Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
So, what are people's thoughts on the different devices you get with your fighters?
Here are mine:
Tractor beam: I, personally, don't have the skill to use it yet but I saw during the birthday matches that it was employed very skillfully. And it's a cool idea.
Power cores/fusion batteries: regardless if it's for the engines, shields or guns, I think they are essential since the recharge rates for any of it is painfully slow. The more the better.
Cloak: I am quite disappointed with the cloak, I find it next to useless. It takes so much energy to use that you can't employ it to get out of tricky situations (in which you are certainly running low on at least one of the energies) and using it to sneak up upon somebody rarely works: with the energy drain, your offensive capabilities are reduced and since stray shots (and there are a lot of them!) and every bump will cause the cloak to drop, it's most often wasted energy. Even in the capship missions, where I thought it would shine, I find it seldom useful: since your AB fuel does not recharge, you'll take ages to get to the capship and the reduced shields make you very vulnerable to turret fire. Oh, and it does not break missile lock, at least not for HS missiles, that's really weak.
I didn't try it out in duel maps, maybe it's of more use there.
Sonar: The only device I used less than the cloak.
Bomber turrets: Not too effective but a nice gimmick when flying those cumbersome bombers. I even got one or two kills with them, thanks to their high refire rate.
Deployable turret: I like it. It's of less use in multiplayer since it gets shot down rather fast but without, I wouldn't have gotten the Untouchable achievement. And even in MP, it can get overlooked.
Flares: Initially I thought they would be the most useless but I have to revise that sentiment. My initial reaction to missiles is still to try to outburn them (which works very well) but I hope to discilpine myself to use more the flares, they seem to have a 100% success ratio for me. Especially useful against those Vampire missiles.
Here are mine:
Tractor beam: I, personally, don't have the skill to use it yet but I saw during the birthday matches that it was employed very skillfully. And it's a cool idea.
Power cores/fusion batteries: regardless if it's for the engines, shields or guns, I think they are essential since the recharge rates for any of it is painfully slow. The more the better.
Cloak: I am quite disappointed with the cloak, I find it next to useless. It takes so much energy to use that you can't employ it to get out of tricky situations (in which you are certainly running low on at least one of the energies) and using it to sneak up upon somebody rarely works: with the energy drain, your offensive capabilities are reduced and since stray shots (and there are a lot of them!) and every bump will cause the cloak to drop, it's most often wasted energy. Even in the capship missions, where I thought it would shine, I find it seldom useful: since your AB fuel does not recharge, you'll take ages to get to the capship and the reduced shields make you very vulnerable to turret fire. Oh, and it does not break missile lock, at least not for HS missiles, that's really weak.
I didn't try it out in duel maps, maybe it's of more use there.
Sonar: The only device I used less than the cloak.
Bomber turrets: Not too effective but a nice gimmick when flying those cumbersome bombers. I even got one or two kills with them, thanks to their high refire rate.
Deployable turret: I like it. It's of less use in multiplayer since it gets shot down rather fast but without, I wouldn't have gotten the Untouchable achievement. And even in MP, it can get overlooked.
Flares: Initially I thought they would be the most useless but I have to revise that sentiment. My initial reaction to missiles is still to try to outburn them (which works very well) but I hope to discilpine myself to use more the flares, they seem to have a 100% success ratio for me. Especially useful against those Vampire missiles.