Note: This is my first guide ever, so please go easy with the flames, but corrections and suggestions are gratefully received.
A short guide to walkers and tanks.
Both walkers and tanks are extremely powerful in BF2142, but they are not designed to do the same task. Walkers are close range damage machines, very effective at killing infantry, are great against tanks at close range, and (assuming there is someone in the f2 slot) are useful against air units.
Tanks are better suited to fighting at a slightly longer range then walkers, are also very effective against infantry, can destroy walkers at close range, but are fairly weak against air units.
Walkers
The two walkers are essentially identical. The main gun has a different graphic and sound, but functions the same.
Basics
There are two positions in the walker – the driver, and the AA gunner.
As driver, you control the torso twist and the legs. In the centre of your screen is a ring with a hollow heart shaped marker, a solid heart shaped marker and (if you have a gunner) a solid triangle on the ring. The hollow heart shaped marker is the direction your legs are pointing, the solid heart shaped marker is the direction you are looking, and the triangle is the direction your gunner is looking.
As the gunner, the ring has two arrow markers, both pointing in the same direction – these show which way the legs are pointing relative to you.
The walker can run. Check your key configuration to find out how (default = shift). The advantage to doing this is getting places faster (duh) and presenting a harder target. The downside of running is that your view shakes more, making it harder to hit things.
Walkers can also crouch (again, check key config, default = z), which can be useful for taking cover, or squishing infantry below you.
Weapons
The driver is equipped with two weapons, a rapid fire anti-infantry machine gun, and anti-armour missiles. The machine gun is lethal against infantry, but has quite low splash damage, and also kicks up a large cloud of debris when it hits anything. These factors mean that it is best used in close, where it is easier to hit things, but it does kill infantry very quickly. The machine gun overheats fairly quickly, so keep an eye on the heat meter, and switch to burst fire if needed. The machine gun does nothing against armour, except maybe blind them if you hit the viewport, and get their attention if you fire at them from a distance.
The secondary weapon for the driver is the anti-armour missiles. Probably the first thing you will notice about the missiles is the slightly odd trajectory. The right missile will travel across your screen to the left, while the left missile travels to the right. This makes hitting a target at long range quite difficult, although it can be done by aiming to one side of the target, and then aiming at the other side for the next missile. The launcher also overheats quite quickly, so the best way to use them is by regularly firing missiles at a rate of around 2 in 3 seconds – this will allow you to maintain your fire without overheating. To destroy a tank with these missiles, move up close to the tank, activating your shield when he is about to fire, start firing your missiles when you get close, and watch him go boom.
The gunner is equipped with a machine gun and EMP missiles, and his turret can swivel 360 degrees and look up. The machine gun is fairly effective against infantry (although it has almost no splash damage), but is primarily designed as an anti-air weapon. The EMP missiles can lock on to and home in on air units, shutting down their controls and dropping them from the sky. The EMP missiles may shut down ground units (can anyone confirm or deny this?), but it is very hard to hit ground units, since the missiles head upwards very quickly if they don’t have a lock.
The machine gun overheats very quickly, so remember to fire in bursts, and lead (aim slightly ahead of) air targets. When emp’ing air targets, you get 2 shots before the launcher needs to reload. I find it works best to fire the missiles with a 1-2 second gap, rather then both at once. This way the gunship/air transports controls will be shut down for longer, and it will be harder for the pilot to regain control.
As a gunner, DO NOT shoot at enemy tanks off in the distance! You will do no damage, but will alert the tank and give away your position.
As stated before, walkers are great at close in fighting. They can swivel their torsos quite rapidly, allowing them to blast any pesky infantry, and their height allows them to shot over many low obstacles.
Walker weak spots
Walkers have a few weak spots, the most obvious of which are the legs, but the knee is the weakest section easily accessable by other armour. The easiest way to actually hit the knee is to wait until it is standing still, or preferably immobilized by an EMP blast. There is also the rear of the 'waist', see here, 4th post down, for a picture.
Another weak spot is the 'skywalker vents', the little vents on the bottom of the walker's, which are only really able to be attacked by infantry, see here for a picture. Due to the presence of these vents, you should never stand still near a flag, as some annoying engineer might run up and put a rocket into those vents - which is a 1 hit kill (and even small arms fire does damage).
Tanks.
Unlike the walkers, the two tanks (EU tiger and PAC hovertank) handle very differently, and thus shall be given some separate sections, but they do have some features in common.
Basics.
Tanks are best used at medium range. At this range they don’t have to worry so much about being surrounded, and the shell drop is not a huge problem. The tank gun has enormous splash damage, and is highly effective against infantry – its slow re-fire rate is its only drawback. The most effective way to kill infantry is to aim at their feet, or at a nearby surface. For example, if someone is hiding between an obstacle and a building, shoot the building behind him. The biggest disadvantage both tanks face against infantry is that they cannot depress their gun very far, meaning that people can sit next to your tank quite comfortable (although you can try to run them over if they do that).
With both tanks, you rear is the weakest spot, so be careful not to let anyone sneak up behind you. When using the tiger, you can swivel the turret to look behind you, but in the hovertank, use the external views to glance behind you.
When fighting another tank, the best way is to spot them without you spotting them, since this will give you at least one free shot. In a face to face duel, try to duck behind cover while your gun reloads, hit your shield when they fire, hide for a few seconds when they use their shield, and make sure you hit with your shots.
To fight a walker, keep your distance! If you get close to a walker, you will die. Ideally, you want to be 100m+ away, and in an area where you can quickly duck behind cover after taking your shot. Use the marks on your sight to aim with (you learn which mark to use with a bit of experience), take your shot, and duck behind cover. When using the Tiger, you should probably be side on to the walker to allow for ease of moving in and out of cover; when using the hovertank, you have to be front on – so use the sideslip. The weakest points of the walkers are the legs, so hit them if possible. However, they are a relatively small/hard to hit target (especially if the walker is moving) and it is better to hit the torso then to miss the legs, so don't aim at the legs unless you are fairly certain you can hit them.
Both tanks are quite weak against air units. The MG can damage air units, but it takes a while to kill them. The main gun is devastating against flying things, but it is not easy to hit them due to the slow speed of the shell and the low maximum elevation of the gun.
It is possible to kill the titan’s gun turrets with the tanks, you just have to park on a hill to get a bit more gun elevation.
EU tank.
This tank is fairly traditional, with tracks and a turret equipped with a high powered cannon, and a swiveling machine gun on the top of the turret, operated by the passenger. This tank is not particularly fast or maneuverable, but its turret rotates at a good speed. It can sometimes run into problems negotiating tight spaces - external view can help here if you get stuck.
Hovertank.
This tank is different, some people love it (including me), some people hate it. The most important thing to remember about it is that, due to it hovering, it has some control lag. To help control this, don’t jerk the mouse about. If you are slow and gentle with the mouse, the tank will respond nicely. The best feature of this tank is the ability to sideslip. Sideslipping means that you can travel much faster than the tiger by slipping around obstacles, and you can evade fire while still keeping your front pointed towards the enemy.
Due to the lack of a turret, hovertanks are not great at capping flags – it’s quite easy for things to get behind you and blast you. Instead, treat this tank more as highly mobile self propelled artillery – hang back outside the base and blast anything that is not friendly.
Tank weak spots
The weakest spot of tank armour is the rear. Many weapons give 1 hit kills to the rear of tanks. The side armour is also quite weak, with the side turret armour being weaker than the side chassis armour.
Thanks to Kmarion for pointing out the details of the weak spots.
A short guide to walkers and tanks.
Both walkers and tanks are extremely powerful in BF2142, but they are not designed to do the same task. Walkers are close range damage machines, very effective at killing infantry, are great against tanks at close range, and (assuming there is someone in the f2 slot) are useful against air units.
Tanks are better suited to fighting at a slightly longer range then walkers, are also very effective against infantry, can destroy walkers at close range, but are fairly weak against air units.
Walkers
The two walkers are essentially identical. The main gun has a different graphic and sound, but functions the same.
Basics
There are two positions in the walker – the driver, and the AA gunner.
As driver, you control the torso twist and the legs. In the centre of your screen is a ring with a hollow heart shaped marker, a solid heart shaped marker and (if you have a gunner) a solid triangle on the ring. The hollow heart shaped marker is the direction your legs are pointing, the solid heart shaped marker is the direction you are looking, and the triangle is the direction your gunner is looking.
As the gunner, the ring has two arrow markers, both pointing in the same direction – these show which way the legs are pointing relative to you.
The walker can run. Check your key configuration to find out how (default = shift). The advantage to doing this is getting places faster (duh) and presenting a harder target. The downside of running is that your view shakes more, making it harder to hit things.
Walkers can also crouch (again, check key config, default = z), which can be useful for taking cover, or squishing infantry below you.
Weapons
The driver is equipped with two weapons, a rapid fire anti-infantry machine gun, and anti-armour missiles. The machine gun is lethal against infantry, but has quite low splash damage, and also kicks up a large cloud of debris when it hits anything. These factors mean that it is best used in close, where it is easier to hit things, but it does kill infantry very quickly. The machine gun overheats fairly quickly, so keep an eye on the heat meter, and switch to burst fire if needed. The machine gun does nothing against armour, except maybe blind them if you hit the viewport, and get their attention if you fire at them from a distance.
The secondary weapon for the driver is the anti-armour missiles. Probably the first thing you will notice about the missiles is the slightly odd trajectory. The right missile will travel across your screen to the left, while the left missile travels to the right. This makes hitting a target at long range quite difficult, although it can be done by aiming to one side of the target, and then aiming at the other side for the next missile. The launcher also overheats quite quickly, so the best way to use them is by regularly firing missiles at a rate of around 2 in 3 seconds – this will allow you to maintain your fire without overheating. To destroy a tank with these missiles, move up close to the tank, activating your shield when he is about to fire, start firing your missiles when you get close, and watch him go boom.
The gunner is equipped with a machine gun and EMP missiles, and his turret can swivel 360 degrees and look up. The machine gun is fairly effective against infantry (although it has almost no splash damage), but is primarily designed as an anti-air weapon. The EMP missiles can lock on to and home in on air units, shutting down their controls and dropping them from the sky. The EMP missiles may shut down ground units (can anyone confirm or deny this?), but it is very hard to hit ground units, since the missiles head upwards very quickly if they don’t have a lock.
The machine gun overheats very quickly, so remember to fire in bursts, and lead (aim slightly ahead of) air targets. When emp’ing air targets, you get 2 shots before the launcher needs to reload. I find it works best to fire the missiles with a 1-2 second gap, rather then both at once. This way the gunship/air transports controls will be shut down for longer, and it will be harder for the pilot to regain control.
As a gunner, DO NOT shoot at enemy tanks off in the distance! You will do no damage, but will alert the tank and give away your position.
As stated before, walkers are great at close in fighting. They can swivel their torsos quite rapidly, allowing them to blast any pesky infantry, and their height allows them to shot over many low obstacles.
Walker weak spots
Walkers have a few weak spots, the most obvious of which are the legs, but the knee is the weakest section easily accessable by other armour. The easiest way to actually hit the knee is to wait until it is standing still, or preferably immobilized by an EMP blast. There is also the rear of the 'waist', see here, 4th post down, for a picture.
Another weak spot is the 'skywalker vents', the little vents on the bottom of the walker's, which are only really able to be attacked by infantry, see here for a picture. Due to the presence of these vents, you should never stand still near a flag, as some annoying engineer might run up and put a rocket into those vents - which is a 1 hit kill (and even small arms fire does damage).
Tanks.
Unlike the walkers, the two tanks (EU tiger and PAC hovertank) handle very differently, and thus shall be given some separate sections, but they do have some features in common.
Basics.
Tanks are best used at medium range. At this range they don’t have to worry so much about being surrounded, and the shell drop is not a huge problem. The tank gun has enormous splash damage, and is highly effective against infantry – its slow re-fire rate is its only drawback. The most effective way to kill infantry is to aim at their feet, or at a nearby surface. For example, if someone is hiding between an obstacle and a building, shoot the building behind him. The biggest disadvantage both tanks face against infantry is that they cannot depress their gun very far, meaning that people can sit next to your tank quite comfortable (although you can try to run them over if they do that).
With both tanks, you rear is the weakest spot, so be careful not to let anyone sneak up behind you. When using the tiger, you can swivel the turret to look behind you, but in the hovertank, use the external views to glance behind you.
When fighting another tank, the best way is to spot them without you spotting them, since this will give you at least one free shot. In a face to face duel, try to duck behind cover while your gun reloads, hit your shield when they fire, hide for a few seconds when they use their shield, and make sure you hit with your shots.
To fight a walker, keep your distance! If you get close to a walker, you will die. Ideally, you want to be 100m+ away, and in an area where you can quickly duck behind cover after taking your shot. Use the marks on your sight to aim with (you learn which mark to use with a bit of experience), take your shot, and duck behind cover. When using the Tiger, you should probably be side on to the walker to allow for ease of moving in and out of cover; when using the hovertank, you have to be front on – so use the sideslip. The weakest points of the walkers are the legs, so hit them if possible. However, they are a relatively small/hard to hit target (especially if the walker is moving) and it is better to hit the torso then to miss the legs, so don't aim at the legs unless you are fairly certain you can hit them.
Both tanks are quite weak against air units. The MG can damage air units, but it takes a while to kill them. The main gun is devastating against flying things, but it is not easy to hit them due to the slow speed of the shell and the low maximum elevation of the gun.
It is possible to kill the titan’s gun turrets with the tanks, you just have to park on a hill to get a bit more gun elevation.
EU tank.
This tank is fairly traditional, with tracks and a turret equipped with a high powered cannon, and a swiveling machine gun on the top of the turret, operated by the passenger. This tank is not particularly fast or maneuverable, but its turret rotates at a good speed. It can sometimes run into problems negotiating tight spaces - external view can help here if you get stuck.
Hovertank.
This tank is different, some people love it (including me), some people hate it. The most important thing to remember about it is that, due to it hovering, it has some control lag. To help control this, don’t jerk the mouse about. If you are slow and gentle with the mouse, the tank will respond nicely. The best feature of this tank is the ability to sideslip. Sideslipping means that you can travel much faster than the tiger by slipping around obstacles, and you can evade fire while still keeping your front pointed towards the enemy.
Due to the lack of a turret, hovertanks are not great at capping flags – it’s quite easy for things to get behind you and blast you. Instead, treat this tank more as highly mobile self propelled artillery – hang back outside the base and blast anything that is not friendly.
Tank weak spots
The weakest spot of tank armour is the rear. Many weapons give 1 hit kills to the rear of tanks. The side armour is also quite weak, with the side turret armour being weaker than the side chassis armour.
Thanks to Kmarion for pointing out the details of the weak spots.
Last edited by FrenziedAU (2006-10-25 03:57:56)
