Guide to being "Death From Above" -A PO CAS Guide

[mizolo]

Well well well, what do we have here? A navy pilot eh?
What're you doin' on the USS Almayer?
Isn't this a marine ship?
Ah ... so you ARE the PO eh? Well ... just don't fuck up and maybe we'll like ya eh?


General:
When being a PO it's important to know who has which ship.

Your DS has attachment points, or hard-points.
4 weapon HP's (located in a trapezoid shape on the top-half of the DS, it's the the part just before the side-doors, and 2 tiles away from the window of the cockpit)
2 electronic HP's (located right next to the windows of the cockpit)
2 engine HP's (located by clicking on the engine with an empty power-loader hand on the engine to open it up, MAKE SURE YOU CLOSE IT ... or else ... bad things happen)

The power-loader is YOUR MOST IMPORTANT TOOL, WITHOUT IT YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SHUTTLE THAT GOES FROM HERE TO THERE.

The most important thing about being a PO? ... COMMUNICATE ... FOR FUCKS SAKE COMMUNICATE AND LISTEN ... MY GO-- (comms cut).


CAS A.K.A Close Air Support:

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"I'm gonna show you something beautiful ... everyone, screaming ... for mercy" - Ultron

Well ... you wanna light sh*t up with fire-works eh? Well it isn't that easy to tell you the truth.

When you take CAS, it's important to tune in to ALL squad channels ... yes ... yes you heard me right ... ALL squad channels.
This is because mid-op ... most likely the SL's and/or the lazing scout specialist will die and the aSL's will have the lazes.


Starting off:

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Get into the power-loader and grab the rocket-launchers and install them on the right side of your DS.
Then get the laser targeter and install it in either electronic installation slot, doesn't matter.
Get the mini-rockets and the 30mm GAU chain-gun and install them on the left side of your DS.
IF THE TRANSPORT PO ALLOWS IT ... grab the cooling system, you NEVER want to NOT be ready for a CAS, you'll know why if you've played SL or scout specialist.
Grab the ammo from the surrounding storage rooms around the outside of the hangar, they are buttoned, so that should help you determine what is ... and isn't ... ammo storage.

Loading and extra equipment:

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In order to load ammo into the weapons, simply grab the ammo in the power-loader, and click on the appropriate weapon.
Extra equipment can be "purchased" using the DS fabricator, but to be honest, even the laser "sight" is ... ehhhhh ... not great, if the SL down there thinks it's a good laze, then it's good enough for you. Unless they are a complete dumbass and laze themselves like someone did one time and completely fucked over about 12-15 marines defending on ice colony, but that was the first ... and ONLY time i've seen CAS fuck up, and that's the SL's fault.

Gameplay:

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To fly CAS ... first set the the flight type to "fire-mission" and DO NOT click optimize flight, other-wise you'll cut CAS time in half ... yeah ... you'd think it would be doubled ... nope.

When called for CAS simply launch the DS on fire-mission, and voila.

Wait ... you need to know how to fire.
This is VERY simple actually.

Simply go to the weapons console on the right-most side of the cockpit and click it, this should bring up all of your ship "attachments".

Click on a weapon, and click the desired laser designation you wish to fire on, these will be labeled alpha laser, charlie laser, etc. and then the location of the target.

Click on the one you wish to fire, then the weapon will auto-MAGICALLY fire within 0-3 tiles of the laser designation.

PRO-tips:
CAS can only be fired in open areas, this means caves, buildings, and other such are NOT viable targets, so if you are begging for someone to call CAS and marines are pushing caves on LV ... then ... yeah ... good luck buddy.

Launch your biggest ordinance missile(s) first. DO NOT GIVE THE BUGS A WARNING ... OR A SECOND CHANCE FOR THEM NOT DISCOVERING THE LAZE, THIS IS CRUCIAL, since if you hit them with the MASSIVE one, this will stun them for a VERY long time, then hit them with ANOTHER one, stun them again, THEN fire the mini-rockets, these are smaller versions of the rockets, but boy do they hurt almost as much as FATTY's and NAPALM's, just doing this correctly will gain you a LOT of kills, even just 2-3 rockets will finish whatever was stunned, off. You then just incinerate the area with 30mm GAU chain-gun fire, this is just a general like ... NOPE ... YOU AIN'T GOIN' HERE, kinda deal.

[TheMusician321]

tip for SLs, have the PO LAUNCH first, then you laze the area, gives less time for the xenos to see the laser so the dropship is already in the air and ready to drop bombs.

[Steelpoint]

General rule of thumb is to request CAS support, confirm the PO has launched, then wait between ten to fifteen seconds before lasing the target.

This gives the Xenos less time to react the the laze.

[taketheshot56]

General rule of thumb is to request CAS support, confirm the PO has launched, then wait between ten to fifteen seconds before lasing the target.

This gives the Xenos less time to react the the laze.

Indeed, in a perfect world ive seen SOs relay once the DS is in the sky ans have the SLs laze and the bombs hitting within 2 seconds of each other, when you have a competent PO and SL CAS can be devastating. Sadly not many POs understand this.

[Sir Lordington]

My two cents on CAS, taken from https://cm-ss13.com/viewto ... 4&start=25

For CAS, find out which spec has the scout kit. Tune into those comms at the very least, if not all squad comms. You may want to remind people that CAS is available periodically, but don't overdo it. Bear in mind fighting takes place indoors a lot of the time.

In CAS, the cameraman is much more important than the gunner. Gunner is easy, you just need half decent reaction times and being able to click a few buttons. The cameraman needs to make judgement calls about when to fire, which ordinance to use, and when to stop firing. A good cameraman will improve the amount of aliens you get, reduce wasted ammo, and avoid FF incidents. I recommend having macros to call out ordinance for the gunner.

[Vibraphone]

Something important to note, if you're doing CAS and is investing into a laser-detector, is to keep refreshing that camera window. Pushing the down arrow key and then enter is a pretty easy way to do this.

[HKO20006]

"DO NOT click optimize flight, other-wise you'll cut CAS time in half"
I never tested it but I feel the flight time is the same, though it reduces the cooldown time.

EDIT test results:
Optimized: 2:03 from pressing launch to land
Not optimized: 2:07 from pressing launch to land but with last cooldown time
And
"You load in and review a custom flight plan you took time to prepare earlier. This should cut half of the transport flight time on its own!"