| Max No. of Player Operators | 2 |
|---|---|
| Total Armor/Health Points | 600 |
| Movement Speed | Slow |
| Air / Ground | Ground |
| Classification | Heavy Armor |
The Hellfire SPMA (Self-Propelled Mobile Artillery) is an interesting vehicle. It can do a lot of damage, but is slow, only moderately armored, and doesn't last long when the enemy decides they want it dead.
It is basically an artillery piece on tracks. It has a skymine defense system identical to the Hellbender, but its real value is as a long-range flak cannon.
It deploys and undeploys to and from artillery mode rather quickly. It main drawback is the driver's attention must be focused elsewhere to use the artillery, so there is no warning when it is attacked, and may be destroyed by the time it can respond.
Movement[edit]
Normal movement keys are usable from the pilot position to move forward, backward, left or right.
Pressing the jump key deploys and undeploys to and from artillery mode.
Undeployed[edit]
Primary Fire[edit]
If there is no gunner, the pilot has access to a skymine turret identical to the Hellbender. If there is a gunner, they control the skymine turret and the pilot just drives.
Secondary Fire[edit]
The secondary fire is a photon cannon that does little damage but can be used to instantly detonate a skymine, causing a chain reaction to nearby skymines like a domino effect.
Deployed[edit]
Primary Fire[edit]
When first deployed there is no sky camera set up. In this condition, both primary and secondary fire do the same thing, which is launch the sky camera shell. The sky camera shell is a camera-equipped module that is fired out of the artillery barrel in a high parabolic arc wherever the pilot is aiming. Once fired, the pilot's view shifts to show the shell during its flight.
The pilot's goal is to press the primary fire button again when the camera is at the desired height and position from which the pilot can see their target. This stops the shell right where it is. The shell now is hovering in the air, and ready to be used as a target spotter for the artillery.
At this point the pilot's targeting cursor appears and can be moved around the nearby area wherever the camera shell can see to target. The pilot should pick a target and press the primary fire button again to launch an artillery burst. After a short delay, the artillery shell will approach the target, detonate in the air above it and shower it with many explosive pieces of shrapnel. The higher the camera shell is, the more spread out the shrapnel will be.
Enemies can destroy the camera shell while it is hovering in the air by shooting it, in which case the pilot will need to fire another camera shell.
Secondary Fire[edit]
The secondary fire button pressed by the pilot while the camera is deployed will de-commission the camera and set the pilot's view back to the Hellfire surroundings. The pilot will need to fire another camera shell to continue bombardment.
Special Abilities[edit]
The aforementioned artillery capability is the special feature. The camera shell serves as an attack point, and also a vantage point from which the pilot can alert the team to battlefield observations.
Strategies & Tactics[edit]
- Some maps, such as Torlan, have very poor visibility over the prime node locations due to sunlight interference; this makes it very difficult to spot camera shells overhead, so this is a good place to use them
- Computerized opponents are very good at shooting down the camera shell even with poor visibility (I suspect it cheats!)
- The Hellfire artillery can take out a node very quickly, usually before the enemy can find you
- Hellfires draw a lot of attention because they frustrate other players; sacrificing yourself to kill a node and bring the whole enemy might down on you may allow your teammates to turn the tide of battle
- Deploy the camera shell low for tighter damage concentration
- Deploy the camera shell right next to a mountain or structure to greatly reduce the chance the shell is spotted by human enemies (won't help you against the computer)