Good morning, (Sub)Dredditors, and (Sub)Dredditor friends!

Last night I got myself into a squad of Subdreddit regulars, with Heretyks, Orca Amsel, Promethius Modulus and myself bringing swift death to the enemy ground forces of TEST… actually it was more of an evening of testing my new fit, dealing with enemy prototype suits, and discovering some interesting bugs in the new patch, but I’ll get to that in a moment with my after action report.

First, an update on my logi-bro improvements. The other day, I finally accrued enough skill points to sink into remote armor repair III (as a logibro, I really should have done this earlier). My next goal is remote armor repair IV, which will bring all my equipment skills up to IV, making me quite the versatile logi. This upgrade in skill has allowed me to switch out my normal triage repair tool, for a brand shiny new BDR-2 repair tool. This takes my repping ability from 31 hitpoints per second (hp/s), to 33hp/s. This may not sound like much of a jump, but I can tell you thanks to all the sweet sweet triage and guardian points that it is well worth it if you can fit it. Not only that, but it takes my vehicle repping ability from 56hp/s all the way up to 98hp/s meaning it’s also great if your squad wants to roll around in a tank. While I didn’t get a chance to rep any vehicles, Orca and Heretyks were often found in heavy suits, and with reps on them, I was getting +30 WP ticks instead of my normal +25 WPs, and the ticks were coming in much faster. Definitely worth the upgrade.

But there has been a trade off. My normal suit is the ‘Sever’ logi suit. It’s a BPO, so it costs me nothing to run (minus modules, of course), and has the same stats as your basic Minmitar Logistics suit, except it has three equipment slots as opposed to two. This allows me to faithfully fulfill the three sacred roles of the logibro, repair, revive and resupply. Normally, to fulfill these roles I’ve got a pretty reliable fit with the triage repair tool, the gauge nanohive, and the KIN-012 nanite injector. The thing you have to remember, though is that the ‘Sever’ still has the basic stats, meaning the CPU and PG, even with both my electronics and field engineering skills at V, is still lacking compared to more advanced suits.

The KIN itself has pretty high CPU requirements, but bringing my comrades from the brink of death to 50% armor is invaluable (especially when I’m reviving a heavy), so replacing it was not an option. In order for me to fit the BDR-2, I had to make room for CPU. So I made a new fit, saved it as “Super Healer,” and replaced the gauge nanohive with a compact nanohive.

The difference here is two nanohives. Crud. The gauge is great because it lets me throw out three nanohives, meaning if I decide I want to defend a particular spot, or objective, I can place nanohives all around choke points near the objective and normally this results in blueberries getting the hint that I’ve created a good defensive position. However, now I’ve got to be more thoughtful in my placement of the nanohive, because I’ve only got one. But this lead me to another decision…

I have written before about the Type-II Minmitar Logistics suit. I really liked it, and was quite impressed with its speed. However, with only two equipment slots, there was no room for nanohives, and while I had made a good Type-II fit, it was highly dependent on the situation. If I started a skirmish match, I’d use it at the beginning to make a run for all the objectives (this suit can easily keep up with a standard scout suit), then use it until I died, then come back in my 0-ISK ‘Sever’ fit (all militia stuff). The Type-II fit would cost me 65,000 ISK a pop, but if I start a skirmish and go to the end (especially if I hack a few objectives in the beginning), I would easily make that money back and then some. The suit itself would only see action once a battle, though.

But that may change. It dawned on me that with my ‘Sever Super Healer’ set-up, I only had one nanohive to give, and once it was thrown out, the ‘Sever’ is pretty much a slower Type-II with a bit more tank (they both have an armor repairer in one of their lows, but I switched out the plates on the Type-II for biotics, since speed is the name of the Type-II game).

The Type-II, on the other hand, with increased CPU and only two equipment slots, can easily handle a BDR-2 and a KIN-012, on top of being as fast as a scout. With an advanced shield extender and complex damage mod in the high slots, it’s still got a bit of tank in the shield, and I’m still just as deadly with my GEK (maybe more-so, with my speed advantage).

So now I’m getting into the habit of asking my squad if anyone is bringing nanohives while we’re on the barge. With the surplus of logibros in Subdreddit, this normally isn’t an issue, and if someone else has the nanohives covered, I’m going to be rolling up in my Type-II.

The BDR-2 plus KIN-012 is freaking awesome, by the way. Heretyks was in a standard militia heavy suit, and when he went down, I was able to revive him, then throw reps on real fast, and he went from being dead to being at full armor in less than 3 seconds (could have been 4 or 5…we were in a hectic situation, as you might imagine when having to revive a heavy…). Once we’ve got squads of six, I’m terrified of the idea of 3 heavies with 3 logis in this kind of set up backing them up. Just with one BDR-2 on them they begin to be able to soak up a massive amount of damage.

Speaking of damage, we caused quite a bit of it last night, including finding a pretty interesting bug…

As I said earlier, it was Heretyks, Orca, Promethius and myself, me running the Type-II logi I’ve been talking about for most of the games. We had a good first match, an ambush that got incredibly close near the end, with us winning by maybe 2 clones. I love games like that.

It’s worth noting a little something about the new spawning mechanics. I’ve heard a lot of complaining about them on the forums, but from my experience last night, I’ve got to admit I think it’s a huge improvement. In the first ambush game we played, once we had a good defensive position set up, we would spawn with the rest of our team, meaning it wasn’t long after I got put down that I could be right back on the front line keeping my teammates backed up with the 3 Sacred R’s. And not once did I spawn and die immediately to enemy gunfire (well… it MAY have happened once, but MUCH less than it used to).

It was the next match we queued up for that we had one of the more interesting fights I’ve had thanks to a bug that I assume was caused by the patch we got yesterday.

So, Heretyks, Orca, Promethius and I queue up for another ambush and we load up the war barge. Something is off, though. It’s eerily empty. Only us four are on the war barge, and as we look to see who we’re going against, we see only another squad of four on the other team, a squad from a corp called Prototype Technology…something (sorry guys! I was lazy and didn’t write your corp name down). As the timer counts down, no new players join either side and we boggle at the idea that we’re about to play a 4v4 impromptu corp match. Should be interesting…

Enter Manus Peak. In case you haven’t realized by now, Dust maps are pretty large. Knowing we had to stick together, but with two heavies we were going to be slow getting around, Heretyks orders in a dropship right at the start of the match. I wasn’t terribly concerned at this point, because I had not heard of this Prototype Technology corp, and I thought that this whole 4v4 would be an interesting change of pace from the larger battles we’re used to. Also, I had teamed up with all my squadmates before, and knew them to be capable warriors.

While we’re waiting for the dropship to arrive, I see the Prototype guys blip on my radar and go to cover our position. I know where they’re coming from, and with my GEK and complex damage mod, I knew I could cut a few down before they got to us.

Now, either the Prototype Technologies dudes saw they were going against a Subdreddit squad and decided to go all Napoleon Complex with their best goods, or they take their name waaaaay serious. I say this because as I was guarding the hill, waiting for the dropship to land, I see four prototype suits running straight for us. I learned a valuable lesson here.

Prototype suits have a shit-ton of armor. We were in no way prepared for this assault, and I’m sure they were running complex damage mods themselves, because it wasn’t long before I was face down in the dirt, unable to help the other three as we became overrun just as the dropship was dropped off. They dispatch my equally surprised brethren, and then begin hacking the dropship that set down. How embarrassing.

Prototype Technologies, however are not familiar with the terribleness of TEST, and did not realize this was all part of our devious plan. You see, once they were all in the dropship, it was quickly disposed of by either one of our heavies, Orca or Heretyks… I think that happened, anyway. I was waiting on the spawn timer to count down when I heard chatter about our hacked drop ship going down. It may have actually crashed into a mountain instead of getting shot down…whatever, still part of the plan.

After this tragic attempt, Heretyks decides to go for another as him and I both spawn on the other side of the map. Orca and Promethius quickly join us, and this time we’re actually able to take off in our dropship and head for the top of the building that’s at bravo on the skirmish map. No one had uplinks on their fit, so right before take-off, I ran over to a supply depot, hacked it, and changed it into my Jihad fit (the only one I currently have uplinks fitted on). So, our plan is to land on the top of the building, then I’d throw down the uplink, and that’s where we’d fortify our position.

Let me preface this by saying Heretyks is an awesome dropship pilot. I’ve seen him make some crazy maneuvers, and even (almost) avenge my death with a well placed kamikaze nosedive. Getting up to the top of the building would normally not have been a problem.

But, with only 4 enemies on the map, you’re pretty much always a target, and a dropship is not the most inconspicuous object flying in the skies above. As we were making our way up, we begin to draw a crap-load of fire, and I watch as our armor is quickly depleted. Heretyks is able to position the fiery dropship directly over our insertion point, and we all bale for the rooftop.

And we all make it!

Landing on the rooftop, I look around to see all my comrades have safely made it out of the burning wreckage, and I go to whip out the uplink so we can start getting to business.

Then the dropship wreckage lands on me.

And I die.

So, no uplinks just then. Also, as the only logi at that time, it wasn’t long before only Heretyks was left on the roof, with Orca, Promethius and myself having to regroup on the ground.

That’s what really killed us in that match. The first few minutes we were overwhelmed and surprised by an opponent in superior gear. After these two little engagements, we were trailing in clones by quite a bit, but thanks to being able to get two uplinks going on the roof, we were able to rally ourselves and started dishing out the damage.

They had taken up a position next to a supply depot, and would switch out suits whenever they took any damage. Once we figured this out, we were able to get good sites on the depot and finally started racking up some kills.

In the end, we took the mission countdown timer to zero, with a score of Prototype Technologies having something like 65 clones, and us with 56. While we were able to maintain field control for the last half of the match, we just couldn’t rebound from the thrashing we took at the beginning.

Maybe I should start looking at the prototype logi suit…

Anyway, it was a great mach, dudes! Even though what we experienced may have been a bug, it was a completely different gaming style than you normally find in the larger matches. It’s what we call a happy accident. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing this type of option available in the final game, a sort of squad vs squad ambush. I know there’s been quite a bit of talk on the Subdreddit forum on the official message boards about people trying to get regular squads together. A game type like this would go a long way for a squad looking to get to know each others strengths and weaknesses, as well as teaching them to rely on each other.

In any case, it was quite an eventful night last night as far as Dust is concerned. Now I’m just eagerly anticipating this new patch I keep hearing about…

Until next time,

Happy Hunting, Everyone!

– JRD