The Halibuts

The Sparrow MAX

The first article in a series from our special guest writer SmokedHalibut describes the Sparrow MAX and how to use it.

Sparrow - Who Needs It?

All NC should have a Sparrow MAX. Why do I say this? It's the most powerful AA weapon out there (barring the post-patch Skyguard possibly) and it's a mere 2 cert points - it's well worth investing in just to totally dominate the airspace. Bear in mind that the Skyguard takes 2 people to operate it as well and 2 Sparrows will always be better than 1 Skyguard.

Here are some simple guidelines to help with your Sparrow usage:

Anti-Air:

• Visibility: You need good visibility in order to spot enemy air and deal with it. This means, walls, mountainsides and open ground are all good.
• Cover: Keep cover between yourself and ground troops of at all possible.
• Focus: Concentrate on knocking enemy air out of the sky. Don't ever attack anything else unless there are no enemy aircraft about.
• Radar: Pay attention to your radar so you can see if anyone else has spotted enemy air.
• Teamwork: You need teamwork to take down all the larger aircraft at all and it helps to be teamed up for smaller aircraft as well.
• Mosquitoes: These are no real threat to you - 1 on 1 you can knock them out of the sky before they can chain gun you to death.
• Reavers: See them first, shoot them first. They'll probably run as soon as you get lock on them.
• Liberators: They tend to fly very high and are only just visible at maximum distance.
• Galaxies: Shoot at them in the hopes that someone else will as well - if enough of you do you can take them out of the sky. Alternatively watch where they land and go and shoot them. Remember that the Gal pilot then has to go to a dropship base to get another!
• Hilltops: Stand up on hills but don't stand on ridges. Enemy air will ram you off the mountains and kill you.
• Dominance: You dominate the airspace by keeping it clear of enemy air - not by killing them. Killing them is obviously best though.
• Trees: You are virtually useless in amongst trees as the pilots can see you but you can rarely see them. Avoid them if possible.
• Advanced Targetting: Really useful to confirm whether or not you are going to finish of your opponent. Especially useful when you have a choice between trying to avoid a Reavers missiles or knock him out of the sky before he kills you.
• Towers: If a Reaver is spamming a towers doors you can't poke your head around and attack him. Run out of a ground floor door at full pelt and hope he doesn't follow you. If he doesn't you can often get away far enough to turn around and shoot him from behind.

Anti-Infantry:

• Lead: In order to kill Infantry you need to hit them directly or use your splash damage. If they are moving lead them quite a bit in order to damage them.
• Sneak up: Sneak up behind Infantry or find them at equipment terminals or hacking something and you can kill them quite easily. Still make sure to shoot at their feet in order to make sure you hit.
• Distance: Try and have at least some distance between you and the target otherwise you'll get yourself with your own splash damage!
• Turning: If you can't turn fast enough to hit your target as he strafes around you turn back the other way and get him.
• Supression: The best anti-infantry role for the Sparrow is long range supression. Your shots are so inaccurate that you will slam into a large area and thus force the enemy to keep their heads down. Particularly good towards tower doors.
• AMSs: Use your Sparrow to lay fire down on an AMS if it's unwise enough to be visible to you - it will make it obvious where it is to your team mates and you can catch unarmoured people loading up as well.
• Snipers: Force them to keep their heads down with a constant stream of fire. At long range and with a bit of luck, slam missiles all around them and kill them!
• MAXes: You haven't much hope really but you can certainly annoy them. Rain hellfire down on them and run towards someone who can kill them. Locked down TR MAXes can easily be persauded it isn't a good idea.

Other uses:

• Wall Turrets: Can be taken down eventually but importantly this can be done well outside their range as you have a 400 m range.
• Mines: Takes 3 shots to destroy a mine - actually very fast compared to many other weapons. Can be done at a good range if you can see them.
• Spitfires: Only takes two or three direct hits to destroy a Spit and you can shoot them from a huge distance.
• Motion Sensors: Possibly the hardest thing to hit in the game for no apparent reason. However your splash damage lets you take them down before they can pick up that you are nearby. Very useful.
• Targetting: Your missiles show up on everyone's radar. This means that if you see a target you should shoot towards it (an enemy AMS?) because it will let everyone who is paying attention know something is there worth shooting at.
• Boomers: Can be destroyed quite easily.
• Stationary vehicles: Take them out but it does take a fair while.
• Terminals: You can take equipment and vehicle terminals out with a Sparrow quite effectively.
• Vehicles: You can't do much more than lay down some persuasive supressive fire with vehicles. You never know they may be scared off!

I hope this helps and if you have any further ideas send them to UnrealHalibut and he'll duly ignore them.

SmokedHalibut