NewB Question Part VII: Improve Home-made Titan

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Sun Aug 18, 2002 3:12 pm

*And* you lose valuable salvage money!
Besides, if you're within 2 hexes of the blast you're taking damage/heat/radiation yourself.

whitefirefox · Post by **whitefirefox** » Sun Aug 18, 2002 8:38 pm

yeah but watching them explode is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun!

Korgmeister · Post by **Korgmeister** » Mon Aug 19, 2002 5:01 pm

Nah, I am definately for lopping off the head with chainsaws.

There's few things worse than having two CC titans go into engine shutdown because some bozo made a powerplant hit.

firestorm · Post by **firestorm** » Mon Aug 19, 2002 8:50 pm

personally i'd rather NB the fool to death... but that's kinda hard.

rosary · Post by **rosary** » Mon Aug 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Isn't this always the case? We all love fireworks as long as we can watch them from a safe distance.

During a multiplayer game of TOS:Warring Suns this weekend, My last two titans made the fatal error of destroying our enemies powerplant. Both of my jocks died.

Also, I think I prefer the term:

Unexpected Fission Surplus to Nuclear Explosion.

PrinceCorrin · Post by **PrinceCorrin** » Tue Aug 20, 2002 11:16 pm

Well, technically it's not a nuclear ecplosion. It's simply a radioactive, fissionless (or dirty) explosion. So it's a big bang with radiation. No mushroom cloud. Nuclear powerplants are not capable of exploding in a manner which would produce a nuclear yield of mass destruction. They're not designed for it.

whitefirefox · Post by **whitefirefox** » Wed Aug 21, 2002 4:14 am

*stops building his nuclear engine* dangit why'd you have to go and tell me that? now ill never have a kamikazi tos!

rosary · Post by **rosary** » Wed Aug 21, 2002 8:26 am

Originally posted by PrinceCorrin
Well, technically it's not a nuclear ecplosion. It's simply a radioactive, fissionless (or dirty) explosion. So it's a big bang with radiation. No mushroom cloud. Nuclear powerplants are not capable of exploding in a manner which would produce a nuclear yield of mass destruction. They're not designed for it.

So does this mean we agree on the term:

Unexpected fission surplus?

But I should mention you are talking about nuclear powerplants of the ancients. I am discussing the fission plants of those of us TOS pilots living 1000 years after the creation of the faster than light drive. . . right?

CrushU · Post by **CrushU** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 4:34 am

Engine explosions are a pain. The reason I take out the head, is because thats the quickest and safest way to quickly take a tos down. (and its kinda fun seeing a headless titan on scanner window, especially if you have no scan and you didnt blow anything else off. You look at it and think "gee, he aint dead yet" then you realize something's wrong with the picture, and notice that it DOESNT HAVE A HEAD.)

Engine explosions are supreme pains, the damage is negligible, as long as you're not using light or recon and you havent been engaged in bloody battle for the last 100 seconds(i.e., all your armor isnt yellow or worse). but the heat... man, the heat is DEATH. Not just cause it shuts yer engine down, it also makes ammo explosions(which RAISE the heat back up), assuming you're packin ammo-using guns.

Although I must admit there are some times where you kill the engine, with no boom (not sure when this happens, seems like it happens when target titan isnt using much power, or is severly disabled but not dead (ie, one side's torso, arm, and leg are gone, but it still has that annoying tesla bolt on the other side.)

and theres something to having an entire black titan (which i did once without exploding the titan once, took forever)

whitefirefox · Post by **whitefirefox** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 9:37 pm

call me nuts but i go for the engine 70-80% of the time

besides if your up against a larger force and there all close together that engine explosion is gonna do a hell of alot more damage to the nme team ^^

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Thu Aug 22, 2002 11:04 pm

Originally posted by CrushU
Although I must admit there are some times where you kill the engine, with no boom (not sure when this happens, seems like it happens when target titan isnt using much power, or is severly disabled but not dead (ie, one side's torso, arm, and leg are gone, but it still has that annoying tesla bolt on the other side.)

It's a check, depending on damage control skill of the jock and the quality of the DCS if any. Check the Guide, under Engine Explosion, one of the last pages.

Engine explosions also radiate the jocks in the affected area. If usually nothing happens, you may get unlucky enough to have one of those nasty special effects come down on you.

In a nutshell, toggle your shield on if you're expecting the engine of a nearby titan to go off!

CrushU · Post by **CrushU** » Fri Aug 23, 2002 12:54 am

It is fun to blow up a titan in the middle of nme titans. Occaisionally (not often) I blow one of mine up to do it. (use ngm's at long range, or have it step into burning forest) I don't do it often cuz it runs through jocks and money.

I did make about 3 or 4 titans all named nuke. one in recon, heavy and assault, maybe light. They're there for the stupid AI to pick. Basically I slapped the biggest engine possible on it and thats it. Makes a large explosion. The only problem is that if you see one of these coming toward you, best to blow it up quick, before its in among your titans.

When I have long-ranged cannon/energy titans, I do aim for the chest as soon as possible, assuming they're far enough away from my titans. Center torso is more heavily armored than the head, but it's easier to hit. So as long as they are AWAY from my titans, I blow em up when I can.

Side Note, Newbies, do NOT do this!: The first titan I made was named Lumberjack, so named because it used axes. (lame, i know) When nearly done, I didnt have enough weight to do what I wanted, so I didnt put armor on the lower torso. I also didnt have enough space in the center torso, so I put the engine on the lower torso. I meant to use this titan, took it out into battle, and promptly got my jock killed in the engine explosion and slapped myself on the head. (I rationalized engine in un-armored part, because "lower torso isn't hit very often" yeah right...) It's kinda what gave me the idea for NUKE.

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Fri Aug 23, 2002 1:01 am

You are talking about very experienced teams, right.

Usually called hits are no choice for beginner to medium titans.

There is a certain point in the game when your jocks reach skills around 80% were you can hope for called shots at a range greater than point blank.

CrushU · Post by **CrushU** » Fri Aug 23, 2002 1:08 am

Heh, the guy who made the called shot had yellow scan on him, the target was on the ground, and the jock had 60-75 skill on cannon. Also blue heat. 83% chance to hit without called shot...

He was rank 4, i think closing in on rank 5.

mutt2050 · Post by **mutt2050** » Fri Aug 23, 2002 10:55 pm

I don't kow what you were thinking not puting armor on your lower torso. I have lost a lot of titans from thier lower torsos being hit. And often times I aim for the lower torso or the legs. Nock him to the ground then called shots to the head and take him out.

PrinceCorrin · Post by **PrinceCorrin** » Sat Aug 24, 2002 1:38 am

Come on now, wouldn't you be incapacitated if YOUR Lower Torso (read: area betwixt one's legs) were shot to hell or ripped clean off? I know I wouldn't be going places too awful quick. You better be armoring that titan's codpiece.

On the subject of aiming for the CT: I do this alot. It's an area easily hit multiple times by CSs, but I prefer to do it at long range. If at close range I generally swing for the legs. They're not as easy to hit, but not as difficult as the head, and make the titan fall down and go boom if you chop 'em off. Another place I like to hit is the Center Back Torso. Kills as effectivally as the CT, and often doesn't contain an engine. An early strategy of mine, when it was much harder to kill a ToS, was to snipe through both Center Torsos for a quick kill.

As for the engines themselves fissioning, I beleive fission vaporizes everything nearby. The engines used in ToS don't seem to fuse on an atomic level, they seem to explode in a simple release of heat and pressure, like a great amount of tritenol, or Trinitrotoluate. Or even C4.
Not really a nuclear fission type blast. Too weak.

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Sat Aug 24, 2002 2:38 am

We're not talking about lighting a whole 10 million people city, we're talking about powering a relatively low consumption killing machine. We're not talking about a conventional thermonuclear powerplant, we're talking nuclear engines.
I didn't know C4 released radiation BTW...

PrinceCorrin · Post by **PrinceCorrin** » Tue Aug 27, 2002 9:12 pm

:rolleyes: :p

CrushU · Post by **CrushU** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 6:28 pm

As I said, that was the first titan I made. It sucked. It ROYALLY sucked. It sucked dirt every time it went out, if not sucking explosion from engine.

rosary · Post by **rosary** » Thu Aug 29, 2002 1:08 am

That is the reason we have stock titans. But feel free to design all the titans you want. Use the Pinboard for a general idea of how it will do.