Q: I just made a tank but can't seem to land >_< How do I do that?
A: Get close to the ground, then press 'C'. Landing requires practice, though. You should try learning to land quickly by pressing C the closest to the ground while boosting and strafing to a particular position. Don't be afraid to bang the ground and get a bit damaged while you practice, it can be hard even if it sounds easy :V.
Q: Wow, it landed quite fast :V Taking off is neat as well, can we now be more flexible?
A: It is certainly more comfortable to land, but that wasn't a problem when you learned to quickly land staying near the ground. Taking off is quite neat, though there are some cases on which you can take off and barrel roll to airsiege the target when he is passing or backmoving, do keep in mind that you work as a fire support/artillery, this means that when you took off you lost your position and it might hurt to have moved yourself from your spot :V But yes, it did add some space for us to pull some neat things =]
Q: I move too slow and it's taking forever to grind at early levels :/ Any tips?
A: Don't use the ground at all until you are lv 38+ and you have the +1 continuous fire rate siege mode :V. Instead of that, find yourself a good dualist, or quick weapon, and blast stuff away on air. Just pick a slow engine and peew peew stuff, it would be both more fun and quicker.
Q: How's my grinding life going to be? D:
A: Up to 38, what I mentioned above. At 38, you will start using the other types of weapons and siege mode. Metos on Redline if you are BCU, Relic if you are ANI V: Then at 50 you will have a rough change, moon. Learn to lure and to tactically pick targets around aggro zones. After a while, you will move to ID. You will probably stay there forever, since, besides Alioth, other places aren't as fast. You are free to pick whatever place you might find fun, tho. There are a few guides regarding grinding, do check them.
Q: On which weapon types should I focus?
A: Mainly, just stick with Supremes and BigSmashes. The first are an all around for your pickings, you can build massive prob, massive reattack/dmg, hybrids (certain reattack, rest on prob). Heck, you can even get yourself a cute distance/prob weapon with them xP BigSmashes, as their cute names describe, are for pounding everything that wasn't blessed with evasion. Some prob/hybrids Bigsmashes do work, tho. But still, they are kings for reattack/damage aspects. PLuuuus, it's always a good idea to have an M gear. The usual concept is: 'buffs are for eva on I gears, def for defense builds, lul gtfo A-Gear -kick-' Which is a common mistake. A-Gears gets loads of benefits due to fire ragings V: Our damage sky rockets and that's something the enemy sometimes doesn't like :( And on this, BigSmashes are lovely. The damage you can dish off with a good M gear buff is certainly scary.
Why the lack of love on the rest of the weapon types? As you get more experience, you will get more preference and will find, perhaps, some more useful than others... but you can play it safe knowing about these two cute weapon types that will never fail :]
Q: I heard that using a dualist type on Siege Mode is retarded, why so? D=
A: It's not retarded, it just that most of the time there is an exaggeration on what things to do and what you shouldn't. You should use dualist types if you want, what do they care about it xP But there is a reason of why they are less favorable: firing pattern. You will get a -%50 damage bonus using a dualist than a cannon type. The explanation is simple (on which I will probably make it complicated) the double of 2 is 4, the double of 1 is 2. With the continous fire of lv 38 siege mode, 2 turns in 3, not 4. 1, on the other hand, turns in 2. So the dualist doesn't get a 100% dmg output increase, just a 50%. Cannon types, and pretty much every type that is 1, gets a 100% bonus enhacement. SCIENCE V:
Q: So, besides early times, dualist sucks? I liked them =[
A: Nah, Jamiroquai sucks. Dualists sucks on siege mode, not outside of them V;. Also, before lv 75, AirSiege gives alot of %dmg bonus so using Dualist on Airsiege is a good option :V
Q: Ohh, Airsiege! What's the difference with Ground Siege mode, besides the obvious? D:
A: AirSiege re-shaped the A-Gear world and it has a HUGE impact after lv 75. Don't let the lack of +1 fire rate fool ya at low levels, too. You are welcome to use Airsiege since it's early levels, it's quite useful. One of the cool things that Flysis/AO update introduces is that we don't autobalance anymore, so you can position yourself in alot of wacky ways to pound your enemy =]
Q: Bundles sucks, why should I use them? They are costly and dull :/
A: Nah, they don't suck. Do take advantage of your initial developing states (lv 1~38) to practice using bundles on your grinding mobs. The general tip is to guide them with your strafing, they impact on contact and are quite useful to add more damage :V Give them a chance, you won't regret it. On the later levels, the bundles are the ones that lets you give the final touch to straight line runners, to add more dmg and obliterate the face to face B gear rushers or to kill/add dmg the ones that stays in your min range or rushes past it.
Q: D: What should I look for regarding Bundles?
A: Most use reattack, but, still, your best bet is a full dmg or dmg/prob bundle with a 4x1 pattern. Why is this? Because you are going to try to make the few hits you are going to make on the target worth it. Reattack isn't bad, but it needs you both to survive a certain ammount of time to fully get an effect and you need your target to be immobile :V It could work against other A-Gears on face-to-face battles in Dens, but still, odds are that the standard of your opponent will tear you to shreds before you spend some time adding damage with your attack bundles, so its better to had hit some few but hurting rockets on his/her face.
Q: Min. range? What's that?
A: A-Gears have a certain point on which, during Siege Mode, they can't touch the target. For example, hovering at 70m of an A-Gear with a Double Coat Guarder will impede him/her to hit you in siege mode.
Q: That sucks badly =[ Is there any way to deal with it?
A: Well, first of all, min range varies regarding the armor you use. The special guarders, both energy and shield, as well as the low lv armor and the Revival Guarder (War Point armor), don't have a huge min range. The X3 series, Schneider, doesn't have a huge min range as well, so alot of people sometimes used them sacrificing the amount of shields that the double coat gives; but that has been replaced today for revival guarders :V. Over that note, the Double Coat Guarder... oh god :/ It's the best guarder for the huge Shield bonus, but still, it's the ones that carries the more min range problem :V. Defense guarder, X8 series named Grizzly, isn't that bad (plus, said guarder lets you shoot your bundles thru the rails on Dens. You can easily damage other A-Gears in the sides of the rails V;). So, how to deal with min range? Either you just don't bother and try to kill another target while the main enemy gets away with your min range and kills ya, or you can take some actions as:
There are little tips and it changes over pilots, your best bet is to both ask around and experiment yourself. The only answer that it has to be put with emphasis is: Yes, you can deal with min range.
Q: What were you going to say about Barrier? D=
A: Don't spam it. Sure it's fun and it does give you golden moments, but it will drain your SP before you know it. When you should use it? Tactical advantage, remember that you can't get hit by advances, which besides A-Gears, is the main weapon of the other gears... so you are pretty much invincible for a while. Seize the chance to remove a target, use it to do an ambush or just to plant yourself below an M gear form and rape everyone in it. When getting chased, for example, you can lure a few guys, get them to a far location, quickly land, toggle barrier and kill the weak one first, then wound/kill the middle level and finally at least make the high lv go away. Doing this, you do a huge impact in the whole battlefield, since you didn't just lured, but you removed a few guys as well (and killed their spirit by having them to respawn and re buff again xP) Don't be obvious tho, do know that once the bubble is up, everyone in their mother will run away to later on come and rape you. One funny thing is that alot of gears likes to B stop on top of ya, just take a few secs of your time, unsiege, reverse and rape them :V It's hilarious, especially when they are WingCommanders V: Of course, sometimes it's better to just let them die at the expense of their partners. It isn't worth to do much evasive maneuvers in some cases, better to kill some guys before barrier goes down and get bombed by a B-stopped b, than evading him but not killing anyone. A-Gears are fire supporters, we are M Gears with artillery capabilities xP.
[My crazy uninformed opinion: In this terrifying post-bawoo nightmare world, any A-Gear that doesn't have Defense coming out of his and/or her ass (which is every AG whose level isn't OVER NINE-THOUSAAAAND!) or good cover support (I'd like to think that making sure my nation's AGs didn't get bombed was my most important job as an IG) will get his and/or her ass kicked with embarassing frequency. However, keep in mind that dying isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. A-Gears are really about supporting your nation with wicked firepower that can't be barrel-rolled, and being able to stick around for the entirety of a fight is more important than not dying very often.
tl;dr version: I agree with StarSiege. If you're going down, take as many people down with you as you possibly can. Barrier should be all about buying you a few more seconds so you can strategically kick some asses. - Archy]
Q: Regarding Builds, I hear/read that there are two? Attack/spirit and Defense? D:
A: Yes, the popular one is attack. Basically, pick a fast and slow engine ( 380 m/s or 400 m/s boost, and 0 m/s engine) and up your defense and shield to be able to use them. Rest goes in attack and the achievement of 63 spirit (which nets 504 skill points and a nice regen pace =]). The spirit part can be covered not necesarily by adding manually points on it, cover them with CPU's =]. The usual steps are: ThunderForce Final U (lv 1 Unique CPU), at 62 the Dolce CPU (Killmark CPU) and most restats to the Artemis one at 80 which gives a better optimization (it adds defense and spirit, both stats that A-Gears lack greatly). But you should be fine using the Dolce one V: Usually, at that particulary point (62) you reach 63 spirit points. There is another variation of attack, on which people just use a low lv engine and pour down all on attack... you reach 300 attack, yes... but at the cost of mobility. At first, it might seem not bothersome, but the more you play an A, the more you start moving around and liking using good engines. It all lays on the pilot, tho :V Now, regarding defense, just don't. We potentially adquire, thanks to siege defense mode, MASSIVE defense. But still, that is achieved effectively at 80+ and with alot of resources. You can restat at 80 and go defense if you know what you are doing and you have a effective brig behind ya. Otherwise, odds are that you are going to fail (no offense). There are extreme cases and such, you are free to experiment, but still, I wouldn't advice to it. Just play around for a while with attack build, it's not bad at all. There are some additions to this tho, in this daring new world of Flysis; shield stat :V It now is a bit effective and paired up with the legendary armors and such, its not a bad idea. A defense/shield tanker or a attacker with less pierce but more place to breath with enhanced shield, new resources has opened for us.
Q: You mentioned engines and I had a doubt regarding that, what's with the A-X? D:
A: Ahhh, the A-X... It is a wonderful engine and a few experienced players, pairing it with 75 Airsiege mode, do chaos on servers with them. But still, do know a few things:
All in all, A-X is still a nice little friend that you should restat into if you happen to get it :V You have a quick engine that works both in air and ground, which is an awesome comodity for someone that spends both time in air and ground.
Q: I hear we got some uniques at lv 79? Are they any good?
A: Besides Omega Mount, nope. You will notice yourself that Rapid Hammer and Double Drive can be easily beaten by any good fixed/carded weapon xP.
Q: What's good on Omega Mount? D: The name does sounds cool.
A: ... Anyway, Omega Mount works for one thing: Hypershot. But it works for another thingy as well :]] But, again, the main reason is HyperShot. HyperShot is a skill that can unlocked with a Finishing Opening Skill card. It adds a HUGE dmg bonus to your weapon and causes a explosion of 800m impact radius. It does have a 100% prob boost, as well. So it's like a portable mini big-boom. Omega Mount helps greatly due to having a HUGE base damage. Hypershot takes count of the base damage of the weapon, to boost it up. That's why it doesn't matter the fix/carding of the weapon, but it's main raw base damage. While most weapons does about 2~2.5K dmg, Omega Mount goes to the 5~6k. Something that has to be added, tho, is that Hypershot does take count of Defense. So a massive defense build can take less dmg, different from BigBoom, which is raw damage to every player.
Note that has been fixed on AO/Flysis, there are not only new levels of Hyper Shot, but the damage calculations has been fixed :V So more reasons now to either have a Omega Mount or simply Hypershot =]
Q: You forgot to tell me the other 'thingy' you were saying about the Omega Mount :V Can you tell me about it?
A: If you feel lucky and want to gamble, there is an experiment you can try. Before the lv 75 Airsiege, you have a MASSIVE %dmg bonus added on Airsiege. You can try not to upgrade your Airsiege to the 75 one (loosing the %dmg and getting the +1 fire rate added) and go to lv 79. If you get Omega Mount as a result from the mission (which is random, you can get Omega Mount, Rapid Hammer or Double Drive), the damage you can do with Omega Mount+Airsiege+80 MGear buff and 300 attack easily surpass the 1,000. So yeh, we are talking about doing 1,000+ per hit. Hawt, eh? I won't be held responsable for the /callgm HAX! that you are going to produce tho >_> On this new world of Flysis/AO, we will have to wait to see the new numbers if someone test this out =]
Q: Oh, I hear something about Speedy Thunder! It's a unique for A-Gears, isn't it?
A: Yes, but it can be surpassed by any good fixed/carded weapon :/ It is still useful at early levels if you happen to have one xP. Also, alot of people like it just for the 'unique' factor.
[I had a level 55 prob/reattack BigSmash (non-Legend) that beat the hell out of the Speed Thunder. True story! - Archy]
Q: On this same unique note, is the shield guarder useful? D:
A: Yes, it is. Not only does it have less min range than most of the A-Gear Armors, but it has good shield ammount as well. It can help you easily up until you are in your lates 70's. Do keep in mind that you are better off getting a upgraded Revival Guarder (War Point Armor) or legendary/boss armors :V But still, the unique factor and usefulness of the shield isn't bad at all if you happen to find one.
Q: What types of fixes should I aim to?
A: Well, basically, the new 'era', after concentration, favors Reattack. But this is wrong due that Evasion is still useful and we have alot of guys/gals pumped with it. So you basically have to cover these three aspects:
Q: What about the new fixes and the legendary that Flysis/Ace Online introduced?
A: Betting on a Legendary BigSmash is your best, it's beatiful :V 90.20% base probability, 1200m, it can be devastating paired up with lv 80 concentration without even having any probability fix/card on it.
Regarding the new fixes, there are some, altought hard to get, devasting ones. Try to aim for a reattack/probability hybrid more than ever, it will be worth it.
Q: I feel like I should quit my A-Gear. I feel frustrated, maybe it isn't my type of gear? :/
A: A-Gears requires hard work, patience and tolerance. But I can tell you that once you pass the crisis, an A-Gear is a fearful oponnent and a very useful asset to any army. Still, it's game. You should have fun, pick whatever you want and play it =] But there is a general misconception about A-Gears and people just don't tolerate using them. Still, again, if you give them time and you embrace them, you won't probably use another gear or you will pretty much find them boring. Let them say you are an easy killmark, you are having fun raping and annoying everything that is red on ya ;V. On the later levels in Flysis/AO, we are feared :V Not only we have unholy weapons but our armors and skills hurts a lot, there is no escaping from beign properly sieged on ground or pummeled by surprise with airsiege on air. We require work, but A-Gears are far from being weak and useless.
[It helps if you play as an M-Gear for a while. After that, grinding an A-Gear will seem downright exciting. - Archy]
Q: I sometimes find myself using Snare agaisnt other gears, besides I gears. Am I making a mistake? Should I always save it for them?
A: Depends, keep in mind that Snare shot it's built to 'trapt' and slow down a vital/annoying target. Sometimes this doesn't particulary mean that it should be an I gear. For example, you can snare a invicible M gear. When the invicibility wears down, he/she won't escape death even with an M-X. Some people often snare rushing B gears, so they can tear them down before they get to you. There are alot of variations xP Experiment mah loev :V.
Q: What skill should I unlock? D: I can't decide between Camouflage and Shield Paralyze :/ Plus, I really want Hypershot even tho I don't have an omega mount :[
A: Hypershot is good skill to add up damage in concentrated fights, if you get an Omega Mount it really is more scary than a Big Boom. Shield Paralyze is amazing and it's as useful as Snare; its one of the other reasons that your nation will love you to have in a coordinated effort. Camouflage used to be a joke; but now it does open alot of oportunities since you can move while camouflaged. You should consider to get them in this order; 1- Shield Paralyze, 2-Hypershot and finally 3- Camouflage. Once you are a very stacked/powerful A-Gear, sneaking behind the enemy is going to be a nightmare for them and that's what Camouflage is going to give you =]
Q: Is there any use for A-Gears lately, than just camping/fightning in Dens? I feel like im gimped if not doing that :/
A: Not at all, the thing you have to learn is to understand that your main skill requires you to be on ground. That's why it's more easier to just sit behind camps and such and have more sucess rate, but that doesn't mean that you should just do that only. Move around, learn to fight on air, to quickly take off/land and to pick positions on open maps. Move with the main forces, be a steady frontal line of defense/offense on open maps. Venture in bark around the mountains and go pester around near the gates... there are huge variations of it. A-Gears are the same as any other gear, it's how you use it =] Look at frenzy, it's even more lazy than Siege mode. We at least have to use shift and hold buttons, they just have to press a key once xP. The real thing is WHAT you do with those skills :V. Also, the new fix on aiming/auto balancing off on Airsiege can be very interesting to use.
Q: I die agaisnt other A-Gears =[ Any tips?.
A: Watch this a couple of times: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZBwVlsa7_gs. Or learn to approach them. Most just sieges away, so you can try taking up some of their damage and land on their 0~20m range. They will have to unsiege (altought most usually don't xP). While that happens, just bundle him up and manual attack him (don't go to siege mode, just point and click with your manual peew peew V:). Do a ground fight, basically. With more experience, you will learn to quickly use G-acel and even quick siege mode takes. On big fights, if you are set to remove that pesky A-Gear, remember to toggle Barrier so you don't get bombed by a B-Gear opponent while you poke fun with the A. If it is an airsieger, try to go below him or annoy his/her vision and airsiege him/her while he/she re-aims :V
Different from the airspace, the ground always belong to one nation. So you either remove their A's or you get removed by them V:.
Q: Should I aim for WingCommander?
A: Yes, you should. Day by day, new WCs are infesting the game, so you shouldn't worry much about beign massively ganked V:. Plus, you should aim to have fun, not to improve your e-penis. What do you care if they mock you for beign a WC KIllmark? xP The profits? Just look at all the new stuff that came out on Flysis/AO and that it will enable you to be more kickass while having fun and exploring your gear. General tip is, just don't get stuck. Keep warring and grinding, be always ready for the new content, as SuperDaddy always pinpointed (back when I didnt' want to go over TopGun Status :v).
Q: I think I don't have any more questions at the moment. Any final tips? D= Also, what if I have some other question? :/
A: Give A-Gears love. If you want to be an A-Gear, stick with it. Explore it and build it up, it's an amazing experience different from any other MMORPG. If you have any type of question, refer to the other guides on Siegemode.com or use the A-Gear Forums on each of the Flysis/Ace Online forums. If that doesn't work or if you have a crush on me, you can contact via my mail: SilverKnight[email protected] (yeh, don't ask, its name is a long story xP) or just ask around the vet A-Gears, they will gadly give you tips and different (but still not bad at all) insight :V A-Gears are far from simple =]
Feel free to nag a SpankyTanky if you see her; I have been talking to her alot and tried to expand what both me and SuperDaddy always talked about, im pretty sure she will be able to help you out even tho she is still learning ;P
Do take care and have fun, the more A-Gear, the merrier =]
-Updated FAQ inspired to help out as SuperDaddy always did despite nation sides, knowledgment is power :V
(And minor loving is illegal, she isn't 18 stop lying.)
-StarSiege, BCU A-Gear-
[As of June 7, 2009, StarSiege was playing on ANI Helix. Things sure do change.] - Archy