Disclaimer: I don’t claim to be the best mortar soldier ever but I think I’m pretty good. In other words, I may make mistakes but I think this stuff is pretty solid. I’m not just going to cover the basic junk, I hope to mention some techniques that are not immediately obvious.
<u>The Basics</u>
Okay, the most common advice given to a newbie mortar soldier is “use the map.” That’s good advice, it shows them how to aim. The problem is they waste time and ammo trying to correct their fire and generally are ineffective at hitting anything except empty polygons. So here’s how I do it.
The mortar is an indirect fire weapon (artillery) that can fire almost all the way across the map and deliver one of the most destructive explosives in the game. This means that you can stay safely away from danger while dealing out lots o’ death. A good mortar soldier can make his team’s job much easier by killing up to 80% of the enemy attack in a few quick shots.
<u>Aiming</u>
It’s always a good idea to know where you’re shooting. The mortar doesn’t make that an easy task. Here’s how I aim. First, I set myself up in the general direction I’ll be firing. Then, I pop open the map. There’s an arrow attached to my icon that shows where I am pointing. I move that back and forth a bit to adjust the side to side angle.
Now here’s the tricky part, the elevation. This is where most new mortar soldiers give up. Some create aids that they use to calculate the distance. I avoided that route and I am pretty accurate just by drawing upon previous experience with ranges. A good start would be 80 - 88 degrees (never shoot at more than that) is close range, right in front of you. 70 - 80 is medium range, about half way across the map. 45 - 60 is extreme range, not quite all the way across the map.
A bullseye icon shows up on the map that indicates where my shot landed.
<u>Good Mortar Targets</u>
Beyond a good aim, you should know what to shoot at. First of all, the crosshairs you see on the map are Field Ops artillery strikes. For the most part, ignore that area while the strike is going on. Not only is it getting pounded pretty hard already, there’s this big colored smoke plume that tells the enemy team to stay away. What you want to do is remember that spot and fire at it later if the battle is still going on in that area.
Of course, sometimes the map makes it easy. There are locations that are obviously going to be full of targets. Tanks, bridges, construction locations.
Choke points (wall breach on Oasis, the large street on Goldrush, paths in Fuel Depot) are also valuable targets but they need extra care. Timing is important when firing at choke points. Most mortar soldiers fire continuously. The idea is you’re acting like a Field Ops artillery strike. Not everything will hit but you may get lucky. That’s an awful plan. You’re more intelligent than an artillery strike, your mortar fire should reflect that. You need to know when to fire. The best way to know that is to realize a simple truth in ET: The enemy attacks in waves. When the enemy spawns, they all rush as a large group out of their spawn and toward the frontlines. You need to take advantage of that and strike when the enemy is coming in large groups that just beg to be blown to little bits.
The best way to find out when you need to be firing is to go have a look. Pick up your trusty pistol and run to the front lines. Find the choke point you plan on firing at and wait for an enemy wave. When they finally show up, check the clock on the right side of your HUD (by the FPS meter). Memorize that time and try to be precise about it. Shoot feebly with your pistol and run away to go set up and blast them. Now, you need to know what interval the enemy spawns at. It is usually 20 or 30 seconds. Now compare that to the time when you checked the choke point. If the enemy spawns every 20 seconds and you saw them come through the choke point at 8:40, you need to fire so your shots land at X:00, X:20, and X:40. Remeber, this is when they land. Your shots will take up to 6 or 7 seconds to travel sometimes. 5 seconds is a good first guess and you can tune it later. Just fire a single or two quick shots. If there are enemies nearby, 1 or 2 will be all you need to obliterate them. If you did everything right, you should be taking out 3 to 4 enemies with every shot.
Just as an aside, it is interesting to see who you hit as you fire at choke points. It seems to be natural selection played out in ET. Some people figure it out and live, some don’t and die every spawn before they even see the enemy.
<u>Ammo</u>
The continual problem with mortars. Unless you’re doing choke point timings, you’re probably firing continually at some important objective. You’ll be running out of ammo, a lot. So far, the best cure for that is /kill. I’m not sure but I believe /kill’ing also does not add to your death count. I could be wrong, I never really cared. Choke point targets are ideal in that you can stretch your ammo out yet still do incredible damage.
The thing to avoid is believing that you can take every single crate of ammo from the cabinets or demand that a Field Ops spam ammo for you. Don’t be that guy. I’ve found that if you’re good enough and your team sees that, a Field ops will come by and make sure you’re well stocked (side note: thanks to all the Field Ops who ammo spammed for me when they could be off killing!)
<u>Mortar Counters</u>
If you did your job, the enemy will alternately say that you’re really good (haha, just kidding) or demand that you be kicked. If you want to be nice (and I sometimes try), you can tell them how to counter your ass kicking.
- CHOOSE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE. It cracks me up sometimes how the enemy believes he has a right to take whatever route he wants to get to the frontlines. Mortar soldiers are going to disrupt enemy movement. That’s their job.
- Change your spawn point. If you happen to be blasting the hell out of their spawn or their main spawn exit is a natural choke point, they can switch their spawn points to an alternate location. Usually, there is also another exit from the spawn that you can take. It doesn’t take much effort to go out a different door but it’s amazing how non-obvious it is to some people. Heck this even applies to Railgun where there’s a nice window to crawl out of before getting airstriked.
- Dodge. Not as crazy as it sounds. If you follow the above method, you should have a regular firing time. Just wait around for 3 seconds and it should be clear. Sometimes the choke point may leave enough room to squeeze by with little or no damage. Mortars are pretty accurate and fall in roughly the same place so this sometimes works.
- Get your friendly neighborhood CovOps to satchel the mortar guy on his way to blowing the CP. A good CovOps can make mortaring hell. In fact, a good CovOps can make everybody’s life hell but that’s a different story.
<u>Appendix A: Goldrush Example</u>
Axis Mortar Soldier, allies have breached bank.
Okay, right away, I knew I wanted to pound the main road the allies use to reach the courtyard area. It’s always nice and crowded. Currently, the only safe mortar location available to me is a small area behind the bank and to the right. I know from before that I can hit the bottom of the road using an angle of 74 and that this angle can just barely clear the opening above. So I waited until the current wave died down and rush up the stairs to the main road. I sat around until they showed and were running down the road toward me. They hit the bottom at 17:54 and promptly panzerfausted me (because I was a huge threat to 5 people with my luger).
I respawn and head over to my firing location. I fire at 16:59 and killed 4 people. I repeat for the rest of the game, got high frags, high accuracy, and best soldat. Out of a team of 16 allies, let’s assume I killed an average of 4 every wave, 3 were messing with the truck and barriers for no reason (don’t you hate those people?), 4 were coming in from the side. I was wiping out a third of their offensive throughout the entire game. That mortar was doing serious damage to the enemy offensive. On other maps where there are fewer approaches (Oasis and it’s wall breach for one), you can almost wipe it out completely.
<u>Appendix B: Mortar locations (cheat sheet)</u>
These are some locations off the top of my head that I use when the oppurtunity arises.
Oasis
Allied
Go behind old city spawn to the ruined buildings, 70 degrees. Hits main Axis spawn exit.
Alternately, aim to the right at 62 - 70 degrees to clear tunnel exit.
Axis
To hit wall breach, go up the stairs from spawn, sit between the stairs going down and the door going off to the MG/tunnel balcony area, aim horizontally at the 2nd spike from the right, elevation at 69.5.
Fuel Depot
Allied
My favorite: to hit axis bridge spawn exit, move to top of the path at “sniper hill”. Not on top of the hill itself, just the top of the path. There’s a noticeable sharp edge there where the polygons meet. Back up to the wall along that edge. You should be able to see the wall from here. Adjust horizontally by eye. Fire at 69.5 to hit the bridge. Time it right and you deny them the entire wall.
Axis
Just aim for the tank or bridge really. They’re too spread out otherwise. Two or three direct mortar rounds disable the tank. Firing at 65 degrees from the first spawn area is a good starting point.
Goldrush
Allied
Right at the first spawn point, you can hit the archway just beyond the tank, I don’t know the exact elevation but I’d guess 75.
Sit on the bench outside 2nd spawn, first at 72 degrees, maybe more. Hits main Axis spawn exit. (Note: they can always go out the other freaking exits but they never do, WHY?)
Axis
At the start, walk down to the rear courtyard, aim toward the gate, fire anywhere between 82 to 76. Be careful of attacks from the side.
From the example above, area behind bank, 74 degrees, adjust horizontally until it clears buildings.
Battery
Allied
Switch to west spawn point, walk up to the gun area, 2nd X barrier to your left, fire just over the gun itself, varying angles from 72 to 76 degrees. You’ll plaster the ridge. Guaranteed to hit something.
Axis
SOL
Radar
This map just sucks for mortaring. You can have some luck with hitting the allied forward bunker spawn exit but you can be more effective with an MG.
Railgun
Pounding their primary spawn exit is the only real good target of oppurtunity. Don’t try hitting the tug, you’ll rack up complaints like there’s no tomorrow. Another disappointing map for mortar guys.
nice job, man.