Battlefield 2142 Titan Strategy

[Contrary]

After playing together as a squad a couple times now, I think we need better strategy and tactics for both capping silos and assaulting/defending the titans.

Air transports respawn about 15 seconds after the previous one takes off and soldiers can spawn into friendly APC or transport, so there's no real reason why we should be walking into combat. Most silos have a buggy and possibly a tank/walker/APC as well, so after hot-dropping and taking a silo, we can make a convoy to go take another.

This is how I see a textbook silo capture going:
-The first squadmate spawns on our titan and takes off in a transport along with any others who wish to tag along. He will approach and circle the target until all squadmates have respawned in the transport.
-The entire squad hot-drops near the silo, avoiding landing too close to the silo itself in case of anti-personel mines or enemy soldiers waiting in ambush.
-The squadleader drops in a hidden but accesible spot and puts down a SLSB.
-Recon and Engineer sweep the area for enemies and secure any unoccupied vehicles.
-Support and Assault move to capture the silo, dropping ammo and health hubs for the team.
-If there is contact, each class should adhere to its function; Assault and Support should be taking out infantry while Recon and Engineer should focus on eliminating vehicles. If you despawn, wait until the entire squad has despawned so you can all drop in using the SLSB at the same time.
-Once the silo is captured the SLSB should be retrieved or destroyed, anti-vehicular and anti-personnel mines laid around the silo, squadmates healed and rearmed, and the squad mounted and ready to roll.

There is also the issue of squad size and choice of targets. I think the best general strategy would be to bulk up the squad to about 1/5th of the total people on the team.
One strategy would be to go from silo to silo, capping each in turn without leaving defenders behind. If we encountered stiff resistance at a silo, we would respawn on the titan and hit a different target. This would maximize our force while leaving our silos vulnerable.
A different approach would be to claim a specific silo as our own, and make sure it stays friendly for the duration of the round. This method hinges on the rest of the team's ability to mount a coherent defense of the other four silos.
A third idea would involve getting the squad up to at least five soldiers, and assigning a silo to each person. The use of guerilla tactics would ensure than any silo left lightly guarded or less would immediately fall into our hands, but would also dilute our striking power as a whole as well as present possible problems with transportation.

[LordArt]

Well, I think the problem is, many are still getting adjusted to the game, as well as they aren't USE to doing squad level tactics, so they run off on their own, in an area we happen to be around as a squad. Realistically, we should be doing two by two cover formations for assaulting a silo. Recon and perhaps support should be setting up covering kill zones COVERING, the assaults and engineers. But then that means the assaults and engineers have to move up, and then WAIT for recon and support to move up.

Realistically, recon should set up shop for as large of a kill zone as possible, and the rest of us have to WAIT(which we don't want to do), while he gets into position. We have to use our headsets more than we have to actually coordinate, which currently we aren't doing. If it's an issue that we can't hear each other well enough, then we use the in-game auto-voice commands to supliment.

As support, I have a sonic sensor, people have to WAIT before they strike til that is up, so that you can see where the enemy is hiding before becoming cannon fodder.

We also need to advance in cover formation, even if it isn't 2 by 2. One person gets into position to see if there is enemy and has his(or her) gun out ready, while the next guy advances forward to a CLOSE BY position to do the same...at which point the people in the back move up.

And if you see someone, CALL IT OUT! The V key is kinda annoying as a squad level Push-to-talk, so move it somewhere more convient (I plan to move it to one of the extra mouse buttons).


-I agree with respawning on the titan to get a transport, however, I don't think we have to wait for everyone, especially if they aren't dead and on their way. While coming in as one force is good, it won't realistically happen unless there is a wipe. And the point is to have fun, not wait around.
-Should we just hot drop and avoid landing all together or do we want to keep the vehicle? As Squad leader, I need a tastey position to put the beacon down.
-We need a full time engineer. As much as that might be a pain for them kills wise, it's far too often we get jumped by an APC or worse and we can't do dick to it. If Recon is around, they might be able to do packs on it, but then they will have to run in from the boonies, and we lose our cover fire.
-Keep in mind for the assault, we need at least one (if not more) sonic probes to make sure the area is ACTUALLY clear.
-Mining is always good, but normally people don't want ot hang around to do such. Perhaps that can be done while I put down a few probes to make sure everything is clear.


The other problem is, we dont' have a full squad 100% of the time (depending on time of play and who can play at the time). As far as getting a larger squad, when others finally come online with the game, it will be larger. I think since we are willing to work as a unit versus random people filling up body slots, we will work better.

While I agree that fighting stiff resistance is bad for the team objectives, it's fun because of the challenge, and the victory is that much sweeter when they are overcome. I enjoy that kind of senerio (obviously). Two good squads going at it, fighting to the last man. There are two ways of looking at it. We are either getting pinned down by the enemy, or pinning down the enemy's better forces so the rest of the team has it easier. If the rest of our team are idiots and can't cap a silo while we are distracting our opposite, then we are likely lost anyways. However, if they are that way, then yes, we have to carry the whole team and put the team ahead of personal body count, and pull back and cap the less defended ones.

As far as your different strategies, I think #1 is the way we should go. It's about fun, not baby sitting. #2 would get boring I would think. #2 only makes sense if we are getting that badly overrun, and if that is the case, then we should be caping other silos because just holding on to one will lose us the round via attrition. (However, if the majority of other silos are capped for our team, then #2 makes sense if there is a good influx of enemy to keep us busy. If we are sitting there with our bombs up our collective butts, then we should move on) #3 is only good at the beginning of the round. I don't think everyone is proficent enough to rambo their own silo, and at that point, we aren't a squad.

Just my 2 cents on strategy.

(Shouldn't this get moved out of the general discussion section to somewhere more private?) Comment: If you like, I just put it here because it wasn't about magic and thus didn't fit elsewhere.

[Contrary]

I don't think moving two by two will be effective. The silo areas have too many buildings, cargo containers and other places to hide. Most likely this will result in the two who move forward first getting fired on from ambush while the coverers are unable to see the enemy to return fire. And I can't tell you how many times I've run around behind to flank suckers who like to hang back, so leapfrogging will just get us knifed or naded. If nothing else, having a buddy system so no one fights alone might be a good compromise.

As far as Recon goes, being a forward sniper isn't terribly useful on Titan maps. The offensive, close-up nature of silo combat means that a sniper will be facing someone with a MG/shotgun, assault rifle or SMG face-to-face. If the battle for a silo becomes protracted and the sniper can get into a high position to fire down at the enemy, fine. Otherwise it's very difficult to shoot an enemy that stays prone beside the silo or sticks to cover. Snipers would do much better in a defensive role. With that said, the top of the Spec-Ops branch of Recon gives the Lambert Carbine, which is quite a nasty piece of work, well worth the unlocks.

Arthur, using your infantry sensor would be the next thing right after dropping a SLSB.

As far as assessing the enemy ahead of time, we could instead do a fly-by of a silo to get a visual on what kind of resistance to expect and then turn around for a drop. This would eliminate any element of surprise on both sides, so we'd better be sure we can take out a prepared enemy.

If we want to land the transport for later use, people are going to have to learn to fly. I know I'm good enough to get us over the target, but I'm still pretty shaky on landing in a specific spot. The best place to land would be just outside the silo area, otherwise I've never seen a transport that landed next to a hotly contested silo survive.

[LordArt]

I think we should try two by two just to see how it works out. Can't hurt. I think with the sensor deployed, it should prevent flanking, as long as people pay attention to the sensor results. I've seen the buddy system work out well. While you might get one of the buddies, the other one kills you, so if we have more than one medic/assault, we'll be fine.

I agree the offensive sniper role will be hard, but not impossible. He wouldn't be there to snipe out the prone guy by the silo, but to cover against snipers already there, or other targets of oppertunity. If everyone are doing their job, he shouldn't get face to face really.

I agree a stealthed L-Carbine guy would be nasty too!

As far as the senor goes, it's only useful if it's near the assault target, otherwise it gives use a nice scan of where the ground hogs are. So running up to a wall to put it on can sometimes get me killed, so I need some sort of covering while I do all of this.

Assessing the enemy ahead of time I can call in a UAV or even a morter/EMP strike via the commander.

As far as piloting, I'm decent. I wouldn't land it right next to the silo though because you are right, they don't survive unless the area is uncontested. However, people should call out if the transport weapons they are using are needed to sweep the area (ie. they have targets). Otherwise, I'll just land. However, I think everyone else should combat drop out, and the pilot go land and catch up.

[Contrary]

After a few more sessions playing as a squad, we seem to be really coming together as a force to be reckoned with. A few things stood out for me:

-Having one person neutralize and then cap a silo while everyone else moves to eliminate the enemy within the immediate area seems to work really well. While turning the silo neutral to prevent enemies from respawning is our initial top priority, diverting up to half the squad to do so is risky. Just leaving one person prone near the silo while the rest fan out to cover him/her seemed to get better results.

-Keeping the air transport is the way to go. If the silo isn't contested, it's faster to cap and go than to ditch the transport in return for one more gun on the ground. If the silo is hot enough to wipe out the squad minus one, having both the air transport overhead and the SLSB on the ground gives us more flexibility in choosing where to respawn.

-Taking all vehicles present at a silo means the enemy can't use them against us. We don't need to keep them once the silo is capped, we just need to deny them to the enemy long enough to turn the silo blue.

I really enjoyed playing sky captain, so I'm going to start taking tier 2 Engineer in order to get the automatic repair kit and the anti-armor mines. However, I think we should take turns piloting the air transport so that everyone learns how to land it (and so one person isn't stuck babysitting our ride all round while everyone else goes killin').

[LordArt]

Well, Skycaptain Contrary, you need to learn not to run over your teammates with the transport VTOL. Land NEAR the green dots, not on top of them. We can run to it!

But I agree we are getting better a what needs to be done. As more people show, we will be even more deadly on Deathfest night.

[Contrary]

Yeah yeah, my bad. Shuhia Taiba's missile silo #1 is just a bear to land at because of that huge circular building and all of the cargo, derricks and fencing. Next time I'll use the horn while setting down.