HardWar - Weapons - Cannons

WEAPONS -- CANNONS

HardWar


Prison Oubliette


THE MOTH

General Descriptions
Combat Performance
Silver-Y
Moon Moth
Neo-Tiger
Hawk
Death's Head
Police Moth (L-2000)
Swallow
Engines
Cells
The Fusion Cell
Pods & Drones
Software
Start-up Moths
Upgrading

Getting Death's Heads
& Police Moths




WEAPONS

Cannons
Missiles
Defensive Items
Weapons Combinations

How Your Enemies Are Armed

Getting Specialty Weapons



SURVIVAL

Setting Up The Game

Basic Training
Flyng & Targeting
Evasion & Defense
Dogfighting

Emergencies
(the most important page on this site!)


Amnesty 101
Further Reading
Using Tunnels
Advanced Tactics

Titan's Economy
(an overview)


Making Money



LIFE ON TITAN

Interactive Map Of Titan

Detailed Maps Of Titan

Factions
Amnesty
Handling Enforcers
Titan's Economy
Trading Basics

Nar Sluke's
Trading tips


Zaznorf's
Hardlist
(in XLS/Excel format)


Trade Items
Trade Routes
Geography
Scavenging
Advanced Drone Use
Bounty Hunting
PIRACY

Captain Zedo's
Dirty Pirate Tricks


Getting and Using a Hangar

Cloning

General Tips

Cheats



DOWNLOADS

Cheats

Saved Games
for version F2.1


Saved Games
for verson F2.0


Hardwar Wallpapers
(for Windows)


Hardwar Skin
for WinAmp


Rob Hawke's
Hardwar Font


Shrekken's
Hardwar Cursors


Shrekken's
Hardwar Icons


Shrekken's Alien Pix

Hammer's Galleries

Screenshots
(by the ton)


How To Take Screenshots

Moth Skins

Offline Game
Setup Manual


Official Patches

Ouch's Patches
(the Wizard of Greed)


Free Playable Demo



SKINS

How To Skin
a Moth


Silver-Y
Moon Moth
Neo-Tiger
Hawk
Death's Head
Police Moth
Swallow

Redeemer's
Skin Pack


dyar1's
Skin Pack


Viper's Hawk
Pack


Hardwar Skin
for WinAmp


Rob Hawke's
Hardwar Font


Shrekken's
Hardwar Cursors


Shrekken's
Hardwar Icons


Shrekken's Alien Pix

Hammer's Galleries



SITE SERVICES

Walkthrough
Bulletin Board
Chat
Patch News

Polls
(favorite Moth, weaopns, etc.)


Links
Interviews
About Hardwar
Site Updates
Pilot Profiles
E-Mail Me



ONLINE PLAY

Joining an Online Game
Hosting an Online Game
Online Game Setup
Online Problems
Advanced Tactics



OFFLINE CHALLENGES

Xaffax's Challenge
(original)


Venom's Challenge
Ashlocke's Challenge
Nar Sluke's Challenge

Police
Guard 3's
Challenge


Venom's Hangar Turret Challenge

Lancelot's Challenge

Xaffax's Second Challenge

The Hippie Challenge

HARDMAN'S Challenge










INTRODUCTION

Cannons are the mainstay weapon in Misplaced Optimism. They use energy from your Cell to blast your opponent. The biggest advantage of cannons is that you don't run out of them like you can with missiles. They derive their power from your Cell which is freely charged at any Light Well.

Below are tables which describe what each cannon does and how to best use them.



LASER
laser cannon
COST: 2200
ENERGY USE: Low
FIRING RATE: Fast
DESCRIPTION :

This is the basic laser that comes with all Moths. It shoots blue balls of laser energy at a rapid rate. It does medium damage to sheilds and hull.

Like the other cannons, except the Laser Turret, you must have your opponent in your center firing reticule to hit him. This is a fine finishing off weapon, but it takes a while to strip shields with a laser alone.





Be careful using the Laser during sharp turns. You'll miss your enemy and are apt to hit an innocent or faction ship. Keep your finger off of the trigger during turns.

Game-generated pilots are fairly easily driven into buidings or crater walls. This is a great time to switch to the Laser to finish them off. The Laser Cannon packs a little more power than the Laser Turret.

Likewise, when you've done substantial damage to your opponent's engine, switch to Laser Cannon as he slows down and you can easily keep him in your sights. You'll finish him off more quickly than with any other cannon.



PLASMA KANNON
Plasma Kannon
COST: 5700
ENERGY USE: Medium
FIRING RATE: Slow
DESCRIPTION :

The stats above don't really give a clear picture of this fine weapon. Despite the Plasma Kannon's slow firing rate, it deals tremendous damage to shields per hit. Once the sheilds are dropped, it damages the Moth's CPU. As far as the energy use is concerned, it takes high energy use to cause high damage per hit.

The Plasma Kannon shoots blue "bolts" of plasma and takes almost a full second to recharge.



The most important thing to keep in mind using the Plasma Kannon is not to have many misfires. They just waste too much energy. Make sure you're as close as possible to your enemy and have him well in your sights.

The Plasma Kannon is an excellent weapon to start a dogfight with. Get very close to and behind your enemy and then let them have it. Why waste a missile on an unsuspecting enemy? Start with Plasma Kannon and switch to missiles as your enemy begins to manuver.



LASER TURRET
Laser Turret
COST: 12,000
ENERGY USE: Lowest
FIRING RATE: Fastest
DESCRIPTION :

The most significant characteristic of the Laser Turret is its auto-tracking feature. It is the only cannon that will hit your enemy when he's not directly in your sights. This trait makes the Laser Turret invaluable in close dogfights with lots of manuvering. You can get hits in while you're trying to gain a better position.

It shoots small yellow balls of laser energy at a very high rate. It doesn't pack quite as much power as the Laser Cannon, but, due to its auto-tracking and high firing rate, the overall damage done per second is usually higher.



A Laser Turret isn't much at stripping shields, so don't rely on it as an opening weapon in a dogfight. Its real value is in the mid-game of a dogfight. It will finish off shields and begin damaging systems while you are manuvering in for a kill with Laser Cannon.

The Laser Turret can really save your bacon if you get totally lost in a dogfight. Just maintain your target and keep the finger on the trigger. The auto-tracking will insure a few hits on your enemy while minimizing the chances of hitting an innocent pilot.

Always use missiles or Laser Turret when attacking a pilot that's crowded in with other Moths. It will seek your target out and minimize misfires.



PULSE LASER
Pulse Laser
COST: 13000+
ENERGY USE: Highest
FIRING RATE: Fast
DESCRIPTION :

Again, stats can be decieving. On the surface the Pulse Laser looks like it can do a lot of damage in a hurry, but it doesn't. It strips shields as about as quickly as a Plasma Kannon, but uses more energy. It also doesn't seem to be as accurate as a Plasma Kannon. Considering the above factors and cost, the Plasma Kannon is a superior shield stripper.

The unique feature of the Pulse Laser is that it will disable an enemy's weapons system once it has stripped shields. This is important if you're wanting to diable a Moth without destroying it. There's no real reason to disable a Moth other than being cruel in an online game or to test your skills.



The biggest advantage to having a Pulse Laser comes when you have a Police or gang Enforcer after you. If you kill one Enforcer, another will just be sent out after you. However, if you strip the Enforcer's shields and then disable his weapons system with the Pulse Laser, he can't shoot at you with either cannons or missiles. This can buy you time to pursue "non-standard" methods of killing him.

Overall, I'd just put off getting a Pulse Laser until you have the time and money just to play around with one.



DEATH RAY
Death Ray
COST: 10,000
ENERGY USE: Medium
FIRING RATE: Very Slow
Thanks, Ouch
DESCRIPTION :

The Death Ray is not available in the regular offline or online game. It must be obtained through a hack. The pilot that discovered the Death Ray is Ouch. He's a great pilot and HardWar hacker and has trained the game to do many interesting things. Among his adventures was discovering the Death Ray.

The Death Ray fires white balls of plasma that do a great deal of damage to your enemy. They fire slowly and move so slowly that they're almost surreal. Fortunately, they have a very strong homing instinct that always leads them to their prey.



I've never really done a lot of dogfighting with the Death Ray, but I think other weapons would kill your opponent quicker. It makes a good long-range, first-strike weapon much like some missiles.

The easiest way to get a Death Ray is to download the saved game ouch.zip (for version F2.1) or ouch2.zip (for version F2.0).





Captain Zedo's Picks



My favorite cannons are the Plasma Cannon and Laser Turret. I use this combination almost exclusively in the offline game. I've even gone through whole games without using another weapon except for the occassional use of a Laser Cannon to finish off a foe.

Online, the Plasma Kannon doesn't prove quite as effective against cagey human pilots. It's an effective follow-up to a GroundBase missile to finish off your opponents sheilds. It's really confusing to a human pilot to lose all CPU function, too.

The Laser Turret, however is a Godsend. It's really handy when you're both flying like crazy to get a better attacking position. I generally use the Laser Turret liberally when attacking human pilots.




WEAPONS
PAGES :


CANNONS

MISSILES

DEFENSIVE
WEAPONS


HOW YOUR
ENEMIES
ARE
ARMED


WINNING
WEAPONS
COMBINATIONS




You need a good Cell to use cannons because they use so much energy. Consider a Cell upgrade early in the game.

HardWar




SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY