DUST 514 General Tactics Guide

DUST 514 General Tactics Guide by Chankk Saotome

The following is a compilation of ideas I’ve written down over the past week. While there is still a lot of work to do, and a lot of this seems like pretty obvious stuff to a lot of us, I just thought I’d share some ideas to, if not better gameplay, at least get people thinking rather than grabbing a gun and pretending they’re the good guy in an 80’s action movie.

WORKING WITH TEAMMATES – It Takes More Than One Blueberry to Make A Pie:

Work with teammates. This means both aiding them when you’re nearby, keeping track of them and moving with them. It also means taking advantage of them in order to flank enemies.

Use allies to flank opponents. It is a simple fact that most players would choose to chase and hunt down a fleeing enemy rather than permit him to get away. Use this to your advantage. When running, run into positions already flanked by allies so they don’t have to move into position but rather already are. Quite a number of times I’ve led opponents into death corridors without their knowing it.

If, at the same time, you take note that there’s a suspiciously rapid moving blue/green dot moving off to your right, and he seems to be missing half his armor, don’t just run away and abandon him to his fate. Get set up to lay into the enemy most likely chasing him without putting yourself out in the open.

TL;DR:
* Work with teammates to engage and overpower enemies.
* Pay attention to allies and help them when they need it.

SUBTOPIC – The Nature of Nurture: Nanite Injectors, A Medic’s Tale:

A personal request on this line: Take note of that big message above your head when you drop. If you’re surrounded by squaddies and the firefight is cooling down with a message telling you to hold on, triage unit nearby, for the love of all things holy, don’t bleed out. It wastes your time getting back into combat and it wastes your teammate’s time when a logi or triage assault comes running to your aide only to be greeted by a quickly dissolving corpse.

Assaults, put a Nanite Injector on your suit and, most importantly, use it. Seriously, you’re not using your equipment slot for anything else because, as a logi, I know you’re not putting down drop uplinks, and rarely, if ever, resupplying yourselves you stingy so and so’s. So get a nanite injector and use it, please.

On the same note, if you’re dying and surrounded by half a dozen enemies, don’t expect the two blue-dots on your map to magically clear the area and revive you. The enemy has numbers, they will most likely win, just bleed out and get back into combat asap. This will also act as a warning to prevent triage units from rushing into needless deaths of their own.

[A footnote here. The game will simply kill you anyway after a certain time has passed. There’s no timer display so no one knows precisely how long this is but it seems somewhere around 15-20 seconds. About as long as you can survive outside the combat area, i.e. in the red zone. The presence of an on-screen timer is a request players have been making for forever. Add to that the requests logi’s have been making for a downed timer over targets and distance to target on HUD, not to mention the horrible location sensitivity and recognition on nanite injectors as a whole and I think we can expect a complete overhaul of the revival system by next build at the latest. I know this is why most people just avoid equipping the item, but even if you have to pace around for 3-5 seconds mashing that trigger to revive someone, that’s 5 seconds lost vs 30 waiting for them to re-spawn and catch back up with your squad.]

TL;DR:
* Nanite Injectors. Get it. Use it. Love it.
* Don’t “bleed out” unless your revival is too hazardous to team members.

KNOW YOUR TERRAIN – Of Men and Mountains [Directed by Michael Bay]:
Why isn’t everything exploding!?

Learn the terrain and environment, particularly choke points and manouverable terrain around and nearby objectives. This is key number one to gaining victory in a firefight. I could write a whole book on this but some old Chinese guy named Sun Tzu apparently already did.

Pay attention to how opponents will tackle a defensive obstacle such as empty crate or small structure. Will they go up around the rear left side 99% of the time, no matter who they are or how many times you’ve seen it? Good chances are that’s simply the quickest route to one point and most players will follow the exact same line each time. Use the knowledge of how your opponent assaults from one side to take advantage at the other end.

The easy counter to this: Avoid repeating behaviors. We get used to: Spawn at MCC, run map to B, car from ground drop at A and push to C unless enemy is already there, then hold C while B fireteam secures their objective, etc, etc, ad infinitum. While initial tactics can and probably will work almost every time from the match start until someone develops a better one to counter it or make it stronger, field movements as the game progresses will become repetitive and easily predictable. You’ve come from E up the right side of the hill to the CRU, bypassing the supply depot and completely ignoring the middle and left paths or even going off to C instead 5 times now. I’m gonna make a WILD presumption and guess you’re going to try it again. Don’t fall into this trap unless you just want to fall into mine; which leads to:

Plan for enemy movements but expect the unexpected. Have your fire position and kill-zone set up for that same character to come running up the left side of the hill each and every time because that’s what he’s done half a dozen times before already, but be prepared for the off chance that he or an ally will realize that this is not working and they attempt to surround and flank you from another direction.

TL;DR:
* Pay attention to maps. Learn how to move around and use the environment.
* Watch team and enemy movements. Take advantage of repetitious behaviors.
* Avoid repeated behaviors yourself. Keep the enemy guessing.

SUBTOPIC – Je suis “Aware”: The Sniper’s Manifesto

To know what is ahead of you is a more difficult skill to accomplish and master than most will give credit for. Generally they acknowledge the things within their visual range and leave it at that. Some shadow moving 200m out. Sight it, it’s red, go chase it or run away. The sniper does what most all field combatants should be doing which is to be aware of the probability of things. Their spawn at [D], the road along the canyon wall, the piping, shallows in the earth, hills, empty crates. Where are they coming from? You haven’t seen them yet but you know they’re there and maybe they’ve seen you already. Who is the hunter and who is the hunted? This is all up to your awareness of the field and situation you’re in. For snipers this can mean knowing where the flux of combat is at its heaviest to watch for stragglers or reinforcements coming from the back and to pick them off at the opportune moment. For those on the field it means knowing where your enemy is most likely to strike from and fortify that position. This may seem obvious but all too often I’ve seen blues just oblivious to the obvious swarm of red dots on the radar (They’re on mine so clearly they’re on his as well) swarming around the edge of the same building my blue thinks he’s being clever by sneaking around only to end up with 5kg of molten lead flying at him in little tiny pieces at very high speed.

Also, I like that phrase: Oblivious to the Obvious. Good album title.

Knowing what is ahead of you however, whether you can see it or not, is but a small fraction of tactical and strategic knowledge on the battlefield. The trick is to know what is around you, or at least likely to be, nearly 100% of the time. It is the deathtrap snipers most of all fall into, and all too often, known as tunnel-vision. A decent sniper will be able to track an opponent climbing a mountain, or pick off an opponent looking up over the corner of his home spawn on the opposite side of the field 600m away but may be unaware of the enemy sniper setting up shop just 50m to his right on the same mountain. A good sniper will watch his HUD for information relayed by his teammates about approaching enemies. A great sniper will check his own area to make sure no one is sneaking up his flank to punch him in the back of the head while also sighting enemies to show up on his teammates HUD radar though he himself may not be able to take them down from his position. The best sniper will prepare for all of these and have viable options to take out recon infiltrators attempting to sneak up on him as well as escape routes should he need to move out in a hurry on top of knowing and checking his surroundings frequently.

This is a skill all players need to develop, knowing the terrain around you and whether there are likely to be enemies in a particular area waiting to ambush you and your squad. As Van Damm said, it is the sense of awareness of the things outside the self. Pretty deep for a dude who also said, “I’m going to get in my boat, and I’m going to go up river, and I’m going to kick… that son-of-a-***** M. Bison’s ass SO HARD… That every M. Bison wannabe is gonna feel it.” Each step you take moves you in and out of cover from various positions. From where you are on the ground do you know where you can be shot from? And if so, how to move to avoid it? Do you see every detail you can around yourself, not simply a 50degree view directly ahead? Are you aware of the walls behind you that may cover you as you continue to move through this area? Are they blocking fire from behind you, or are you completely open? Do you hear that noise off to your left? Is it gun fire? How close is it? Do you have a way into combat better than charging down the firing range into oncoming enemies? Just as importantly, do you have a way out? Do you smell the ozone and feel the electricity in the air from a recently discharged forge gun shot nearby? Taste the bitter-acrid powder in the air from fresh gun fire?

The real question is, with what you’re given to experience, are you processing it into useful data for yourself? There is a lot of data flowing from the HUD and environment to the user but the ability to selectively filter the most significant data in the moment is what will keep you alive and maintain your advantage. It’s easy to see the enemy 50m ahead shooting at you and recognize the threat he poses, the real skill is when there is nothing ahead of you that you’re aware of, allies looking right. Suddenly you hear that burst of AR fire to your left? How close is it? Getting louder? Is it a possibility to flank an enemy or a threat to yourself and your team about to move around the corner? Was that a sniper ricochet right in front of you? Could you hear where it came from? If not are you aware of your position on the battlefield that you know where snipers are able to shoot on your position? If so, where is the best position to find cover? Smoke over the ridge, a vehicle just went down, or was it a wave of Mass Driver fire? There’s a heavy charging toward you in your scout suit. Where’s the closest cover from him? Can you turn away and escape or are you going to be in a cat-and-mouse game with him around that building 10m to your left for the next min before he gets tired and leaves? Are you able to track his movements while he is unable to track yours? You’ve just hacked the objective but you know an LAV is headed your way. Where’s your escape route? Or do you hide around the corner just 5m away ready to pop out and mow down the enemy when they try to rehack? Do you have the firepower to even pull it off?

All this and more will be elements to consider as you progress in this game into something more and better than an automatic firearm on legs.

TL;DR:
Unfortunately it’s just not possible… I can boil it down to, “Pay attention.” but that doesn’t really help explain this whole mess above.

SUBTOPIC – The Motion in the Ocean is More Important Than the Size of the Ship:

Never stop moving. This is basic FPS fundamentals 101 here. If you stop for anything more than a hack or to call in something, make sure you’re clear to do so and do it as fast as you can. The longer you stay standing still the longer a sniper has to line up his shot or that infiltrator scout has time to come up behind you and shiv you before kicking you in the back of your head or… well, you get the picture

Always check your surroundings. Even when you’re running, you have no idea that there’s a scout on your heels closing the gap with a little “shotgun wedding” surprise from behind for you once he catches up, except there’s no cake, no priest, and you’re the “bride”. My personal tactic when I’m fielding solo or randoms is to do pirouettes every 30m or so unless I’m absolutely sure there’s no one coming from behind. And when I mean absolutely sure I’m talking about the first charge out of the MCC or coming into combat from my own red line spawn. Other times I am highly dependent on myself and good squaddies to constantly check our 3, 6, and 9 as we move. One person may spot an enemy the others may miss. Watch your radar and take note.

This flows into the next point: Never run too long in one direction. Jog a short ways, change direction a bit, sprint, strafe a tad, even if you’re heading for a goal don’t go there in just a straight line sprinting like a lunatic on fire unless you’ve got cover to do so. Cover doesn’t need to be right on top of you. Cover can be a set of hills 50m away that let you know snipers in the mountains opposite the map can’t hit you. You just have to be situationally aware of these things. Anywhere in the open, especially in low-ground areas, expect snipers and death from all directions. Out in the open you should move around cover environment and generally travel in a bit of a wave fashion, strafing occasionally left and right as you go.

TL;DR:
* Never stop moving.
* Check your area, ALWAYS. Don’t get caught up by someone running right up right behind you.
* Don’t run in long straight lines.

TEAMWORK

The Three Musketeers… And You:

It is simple fact that combatants on the field will often win a battle simply by overwhelming the enemy with superior numbers.

I was recently in an assault operation with a group of 9 or so random blueberries against two organized squads from two separate large corporations (as well as a handful of blueberries on their own). While I will start this with a mild rant on the server connection and lag effects on sniper hit detection (seriously, come on! That dude was lag-switching or the servers totally crapped out. I unloaded like 2 clips of ‘Farsight’ rifle rounds into this guy as he WALKED at me from 200m out. Every shot connected, shield flashed, but no damage done… Except for him when he finally got close enough to pop*pop*pop*pop me with his proto AR and wipe me out. What the hell!?), the main topic I’d like to discuss was their almost phalanx-like movements (as limited as they were) around the battlefield. They pretty much just lined up a rather staggered circle around each other and crawled about, but as soon as an enemy got within range they all turn and launch a wall of molten death at them. The only way to even touch these guys was to snipe from outside their AR range, but as I’ve said there were some severe sniper shot recognition issues in that match… I won’t make any specific claims but it did seem a little fishy the 3rd time these guys just walked up to me, eating my sniper rounds until getting up on top of me to mow me down.

The purpose of this anecdotal story is (Clearly hacker toolbags are out there lag-switching the game already, WHAT THE HELL!??!!?), that organized, and controlled team movements can decimate on the field.

While I’ve made a huge post intended to aide the individual player in knowing his battlefield I will say that for all my solo movements, nothing is quite so rewarding as moving with a full squad and all unloading into enemies we find one at a time and just obliterating anything we come across; except, perhaps, unloading a clip of Militia SMG fire into a proto-heavy suit before punching him out in your Dragonfly scout suit. One guy with an AR doesn’t stand much chance to a Laser Logi, HMG Heavy, Scrambler Scout and Assault… Assault, all working together on the same target. Even – especially – a team of AR’s can wipe the floor with any single opponent they come across with focused firepower. It’s like Daleks. They may be near invincible, but enough people shooting at their eyestalks and even old WWII firearms can take ’em down.

Add to this condition the likelihood of organized chat within such a squad and you have more than tripled the effective force of that squad on the ground. While some enemies may appear further than radar scans and thus information may not relay via the tacnet itself to allies, a player can inform teammates of enemy locations he spots to help the whole team close in on them or avoid them if the enemy emplacement is simply too fortified or dangerous to assault.

However, even a bunch of randoms working together can overwhelm a supposedly superior foe if they do, in fact, work together. One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen was a whole team of NPC corp players just crush a team of players from a couple powerful player corps simply by sticking together the whole match (about 2-5m apart here, not just “within view”) and just running circles around the center of the map together. I was off sniping and scanning enemies so they would know where to look and they’d just go charging in like a pack of wild elephants and crush everything under their feet. Even when the enemy had pulled out a tank and started to decimate, they jumped to AV and worked together to bring it down. The most rewarding part, personally, was the time hitting 00:00, and getting the final kill of the match at Sudden Death of 03-to-03 clones left on each side from 250m out. But that’s just me bragging and basking in the afterglow. Yeah, it was that good.

CASUALTIES OF FASHION: Know Your Dropsuit Role:

Again, numerous posts on this, but dropsuits each have specialties they excel at.
A quick summary:

Assault: You are the end-all, be-all foot soldier. But you’re not Rambo. You’re more like that guy in Star Troopers who gets a giant bug horn through your chest because you stopped moving while you reloaded. You have a sidearm but what’s the point unless you’re running a swarm suit or Shotty/SMG duo? While you can equip nearly every weapon in the game you’ll probably be running AR and pretending this is Modern Call of Battlefield Ops – Year:12,498, as about 85% of assaults are.

The most frequently loaded modules on Assaults as I’ve seen and know are usually weapon damage modifiers, shield extenders, armor plates and repairers. Honestly though, as I’ve never really suited up, I can’t say from personal experience. I’d like more info from other truly Assault spec’d players as to their opinions on the class and load-outs.

Scout: You’re recon and infiltration. Your low profile makes you vanish from radar faster and at high enough levels of Dropsuit Command, Profile Dampening, and a module, you’re virtually invisible unless standing completely in the open 100m from an enemy looking right at you. However, you’re paper thin as well. Even with level 5 Infantry Mechanics for +25% boost to passive armor and level 5 Shield Management for +25% boost to passive shields*, that assault’s GEK is going to cut through you like a hot knife through butter… in the middle of summer… in Jamaica. This means being more tactical in your movements which are thankfully faster than anyone else. Being harder to recognize on the battlefield also makes scouts a powerful sniper when they can hide from visual sighting and basically invisible to radar recognition.

For weaponry it’s a hard call but I’ve never seen a scout run AR, it’s counter intuitive to the gameplay. They’ll usually load out snipers and SMGs and pistols, though I’ve occasionally seen shotgun scouts running the field using speed to get them around enemies and into combat to flank or stealth up from behind for some beautiful 1-2shot kills. As for equipment Scouts will usually run kinetic boosters for speed and shield extenders for survival, the occasional weapon damage modifier for sniper types and profile dampeners for recon/infiltrators. Never put armor plates on a scout as the speed reduction doesn’t compensate for the armor gained and you might as well be playing an Assault who already has those features built in. Personally I run codebreakers on my scout to hack and run as fast as I can as well but it means I’m not as fast on foot as many others out there. Equipment can be anything but most snipers will run personal nanohives while infiltrators will usually have drop uplinks to create spawns behind enemy lines.

Heavy: You have no equipment. That’s not your job. You have more shields than anyone on your squad and more armor than your squad combined. Your job is to be the intimidation factor. You are generally there to eat bullets and spit them out as a wall of molten metal death. Generally this is achieved by the horrifying whirl of an HMG. If not this then you’re running forge and your purpose is to swat those pesky dropships out of the sky. While there still needs to be work on this end, some decent heavies are out there doing quite a bit to clear the air when the smog gets too thick.

You are not invincible, far from it. A militia scout can single-handed out-flank a heavy and unload a magazine of SMG fire into the back of his head before the heavy has time to scratch it. Knowing this you should have yourself spec’d out to auto-repair your own armor as your friendly neighborhood logi may not always be running a repair tool. Heavies will often run high grade shield extenders and armor plates on top of this though I’ve occasionally seen heavies running kinetic boosters as well to compensate for their speed making them much scarier on the field.

TL;DR:
* Assault…. Do I even have to say it? Honda Civic… with cup holders.
* Scout: A Porsche 911. You’re a work of automotive art, fast and sleek… but your chassis is shite. Way to go McLaren and Bugatti with that carbon fiber!
* Heavy: Either a HUMMER or Hilux. But you’re never gonna win any races kid.

TL;DR; AND I don’t get car references:
* Assault : Derp
* Scout : Fast, paper-thin, but nearly invisible.
* Heavy : Slow, tough, only suit that can use HMG or Forge Gun for AV, but weak solo because of speed.

Logi: Squish factor somewhere between Assault and Scout.
Speed factor somewhere between Assault and Heavy.
Everything else? Priceless.

You’re a squad’s worth of modules and equipment all by yourself, this means the ability to frontline your guy if you want, or create the ultimate hacker, or maybe you want to run around as fast as a scout just for laughs. You define versatility on the battlefield. While Assaults will generally run the standard weaponry, AR’s, Shotguns, SMG’s, it’s generally the Logis I see loading the more eccentric Mass Drivers, Laser Rifles. If there was a live chicken canon that did nothing but make people look confused for a second, it would be a logi to have it first. Why? Because our… your role, is to BE versatility. Your job is to do everything your squad does not, which even in a good squad you’ll find to be a lot. You are resupply, you are medic, you are mechanic and engineer, you are spawn station, you are their mother there to wipe the oatmeal from the corner of their mouths. Your 3+ equipment slots make you responsible for this but also give you power to control certain vital elements of the battle. Do you need that resupply here behind this crate or 20m forward by that car? Where should that drop uplink go? Is it safe to go revive that guy? Should you risk it anyway? Did you bring your repair gun this suit to heal up your heavy?

Your initial versatility comes with HUGE drawbacks. It means that you will have to spec one direction first and then branch out unless you simply want to be a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of deal, which is generally what I am personally but I’m happy with it though it’s difficult to know what my squad wants from me before I load up a suit if they don’t tell me. I do have one specialty which is all mine and they rarely if ever complain that I don’t have a repair tool when it comes into play. They’re usually too busy laughing. The expansive module and equipment space also means occasionally having issues balancing your pocketbook. While logis can have all these great and wonderful toys, such things come at a cost. A hefty one. As I said at the start, you’re practically a full squad’s equipment and modules all by yourself and a fully decked out end-tier logi suit with all end-tier equipment can be one of the most expensive things out there on two legs, sans a Proto Heavy running Proto HMG and top tier modules (Enjoy that Million ISK suit fatty).

So maybe I lied when I said priceless, because clearly this is a costly route to go. If you don’t have access to AUR just to back up your stuff with even a basic set of militia BPOs to let you earn some free ISK while maintaining your gameplay style, then Logi may, unfortunately, not be the path for you. I really think there ought to be a free STARTUP Logi suit which has pre-equiped: Militia Shield Extender, Militia Armor Rep, Militia Focus Grenade, Militia AR, Militia Nanite Injector and Militia Nanohive. There are 4 freakin’ freebie STARTUP Assault suits, why not make the sniper a Scout sniper and triage a Logi support? Who’s with me here?

I could write pages on logis alone but there are again two dozen other posts already discussing the same topic. I just wanted to put this here for general overview and went way overboard already.

[Footnote: If you’re wearing a logi suit with only 2 equipment slots, stop… just…. just stop. No. NO! Do you want to go to the vet!? OH! That’s a word you know! Yes… The vet! Don’t make me do it.]

TL;DR:
NO! Just… no. If you can’t take the time then you shouldn’t be playing logistics. Go back and try again.

TL;DR; What?:
I’m being an elitist prat. But seriously, logis are hard work and require a lot of investment, from everywhere, skills, isk, team aide over personal kills for benefits. But they can, overall, be the most rewarding.

PLAN YOUR ARSENAL:

There are several posts with detailed information on this but I won’t lie about the importance of knowing your weapon’s abilities and limitations. I won’t go on about how X gun is vs Y gun or how AR’s are too perfect (which I don’t agree with, though their accuracy is a bit high at its max range still in my opinion). I will just say to know your limits and work within them. If you’re using a laser rifle you can’t sit up on front lines with AR’s, SMGs and Shottys and expect the same performance. Your gun simply isn’t designed that way. Even AR’s can get mowed down up-close-and-personal by an SMG as their higher rate of fire can effectively nullify the AR’s advantage of damage and accuracy over distance if the SMG user gets the drop first. Swarm specialists, know the limits of your sidearm, but don’t be afraid of it either. Learn how to use it effectively so that when you bring out your swarm suit it’s not merely a sacrifice to take down that pesky tank but that you’re still viable in combat should the need arise before any chance to change suits again.

For detailed weapons info I’d suggest these other posts:

Infantry Weapons of War by Pt3D

And of course:

Weapon Ranges & Optimals Guide

CHARACTER PLANNING – The Skills to Pay The Bills:

Your skills determine your abilities, both to use equipment and modules and your capacity on the battlefield.

….No, seriously, that’s all there is to it.

What? You want more? If you want an open generalized suggestion it’s this:

Week 1: Goof around on STARTER suits, have fun, figure out what is the most fun, figure out what you’re the most effective at. Stockpile your ISK.

Week 2: Build up these two lines, fun and effectiveness, a bit. Pick up some general skills which will benefit you no matter what direction you go. Stay on STARTER suits or at most militia gear (Best if you’ve got the AUR for BPO’s… the only time I’ll ever advise anyone to have or use AUR for anything other than a Universal Voice Transmitter) to save up your ISK.

Week 3: Spec into a combat role and stick with it. As you recognize skills that will benefit your role, get them while remembering the top skill levels costs hundreds of thousands of SP and the time when you’re only getting 3-4 skill levels a week will be on you before you know it.

Goof off whenever you get the chance. You never know when you’ll notice something in a militia suit that will make you consider a particular skill or ability you’d like to see your primary suit running. If you’re not having fun then you’re doing it wrong. I know there are already militant corporations out there who will come to your house and burn it to the ground with you inside if you aren’t comitted 110% to their New Eden ambitions, but seriously… Those guys will deal with one another, for the majority of us this is a game, even if we can get a bit serious in combat most of us are here to have fun and enjoy ourselves. Again, if you’re not, then you’re doing it wrong.

As for personal advice, it’s this:

Dropsuit Command V (Unlock Various Tier Dropsuits, -5% Scan Profile/LVL)
Combat Engineering II+ (Unlock Shield Operations, +5% PG/LVL)
Shield Boost Systems IV (Unlock Shield Management)
Shield Control V (+5% Shield/LVL)
Field Mechanics V (+5% Armor/LVL)
Circuitry II+ (Unlock Sensor Upgrades, +5% CPU/LVL)
Sensor Upgrades II (Unlock Profile Dampening)
Profile Dampening V (-5% Scan Profile/LVL)
Endurance V (+5% STA/LVL)

*Skill Names edited for Chromosome Build

Yes, I know, it’s a lot, but I’d put these on any suit, any build, any role, and so do some if not most of the top players in game. These are general passive benefits such as increased passive armor and shields, increased stamina, massively decreased radar profile. I’m not saying to get these right away or to JUST get these. Not in the least. Plenty of people have had a lot of success building glass-canons before working out these skill sets, but any competent soldier on the field knows and will take advantage of the benefits of these skills in particular nearly every moment in combat.

MODULES, EQUIPMENT, AND YOU: Batman Never Uses a Gun!

Modules are elements you add to your suit’s fitting in order to:
A) Reinforce strengths, or
B) Compensate for weaknesses.
If you’re imagining modules for anything else then you’ve already lost. These are only purposes infantry module slots should be used for. If you’re planning on stealth infiltration perhaps you want a profile dampener, and shield boosters. If you’re too slow on the field maybe you need a kinetic booster. If your shield isn’t hearty enough, again boosters. If you’re dealing with maintaining your armor on the field an armor repairer can save you when you survive a head-on firefight. If you’re an objective hacker perhaps a codebreaker. The point is that modules are used to bolster your own natural gameplay tendencies and occasionally make up for what you may be lacking in the natural course of combat. These don’t magically turn you into a jack of all trades.

Like skills, these are things you will have to toy with yourself and figure out what best suits you. Thankfully with a plethora of Militia Gear modules available, most if not all players can test simple outfit designs to see their slight benefit adjustments before locking themselves into the required skill tree and subsequent skill point investment to use the higher tiered modules.

Equipment are non-offensive tools you can carry on the battlefield as follows:

Nanite Injectors – Revive downed allies. Higher levels revive with higher armor. If you’re a team-going assault or scout this should be a given. If you’re a logi then you’re just insulting your class by not having one of these in one of your various equipment slots. The truth is this is one of the single most useful and handy tools put into this game. Learn it, love it, use it.

Drop Uplinks – Deploys a static spawn location. Various types have various benefits from faster spawns, lowered CPU/PG requirements, to the number of uplinks that can be deployed at a time.

Nanohives – These restock allied ammunition. As with Uplinks various effects range from faster restock to my personal favorite the K17/D, which repairs armor after fully restocking ammunition.

Repair Tools – These mechanics’ tools repair armor of all kinds. Again, various kinds repair faster, while some repair infantry armor better than vehicle, vehicle better than installation, etc. While there is currently no WP, and thus no SP/ISK gain from their use in combat thanks to a certain Corporation which shall not be named, this is a temporary fix during this current build while CCP works on possible adjustments as to their working and War Point gains.

Active Scanners – While there is still a lot of speculation as to this tool’s usage and benefits its current intention is to scan a relative area around the user to search for nearby enemies. Upgraded skills can extend this range while the upgraded equipment itself will only scan at higher precision. This all deals with Profile Scan level which is a whole separate thread on its own.
A good thread has been started with information posted at the following link “Scan Profile/Profile Dampening” thanks to Mazu Ten, Free Healing, Ten-Sidhe for the thread and responses.

Remote Explosives – A tool I am personally in love with and have been using since the start of last build. Currently 2 kinds. Remote and Proximity. The first is manually detonated and can be used to take out vehicles or infantry after luring them into trap corridors. The latter automatically detonates when a vehicle passes over it. Upgraded versions do higher damage and have higher blast radius. Currently Remotes may or may not but Proximity mines vanish upon death. Totally illogical.

SUBTOPIC: Grenades

A brief note here as it will be up to you to decide where you go with these if anywhere beyond the basic militia Locus.

Locus grenades are frag ‘nades. Heavy explosions that do high damage to infantry, especially armor, but have very weak and limited effects on vehicles, particularly vehicle shields. These can be cooked to detonate at chosen time and distance if the throw is controlled enough. Only “Contact” grenades will detonate on contact as their name implies.

Flux grenades release a large EMP pulse that wipes out most infantry shielding as well as doing heavy damage to vehicle shields.

Anti-Vehicle grenades are just that and do massive damage to vehicle shields and armor. While they do absolutely nothing to infantry they have a slight magnetic tracking ability which will allow them to latch on to the nearest vehicle they are thrown toward and detonate on contact. This tracking is not perfect and skill is still required in throwing one.

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