Some about weapons...

[anton-korduan 10]

Hey commanders!

How do you use the weapons / which weapons do you use on your Mantas and Walrusses - better asked: Do you also have the impression, you're disregarding some weapons? I have. The plasma-gun (Manta) for example. It works only to ground - not air to air. Why should I take this and not go for a gettling or rockets?

Must say, have the game not open so I have to compare all the values (Strength, Material-Cost, Production-Time).

But I have the feeling that there are some weapons, we don't know about their hidden strength.

Ah! Now I remember: One benefit of Plasma is / could be that you get much more shots in comparison with a hand full of rockets... (have to try it).

Missiles are also a good example: I thought thew are not interesting (much more expensive then rockets and you still carry less of them) till I recognized that they are aiming! You wait till the sound and optical indicator appears and the missile flys toward the aim - over mounains, in curves... (most the time *g*).

My last theme is the bomb. I tryed it two or three times and never hit my target ;-)

It's not eays because you have to know, how to approach / fly. But last time I observed my "bomb-test" with a second manta and... *boom*: That's an explosion! Whow. Wonder if it could crack an shield-protected command-center? Hm... dont' think so. ;-)

So, what can you report about your weaponary-experience?

[Scepticer 1]

I have actually used the combination of plasma-gun and missiles and found it quite handy. Lots of heavy air-to-ground firepower and missiles for dispensing enemy mantas. I haven't played so much so I can't say if it is a preferred setup of mine but it feels like a fairly good combination. They are both expensive in production though so maybe it is not prio 1 to equip.

The bomb I have tried on a shielded command center without any success. I did however manage to blow up the manta dropping it a couple of times, got to have some altitude when dropping da bomb. I think I will try it some more before deciding against it completely but as it stand right now I have a hard time seeing it being a good choice. In particular considering its production cost. In the full game it might also be a different case. I can imagine it being required there in certain cases, who knows...

[Suranis 1]

The only use I can see for a bomb is when you have a trio of defense Islands that you have to crack, it might be good for making a kalamakazi run on the enemy command center to blow it up so you don't have to chop through maximum level Island defenses. In the ful game you might have Hammerheads to do that.

[Appogee 1]

I find Plasma for ground targets and Missiles for air targets the most effective combination.

The bomb is too expensive to make sense in the limited-island beta. In a game with more islands and production it will probably make sense.

[Antares 1]

Me too, Plasmas and Rockets are good for the mantas. I tried the bomb, no effect, not even in the original game btw. The walrusses, I used the flak, shells, quad guns, grenades. Flak and Shells only by the automatic, quad guns and grenades in personal perspective and AI, very useful and fun.

[moondrift47 1]

I must admit that gatling and missiles are the choice for me for air defence manta, plasma and rockets for ground attack. However, missiles make a great dumb fire weapon for taking out AA as they don't explode as quick as the rockets so you can stay out of range of even the hardest AA turret and snipe them with missiles

[CaptainHaplo 1]

I don't even use the walrus until the defense is negated. There is just no reason to do so. Get Armor II, missiles and a plasma as soon as you can. Put em on one Manta with an ammo box. Go take out the island aircraft factories. Plasma's will give you a very long range, and the missiles will take out any enemies - ground or air. Yes - missiles will lock on and take out enemy groundpounders and turrets. Do one set of buildings at a time - return for repair/rearm/refuel. Once you get 2 manta's configured this way - you just swap between them. Once the reinforcements are gone - knock out anything necessary to hack/replace the command center - send in a walrus and then dock it when its finished. Go to your next target, rinse and repeat.