Asher's Guide to
Heavy Gunner RT

Heavy artillery, big guns, massive explosions.....all neutered. In the modern class of the heavy gunner on chromehounds, due to decreased splash damage, increased recoil, and the rules all being jumbled up, I figured that now would be a good time to attempt to renovate the builds and the thought processes regarding the heavy gunner role-type. Continuing with the patterns of my guides in the past, I will go into the parts, then the builds, and a few tips of my own.

I must extend thanks for the assistance on this tutorial to Flammable Monkey and DukeNukem64 Rox from Steel Battalion for taking the time out to refresh my memory on the state of heavy gunning. I know that the community at large does not favor this squad nor it's members, but I wanted to ensure that the readers of this tutorial would have access to the best information regarding heavy gunning. This squad is extremely well known for base ranging without mercy and therefore in my judgment were the best people to go to for the information desired. I consider the quality of the information to be worth speaking with steel battalion, and therefore send them my thanks. All of my personal knowledge is from pre-patch heavy gunning when double-doubles were king, which as most of us can attest is now long gone. I do not as a player condone or condemn the use of artillery to drop a base. I believe that this is a part of the game, and like anything else in this world can be abused. I leave the decisions as to what a player does with the information presented here UP TO THE PLAYER!!!. The community has a right to it's own respectful opinions and it is by and large self governing. Run heavy gunners at your own risk and peril.

HOUND Parts

Mobility Base [Chassis]

Biped: Sal Kar legs are useful only with incendiary howitzers use at your own peril and feel free to experiment with this style.

Inverse: Some will still swear by RJ-Naqa and MSK-RJ401, but in regards to the current state of artillery, the recoil is pretty overwhelming these days for the inverse leg types. Potentially suited to certain builds, there are more efficient load-out these days, but still used by certain players and squads.

Treaded: Your choices here are best placed with the M14CL Meade treads. The Sal Kari treads lack loud-out weight and the Morskovian though having a high load weight, lack in mobility.

Quads [Multi]: Currently FROMSOFT's choice with the heavy cannons, these are once again best avoided like the plague. If you MUST use quads to be different, Sal Kari quads are the ones of choice due to speed and difficulty of targeting.

Wheeled: Tarakian wheels have recently been employed as of late on some howitzer builds, but have not caught on to the general public.

Canopy [Cockpit]

MSK-C20 & MSK-C110: These two canopies are the ones of choice due primarily to the armor ability of these. With a heavy gunner, the one area that you need to focus on is durability. A heavy gunner needs to be able to take a beating rather than focusing on power supply or anything else. Super-size canopies though durable also present a massive target.

Generators

M06G Nobili, M03G Ampere, RFZ-GE-A2, MSK-G100 and MSK-G101 are the ones of choice. Sal Kar generators aren't durable enough, Tarakian generators overheat too easily.

Heavy Weapons

Huge Rockets: The Sal Kar rockets are fun choice to be sure, but limited range hurts these. The Tarakian rockets have ridiculously long reload times for the amount of needed on these. The Morskovian rockets are the ones of choice -- the downloadable ones are slightly shorter reload times for more weight but they can fire at an almost nonstop stream, although highly draining on power.

Huge Cannons: All of these have devolved to the point of being almost unusable unless one is blind firing from behind a hill. One must remember that with the most recent patch the durability on these render them a high risk option. Single-barrels take forever to use against a base, doubles are effective only on quads with a few exceptions on the MSK-RJ401 chassis.

• Sal Kari cannons: Sadly as useful as wet toilet paper, these are only usable from a hound v hound support option.
• Tarakian cannons: M16HC Bastard and M25HC Gram are useful again only from a hound-vs-hound instance.
• Morskovian single-barrel: Hound-vs-hound support fire.
• Morskovian double-barrel: The only ones suitable for the base dropping utilizing blind firing behind cover.

Huge Cannons Ammo Classifications:

High Explosive: best known pre-patch for splash damage, these are the choice for stopping fast moving hounds, disorienting and destroying parts.

• HE300-40: Useless, even in hound on hound. You get what you pay for.
• HE300-60: Increased splash damage on these are more useful for hound v hound.
• HE300-90: Increased penetration but reduced splash, so better for large targets (bases, secret weapons, etc).

Armored Piercing Fin-Stabilizing Discarding Sabot: (aka APFSDS) is intended for direct hit situations -- this type of ammunition has zero splash damage, but a respectably higher penetration power.

• APFSDS-TG300: Useless. Again, you get what you pay for.
• APFSDS-TG300L: Tiny bit higher range than the -TN300, but at a significant reduction in damage;
• APFSDS-TN300: The base dropping ammo of choice -- also great against other large targets where you know you will get direct hits (Unidentified Weapons?).

Light Arms

Rocket 6-Packs: The most useful on this category are the RtL-Khass -- a total of 8 of these have the ability to drop a base at over 2000 distance by experts. Preferred to be used on a base-range mission it can be used as support on demand, but surpassed by howitzers for support fire. The nice thing with these is even though they have the ability to do damage long range, they can frustrate opponents up close long enough to be able to force someone to think twice. This strategy is not new player friendly and is recommended for experts only!

Howitzers: Much like cannons for soldiers, your howitzer options are pretty much default by the community. Howitzers have been tested inside and out from the first patch.

• Sal Kari: The only ones that you really need here are the Hwz-Ghayma style. They have the shortest reload times in the game for the howitzer class.
• Tarakian: M02HW Espadon and M21HW Faus are similar to the M20CN Anelace and M01CN Falchion. Do you want reload time or do you want power?
• Morskoj: MSK-HW300 are the prime rib of the Morskovian trio. The others weigh less or have more ammunition, but for all around best effect you are looking at the MSK-HW300 unless there is some weight conflict or something along those lines.

Howitzers Ammo Classifications:

High Explosive: best known pre-patch for splash damage, these are the choice for dropping bases.

• HE200-40: As stated with the big cannons, you get what you pay for.
• HE200-60: Increased splash damage, but less damage from direct hit -- best for use against hounds, especially in close groups, where misses or nearby hits can disorient/stop hounds or destroy multiple parts.
• HE200-90: Increased damage from direct hit, but lower splash damage -- best used against large targets where direct hits are likely (bases, secret weapons, etc).

Incendiary: fire splash and high temp. Mostly used to attempt to replace the lost "splash" damage from the most recent patches.

• Incendiary-200: Larger fire spread, less intense but longer lasting, very effective against hounds that do not have a radiator.
• Incendiary-200N: Smaller fire spread, more intense but shorter duration, recommended against hounds that are equipped with radiators.

[author's note: Fire should not be used if the opponent is within 700 meters or less of the heavy gunner's current position. Also, to the best of my knowledge, fire does almost no damage to an enemies' base. Fire is better used against hounds, however, remember that fire does not differentiate between friend and foes. Fire does damage over time which is not something that you will have on your side when going toe to toe. Keep your distance and stay behind the front lines]

Heavy Gunner Builds

These builds are not per anything specific. These are here to give you a generalized direction in which to go to play in today's times of the heavy gunner class. The builds that this game initially focused on were large and brutal. These newest patches have required us to focus more on mobility, speed, and simplicity.

Heavy rocket - Not used as much, though still a viable option. Lacking the recoil of the large cannons with minimized reload times, these can drop a base quickly and can position themselves quickly as well traveling at around 170-ish: Front - Side

Rocket 6-Pack - Not commonly seen on the battlefield these days: Front - Side

Howitzers - Not seen until after the first patch on this game, this build has become more commonplace. Efficient speed, extremely usable firepower, and well rounded defense enable this to become a champion: Back - Side

Triple-D - Not commonly seen in normal war missions, but often the choice for the rare 'Unidentified Weapon' encounters: building "|SpK| Beast" video

© Sega Corporation/FromNetworks,Inc./FromSoftware,Inc

Heavy Gunner Tips

Base-Ranging vs. Base-Dialing

Base-ranging: The act of going to an unknown (read unfamiliar) map not knowing the numbers to the opposition's base and proceeding to fire on said base whilst making adjustments until the base is successfully struck.

Base-dialing: The act of going to a predetermined grid coordinate on a map, and proceeding to fire on a base with distances memorized.

If you are a beginning heavy gunner, 90% of what you are going to be doing will be classified as ranging. You won't know the coordinates or ranges. After experience, you will start to know maps and ranges and will eventually become a base-dialer. If you are going to be using artillery for dropping bases, make sure to mix your game up. Most squads have become familiar with how to deal with heavy gunners and you're either going to get the job done or your ass will be handed to you on a silver platter. Excessive base-dialing will usually be met with vicious feedback and bad rep. Some may even file complaints against you. If bad feedback is filed against you, by Microsoft's own terms of service you have not manipulated bandwidth nor deviated from the standard rules of game-play. Expect people to not give a heavy gunner much desired play most people prefer to play hound to hound. Pay attention to the matches and mix things up. The heavy gunner mentality is 100% hellbent on base destruction even unto death.

Range-finder Gun Sight

This thing is your best friend. The trick is those numbers are the number of meters from your position to your target. Pay attention to the map when you load out. Each grid is either 200x200, 250x250, 300x300, 350x350, or 400x400. So if your target is two grids away from you on a 300x300 map, then you would set your range-finder to read 600. Now bear in mind, that this is just from your current position on the map to the exact position 600 meters away from you. Your actual target may be 611 or 662 or some other random number of meters. Expect your initial salvo to miss. You are just attempting to get a general ideas as to the distance. Ballistic cannons rely on a cross-hair, Artillery cannons rely on an arc and so you are judging distance rather than pointing directly. Artillery for the most part will still need to make contact with your target, but it does have some give and take to it. Practice is essential with the range-finder to adequately hit the target, but the real trick is to spend enough time with the game to where you able to judge distance just as well as you would in real life. Once you can do this, you have half of the problem overcome.

Increasing Effective Range

Simple, angle your hound going up a hill. This increases the angle at which you are firing beyond default. On maps such as East Bayazit river, if you angle your hound on the mountain from northern base 2, you have the ability to fire up to 2000 distance. Now, whether or not you can actually hit anything will come with time. Learn how to fire at range, and you will be devastating at any range on any battlefield whether you have direct line of fire or not.

Most heavy gunners look at their hounds as an art form. Some may believe that it does not take any skill whatsoever to do the heavy gunner role-type. However, with the most recent cutbacks on splash damage, it is easy to see who knows what they are doing and who doesn't. Most of the time you will never see a skilled heavy gunner because they know to keep their heads down and to blind fire. This current era of heavy gunning is still seeing changes. We are still relearning this role-type. I do however hope that this aided you in some way on your quest for builds and advice. Learn to support your hounds from behind, learn to have the ability to drop your opponents base, but most of all remember to use that range-finder as your friend. This role-type is not easily learned nor is it very forgiving, but as many have stated, it is what gives the game it's balance. It keeps bases dropping, it keeps hounds in check and it defends your friends. You as a heavy gunner have the ability to turn the tide no matter the circumstances of the match.

At the pre-game lobby it states clearly that victory conditions are: destruction of enemy base. This is what this role-type was developed for. Should you choose to take this on, then wear it with pride.

© Sega Corporation/FromNetworks,Inc./FromSoftware,Inc

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References:

Author: AsherCrestfalen - Kromelegion Web Site;

Originally Hosted: Asher's Guides on the Microsoft Xbox forums;

Originally Hosted: Asher's guide to the Heavy gunner role-type on the Sega Chromehounds forums;

Additional Guides: Guide To The Heavy Gunner RT... by PrincessPeach96;

Additional Forums: Heavy Gunner on the Sega Chromehounds site;