User:Barbat/Sandbox

Barbat's guide of limited value or things i know now i wish i knew then

This guide is just my thoughts after playing for a few months and maybe helping people just starting get a better start than i did. Things can and will go bad all you can do is stop that from happening as often as possible. The best way to do this is to have a scout and medic in your squad. If you have not done so I recommand recruiting a first aid ganger. You want a first aid guy in all your scouts. It is easy if you just have him drive.

If I was starting off today as my first day. I had 50k and a few gangers. I would get a first aid ganger if i didn't already have one. I would buy a Mercenary. Mooses are popular as well. Put 2 medium machine guns on it. 3 reloads, load up with B type armor this is my scout car. On group scouts in Sommerset when it comes to the loot screen i am looking for two cars (outside of rares). First a phoenix. Stick a first aid ganger in there make sure it has a 4 liter engine give it a big fuel tank. You can run back and forth from Elms or try to make it around the world. The second car i am looking for is a Windsor II. I like putting a couple gattling guns on the front and using them in scouts. Unless you got lucky and a rare chasis shows up the rest is just getting sold to Jakes. 

 Keep in mind that your Moose, Mercenary, Windsor II is just as tough/vunerable as the AI cars. Your gangers may or may not be better than the guys you are fighting. You need to take advantage of the map espcially if your outnumbered. 4 mooses vs 8 random AI cars is going to be ugly on some maps moreso than others. Ideally you would like a choke point and form a line on higher ground and shot the AI as they come thru 1 by 1 leaving a pile of demoralised cars to loot at the end of the scout. Be aware of line of sight of yourself, your squadmates, and the AI cars. Demoralised cars will still shot you if you give them the oppurtunity. The best way to do that is ignore them. Nothing says newb like sitting in a line getting nailed turn after turn by the Mutant Marader that demoralised 5 turns ago either red the guy or get out of his line of sight. Getting out of his line of sight is preferred but killing the car occupants can be easier. Ask whoever is running the scout. You should notice the guy coming so do something about it before it becomes an issue. If your getting shot at by 3 or more cars you need to do something about this quick. There are too many variables to go into here but ask for help, and ask for advice. Pay attention to your armor losses. Protect your weakened sides. Maintain your line of sight. This can be alot harder to do if your getting pounded with rockets. If you have the handbrake on take it off that will cause alot of bouncing. If your going backwards try to keep your steering wheel as straight as possible. Take notice perferrably ahead of time if there is going to be something blocking your line of sight to your target. Shooting a hill or ledge is not going to get the chicks. 

That first aid guy you put in a 4 liter phoenix keep him travelling just between Elmsfield and Somerset if you want to play it safe. He will get his weekly training in first aid and be learning scouting and driving by travelling.You may lose some when your learning your way its ok you can have more than 1 ganger travelling at a time and you are bound to loot more in scouts just keep at it. Once he is over 70 in scouting he becomes a very vaulable asset to have in Somerset. With his first aid training and scouting ability you can put him in a car with a couple gunners and you should get a "fair" fight on the scout and if things go bad hopefully he can keep your gangers alive. I like travelling between Sommerset and Elmsfield because I can run travels before i go to work and then run them again when i come home.

 When the scout is over your gangers will get some increased stats. The highest mechanic should get a little boost, the highest leadership and hopefully your driver/scout got a little, your gunners got a little and everyone got a little more courage. Getting a guy with 100 leadership allows you to take motivator 1 which helps boost the weekly training. I kinda put my motivator on the shelf until i have a guy ready to replace him. You can also get a guy with recuriter with 100 leadership.

 Going on group scouts is my preferred activity in the game. Going on scouts by yourself will be frustrating at first. The first thing you before you leave the town gates is acceptable loses. If your not prepared for everything to go wrong don't do it. The more cars you take the more hectic it can become and easier it is to make mistakes. That being said 4 cars with focused fire is better than 2. What you can do to get a feel for it is take a couple mercenaries or mooses, have a 70+ scout and medic driving 1 car and whoever driving the 2nd car with 4 gunners that you can accept losing. A couple of apaches with dual heavy machine guns with a decent scout and gunners barring something going horribly wrong can complete the scout without either being breached you will usually get 2-3 cars (2 front mounted hmg is really all the weapons you need you want to keep the combat rating down, and you have room for 6 reloads which normally only come into play in a return). I am cross training my gunners. I want every one of them to get sniper and rapid reload. I have started using apaches with 2 front and 2 rear mounted gattling guns with 29 armor all around to train up the gunner skill. Be carefull if you used to gangers with skill with large guns it is going to take longer to demoralise cars with the gattling guns try to mix one in only when you feel safe doing it with large guns first.

 Don't be afraid to try different things. You don't need to listen to a single thing in this guide. You should never follow any guide blindly. Think about the why's. If it makes sense to you then try it. Remember the rule of acceptable losses. If you can not afford to lose that ganger or car then you should not have them go out. If you do that than you can have fun and learn things even when everything goes wrong and you just lost a nice car and 3 good gangers go over the replay and figure out how and why this happened.

I can't say your experience will be the same as mine. For me the game changed when I finally had some skilled scouts and some apaches. If I stick to the basics outside of a return encounter things normally go well. Have some fun.

I have been at this a few months and I wanted to add some more thoughts I have had. I have always taken defensive driver spec when I get a driver scout to 50 skill. I have been capping my gangers lately. (If you have not seen this the ability turns red and gets an * and says the skill is at its maxium. Well the guys who have capped under 100 are not ideal. I know there are gangs who toss them aside. I am not at the point in my game where I don't have a use for an 80 scout or large gunner. What to do with these guys? Well they are going to stay in Sommerset until I want to get rid of them. Then I may send them to their deaths down south. Being that gangers are limited in number (and I really like to try using all of my gangers. There was a time when I started I used chompers but they turtled and a couple gang leaders getting killed in the "safest" looking car from Jake's I decieded to go with pickups. The accuarcy penalty made me try mooses and mercenaries and I haven't looked back until now. I actually still use mercenaries even though I don't need to because I enjoy them. Getting a deathracer spec allows you to put a couple heavy machine guns on a mercenary without the drawback of the accuracy penalty. Now what if you put a couple heavy machine guns on a pickup and the driver will not have the penalty. I have yet to encouter anything outside of a return that doesn't crumble getting pounded by heavy machine guns. The 20 shot ammo clip is enough if you only bring 2 cars. If you get a return you can reload at turn 0 (not sure if it is a bug or feature but remember to reload first thing in case of a return even if your planning on running for the gates). Anyway 1 capped ganger with deathracer specialism can replace 2 gangers in a normal squad. This gives the less than perfect ganger an advantage and is plenty good enough for Sommerset scouts.

The community in Darkwind is one of the things that keep me logging into the game. To be honest I enjoy hearing random babble in the lobby from everyone. For some reason it bothers me when a couple guys who I have no issues with are upset with each other over something that I don't believe is worth it. It is common practice for the people I scout with to avoid line of sight situations and if it does come up it is usually "I will be crossing los please hold for a turn, sorry!" Some people don't say a word so I assume they were turning or breaking (I did say what I was targetting in team chat surely they are not going to stop there). Some people think you are responsible for where your ammo goes. Neither is wrong just different. I have seen people get upset that they were shot by friendly fire. Whenever this happens the shooter and the target of friendly fire are both responsible. A quick sorry after the fact or a quick, You need me to hold fire? before hand can go a long way. Anyway just because you are used to things a certain way that doesn't mean that everybody does them the same exact way and its never 100% the other guys fault. I know egos play an issue but to be honest your playing a turn based mmo with cars shooting each other. Your ego should be checked when you log in. In short communicate with people on your scouts and be respectfull.