Howdy Starhawk Community ! After writing a guide to help everyone unlock the skills they desire, I thought to myself with 25 different skills to use when do I use one and why? Now I'm not saying that I know the "right" way to put the skills into gameplay, but I wanted to offer a place where we can talk about how we implement them into game and form a data base to help new members in our community not be so green when they fired up Starhawk multiplayer for the first time .
CTF
- Fast cap load out options
- Engine Mods
- With the combined speed of the bike plus this skill, getting a cap within the first 3 minutes are likely. Just make sure you have brief understanding of the map layout for best chances of success. For example on Dust, I never enter through the front entrance on the first run, but the back.
- Turret Jammer
- The beauty of using this skill right out the gate is the majority of players will build a mini turret as soon as they spawn for flag defense. This allows you to only worry about mines and other players defending the flag. This is not only a great loadout for attemping a fast cap, but what I personally believe to be the best skill to have through the later part of CTF matches.
- Escape Artist
- This skill is perhaps my favorite skill starting a CTF match right out the gate because it allows you to survive when your vechile gets destoried. So having a fear of the opposing them mining thier flag would not hinder you a bit ! Just make sure you built an extra biker corral before you attempt the grab so you have an exit plan!
- Squad Leader
- This skill is probably the most useful skill if you have coordinated team. Have one guy spawn with this skill and the rest of your team with bruisers and turret jammers. Once behind the base of your opponent, have your entire team spawn on you. One guy stands back for the construction of an extra bike coral. Then you take over your team by shear numbers. I have deemed this the zerg startegy. You may not get a cap right away but if you can destory their intial defenses within the first 5 minutes of battle, your chances of victory are higher. Winning the economy war is often overlooked but vital to success
- Defensive load out options
- Rift Economy
- The faster a team can create rift, the better chance of their defenses holding through constant attacks. However, building alone will not help you be successful while defending in CTF. You need to take smartly where you place your buildings and how to defend your higher cost buildings from going down. Some basic tips that I use are, I mine not my flag but my shields. This way pesky brusiers users don't ravage my base. Shields are typically the first object players will go for to take down. Second, I rely on my beam turrets and mini turrets not to neccessary protect my entire base but to give me an idea where the enemy is coming in from.
- Point man, Heavy Weapons, Engineer, and Shock Trooper
- I group all these skills together because they're all situational skills. If your base is being ravaged by hawks and you don't have an armory, I use heavy weapons. If you are being zerged by the opposing team, I switch to shock trooper. If my shield went down and tanks are hammering my defenses from afar, I spawn with engineer till I aquired enough rift for a second shield. Last but not least, point man is great when you know the enemy is on foot and near your flag.
- Combat Intel
- I'm putting this skill on here for the sake of arguements that may arise, but I haven't found this skill to be incredibly useful for me. Because if they enemy has turret jammer, they are more than likely making a quick cap run and you should be position to see yoru flag at all times
while playing defense. Then bruiser users will be found out by mini turrets and beam turrets. I much rather have rift economy or repair man on rather than this one.
Misc.
- Field Mechanic, Engine Mods, Turret Jammer, and Escape Artist
- All the skills listed above are my favorite skills to use when operrating a ground vechile in any type of match. Enginge mods complement the slowness of the tank, field mechanic buys you a few extra seconds while escaping with the flag or during a heat vechile battle, turret jammer is great when you assualt rift points by vechile in zones, and nothing is greater than surviving the destruction of your vechile and turn around and kill your attacker.
- Bruiser
- In any mode you play, destorying as much of the opponets structures as humanlly possible is vital to a successive competitive campaign. Higly useful in zones and ctf matches, but can turn the tide of a tdm if your opponents could no longer take to the air .
Future Additions
At the moment, I've only covered some of the loadouts I use during ctf matchs along with some misc. tips. I plan to update throughout the course of the week the other two modes. (I bought this game for the team objective modes and gameplay, so unfortunately I wont' be able to shed any light on the dm mode.) I want to encourage an healthy disccussion within this thread and hope we can all make this into a great tool for community for the months of matches to follow !
