General Breetai wrote:
A small guide to iron gator. etc ...
Nice guide. Note though that in my opinion, MEC has the advantage most of the time, your guide depicts MEC position as being weaker. A couple extra notes:
- If MEC is to succeed, the AA gun needs to go, which in my opinion is quite easy. First approach I would try is to have rocket infantry shoot it down from the shore. Second, many HIND gunners have learned to TV the thing having the chopper outside AA range which is very easy and works like a charm (single shot blow). APC fire will also keep the AA in check, however, IMHO the other options work better from the safety standpoint, since the distance for the APC to be able to AIM properly puts it at risk, and the wavy movement makes aiming moderately difficult. Once the AA is out, successful chopper deployment is very straight forward. *** One note about blowing the AA. Have in mind that MEC will take possession of the AA after capturing certain flags, so you will lose points if you blow the AA when this is happening. ***
- Assaults on the far side of the carrier work very well, even with an active AA gun. A single well organized squad can do HALO jumps from the transport chopper here, or low flight to that side of the Deck. A properly coordinated team would have at least two squad leaders jump first, which brings a minimum potential of 12 soldiers on deck.
- APC support is crucial if you are even attempting to take the carrier using boats. I don't like this avenue of approach, but it seems to work relatively well on a successful blitz at the start or when chopper fire is keeping infantry busy on the main deck.
- In my opinion, All MEC has to do to win is to take control of both flags on the Deck and keep the SEALs under the flight deck. Once this is done, the only serious threat to MEC is the SEALs chopper if it is still airborne. Having the Deck and a decent chopper crew, it is very easy to maintain the positions while thwarting the SEALs advances. The amount of ways up from the lower decks into the bridge and flight decks are limited, and thus simple to cover.
- By the same topic, SEALs should probably avoid losing the deck and the bridge at the same time. The AA should be manned and repaired at all times. A smart engineer will know that most enemies do aim at the AA mini-gun tower instead of the missile array, so exiting the AA will most of the time keep you from harm if the tower blows because exiting puts you by the missile array. Have the commander throw as many repair crates as possible around the AA gun and exit to repair when damaged. At some point, this was one of the ways I attempted the Engineering badge due to the amount of repair points I got from keeping the AA active.
- If you are manning the AA, you have the responsibility of keeping an eye on the far end of the carrier. I have stopped countless HALO paratroopers. Also, drawing fire from the APC and combat chopper is a sure way to help your team. Although in general I am opposed to fighting commanders, I think manning the AA gun is probably one of the things that a commander can do in Iron Gator.
- Speaking of commanders, I do try and keep the Satellite unit up always. The UAV has a lower priority. The reason for this is that the Satellite is a lot more useful for pinpointing sneak attacks than the UAV. In fact. the UAV can be very confusing for some when placed on top of the carrier. People do run paranoid for a guy that can be several decks above or below, but appears near on the UAV view. As a MEC SF soldier, I would then attempt to destroy the AA, then the Satellite then the UAV.
- Sniper fire is relatively hard to draw on this map. Being below deck, you will have very close quarters that do not justify the long ranges of the sniper rifle. On deck, you are way too vulnerable to chopper fire. There are probably a few situations where sniper fire is called for, i.e. supporting an attack on a main deck flag, but in general, this map does not lend itself for this type of fighting. If explosives are set not to kill friendlies, they might come in Handy for defensive purposes. There are tons of locations to place these babies.
- One strategy that has worked pretty good for me, is to pair a good APC with an engineer in a Jet-Ski. I ride around the APC being a tough target for rockets, while the APC does its stuff. It requires a lot of rockets to manage destroying an APC in this situation, making the couple vulnerable only to chopper fire.
Wow, did not mean to rant that long. Anyway, Iron Gator can be great or totally suck, depending on balance. Too much balance or too little balance make for very very long games.