[G] The Explodet Guide

[Carbon]

http://content.imagesocket.com/images/Explodet_Guide0a6.png (http://imagesocket.com/view/Explodet_Guide0a6.png)

Introduction

Hey, you may know me as Ballin' Shades or just Shades. I've been playing Altitude for a while now and figured I could give back to the community by writing a guide on my favourite plane. I have over 20,000 kills with explodet and have about 1 million XP, so I think I have a pretty good grasp of how to play this plane. If you need clarification on anything, feel I didn't cover something with enough depth or am just plain wrong, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

Why Explodet?

Explodet is large, slow, hard to maneuver and requires you to keep track of your rocket and mines while also piloting, so why play explodet? Because explodet is great at defence, controlling the direction of a battle and once you start getting bars it becomes a juggernaut. Explodet is also the only plane that can significantly change the velocity or direction of another planes movement, so you can send loopies careening into a wall or stop a bomb run in a single attack. There are also a couple ways you can use your rockets and mines to maneuver your plane around and avoid death.

This guide is intended to help you learn the basics of how the explodet works, how to aim your attacks, general tactics, plane matchups and advanced techniques. Becoming good with explodet will give you a better grasp of stall recovery and how to fight against explodets in other planes.

At first you may not feel comfortable in explodet and die before you can build up bars, but once you get used to it you’ll be slamming loopies into walls left and right. As an explodet you’re going to want to avoid open areas with no good escape route, stalling in open areas, and regularly using your attacks close enough to damage you.


Perks

Director: This is the best perk to start out with. Your rockets push enemy planes away and you can drop homing mines out of your butt. This is a good perk for area control as you can lay several mines down at a time.

Thermobarics: Same mines as Director but instead of your rockets propelling enemies it twists their nose towards the explosion. This is an interesting perk and very good for base defence. I used this perk for a while until I got comfortable with piloting explodet and aiming rockets/mines. Thermo is good for making people slam into walls, but the twist effect can be negated by a plane slowing down enough if they know you’re thermo. Still a good perk for explodet you should try out.

Remote Mine: The rocket is the same Director but it only drops one mine that looks a bit different. This mine doesn’t home, but instead you detonate it much like your rockets. Until you feel comfortable with using normal mines and rockets I would suggest staying away from Remote, because it is the hardest to use. This is my favourite perk and also the one with the highest skill ceiling for explodet. Explodet pros usually use this perk; some use thermo but being able to detonate your mines is a major advantage.

Rubber Hull: Reduces damage done by walls and the concussive effect of weapons. Use this if you’re not used to flying explodet or you just suck at flying in general. This is a bad perk for explodet.

Heavy Armor: Increases your health, which makes you a tank but as an explodet you take a lot of random damage or self damage and need to heal it. If you don’t mind scavenging health packs or staying near your base choose this perk. The major downside to this perk is that unlike most other planes, when an explodet kills an enemy it is often behind them or at a distance, and you’re too fat and slow to grab all those health kits, which will be picked up by scavenger biplanes.

Repair Drone: Repair health over time as long as you haven’t afterburned recently. This is my favourite green perk for explodet. You’re too slow to grab all the health kits you need or keep returning to your base (if you even have one) so this is your main source of life. As an explodet you WANT people chasing behind you, so don’t be afraid to head to safety and drop some mines while you wait to heal.

Flexible Wings: Improved turning, you also lose less speed when you turn so you can maintain a higher speed easier. Better turning means you’re able to cover multiple choke points easier, can shoot rockets off easier and can survive a bit easier. If you feel comfortable hunting down health kits in big slow explodet or don’t mind returning to base, consider this perk.

Turbo Charger: Recharge your energy faster. I use this as my blue perk for explodet because it allows me to drop mines faster, and use rockets more often. Rarely do I need to drop a whole bar of energy on someone like a bomber or biplane does, so I prefer faster energy recharge.

Ultracapacitor: Increases your maximum energy. This isn’t very useful as an explodet because you have no fast way to unload your attacks on a single person (one goes forward, the other goes backwards!) If you like to lead people into traps and unload on them or like to defend your base this might be the perk for you.

Reverse Thruster: Gives you the ability to fly backwards. I’ve always found reverse thrust to be a waste of a perk. I’d rather be able to kill people more efficiently than be able to fly backwards, and since explodet has the ability to escape stall death with mines reverse thrust seems less useful. Note that your mines and rockets act strangely while reversing. If you really want to fly backwards use this perk.

Ace Instincts: Your veteran bars are 1.5 times as effective. This is a good perk if you’re really good, but if you’re playing against other good players you will probably die too often to make this perk worth it. If you regularly get 3 gold bars you may want to consider trying this perk.

My load-out of choice is Remote Mine, Repair Drone and Turbo Charger. Even though I regularly get 3 gold bars I like turbo charger over ace instincts because it helps me get the first half of my bars quicker and from what I understand turbocharger is effected by veteran bars as well, so at three gold bars you recharge energy very quickly. I sometimes use Flexible Wings over repair drone, but I often find myself taking damage from my own mines or taking small amounts of damage that I need to heal quickly, and since most of the kills I get are behind me or in a dogpile of planes I can’t really get them reliably. If you’re playing TBD Flexible Wings is a very good choice because you can always retreat after taking damage and repair at your base faster than repair drone would have healed you, but in other game modes Repair Drone is my favourite choice.

For players new to explodet I would suggest Director/Thermobarics, Repair Drone, Turbo Charger, but feel free to use whatever load-out you want and experiment to find what works out for you. If you feel you can regularly get and maintain multiple bars take Ace instincts. In my opinion the loadout with the highest skill ceiling is Remote Mine, Flexible Wings, Ace Instincts.

[Carbon]

Weapons

As an explodet your attacks have the unique ability to drastically change the momentum of an enemy plane. The bomber can also do this with their primary attack, but the effect is very slight. The basics of killing other planes are simple; just aim your attacks so that they send your enemies into solid objects and making them explode. A single shot has the ability to destroy a plane, but if aimed poorly your attacks can launch enemies to safety, propel a bomb carrier towards your base, damage or stall yourself or just straight up kill you.

Note: For both of your attacks the damage and force of the explosion is relative to how close it is to your enemy.


Rockets

Rockets shoot out from the bottom of your plane in a straight line until you detonate them by pressing the fire button or they hit a solid object (or about 2 screen lengths away before they explode). When you fire a rocket your energy bar will turn from a dark blue to a light blue, this means that you still have a rocket in the air. Rockets don't use up too much energy, only about 1/5 of the base energy bar. If you hold down primary fire with turbo charger you will never run out of energy (well, if you didn’t just send yourself into a wall), but without turbocharger you just barely lose energy each time.

These rockets start off somewhat slow and then take off. Rockets are also affected by your momentum. For example, if you are flying full speed your rocket will start out fast, if you are reversing your rocket will come out very slow and then speed up, and if you are stalled out and falling down the rocket will keep that downward motion as it speeds forward. This is important to note because this will change how you aim when you're being launched or falling down in a stall. This also means that you can use stalls to your advantage by shooting rockets in ways that people don't expect while positioning yourself for an escape (I’ll cover this later in advanced tactics).

Along with aiming you need to know how to time your detonations to send enemies in the direction you want them to go. When you detonate a rocket near a plane it will propel/turn them based on their position relative to the explosion, with the force of the effect being determined by how close they are to the explosion. For example if a plane is flying forward and a concussive rocket is exploded behind them they gain speed, in front and they lose speed and if it’s blown up from below it gives the plane some upwards momentum.

Note: Your rockets damage you at a reduced rate but seem to propel you just as much as it would another plane. This can be bad but can also be used to your advantage as is covered later in this guide.

There are two different rockets explodet can use, the concussive rocket on the Director and Remote Mine red perk, and the Thermobaric rocket. The concussive rocket launches players while the thermo rocket twists their nose towards the center of the explosion. Both require somewhat different strategies for aiming so I’ll go over them.


These are the three main ways I use the rocket

1) Shoot to damage. This type of rocket requires the best aiming as you want to hit as close the center of a plane as possible for maximum damage, not taking the explosive force into consideration. You can also shoot at the middle of a cluster of enemies hoping to damage them all, but unless they are really close your damage will be minimal. When shooting like this enemies will often be propelled away from you and you’re fat and slow so you can’t catch up, so don’t chase everybody you fight. I don’t normally shoot like this unless it’s a smoking plane or I’m in open air for some stupid reason.

Note: Avoid being in the middle of an open space, because you are a large target. Stay near cover when possible.

2) Shoot for wall damage. This is going to be your primary method of damaging other players and staying alive, but requires good timing and a map with lots of chokepoints. Since explodet is slow and large you are quickly out damaged by straight attacks, but you have the advantage when in tight spaces and near walls. When someone is passing close to a solid object, detonate your explosion near them with the intention of launching/twisting them into the wall. With the concussive rocket you can also launch people from behind with the hopes that they can't control suddenly going twice as fast. Against any plane but ones with rubber hull wall damage is the quickest way to get kills and change the direction of a battle.

3) Shoot to stall. Usually this is to stop a bomb run, but lately I've been using this on enemies in open areas and following up with a mine. If you can stall someone out they will be a sitting duck for the rest of your team and you'll quickly get assists. You can also stall players out when you are dog-fighting them. When a plane stalls they often forget about shooting you and try to recover, plus they have reduced energy recharge. This is the hardest shooting to do effectively, mainly because if you time it wrong you may send the enemy to safety or towards your base with a bomb. What you want to do is detonate the rocket right in-front of them so they lose most or all of their momentum.

Thermo rockets work a bit different than concussive rockets because instead of pushing the plane it twists its nose towards the explosion, so you shoot where you want the plane to turn to. Thermo is the easiest red perk to get wall kills with on certain maps and is the most annoying rocket to get hit by. This is better for defending bases because you can’t accidently propel the bomb carrier the wrong way.

There are other less important things you can do with your rockets that you should keep in mind. You can easily knock people out of the way of the bomb carrier, giving them easier passage, shoot someone to screw up their aim, or keep a plane from leaving an area. You can also use rockets to discourage people from going certain directions or speeds.


Mines

Mines shoot out of explodets butt and rise in the air a bit before settling. They take ½ of your base energy bar and you can have multiple out at once (the exception being remote mines, which will be discussed in detail later on). Similar to rockets, mines are released at a speed relative to yours, but unlike rockets they will quickly stabilize and sit there ticking away for a while. Regular mines stay on screen for 4 seconds and remote mines stay for around 5 or 6 seconds before they explode. Just like rockets, the closer someone is to your mine when it explodes the more damage it will do and the more force it will apply to them.

When someone flies past a hostile mine it will beep then start homing to the enemy ship. If they get far enough away from your mine it will go dormant again and wait for someone to get close enough. If the mine touches an enemy ship or solid object at any time it will explode, damaging and pushing away any hostiles close enough. While the mine looks fearsome with its dangling ball and chain, the only part of it that matters is the top. Regardless, mines are great for area control since people tend to avoid them when possible.

Placing mines is somewhat easy as you don’t really need to track them (don’t fly over them unless you know when they explode) and just by placing them in a busy area you’re helping your team. Spamming mines doesn’t work so great so it’s better to lay off the button and drop them at opportune moments. The best time to drop mines is when someone is about 2 plane lengths away from you because they don’t have much time to maneuver around it. Put mines in choke points, by busy pathways or corners people always turn. If you see someone stall out try to poop a mine in their direction as it will track them if they fall close enough to it.

When possible try to hit people with two mines at once, or a rocket and a mine. Often one attack will only be enough to slow someone down or stall them, but two consecutive hits will send them flying away. Slow down and place your mines so that to get through a pathway your enemies have to weave through two or more mines. Also try placing mines right off the edge of the screen where it loops, on power-up spawns and near health kits.


Remote Mines

Remote mines are a bit more advanced than normal mines because they don’t home and you can only have one at a time, but you detonate it by pressing your secondary fire again. This perk allows you to detonate your own mines so you don’t have to rely on mediocre homing. When placing remote mines you have a lot more control over where people are going to be pushed so you will be getting a lot more 1-shot kills.

Aiming your remote mines is much like aiming the concussive rockets, but instead of shooting it forward you drop it behind you into your enemies or drop it and wait for people to come by. Place remote mines much like you would a normal mine (corners, tight spaces, power-ups, etc.) but with a bit more caution, then explode it like a rocket when someone passes over it. Remote mines require more concentration than standard mines and aren’t as good at controlling air space, but if you place your mines carefully you can take out more enemies.

[Carbon]

General Tactics

Shield Defence

I figured I should make a note here about the effect shields have on your attacks as it is unique to the explodet. Your rockets will be reflected back at you but you still control the detonation. If someone reflects your rocket either detonate it immediately if nobody is around (this will also slightly damage and push the plane that reflected it) or just wait for it to hit a wall behind you. When mines are reflected they will chase your team, but since they have a short fuse to begin with they usually just explode harmlessly. Remote mines are still detonated by you, so if your mine gets reflected detonate it instantly (if there are no teammates near it) to damage and push the person who reflected it. Avoid dropping mines behind you if someone with a shield is following you because the shield will propel the mines forward, blowing you up.

Note: Your mines drop out from behind you, so if a plane gets too close and it explodes right away it will damage you an appreciable amount.


Ok, so you know about your weapons and want to start killing enemies, so get out there and fly straight at the enemies! Actually don’t do that. Explodet is not very good at head on combat, so you should attack from anywhere but head on. When people see your attacks coming they can brace themselves for it, but when they are preoccupied chasing the bomb carrier you can get away with a few attacks from below. Try to stick with your teammates where you can but use alternate routes to catch enemies from another angle and put them in poor positions.


General Advice

Stay near tight areas where possible. This lets you use your weapons to their full potential.
When possible use the top or bottom of a map to your advantage. If you can see planes that can’t see you it makes it easy to surprise them with a rocket to the face.
Your rockets travel about 2 screens of distance, so you can hit people after it has gone off screen. Using this to spam is ineffective as rocket damage decreases over time, but you can finish off fleeing planes when they think they’ve reached safety.
Be patient with your rockets and mines, don’t explode them too soon. Remember that the closer an enemy is to your explosion the more force and damage it does to them.
Don’t forget that you have rockets or mines out and explode them too late.
After death you are still able to detonate your rocket and mine, so pay attention to them and get some postmortem kills.
Avoid using your attacks on others when it will also hurt you. This means don’t blow up a rocket right away.
Self damage adds up and prevents your repair drone from working. I’m serious about this, try to avoid damaging yourself with mines when possible.
Use your speed to your advantage. Explodet can go EXTREMELY slow without stalling or can go fairly quickly by using thruster and keeping yourself at ~90% energy.
Try to engage enemies that are preoccupied to another plane and aim to stall them.
When a bomb is heading towards your base the bomb icon gets closer. Your rockets shoot far enough that you can anticipate the speed and distance of the bomb carrier and shoot them from off screen.
When you have a wall you can set it up in a way that your mines will bounce enemies into your wall.
Explodet is decent at taking out turrets if you have cover. Just rotate and lob a rocket at it every time you turn around, but watch out for enemies they will come right for you if they see their turrets being shot at.



Bomb Running

Don’t try to carry a bomb from your base to the enemy base as an explodet because you’ll usually end up dead. Explodet is too slow to bomb run and is better off escorting the bomber. Try to knock enemies away from the runner and stay nearby. You can also fly directly in front of the bomb carrier to act as a human shield and absorb as many hits as you can for the bomber. If the bomber dies near the enemy base try to grab the bomb and mine-boost yourself to the base because explodet is great at last second bomb recovery. Mines are great at accelerating a bomb carrying explodet upwards and those chasing you downwards.


Plane Matchups

These are all assuming 1v1 situations. Note that explodet isn’t very good in 1v1 situations on most maps because of the poor handling and speed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t win. Try these strategies against the planes, but always be prepared for other plans to jump in.

vs Loopy: This is a pretty easy matchup because loopys are fast and fragile, which means your mines and rockets will do a number on them. Stay near cover and watch out for acid and EMP. If you get EMP’d get to cover and wait for it to wear off since you can’t drop mines nearly as fast. Try to get the loopy to follow you through a chokepoint and drop some mines. Never go too far from cover or the loopy will take you out from a distance. Fly slowly and take advantage of the fact that loopy can’t go nearly as slow as you. If you get caught stalled out or in an open area the loopy will likely take you out. Watch out for them approaching too close or you might kill them and yourself if your mines do enough self damage.

vs Bomber: A bomber will make short work of an explodet if they are accurate, so try to keep them away from you when possible and stay near cover. Make the bomber stall out and you can kill them, or try to keep it away from you with your mines. If the bomber has Heavy Armour you can’t hope to out-damage it straight up, so try to knock it into a wall and attack its weak spot for massive damage.

vs Biplane: Biplane will often come out of nowhere, but luckily they usually need to get close to kill you, so use your mines to keep them out of control and at a distance. Don’t be afraid to stall out intentionally to confuse the biplane and drop a mine at the right angle, try to use that mine to un-stall yourself as well. If the biplane has heavy cannon try to get them to come close to you. At a distance heavy cannon will take you out before you can land a second rocket.

vs Miranda: This is the hardest matchup. Against the other planes you want to stay in cover but Miranda wants to do that too, and will use the trickster bounce to their advantage. Fly slowly when near cover and make the Miranda follow you. Set up mines to encourage the Miranda to go certain ways and have rockets waiting for them. For time anchor mirandas shoot a rocket and wait for them to anchor then explode it on them. Against laser mirandas use mines and avoid the laser-dash combo (drop a mine as they do it and you both might die, which is often the best case scenario)

vs Explodet: Really depends on both of your setups but generally against other explodets the direction of the fight depends who gets the first decent attack in. It feels like a cop out to write this, but just be better at dropping mines and shooting rockets than they are. They’re going to try to slam you into walls, so slam them into a wall first. If you get launched out of control you can use a mine or rocket to slow yourself down, also try to make them get hit by their own mines. Like against the other planes use cover, play smart and try to control the flow of battle.

[Carbon]

Advanced Tactics

So there are a few other things you should know about explodet now that you are familiar with it. These are more advanced techniques I’ve been using for a while. I’m sure other people have cool things they do as explodet and I’d love to hear about them.


Stall Recovery

The explodet is able to use its own attacks to propel itself; this means that you can accidently stall yourself or throw yourself into a wall but you can also have the ability to save yourself from stalls and crashes. If you find yourself on the ground unable to recover use a mine to push yourself up. To do this angle your butt so that when you drop a mine it will hit something close then immediately throttle up and afterburn as necessary. Basically all you’re doing is using the explosion from your mine to give you enough speed to recover from your stall and move as quickly as possible. This damages you but it’s better to recover as fast as possible since a slow, injured explodet is a giant target. This will let you recover from a stall and can be used in any number of situations: you can use this against walls while falling, when stuck on the ground, off of enemy planes or even off just a remote mine in midair.

The Rocket has a similar effect, but can’t be used as often and I still find it somewhat awkward. You can shoot your rocket and hold down primary fire if you’re going to faceplant, causing the rocket to explode as soon as it can, which will push you backwards. This is useful when someone drops a wall because you can sometimes push yourself away from it without taking collision damage.


Intentional Stalling

So now that we can use mines to recover from stalls we can try to use stalls to our advantage. Mines are shot out with force, and when stalled you can shoot a mine about the length of your plane away. This makes it so you can use them a bit more offensively and get them closer to your target while staying the ideal distance from them. This may seem like a poor idea to stall yourself, but you can often do this to get in a position to mine-boost off of someone before they can do any significant damage to you. Because you are able to drop mines faster than fire rockets you can use your stall to your advantage by rotating in place and throwing a mine into a front of someone you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to hit with a mine. For example, you can shoot a mine half way through a chokepoint while staying on your side (as opposed to flying through to place it). By doing this you are sometimes able to hit someone with two mines in a short period of time, sending them backwards (usually into a wall) and you forwards (hopefully not into a wall).

There are all sorts of things you can do with stalling and mines, to hit people with mines faster, to get yourself turned around faster in tight spaces or just look badass. These can’t be used all the time and can lead to stupid deaths, but they aren’t very risky if done correctly and sparingly.

Note: Intentionally stalling yourself is often dangerous and stupid. If you do it at the wrong time don’t blame me when you die.


Other Tips

The rocket is kind of fast but you can only have one out at a time, so you better make it count. By anticipating movement you can place your rockets where people are most likely to travel and get a lot of kills. For example, if a plane is smoking and heading for cover, don’t shoot at the plane, shoot at the corner they have to turn instead and hope that it connects. Getting good at aiming with explodet is partly knowing the map, because you can figure out popular routes of travel and escape and know how to aim at the closest choke point to where you are.

Keeping a good distance from enemies is important for explodet. You want to engage people about 1/4 of the screen away from you at an angle other than head on. At this distance your rockets can hit quickly and pose no threat to you and enemies have trouble dodging your mines. If more than one enemy attacks you at a time try to separate them with a mine, making it so only one can attack you at a time.

When using remote mines and someone is following you too closely try to drop your mine at an angle so it doesn’t hit the plane dead on, but ends up beside it, then detonate immediately. When you drop a mine straight back you risk damaging yourself if it explodes too soon.

[Carbon]

Closing Statements

So thats my guide. Hopefully you learned something about explodet and start slamming loopies into walls. If you want clarification on anything I covered here feel free to ask and I'm sure many of the players that play explodet regularly will jump in and answer questions and give their own opinions. Not everyone will agree with everything I wrote, but this is basically everything I could think of that would be useful for a new explodet to know.

This guide was entirely writen with my opinions, then I got Kuja and Monxy to check it over for me. I was going to add more pictures but I felt that the guide was already long enough as is. This is a work in progress though, so I'll be adding more to it in the future. Feel free to suggest things for me to add.

Thanks to Karl and Lamster for making such an awesome game, everyone that helped me figure things out for this guide, to Kuja and Monxy for proof reading my guide, FN for being a ballin' clan and for everyone who made me rage IRL (encouraging me to get better).

I'm going to use this post to link any additional info or resources I think are important and incase the guide grows any larger this is a placeholder since I was already pushing the character limits on some of those posts.

[evilarsenal]

wat about 5v5 team based strategies?

[Beagle]

I’ve always found reverse thrust to be a waste of a perk.

:T

Good guide though.

[lammyboi2104]

so wat is a explodet really good for? persay...defending base...protecting bomber or combat?

[evilarsenal]

its the best plane

its hard to kill
can't chase it
usually has heavy armor
mines randomly kill you or knock you into walls
perks for director control to a very extreme degree
the random director thing just knocks you into a wall, kill without any effort

its the best plane to be, and is best at everything except bombing

[Carbon]

wat about 5v5 team based strategies?

I don't think that 5v5 team strategies are really within the scope of this guide. All of the tactics and advice I've given can be applied to any type of match, but you just need to be better for organized play, haha. When in a league game you REALLY need to push with the bomb because your explosions and ability to absorb damage for the bomb runner can make or break a bomb run.

Explodet also synergizes well with loopy, because acid or emp + knocked into wall = dead

:T

Good guide though.

I know some people really like reverse, and I do like it on biplane, but I don't like it on explodet at all. Reverse gives you more ability to escape bad situations but explodet already have two attacks that can do that as well. I would just rather have ace instincts or turbocharger so I can kill more people, as opposed to more escape potential or mobility.

Edit: also reversing messes with the way your rockets/mines shoot out of you and I always found it too awkward.

[NfoMonkey]

great guide... now whats left? bomber, bi and randa guides?

i think an explodet is a plane you really cant hate, its like a fat tarded kid that does annoying things, sure youll hate it when he pokes you in the eye, but when you see it slowly trying to shuffle away/escape you cant but think "aww isnt the fat tard cute, trying to outrun me"

i also agree with evilarsenal... in the hands of a explofag: Explodet > all,

also.3! i think that these user written guides should be stickied or otherwise pointed out in a big red text somewhere for all to see!

[nobodyhome]

i think an explodet is a plane you really cant hate, its like a fat tarded kid that does annoying things, sure youll hate it when he pokes you in the eye, but when you see it slowly trying to shuffle away/escape you cant but think "aww isnt the fat tard cute, trying to outrun me"


except when there's several explodets on the same team guarding an area. then it becomes a gang of fat kids beating you up. not fun.

[evilarsenal]

they need a nerf

[Beagle]

I know some people really like reverse, and I do like it on biplane, but I don't like it on explodet at all. Reverse gives you more ability to escape bad situations but explodet already have two attacks that can do that as well. I would just rather have ace instincts or turbocharger so I can kill more people, as opposed to more escape potential or mobility.

Edit: also reversing messes with the way your rockets/mines shoot out of you and I always found it too awkward.

Oh, I thought you meant reverse was a wasted perk in general, not just for Explo.

However, even so, I don't feel reverse is a waste for any plane. First off, some people might prefer more escape potential or mobility to 'killing more people' so it'd be nice to give a better description of its possible applications instead of just calling it a wasted perk and moving on.

For example, when you were talking about intentionally stalling, I was reminded that I do that all the time when I play Explo because reverse makes it childs play.

This is just my attempt to be constructive though, the guide is awesomely written/researched/formatted and I wouldn't fault it even if it said reverse was for pretentious sausagelovers.

[tyr]

The more I think about it, the more I think the biplane guide will probably be the hardest to write, since there are so many DIFFERENT ways to play biplane, all effective. Recoilless/Heavy cannon, reverse thrust or not, dedicated to bomb carying, etc ...
If I wanted to write such a guide, I wouldnt even know where to start ...

Good work Shades though, on this one. :)

[mikesol]

I only use reverse with my explodet. :D

If you can master the ability to reverse while rocketing it can actually prove quite useful. In fact you can drastically increase the speed of your rocket if you do it right. When you reverse into a circle and at the top of the arc you launch a rocket it gains the momentum you've had. Reverse also helps when you're trying to get from the bottom to the top of the map quickly because you don't stall out like you would with a normal afterburner.

Admittedly, I only really play an explodet in planeball but still something to throw out there.

[Loli.ta]

Predicting in a Explodet is really fun. For a fleeing foe to leave the battlefield, you shooting a nicely placed rocket can get them from a far distance as they try to heal. :\ I never exactly had problems with Mirandas. Maybe they weren't good enough. But...I did have problems with 6 nades coming my way from a bomber, or several biplanes shooting me down in mere seconds. Great read.

[eth]

Just finished reading, great guide Shades! ^^ Explodet has so many cool tricks with mines/rockets, it's a lot of fun for sure. One thing I 'disagree' with though :P I feel heavy armor is 100% as viable as repair drone, and especially so when not camping. I have heavy armor on my remote mine setup, and I pretty much never have hp problems since I get a lot of kills in front of me too. Also feels kinda good getting out of a fight with 1% hp left, knowing you'd have died without HA ^^.

[CCN]

what about ultracapacitator?

[AtomikPi]

they need a nerf

:mad:

Just finished reading, great guide Shades! ^^ Explodet has so many cool tricks with mines/rockets, it's a lot of fun for sure. One thing I 'disagree' with though :P I feel heavy armor is 100% as viable as repair drone, and especially so when not camping. I have heavy armor on my remote mine setup, and I pretty much never have hp problems since I get a lot of kills in front of me too. Also feels kinda good getting out of a fight with 1% hp left, knowing you'd have died without HA ^^.

This is true I think. Remote/Ace/HA is very viable against players below one's skill level.

Thanks to shades for writing a quality and interesting guide.

[DryBone]

Now we have the explodet and the loopy guide
we need the bomber, biplane and miranda guide left...

I could write the bomber, but i'm still a demo user haha :D

[Flight 666]

in english will be hard to learn =/

[Carbon]

what about ultracapacitator?

My opinion is that ultracapacitor isn't a very good for explodet. On the other planes, especially Biplane and loopy you have the ability to frontload damage by taking ultracap and blasting someone. Biplane can do primary and secondary at the same time and use all the energy up in under a second, same with doublefire loopy and bombers.

For explodet it's a bit different because you have no way to frontload damage like that. Often you'll be placing many mines as someone chases you, and both your attacks don't go the same way. I guess if you wanted to play defence ultracap would be a good way to drop 3 mines very quickly, but with turbocharger you are able to drop mines, shoot rockets and afterburn more regularly.

Most other good explodets I see use turbocharger and I've never actually seen someone use ultracap effectively in explodet. If someone wants to prove me wrong please do so, I'll be pleasantly surprised :)

edit: oops. you probably didn't notice ultracap because the formatting on it was strange. I fixed it :)

[ryebone]

except when there's several explodets on the same team guarding an area. then it becomes a gang of fat kids beating you up. not fun.


personal experience?

[matattack]

How about escorting? Explodets are the best with a shield :) there are certain ways to escort different planes as well

<3 matattack!

[ZidaneTribal]

needs more pictures imo

[Vania]

I agree, it needs pictures.
And explain how to do a rocket-mine combo.

[evilarsenal]

explos really do need a nerf, they are the most overpowered plane in this game now

[Evan20000]

Not by much, but I agree. I hope they don't go the way of the randa though. (Being beaten senseless by the nerf bat)

[botakhead]

Originally posted by Drybone
Now we have the explodet and the loopy guide
we need the bomber, biplane and miranda guide left...

I could write the bomber, but i'm still a demo user haha

We already have the biplane guide... by Beagle!
Great job guys, these guides are good cause you know wat to expect when
playing against them!
p.s.~Im still a demo:D

[ZidaneTribal]

reverse hc is not biplane

[wolf'j'max]

gj it became sticky

[classicallad]

explos really do need a nerf, they are the most overpowered plane in this game now

naaa i have to disagree, bomber is the most overpowered plane.

[mled]

naa i have to disagree again with both evil arsenal and class, the reason?
well every plane has its unique abilities and for a player to say "thats plane is overpower im going to the admin, and getting that plane out of the game" thats horrible; each plane is extreme strong with its own powers miranda is hard to kill in the hands of a skilled player same goes for every plane if you only practice 1 plane and become every good at it people in the game will start to tell you the only reason your good is because that plane is over power which its not. i must agree a little with evil and class that some planes compared to others are a little stronger than they should be but only a little


ohh and loved the guide great way to start my morning thnkx carbon ;) ;) ;)

[[FN]MONXY FIST]

naa i have to disagree again with both evil arsenal and class, the reason?
well every plane has its unique abilities and for a player to say "thats plane is overpower im going to the admin, and getting that plane out of the game" thats horrible; each plane is extreme strong with its own powers miranda is hard to kill in the hands of a skilled player same goes for every plane if you only practice 1 plane and become every good at it people in the game will start to tell you the only reason your good is because that plane is over power which its not. i must agree a little with evil and class that some planes compared to others are a little stronger than they should be but only a little


ohh and loved the guide great way to start my morning thnkx carbon ;) ;) ;)

I have only had people call my explodet over powered, never my biplane which is the plane i play 90% of the time? I wonder why that is.

[Drunksyco]

MONXY FIST;18344']I have only had people call my explodet over powered, never my biplane which is the plane i play 90% of the time? I wonder why that is.

Mastercoop's biplane is overpowered, you wish you could be as good as him. :D

[GraveDigger]

Fatties are the best

[GoldenBoy]

I think exp. is the best plane for defending base..I mean its large and has powerfull rockets and mines thats the best part...But the bad part exp. is very slow..the slowest plane on altitude . But I love it and I use it sometimes . So carbon thank you for your guide it really helped :) !

[Loli.ta]

If you want to go fast, go Remo and instant detonate your mines, you'll go flying.

Thermo Whale Wiggles is fun. Period.

[matattack]

ya wiggle whale ftw :D

[GoldenBoy]

Ok I will try it thx :D

[MrSniker]

Nice read, I'm an average Explodet user; I'll put these tips to good use.

[classicallad]

Basically speaking whales rule and anything else is just pish.

[Alpha]

Funnnnnn.

It'll definately help, nice job. Though I'm an average Remote Miner, I think I prefer Thermobarics.

[Wintegral]

Great guide! When I first tried the Explodet I hated it. It seemed like it was flying through stall-inducing honey and had hard to use weapons but I've grown to see it in a different light and this guide has helped with that. I'm still bad at the whale, but hey, things don't change overnight :o.

[ofna01]

In my opinion,explodet is the worst plane.i have 3 reasons
1.Horrible weapons
2.All perks suck on it
3.No manuverability/speed
:o
sorry guys but its not the best

[Evan20000]

In my opinion,explodet is the worst plane.i have 3 reasons
1.Horrible weapons You clearly have never been hit by a thermo before.
2.All perks suck on it I've stared at this for 3 minutes and still can't express how stupid that was in words.
3.No manuverability/speed Same as above
:o
sorry guys but its not the best
Bolded comments.

[GMAC]

I started with this guide when I started whaling :) If you can get the hang of the perks, it's a really fun plane to fly.

It might be worth mentioning that I prefer to use different perks for different games though. Thermo/Repair/Turbo is awesome for holding a goal in Ball. You can really annoy loopies who get shot with a thermo as they shoot, sending their ball way off target.

I use Remote/Repair/Turbo for TBD, though I should really be using the armour because of having the base there. I just don't like going back and forth all the time.

With remotes, you can chuck a mine in one choke point while you cover another. The director rockets are excellent at stopping bomb carriers in their tracks too, if you time them right. One explosion on the front of the nose slows a heavy right down and can send lighter planes into a stall. At this point, they get ganged by the rest of your team or panic and drop :)

Just a few thoughts ^_^

[404notfound]

One thing I feel I ought to point out is that there's a very slight activation time on the remote mine before you can detonate it, giving enemy planes a small window during which they can pass harmlessly over your mine. In situations where you're right on top of another plane, or you hit an enemy with a rocket and then turn around to face away from them, choosing regular mines over remote mines can mean the difference between a graze and a kill.

One thing I find myself doing with relative frequency is hitting a plane with a rocket and then, as I pass through them, dropping a mine right on top of them, which not only hits them with the full force of the mine but also gives you a nice speed boost to get you away from them, if they're still alive.

It might not be enough to sway some people's decisions on whether to take remote mines or director/thermo, but it's something to take into consideration.

[Flyngbanana]

One thing I feel I ought to point out is that there's a very slight activation time on the remote mine before you can detonate it, giving enemy planes a small window during which they can pass harmlessly over your mine. In situations where you're right on top of another plane, or you hit an enemy with a rocket and then turn around to face away from them, choosing regular mines over remote mines can mean the difference between a graze and a kill.

One thing I find myself doing with relative frequency is hitting a plane with a rocket and then, as I pass through them, dropping a mine right on top of them, which not only hits them with the full force of the mine but also gives you a nice speed boost to get you away from them, if they're still alive.

It might not be enough to sway some people's decisions on whether to take remote mines or director/thermo, but it's something to take into consideration.

^^ Good points.

Remote mine is probably the worst option to choose as a explodet plane right now, mainly due to that the mines take a long time for you to be able to explode them after you eject them, and that the mines aren't collidable. This constantly leads to smaller planes getting on your tail and have no real way of shaking them off. With thermobarics and director you can simply point your rear towards them and plant a mine on their face which is very useful. Remote mine now has no real strong points apart from the ability to leave a mine at a chokepoint. Its even more useless in ball mode.

[Stormich]

It's just more strategic now, sure you get raped here and there but with good mine placement you can minimise that

[matattack]

if you can use remote well, it is OP.

if you cant, it isnt OP.

thermo is a lot less controlled. how much you spin them, how and when you mines hit them, its all more or less up to the game and the player who you are shooting at.

remote is completely controlled, so i think i stand with my statement :p

also, remote mine not being collidable is a GREAT advantage and boost for explo..when you have a team rushing towards base, you always have your teammates run in first..they fly thru, and you stop the nuker right before he passes your mine, stalling their whole push. its a great strategy.

[d10sfan]

Thanks for making this guide. Pretty bad at explodets right now, this will help alot.

[Kuja900]

Thanks for making this guide. Pretty bad at explodets right now, this will help alot.

Just a heads up but remote mine has been radically changed since the time of the writing of this guide and portions of the information are no longer applicable.

[SkyTiger]

thermo is a lot less controlled. how much you spin them, how and when you mines hit them, its all more or less up to the game and the player who you are shooting at.


how much spin can be controlled very accurately.

[Kuja900]

how much spin can be controlled very accurately.

Uhhhh am I missing something?

[SkyTiger]

Uhhhh am I missing something?

maybe ;)

yes i'm saying you can control thermo spin just as much as you control director effect (boost, stop, bang on the wall) on enemy plane.

[Kuja900]

maybe ;)

yes i'm saying you can control thermo spin just as much as you control director effect (boost, stop, bang on the wall) on enemy plane.

Might I ask how

[SkyTiger]

Might I ask how

lol. of all people.
cmon kuja.

I'm sure you do it, but maybe you haven't analyzed it yet.
Amount of turn is related to the following:
- plane type
- Location of thermo blowing up in relation to the nose of the plane
- Speed of the plane
- distance from the center point of the plane
- Plane turning angle at the moment you blow up thermo

Now, consider a loopy going at avg speed, not turning
- blow it up directly above the loopy, and it turns approx 45~50 degrees up.
- blow it up above+behind (toward the tail) and it turns approx 90 degrees up.
- same for below
*distanced about 1/2 plane length away from the center of the plane.

Now consider a loopy going at avg speed, turning at the moment you blowing up thermo.
- Blow it up in the same direction of the turn, and you make it turn up to 135 degrees or more if not corrected fast. Doing this makes the plane turn faster than the max-turn-rate and thus very deadly.
- Blow it up in the opposing direction of the turn and it slows/stops the turn.
- similar to above, the effect is stronger if you blow it up toward the tail of the plane, further toward the tail the stronger the turn.
*distanced about 1/2 plane length away from the center of the plane.

I'm sure you do it all the time. consider a bomb runner going straight towards your base about quarter screen away ( consider cave/grotto/heights middle route) and you somehow can't block but need to stop the bomb runner.
- blowing thermo directly above the plane makes it arc up, and if bomb released, will probably still land on the base.
- blowing thermo above+behind the plane makes it turn up 90 degrees. and might cause bomb to lob directly upwards if released late.
- blowing thermo below the plane, makes it arc down and will probably make the plane get off course immediately. Thus the preferred choice (if not directly above your base already).
- close to the plane, and you do more damage for the kill.
- further from the plane( such as below + tail ) will make it turn more but less damage.
so weigh out if you want to kill, or just make it miss and decide where to blow your thermo.

once you know thermo enough, its easy to lead people into walls, or make a plane miss their aim on you etc etc. (accurately i must add)

srsly, the thermo isn't programmed with a random angle generator!!
Its programmed with an algorithm that will calculate the angle of turn. No random factor here.

*phew that was hard to explain.

[matattack]

in other words, ur kinda guessing and hoping, based on where the plane is, what speed its going, and when u detonate it...
lol xD
in some cases like ball, when most of many loopies are going 100000 mph, i guess u can expect a rough turn, but i believe in tbd, when everyone seems to have more self control it becomes difficult to judge where and how people will turn, not to mention the intention behind the turn as ur firing. i guess if u really are capable of judging their speed as u fire, and their movement before u fire, and their plane type, and whats around them, and if they have items or not, then maybe u can control the thermo.

[Kuja900]

lol. of all people.
cmon kuja.

I'm sure you do it, but maybe you haven't analyzed it yet.
Amount of turn is related to the following:
- plane type
- Location of thermo blowing up in relation to the nose of the plane
- Speed of the plane
- distance from the center point of the plane
- Plane turning angle at the moment you blow up thermo

Now, consider a loopy going at avg speed, not turning
- blow it up directly above the loopy, and it turns approx 45~50 degrees up.
- blow it up above+behind (toward the tail) and it turns approx 90 degrees up.
- same for below
*distanced about 1/2 plane length away from the center of the plane.

Now consider a loopy going at avg speed, turning at the moment you blowing up thermo.
- Blow it up in the same direction of the turn, and you make it turn up to 135 degrees or more if not corrected fast. Doing this makes the plane turn faster than the max-turn-rate and thus very deadly.
- Blow it up in the opposing direction of the turn and it slows/stops the turn.
- similar to above, the effect is stronger if you blow it up toward the tail of the plane, further toward the tail the stronger the turn.
*distanced about 1/2 plane length away from the center of the plane.

I'm sure you do it all the time. consider a bomb runner going straight towards your base about quarter screen away ( consider cave/grotto/heights middle route) and you somehow can't block but need to stop the bomb runner.
- blowing thermo directly above the plane makes it arc up, and if bomb released, will probably still land on the base.
- blowing thermo above+behind the plane makes it turn up 90 degrees. and might cause bomb to lob directly upwards if released late.
- blowing thermo below the plane, makes it arc down and will probably make the plane get off course immediately. Thus the preferred choice (if not directly above your base already).
- close to the plane, and you do more damage for the kill.
- further from the plane( such as below + tail ) will make it turn more but less damage.
so weigh out if you want to kill, or just make it miss and decide where to blow your thermo.

once you know thermo enough, its easy to lead people into walls, or make a plane miss their aim on you etc etc. (accurately i must add)

srsly, the thermo isn't programmed with a random angle generator!!
Its programmed with an algorithm that will calculate the angle of turn. No random factor here.

*phew that was hard to explain.

Ah I did do this to some degree already however I was unaware of the details, very much appreciated.

[SkyTiger]

yea,... as i was teling kuja in game, these figures are my own estimates.
I retested it just a while ago to see if the angles match up, and its pretty close i must say.

matattack,
I don't have to go into the details, but I am sure there are many other better players than me that would agree that you can judge another plane's actions and even intentions quite accurately. Ask any good time anchors. Predicting enemy movement and when they fire would have to be second nature.

Anyway, I was just clarifying the point that you can control it just as much as director, but its just not as obvious as the director on how it works.
I hope by going into a lil detail, it can serve as a pointer to those who haven't already realized the different variables involved in the amount of spin.

[andy]

thanks i didnt know hitting a plane above/under the tail twisted it more than hitting it above/under its nose. very useful.

[wolf'j'max]

the plane's nose will turn to the centre of the explosion, like tiger said, its just a matter of distance and placement how to move planes, i like it tiger :D

[SkyTiger]

hah. i'm humbled to be giving pointers to the likes of u guys.
Since i'm posting and you guys are reading,..

Wolfie (I assume is the same players as Wofl'jmax now) was the first good player I played with when I downloaded demo. If it wasn't for seeing how big the difference can be between a good player and simply spamming weapons, i wouldn't have thought altitude had much depth.

Kuja on the other hand frustrates the hell out of me with her thermo every damn time i play on the same server as she. Although it has only been a handful of times that I played with kuja, I practically imitate her fighting stance when i started off with explo.
I am still amazed by her skill and how aggressive her stance is with explo. :D

[Duck Duck Pwn]

Kuja on the other hand frustrates the hell out of me with her thermo every damn time i play on the same server as she

no comment

on-topic, I do find the recent hints on thermo to be quite helpful, since I honestly didnt really know how to use it. Thanks for that.

[Firestrike]

Great job with the article! I am so bad with the explodet, so I hope this article will help. It is sure thorough enough! Congratz!

[Goose]

i knew how speed affected planes with thermo, but not angles and locations like you have described. This is very cool and interesting, i will be more aware of this from now on, thanx skytiger! I always just assumed you want to blow up the thermo as close as possible to the center of the enemy plane to get max damage lol

[silent skies]

Reverse Thruster: Gives you the ability to fly backwards. I’ve always found reverse thrust to be a waste of a perk. I’d rather be able to kill people more efficiently than be able to fly backwards, and since explodet has the ability to escape stall death with mines reverse thrust seems less useful. Note that your mines and rockets act strangely while reversing. If you really want to fly backwards use this perk.

Mine hopping takes energy and damages you slightly, reverse (these days) takes basically 0 energy and doesn't damage you.

Also:

~ Allows you to easily choke up small, tight areas with many mines in ways non-reversers can't.
~ Allows you to easily rain down rocket death to those below you. Valuable for defense on pushes from below on maps like middleground and mayhem.
~ Allows you to do a full retreat while firing projectiles forward, since fatty rockets constantly accelerate and quickly get over your backwards momentum.
~ Using reverse allows you to escape far more situations than just stall death.
~ Bombs are much easier to block with reverse fatty.
~ Makes it much easier to respond to someone bomb-rushing your base, even if you're a decent distance away.

Reverse-rocket quirkiness is very awkward and hard to come to terms with, but like most other skills in alty it will eventually become like second nature to you if you practice it enough. I don't consider myself as having come anywhere close to 'mastering' this, but on many occasions I can fire a rocket off while doing a 360-reverse-loop, have the rocket curve in a weird angle, and have it smack right into the nose of a bomb carrier who wasn't even on the screen when I started dancing about. What's important to grasp is that even though the rocket goes through an initial curve or whatnot, the acceleration eventually makes it go in a straight line, even if the rocket is pointing in an odd direction; I've often had rockets pointing at a 45-deg angle move along the horizontal plane. These days I kind of feel like using reverse-spin-rockets is like throwing a ball and chain, except the ball is a ... rocket? It's hard to explain.

All in all, though, I'd have to agree with the sentiment that reverse on a fatty is more defensive in nature than it is offensive.

[banana]

I know this is kind of an exploit but its a useful explodet trick. Mineboost off the ceilings on maps with no roof such as fallout. It provides an easy way of speeding to the other side of the map quickly. Ezbombrunnings.

[XX1]

I know this is kind of an exploit but its a useful explodet trick. Mineboost off the ceilings on maps with no roof such as fallout. It provides an easy way of speeding to the other side of the map quickly. Ezbombrunnings.

this is usually done with remote, but can be used with director and thermo.
Btw : banana love your cat :D