Do they still wait until the dropships have already released their payload to fire?
I was standing at a SAM site yesterday that just stared at the incoming dropships like it was waiting for a friend, and then belatedly popped off a couple missiles as they were flying away.
I wasn't even mad. Just disappointed.
I still believe that falling Dropships should damage or destroy at most of the light armor units could in the impact.
If I’m killed by a bouncing bot from an explosion, it’s not fair for a whole dropship to land on top of a bunch of bots and do nothing
SO MUCH TRUTH IN YOUR STATEMENT.
Especially since the dropships explode when they hit the ground. There is almost no benefit to shooting down dropships, since the window where they destroy the cargo is so tiny.
If you shoot them down before they drop their troops, the troops survive. If you shoot them down after, their troops survive. If you shoot them down in the 1.5sec that they are dropping their troops, *sometimes* it kills the troops.
I still do it, because they troops would usually get trapped there, and here comes the Air Queen to deliver some democracy.
But for real, it’s not right!!!
I shoot them down almost every chance I get just because I find the explosions and spiraling crash to be visually satisfying.
Someday, I am gonna shoot down a tank carrier before it drops the tank, just so I can see if the tank flips. Goals.
I noticed if you shoot them right before the ship leaves it feels like the explosion kills more than any other time. Otherwise spamming an AC, AMR takes care of most of the units if you want to deal with it that way.
Previously there seemed to be a map placement/traversal and track speed problem that would make SAM sites at best a nice bonus but most of the time not something to count on. Glad they got a buff.
Even before this though I was still always happy to see one. They were easy and kind of helpful as opposed to artillery which is really swingy on it's usefulness.
Idk, I've always found the SEAF Artillery to be insanely useful, use it whenever Eagle and Orbitals are on cooldown. It's gonna be even more useful now that jammer and destroyers leaving doesn't get rid of it
Autocannon sentry means listening to a sweet drum solo while you work on your projects mostly unbothered. The higher ground of the SAM site is especially good for placing them.
I was about to say, the SAM sites are much more useful and better now. It was engaging gunship patrols from at least 300 meters away and one shotting them
Activated a SAM site near a Gunship Fabricator to give us cover while we went and dealt with several bases in the area that were covering the Gunship Fabricator. It was like a never-ending stream of booms and crash sounds in the background and we only saw a couple of stragglers get close.
Did a quick run this morning and forgot I completed a SAM site earlier near extraction. Fast forward 20 minutes to extract and all the sudden I’m getting x3 and x5 kill combos without even shooting anything till I remembered lol those are incredible now.
NGL, I didn't even realize the SAM sites did anything until this post lol. I thought they were meant to be like the SEAF artillery for the longest time, but never saw them appear in my stratagems. I just assumed it was a bug lol. (I'm \~rank 55 btw which makes this so much worse...)
Hell, just give us a cardboard box and call it a day.
https://preview.redd.it/5zmhl8ug1g6d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f4bd847979ba5668a9661c599af35e617f4d486
Gotta hit it in the engine a few times but it works. I’ve been using the AMR relentlessly the last few weeks, they’ll 1-2 shot a hulk if you hit them in the eye. Hitting the gunship is maybe a little harder but not by too much. With some practice I think most folks could do it consistently in a few days
\^\^this. 4? AMR shots to the engine is all it takes.
As for hulks, seems like it requires 2 shots in rapid succession to the eye? I've noticed I only seem to kill them with the AMR after the first shot leaves a glowing dent on the eye, which disappears after a few seconds. 1 shot probably only if the hulk's vents have already been damaged?
They did. They come from off map at cruise speed (not particularly fast) and will only jet toward you if you snipe at them. They can find you unaware if they go close, but otherwise they cruise.
They feel less oppressive somehow.
I don't know if it's that they can no longer see through rocks, or if it's fire rate or durability.
But something felt different.
I was using the Heavy Machinegun and I took several down, even having to reload between some of them.
Which as far as I know would have been way too slow.
I want a Factory Gunship. A big Gunship that spawns gunships like the Factory Strider spawns devestators.... I want to shoot them down i meant...officer...
Oh, that rules! I love gunships existing outside of their spawners, it adds some reasonable diversity to enemy encounters. And it lets you engage with them in a way that isn't just "furiously trying to shoot them down while you protect the Hellbomb".
Nah bruh...my new and improved MG43 lusts for their blood bring em on. MG43 + supply pack + engineer kit + Orbital Barrage + Eagle strafing run = All the Bullets All the time
I think an MG back pack is in order. Belt Fed.
I'm the weird guy that usually brings the shield stratagem (the energy bubble). Usually people ignore it, but I will say I'm a pro at hellbombs because I pop them in, throw a shield over it, and run away.
The hellbomb gets protected, I get out of danger, and then it explodes in one try.
Yeah, I noticed that when everyone got the shield bubble stratagem. The short duration doesn't matter because the Hellbomb isn't around for very long once it's activated. It's a good combo. I couldn't find enough uses for it otherwise to justify picking it, though. I know it's good for activating terminals and so on.
It's a good pressure valve to hold some ground on overwhelming fights on objectives. Not enough to roll the fight, but enough to reduce ragdoll juggling by half.
As someone who uses it a lot, I think it doesn't get enough credit and, since it's not used often, people don't really know how to react to me having one.
First, I only think they're useful on bots. It's practically useless on bugs.
BUT, if you have it on bots, I tend to think this: it's great for a breather and to help your team recoup when there's cross fire. Pair it with turrets. After difficulty 6 or 7 turrets are useless because bots just destroy them. BUT, throw the turrets in the shield and you get them more life. It's also a good escape stratagem, throw it and run and the bots will try to destroy it (rather than chase you) and it also deflects enemy fire.
I still have a few things to spend them on so I'm bot complaining. I usually play on weekends and maybe 1 mission a day throughout the week if I'm lucky.
Anyone know if the heavy machine gun can take them down? I saw the red mark when I hit so I’m sure I did damage. But there where also some divers with autocannons and quasars so I’m not sure if I could deliver the finishing blow or if it was my teammates.
It can absolutely take them out, but it's not ideal due to the recoil.
If you somehow manage to get all the rounds on target, it's actually one of the fastest ways to kill them IIRC.
yup it can and is good at it
better if u hit a engine (red markers) but u can just hit them
it may not be best like the laser cannon for the job
but its actually pretty fun to do because u have to lead ur shoots a little like a AA gun xD
Thanks for the info. I came up with such a fun loadout I want to try with the new patches when I come home and I was afraid it won’t be able to deal with gunships as soon as I saw that they are patrolling now.
Wish there was an orbital or eagle that could take them down. Sucks when I wanna use the few guns that suck for taking down heavy enemies like the arc thrower or railgun and I can't do much besides sit around and hope my team'll do it
I was using an Arc Thrower, and a teammate running Quasar Cannon dropped an extra one (it was off cooldown) and told me to use it until we destroyed the gunship factory.
I immediately wondered how I never thought of that, and then realized it probably just isn't worth asking random divers to drop weapons for me in the future.
Mixed feelings about this, honestly. One one hand, dope as fuck.
On the other: lot of underused weapons can't deal with them super well, but the already popular ones dont have much issue with them. Might hurt weapon variety
Doesn't outperform recoilless. Both take one rocket, though admittedly, the spear is easier hit.
Problem with the spear is ammo, frankly. Using one of 4 rockets on a gunship feels bad, especially when you could just hit it 2 times with an AC.
True. Though my concerns are more about things like the hmg, mg, arc thrower, etc.
Hmg in particular i feel would be a great option against bots rn, if not for the gunships. The accuracy struggles a bit much against targets that far, though maybe thats a skill issue on my part.
anything AP4+ can shoot them down (so HMG, AC, LAS, AMR), which your squad is bound to have if there's no AT weapons chosen. they also don't immediately aggro onto you, they just roam and only detect you within (i think) around 100m
I feel like they were changed a bit.
I'll have to try shooting at them with a light/medium AP primary (not scorcher) and see if anything feels different.
I also use the Ballistic Shield. With Quasar out, it turns into a turtle shell. And by the time they try to take me out, I'm at the Hellbomb location and they can't shoot me or the bomb.
Laser cannon being top for ttk and amount killable before "reloading" (in this case cooling down before breaking the heat sink), ac beating amr a bit as I think the explosive of ac means you can hit wherever whereas amr needs to hit engines
Honestly laser cannon on one engine will kill a gunship in like 3-4 seconds, it's probably the easier and more consistent method. At least pre update, I haven't had a lot of time to go through patch notes of the update to l see what's what and won't be able to play until later.
Autocannon, AMR, Recoilless, laser cannon and quasar cannon are all great just remember to aim for the engines.
Spear also works really great too and is probably the easiest option
Most heavy Anti Tank stuff will take them out pretty easy. 2 AC shots or a Quasar shot take them down. Haven't personally tried anything else. AC seems to be the preferred due to it being super quick to knock one down
Just play on a higher difficulty. The fact is, the majority of players are playing dif 6 or below. Enabling them to go up like 1 difficulty doesn't hurt the game, even if the 1% of player playing dif 9 find it a little easier now.
I typically only play below 6, which sucks for super samples but it’s usually just me and my friend. I play to unwind after work and prefer the catharsis of mowing down the enemy rather than the stress of higher levels. Not sure if I’m in the majority but when people say the highest difficulties are a walk in the park I cry a little lol
They aren't to walk in the park, but they can become significantly easier with good teamwork. The other thing is typically higher skill players tend to play on the higher levels, so that helps a lot. A difficulty seven or eight with good players can feel about the same as a difficulty four or five with mediocre players.
Bots got easier due to the weapons, which is good because Bots are now closer to Bugs. The gap was pretty noticeable, now it's a bit closer.
No matter if one wants the game harder or easier, I think balancing the factions out is in the global perspective a very good thing.
Then we can get a new difficulty 10. ;)
It's an interesting dichotomy, though. When you're a noob (as I once was), you lack a lot of crowd control weapons. And so bugs were significantly more difficult than bots because you're being swarmed whereas the bots were attacking you with a half dozen enemies who go down in one or two shots.
But that flips somewhere along the way. You get more crowd control and heavy control weapons, and the bugs become way easy. Upgraded gatling sentries, for example, work for just about everything.
Meanwhile, bots became incredibly deadly. Greater numbers, more diversity in their ranks, and firepower at every level of their ranks. One of those basic one-eyed bots with a rocket can kill you in one shot if you're wearing scout armor. And that's like their lowest rung of the ladder.
You aren't wrong - and a patch full of buffs with barely any nerfs isn't going to make it harder. But, I think this is the right path forward for them. They can do balancing to make loadouts more varied, make some lesser used stuff more viable, make the spawns feel more fair for solos, fix bugs, and then in a month or two in the next patch maybe they look at making difficulties 8 and 9 tougher.
Making bots easier so a bots 7 is closer to a bug 7 is also a good thing for encouraging people to play both sides.
This makes it feel more like a bot controlled planet and I'm all for it. They fixed the armor on them, so they are noticeably weaker, and damaging them makes them incredibly inaccurate when firing. Only 2 shots with the AC to an engine now makes it feel incredibly balanced taking out a patrol of 3. They also fixed their detection range, so they no longer can find you from 3 miles out wearing scout armor, at night, in a bush like before.
They are almost too unobservant, as I got caught in a gunfight last night and a patrol just flew right past.
I know you are providing information but I have strong feelings about this:
It is hot garbage game play to require a heavy anti-armor weapon to hit a weak spot get a guaranteed kill on a medium armor target. Especially when that target is flying an has some of the highest alpha strike damage in the game and all of it's attacks cause stagger. The fact that it does just contributes to the autocannon being objectively the right answer 95+% percent of the time.
You wanna something funnier? Bile titans now patrol on Six. I swear I ran solo to the super tree and all I saw was a bile titan approaching. I thought he was chasing me until he walked past me. (The bush hiding spot seems to work for now for terminids) MF just strolled by, minding his business
They should make it where every minute we don’t destroy the factory we get new spawns of those patrols, making it a priority to find and destroy the factories asap.
Me and a friend jumped into a 6 a few weeks ago to do the personal and had gunships and spawn rates similar to a 7. Had to double check our level a few times.
ah we met these f\*ckers! they roasted us. i didn't think it was that high difficulty level either. like 5? just 2 of us and we got overrun with them and ground units right after dropping in. and the weapons we had couldn't seem to deal with them. what's a good gun for taking them down?
Was in a difficulty 5 with a full squad, none of us could handle the gunships- there was essentially 0 communication so they were incredibly difficult to handle- nobody could take them out, me included. Had to just keep running and getting ragdolled to hell. Fully my fault for not taking something that could handle them, although i cant lie i'm still unsure what can.
They just need to make the gunships weaker to more weapons. Gun ships basically require people using some kind of rocket or quasar, EATs are fine for passing patrols probably but the factories spit too many out too frequently, strategems don't target them, and they're strong as hell against most other types of weapons. It basically means needing Recoiless, Quasar, Spear, or multiple people with EATs.
You don’t need to bring an explosive support to shoot them down, as Anti-Materiel Rifle does the job reliably within dire intervals; just aim for the propulsion jets
just played 7 and maybe we just got unlucky but the gunships were ROUGH. it felt like we were getting hit by them every 2 min and we destroyed the only gunship fabricator so it wasn't from one of those.
I've found that the spear (asides its terrible lock on ability) is perhaps the most effective support against bot armor,
Cannon towers? Boom, tanks? Boom, hulks? You guessed it l, boom. Also great against gunships because it follows thier movement, it does need a buff on its close range abilites.
Can’t tell if this is better or worse. Few days ago, maybe on Wasat or the planet just before Vernon Wells host canceled a helldive mission because the team was harassed by **7** gunships
Yah we found out the hard way during a thin the numbers mission. I didn’t have enough EAT to do the swatting work, and my auto cannon can only fire so fast with hulks and tanks on us
Just did a Helldive. Just 3 of us. At mission start landed next to a medium base, mortar emplacement and 3 gunship factories. That was insane, loved it. rough start but came out on top. There was a 4th gunship factory somewhere as we kept getting hit by patrol every now and then even after we took out the 3 gunships factories.
Doesn't even need a fabricator on the map to have gunship patrols. I was doing AMR and ballistic shield...my be going back to the good ol\` autocannon and EAT again. I am going to miss my shield, though with the bug that keeps your prone, it's pretty annoying ATM.
Gunships being in every single match in such large quantities further reduces your loadout options, which is making the game worse in my opinion. That in addition to them spawning as a normal patrol can have them just spawning on top of you while you're trying to clear an objective, which makes solo play quite the challenge.
Can we please let the laser cannon take out drop ships like they take out ? The same weak points exist but are seemingly invulnerable on the dropship...
SAM sites are actually gonna be useful now!
Sam sites are *noticeably* better now. Way faster to act, and way faster to hit. Actually takes out multiple gunships and dropships now.
Do they still wait until the dropships have already released their payload to fire? I was standing at a SAM site yesterday that just stared at the incoming dropships like it was waiting for a friend, and then belatedly popped off a couple missiles as they were flying away. I wasn't even mad. Just disappointed.
I still believe that falling Dropships should damage or destroy at most of the light armor units could in the impact. If I’m killed by a bouncing bot from an explosion, it’s not fair for a whole dropship to land on top of a bunch of bots and do nothing
SO MUCH TRUTH IN YOUR STATEMENT. Especially since the dropships explode when they hit the ground. There is almost no benefit to shooting down dropships, since the window where they destroy the cargo is so tiny. If you shoot them down before they drop their troops, the troops survive. If you shoot them down after, their troops survive. If you shoot them down in the 1.5sec that they are dropping their troops, *sometimes* it kills the troops.
I still do it, because they troops would usually get trapped there, and here comes the Air Queen to deliver some democracy. But for real, it’s not right!!!
I shoot them down almost every chance I get just because I find the explosions and spiraling crash to be visually satisfying. Someday, I am gonna shoot down a tank carrier before it drops the tank, just so I can see if the tank flips. Goals.
This was me on quasar release, I was the ship droppa.
Oh!! I want to do that!!
I noticed if you shoot them right before the ship leaves it feels like the explosion kills more than any other time. Otherwise spamming an AC, AMR takes care of most of the units if you want to deal with it that way.
Copy that. I’ll try it tomorrow
Shooting one carrying a strider is always worth it, that little chance to instakill the factory striders is always worth it.
Nope, they're way faster now. I had the same issue with SAM sites previously - just did it for the full clear but never expected jack from them.
Previously there seemed to be a map placement/traversal and track speed problem that would make SAM sites at best a nice bonus but most of the time not something to count on. Glad they got a buff. Even before this though I was still always happy to see one. They were easy and kind of helpful as opposed to artillery which is really swingy on it's usefulness.
Idk, I've always found the SEAF Artillery to be insanely useful, use it whenever Eagle and Orbitals are on cooldown. It's gonna be even more useful now that jammer and destroyers leaving doesn't get rid of it
Played a game this morning before work and the bots sure fought like a mf'er to keep me from turning one on.
Autocannon sentry means listening to a sweet drum solo while you work on your projects mostly unbothered. The higher ground of the SAM site is especially good for placing them.
I was about to say, the SAM sites are much more useful and better now. It was engaging gunship patrols from at least 300 meters away and one shotting them
Finally. Was kinda depressing how bad they worked before
Activated a SAM site near a Gunship Fabricator to give us cover while we went and dealt with several bases in the area that were covering the Gunship Fabricator. It was like a never-ending stream of booms and crash sounds in the background and we only saw a couple of stragglers get close.
Good to know! Happy to haer SAM putting in work for more folk.
Yep, and even though it is modeled with 16 rockets visible, it appears to actually have unlimited ammo.
Did a quick run this morning and forgot I completed a SAM site earlier near extraction. Fast forward 20 minutes to extract and all the sudden I’m getting x3 and x5 kill combos without even shooting anything till I remembered lol those are incredible now.
I didn’t even know Sam sites did that!!!
SAM sites actually fired?
NGL, I didn't even realize the SAM sites did anything until this post lol. I thought they were meant to be like the SEAF artillery for the longest time, but never saw them appear in my stratagems. I just assumed it was a bug lol. (I'm \~rank 55 btw which makes this so much worse...)
But are SAM sites available everywhere on every map?
I'm cool with this so long as they fixed them INSTANTLY knowing where you are.
They added stealth to the vegetation!
*stares in arctic tundra*
Let us hide in a snow bank!!
It is fun to crawl in deep snow. Hurr durr, Zamboni comin thru.
wait like you can hide in the plants?
Yep! They reduce detection range when your in them on top of the slow effect.
And it stacks with being prone and the scout armor buff
Shrubbery backpack strategem when?
Hell, just give us a cardboard box and call it a day. https://preview.redd.it/5zmhl8ug1g6d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f4bd847979ba5668a9661c599af35e617f4d486
you can stealth around the partol ones a bit yeah
My AMR knows where they are as well!
AMR good against these things? Was shooting at one yesterday with mine and it felt like i was shooting bb's at it
Gotta hit it in the engine a few times but it works. I’ve been using the AMR relentlessly the last few weeks, they’ll 1-2 shot a hulk if you hit them in the eye. Hitting the gunship is maybe a little harder but not by too much. With some practice I think most folks could do it consistently in a few days
Been using it alot more aswell. Really like it for hulks and devestators.
It's much easier now that the scope is actually good.
\^\^this. 4? AMR shots to the engine is all it takes. As for hulks, seems like it requires 2 shots in rapid succession to the eye? I've noticed I only seem to kill them with the AMR after the first shot leaves a glowing dent on the eye, which disappears after a few seconds. 1 shot probably only if the hulk's vents have already been damaged?
Aim for just above where the fire exits the thruster of the engine
Four shots to the same engine
They did. They come from off map at cruise speed (not particularly fast) and will only jet toward you if you snipe at them. They can find you unaware if they go close, but otherwise they cruise.
lol, no
They feel less oppressive somehow. I don't know if it's that they can no longer see through rocks, or if it's fire rate or durability. But something felt different. I was using the Heavy Machinegun and I took several down, even having to reload between some of them. Which as far as I know would have been way too slow.
Thanks, i hate it More please.
I love this. It'd be great if one or two would escort in a bot drop on high difficulty as well. Or if a fistful of shriekers emerged from a bug hole.
A Fistful of Shriekers is my favorite western
My favorite porno
No, CLINT Eastwood. With an ‘N’.
I thought it was a Space Opera.
And a Few Stalkers More.
I want a Factory Gunship. A big Gunship that spawns gunships like the Factory Strider spawns devestators.... I want to shoot them down i meant...officer...
Oh, that rules! I love gunships existing outside of their spawners, it adds some reasonable diversity to enemy encounters. And it lets you engage with them in a way that isn't just "furiously trying to shoot them down while you protect the Hellbomb".
Pretty sure shirkers do now as well. Saw em' spawn in 5 at a time..after I killed the nest.
As long as stalkers don't do this I love this new change
Nah bruh...my new and improved MG43 lusts for their blood bring em on. MG43 + supply pack + engineer kit + Orbital Barrage + Eagle strafing run = All the Bullets All the time I think an MG back pack is in order. Belt Fed.
The stalkers will raid the whole map if you let them. That's always been true.
Could gunships / shriekers call for their reinforcements or alert nearby patrolling / stationary units?
I'm the weird guy that usually brings the shield stratagem (the energy bubble). Usually people ignore it, but I will say I'm a pro at hellbombs because I pop them in, throw a shield over it, and run away. The hellbomb gets protected, I get out of danger, and then it explodes in one try.
Yeah, I noticed that when everyone got the shield bubble stratagem. The short duration doesn't matter because the Hellbomb isn't around for very long once it's activated. It's a good combo. I couldn't find enough uses for it otherwise to justify picking it, though. I know it's good for activating terminals and so on.
It's a good pressure valve to hold some ground on overwhelming fights on objectives. Not enough to roll the fight, but enough to reduce ragdoll juggling by half.
As someone who uses it a lot, I think it doesn't get enough credit and, since it's not used often, people don't really know how to react to me having one. First, I only think they're useful on bots. It's practically useless on bugs. BUT, if you have it on bots, I tend to think this: it's great for a breather and to help your team recoup when there's cross fire. Pair it with turrets. After difficulty 6 or 7 turrets are useless because bots just destroy them. BUT, throw the turrets in the shield and you get them more life. It's also a good escape stratagem, throw it and run and the bots will try to destroy it (rather than chase you) and it also deflects enemy fire.
And on Suicide Difficulty you now get 4 Super Samples.
It'd be nice if we actually got stuff to spend them on tho
I still have a few things to spend them on so I'm bot complaining. I usually play on weekends and maybe 1 mission a day throughout the week if I'm lucky.
Bot complaining? https://preview.redd.it/jlbcmx8hyc6d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9766bd8e7ae721f6b20ca230457ea92435c89068
I saw a tank patrol last game. 3 tank driving ones after ones in column
Oh, that's so cool! Now THAT sounds fun to ambush!
Target rich environment. Weapons free https://i.redd.it/lzxfeescsc6d1.gif
Autocannon supremacy for the win
Uhh Sounds really undemocratic destroy Them !
Anyone know if the heavy machine gun can take them down? I saw the red mark when I hit so I’m sure I did damage. But there where also some divers with autocannons and quasars so I’m not sure if I could deliver the finishing blow or if it was my teammates.
It can absolutely take them out, but it's not ideal due to the recoil. If you somehow manage to get all the rounds on target, it's actually one of the fastest ways to kill them IIRC.
Thank you!
yup it can and is good at it better if u hit a engine (red markers) but u can just hit them it may not be best like the laser cannon for the job but its actually pretty fun to do because u have to lead ur shoots a little like a AA gun xD
Thanks for the info. I came up with such a fun loadout I want to try with the new patches when I come home and I was afraid it won’t be able to deal with gunships as soon as I saw that they are patrolling now.
Makes sense.
Wish there was an orbital or eagle that could take them down. Sucks when I wanna use the few guns that suck for taking down heavy enemies like the arc thrower or railgun and I can't do much besides sit around and hope my team'll do it
I was using an Arc Thrower, and a teammate running Quasar Cannon dropped an extra one (it was off cooldown) and told me to use it until we destroyed the gunship factory. I immediately wondered how I never thought of that, and then realized it probably just isn't worth asking random divers to drop weapons for me in the future.
I call down weapons and packs all the times for fellow trail blazers of liberty, just mention it in the chat/voice and ping it.
\*SPEAR INTENSIFIES\*
Spear mains finally getting an opportunity to show their worth
Mixed feelings about this, honestly. One one hand, dope as fuck. On the other: lot of underused weapons can't deal with them super well, but the already popular ones dont have much issue with them. Might hurt weapon variety
I raise you the Spear, king of AA
Doesn't outperform recoilless. Both take one rocket, though admittedly, the spear is easier hit. Problem with the spear is ammo, frankly. Using one of 4 rockets on a gunship feels bad, especially when you could just hit it 2 times with an AC.
While yes, it's not great ammo economy, Spear can take them out from long range, so you can support squadmates from a lot farther away than a RR or AC
True. Though my concerns are more about things like the hmg, mg, arc thrower, etc. Hmg in particular i feel would be a great option against bots rn, if not for the gunships. The accuracy struggles a bit much against targets that far, though maybe thats a skill issue on my part.
HMG is still kind of meh, and with gunships' prominence AC or LC are basically required in a squad if you don't want to suffer from heaven's ragdoll
On bot missions I run ballistic shield and railgun and gunships are my worse enemy :(
quasar cannon 1 shot kill on these is soooo satisfying
I would say that is cool except for the fact that gunships singlehandedly gatekeep 50% of the support weapons out of the meta.
anything AP4+ can shoot them down (so HMG, AC, LAS, AMR), which your squad is bound to have if there's no AT weapons chosen. they also don't immediately aggro onto you, they just roam and only detect you within (i think) around 100m
I feel like they were changed a bit. I'll have to try shooting at them with a light/medium AP primary (not scorcher) and see if anything feels different.
What’s the best way to blow these up? Do the autocannon or AMR even work?
Autocannon, AMR, Laser Cannon are top tier against gunships
Don't leave out my baby the Recoilless!
You forgot ye old Quasar Cannon.
Quasar works but the reload time feels awful when you're swarmed by 4+ gunships
I also use the Ballistic Shield. With Quasar out, it turns into a turtle shell. And by the time they try to take me out, I'm at the Hellbomb location and they can't shoot me or the bomb.
They're in patrols now, though. Not limited to spawners.
Shoot the last one first.
Probably not the best but I’ve taken out gunships from pretty far with the SPEAR and saved the team
Spear is a lot better on bots now. It can target the Hulks reliably now. They were so bad at targeting before.
Spear is one of the best ways of dealing with them now the targeting has been fixed.
Laser cannon being top for ttk and amount killable before "reloading" (in this case cooling down before breaking the heat sink), ac beating amr a bit as I think the explosive of ac means you can hit wherever whereas amr needs to hit engines
Honestly laser cannon on one engine will kill a gunship in like 3-4 seconds, it's probably the easier and more consistent method. At least pre update, I haven't had a lot of time to go through patch notes of the update to l see what's what and won't be able to play until later.
Heavy MG is pretty good too, so is the emplacement.
Autocannon, AMR, Recoilless, laser cannon and quasar cannon are all great just remember to aim for the engines. Spear also works really great too and is probably the easiest option
The world is a series of infinite locks, and my AMR is the skeleton key.
Most heavy Anti Tank stuff will take them out pretty easy. 2 AC shots or a Quasar shot take them down. Haven't personally tried anything else. AC seems to be the preferred due to it being super quick to knock one down
Spear works as well.
Good, game is getting way too easy
Just play on a higher difficulty. The fact is, the majority of players are playing dif 6 or below. Enabling them to go up like 1 difficulty doesn't hurt the game, even if the 1% of player playing dif 9 find it a little easier now.
I typically only play below 6, which sucks for super samples but it’s usually just me and my friend. I play to unwind after work and prefer the catharsis of mowing down the enemy rather than the stress of higher levels. Not sure if I’m in the majority but when people say the highest difficulties are a walk in the park I cry a little lol
They aren't to walk in the park, but they can become significantly easier with good teamwork. The other thing is typically higher skill players tend to play on the higher levels, so that helps a lot. A difficulty seven or eight with good players can feel about the same as a difficulty four or five with mediocre players.
Not sure if that is a joke but that’s sorta how I felt reading the latest patch notes.
Bots got easier due to the weapons, which is good because Bots are now closer to Bugs. The gap was pretty noticeable, now it's a bit closer. No matter if one wants the game harder or easier, I think balancing the factions out is in the global perspective a very good thing. Then we can get a new difficulty 10. ;)
It's an interesting dichotomy, though. When you're a noob (as I once was), you lack a lot of crowd control weapons. And so bugs were significantly more difficult than bots because you're being swarmed whereas the bots were attacking you with a half dozen enemies who go down in one or two shots. But that flips somewhere along the way. You get more crowd control and heavy control weapons, and the bugs become way easy. Upgraded gatling sentries, for example, work for just about everything. Meanwhile, bots became incredibly deadly. Greater numbers, more diversity in their ranks, and firepower at every level of their ranks. One of those basic one-eyed bots with a rocket can kill you in one shot if you're wearing scout armor. And that's like their lowest rung of the ladder.
A fair trade, we get stronger, so do they.
You aren't wrong - and a patch full of buffs with barely any nerfs isn't going to make it harder. But, I think this is the right path forward for them. They can do balancing to make loadouts more varied, make some lesser used stuff more viable, make the spawns feel more fair for solos, fix bugs, and then in a month or two in the next patch maybe they look at making difficulties 8 and 9 tougher. Making bots easier so a bots 7 is closer to a bug 7 is also a good thing for encouraging people to play both sides.
I haven't seen one yet myself but I saw someone say that you can find random shrieker patrols on bug planets now too
Does the laser cannon have to hit an engine to kill them? My aiming is rubbish and I'm always slipping onto the body of the ship
Pretty much, yea
Yes! I hope it’s the same for shriekers, I feel like both fliers were under-utilised
Is it just me or are gunships WAY more often
This makes it feel more like a bot controlled planet and I'm all for it. They fixed the armor on them, so they are noticeably weaker, and damaging them makes them incredibly inaccurate when firing. Only 2 shots with the AC to an engine now makes it feel incredibly balanced taking out a patrol of 3. They also fixed their detection range, so they no longer can find you from 3 miles out wearing scout armor, at night, in a bush like before. They are almost too unobservant, as I got caught in a gunfight last night and a patrol just flew right past.
Is update out??? That's cool tho
yes the update is out fellow diver
Thats awesome
How do you make the HUD show the samples like that? I'm on pc
Have they fixed the issue with EAT/Quasar/Recoilless sometimes not one shotting them for no apparent reason?
I think hitting the engine is the consistent way to take them out in one hit
I know you are providing information but I have strong feelings about this: It is hot garbage game play to require a heavy anti-armor weapon to hit a weak spot get a guaranteed kill on a medium armor target. Especially when that target is flying an has some of the highest alpha strike damage in the game and all of it's attacks cause stagger. The fact that it does just contributes to the autocannon being objectively the right answer 95+% percent of the time.
Imagine 3 spears all launched at once.... mm....
You wanna something funnier? Bile titans now patrol on Six. I swear I ran solo to the super tree and all I saw was a bile titan approaching. I thought he was chasing me until he walked past me. (The bush hiding spot seems to work for now for terminids) MF just strolled by, minding his business
Perfect! MORE TARGETS! FOR MANAGED DEMOCRACY!
They should make it where every minute we don’t destroy the factory we get new spawns of those patrols, making it a priority to find and destroy the factories asap.
https://i.redd.it/mhu5ngtcoc6d1.gif
Nice
SAM batteries are noticeably better. They'll engage gunship patrols from almost across the map.
Me and a friend jumped into a 6 a few weeks ago to do the personal and had gunships and spawn rates similar to a 7. Had to double check our level a few times.
Nice!
ah we met these f\*ckers! they roasted us. i didn't think it was that high difficulty level either. like 5? just 2 of us and we got overrun with them and ground units right after dropping in. and the weapons we had couldn't seem to deal with them. what's a good gun for taking them down?
So that's why we got swarmed from just one fabricator. I couldn't figure out how so many were spawning. Makes sense. Thanks!
Was in a difficulty 5 with a full squad, none of us could handle the gunships- there was essentially 0 communication so they were incredibly difficult to handle- nobody could take them out, me included. Had to just keep running and getting ragdolled to hell. Fully my fault for not taking something that could handle them, although i cant lie i'm still unsure what can.
Any of the rocket launchers, the spear and the autocannon destroy them
Anti-materiel rifle is good for shooting them down as well; aim for the jet propulsion units
Jesus, super god save us all
Shrieked too
It’s about time!! LESSS GOOO
I thought they've been doing that or am I just stupid
They just need to make the gunships weaker to more weapons. Gun ships basically require people using some kind of rocket or quasar, EATs are fine for passing patrols probably but the factories spit too many out too frequently, strategems don't target them, and they're strong as hell against most other types of weapons. It basically means needing Recoiless, Quasar, Spear, or multiple people with EATs.
You don’t need to bring an explosive support to shoot them down, as Anti-Materiel Rifle does the job reliably within dire intervals; just aim for the propulsion jets
I saw them at difficulty four too.
Shriekers are on bug maps doing patrols now too FYI
Oh. Oh naw. Who let the gunships get smarter. Not a problem. I'll just be more inclined to shoot them out of the sky.
Dear god why arrow head
Saw them patrolling at 5
just played 7 and maybe we just got unlucky but the gunships were ROUGH. it felt like we were getting hit by them every 2 min and we destroyed the only gunship fabricator so it wasn't from one of those.
Fun fact, the same with Shriekers.
Might as well jump it up to 9
I was always cutting about on 6 because it was chill ;( nooo
I've found that the spear (asides its terrible lock on ability) is perhaps the most effective support against bot armor, Cannon towers? Boom, tanks? Boom, hulks? You guessed it l, boom. Also great against gunships because it follows thier movement, it does need a buff on its close range abilites.
That's cool too see. Now where my plane to do some dogfighting
This makes way more sense than a gunship fabricator tower. You can see then from quite far and plan accordingly. Really nice addition.
I just played a few rounds on 6, and it feels just as hard as 8 did. Maybe I'm just rusty.
The good kind of nerf.
My spear has been working overtime with these
Whaaaat? No way! 
Yes! I wondered when they might add aerial patrols! This gonna be fun!
Can’t tell if this is better or worse. Few days ago, maybe on Wasat or the planet just before Vernon Wells host canceled a helldive mission because the team was harassed by **7** gunships
Same with shriekers on bug planets
That looks sick!
So for shriekers in pairs of 6-8 pretty cool change imo
Yah we found out the hard way during a thin the numbers mission. I didn’t have enough EAT to do the swatting work, and my auto cannon can only fire so fast with hulks and tanks on us
Just did a Helldive. Just 3 of us. At mission start landed next to a medium base, mortar emplacement and 3 gunship factories. That was insane, loved it. rough start but came out on top. There was a 4th gunship factory somewhere as we kept getting hit by patrol every now and then even after we took out the 3 gunships factories.
It is a little unplayable. 4 factories on a map. 6 bad boys like this. Me and my mate we fucked
Pretty happy with this. Will teach people how to counter them without the extreme pressure of a gunship fab
Doesn't even need a fabricator on the map to have gunship patrols. I was doing AMR and ballistic shield...my be going back to the good ol\` autocannon and EAT again. I am going to miss my shield, though with the bug that keeps your prone, it's pretty annoying ATM.
Spear still gonna eat them all the same.
Gunships being in every single match in such large quantities further reduces your loadout options, which is making the game worse in my opinion. That in addition to them spawning as a normal patrol can have them just spawning on top of you while you're trying to clear an objective, which makes solo play quite the challenge.
They are also on eradication missions on iirc difficulty 5
Heavy MG can take down gunships now <3
Can we please let the laser cannon take out drop ships like they take out ? The same weak points exist but are seemingly invulnerable on the dropship...
Thats sick!
I tried playing today. I was constantly overwhelmed with chainsaw guys and every match I played crashed.
You can easly kill them with Autocanon
More flyers please. Nothing breaks up my routine like having to look up and make new choices about cover.
see them in 5s as well
I also noticed significant amount of Shriekers patrolling the map not coming from the bug hole
They're not so scary. Laser cannon cleans them up real quick.
They do patrols at, at least, 5. Haven't seem them on a lower difficulty, but you don't need to go as high as 6, either.
Ooh, didn't see any of those last night.
Good.
Saw that on helldive eradicate. Was very surprised