an engineer. PUT THE FUCKING WRENCH AWAY ILY
To be fair, before that pub Weafus or whatever his name was figured out he was playing an engineer, every time Ily went for a gun, Weafus was on the gun. I think Ily just gave up and switched classes. Also on the topic of Weafus, how the hell do you not have speakers in a communication reliant team game like this?
1
midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
It's fine to jump off and repair the guns you're using when you don't have a shot. It's something entirely different for you to run across the ship so that when I get the 3 second window lined up for you to take a shot, there is no one on the gun. If things are breaking, just let the engineers take care of it. If they're not taking care of it, let your captain deal with it and just keep shooting. If the ship explodes, the only thing you should be disappointed about is you not having killed the opponent faster.
And the reverse holds true, at least on my Goldfish. I'd much rather have one person jumping between the three guns as I tell them which one will be lined up and two engineers just kinda hanging around waiting for things to break than to have a gunner who can't get on a gun I just directed him to and an engineer who has to run an extra second or two to get to the stuff that's breaking.
Of course, in the end it's all chaos and there are times when it's good to step outside your role. Engineers jumping on a secondary gun when there's a great shot while the gunner's engaged with the main target is hardly a bad thing as long as it doesn't lead to the ship exploding or engines going offline. A gunner running back and helping with the engines when there are no targets to be had in a tactical retreat is also useful. If you trust your teammates to perform their jobs, it makes it a whole lot easier to do your own well.
BUT I HEAR THE LOVELY SHIP EXPLODING AND I HAVE TO.
It's seriously some kind of neurotic impulse as you said, even one little tick off and I'm hammering away.
I know the feeling. One second I'm rebuilding the downed hull, next 'OMG! they're passing right by our flamethrower!' Drop tools and man the gun ignoring the flak canon pointed at our 25% health hull.
Didn't think I'd enjoy gunner quite as much as I did though I have to remember that I'm not an engineer so scrambling all around the ship with a pipe wrench is not on.
Yeah, we were doing each others jobs a few times. You'd be hitting something with a wrench when I could have hit it with the mallet. I was firing the main gun, ran it out of ammo, went to go repair something, and you hopped on trying to shoot only to find an empty gun.
@Ilriyas Yes. When you have a bullet next to your name, you are not an engineer. PUT THE FUCKING WRENCH AWAY ILY
To be fair, before that pub Weafus or whatever his name was figured out he was playing an engineer, every time Ily went for a gun, Weafus was on the gun. I think Ily just gave up and switched classes. Also on the topic of Weafus, how the hell do you not have speakers in a communication reliant team game like this?
I think their name was Wraethe, and there's no telling whether they just couldn't play with audio, or possibly are deaf, or what. It was a little annoying, especially since there's zero chance I'm going to type out anything while I'm steering, but once they remembered they were holding a wrench it went alright. Honestly, I've had pretty successful games where no one spoke a word. If you know your role and pay attention to where other people are and what they're doing, it works out alright.
By the way, I don't know if y'all know this or not, but during setup you can click on the ship name or the player and see loadouts. It really helps when deciding what you're going to carry and how you're going to position yourself. It's also how all those douchebag captains hold up games waiting for people to switch their loadouts to their exacting specifications. >_>
2
RahnalH102the Green Devout, Veteran Monster Hunter, Creature EnthusiastNew MexicoIcrontian
@CrazyJoe My bro has a spare from the 4 pack, however if you and Digi and whoever else want to do the 4 pack instead, we'll hold it.
@Signal & @Ilriyas I'm right there with you guys. That match where @ZealocktheGreat had the Gallion was rough. It was the (2) of us plus (2) Pugs. It was my first time on that ship.
I was engie and it was my first match on the ship. I took the lower deck to help gun and the other engie took the top.
We kept getting harassed by a Squid and the gunner kept jumping off the guns to help repair.
It quickly became a catch 22. We kept getting harassed because there was no offense. and there was no offense because the guns kept getting set on fire. I couldn't extinguish the guns bc they were constantly on cooldown from the gunner pipe-wrenching them.
I think my ideal situation is on a pyramid. (2) engies 1 gunner. 1 engie stays up top and watches balloon / guns. he's free to jump down to hull/flamethrower in a pinch. The other engie watches hull & engines. gunner's nice and cozy up top.
@CrazyJoe I think @bobbydigi was interested. If you guys can find 2 more people, the 4-pack's a good deal.
@crazyjoe Go ahead and grab the one from the Rah bros. I've got an out of town conference for the next week so it will be 1 1/2 - 2 weeks before I can even consider getting into another game.
1
midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
@BobbyDigi Hopefully there'll be a few more people interested by then
I think their name was Wraethe, and there's no telling whether they just couldn't play with audio, or possibly are deaf, or what. It was a little annoying, especially since there's zero chance I'm going to type out anything while I'm steering, but once they remembered they were holding a wrench it went alright. Honestly, I've had pretty successful games where no one spoke a word. If you know your role and pay attention to where other people are and what they're doing, it works out alright.
By the way, I don't know if y'all know this or not, but during setup you can click on the ship name or the player and see loadouts. It really helps when deciding what you're going to carry and how you're going to position yourself. It's also how all those douchebag captains hold up games waiting for people to switch their loadouts to their exacting specifications. >_>
Yeah, that was the guy. It was annoying that he couldn't communicate with us but once he figured out what class he was playing he was on the ball with repairs. I was a little sad when he left because we were doing really good with him. He consistently repaired things immediately and even extinguished the hull so it would have a fire buff when we came up next to the ship with a flamethrower at one point. Just imagine how good that game would have went if he could of heard us.
I did figure that out how to see peoples loadouts at one point which is why I went with the buff hammer the match with Wraethe, he had an extinguisher. I think you are not giving the buffs enough credit. I could tell if I looked closely when I only buffed one engine that the ship pulled to the other side until I buffed both sides. The biggest benefit was buffing the hull. Buffing the hull meant more time to run off and repair a gun or repair the hull while it was being destroyed. Couldn't tell from my end if the effects were noticeable on the guns or balloon though.
Comments
Also, @_k_, I'm sorry we passed like airships in the night. I should have dropped the reconfig I was doing and gotten you in there, but my brain didn't react that quickly.
I'm freaking loving this game, and the community is pretty decent. Seriously, anyone who's on the fence about it really needs to get off the damn fence and into an airship.
Tonight I will be trying to learn to fly a pyramid
Normally there should be a team make up of 2 engies, 1 pilot, 1 gunner. The engies spread out on two different decks where the person handling the hull that is their primary focus and if they are busy the second engie should jump down and whack stuff, the mallet is great for this because it tops components off with health and has a long cool down so you can make rounds on the ship before you can hit something again allowing for circuit healing. When the hull needs to be rebuilt everyone should focus there unless the balloon is failing because if the hull goes then you die but if the balloon is almost down someone needs to be there to try and keep the extra damage from falling hitting the hull....but if you are really high up there should be time to let it fail and then rebuild.....this takes practice and knowledge.
Don't forget to fire the guns if you aren't really taking damage and parts in good repair.
@midga I just got home from a run and was only going to play one because I was tired and it was midnight, non-issue.
tldr when your hull is exploding you need that second spanner.
This is Zealock's generally awesome generally accurate, but possibly not spot on list of guns (of Icarus) and their respective uses.
Light guns.
The Artemis light rocket launcher
This is a long range single shot rocket launcher as the name implies. It is useful for a small degree of splash damage and the fact that it is accurate at long range so long as you lead shot some. Always fire at the engines or at the guns that are facing you to take them offline and give you a deceptive advantage.
Echidna flak gun
A long range small clipped anti air gun. It is useful on hulls, but not much else. Good for long range support when the enemy ship's hull armor is down. Outside of that it's rather basic. Always aim for the hull not the balloon. It's not effective on the balloon.
Whirlwind light Gatling gun
This is a gun that almost any ship SHOULD have. It has a nice medium to long range that can work well with almost any type of ammo. It is highly destructive to hull armor which makes it invaluable due to it's range and the fact that there aren't many guns that are effective at removing hull armor so efficiently. It can also be used to take out engines and other guns quite well. ALWAYS aim for the hull if you aim at the balloon then you are wasting bullets, and more importantly time.
Dragon tongue light flame thrower
The bane of any what calls themselves engineer. This is quite possibly the most terrifyingly effective gun in this game. It will melt guns, engines, and balloons as if they were made of butter. It's only draw backs are that it barely does anything to the hull armor aside from setting it on fire and it's biggest drawback is its range (which is still deceptively long). Damage to the hull is nasty though. All ships have more engines and guns than engineers so when using this one strafe everything that you can see on their ship to easily overwhelm the engineers, and then focus on the balloon to stop that boat in its tracks until the armor is worn away by the Gatling gun then focus on the hull.
Barking dog light carronade
It's a shotgun, and that being said it is all around a very well balanced gun. It is nasty to guns, engines, and especially balloons. Nothing special to the hull or the hull armor though so don't expect it to do much killing all by itself. Aim for whatever is tactically important at the time. If a flame thrower is burning you to death aim for the flame thrower. Engines trying to get away then shoot the engines. Need knock him out of the sky then shoot the balloon.
Javelin light harpoon gun
Here's a mean one if I've ever seen one. It does a reasonable amount of damage to both the hull armor, and to the balloon, but that is hardly what it's memorable for. At closer ranges the harpoon gun tethers your ship to the enemy ship! Useful on the port side of a Galleon to hold the poor bastard there while the two large cannons blow the besieges out of the sorry bastard. I really can't feel sorry enough for anyone caught in that tactic.
Beacon flare gun
Now here is a support gun if there ever was one. Want to know if there is anyone in that cloud? Shoot the flare gun, and the entire cloud will be illuminated revealing anyone hiding inside. Outside of that though it has a very good range, and can be used to light components on fire from a good distance. In combat always aim for what you can hit fire is nice so long as it's not you that's burning.
Mercury field gun
A veritable sniper rifle complete with scope. It's sole purpose is taking out parts at a distance. It does nice damage to armor, and anything that considers itself a machine. Don't need that flamethrower burning your ally? One trick shot and you bought you friend some time. Need that boat slowed down? Start popping engines. It's power is all in its range, and accuracy so it's more effective on a long range support ship.
Skylla double barreled mortar
It's a mortar so it does a reasonable amount of damage to parts and it's rapid fire capabilities ensures that it can keep the heat on, but its real power is that it makes mince meat out of hulls. Once the armor comes off it can ravage a ship like a polish city, and it's pretty easy to hit things with it considering that the only thing you should ever hit with it is the hull itself.
Banshee light rocket carousel
Long range rapid fire rocket launcher. It sounds like a party when you fire off a volley of these damned things, but it's not terribly accurate at the longest of ranges. The most horrifying thing about this birthday party-esque monstrosity is that it deals fire damage. Aim for what you can hit at a distance, but when things get close hit the hull as it does extra damage to the hull itself, and it's inaccurate explosive nature will ensure that you light some things up.
Phobos light mine launcher
Now here's and odd one that is generally used for escapes. A good place for one of these is the back of a galleon. It fires a floating mine that will deploy at short-medium range and sit for several minutes or until five more mines have been fired. A single mine launcher will only support five mines at one time. Hitting these mines will cause the enemy ship to take a small amount of explosive damage, but will also knock it backwards. Giving chase into a field of these mines is both disorienting and impossible, and will give the other ship a beautiful opportunity to double back on you while your pants are down.
Hades light cannon
The latest addition to the line of guns (of Icarus) it fires on an odd arc that is difficult to aim at first. The shots are a bit slow, but the gun itself is very effective. It deals AOE (area of effect) damage against the hull armor and the balloon. It is my preferred replacement to the Gatling gun due to it's versatility. Aim for the upper hull with this one with any luck you'll do damage to both the balloon and the hull.
Heavy guns
Typhon heavy flak cannon
The big brother of the Echidna flak gun. It is the effectively the same gun, but much bigger. It does nasty damage to hull and good AOE damage in general. Shoot at the hull at long range.
Manticore Heavy Hwacha
Guns of Icarus states that this gun is a long range gun. I disagree I find that it can hit things at long range, but it is only effective at medium range. Just one volley from this monster can destroy all parts on the side it hits. Engines die, guns rendered useless, and pants thoroughly filled. It doesn't do much to hull armor though, but if your enemy can't shoot back or run away that's not much of a bad thing now is it? Always aim for the hull the continuous shotgun blast will do all the aiming for you so long as you don't waste it all on their balloon.
Hellhound twin heavy carronade
What's the most devastating shotgun in all of gaming? A double barreled sawn off correct. That is what this gun is. Kills balloons damned near instantly, and effectively breaks all the parts and is decent at hull damage just not hull armor. You have to get close to use it though so that's it's downside...yo dawg I heard you like carronades...so I put carronades on yo carronades so you can carronade while you carronade.
Lumberjack heavy mortar
It fires one big explosive shot that does mean things to the boat. It is VERY strait forward. Keep shooting, lead the shot and hit the boat not the balloon.
Wow that came out a lot longer than I thought it would. I actually made this because I'm sick of seeing people shoot balloons with Gatling guns.
Honestly, I'd prefer to have a guarantee of good repairs during intense battles than to have buffs on anything. And really, if you want something to do before we get there, all you gotta do is ask
Didn't think I'd enjoy gunner quite as much as I did though I have to remember that I'm not an engineer so scrambling all around the ship with a pipe wrench is not on.
It's seriously some kind of neurotic impulse as you said, even one little tick off and I'm hammering away.
And the reverse holds true, at least on my Goldfish. I'd much rather have one person jumping between the three guns as I tell them which one will be lined up and two engineers just kinda hanging around waiting for things to break than to have a gunner who can't get on a gun I just directed him to and an engineer who has to run an extra second or two to get to the stuff that's breaking.
Of course, in the end it's all chaos and there are times when it's good to step outside your role. Engineers jumping on a secondary gun when there's a great shot while the gunner's engaged with the main target is hardly a bad thing as long as it doesn't lead to the ship exploding or engines going offline. A gunner running back and helping with the engines when there are no targets to be had in a tactical retreat is also useful. If you trust your teammates to perform their jobs, it makes it a whole lot easier to do your own well.
By the way, I don't know if y'all know this or not, but during setup you can click on the ship name or the player and see loadouts. It really helps when deciding what you're going to carry and how you're going to position yourself. It's also how all those douchebag captains hold up games waiting for people to switch their loadouts to their exacting specifications. >_>
I'm right there with you guys. That match where @ZealocktheGreat had the Gallion was rough. It was the (2) of us plus (2) Pugs. It was my first time on that ship.
I was engie and it was my first match on the ship. I took the lower deck to help gun and the other engie took the top.
We kept getting harassed by a Squid and the gunner kept jumping off the guns to help repair.
It quickly became a catch 22. We kept getting harassed because there was no offense. and there was no offense because the guns kept getting set on fire. I couldn't extinguish the guns bc they were constantly on cooldown from the gunner pipe-wrenching them.
I think my ideal situation is on a pyramid.
(2) engies 1 gunner.
1 engie stays up top and watches balloon / guns. he's free to jump down to hull/flamethrower in a pinch. The other engie watches hull & engines. gunner's nice and cozy up top.
I did figure that out how to see peoples loadouts at one point which is why I went with the buff hammer the match with Wraethe, he had an extinguisher. I think you are not giving the buffs enough credit. I could tell if I looked closely when I only buffed one engine that the ship pulled to the other side until I buffed both sides. The biggest benefit was buffing the hull. Buffing the hull meant more time to run off and repair a gun or repair the hull while it was being destroyed. Couldn't tell from my end if the effects were noticeable on the guns or balloon though.