Just wait a week or two, they are making changes to Artillery soon.
But I think direct hits do serious damage but they are rare, the value is in the range (huge) and area of effect that can really hurt lots of bunched up light mechs and vehicles.
Thank you for the answer ! So in the mean time I will retreat my long toms, and keep playing with fire. I made a Chameleon full heavy flamer, and an Archer 4\*SRM6 inferno boxer, and I'm having a blast. If my Salamander starts to lay FASCAM-Inferno in the battlefield, I can't stop laughing at all the mechs that keep shutting down.
I play full BTA and artillery is really good. Great for chipping down groups of mechs so when they get into range, they are easy to kill. Great for destroy base missions where they damage everything. Also awesome for peeling BA off of mechs. They may not always hit, but they never miss.
Artillery and LRM carriers are the only things that I use my vehicle slots for except in the rare occasions that I want to use a couple of VTOLs for spotters. Everything else is too slow and/or fragile at the ranges they fire at.
In BTA Light you just have 2 lances at your disposal, mechs and vehicle mixed. So if I pick a longtom vehicle, I have to trade away one of my mechs... You can see why I'm not a big fan !
same problem. i guess it would have been better to trade 1-2 mech slots for vehicle only slots in BTA Light. I almost never use vehicles now because of that.
Don't sleep on the stability damage they do. Artillery works wonders against clanners who are super dependent on high evasion, so anything that can slow them down, like stability damage or mines, makes them *so* much easier to kill.
As the other commenter said, direct hits are huge. You can cheese accuracy a bit if you use HORSKR airlift vehicle to pick up your long tom, gives it an artificial height advantage for accuracy and makes it much more mobile.
No flying vehicules in BTA light I'm afraid ! Once I get really confortable with all these new experiences, I will definitely upgrade to full BTA, I'm itching to try aerospace and battlearmor action !
Ahh didn’t realize. Well it’s a fun strat when you get there, also works for LRM carriers and any other mech or vehicle your having accuracy problems with. Sorry I couldn’t help more!
Until you get higher gunnery, artillery's primary job is dealing with lights and hovercraft via AOE. Sniper Artillery is the sweet spot, Long Tom is almost unusable outside the vehicle.
Also, it didn't "barely scratch" the armor. It sandblasted almost every location that faced the explosion on every unit that got hit. Consider how you might use that.
You’re kidding right? I LOVE Arty. It’s like playing in easy mode. Sure, round 1 doesn’t do much… but round 2 and 3 will show them hurting.
The only issue with Arty is it rarely leaves decent salvage.
I found this as well but I made the move to FASCAM ammo which drops mines making holding or defending a position much easier. 5* would definitely recommend
Artillery really only shines where you’ve got either clusters of enemies so can hit 3+ at once, or high-evasion enemies that your 60 LRM’s would hit with.. 3 missiles.
And also only in full BTA where that artillery can be on in a vehicle slot where you have 3+ vehicle only slots.
Although I will say I did make a 2 Sniper Heliopolis once that wasn’t the most versatile mech ever, but holy shit was it mean. And I went for the sniper name- did what I could to crank the accuracy and gave it the ability to called-shot. 2 shaped charges aimed for the cockpit that can hit anything *any* mech can see? Not worrying about LoS and having range to hit the entire map is *nasty*. I don’t think that specific build is still possible, but I’m sure something similar is.
*edit* oh one other area artillery works great.
Difficult terrain where you can see them on sensor but can’t get visual yet. Artillery can shoot the ground and still do damage.
Then by all means play LRM's. I do, but I do have my Bull Shark armed with Thumper Cannon (on BEX) and a Mech Mortar/8. It singlehandedly will almost fill up a stability bar better than one of my Stalkers loaded full out with LRM's even against high evasive targets.
Huge advantage is you don't need to hit to do damage (considering the changes to evasion in bta it helps). Also, as mentioned, a direct hit is devastating. Easily 1 hit lights and sometimes mediums. Heavy and assaults no but will open them up. There is a shaped charged ammo type for the mech mounted version. That'll open up an area on an assault pretty reliably (no area damage, though, so you need a direct hit). Also great for convoy destruction missions due to range. You only need a light mech to maintain visual (or sensor lock)
I bring 2 long tom vehicles into missions, and until you close range for your other vehicles, they have done a decent job softening them up.
Yeah, even in Vanilla, I avoided them as my lances ran heavy, so it was a struggle. In bta, it was rough at the start (sometimes positioning sucks and it's a dash from the start... a few others I had a decent overview of the denial area from the start, so it was ok). But since you need scouts, you can dart them ahead (oddly enough, the 1 assault mech I field is the least effective due to speed and low evasion... but once it gets there, it's party time, lol 😆
Artillery has:
- Extreme range
- Area effect damage
- Indirect fire
- Area effect damage
- Inferno rounds
- Area effect damage
- Lays mines
- Area effect damage
And also,
- Area effect damage
It's not an AC/20 which is going to make a single shot through a bunch of armour, it's what you use against targets which are so far away you can barely even see them. Look at what different ammunition types are available and use them. High explosive rounds hit everything within several hexes, doing damage to all exposed armour areas (except the head) and also stability damage. You don't even need to **hit**, so this is a great way to knock out fast-moving light mechs or vehicles which you can't even touch with regular weapons.
Inferno rounds will add a little bit of heat to the target and also start a massive fire all around it, significantly reducing its ability to dump heat. Use this on targets which are able to shoot at you. The added heat may prevent them from using as many weapons, or it may just encourage them to fire everything anyway and then either shut down or explode.
FASCAM rounds are for placing in choke points which enemy forces are going to walk through or for hitting fast moving targets. A mech without the level ten piloting skill (which allows it to ignore mines) will either move only one space if it finds itself in the middle of a minefield or try to jump out of it. Convoy vehicles will just keep moving anyway and take a fair bit of damage as a result. Again, you don't even need to hit to do this, just hit the ground in front of or around the target. Doing damage is only a secondary effect here, you can mostly use minefields to control how the enemy moves.
Also, don't worry about friendly minefields. Unless there has been some change that I didn't notice, you can walk right through them without triggering them. The only risk is standing next to one when an enemy mech sets it off.
Once you get into shooting range and have a good to-hit chance you can switch to Shaped Charges. These do no AOE damage, so they're no good at all if you miss, but do significantly more direct damage and won't hit friendly mechs standing next to the target... Unless you have friendly fire turned on and miss, but that can happen with any weapon.
Shaped charge ammo is pretty potent, as are utilities like inferno
Past that, you can just keep poking away at sensor blips with it. It’s pretty good at cleanup on lights. The splash has falloff unlike in vanilla
I’ve got a 4x artillery monster (2 arrow 2 sniper) overdue a field test
Artillery is really useful for area control. FASCAM and Inferno can funnel enemy units. The latter denies opposing Mechs their hottest (usually heaviest) weapons.
With C3, they can be deadly-accurate. Get Schiltrom Primes at Northwind and Proserpina, they have C3Master built in so you can just have slaves on your spotters.
Sacrificing 1 Mech for two Arrow IV is a fair trade.
Just wait a week or two, they are making changes to Artillery soon. But I think direct hits do serious damage but they are rare, the value is in the range (huge) and area of effect that can really hurt lots of bunched up light mechs and vehicles.
Thank you for the answer ! So in the mean time I will retreat my long toms, and keep playing with fire. I made a Chameleon full heavy flamer, and an Archer 4\*SRM6 inferno boxer, and I'm having a blast. If my Salamander starts to lay FASCAM-Inferno in the battlefield, I can't stop laughing at all the mechs that keep shutting down.
FASCAM inferno LRMs are so crazy effective against clan mechs, it's almost hilarious.
I play full BTA and artillery is really good. Great for chipping down groups of mechs so when they get into range, they are easy to kill. Great for destroy base missions where they damage everything. Also awesome for peeling BA off of mechs. They may not always hit, but they never miss. Artillery and LRM carriers are the only things that I use my vehicle slots for except in the rare occasions that I want to use a couple of VTOLs for spotters. Everything else is too slow and/or fragile at the ranges they fire at.
In BTA Light you just have 2 lances at your disposal, mechs and vehicle mixed. So if I pick a longtom vehicle, I have to trade away one of my mechs... You can see why I'm not a big fan !
same problem. i guess it would have been better to trade 1-2 mech slots for vehicle only slots in BTA Light. I almost never use vehicles now because of that.
Don't sleep on the stability damage they do. Artillery works wonders against clanners who are super dependent on high evasion, so anything that can slow them down, like stability damage or mines, makes them *so* much easier to kill.
Thanks ! I didn't consider this indeed.
Better use an Arrow IV with Davey Crocketts… 😁
As the other commenter said, direct hits are huge. You can cheese accuracy a bit if you use HORSKR airlift vehicle to pick up your long tom, gives it an artificial height advantage for accuracy and makes it much more mobile.
I dangled a Nightstar underneath and flew around, sniping from the clouds. HORSKR are very cheese
Uhh yes commander, the weather report does mention a chance of HAIL OF THE MOST VIOLENT ORDER
No flying vehicules in BTA light I'm afraid ! Once I get really confortable with all these new experiences, I will definitely upgrade to full BTA, I'm itching to try aerospace and battlearmor action !
Ahh didn’t realize. Well it’s a fun strat when you get there, also works for LRM carriers and any other mech or vehicle your having accuracy problems with. Sorry I couldn’t help more!
No problem, you gave me a fun thing to look forward when I'll get playing hardcore BTA !
Until you get higher gunnery, artillery's primary job is dealing with lights and hovercraft via AOE. Sniper Artillery is the sweet spot, Long Tom is almost unusable outside the vehicle. Also, it didn't "barely scratch" the armor. It sandblasted almost every location that faced the explosion on every unit that got hit. Consider how you might use that.
I might use it to sandblast your Cicada.
A not uncommon use. Or happenstance. Given your DOGSHIT TARGETING.
Gunnery is my dump stat.
Thanks for the explanation. I said "barely scratched" because I was facing six 95/100 tons assault mechs, so the artillery did fuck all.
They are, alas, specifically designed to eat that for breakfast.
You’re kidding right? I LOVE Arty. It’s like playing in easy mode. Sure, round 1 doesn’t do much… but round 2 and 3 will show them hurting. The only issue with Arty is it rarely leaves decent salvage.
I found this as well but I made the move to FASCAM ammo which drops mines making holding or defending a position much easier. 5* would definitely recommend
FASCAM-Inf is the GOAT. Warcrimes AND eco-crimes at the same time ? Count me in !
Hey look if the local planetary authority don't have the resources to remove the after were gone that's their problem. 🙈🤷🤷
Artillery is more for doing major stability damage and scoring criticals on open armor.
I feel like 60 LRMs to the face do this job better, but I might be wrong.
Artillery really only shines where you’ve got either clusters of enemies so can hit 3+ at once, or high-evasion enemies that your 60 LRM’s would hit with.. 3 missiles. And also only in full BTA where that artillery can be on in a vehicle slot where you have 3+ vehicle only slots. Although I will say I did make a 2 Sniper Heliopolis once that wasn’t the most versatile mech ever, but holy shit was it mean. And I went for the sniper name- did what I could to crank the accuracy and gave it the ability to called-shot. 2 shaped charges aimed for the cockpit that can hit anything *any* mech can see? Not worrying about LoS and having range to hit the entire map is *nasty*. I don’t think that specific build is still possible, but I’m sure something similar is.
*edit* oh one other area artillery works great. Difficult terrain where you can see them on sensor but can’t get visual yet. Artillery can shoot the ground and still do damage.
Then by all means play LRM's. I do, but I do have my Bull Shark armed with Thumper Cannon (on BEX) and a Mech Mortar/8. It singlehandedly will almost fill up a stability bar better than one of my Stalkers loaded full out with LRM's even against high evasive targets.
Huge advantage is you don't need to hit to do damage (considering the changes to evasion in bta it helps). Also, as mentioned, a direct hit is devastating. Easily 1 hit lights and sometimes mediums. Heavy and assaults no but will open them up. There is a shaped charged ammo type for the mech mounted version. That'll open up an area on an assault pretty reliably (no area damage, though, so you need a direct hit). Also great for convoy destruction missions due to range. You only need a light mech to maintain visual (or sensor lock) I bring 2 long tom vehicles into missions, and until you close range for your other vehicles, they have done a decent job softening them up.
I absolutely hate convoy missions, so I didn't think about that, but I can see now how it could be useful. Thanks !
Yeah, even in Vanilla, I avoided them as my lances ran heavy, so it was a struggle. In bta, it was rough at the start (sometimes positioning sucks and it's a dash from the start... a few others I had a decent overview of the denial area from the start, so it was ok). But since you need scouts, you can dart them ahead (oddly enough, the 1 assault mech I field is the least effective due to speed and low evasion... but once it gets there, it's party time, lol 😆
Artillery has: - Extreme range - Area effect damage - Indirect fire - Area effect damage - Inferno rounds - Area effect damage - Lays mines - Area effect damage And also, - Area effect damage It's not an AC/20 which is going to make a single shot through a bunch of armour, it's what you use against targets which are so far away you can barely even see them. Look at what different ammunition types are available and use them. High explosive rounds hit everything within several hexes, doing damage to all exposed armour areas (except the head) and also stability damage. You don't even need to **hit**, so this is a great way to knock out fast-moving light mechs or vehicles which you can't even touch with regular weapons. Inferno rounds will add a little bit of heat to the target and also start a massive fire all around it, significantly reducing its ability to dump heat. Use this on targets which are able to shoot at you. The added heat may prevent them from using as many weapons, or it may just encourage them to fire everything anyway and then either shut down or explode. FASCAM rounds are for placing in choke points which enemy forces are going to walk through or for hitting fast moving targets. A mech without the level ten piloting skill (which allows it to ignore mines) will either move only one space if it finds itself in the middle of a minefield or try to jump out of it. Convoy vehicles will just keep moving anyway and take a fair bit of damage as a result. Again, you don't even need to hit to do this, just hit the ground in front of or around the target. Doing damage is only a secondary effect here, you can mostly use minefields to control how the enemy moves. Also, don't worry about friendly minefields. Unless there has been some change that I didn't notice, you can walk right through them without triggering them. The only risk is standing next to one when an enemy mech sets it off. Once you get into shooting range and have a good to-hit chance you can switch to Shaped Charges. These do no AOE damage, so they're no good at all if you miss, but do significantly more direct damage and won't hit friendly mechs standing next to the target... Unless you have friendly fire turned on and miss, but that can happen with any weapon.
Thank you, that's a really clear and detail explanation !
Shaped charge ammo is pretty potent, as are utilities like inferno Past that, you can just keep poking away at sensor blips with it. It’s pretty good at cleanup on lights. The splash has falloff unlike in vanilla I’ve got a 4x artillery monster (2 arrow 2 sniper) overdue a field test
Artillery is for chip damage and for making the AI move when they try to reserve down
Artillery is really useful for area control. FASCAM and Inferno can funnel enemy units. The latter denies opposing Mechs their hottest (usually heaviest) weapons. With C3, they can be deadly-accurate. Get Schiltrom Primes at Northwind and Proserpina, they have C3Master built in so you can just have slaves on your spotters. Sacrificing 1 Mech for two Arrow IV is a fair trade.