How to use the Petrel better :)

This guide will cover some of the life lessons I have learned and why in my opinion hardly anyone uses the petrel to its full potential.

Overview

As I write this I've just fubbed an encounter with the enemy carrier and my own is on fire. While I wait for my carrier to repair I've decided that I'd express some opinions that I've had for a while.

The Razor bill is garbage, the Petrel is superior in ALMOST every way and in 99% of encounters you could save time effort and resources by using a pet. In this guide I will teach you the unknown secrets of the petrel, how it can be used to speed up the island capture process and how you too could exploit them for mad gains and sick gangster cred.

Before we get started let me just say that this is my first guide ever, so don't expect much besides some text on a screen with MAYBE a pretty picture or two. Second, I have not looked at many other guides for this game. If I say the same things as some other guide you've seen with 3.2 views please do not presume im just reiterating things, I'll try to be as exact and expansive as I can. Thirdly please bear in mind that as with many things in this game a lot of this guide will be down to preference. To my knowledge the most meta method of playing the game is to bomb the island into submission with 3 mantas and the carrier then leave, Petrels are just as capable of neutralizing an island but are IN MY OPINION more useful than a razor bill and are much more versatile than a manta. Last I am using mods at the time of writing so if your petrels don't look as pretty (or ugly) as mine don't worry, I'll link my mods in at the end for you but these mods do not change game play to my knowledge and just make the game easier on the eyes.

Section 01: Basic Petrel Operation

To make sure everyone is up to speed lets go over what a Petrel is and what it does on the carrier. A Petrel is one of the 4 available air chassis in the game, its a dual rotor helicopter which serves as the heavy lift vehicle for the carrier. It can be armed with four weapons as opposed to the Razorbill which only carries two, however the Petrel is incapable of carrying flares, which severely limits its capacity against naval targets.

The Petrel is slow, sluggish and comparatively susceptible as mentioned above to AA missiles. However it is also the absolute most sturdy air frame and can take the most punishment of any air vehicle. It can mount a gimbal camera, four weapons and did I mention it can carry any land vehicle? Thais right, the ultimate ability of the Petrel is lift capability and its no slouch either. The Petrel has a limited fuel tank which gives it far less range than the Albatross or the Manta however it does out range its competition the Razorbill by a not insignificant margin.

To use the Petrel is quite simple, I'm going to assume you know how to set up a vehicle and if you don't you should find a guide to teach you the basics of the game. After launching the Petrel you'll find that it handles like a Razor that's been dunked in molasses. The second thing you may notice is that it flies like a dream. I give the Petrel a lot of smack for being the slower fatter unwanted cousin of the Razorbill but it is very much a good vehicle and in terms of helicopters handles exactly as you would expect.

If you want to pick up a vehicle, give the Petrel a set of move orders a reasonable distance away so that he does not complete the order before your done. Next click and drag from the destination X to the vehicle you want the Petrel to pick up. Finally you can either wait for the Petrel to pick up the vehicle, or if you're in a hurry you can click and drag from the X again to the destination. Once you have a destination click the X at the location you want the Petrel to drop off the vehicle and select "Deploy Unit". If done correctly then congratulations you have just air lifted a vehicle. Feel proud yet?

Air assault operations can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be, the simple formula of moving vehicles with the petrel can become far more automated if we take a little extra time to use wait commands. Firstly, deploy your vehicle of choice and give it a command to move somewhere open and relatively flat. Next click on the carrier Icon on the map and select the Petrel, give him orders to move somewhere nearby, if done correctly the Petrel will begin deploying now giving us time to set up. Your next task is to set up the pick up and drop off like usual, click the X on the pick up and select "WAIT ALPHA" and set up the drop off as usual, on the drop off drag another line out to the side and at this destination select "WAIT BRAVO" and to finish up drag from wait bravo to the vehicle to give the Petrel a second pick up order then drag from wait bravo to the carrier. The result of all this work should be that when you give the Alpha go command the petrel will pick up the vehicle and deploy it at the drop off point. When the vehicle is done its task you select go code Bravo and the Petrel will return, pick up the vehicle and return it to the carrier all by itself.

This use of wait commands gives you the ability to postpone a dangerous attack while you clear a beach head or to neutralize enemy AA to clear the way for your epic assault. In my case I usually use this to pick up a Virus bot and deploy him to the enemy command center once I've cleared the island. By using wait commands in conjunction with pick up and drop off you can create some elaborate air lift operations that only require you to press a few buttons when you're ready, or avoid picking up a vehicle in a tight spot.

Outside of picking things up the Petrel is an AWESOME gunship that can pull off a lot on its own. Bear in mind that unlike the Razorbill the Petrel cannot attack anything defended by AA missiles, its too slow to avoid AA missiles reliably and is unable to mount flares. That aside when using the Petrel think of it as a big fat Razorbill, Arm it with Chain-guns (I usually opt for two chainguns and two IR missiles) and try and align the Petrel to the island so that a majority of enemy vehicles are in your path. Give it a tilt and go buck wild on anything willing to shoot back.

Section 02: ADVANCED Petrel operations

Once you're comfortable with operating a Petrel you may come to find that while you DO save a few minutes of wait dropping off and picking up your Virus bot, you still spend a considerable amount of time just waiting. This sucks and personally if I can avoid wasting time I will, this IS an RTS and every second you spend waiting is a second closer to the next island the enemy captures. As such I aim to maximize my time.

Lets consider a scenario in which the defenders of an island are considerably scattered, for the sake of argument lets even say that there are no AA boats and no CIWS turrets in the area. Once you've finished scouting and are ready to start bombing, aim for targets closest to the command center, Vehicles that are half a kilometer away in the water are zero threat to you at all. Using the tactics we learned in the basic operations section we can set up a petrel to pick up a virus seal and hold him in a safe place while we ground pound. The absolute SECOND that the coast is clear (heh) deploy that virus seal, he just needs to be on the ground long enough to deploy the bots. Then you pick him up and get back onboard. If all goes well you'll capture the island before the remaining defenders can react and you'll have probably saved yourself a good few hundred 20mm rounds or a dozen or so missiles.

Heres a fun fact I bet you diddnt know and I'm going to type this EXTRA LOUD for the guy who told me I was wrong PETRELS CAN TRAVEL IN EXCESS OF TWENTY TWO KILOMETERS!! what does that mean? well if you look at any two neighboring islands on the map you'll probably find that they're well under ten kilometers apart. Lets put this to use and see if we cant shave even MORE time off.

In this example we launch two scouts and scout two neighboring islands. We tag every single bot on the ground and return the scouts. We can give two petrels armed with rocket pods and chainguns orders to hold position near these islands (remember a wait command will not disappear until the go command is given). We should also launch two virus bots and two petrels with spare fuel tanks to pick them up. These petrels should have orders to hold position near these islands as well at a safe distance (Remember the maximum range of ground weapons is 1KM~, a height of 1100 will put vehicles at a safe distance from ground forces. its completely legal to loiter 1100 above the drop point but be careful not to ram into your own men when flying and be mindful of terrain elevation.)

When the attacks are set we can engage with our Petrel gunships to clear the way for our virus bots. Remember we only need to clear forces near the command center, how close is too close will be a matter of personal opinion and trial and error, though I find a good 500 meter exclusion zone especially when the command center is surrounded by choke points and hills is fine. We then give the drop off command for whichever Virus bot is cleared to drop and with a little baby sitting to make sure the bots are deployed and the Seal is picked up we can more than easily capture two islands at the same time. But wait! Dont forget our Pets have some pretty good range to begin with, add on that these guys have FUEL TANKS and we can get even faster. Instead of waiting for our Pets to return with the virus seals why don't we keep going to the next island? Four Petrels is only half of your total air strength and if you use your noodle and deploy the Petrels ahead of the Carrier you can easily secure the islands from the air while the carrier steams ahead at full speed allowing you to not only reach your next destination faster but capture islands while you do it.

In practice you'll find these tricks far more difficult to pull off. Islands will have defense boats. Bases will have airfields and you may need to improvise. But I hope that this has got your brain cells tingling with all the possibilities of Petrels. If your willing to push your air frames to their limits you'll find that Petrels have excellent ranges, they cant be used to attack the enemy carrier at the start of the game and return sure, but they can absolutely get into hard to reach islands and with four weapon slots have far more versatility than the more popular Razorbill

Section 3: Fighting the Navy

As a rule of thumb you should engage boats with Mantas. They have the flares needed to juke an incoming AA missile and the speed and agility required to evade a CIWS. That said if you're like me you probably spend more money maintaining an air fleet of Mantas because you absolutely have to commit to every single attack no matter what. A cheaper alternative to the ole Manta is to spend a little time using that noodle of yours and Petrels can absolutely make a big difference, even the Razorbill has a place here.

Naval warfare is complicated in Carrier Command. If you're looking for a guide on Torpedoes or how to nang a needlefish with the carrier gun this is not the guide for that. Fortunately as someone too frugal to buy three torpedoes I've had some time to develop a better method for attacking the enemy navy. You see Needlefish dont always have CIWS, nor do they always have AA missiles. When scouting an Island take a good long look at the Needlefish defending the island and try to identify a CIWS. if its not there then congrats its armed with AA missiles, if it is there then congrats theres no AA missiles on it. If you see both I'm sorry to say thats not a needlefish thats a swordfish and you should consider the tried and true manta trick.

While Needlefish with CIWS are no match for a Petrel and a good pilot the Needlefish armed with AA missiles are the domain of the Razorbill and though I take every opertunity to sing its praises the Petrel just isn't versatile enough to take on an AA missile, but fortunately the strategy is the same. Arm your Petrel with four IR missiles. "FOUR IR MISSILES?! EMILY (THEY/THEM) (ACAB) (BLM) (LGBTQ+ ALLY) (Bi) (CAPRICORN) (14) (ANTIFA) CIWS are DESIGNED TO SHOOT DOWN MISSILES!" Well you ARE right, the CIWS will annihilate any missiles fired in 1KM of it. Thankfully for you its also inaccurate and slow to respond to threats, we can exploit this. The Petrel unlike the Razor can carry four missiles onboard, generally two missiles are enough to surpass a CIWS though sometimes three missiles are required. By volley firing all four missiles at the same time we maximize the chance that the CIWS will fail to destroy them all and increase our chances of a hit. If you want to maximize this chance fire in volley's of two (sometimes they can hit each other). There is some advanced tactics needed here as generally the Petrel needs to stay above 1000m away from the target to avoid being shot at, furthermore I have noticed that shots fired at the side or rear of the vessel will tend to smack a wave and explode short, to avoid this fire your missiles straight on from the front if possible.

While this strategy is not universally applicable (For instance the swordfish will absolutely destroy you), when low on torpedoes or when you are bored you'll find this strategy helps clear up the little goblins allowing the carrier to focus on the larger vessels.

If you're feeling ESPECIALLY flighty, consider trying to drop a heavy bomb on enemy naval targets. From 1KM+ away it's certainly a challenge beyond my ability though is in theory completely possible, you even get four tries! :)

Closing

The Petrel is SUPER versatile and while not as agile as its competitors it can facilitate an all around speedier style of game play and is armed with all of the essentials to assault and capture islands. I hope to see more people using these things in the future and to see less people sleeping on them. personally I couldn't imagine not having at least two of them onboard. It feels so stale seeing game after game where people go out of their way to rush mantas and then end up spending five minutes between each island waiting for their stupid seal to drive up to the command center.

I just want to say thank you for reading this absolute mess of a guide. Writing is not my strong suit and so I'm sure there's lots of issues with the guide That said, thank you again for reading it all the way through. I'd like to just take a second to thank the guy that inspired me to write this guide... I actually don't remember his name, but he joined the game and started questioning our tactics, I'll be the first to admit I'm just as judgmental but even when someone does something I think is stupid I try to observe their strategy in action, maybe they're smarter than me and are playing 8D chess. Either way this guy complains that I left my Virus bots behind, to which I explained "well we have a Petrel, feel free to go grab them and bring them home." his response was a snarky "Yeah not that kinda range, enjoy wasting your units though." and before I could explain anything he just left. My pride was immeasurably hurt and I felt the need to share this information with the community, but thinking about it I realized that Petrels are way more awesome than just delivering bots, they can do so much cool stuff and really are one of my favorite vehicles, I hope he sees this so I can say two things. One: a fully laden Petrel can actually keep up with the carrier in excess of 80 knots. With a range far above 22KM and a flight time of something around ten plus minutes (off the top of my head). You absolutely can deploy a petrel to retrieve a seal five kilometers away, especially when we're only going another ten kilometers or so. second: Try to keep an open mind. Just because my tactics are wasteful does not mean they're going to lead to our imminent demise, sometimes you just gotta trust the crew, I trust you so please trust me.

As promised the mods that I use most often (and you can see sometimes) are

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2790294240
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2760961845
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2761300794
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2761204827

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

I always keep at least 2 IR missiles on me. Its not that they're always useful and most cases I dont end up needing them. But they do speed up capture by allowing me to splash targets that are in water (Im dogwater at shooting into water lol), or in their most useful case I use them to attack unspotted CIWS platforms while strafing since CIWS wont change targets once they commit. I see IR missiles as a tool and utility rather than a weapon and its one thats nice to have when you need it and otherwise cumbersome when you dont.

[[EE] Kennith]

In my experience the Pet being slower and less snappy than the Razor is a benefit. It makes for a much more stable gun platform, and minimizing your crossing velocity makes aiming way easier. I've still been able to avoid CIWS at high altitude with the Pet (Although missiles are definitely a death sentence).
For loadouts, I find the IRs extremely limited. Two gun pods can clear an entire 2-shield island, while 2 missiles can only kill one group of ground targets. If you are doing fast runs, having 4 gun pods lowers the time you need to be on target, letting you to engage targets faster or give you more liberty with aiming. You can also only use 2 at a time to give you a ton of time on the trigger for clearing multiple islands or sniping CIWS. The big downside to this is losing 4 gun pods and probably a camera when it crashes.
I think the Pet would be a lot better if the terrain and trees were easier to see from the terminals, and if they actually fixed the infinite loop it gets into.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

In the end its all about what works well for you! I'm not good with mantas so converting them to dive bombers is their primary use on my end. Someone with more skill might ignore Rotor craft all together in favor of going top gun.

Whenever I want to try out new things my go to is to load up a new custom game with maximum islands, destroy the enemy carrier ASAP then just let the game idle in the background and save up money. Whenever you need to test something out you can load the save and splurge on what you want.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

I do agree with you, sometimes a few chassis have to take one for the team and human error can cause just as many accidents. I'd still argue that its in the ships best interest for you to consider the economics (what little there is) of your losses. a 750 dollar razorbill with two 250 dollar chainguns costs more than 20 heavy bombs, each capable of destroying a naval target instantly and dealing serious damage to the enemy carrier. (in fact it costs as much as a manta) While the Petrel with similar armament costs 1,500 credits with the added benefits of greatly improved endurance, drone ferrying and two additional weapon mounts for supplemental equipment such as missiles, bombs or fuel tanks.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

aww dude Go orders are a HUGE part of Petrel operations for me, queuing deploy and recover orders as well as halting petrels at minimum safe distance to wait until a direct attack can be carried out. As I explained in the article learning to give go orders is a big part of unlocking the full potential of the Petrels, unlike razorbills which I hardly see the point in giving wait commands to as they lack the endurance to travel far or wait long periods.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

The Petrel is not better than the Razorbill in a head to head against an island 30 meters from the carrier but beats out the Razorbill in its ability to fly to an island 20KM away while carrying a capture bot, clear the island on its own then deploy capture and recover un-aided.

To close out I'd also like to add that I do not have much experience in giving orders to units. I find that if you entrust the AI you will waste munitions and loose units. I'm constantly in manual control of a unit during an attack and only allow them to perform very minor tasks on their own such as deploying, flying to and from an island or picking up units. When it comes to combat even if its slower I take things one step at a time. CC2 does not strike me as the kind of game that can be made more efficient by micromanaging units.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

I vibe with your assessment Skelly, and will admit that the Petrel lacks the responsiveness that the Razorbill has. That said I dont feel as though the Petrels lack of speed plays a role in its comparison to the Razorbill.

The Razorbill is best suited as a rapid response attack craft swooping into a nearby island to provide support or to quickly eliminate threats. The Petrel on the other hand is a long range heavy platform best suited to long range strikes against distant targets.

I dont think that your wrong about the Petrel and to that extent any loss of aircraft is typically due to user negligence or failure. However the Petrel fills a completely different role as compared to the Razorbill and one that is just as important in single player as it is in multiplayer, that being extended range attacks on islands while carrying capture bots or ground units.

[SHITNOZZELEGGHUMPER-07]

I can absolutely do this my friend.

[N´wah]

Cool guide will use the wait commands once i get a chance, guide itself is ok ,a picture of a full order would be appreciated