How to cruiser (AMA?)

[Levenna]

After the better part of a year now of finding a variety of fun ways to, uh, let's say "use" cruiser movement, this was originally a guide written a few months ago in preparation to train a wolfpack of LSCs to take on Bretonia's Crecy crowd, but since a) that didn't happen (yet) and b) there have been some notable requests of some cruiser players to step up lately, and finally c) some of these tricks are likely to go out of date next patch anyway, I figured I would just share it here. It's also frankly not fun if I'm the only person doing it, bar the like three or four people I've taken the time so far to teach some of the below tricks.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wltx...siel9h4dkg

This is, obviously, LSC focused, but nonetheless some notes on strafing, fleet fights, and knife fighting in cruisers should be fairly universally applicable.

If you do manage to master some of the strafing tricks described, I would humbly request you don't go around sealclubbing everyone with them. Those techniques will allow you to 1v1 kite quite literally anything larger than a cruiser (speaking from experience, including such things as thumper Osiris', terminator Murmillos, full razor battleships and other such alleged anti-cruiser ships) and it generally is a rather frustrating experience to play against. It can also work against cruisers, however it is considerably less reliable, especially if impacts or shards are involved.

The last thing I'd add is that this isn't a hack or cheat, it's extremely powerful when done right yes but most of the above guide will need to be practiced. Feel free to put your own spin on it, too. The guide is best used as a base. Experiment beyond it, see what works and what doesn't.

Finally, if anyone has any questions, I guess I'll answer them here? Turn it into something of an AMA for cruiser evasion, I guess.

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[03.07.2024] LNS-Beast***: we can do this every day but you have to buy bigger stronger ships...and i'll help you

[Hubjump]

LSC has always been op cos it's a pencil with op strafe and turn rate that hasn't ever been adjusted.

Also, the so-called Crecy Crowd is Reddy the top G pvp Whore and Darius not wanting to lose playing something he actually thinks is cool.

I play things I think are cool and don't really care if I lose as long as I'm drippy and have fun, personally speaking. Invincible sucks. Period.
Anyway yeah.

I see no mention of weapon groups.
Vs normal cruisers (Anything other than pencil-shaped op ships) add some fast velocity secondaries in the group and hit their hull to your heart's content. This is known as blind fire mk2 (blind fire mk1 is just not having a group at all)

Cruisers don't need a guide because they are currently balanced for an entirely different meta that has yet to be released.
LSC is and has been literally the most op capital ship in the game since the mod allowed capital ships to be flown. All because of its minuet pencil shape and un-changed-standardized strafe and generous turn rate.

I honestly gotta ask you to not use the LSC or Gallic cruisers and come back to this thread on this one about evasion.
They're downright broken and always have been. Gallic one less so but before the rework its small rear put it in the same boat.

I'm so sorry to rain on your parade but the LSC has always been borderline broken. An un-balancable vanilla ship. Similar to the Crecy's broken center of mass targeting.

Another edit. Don't get me started on the Churchill and Crecy with their broken center targeting making them incredibly hard to hit despite their size.

[Levenna]

LSC has always been op cos it's a pencil with op strafe and turn rate that hasn't ever been adjusted.

Also, the so-called Crecy Crowd is Reddy the top G pvp Whore and Darius not wanting to lose playing something he actually thinks is cool.

I play things I think are cool and don't really care if I lose as long as I'm drippy and have fun, personally speaking. Invincible sucks. Period.
Anyway yeah.

I see no mention of weapon groups.
Vs normal cruisers (Anything other than pencil-shaped op ships) add some fast velocity secondaries in the group and hit their hull to your heart's content. This is known as blind fire mk2 (blind fire mk1 is just not having a group at all)

Cruisers don't need a guide because they are currently balanced for an entirely different meta that has yet to be released.
LSC is and has been literally the most op capital ship in the game since the mod allowed capital ships to be flown. All because of its minuet pencil shape and un-changed-standardized strafe and generous turn rate.

I honestly gotta ask you to not use the LSC or Gallic cruisers and come back to this thread on this one about evasion.
They're downright broken and always have been. Gallic one less so but before the rework its small rear put it in the same boat.

I'm so sorry to rain on your parade but the LSC has always been borderline broken. An un-balancable vanilla ship. Similar to the Crecy's broken center of mass targeting.

Another edit. Don't get me started on the Churchill and Crecy with their broken center targeting making them incredibly hard to hit despite their size.

I think you're kind of missing the point of the thread. It's more to give people an idea of some of the stuff I do to not get hit and some idea of how I play as one of the better cruiser players around (and no, I am not solely an LSC player) who specialises especially in battleship killing and evasion. The guide was originally on how to LSC, I explicitly posted it here so that people might glean some more widely applicable knowledge.

Edit: I didn't include blindfire because frankly Thunderer has done a better job of it than I ever could. The guide was a WIP and has since been abandoned, I probably would've added it somewhere.

Edit edit: I've also done this shit on a Donau, which could be reasonably debated to be the worst cruiser in the game, perhaps alongside the Hel, so yes, it works.

[Saronsen]

LSC has always been op cos it's a pencil with op strafe and turn rate that hasn't ever been adjusted.

it also only has 2 heavies and 5 secondaries on a medium power core
just drive at it in a straight line with a scylla and it and the player die tired every time trying to STS your much more immense powercore and 13 turrets of unga bunga
its size and reverse is the only thing that it has going for it, as its technically slower than cruisers like the scylla too.
you can say the FWG is the decider, while in reality it just makes it easier for me to drag my heavy cruiser/battlecruisers nuts on your face instead of from 800m away

TL;DR - Skill issue.

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[Darius]

If you do manage to master some of the strafing tricks described, I would humbly request you don't go around sealclubbing everyone with them. Those techniques will allow you to 1v1 kite quite literally anything cruiser-sized or larger (speaking from experience, including such things as thumper Osiris', terminator Murmillos, full razor battleships and other such alleged anti-cruiser ships) and it generally is a rather frustrating experience to play against.

This applies only to players that aren't actually good at the game. The "Crecy crowd" already has developed a trick to instantly win against a kiting cruiser in a duel, regardless of size, armament or skill, though obviously things like net connection still matter a lot (like it did when I dueled your cruiser in Theta some months ago and died due being temporarily disconnected.) There are however exceptions to this, as anything larger than a cruiser will succumb to this technique in a duel, but it is what it is. The "shift + w" trick will do wonders to force the cruiser to play the game instead of a weird boxing match at 2k.

Saronsen summarized it fairly well, if anything, although you don't have to fly a heavier ship for this to work.

Regarding the questionable balance state of the LSC, it's fine as is, I've tested it myself and I can safely say it's mediocre at best. Is it good at clapping people that don't know what they're doing? Yeah. But that applies to everything else ever. In fact I'd argue both the Dragon cruiser, LSC, and Donau are all in one single pot of "?" balance due to their shape.

LSC - great shape, nada guns, FWG that's mediocre at best (2 impacts are way better than 1 FWG since you can even move them around);
Dragon - terrible shape, great guns, extremely questionable FWG (epic against Kusari battleships if there were any, but just instaloss vs Takeda);
Donau - terrible shape, terrible guns, half-decent strafe (honestly one of the worst cruisers out there to fly. Things like Praefect at least can somewhat dodge, but the Donau can't either dodge nor TS, nor tank, due to the gigantic side.)

All in all, if there's anything to actually learn from this thread, it's this:
When you fly a cruiser, TS, stay with your allies, and don't mount anything other than 2 pulses and 2 impacts/1 tachyon (or more). None of the above "tricks" will work for your Average Joe captain, so what I said a bit before is what they should really learn in order to be good. Plenty of cases where in duels players are good but in fleet fights they say nothing and just die.

[Czechmate]

Is EK needed or not? How does it work with new thruster, gliding.

How do you use fat boys like the rheinland and Corsair cruisers in fleet fights? They seem so weak in teamfights compared to the hard to hit small ones.

[Darius]

Is EK needed or not? How does it work with new thruster, gliding.

How do you use fat boys like the rheinland and Corsair cruisers in fleet fights? They seem so weak in teamfights compared to the hard to hit small ones.

The Donau I'm unsure what to really say. For anything other than face tanking and as a backline support unit, you have to be a demigod to do well in it. The best Donau player I know is Hemlocke, though while he flies other cruisers too, I saw him doing the best in it. Obviously there's also Haste and Pillow around but they don't fly it actively in game during engagements.

As for the Praefect, thing's flown like a larger Crecy. You play alongside your caps, don't go too aggressively and try your best to time your turns such that you shoot 3-4 impact salvos every few minutes, then return to the fleet. These are the basics for both caps.

One thing that really differs, though, is the fact that the Praefect is so large that dodging fast heavy guns is nigh impossible. The heavy mortar, trebuchet, as well as the razors (Sirian, Nomad and Gallic variants) are instant win conditions for any engagement against a Praefect. It sucks, but what can ya do. You can see it towards the end of the battle I was in yesterday: Click me!

PS: The above statement(s) apply mostly for duels. I'd have to generalize extremely broadly to talk about fleet fight usage specifically, but the basic tips about how to fly the two ships are same regardless of the type of battle.

[Saronsen]

Is EK needed or not? How does it work with new thruster, gliding.

cruisers have a lot of mass(?)(drag?) and slow down very quickly in ekill now. i havent done nearly as much cruiser pvp in the rework as i did before, but i wouldnt recommend using e-kill unless youre trying to keep your speed above a certain point for longer than your thruster would allow. ekill, tap tap tap tap. only other use seems to be drifting in from cruise so you recharge, but you have a pretty short range to do so with the new "aerodynamics" of the cruiser. someone whos done the reworked cruisers more than me might know more

How do you use fat boys like the rheinland and Corsair cruisers in fleet fights? They seem so weak in teamfights compared to the hard to hit small ones.

rheinland cruiser is the objectively worst cruiser in the mod right now, so you use it by logging a battlecruiser instead. you use the corsair cruiser in wolfpack tactics to all engage an enemy at once at close range, then disengage if they get to kiting distance/die and turn on the next target.
in solo play you just kill whatever enemy cruiser you can fly at with the corsair cruiser

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[Levenna]

Is EK needed or not? How does it work with new thruster, gliding.

How do you use fat boys like the rheinland and Corsair cruisers in fleet fights? They seem so weak in teamfights compared to the hard to hit small ones.

EK is very much needed, yes. Saronsen is correct in that cruisers rapidly slow down in EK at the moment, however every time you strafe, the engine kicks in and gives you a little more forward momentum, nullifying this effect somewhat. More importantly, it slows down your thruster drain significantly if you're only gently tapping strafes to change direction rather than hard holding them down, giving you a lot more longevity in a fight.

I can't speak for the Praefect, so default to Darius for that one. But the Donau can be just about managed by keeping its top/bottom towards the enemy. and using side strafes, acceleration and reverse to dodge shots that way. For when you want to deal hull damage with heavies, its frontal arc could technically be worse but it is fat. Core dump and get out before people start focus firing you is probably the order of the day.

This applies only to players that aren't actually good at the game. The "Crecy crowd" already has developed a trick to instantly win against a kiting cruiser in a duel, regardless of size, armament or skill, though obviously things like net connection still matter a lot (like it did when I dueled your cruiser in Theta some months ago and died due being temporarily disconnected.) There are however exceptions to this, as anything larger than a cruiser will succumb to this technique in a duel, but it is what it is. The "shift + w" trick will do wonders to force the cruiser to play the game instead of a weird boxing match at 2k.

You're quite right, kiting is questionable in a cruiser duel, which is why there's an entire section on knife fighting in the guide, too, although if I'm remembering correctly I don't think I'd yet gotten to pointing out the vast superiority of impacts and shards over tachyons against other cruisers. But even as soon as you have, say, a cruiser and a bomber vs a cruiser and a bomber, suddenly your shift+W strategy is invalidated, speaking entirely from experience. Knowing how to kite properly and effectively is a valuable skill that can be applied quite widely.

Anyway, you're talking about duels, specifically duels against another cruiser. That's one very specific engagement that's a weakness for the kiting part of the strategy outlined (although the strafing methodology is universally applicable). Against anything larger, as well as engaging in a fleet, the evasive patterns I tend to lean towards still work a treat. I'm not sure if you're implying in other places in your reply that I'm only a duelist but that really isn't the case, since I log semi-regularly alongside Outcasts, LN pretty much every time there's a fight in Liberty, and sometimes the odd Rheinland event (albeit most recently on a snub not a cruiser), not to mention AI cruiser shenanigans with Auxesia against core and corsairs but those seem to have died down lately (something of a shame since they were rather fun).

But yes, I can assure you that dodging shots is practically the same methodology for me against single or multiple targets, and therefore the basics of the guide are still really quite valid, which are the main parts I wanted to, well, impart. Which I suppose looking back I could've made clearer in the original post.

Edit: Huh, I did say cruiser size in a 1v1 context specifically. Fair enough. That's very much a half-truth. Thanks for calling me out on that one.

[JadeTornado]

Can this be updated for 5.0 patch?

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