Weapon Arms and Hover Legs?

[mekkakat]

i've never really found weapon arms to be very good at all, then again, i've never really given them much chance.

i like hover legs at times.. but i can never find the gen+radi+hover leg combo that gives me super speed, and no mega drain/heat issues...


any tips on the legs things? also.. any comments on what could be, or is a good weapon arm?

[Grim]

The Cetus arms immediately come to mind as one of the most useful weapon arms. It has two modes which you can switch into by changing your weapons. Mode 1 gives more shots, and mode 2 gives out more stun and ooomph.

Hover legs... well since you're starting off I recommend the Walrus2, which is arguably the best one stats-wise. For the generator, use the starter gen, the G69. It works with the heat, really. Ananda or R92 will suffice for your radiator.

They key to hovers is to use their speed, but not to lead yourself into your opponents. Don't move in one direction all the time. Zig zag and mix it up a little.

[Black Dragon]

They key to hovers is to use their speed, but not to lead yourself into your opponents. Don't move in one direction all the time. Zig zag and mix it up a little.

This and not stopping. Stop and your legs is as good as broke. Stick to the ground too.

You might want to try some weapon arms too, CETUS, BZL (if you're good at jousting, this can take a part in two volleys) and TAURUS (switch to high precision).

[Goat]

If you're using hovers, you can keep tapping (practice the timing) then hold the boost just before your AC stops after dashing. Keep doing this, and that way, you can boost without stopping and spending EN (assuming that you've got a quick EN refresh rate).

And yes, this is a different maneuver compared to the Gheide II tip I posted.

[aleczander]

Hover Legs -

Yep, well my fave is WALRUS. Sure less def and load capacity than its big brother, but hovers need speed to survive, and speed will keep you alive longer than AP will ... so may as well specialize to the extreme. You gotta have light parts on it, and of course your weapons must be light ... but that's I how I build.

As for exploiting the movement abilities of hovers, don't be fooled by the name hover. You have to pump the boost button just like you would on a biped or quad. Continuous boosting will overheat ANY hover design that's light enough to be fast enough to ... survive.

That being said, I always put an OB core on WALRUS - and its usually UL, running Kongoh and R92 (or was it Ragora? My PS2 is in shipment). OBing on a hover is where the hover part actually works like its supposed to, enabling a super fast glide. With a light weapons load out, you can hover OB at around 860 kph - fast enough to outrun missiles in a straight chase, with enough endurance to cross almost the entire desert stage in OB. I know it seems overkill, but that's how you have to play hovers. You simply have to outclass everything in pure speed, you cannot take hits. If your legs do break, the OB will give you some decent mobility. You may still lose the match anyway, but without it, the increased heat from increased boosting to move your broken hover legs makes you ... immobile.

Weapon arms -

yar, CETUS is probably the most useful. Low ammo tho, even compared to the regular RL. Main advantages of weapon arms are much reduced weight ... but low ammo means you NEED to equip other weapon systems. Like an EO core, or a back-mount that you can reliably hit with (not just missile spam - that can be pretty iffy).

Finally, weapon arms, precisely because of their low weight, lend themselves to hover designs. But I prefer to use FG or XS arms to place RS shots right on target at a distance no one can keep up with. Usually a vertical missile setup on the back. Switch up the firing order - sometimes its more effective to reduce their mobility with RS hits to core/legs, and then send in the verts ... they will be less able to dodge them.

[NiX]

Aleczander, sorry but Kongoh is a terrible choice for a generator on hovers. It's awfully hot because of the high calorific value. That's why you're overheating more than you probably should. LOTUS is probably the hottest gen you should use for hovers. Many even opt for the G69 starter generator cuz of its extremely low calorific value. Hovers boost in short bursts anyway and shouldn't ever fly, so the low output and capacity doesn't hurt them as much.

Weapon arms - A few are usable. CETUS is indeed good. LEO is also very viable. They work great for really specialized designs, but they're hard to implement because of their low defense and small lockbox.

[aleczander]

U gotta tune everything for max cooling basically, and that's why u need a more capable radiator, like R92 or Ragora. I RARELY have problems overheating with that setup, because I'm pretty good at managing heat.

I know ON PAPER it seems like a bad idea, but under OB, the heat increase is very linear WRT time, and matches the Kongoh's capacity and UL's OB drain almost perfectly. These relationships are very linear and easy to manage. That is, by the time the en bar is nearing the red zone, you have to stop OB anyway because the temp bar is near overheat. Now I know you think that is a horrible situation in terms of en/heat management ... but most are worse, i.e. you have to drop out of OB because of temp as a limiting factor waaaay before en cap becomes a problem. BTW there is really no problem with normal booster usage either.

This may also seem like a horrible idea in tactical terms, but the truth is, if you have been able to sustain an OB burn long enough to nearly drain the en bar, you are literally about 1km away from the opponent at that point (e.g. on the desert stage). And you've covered this distance so fast that only another hyper-specialized deisgn can keep up with you. Meaning, you easily have the few seconds it takes for R92 to bring you back down to room temp, and for Kongoh to fill up the en bar again. You usually have ages after that during which to chip AP with RS and missiles.

This is a hyper-specialized design for running long duration OBs on hover legs. There's really only one way to play this setup, but that's the point - to do it to the EXTREME ... I do agree that if you're making a more "standard" hover setup, one should go with lo cal gens ... but the booster usage is just way different.

[Serene]

Have you tried using a Kongoh + Linden combo?
Linden must be tuned to drain. That way, you'lll have more surplus energy, of course, helping the Kongoh recover energy quicker. Linden is one of the radiators with the lowest energy drain when that stat is maxed. You could also tune it to 1-6-3 to give it balance.

[aleczander]

sounds cool ... haven't tried it (will try in apx 1 week). I heard Linden is usually so energy efficient at forced cooling that you almost don't know you're in forced cooling ... that being said, I was worried I would definitely need the high standard cooling of R92. Will experiment.

[DarkFury]

Lotus, G69, G78, Fudoh all work good with hover legs.

as for rads Ananda and R92 should suffice.

[Terminator98]

G69 is however the one we'll most probably want...

Useful weapon arms:

- Machine Gun arms (have an EO)
- CETUS (Low ammo, but I think they do enought damage to justify the low ammo)
- LEO ( CETUS beats it however.)
- Bazooka Arm (The one that shoots 2 and 4, mostly. The other one is more for the lulz, or OB+2nd mode shoot)
- LARGE MISSILES JOUSTING

That's about what I can think.

Go SYURA if you want some hard time and fun...

[DarkFury]

no doubt G69 is good for hovers, but Lotus is by far the best one to use IMO.

[LCC]

Kongoh is possible on walrus+ob but that doesn't mean it's a smart choice. Having super high output on a low drain AC is overkill. You can easily accomplish the same thing with G91/ananda plus the added bonus of way less heat. Lotus is good too since core/leg breaking won't hurt you quite as much and walrus's low drain jives well with it. All it takes for kongoh to fail is one mistake. People will abuse the OB charge periods with missiles and canons. Cooler setups allow boosting while charging to prevent weapon heat from killing you. Also, I prefer EOS+LN85 for OB hovers. It makes it much easier to get an AP lead and maintain it while giving similar mobility to /UL+walrus. No hangars will often mean you have to play timeout games though.

Having energy coincide with overheating is bad logic btw. You don't need the game to tell you when to stop OBing; you should already know. Hover gliding lets you use very little en to begin with. You don't even need kongoh's full cap to go places.

Any hover that isn't OB centric (HM) should use lotus with ananda or G69 with ananda/linden.

You don't always have to play super speed either. You can use a high defense build like this:
eye3/UA/Lemur/LN85/f73h/lotus/ananda/Shade/R3/69m/rm3

Weapon arms suck. Use the MG arms+E2 or 8shot BZ arms on a rusher hover for your gimmick win. Everything else is too difficult.

[aleczander]

@ LCC - I see. I am definitely going to experiment with this line of designs. My PS2 is supposed to arrive tomorrow! (yay!)

What can I say ... but I LIKE super speed!