In this guide I will try to explain the basics and advanced sections of the most awesome C&C unit ever, the USA Missile Defender. Do not think you already know everything so you should just ignore this article, there's still a lot to learn soldier.
1 Missile Defender basics
The Missile Defender, or just MD, is USA's type of rocket infantry. It's a pre-tech unit that can be trained from the USA Barracks by clicking on it's icon or by pressing M. As with every rocket infantry they: - Move slowly - Have huge range - Do lots of damage against tanks and aircraft - Do very little damage to infantry - Have weak infantry armour - Have good resistance to tank shells and rockets - Fire projectiles that can be PDL'ed. (Laser Point Defence, for example King Raptor or Avenger) - Fire projectiles that can be deflected by ECM Tanks.
Laserlocking While he can normally fire rockets just like his two counterparts (China Tank Hunter and GLA RPG Trooper), he distinguishes himself from these other two types of rocket infantry by having the added ability to laserlock. It's because of this little ability that the MD is much more effective at what he does than his two counterparts. To laserlock, do the following: 1) Select MD 2) Press L Your targetting cursor will now change to 3) Click target
When the MD laserlocks, the damage type changes. It will be able to do a lot more damage than normal firing, in a shorter time. Laserlocking can also be done from a greater distance than normal firing, and even when the target moves away from the laserlocking MD and becomes out of range, the laserlock will be maintained a little while longer for the MD to keep firing. And that's not all. Because of the damage type change, it is now able to kill off Dragon Tanks, Toxin Tractors and Ambulances in mere seconds, rather than needing to fire 20+ rockets at it to get it destroyed. This is because Dragon Tanks, Toxin Tractors and Ambulances have a great resistance against normal rocket damage, but die easily to the laserlocked explosion damage.
When to laserlock and when not to? Laserlocking is better than normal firing in almost ever situation, but not always:
Pro's: - More range than usual, - Fire rockets way faster, - Do more damage per rocket, - Rockets last a lot longer when tracking an away-moving target.
Con's: - There's a delay time between locking onto a target and the actual firing, - It requires micro to press L and click the target, rather than let the MD just stand there, - ECM's deflect way more laserlocked missiles than normal ones.
If you find yourself in a lost situation when your MD is surely going to die within a matter of a second, don't laserlock because you won't live through the time it takes for the MD to start firing. Just normally fire at the target to do a bit of damage. This is not that important though. More important is the fact that you should never laserlock when firing at an ECM Tank. You just won't hit it then. Normal firing does way more damage to an ECM, especially when he's very close.
2 How to efficiently laserlock
Now onto the intriguing section. How to efficiently laserlock? You would think that it is very straight-forward with just selecting MD, press L, select target and watch the rockets fly. That would obviously work, I'm sure of it. Case closed? No, of course not. What if you need to laserlock two or more units in a row? I will try to explain everything about that here.
Imagine you are USA facing China Tank. You have four MD's to your disposal to eliminate the two Gattling Tanks. But how exactly are you going to do that? Have a look.
Method 1: Separated MD groups.
You separate your MD's into two groups of two MD each and click on the Gattling Tanks individually. But are you going to win that? It of course depends on whether or not you have Search & Destroy on so you can lock on sooner and how fast you can press 1 - L - click - 2 - L - click, but take it from me that you often won't make it in time. If you even had the time to number the MD's into separate groups before the Gattlings would charge at you to top it off. It's often way too micro-intensive to get it done.
Method 2: Press L beforehand
You select your four MD's and press L. Then you click on one of the Gattling Tanks to lock onto it. Then BEFORE you have actually locked on, you press L again. You have the cursor available when firing at the first Gattling. Then you need to be able to be an uber USA pro and time perfectly to lock onto the next Gattling at the point where the lag causes you to kill the first Gattling with the remaining rockets that were fired in the time you locked onto the second Gattling (Tough sentence, take your time). Then you easily kill the second Gattling Tank and you are victorious. And so it happened, The Gattling Tanks didn't stand a chance. It works perfectly fine, in this situation.
But what if you have to face three or more Gats like in the situation above? Does this still work then?
Method 3: Normal click
No it doesn't. You see, that method only worked because you were able to press L again before the MD's actually locked on the first Gattling Tank. But when you want to do this again to a third Gattling, you can't, because you are already targetting. You just can't press L when already laserlocking. So then you need to figure out something else. After you killed, or was about to kill the second Gattling, you need to normal click on either the ground or on the third Gattling or some other enemy unit. The MD's will jump out of their laserlocking mode and switch to normal firing. At that time, you are able to press L again and target the next unit. This 'works', with quotes, because it doesn't actually. How many times have you watched a replay where the USA player just couldn't micro his MD's? A lot I bet. There's always lag, causing you to fire normally on the third Gattling Tank rather than laserlock it straight away at least once as shown in the screenshot above, resulting in having your MD's killed before you got the chance to laserlock a third time. Not to mention human failure, which happens more often than not, when you just aren't able to press L and lock on a third time in time. So this method works, but it's hard and doesn't guarantee a 100% success. So onto the next and final one.
Method 4: Laserlocking show
This one I have actually created myself, yay. It's really simple and not that special, but nobody ever uses it as far as I know and it works perfectly fine in a handful of circumstances. Remember the previous technique of pressing L before you actually locked on? Remember that you could only do that once, and not twice or more? Why is that? It's because, as I already explained earlier, you can only press L again when you haven't locked on yet. That's just the way it is. Then how?
It works like this: No matter how much MD's you have, locking onto a target, if there's at least one MD NOT locking on but IS selected, you can press L again and shift target with the entire MD group. So this is what you should do:
Get a spare MD in the back of your base, add him to the same group and start using your uberskilled laserlocking technique. Watch the laserlocking light show in the replay, you will be amazed. You can actually shift targets with this technique in a matter of a millisecond, and it's very easy too. There's no action you need to execute inbetween, so human failure is a non-issue.
Now I don't say this is the perfect technique and you all should use it every single time. It's not always very practical, because you often don't have the time nor money to get that extra 'useless' MD in the back of your base doing nothing, because you need his firepower or that $300 to do something else with. Then you obviously should ignore this technique and use method 3 when facing more than 2 units to laserlock. Often that isn't even necessary because there aren't more than 2 units rolling in at the same time to laserlock, so method 2 would almost always suffice. But not always, and I just wanted to let you guys know that I can contribute something too.
I've noticed that 9 out of 10 people who read this guide think they understood or even knew it already beforehand, while they actually don't. Don't make that mistake, read carefully and if you still don't get it, which wouldn't surprise me as it isn't easy, just PM me and I will show you on ZH.
Special thanks and credit to Spalding and Dackel for method 2 and 3, and to Cesaro for helping me with the screenshots and replay.
Sparky
This post has been edited by Sparky: Aug 16 2006, 13:42 PM
I don't get it. So you select an idle MD, add him to the group that's laserlocking, and when you select the idle one and press L and lock onto another tank the whole group of MDs locks onto the other tank...?
Also, when fighting a bunch of gats, are you supposed to select the MDs, laserlock a gatt, and before the laser appears, press L again to lock the next gatt when the first dies?
I don't get it. So you select an idle MD, add him to the group that's laserlocking, and when you select the idle one and press L and lock onto another tank the whole group of MDs locks onto the other tank...?
Also, when fighting a bunch of gats, are you supposed to select the MDs, laserlock a gatt, and before the laser appears, press L again to lock the next gatt when the first dies?
Sorry, I opened another topic of the same content in the discussion forum so didn't look here. But I'll explain:
Yes, you select an idle MD and add him to the group that's laserlocking. That's correct. Then you need to select ALL THE MD, obviously, including the idle one, and start laserlocking. When you are about to kill your target, press L again and shift target. The remaining rockets you fired inbetween this action should kill the previous locked on target. The difference between this method and the scenario without the idle MD is that you can actually press L while laserlocking. Try it without the idle MD, you CAN'T press L when you are laserlocking. So this way, you are able to respond way faster so you do more damage in a shorter amount of time. This explains it?
QUOTE(aeternea @ May 27 2006, 02:55 AM)
Also, when fighting a bunch of gats, are you supposed to select the MDs, laserlock a gatt, and before the laser appears, press L again to lock the next gatt when the first dies?
This is correct. Before the laser appears, press L so you have the laserlock target ready to be able to laserlock the second Gat right off the bat, instead of having to do a useless action inbetween because you normally can't press L when laserlocking.
Sorry, I have a fucked up way of explaining things
why is it that when there's an extra MD you can press L while laserlocking?
You can only press L to laserlock if a MD isn't allready laserlocking something. If you have a group without the idle MD, they are all LL'ing something so you can't press L. If you have the idle MD assinged to the same group, that one isn't Laserlocking anything. So you can press L, and therefor all the MDs can LL without delay.
Nice guide, and thanks for showing me this trick with pressing L before the Missile Defenders actually started LLing. Makes things a lot easier and faster
The thing is that 9 out of 10 people who read this think they got it or already knew, when they actually DON'T. Don't make that mistake, read carefully.
This post has been edited by Sparky: Aug 16 2006, 13:39 PM
sell.. wouldnt laser locking an ecm while its got OL's riding near it be ok i do it the missles got outward in a circular motino dealing anounts of damage to everything..
Most people think they've read this all, but they just don't understand. Watch the rep to be sure 
In this guide I will try to explain the basics and advanced sections of the most awesome C&C unit ever, the USA Missile Defender. Do not think you already know everything so you should just ignore this article, there's still a lot to learn soldier.
1 Missile Defender basics
The Missile Defender, or just MD, is USA's type of rocket infantry. It's a pre-tech unit that can be trained from the USA Barracks by clicking on it's icon or by pressing M.
As with every rocket infantry they:
- Move slowly
- Have huge range
- Do lots of damage against tanks and aircraft
- Do very little damage to infantry
- Have weak infantry armour
- Have good resistance to tank shells and rockets
- Fire projectiles that can be PDL'ed. (Laser Point Defence, for example King Raptor or Avenger)
- Fire projectiles that can be deflected by ECM Tanks.
Laserlocking
While he can normally fire rockets just like his two counterparts (China Tank Hunter and GLA RPG Trooper), he distinguishes himself from these other two types of rocket infantry by having the added ability to laserlock. It's because of this little ability that the MD is much more effective at what he does than his two counterparts.
To laserlock, do the following:
1) Select MD
2) Press L
Your targetting cursor will now change to
3) Click target
When the MD laserlocks, the damage type changes. It will be able to do a lot more damage than normal firing, in a shorter time. Laserlocking can also be done from a greater distance than normal firing, and even when the target moves away from the laserlocking MD and becomes out of range, the laserlock will be maintained a little while longer for the MD to keep firing. And that's not all. Because of the damage type change, it is now able to kill off Dragon Tanks, Toxin Tractors and Ambulances in mere seconds, rather than needing to fire 20+ rockets at it to get it destroyed. This is because Dragon Tanks, Toxin Tractors and Ambulances have a great resistance against normal rocket damage, but die easily to the laserlocked explosion damage.
When to laserlock and when not to?
Laserlocking is better than normal firing in almost ever situation, but not always:
Pro's:
- More range than usual,
- Fire rockets way faster,
- Do more damage per rocket,
- Rockets last a lot longer when tracking an away-moving target.
Con's:
- There's a delay time between locking onto a target and the actual firing,
- It requires micro to press L and click the target, rather than let the MD just stand there,
- ECM's deflect way more laserlocked missiles than normal ones.
If you find yourself in a lost situation when your MD is surely going to die within a matter of a second, don't laserlock because you won't live through the time it takes for the MD to start firing. Just normally fire at the target to do a bit of damage. This is not that important though. More important is the fact that you should never laserlock when firing at an ECM Tank. You just won't hit it then. Normal firing does way more damage to an ECM, especially when he's very close.
2 How to efficiently laserlock
Now onto the intriguing section. How to efficiently laserlock? You would think that it is very straight-forward with just selecting MD, press L, select target and watch the rockets fly. That would obviously work, I'm sure of it. Case closed? No, of course not. What if you need to laserlock two or more units in a row? I will try to explain everything about that here.
Imagine you are USA facing China Tank. You have four MD's to your disposal to eliminate the two Gattling Tanks. But how exactly are you going to do that? Have a look.
Method 1: Separated MD groups.
You separate your MD's into two groups of two MD each and click on the Gattling Tanks individually. But are you going to win that? It of course depends on whether or not you have Search & Destroy on so you can lock on sooner and how fast you can press 1 - L - click - 2 - L - click, but take it from me that you often won't make it in time. If you even had the time to number the MD's into separate groups before the Gattlings would charge at you to top it off. It's often way too micro-intensive to get it done.
Method 2: Press L beforehand
You select your four MD's and press L. Then you click on one of the Gattling Tanks to lock onto it. Then BEFORE you have actually locked on, you press L again. You have the
But what if you have to face three or more Gats like in the situation above? Does this still work then?
Method 3: Normal click
No it doesn't. You see, that method only worked because you were able to press L again before the MD's actually locked on the first Gattling Tank. But when you want to do this again to a third Gattling, you can't, because you are already targetting. You just can't press L when already laserlocking. So then you need to figure out something else. After you killed, or was about to kill the second Gattling, you need to normal click on either the ground or on the third Gattling or some other enemy unit. The MD's will jump out of their laserlocking mode and switch to normal firing. At that time, you are able to press L again and target the next unit. This 'works', with quotes, because it doesn't actually.
How many times have you watched a replay where the USA player just couldn't micro his MD's? A lot I bet. There's always lag, causing you to fire normally on the third Gattling Tank rather than laserlock it straight away at least once as shown in the screenshot above, resulting in having your MD's killed before you got the chance to laserlock a third time. Not to mention human failure, which happens more often than not, when you just aren't able to press L and lock on a third time in time. So this method works, but it's hard and doesn't guarantee a 100% success. So onto the next and final one.
Method 4: Laserlocking show
This one I have actually created myself, yay. It's really simple and not that special, but nobody ever uses it as far as I know and it works perfectly fine in a handful of circumstances.
Remember the previous technique of pressing L before you actually locked on? Remember that you could only do that once, and not twice or more? Why is that? It's because, as I already explained earlier, you can only press L again when you haven't locked on yet. That's just the way it is. Then how?
It works like this:
No matter how much MD's you have, locking onto a target, if there's at least one MD NOT locking on but IS selected, you can press L again and shift target with the entire MD group. So this is what you should do:
Get a spare MD in the back of your base, add him to the same group and start using your uberskilled laserlocking technique. Watch the laserlocking light show in the replay, you will be amazed. You can actually shift targets with this technique in a matter of a millisecond, and it's very easy too. There's no action you need to execute inbetween, so human failure is a non-issue.
Now I don't say this is the perfect technique and you all should use it every single time. It's not always very practical, because you often don't have the time nor money to get that extra 'useless' MD in the back of your base doing nothing, because you need his firepower or that $300 to do something else with. Then you obviously should ignore this technique and use method 3 when facing more than 2 units to laserlock. Often that isn't even necessary because there aren't more than 2 units rolling in at the same time to laserlock, so method 2 would almost always suffice. But not always, and I just wanted to let you guys know that I can contribute something too.
I've noticed that 9 out of 10 people who read this guide think they understood or even knew it already beforehand, while they actually don't. Don't make that mistake, read carefully and if you still don't get it, which wouldn't surprise me as it isn't easy, just PM me and I will show you on ZH.
Special thanks and credit to Spalding and Dackel for method 2 and 3, and to Cesaro for helping me with the screenshots and replay.
Sparky
This post has been edited by Sparky: Aug 16 2006, 13:42 PM
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