Thoughts on Combat Engineering

[Foudre]

I was just looking through everyones certs and I noticed that quite a few of us have Combat Engineering certed. I often cert this since it is so different and such a cool idea but then I get frusterated after all my efforts net maybe 1 kill for the day. I dont use it for the Infl/boomer combo though, i just set up defenses.

It annoys me that annybody with a gun can take out multiple turrets/mines/sensors without much danger to themselves. It seems that the turrets are only useful agains cloakers and the mines are only useful agains overzealous drivers or noobs who dont see well. Why are mines visible to everyone??? It seems to me that mines should only be visible to other engineers or somthing... heh actually I have always been an engineer so maybe they arent visible to everyone... are they?

Any thoughts on the matter? I really enjoy this support role but I often dump it after getting frusterated with its lack of effectiveness.

[RogueVindicare]

It's true that combat engineering provides a lot of toys that seem fun, but don't really give results.

The boomer is probably the easiest to get kills with, even wtihout being an infil. Its awesome for towers and staircases, especially in techplants. They're generally considered to be for defensive purposes, but whats fun is if you're in agile and are being chased by a rexo, round a corner and throw a boomer on the wall. You can get away, since you're faster then him, and if he's dumb enough to follow, you blow his brains out.

I'll post some of the stuff I've done with mines and spits later, I have to go to class now. (DAmnit I hate school so friggin much)

[ArmorDeth]

First! We need to move this topic out of Request Outfit Membership.

B! Lets talk about the fine art of Combat Engineering. I get tons of kills from my toys. Its all about placement!

Here are some of my tricks of the trade.

Putting the spit back in the fire!
Never place a spitfire in plan view! NEVER! Always hide your spits behind trees or rocks. Imagine yourself as the enemy and plot your attack route and place your defenses to counter.

For base defense, place your spits near the base turrets. Another good spot is on the ledge around the base, go to the top and jump down on the ledge. Place a spit over the main door.

Another good spot is placing spitfires on trees. The trees on Ish are a great place for hidden spits.

Mines
Look for choke points. Check your map and find the best route to the next base, get out there and lay a mine field.

For base defense, mine the hell out of the backdoor and courtyard area. Sure they will get emp'd or jammered, but you'll know where they are coming from and intercept.

Hide mines behind trees where the enemy will duck behind for cover. Place mines on door entrances and stairways.

Motion Sensors
If you are defending a base, place sensors to block key door ways. They will have to destroy the sensor to get by. Place sensors away from the base in trees on ISH.

Boomers
Fun fun fun with boomers! There are several places you can place boomers and get massive amounts of kills. Remember, you can always prep your base with good boomer placement. Like the backdoor, place boomers around the door on the inside, drop your sticks. The stairwell down into the base, there is a gap between the stairs, place boomers there, drop the sticks. Repeat and grab a thump with jammers. Have fun!

The best CE tactic ever would be the ArmorDeth's ANT Trap! <---trademarked

I'll get that topic bumped up. That is all i can think of for now. Maybe i'll start the ArmorDeth's CE Tips.

ArmorDeth

[LuckYx]

in the few days i certed it... i got one kill... and it was boomering rahl


well worth the 2 cert points if all you want to do is place boomers at rahl's feet

[SirKibbleX]

Armor somebody copied your ant trap. Unfortunately, I didn't get killed by it, so you can't sue that person. Anyways, you place an ant in front of the backdoor, put a mine underneath and have about 6408768046238476 boomers under it too. When you get near the ant, the mine goes off, which sets off the boomers. Then the ant blows, killing a tooooon of stuff.

[BuzzEvil]

Of course Armor's ant trap has been copied. All good ideas do. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

[elana]

I find that an excellent combination is advanced hacking, infiltration and CE. This is particular good for killing generators. Sneak down to gen room (preferably with sensor shield implant), place 4 boomers. Go to locker room under spawn room which nobody is ever in. Hack the locker, get 4 more boomers.

Repeat this until you have 10 boomers. Usually I'll put 11 on there just to be sure. Grab a jammer grenade, and then something to kill repair crews with. Jammer the gen and now the gen is down without any warning to the enemies in the base.

One thing to remember is that you cannot own the triggers for the boomers if you want the jammer to work. So just drop them on the floor. Another fun trick is to put the triggers in your locker, leave the base, and then trigger them remotely. I've found though that when you do this you usually need more boomers.

Another fun trick is, during a battle, sneak up behind some sniper or AV user who's hiding off in the periphery. Plant a boomer under his ass. If it's a hotter battle, do the same thing but use a spitfire. Ideally if you do the spitfire trick, you should have a jammer at the ready. It's a pretty well known trick, so expect the guy to turn around, flip DL on and try to kill you. What's espeically cool with this is if he doesn't move, the spitfire doesn't shoot. But if you jammer him, we'll start moving and then the spitfire opens up.

[elana]

As for the ant trap, the best was this one night where we were fighting on Ishundar. We were defending the tech plant in the north. We kept using the ant trap and they, repeatedly, fell for this. MaryKateOlsen kept coming in with a gal load of people and each time we'd have some new havoc waiting for them in addition to the ant. We'd bring radiators, magriders, thumpers, etc, just to see how fast we could wipe them out. It was a riot.

[Rahl]

Yeah, that was a hell of a night. My favorite part was when they did the tripple gal drop. dogtag OSed the first one and a half, then the maelstroms, CE, exploding ANT, lashers and Reavers wtfpwnd the others. That has to be the fastest a tripple gal-drop was ever defeated.

[LuckYx]

i recently certed sniping... its worthless although i did get about 20 kills in 30 minutes with it.

oh if only i had a computer that could handle the battles on forersal and hossin then i wouldn't have to stay out of the big battles

[snipegrzywa]

First off, dont try sniping on hossin... IT sucks. That cont is the devil.


On boomers, I also find that they are good for taking down spawn tubes. My load out is 3 boomers, a med aplicator and a rek. If their si a pain mod... Go in, lay a mine or two, go out and heal. Go back in, repaet till there are 2 boomers in each spawn tubes. To get mroe keep your locker filled. Use the lockers behind the spawn room... no one ever goes down there, and if they do they usually dont stop adn look around. Plus, if you have a terminal there is a higher chance of them noticing. Once all tubes are set, get a jammer out and toss them away. last i played sometimes the boomers wouldnt go off with jsut 1 jammer, so i would ahve to throw all 3, at each of the tubes. Once you get it down you can do it pretty quick.

[Flattfoot]

Ummm... the highest kill count I ever had was from using nothing but CE all night.... I think that was one of 2 times I ever broke 100.

Some tricks I use to do....

Killing fields..

Basically you're going to deploy EVERY piece of CE you're able to. Pick a patch of road lay mines down the middle, turrents on the sides with motion sensors. Then you use yourself as bait and drag whatever vehicle happens to be coming down the road through the middle of it. Usually they are so focused on you they don't see the trap till its to late. I've reliabley killed reavers, herassers and lightnings doing this. I've also managed to make a tank run for cover....

Also, when you deploy a motion sensor or turrnet outside. Put a mine right next to it. People in vehicles usually just run them over because its faster than shooting them. By the time they see the mine its to late.

Well, all this is based on when I last played so things may be different now... Don't you just love trolls. :)

[martyr]

flatt! come back to us!

my CE is usually tower defense - lots on the roof, and the 4-point square spit network at the base and diamond pattern of sensors to help them.

then i sit in a phalanx until there are some backpacks on the roof, at which point i put a mine under each one of them to hide them from view. i love doin that.

spitfires on the roof are good for one thing - distracting/panicking enemies and making them stumble onto your mines.

[elana]

Use the lockers behind the spawn room... no one ever goes down there, and if they do they usually dont stop adn look around.

Furthermore, a lot of people will go down there when they are AFK. So sometimes you'll walk in there and see somebody, and they just sit there. You can walk right around them and get away with it.

[SirKibbleX]

Yeah, I just got 192 lines playing Tetris. Good times, addictive music.

But back on topic, yeah using CE is fun, and the #1 thing to remember when seriously setting up CE, is to consider some of your enemies' likely attack paths, and use that info to set better traps.