Review
This ship brings top agility in Gunship range. With some nice dodging, shields should keep you safe for long battles. Paper armor and weak power plant forces you to pick your battles carefully and shoot to hit. You will find a way to use it for hunting fighters or lone gunboats. It is fish-shaped, as BHG standard, so it's hard to hit from four sides and easy to hit from two. Put CAU4 ASAP (it fits somehow), just to prevent being massacred by first bomber + VHF you step on. Only 4 of 6 turrets can fire frontwards, but all can fire backwards, so set it up wisely.
Gunships can kill fighters nicely, just if you can see them. Three Gunboat Pulse and tree Gunboat Battle Razor makes Bottlenose real Bomber/Fighter insta-killer. If you miss a lot and prefer faster guns and more noise, set Gunboat Missile and five Cerberus (some rockets and cca. 15 good hits with Cerbs will drain all nanos and hull from any fighter, no matter of armor upgrades). If even Cerberus set-up is too slow for you and you miss fighters a lot, try BHG Gunboat Turret (1500m/s speed should solve all dodging issues). Just 40-50 hits are needed to kill VHF with turetts. Solaris could be good for a start and/or doing anti-VHF missions - so you can make some money and reputation faster. Keep the following in mind:
- Some VHF pilots are so good that you will see them up front just for a second. They will be on your back all the time, shooting like mad. If you can't do Turett Steering - harder gunboat is preferable, like Orca. Use turett view to see what you shoot.
- Standard VHF pilots will probably just run away from B-Nose. Let them go, behave like a gentleman. You fly real VHF/bomber killer, they are not cowards, they are just smart.
- anti-fighter setup makes tiny Bottlenose pretty easy prey for other gunboats. Run on time. Not to mention cruisers. Just a pro can solo-fight cruiser with turetts and live to talk about it.
You will need all 6 cannons to hunt some bigger prey than fighters, so you should learn how to look back and use full weapons potential. Joust, strafe all the time, change your speed, than look back and shoot again. In that case Pulse/Razor set-up will do the job. Your ship is small, turns and accelerates fast, just fly around, use TS-ing if you know how, use your guns just when you're sure to hit. That way the power plant will not drain out and leave you wondering what are you doing in front of that cruiser like that, with no energy and trusters on red (it can really ruin your day). Three P/R Bottlenoses can beat a CAU8 BS fast enough, just beware of missiles. If you tried and still can't fire backwards or TS, do not mess with capitals or GB duels. Simply no firepower or armor for that. Kill fighters instead, in a Bottlenose it's a pleasure.
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Review by
Pepe
