Lyramion

In depth Goliath Driving:




Goliath is pretty cool, hu? But same as his name... he can be brought down easily by a few Davids.


Driving a Goliath:

You are very slow. You are like a mini titan moving around very slow. At the same time this makes you like a little mini-CO. You will dermit where people are likely to go and which flags are easily defended.

- VS Walker: A Walker killing Panels is a thing of luck. Sometimes his rockets will hit them and sometimes a walker can spend minutes bombing you without panels going down. If you can back up into a choke point and bomb him with mines he cannot evade. Remember they explode on contact, so if hitting a leg is best.

- VS Speeder: Your shotgun can kill the Speeder Gunner if you aim well and the speeder is trying to play "annoying fly" around you. If a speeder is playing "sniper" you can try scoring direct hits with your motion mines. If the speeder is good and plays "Out of Sight Sniper" are basically helpless. Try informing your Squad and CO of the danger. Communication is a key. At the same time you can try to maneuver so the speeder only has an angle at 2-3 panels but not more.

- VS Rorsches: Pray for your F2 and F5 Gunner. Remember their arc is limited. The best only if you face the Rirsch with the front they both can shoot it.


As a Goliath you are not a lonewolf ! If you are alone you and your panels easily get victims of EMP Locks and Snipers rushing to your sides. Even tho its hard try sticking to "blobb" of your army or get them to stick to you.


Panel Science:

A Goliath "ages" as his panels go down.

- Teenage Goliath - Full Panels: Engines Full Power! Nothing can stop us! Take good care of it like a new car and listen to the advice or your mom.

- Adult Goliath - 4-5 Panels left: Grown older with less vitality you need to take care where you go. Lurking around corners if a good tactic. So if a Rorsch gets manned you can pull back. Often Walkers will spawn unexpectedly and come to hunt you bringing the "critical mass" that you can repair away to flow over. Don´t go charging in without a lot of support. If you die you not only have to wait out the spawn time but you also have to drive back all the way to the action.

If some sneaky bastard killed your 2 back panels and you still have your front panels you can even try the stunt of advancing backwards. This will take enemies off guard and keep your front panel healthy. You can also cruush motion mines with your back without any risk after the panels went down.


- Old Goliath - 1-2 Panels left: You can smell your soon death already but that´s no reason to give up. Don´t take up any more offense task unless there are 3-4 Engineers helping you drive. The best thing you can do is to pick up a defense task. Protect one flag while covering up your remaining panels in a corner / wall. This way the rest of your team can be sure this flag will not be easily overrun. It´´s also a very anoying situation for the PAC team since they often "want that Goliath dead!" and will waste forces on it.




F2 and F5 seats:

You need to take out enemy Rorsches with your splash damage. Those two seats decide over life and death of the Goliath. Learn where the NS Rorsches are and at what angles they can hit you. Believe me there are many mean Rorsches on those maps. It´s liek a spider web you cannot get entangled in.


F3 and F4

Your power is limited. Even tho the Goliath is slow it can still be very hard to hit moving targets. Your arc is excellent tho. Be sure to look around an Q-Spot everything you find to alert your vehicle crew and surounding soldiers.

Make your own judgement. Your seat might often be very useful for a fallen SL to spawn in. A SL < > SL or SL < > CO < > SL commucation setup is potentially devasting on this matter.



Potential Goliath Squad Setups:


I am Goliath, so are YOU!

Driver: Engineer
All Gunners: 4x Engineer

> Engineer Overload: This setup can be TOTALLY devasting to the enemy team. All your friendly vehicles can come and hug you for 5HP/tick Armor regen. A standart setup could be one Goliath in the front and 2 Walker side by side in the back. If the 2 Walker crews are also Engineers they can help to repair the Goliath with a 4HP/tick Armor regen in ADDITION to the Panels repairs. Never has someone tanked better on the Battlefield !


Light Allround crew

Driver: Engineer
F2 Gunner: Engineer
F5 Gunner: Engineer
F3 Gunner Support
F4 Seat: Free

> The F3 Gunner can hop out and place/replace an IDS on the Goliath. You will leave 1 spot free to always have the possibility of your teammates spawning in AND to not bind too many soldiers into one slow moving vehicle. Similar to a 6 man Roflcopter your flag capping power might suffer. Additionally if a lone Walker comes the Support can hop out to try and EMP lock while the engis finish it - remember the Goliath cannot be stolen by the enemy team!




Tip Section:

Tip: You can get to the top of a Goliath by going to it´s front and jump > prone while its moving forward. This opens up for some funny tactics.

Tip: An IDS has never felt more welcome than on a Goliaths Hull

Tip: Often it is way better to stand at a good distance with a good angle infront of an enemy flag and cover it. If you drive to it direcly freshly spwning in Recons and Engineers will have a hell of an easy tiem taking you and your panels out. Cover the flag and let your Infantry do the capping.

Tip: The prefered flags to set detinations are the ones bringing you an additional Walker fast. Help capture Western Docks on Bavaria if the enemy still has it and on Leipzig head to the left and not streight when you come out of your UCB.

__________________

Ponies need you !

Lyramion

In depth Hachimoto driving:




Little fragile Speeder. The Speeder has the bad ability to often get its crew killed WAY before itself. Thus it often gets stolen by the EU soldiers.


Driver Seat:

Your main guns are really bad. Driving over people is more dangerous but driving over people is indeed a weapon of yours. There is a Northern Strike ribbon that demands 5 road kills - so it´s an intended game mechanic It also fits the general playstyle of a Speeder since it´s a "Speed Tank". But don´t yourself getting fooled into extended Nascaring for Roadkills only - being close to the enemy soldiers means that your Gunners life is in high danger.

Your first priority is setting up your Gunner for TVs where possible. If there is no good chance for it, go Infantry hunting.



Gunner Seat:

Your Mortar has no splash damage. Try to do direct body shots with it. Don´t just press down the mouse button to spam shells. Aim every single of them and try to score a hit. Your overheating meter will thank you, too.

Your TV is a very dangerous tool. Please have a mic and talk with your driver. He can set you up to shoot enemy armor from long distances. He also should pull back immediatly after he heard the shot go off - no need to stay exposed. Your view is stuck in the TV anyway so it doesn´t matter if you still see the impact.

It takes 2 TVs to bring down Walkers and APCs. One for a Rorsch and you will do about 30 damage to the Goliath.





Long Range TV Sniping

There are a lot of long roads on those maps. Use your range and guiding ability to make the best use of them. If a teammates spot the enemy Goliath or the Walkers you are able to make shots outside of view range. Don´t be cheap and use a lot of TVs. TVs are easy to refill and replace but your speeder is not.

Playing this turtle style you can create a low risk - high reward situation while making sure to stay alive to help your team tons. The enemy team will feel very uncomfortable








Bavaria Games:


At the start of a Port Pavaria round you can use your Speeder to drive down the hill and herrass the enemy APCs incoming. It´s kinda difficult to TV them since the ground isn´t even - but possible.

Additionally you can take over enemy APCs that are empty to prevent the enemy team spawning in them anymore. This can delay an EU Attack for quite some time.


If you are done with your evil (...and are actually still alive!) and want to get back to your team there is a secret way on the very east out of bounds. I made a little video to it to make it clearer:









Potential Squad Setups:


Standart Setup:

Driver: Medic
Gunner: Engineer

This is pretty much what you should bring. The Driver being medic is often needed to keep your fragile Gunner alive. The Engineer can do repair because the Hachi usually slowly wears down by bumps and hitting corners.



Long Range Sniper:

Driver: Engineer
Gunner: Support

You play super careful with this setup and go thru a lot of TVs. So resupplying the TVs of your Hachi takes priority. Since you will try to stay away from the Infantry you shouldn´t need an IDS.




Tip Section:

- Playing EU on Port Bavaria you could potentially keep all the captured speeders and bring them back to your main base for the CO to maintain them alive. This will take out the PACs ability to quickly rush out of their main base if a capout is near. It also keeps your backflags safe way better - also your Goliath panels.

- 45° movement is faster with the speeder but might also open up the sides for the gunner to take damage. If you can keep your front faced to the enemy

- Always keep moving. Snipers like headshotting your Gunner

__________________

Ponies need you !

Naith

another thing: both guns on the roflcopter work on Remagen.

__________________
TG Naith

Mixa

Question: Is it true that aiming the main gun of speeder up allows TVs to be fired better, and they don't give the annoying ''oh I'm seeing snow'' bug? With main gun I mean f1 sucky machine gun that does crap damage...

__________________

Naith

I found that it's better for killing buggies and other hachimotos. : )

__________________
TG Naith

Greyed

As an example from one of the rounds played on 7/1:

CO had ordered me to defend West Bridgehead on the Bridge of Remagen map. I was solo at the time, later had 1 whole SM so I wasn't going to do much of anything other than what the CO told me to.

The start of the round was uneventful. Not a lot of pushes to the bridgehead as the rest of the team was holding them further up the line. I realized someone had discarded a speeder nearby so I pulled it back to the south side of the bridge and aimed it to where the Goliath normally trundles through. After taking a few speeder nade potshots hoping for a random kill the Goliath came around the corner with an APC in support. I switched to TV missiles to start sniping.

The Goliath had only 3 panels left. Only one of which I could target. First shot was me sizing up what I could do to it. Second shot took down the supporting APC. The next several shots were aiming for the right rear panel. I finally got it on the on the 6th shot. By that time 2 engineers (1 missile, 1 Pilum) and 2 Walkers had joined in. Looks like the 8th shot (hard to see on the video) is what got the Goliath and an instant Combat Efficiency Pin. I almost felt bad for the enemy CO's vain attempt at trying to save the Goliath with a supply drop.

This is another one of those videos I wish I had been recording in game as the TV Missile footage would have been a lot better.

Oh, and self criticism, I need to either learn to take more footage with pauses I can cut to size or learn how to pause the video in my editing software. Still learning how to make these things.

Lyramion

Very nice - also while the Goliath did go down I think it was still played very clever. Didn´t expose too many panels and didn´t do the usual "GO RUSH IN".

__________________

Ponies need you !

Greyed

Yup, it guarded that right rear panel decently. I think if he had charged sooner, before the engies and walkers started to lay into him he might have pulled it off. I think he finally realized there was a hachimoto out there peppering him with missiles and was moving forward for his front guns to get range.

I'm really curious who was driving and what they were thinking at the time. Not in the PWNED YOU sense but out of genuine curiosity of the thoughts behind how that little drama played out. Maybe an AAR?

Mr.Ander50n

nicely done!

__________________

Zack

So wait, are NS maps being added to the rotation or are we getting a shiny new server?

Mr.Ander50n

No, we have one day a week where the NS maps are in the rotation.

__________________

Fruvous

Here's what I can say from 2 rounds as PAC at Liberation of Leipzig. Given this, information might be inaccurate, however it is how I see TG Leipzig to be played. This post is meant to accelerate competitive Leipzig play.
:

PAC TEAM:
East and West Bridge control prevents armour moving up. I believe that the armour will be pretty devastating if they're allowed in the center since EU has armor advantage.

If PAC doesn't make the necessary preparations (ie. IDS), EU will slip infantry though the bridges. Likely target is Main Bridge or Grand Park.

If EU controls a center flag, PAC should still have squads to control armour movement at the bridges. I believe PAC should use their vehicles to retake the center flags, because superior mobility and/or firepower will overwhelm infantry. It is my belief that PAC vehicles aren't necessary at the bridge, because EU vehicles should have a hard time getting forward.

If EU controls only one center flag, PAC still has the advantage:
Main Square can be attacked from everywhere, Grand Park is cornered, and Fuel Depot is isolated. Besides the Grand Park/East Bridge, Monument Park has easy infantry and vehicle access to every flag.

Given this, here's what I believe is the best loadout (of course, I've only played it twice so take it with a grain of salt).
PAC SQUADS:
East: Mines, IDS, EMP to disable.
2 engineer, 2 support, 2 medic/bestkit.
West: Mines on west bridge (probably at corner to prevent vehicular fire on the bridge), IDS, EMP to disable.
2 engineer, 2 support, 2 medic/bestkit.

MainPark: patrols between Main Square and Grank Park. 2 IDS to provide forward warning on Main Square (Or in wash). Speeder to stay on Grand Park to TV Missile the bridges, and react quickly if Main Square is lost.
2 support, 2 medic, 2 engineer/bestkit

MainDepot: Protects Main Square and Fuel Depot. This can be achieved by defending the wash - or even preventing any infantry breakout by staying in between West/East Bridges (and providing support where needed).



Here are my speculations about EU:
EU should take Main Square and Fuel Depot (in either order) to stop EU speeders/walker and relieve pressure off of the bridges.
OR
EU should take Grand Park, and then apply heavy pressure on East Bridge (vehicular and infantry). Once this is accomplished, EU vehicles become useful on the offensive. Next Priority should be West Bridge for walker spawn, or Main Square then West Bridge.

__________________