A Pirate's Guide to the Brigador's Arsenal: Special Equipment Primer

[TheGrimCorsair]

Welcome to the second installment of the Guide. This time we'll be takin' a look at Special Equipment. Y'know, things like cloaking devices, and smoke.
While the last primer focused on Heavy weapons, I figured a slight deviation in topic was called for. This is on account of a lot of weapons goin' forward needin' a bit of extra spice to really do the thing they're intended to. As usual, you'll need to check in with your nearest egghead for details on the "how" as the "what" is of more pressin' concern to you, me, and this primer.

The Smoke Projector

Humble and mighty, and been around in one form or another since the first human hid behind a bush, jumped out, and speared another. This thing's very versatile, much more so than it might seem at a glance. Sure, you can create a wall at one end of a fire lane, jump out, and mow down a bunch of targets that won't have a firing solution for you, and all that's made doubly effective by almost no one sitting around with shields powered up when combat isn't imminent.

More than that, it gives you concealment not only where there was none previously, but does so without impeding not only your line of fire but your mobility as well. Those cut both ways, mind, but it usually works out to a net positive. Even if you're mid-fight you can use it to get you out of the line of fire or, if you're stuck in, a quick and easy flanking opportunity. More than one Rat King's been untangled 'cause the spotter on the back couldn't see that the Mog they were bearin' down on had gotten around behind them in the smoke.

You can use them as lures, too. You're familiar with the sayin' "Where there's smoke, there's fire," yeah? Well, you drop a bunch of these onto your foe, and they're bound to come investigate. They'll do a little calculatin' and then rush off to the general vicinity of the most likely place those canisters were launched from. It's such standard thinkin', even Corvids will reliably poke their beaks in to see what's causin' all the noise. Works to your advantage, when you need to move your opponents somewhere more advantageous, and since there's usually a bit of time before the canisters hit the ground, you'll have plenty of time to be in the most optimum firing position.

All that, there are two major downsides to the mighty Smoke Launcher. First, while the downtime between smoke clouds is short, between 5 and 8 seconds depending on how far you chuck 'em, there's a substantial downtime between salvos. You place 'em wrong, and there's a real chance you'll be dead before you can compensate. The other is that they don't do anything to your opponents. Sure, you can manipulate them but at the end of the day you're gonna be dealin' with your opponents with all their weapons, armor, shields, and attitude intact.

The EMP Grenade

Launcher. Grenade launcher. You don't have to throw 'em by hand, there's a mechanism for that. Perfect tool for when you need to hit the pause button on a fight. Shields? Speed? Comms systems? Nada, doesn't matter. You hit 'em with one of these and it's a literal lights out.

While the effect doesn't last long, immobilizing and shuttin' off the shields on every enemy for blocks in every direction is super valuable. Buys you the time you need to get a fight under control, or deal with a pesky command or recon vehicle that's about to call for help, or that artillery to land and do what it does best. Also, let's not kid ourselves, not everyone is a crack shot, and bein' able to hit enemies goes a long way towards bein' paid rather than perished.

Biggest downside is the grenade's tendency to end up not quite where you want. Your machine's movement will add a bunch of momentum to it, which can make placement even with the generous blast radius a bit of a problem. Trust me when I say, you don't want to be remembered as that legendary brigador who chucked the EMP past the oncoming swarm of whoever, and got themselves killed.

Second biggest downside is time. The effect doesn't last long, and it's a long time between grenades. Don't forget you have it, but you're gonna want to be cagey about employing it. Save it for big groups of enemies, or big nasties you aren't really armed to kill quickly.

The Active Camouflage

If you want to see someone become their own sub-orbital lifter, just call it a cloaking device in front of an egghead. Make sure to wear a hat though, trust me. Still, it is basically that. Muffles most of the noise emitted from your machine, and makes you damn hard to pick out regardless of what mark of eyeball you're runnin', at least while it's active.

You can use it all sorts of ways, too. Sure there's the ol' "Sneak across the street unseen"-move, or cloakin' up and runnin' away when-ideally before-things get too hot. You can use it by playin' bait for enemies, then slip past to get those sweet weak spot hits. Even better, you can usually do that over and over, as the system resets real quick. In fact, downtime is so tiny if you don't break cloak early, you can easily spend a hair over half your time cloaked.

Big if, though, as shootin' will break it and it's shootin' that brings in the big money. You're never gonna have the uptime you see Spacer suicide units or stationary Buckmasters have 'cause you've got places to go, people to kill, shields up, and weapons hot. Cloaks won't freeze your opponents in place or destroy 'em, they just help-a lot, mind-with the maneuverin' to facilitate that.

Speaking of maneuverin', the big stuff gets between little and not one damn thing out of these. "Surprise, Citadel!" sounds hilarious but generally doesn't amount to accomplishin' much. Save the cloaking devices for things that can at least get out of their own way.

The Audio-Kinetic Pulse

The "Toot of Doom," as it were. Perfect choice if you're lookin' to add an extra tank pulpin', urban-remodellin' punch to your load out. Well, assumin' you don't have much interest in things like range and subtlety.

It's hideously powerful, and with an 8 second recharge time it's gonna be ready most of the times you'll want it. Pretty simple to use as it's just a point-and-obliterate cone. Most vehicles lighter than a medium tank tend to just shatter and fly apart. That includes most buildin's if you need to make a quick getaway.

Only real problem-slash-downside with it is the thing it's good at. Those big, cone-shaped booms tend to draw a lot of attention. It's easy to yourself in over your head if you're not aware of your surroundings. Range can be an issue, too. It can be a lot of risk to use, but the payoff tends to be a lot more permanent for the folks on the receivin' end than most of the gear in this category.

Oh, uh, it probably won't come up but heed the warnin' not to fire this thing at really hardened structures. I had a bit of footage I used to use to illustrate this, but it's lost to sands of time these days. Anyway, I do recall it clearly, so bear with me here. There was this new kid, a Buckmaster driver that was out on an op. They had a Pinch, a Zeus, and were rockin' one of these AKP units for dealin' with enemies at close range or when they cluster up. In the video, the Buckmaster cracks off a shot from the Zeus and, presumably, misses just as some kinda agrav, was small and absolutely haulin' ass, passes into frame on a flightpath that'll take it between the Buckmaster and one of those heavily reinforced district walls. The Buckmaster turns into the thing as it passes by, all this happenin' well within' the minimum range of the the Pinch (we'll get there), and triggers the pulse. You can see the agrav just poof,then a bunch of dust and debris shake loose on the wall, and not a split second later the Buckmaster just shatters into a million little pieces from the ankles up.

Yeah, I know, this one was a long one. The general role this equipment plays in a brigador's decision makin' just required coverin' a bit more ground. Thinkin' about the ways your special equipment influences your targets and the options it allows in the various situations you find yourself in will help you to make the most of your arsenal.

'Til next time.

[Crane]

Pretty neat guide! I think it deserves to also be on https://steamcommunity.com/app/274500/guides/

[TheGrimCorsair]

Originally posted by Crane:

Pretty neat guide! I think it deserves to also be on https://steamcommunity.com/app/274500/guides/

It will be. Once I've done each section, I'll collect 'em, give 'em a once over, and post it as a single whole guide. Posting it piecemeal like this just makes it easier for me to get the writing done.

[Amneiger]

Oh hey, another one of these. Glad to you see you're continuing this series, this is useful stuff.

I found a missing word in the Smoke Projector section. "first human hid behind a thing, jumped ." Thought you might want to fix that for the print edition.

[TheGrimCorsair]

Originally posted by Amneiger:

Oh hey, another one of these. Glad to you see you're continuing this series, this is useful stuff.

I found a missing word in the Smoke Projector section. "first human hid behind a thing, jumped ." Thought you might want to fix that for the print edition.

Much appreciated, thank you.