Originally Posted by BHack

Silo missle firing behavior

DUMB. Thats the short version. Here's the longer one. A squad that successfully defends a silo contributes 1 missle toward the enemy titan every 2 minutes. This is fine, EXCEPT... an ATTACKING squad needs only successfully flip a silo to get it fire! Wait... what? So that means that even though my squad repelled 3 separate 6 man (1 squad) attempts for the silo, that if they capture it on the fourth (remember the attacks come every 20- 30 seconds because you can spawn/pod anywhere) they've completely negated my 3 initial successes and achieved the same result as my awesome defense? Yup! Oh, and lets say the enemy gets it before the 2 minute timer is up, they got the instant fire and your squad accomplished absolutely nothing! But, isn't the kill advantage conferred to a well prepped squad on defense over any incoming attackers going to count for something? Nope, no tickets my friend! It costs the attacking team NOTHING to zerg a silo, sans plan, over and over again until they cap it. No penalty, only the chance for instant missle firing success! In fact, a winning titan strategy is to actually send two squads at one silo so they are able to beat down the defense and cap the silo quicker, gaining you a fast missle fire, then moving on and doubling up on the next silo defense!

There's more! Titan mode is capped at 48 players (supported), this means you probably only have 3 full squads. I'm going to assume here the other 6 guys are eaten up being the CO, gunship, titan guns, etc. Ok, but there are 5 silos on titan maps. On average, you are going to have 2 fully un-defended silos at any given time. A smart CO has a squad in transport simply flying around constantly flipping these undefended silos wherever they be, this squad is averaging MUCH more than 1 missle per 2 minutes, which is the best a successfully defending squad can hope for! End result of pre sheilds down tactics: ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. Don't stop attacking, leverage the fluid spawn capability of Titan mode to your advantage to keep the pressure on. NO REASON TO DEFEND.

Except... that's wrong. You are right that defending a silo confers no advantage if you can't hold it for two minutes. But I've played plenty of Titan rounds where my squad has held a silo for almost the entire game. While being constantly bombarded by a Titan's guns, and having attacks come from every direction. That's what makes it fun.

Look, if you're silo hopping then the enemy team is going to start silo hopping too. You hop on a silo and turn it, a missile is fired at the enemy titan. You leave and they do the same thing. A missile is fired at your titan. Both titans lose an equal amount of health. Silo hopping confers no advantage to your team, other than denying the enemy team an advantage. Repeat that to yourself a few times.

Silo hopping confers no advantage to your team.

Silo hopping confers no advantage to your team.

Silo hopping confers no advantage to your team.

Three squads for five silos works quite nicely. So long as your team is securing and defending more silos than the enemy you'll get the shields down first- the silos that swapping back and forth from the guys in the transport are confering no advantage to either team.

Originally Posted by BHack

Red alert, sheilds down. Titan end game.

I'll make this short and to the point. The design of the titan makes attacking it an extremely dumb move, tactically. One coordinated squad, holed in any corridor they choose, can completely shut down the entire enemy team from getting to the titan core. Unlike silo defense, defenders of the titan have an OVERWHELMING advantage over attackers which even SUPERIOR NUMBERS have almost no chance of overcoming. Awesome. What's this mean for tactics though?

Simple, put one squad on defense of the titan, assuring yourself the enemy has no chance of blowing it from the inside, then, using your remaining squads, refer to the above paragraphs regarding how to win through missle silo domination. God help the other team if more than a few guys are defending their titan, this just gives you a power play in the silo war. This removes the titan from the game completely. Back to same ol conquest capture the flag, except this time with less defense and FULL ON SPAWN ANYWHERE ATTAAAKKKKKK.

And this is where a smart CO comes in. Titan is more strategically complex than Conquest, with more tradeoffs to be made, more opportunities for your team to make mistakes, or to take advantage of an enemy's mistake. If there are too many defenders, redeploy to the ground. If the defense on the Titan weakens, make a quick assault and take it out. I've personally seen you take advantage of this to completely turn the tide of battle, BHack.

To be honest, I wasn't aware that a more strategic game was a problem. Titan rewards the team that can react quickly, the team with the more competent CO and responsive squads.

Originally Posted by BHack

Conclusion

Titan mode is fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it the first couple times I played it. The experience of podding up to the titan with the rest of my squad and having a fight inside a big ship was different and engaging. As I learned the rules of the mode, I realized how tactically broken it is, and how futile and silly the game becomes if you have an organized enemy. Since pub server games are unorganized, initially I still had a fun time with the mode. As APM spam began to become a prominent titan defense tactic though, the fun level started to decline and finally I just gave up.

The underlying fun of the mode is inheritantly mindless. Smart defensive tactics don't have as much of a positive effect as they should and your efforts don't seem to have much impact on actually winning the round. As Jep mentioned, holding the majority of the silos for the majority of the time doesn't really mean anything, it's how fast you can make them change hands. I feel this isn't a good fit for me, as a tactical gamer.

That being said, I still wouldn't mind a titan map being rotated in every 5 maps or so, if only for variety.

Titan is not the same as conquest. I'll say this as many times as I have to, it is more complex. If you think it's mindless, then I think you need to sit down and think about the game a little more. For example, there's no point in holding a reserve squad in Conquest, but it makes a lot of sense in Titan. Assuming that the same strategies and tactics that work in Conquest will be equally effective in Titan is just silly.

Originally Posted by Arf

Titan is not Conquest mode. Conquest mode is won by dealing more damage to the enemy army then they do to you while Titan is won by conquering and holding the most territory. Just because strategies that worked in Conquest don't work in Titan doesn't mean it's tacticaly flawed.

For example if you're under the Titan getting pummeled by it's guns and having the enemy dropping on you you aren't helping your team. They're going to retake that flag and negate all your effort.

I'd post more but there's a blizzard hitting so I've got to go.

If you're under their Titan, there's a good chance your missile isn't even hitting their Titan when it launches. Yes, you can position a Titan so that missiles will miss it, or hit the enemy Titan instead.