Units:
Albatross | Condor | Eagle | Falcon | Hawk | Owl | Pelican | Phoenix | Roc | Vulture | War Pigeon
How to airmine quicker than normal? ET has asked me how to do this. It is a trick I learned from PatBuchanan when he was still in Term. Now, we all know how to airmine. But do you know how to airmine faster than you are normally aloud? Here's the trick. It all depends on how fast you can hit "C" and clik your mouse. Sound simple? Maybe not as simple as you think. If you notice, whenever you hit "C" you lay an airmine. If you repeatedly hit "C", chances are all you are doing is stacking mines. Now what I want you to do is click your mouse in different parts on the battle screen and hit "C" at about the same time. You will notice that now your alb will move and still lay down a mine. In fact every time you choose a different direction, you basically reset the amount of time between each airmine. It also helps to scatter them over a bigger area. I suggest using this technique to cover a large area so that you will effect more units. And then group mines closer together where you really need it.
Condors have high damage, over VERY high cooldown. That makes them very ineffective killers.
Condors should only be used to clear alt-charge (air mines). Their Alt-Charge Eradicator makes them overpowered against enemy albs.
Personally I would not encourage the use of Eagles, as their damage is too low. Pelicans would make better AG.
Eagles should be used early game to clean out lightly-armoured units. Their good speed and above average armour make them good units to hunt for ballistas.
The Eagle is a heavilly armored V aviation unit. Like all V units it has average damage weapons and average cd. It is best used early to mid game. Early game to take out albs balls and any light enemy units. This is a good aviation unit to portal mob the enemy with as it can fire on any unit that shows up as well as take a lot of punishment before it gets killed.
Falcon's are effective AA during the battle. It is how they are used.
However, Falcons do tend to have low Hit Points and next to no armor, and with a high speed and cloak, makes them especially dangerous.
However, due to their Lack of HP, make use of the Anti-Grav for them. These do make some impressive Albatross Killers, hit and run slower AA units, suchas the Owl if they don't move fast and it they can't cloak detect.
This will limit the enemy minefields, and allow the Condor's with Alt-Charge remover to clear a smaller mine field rather than a large one.
Hawks and Falcons equiped with Anti-Grav makes enemy mine fields their hunting ground as enemy units are more than likely to use their mine fields as safe harbours or lines of passage.
Falcons can be effective EG AA too. It just depends on how you use them during EG.
Compared to Phoenixes, Falcons cannot kill enemy Vultures and War Pigeons as quickly. However, Falcons do have the advantage of cloak and speed. While Phoenixes typically stay near POCs to defend against Vultures and War Pigeons, Falcons should be patrolling enemy portals during EG. Since they can be cloaked, enemy would not see you and will try to reinforce Vultures and War Pigeons. Immediately intercept their units and bring them down.
Remember, Falcons' job during EG is to intercept and kill. Never stay in a region for too long. Keep patrolling the map for enemy units to intercept and destroy.
Note: The gold weapons of the falcons are not visible. They do the same damage but it makes it a lot harder for the enemy to locate who/what is firing at them as well as target you even it they know you are there.
The falcon has the fastest base speed in all air units. With the addition of afterburners, the falcon can fly very fast. Make use of the speed of the falcon to you advantage.
Always equip the highest damage weapon.(The H-Weapons). Never equip versatile weapons as their damage is to low. Always put cloak and afterburners on your falcon Putting a good sensor is recommended. When killing huge units like condor, fly into them using the move key so that they have a harder time to target you. The falcon is not suited for a 1 on 1 fight with any air. Never engage head on with enemy air like owls. You will probalably lose. When fighting with enemy air, hit and run. The moment they notice you, fly away and return back when they give up chasing you.
Edu hawks can be very deadly if used correctly.
The basic strategy for hawks is hit and run, in other words, do NOT battle it out with owls, nixes, or any other aa because with your armor/hp, you are bound to lose. The one occassional exception to this is other hawks whom have a greater range or stronger ab, in which case I would suggest running toward ally AA and let them help you in killing the hawks. After all, 2 is better than 1. Other than enemy hawks, the best way to kill enemy air is to hit them once and then click the mini-map keep them from hitting you. Repeat this until they are all dead.
As for the Sensor Evade and Floater decision, I believe this is personal preference. During the years I played 80/6/120/--, I found that Sensor Evade was better. I found it easy to simply fly around enemy air mines, and when the ports are airmined, why rein any type of hawks? An average portal mining albatross usually fills the portal with enough mines that units will die right when they rein. This means the floater has no advantage in this situation. However, cutting the enemy's range allows a greater range of possible enemy units to kill and more room for error and lag. With Sensor Evade, momos, owl, and condors are very easy food because once they realize they are being attacked, you can disappear before they get in range to hit you.
Depending on what type of units you are hunting down, h and non-h weapons can both be good. If you are using hawks early in the game, I would suggest non-h weapons because they are enough to kill low hp, low armor units such as the oizy family, pelicans, low level eagles, low level owls, and low level condors. However, if you decide to use them during mid-game, the h-weapon is the better option. H weapons can usually 1 hit any not heavily armored unit. As for gold weapons, this depends on your playing method. DO NOT USE HAWKS EG. A better option would be nixes or ballistas.
If you have a good sense of time and are good with microing, go with the non-g weapons. They have a better dps, but overkill can be an issue if you do not 1 hit the enemy (leaving them with 1-500hp), in which case you would be forced to either waste another shot or micro them. I found microing hard when using 10 hawks and avoiding damage, but if you can do it, go ahead. On the other hand, gold weapons do higher damage and have a higher CD. with them, you can simply hit, run away for a few seconds, then come back and hit the next one. In most cases, you can 1 hit low to medium hp and armor enemies and 2 hit high armored ones.
If you decided to go with a sensor evade, a normal sensor would also be good as it increases your range (which allows you to kill more enemies without return fire) and sight (which allows you to become more aware of your surroundings). This is a good place to invest leftover ma for people who have floaters because the range and view are both helpful either way.
Lastly: after burners. If you have high edu, I would suggest 100% with danielle or gravity cell, but if you cannot get such, 25% and solar is a nice option as it gives that extra boost to get away from enemies.
So my suggestion for hawks: 1. AA weapon (avoid v weapons unless you cannot get any other) 2. Normal sensor for greater range and biger view 3. Sensor evade 4. After burner.
The ones I used can be seen at: http://www.sgtofu.com/units/lab/?stat_id=102565&design_id=461646. They averaged 40-60 kill for early-mid game before I reinced.
If you are comfortable with a different setup, feel free to go for it. This one seemed best for me.
NOTE: Armor and hp do not matter for hawks because they should not get attacked anyways. The best armor and hp for hawks can easily be taken down in a stand-still competition. If you have the best of all the above mentioned, then feel free to weigh down your hawk with armor to a larger margin for errors, but otherwise, invest in either a better weapon, a better energy source, or a better sensor to fill up the MA.
NOTE: DO NOT FIGHT ONE ON ONE! I have beaten my way through enemy hawks very easily simply by hitting and running because 1) I have a greater range than they do (because of Sensor Evade and normal sensor) and 2) I have a greater or equal after burner so they simply cannot come into my range without me moving away first. Other enemy air are easier because they are normally slower with a shorter range, making them easy targets for you.
Double post :P
Hawk should be equipped with floaters and turbo boost. Putting armor on them is mostly a waste. If you want armor get owls. The primary advantage hawks have is speed. Always equip the most powerful weapon you can and the longest radar unit possible. Hit and run with hawks and auto fire from maximum range. Stay clear of friendly units especially if you are trying to kill albs. Unfortunately friendly air units will turbo boost right thru an air mine field just to "clear" it and kill you along with themselves.
Hawk is one of the fastest units in SG. The best strategy to use hawks is move/stop.
Don't try to use versatile hawks ? they are too ineffective.
Don't try clear air mines with hawks and fly near a phoenix ? you will die in a moment (of cause if you like suicide or your portal to retreat is so far ? do it!)
Always equip your units with long range 'H' weapon (don't use normal weapon + armor) and kill all enemy AA/AG using your range.
Hawks aren't endgame units. They can't as quickly destroy enemy pigs/vults/pelicans as phoenixes but if you can't rein your endgame units use hawks to partol ways from enemy portals to POCs and eliminate ROCs.
Some tips: 1. Always use AA weapon 2. Always use 'H' weapon 3. Don't use low range (TL 41) weapon
Treat owls like moths of the air. They have fairly high CD's and you can put a lot of armor on them. They do a lot of damage with each shot past TL100. You will have a lot of overkill using owls. The easy way to prevent overkill is to break your owls into 2 small sets. Have one set fly just in front of the second set. What happens then is if you attack move to an attack, they front set will shoot first followed by the 2nd set a second later. This will cut down on your overkills quite a bit. Remember overkills means it takes longer for you to kill units and gives them more time to kill your units or your teamates units. Minimizing overkill raises your kill rate in the game. If you can micromanage better, if you see you do 90% damage in the fisrt volly and select most of your owls after the first volley and target a second unit. Your remaining owls will finish off the first target. After which they will auto fire on the next closest lowest hp enemy unit, which should be the next unit you have just targeted.
On equiping the owls, use turbo if you can. With slow owls your targets will either run from you or be killed by the time you get there.
The pelican is a well armored AG unit. With afterburner you can escape the enemy. Try to get a weapon that does more than 200 points of damage so that you have a better chance of killing what you are targeting faster.
The main role of AG: kill off arbs, nukers and other support units. Support units include arbs, balls, orbus, red eye, medic, gear doc and anything you can think of.
Unlike ozzys pelicans can be equipped well armor and can kill arbalests/nukers under alot of enemy AA/GA units. Also pelicans can stop FP when enemy send 1 or 2 units to far PoC. Your pelicans with afterburner can quickly fly and kill them.
When you use pelicans with Manta you can also kill enemy AG pegs. AG pegs originaly have low HP, cloaking and high speed, but with detector you can aim and kill one peg per shot.
Clouter Phoenixes are great for Midgame/early aa because they are fast enough to hunt and kill most aa. At endgame clouters should be poccing/repooccing. Not being aa.
Phoenixes are the typical EG AA units to be used as they are effective War Pigeons and Vultures clearers. Phoenixes generally do not make good early to mid-game AA, as enemy AA will typiclly do hit and run on them.
Eduer Phoenixes can do high damage, but are vulnerable to other AA. Clouter Phoenixes are much faster and better armoured, thus they perform better against hit-and-run tactics. If using Phoenixes as maxed EG, try to achieve a balance between clout and education.
The biggest problem with nixes is when they are at low levels and you are trying to level them up. The low level flamers do little damage and are only good against pigs and vults at end game. At that level your chances of surviving to get to the pigs and vults is not very good.
What I recommend is to go with V nixes at low levels using them in the early to mid game. Once you can equip better turbos and flamers switch to them and start using your nixes at end game.
Ok, we all know clouters are in need of an roc so I'll points at somethings that not all people know. First of all right-click is faster to phase something than pressing "T" button over and over again. Second when going to help a friend ALWAYS press "M" to go where your going (hopefully towards a PoC) before phasing off one of his units and making him mad. Thats all
Good unit to use as EG for defending and clearing POCs in battles. Vultures are slow-moving, and thus should be equipped with afterburners. Gold Vultures are powerful, so those intending to keep vultures as maxed EG should consider using their gold weapons.
Because of their speed, vultures are extremely vulnerable to enemy AA, especially phoenixes. Use them in the same fashion as artillery: choose good portals, and do not reinforce too early, as they will just get slaughtered by patrolling AA.
When bombarding pocs, players typically use alt+s formation. Personally, I prefer vultures to arbalests as vultures have much higher damage if you're using gold weapons. Vultures also do not suffer from uphill penalty; neither is it affected by enemy orbus shield, which is the bane of all arbalests.
Use a jammer Red-Eye with your War Pigeons. It stops enemies from calling out your "oh so weak" war pigeons and helps them do their job just that little bit easier.
If you a clouter using pigs, don't waste precious space, weight, and complexity on boosters. They will be plenty fast w/o the booster. Use Alt + E, the stacked formation, and pig away!
Pigs are one of the best POC defenders out there. Most of the time the best formation for pigs is the "stacked" formation (Alt+E). I see very few people who do not know how to use it anymore.
Pigs are extremly vulnerable to nixes when trying to clear a poc. It may be better to have turbo on your pigs so you can run away from nixes. It usually only takes 2-3 shots from nixes to kill all your pigs. It can also help in that you can hide further away from a POC and still get there in time to protect the POC. Remember after you get to the POC to turn off your turbos.