Tank vs Manta...HELP!
Its hard to keep your tank against a good manta player, The best thing is to have 2 people in the tank, and the second guys gets out of the tank and uses an Avril or shock rifle. I have the same problem as you do, and unless you hit a lucky shot with the tank, which is hard for me, you may want to try sitting in the second seat part and use the machine gun to chase him away or kill the manta. (You can switch positions by hitting 1 or 2).
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DW_ToxicWaste
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1060
- Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:00 am
There's a couple of things you can do.
1. Try to anticipate the manta coming. The manta has to be a certain distance from you, in order to hop over you (and therefore avoid your attack) Try to hit it just before you think it will hop.
2. Do not shoot unless you think you have a shot. It takes a long time for the tank to reload. Even if you are getting hammered, wait for your shot. There's nothing worse than having a shot at the manta, and being halfway through a reload cycle.
3. Move the tank, and the turret at the same time. Don't stand still, and rotate the turret. This will help you manuver quicker into a position that can hit the manta. And can catch the manta off guard.
No matter what, a good manta pilot can usually take 50-75% of a good tank driver's health, if not finish the job. So don't feel bad.
Hope this helps.
Rich
1. Try to anticipate the manta coming. The manta has to be a certain distance from you, in order to hop over you (and therefore avoid your attack) Try to hit it just before you think it will hop.
2. Do not shoot unless you think you have a shot. It takes a long time for the tank to reload. Even if you are getting hammered, wait for your shot. There's nothing worse than having a shot at the manta, and being halfway through a reload cycle.
3. Move the tank, and the turret at the same time. Don't stand still, and rotate the turret. This will help you manuver quicker into a position that can hit the manta. And can catch the manta off guard.
No matter what, a good manta pilot can usually take 50-75% of a good tank driver's health, if not finish the job. So don't feel bad.
Hope this helps.
Rich
Ah the good 'ol Tank vs Manta debate.
First up, as the tanker you have huge advantage that should win you a large percentage of the fights. Namely, turret lag. For those who don't know, this is the online phenomenon of UT2004's Goliath tank that anyone not in the turret itself can usually not know with any reasonable degree of accuracy *exactly* where a tanks turret is pointed at any given moment.
I can't count the number of times where I've attacked a tank in a manta, lost the fight when the turret was pointed 45 degrees away from me or more and then while I'm about to respawn and the screen shows my flaming bits on the ground, the tank turret rotates in my view to point right where I got killed.
Because of this, I'm going to disagree a bit with the others - Tanks should win a large majority of stand up fights given equal skill levels. Obviously when you have a master Manta driver going up against Joe Smith, newbie tank gunner, the outcome is going to be a bit different. But for the most part this premise of mine will pan out.
What can you do in a tank vs a manta?
Splash, splash, and even more splash. Splash damage is your very best friend. A manta is a very fragile thing, and the person piloting it even more so if they just hopped into one without getting any shields or extra health. Even a glancing hit from a splash shot will destroy or seriously hurt a Manta. If you do get such a hit but don't out right kill a manta (it's visably trailing flames indicating severe damage), quickly switch to the mini-gunner spot and you'll take off the remaining 40 or so health very quickly.
And note that ANYTHING can and should be used to cause a splash hit. This means literally any hard surface that will cause your shot to explode. Things enemies won't normally worry about you shooting at are good choices - friendly nodes, locked enemy nodes, low ceilings or other map features that "stick out" into the playing field, and so on are ideal. Your own teamates or teamate vehicles are prime splash surfaces as well as most enemies will think of them as temporary cover from your fire rather than deathtraps when you splash a shot off of them.
Another tactic is to never rely on the turret's turn speed alone to bring the cannon to bear on your target. If you're being attacked from your left, don't just use the mouse to swing your turret that way, use your direction keys to spin the tank that direction as well. Both together will bring the turret where you need it to be much faster than most Manta pilots will suspect and allow you to get in a deadly or at least damaging shot.
A final thing to keep in mind is more defensive in nature. Most tank losses vs Mantas in a one vs one fight are not because of greater skill, but due to the tank not realizing they're under heavy attack quick enough. A manta that is so totally unmolested that all of their shots hit the target will tear down a full health tank's 800 armor very quickly. Most of the time this happens, the tanker was suffering the "tunnel vision" effect, that of being focused and most likely zoomed in on a distant target so much that they loose situational awareness of their immediate surroundings. Never let this happen to you. The key is having a handy keybind for 1st and 3rd person views, and to use restraint with 1st person shots. I only ever use them for the most distant shots or those needing a bit of prediction. Always be ready to defend yourself from a fast mover coming up on your from behind or the sides, which they surely will be if you've already splashed their innards around the map a few times from your current position.
Well, I've said enough for now I think. Hope this has helped you out.
First up, as the tanker you have huge advantage that should win you a large percentage of the fights. Namely, turret lag. For those who don't know, this is the online phenomenon of UT2004's Goliath tank that anyone not in the turret itself can usually not know with any reasonable degree of accuracy *exactly* where a tanks turret is pointed at any given moment.
I can't count the number of times where I've attacked a tank in a manta, lost the fight when the turret was pointed 45 degrees away from me or more and then while I'm about to respawn and the screen shows my flaming bits on the ground, the tank turret rotates in my view to point right where I got killed.
Because of this, I'm going to disagree a bit with the others - Tanks should win a large majority of stand up fights given equal skill levels. Obviously when you have a master Manta driver going up against Joe Smith, newbie tank gunner, the outcome is going to be a bit different. But for the most part this premise of mine will pan out.
What can you do in a tank vs a manta?
Splash, splash, and even more splash. Splash damage is your very best friend. A manta is a very fragile thing, and the person piloting it even more so if they just hopped into one without getting any shields or extra health. Even a glancing hit from a splash shot will destroy or seriously hurt a Manta. If you do get such a hit but don't out right kill a manta (it's visably trailing flames indicating severe damage), quickly switch to the mini-gunner spot and you'll take off the remaining 40 or so health very quickly.
And note that ANYTHING can and should be used to cause a splash hit. This means literally any hard surface that will cause your shot to explode. Things enemies won't normally worry about you shooting at are good choices - friendly nodes, locked enemy nodes, low ceilings or other map features that "stick out" into the playing field, and so on are ideal. Your own teamates or teamate vehicles are prime splash surfaces as well as most enemies will think of them as temporary cover from your fire rather than deathtraps when you splash a shot off of them.
Another tactic is to never rely on the turret's turn speed alone to bring the cannon to bear on your target. If you're being attacked from your left, don't just use the mouse to swing your turret that way, use your direction keys to spin the tank that direction as well. Both together will bring the turret where you need it to be much faster than most Manta pilots will suspect and allow you to get in a deadly or at least damaging shot.
A final thing to keep in mind is more defensive in nature. Most tank losses vs Mantas in a one vs one fight are not because of greater skill, but due to the tank not realizing they're under heavy attack quick enough. A manta that is so totally unmolested that all of their shots hit the target will tear down a full health tank's 800 armor very quickly. Most of the time this happens, the tanker was suffering the "tunnel vision" effect, that of being focused and most likely zoomed in on a distant target so much that they loose situational awareness of their immediate surroundings. Never let this happen to you. The key is having a handy keybind for 1st and 3rd person views, and to use restraint with 1st person shots. I only ever use them for the most distant shots or those needing a bit of prediction. Always be ready to defend yourself from a fast mover coming up on your from behind or the sides, which they surely will be if you've already splashed their innards around the map a few times from your current position.
Well, I've said enough for now I think. Hope this has helped you out.
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Curly_Oxide
- Camper
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:00 am
- Location: The seat of a Goliath
No kidding, what the fck can one do about Raptors aside from whippin out your avril. (But risking losing your tank.)t
Don´t worry, He´s got the whole world in His hands.
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Arienrhode
- Killer in Training
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:00 am
I like that idea :cyclops:barto wrote:get out and run away
You just gota whore the tank to get good at it. First you get good at splashing people and mantas, then you get good at eagle eyes, then you get good at hitting mantas mid air with tank shells head on...even though they don't register 75% of the time.
The tank turns much faster when you turn both the tank and the barrel at the same time.
It's easy to get good with vehicles if you take the right mindset...know the good tank camp spots and even know all the good spots to splash shells onto. You just gota keep using it to get good with it. There is no shame in camping a vehicle if you are gona go do something useful with it and be effective with it.
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KaptainZerg
- Camper
- Posts: 58
- Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:00 am
- Location: Liandri College, Office of the Dean
LOL. I'm in the same boat, Storm—err, same Hellbender. I just loves me some vehicle campers, though, because when I'm in the proper mood, and my team isn't losing, I take revenge on teammates who think they can just steal a vehicle that I'm about to get into. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the many evil and satisfying ways that can be done, but here's one of my faves:Storm wrote:What you say is true, but most of the vehicle campers already know what they are doing, leaving us noobs to not be able to learn...And I see alot of "no noobs in vehicles".
A player* is sitting in a Hellbender, beeping the horn like mad. You jump in but just as you do he switches to the good gun so that you have to chauffeur him. Ok, no problem. I'll drive his ass—but I'm heading straight for the nearest enemy node to park right where the enemy can blow up the Hellbender in a few seconds. You simply park and run, or jump out a few feet from the hot spot. If you're real lucky your dead passenger will type some pathetic insult in game chat, that's when you know you pissed him off good. :compress:
I've become decent at driving the Scorpion only because most people don't like them so they are available often. I can do a lot of damage in one of those things, especially if I jump out right before it blows up from damage and I spam spider mines all around.
*Most of the time I already know the player is a n0obtard who deserves even worse.
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