Zephyr

You have three heavy units who want to work together as a team (woah, concept!).

How do you configure these three lights so that they can form a cohesive fighting and objective capturing force that is a menace to deal with?
---
Sub-Questions

How do they use their configurations to work together to achieve their goals, regardless of map specifics?

How would they interact with a team with a three unit group of lights?

How would they interact with a team with a three unit group of mediums?
---

Remember there is no "right" answer to this question, let us hear everyone's voice on how we can narrow the level of cooperation to "squad" units.
-Zephyr

__________________
You were once like the newbie who needed a hand from above and TacticalGamer gave you it.

You owe the newbie who comes after you that same outstretched hand from above on your honor as a Tactical Gamer.

Tactics at TG come from trust and friendship, not meticulous detail and rigid discipline.

Everyone should be assumed mature until proven otherwise.

We are no clan.
We are not a single game.
We are mature, intelligent, and cooperative individuals.
We are TacticalGamer, a community above and beyond its name.

Spartan25

From my experience heavies are good for killing the opposition. A ion heavy will put lights out like a power surge. Miniguns are great for defend hackers from emp'ing lights. A rocket launcher will instakill anything but a heavy. Spidernades are great tools in almost any situation.

Heavies really hit their prime when backed up with a squad tacscanning and mediplanting.

A team without a heavy might win. A team with all heavies will lose.

3 heavies working together will probably have a minigun heavy with sound suppresor taking point. The other two will have legbooster and be ion and/or rocket launcher. There isn't as much room for customization as with the mediums and the heavies.

__________________


99. A smiley face is not used to mark a minefield.
100. Claymore mines are not filled with yummy candy, and it is wrong to tell new soldiers that they are.
101. I am not allowed to mount a bayonet on a crew-served weapon.

Zephyr

Bumped for discussion.
-Zephyr

__________________
You were once like the newbie who needed a hand from above and TacticalGamer gave you it.

You owe the newbie who comes after you that same outstretched hand from above on your honor as a Tactical Gamer.

Tactics at TG come from trust and friendship, not meticulous detail and rigid discipline.

Everyone should be assumed mature until proven otherwise.

We are no clan.
We are not a single game.
We are mature, intelligent, and cooperative individuals.
We are TacticalGamer, a community above and beyond its name.

medwards

Alpha: Ion Cannon + Thermal + Legboosters
Bravo: Ion Cannon (maybe RL) + SWT + Legboosters
Charlie: Minigun + Thermal + Legboosters

Charlie+Alpha watch for sneaky lights, Bravo gives them the heads up on enemy movements. Legboosters for the surprise charge that noone expects. When the three of them charge a chokepoint Charlie tosses the spiders while Alpha and Bravo use 'beu-beu' power to light up the opposition. Charlie should be spun up after the first couple of shots and then it's clean up time.

In general I prefer a good shot with the ion to RL, especially in smaller games. As an environment gets more target rich the RL becomes increasingly good, but you get more individual shots over the 15s with Ion (which is important when trying to pick off a smaller number of players).

vs three lights, Charlie should be spun up at all times. Mini's chew up lights so nice. Vs mediums you can just spider spam the mediums. Failing that, Charlie needs to make himself a target, hopefully sufficiently softening up incoming mediums so Alpha and Bravo only need one ion shot to kill the mediums off.

nulloperations

Two ions + a mini gunner would be most effective. AS the ions are dishing out the bulk of the damage, the mini gunner can crowd control and clean up the enemies who survive. As Med suggested, the minigunner would fire his spider grenades as his first attack while the ions fire. If more than 2-3 enemies are left alive before the ion's second shot, they should release 1-2 spiders in total.

Mini-gunner I think should have SS and SWT while his teammates should go thermal and Legboosters. They can charge and retreat as needed while using their teammate to lay down traps with his SS. He can also provide good info on the battlefield for enemy location with his SWT. He has little need for thermal since he only has to approximate the location of his target while spreading ammo over the area in waves.

Heavies work best with a team of mediums with mediplants to back them up. Combine these three with an AR(termal, medi, TAC) and two GL (the GL's equiped with Cyberdecks if they situation calls for it, otherwise SWT, Medi, TAC). and you have a very deadly killing force. The GL's provide even better crowd control by sweeping the area the Mini-gunner is firing into. The AR's job is to pay attention to whoever the ions shot. His job is to snip (no spray and pray from him, although if needed he can, primary use would be his secondary fire). All 3 of them should spread out, each keeping close to one of the heavies. They should keep with their co-partner unless another heavy comes under heavy damage. Note that on certain areas (like fortress's first two objectives), the GL's can be replaced with MK's and the minigunner should switch over to RL, drop the SS, and get Legboosters.

medwards

This really depends on the support the mini-gunner receives. I admit that my initial stategies involved only considering 3v3 tactics, which I'm now realizing isn't the entire picture. However, I still think the mini needs thermal in smaller groups in order to tap out lights before they sneak by. If a light is trying to get through you get one, maybe two shots with ion before the light has found cover or is out of reach. The minigunner can almost without fail put the shots he needs into a stealthed light to eliminate it before he gets by the group. Meanwhile the ion shots can go into enemies with bigger hitboxes (therefore, greater opportunity to hit successfully).

There are caveats: Maybe you can see stealth lights better than I can (god knows I'm pooched if the stealther has no bloodstains on him and I have no thermal), or you're not up against lights, etc.

nulloperations

Remember, if he's got SWT, he's got the general idea where the light is on his screen. He doesn't need to hit their whole hit box. An Ion needs the thermal to make sure he does hit the target exactly.

Oh, never waste two ion shots on one light. An ion blast and a single shot with the machine pistol will kill a full health/armored light. Hench why I say a minigun can provide good back up to two ion'ers, since he just has to hit them once with his gun to kill them after a light has been shot once. If they are bigger targets, they'll soon be picked away by the mini gun's rapid fire and the spiders that have been released (especially since if they're bigger, either the person will shift their aim to kill the spider, thus making them an easier target, or they will just take the extra damage, probably dying after an ion blast and some machine gun rounds).

In a well lit area, I don't need thermo, I can see lights just fine. It's only in darkness I use the energy from thermal vision to spot people. I sometimes click it on when I'm scouting out rooms, since right now only players are brightly colored in thermo.

That however is going to change, as more "hot" objects will have thermal signatures.

medwards

Ah, see this is where we we differ. I wouldn't even want the ions to be putting a single shot towards a light. There are heavier and more threatening targets. A minigunner solely dealing with lights needs to maximize his damage if the lights aren't softened up.

nulloperations

I could see your point, but it depends on the opposition. If say, you are fighting a rocketlauncher or a grenade launcher, those are priority targets. Why? Because a heavy is most powerful when he has his armor intact, Heavies and Mediums do pose a threat in general with grenades and spider mines, but those two main weapons are the primary armor destroyers (since explosives in Dys do double damage to armor). Then yes, I want the ions focused on these targets. Otherwise, I want the lights dead first. Their ability to emp can seriously hinder a group of heavies/mediums attempt at keeping heal flow up as well as information implants running. A cloaked light can out dodge a minigunner's fire stream if he knows how to move properly and uses legboosters to adjust his movment speeds. If he can get close enough to emp, he can slaughter the heavy simply by coming from another angle. The cloaked emp'ers need to be shot down first before they use all of their primary ammo and switch to emp back up (rarely do I see one start an attack with emp unless it's to assualt an enclosed room, a situation I'd rather not be in anywaY).

As a light player myself, I know how dangerous and very deadly a light can be. By the time most heavies and mediums are spotted, they have already done the bulk of the damage they will do within the first half dozen seconds. Lights (except snipers), will deal the bulk of their damage overtime, making their damage per second more important and thus makes them a larger threat in the long run. You need to ambush the larger classes if you want to avoid the bulk of their damage. Lights are clean up workers, and they do this very well.