So far even though it is early in flights life we are starting to see some basic classes and sub classes of heli popping up in combat. bellow I am going to write my obeservations, and well I am hoping with time we get more classes and subclasses as well as players opinions on each.
THE MAIN CLASSES
AIR TO AIR
The CQB of the helli world, these tend to employ short or medium ranged weapons for wrecking other copters. So far their common load outs are MGS, mining lasers, plasma cutters, the airburst shotgun, and that one shotgun that disables weapons and movement. Rarely you will see air to air copters armed with any flying drone though as those are easily countered by other air to air it is rare.
Game play wise the best way to make these is a light and fast cab with as little in the way of weight as possible, these almost never have a frame or wheeled movement parts though if they do have movement parts they are generally side mounted ATOMS used as barrier shields. these ones can be told as they spend time charging before battle.
AIR TO GROUND
The freaking tanks of the air world, these guys are generally heavily armored, are more likely to have some sort of wheels on them to add to the armor, and are almost always armed with medians, cannons, or of all things flutes. some are even armed with king mine layers or porcs that they just drop on targets. The worst of them to deal with is the meatball aka the avalanche heli, these things can easily one shot many ground vehicles do to angle of attack those tehy don’t one shot they strip the guns off of so watch out.
Thankfully these guys are weaker in their sky game, while a good pilot can win an air to air dual with cannons, vs a shotgun copter, most the time they are easy targets for air to air builds. that said be very careful if you run into a meatball, as it will one shot your heli if it hits… having a shield or Atoms can counter this though.
note, watch out for course cannon air to grounds, they tend to over pierce copters meaning you will loose a good chunk of your build if hit, and if anything explosive is in it, it is gone. generally one hit from these means you have lost your main countermessure the cloak.
HYBRID
these guys are generally reapers/millers, miniguns, auto cannons, medians, missiles, and/or dumb rockets. these guys always have a scope on their build. These builds are the most common at the moment do to new fliers seeming to prefer pyres over anything else, though once you get a hand on flying those tend to go to the wayside, players who like this type of play tend to swap to crickets and auto cannons as they gain skill. though most air to ground vehicles have at least one pyre for countermeasure poke.
Sadly these fall on the jack of all trades flaw in crosssout meaning they never excell at anything but are ok at everything. that said they have one glaring weakness in all builds of it CQB. these guys are easy targets for air to air. like extremely easy targets to the point if you are air to air and you see an autocannon or pyre build go get it. please note nests are air to air… unlike other missiles.
SUB classes seen so far.
MEATBALL
These bastards are literally a compacted armored shell around a 12 an avalanche. They are extremely hard to blow out of the sky if you can’t focus the rotor, and even then there is a good chance they have some sort of armor module protecting that rotor. They are also highly likely to use ATOMS for that shielding of the wheels meaning taking them out can be near impossible. that said depending on the pilot you might be able to just outright ignore them until they are the last person.
SATURATION GRENADES
these tend to be medium cab copters armed with twin retchers, in the hybrid category though they lean heavily to air to air despite having the ability to make the heli from half life 2s carpet bomb look like a joke. do not get close to these, they are only really countered by other hybrid craft, if you do get close kiss your weapons and rotor good by…
LASER DEATH
Blockchains or any of the burst lasers, these are some of the kings of air to air. blockchains can easily strip guns and rotors especially if the guns and rotors are not connected to pass through and high HP parts. while their killing potential in the air is lower then other air to air, a good athron shotgunner will take you down 2x faster, they are really good at stripping you of anything to allow you to fight back.
Should be noted their favorite targets are anyone who uses, trombones, pyers, or nests. seriously if you have those these guys will focus you and it is on sight of your name in the match from now on.
Seriously these guys will even focus hybrids if they put a single trombone on for damage support. just something about this build type attracts the missile haters. (which is a good thing.)
I THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA
Aka guys who for some reason bring the kaiju or that one 11 energy railgun into the match as air. both of those work better in ground to air rolls and when using them in air to air or air to ground you are going to miss 10x more then you hit, especially when you have to deal with their firing quarks.
