FIRE IN THE HOLE, an explosive guide

Who doesn't love the sound of explosions? Who doesn't love making your enemies blow into tiny bits?
Shredding tanks or aircraft, explosives are your primary tool for ruining somebody's day.

The trick is to make sure it isn't you or your buddies.

So here's a rundown on explosives, how to use them and some neat things about them.



C4, or how to blow up sunderers in quick order
C4 is very powerful, but requires a huge cert cost to unlock in the first place. They also are only available on everyone except the infiltrator. They are best used by LA, though if you are good at sneaking around a battlefield, anyone can use them.
To use c4, you first need to place one. Placing one is as simple as a right-click. To detonate, left click.
Running away is optional.
The damage done by C4 is immense, it will almost instantly kill a lightning from behind and will damage a sunderer to half, from a single C4. If you have enough certs to place two of them, you can instantly kill a sunderer (Provided they fix the glitch where you can only place one c4 at any time). Any infantry unlucky enough to be caught in the blast will die, and if you somehow manage to place some c4 on an enemy galaxy, fun times are to be had.
The problem is that you need to get close to your target to place C4, otherwise you will seriously damage the ground, not your intended target. This is why LA is decent for this, as you can create avenues of attack not previously thought of, sneaking around with the third dimension. Heavy assault also works and gives you the ability to cut through swaths of enemies while doing it.
When you deploy C4, it is a short toss, but it sticks to any surface you place it on. You can stick it above doorways, you can stick it on forcefields, you can stick it to your buddy's tank, you can even do the patented battlefield suicide buggy!

However, C4 can be shot at and destroyed, nullifying it.
Each C4 must be purchased, like grenades, and costs 50 each. You can store a maximum of 20


Grenades or how to weaponlock you very, very quickly
Grenades in PS2 are a little bit wonky, but they are very deadly and very effective. What is a grenade, you ask? Press 'g'. Now respawn. The default grenade you are given has the ability to wipe out whole squads. WHOLE SQUADS -- FRIEND OR FOE. Each resupply you are only given one, and have to find a terminal or sundy to get another one, provided you haven't gotten the grenade armour upgrade. Many of my kills have been done by grenades, and since they bounce, they allow you to kill opponents you know are around the corner. However, I also have had a lot of deaths from people on VS throwing grenades randomly.
Some rules of thumb:
1. Never throw a grenade when your squad is rushing a room, unless you are absolutely certain that grenade is going straight through the room itself.
2. Do not attempt to bounce grenades off of walls/corners when your squad is nearby unless you are confident about the bounce.
3. Do not attempt to throw grenades into windows if your squad is nearby and you are not confident about landing the grenade in the window.
4. Never, ever, throw a grenade into a forcefield. It bounces. Also, when rushing a spawnpoint, don't throw a grenade into the room. (See #1)
A lot about grenades is simply about awareness. Throwing grenades randomly will occasionally net you a kill, but more often than not, it will kill either you or your squad. Dying to enemy grenades is annoying. Dying to friendly grenades is infuriating.

Each standard grenade costs 15 infantry resources. You can store a maximum of 40.

Grenade launchers, or how to ruin a HA's day.
For a few weapons, you can cert into a underbarrel grenade launcher. It has two contact grenades that are unlimited as long as you have an ammo kit, and these grenades do serious damage. If you hit infantry with it directly, it will generally instantly kill them.
Even HAs with their shield active.
There is very little an enemy can do about this weapon, as long as you can aim correctly, it will kill an opponent.


The pew pew laser, or an introductory course to projectile ballistics
The S1, a lovely, lovely weapon. Accessible to the HA, it is your go-to anti-armour weapon. It will oneshot aircraft, kill any tank with two shots to the rear and it makes an awesome sound.
It also tends to kill infantry who run into it.

As a heavy assault, you will learn the curve of the S1. You will love it, you will worship it, and you will rain death and destruction upon your enemies.
Or you go the wussy route and take the Hades if you want to be a sniper.

Do note that you more or less have to get a direct hit with the launchers to deal damage to tanks (Ie: hit the model, not the ground next to the tank). Back armour is preferred.

A crash course in projectile ballistics
Every single explosive, barring the Hades and Nemesis, have a curve. For those of you who took physics, you'll understand this as projectile ballistics. For those who haven't, all of these things have what you like to call 'bullet-drop'.
Learning to account for this means that you more or less will have to aim above and lead your target.
I will edit this section later and add some footage for educational purposes.

Go blow some poor smucker up.

 

If you see tanks or HA actively shelling the crap out of a base, please be courteous and go around the back of them instead of walking or driving in front of them.

 

LMAO

Great guide. Keep 'em coming!

Although I seem to never be able to do anything reat with the C4. I have two, and it seems like when placing them both, even on infantry sometimes, nothing is done. Like I didn't even do anything. Also last night I had a weird bug that my gun was shooting cottonballs. Full spray in CQ with no hitmarkers at all. Logging out and back in fixed it.

 

C4 is great when it doesn't bug out and do 0 damage :/

 

Has this problem earlier with C4 and both lock-ons

 

IMO Hades AA lock on is superior to the other two in firepower and ability. Lock on to jets and aircraft, dumbfire (faster and straighter and more dmg than S1) for armor. Comments?

 

100% agreed. Hades is awesome!

The polaris 200 round and hades are my standard Build for HA.

 

The lockon AA launcher I'm fairly certain is the nemesis, though I feel that it hits for less than the S1 against armour. I haven't tested it extensively, mind you. Definitely hits for less against aircraft, but it makes up for it with the homing. The sniping was more referring to the lockon AT launcher.

 

I take it spending the certs on the bandier for nades is worth it?

 

It is, I need to go back and learn my shit. /research