Incoming Fire Alert

[WES_HoundDog]

Ok, so i've never taken this commander skill, at least i don't think i have.    However i was sailing around in my migrane ship.. err i mean minotaur today and was thinking about what commander abilities i might add to it.  I was looking at IFA and was wondering how it works.   If anyone with knowledge would let me know.   Does the enemy ship need to have you targeted for it to register shells coming at your ship or or does like  alert when the dispersion elipse of shells coming at you are on part of your ship?  Anyone know?

[ArIskandir]

The concept is very easy, everytime anyone has you targeted and fires at you, you get an alert notification. 

If you are not targeted (like when being blind fired) you don't get the alert. 

Can be a bit annoying if you are under ripple  fire from a high dakka ship.

[HMS_Kilinowski]

5 minutes ago, WES_HoundDog said:

Ok, so i've never taken this commander skill, at least i don't think i have.    However i was sailing around in my migrane ship.. err i mean minotaur today and was thinking about what commander abilities i might add to it.  I was looking at IFA and was wondering how it works.   If anyone with knowledge would let me know.   Does the enemy ship need to have you targeted for it to register shells coming at your ship or or does like  alert when the dispersion elipse of shells coming at you are on part of your ship?  Anyone know?

 

The shooting enemy needs to have you locked as a target, which tbh is good enough. I have never encountered anybody switching off the lock, to fool a player with IFA. They would get way worse dispersion if shooting unlocked and IFA is a rather niche skill to spend any thoughts on countering it.

IFA is mostly used on builds, where you can't afford PT, but need some warning about incoming fire. Not sure if it works on Mino. The range is not great, so Mino has to play rather close to the enemy, which doesn't give you a lot of time to dodge. I'd rather try to use some skills that prolong the smoke or shorten the cooldown. Then I'd play a mix of shooting from behind islands and from smoke.

[WES_HoundDog]

So it's more useless than mostly useless.

[Wolfswetpaws]

8 minutes ago, WES_HoundDog said:

So it's more useless than mostly useless.

Well, suffice to say that I don't spend points on Incoming Fire Alert.
I prefer to spend my points on other skills, instead.

[CFagan_1987]

38 minutes ago, WES_HoundDog said:

Ok, so i've never taken this commander skill, at least i don't think i have.    However i was sailing around in my migrane ship.. err i mean minotaur today and was thinking about what commander abilities i might add to it.  I was looking at IFA and was wondering how it works.   If anyone with knowledge would let me know.   Does the enemy ship need to have you targeted for it to register shells coming at your ship or or does like  alert when the dispersion elipse of shells coming at you are on part of your ship?  Anyone know?

I've never taken that particular skill. A good captain should always assume they are being aimed at ... and furthermore as I'm a coop/Ops main it doesn't really matter much in those modes. I'd rather have +1 point for the tier 3 or 4 skills.

[Taylor3006]

Honestly I have never seen the need for it for PvP or PvE modes.  I suppose if you are daydreaming instead of paying attention to the game, then it would have some value. 

Back in the day when stealth firing was a big thing, it probably was used a bit more often than now. 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Taylor3006

[clammboy]

4 minutes ago, Taylor3006 said:

Back in the day when stealth firing was a big thing

Yikes that was the worst.

 

[clammboy]

13 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Well, suffice to say that I don't spend points on Incoming Fire Alert.
I prefer to spend my points on other skills, instead.

Lol I am getting so old I use it now to remind me to dodge. It gives me a heads up to move early and it's only 1 point.

Edited December 10, 2023 by clammboy

[ArIskandir]

For one point I think is a nice pick for cruisers, I used it in tandem with PT, it made my life a lot easier to have that insurance policy against cross map shots.

I consider I have good situation awareness, even then tracking all the possible threats while playing a Cruiser can be extremely tasking, IFA+PT helps by not needing to look over your shoulder franticaly  to keep track on the BBs trying to cross map you. 

[Pugilistic]

4 hours ago, HMS_Kilinowski said:

 

The shooting enemy needs to have you locked as a target, which tbh is good enough. I have never encountered anybody switching off the lock, to fool a player with IFA. They would get way worse dispersion if shooting unlocked and IFA is a rather niche skill to spend any thoughts on countering it.

IFA is mostly used on builds, where you can't afford PT, but need some warning about incoming fire. Not sure if it works on Mino. The range is not great, so Mino has to play rather close to the enemy, which doesn't give you a lot of time to dodge. I'd rather try to use some skills that prolong the smoke or shorten the cooldown. Then I'd play a mix of shooting from behind islands and from smoke.

Shooting without lock doesnt prompt PT either, AFAIK. 

[Kynami]

I would rate it as higher priority than PT on a 155 Mogami really or various lighthouse builds. Knowing *when* to wiggle is more important than knowing how many have you locked when you are up to open water shenanigans. Plus its a pretty useful heads up when the couple ships you are staring at didn't fire and that pops up to keep your head on a swivel.

[xamdam]

As an Ops player, I didn't use it in the past. But I'm starting to now on my soft cruisers (ones that go pop quickly). In fact on a few of them I have IFA AND PT. Overkill, maybe... but it makes survival a lot easier for me in certain Ops. Hermes being one, Aegis another. Those bot BBs have laser sighting to my citadel.

Word of warning, it's easy to miss the indicator though. When it pops, crank some WASD into your moves hard.

I should mention, with Ops dedicated ships I can give up other "expensive" skills like concealment since it's pretty much useless when you're shooting all the time. I'm still experimenting though. Having the recent commander skill reset has given me reason to try some new things since I reset all of my commanders.

Edited December 10, 2023 by xamdam

[Yedwy]

It can be used to give info on incoming crossmap shots, mainly its there so the jacks*ts using "battlepack" (or whatever its called these days) can have an explanation how they dodge 100s of shells coming their way and take almost no damage in the process by magically "threading the needle" right between them...

Edited December 10, 2023 by Yedwy

[Leo_Apollo11]

HI all,

10 hours ago, WES_HoundDog said:

Ok, so i've never taken this commander skill, at least i don't think i have.    However i was sailing around in my migrane ship.. err i mean minotaur today and was thinking about what commander abilities i might add to it.  I was looking at IFA and was wondering how it works.   If anyone with knowledge would let me know.   Does the enemy ship need to have you targeted for it to register shells coming at your ship or or does like  alert when the dispersion elipse of shells coming at you are on part of your ship?  Anyone know?

This skill is one of the most underrated skills...

IMHO I use it on my ships and I almost never ever get Citadeled (especially from long range = 0.01%)!

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[Itwastuesday]

I often take it as the leftover 1 point skill on things that can acceleration juke. Especially at TX when people shoot at you from 20+ km while undetected it's nice.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

I think both PT and IFA are wastes. If you know how to use the minimap, these two skills do not offer anything of value.

[Justin_Simpleton]

Incoming fire alert reveals the location of the ship firing at you. The situation where it's useful is when you are detected by a DD or sub but a BB or more is dark when he fires.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Justin_Simpleton
I was wrong

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

2 minutes ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

PT reveals the location of the ship firing at you. The situation where it's useful is when you are detected by a DD or sub but a BB or more is dark when he fires.

Priority target does not reveal the location of the ship during at you. His guns firing does that...and that is free information on the minimap and screen if you cared to look.

All PT does is tell you if someone is locked on to you and how many people that is.

I love to just lock on to a light cruiser with my Kansas as it reloads and see if he panics. Good fun.

[Justin_Simpleton]

2 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

6 minutes ago, Justin_Simpleton said:

PT reveals the location of the ship firing at you. The situation where it's useful is when you are detected by a DD or sub but a BB or more is dark when he fires.

Priority target does not reveal the location of the ship during at you. His guns firing does that...and that is free information on the minimap and screen if you cared to look.

Thanks for catching that. I made the edit.

[Unlooky]

12 hours ago, WES_HoundDog said:

So it's more useless than mostly useless.

Nah, I take on my superlights. All 1 point skills are generally pretty bad so on ships that can't afford to take bad salvos like Colbert and Minotaur it's really helpful to be alerted to when someone shot at you outside your field of vision. 

[tocqueville8]

I take IFA on every single cruiser. I also take PT on those in which I expect to do some open-watering (from Colbert to Stalingrad, yes; Jinan no because I have the smokes).

Simply put, dodging when no one's shooting at me bleeds speed for nothing and might restrict my firing angles. Viceversa, not dodging that cross-map shot which I couldn't possibly expect (PT doesn't tell me who is aiming at me, and they might not even be spotted, so I can't check their turrets) means a Dev Strike and a quick trip back to port.

With IFA I have to be careful if a fast-firing ship is "masking" bigger, more dangerous salvoes, but in general it makes sure I'll attempt to dodge. Conversely, those people who don't dodge almost certainly don't have IFA. For the life of me, I can't understand why, in a game largely about gunnery, people wouldn't use less than 5% of their captain points on a skill that tells you when you're being shot at.

I could see some top players doing well even without it, but I could see top players doing well without PM, LS, SE and CE on a DD (sorry for the alphabet soup), for that matter...

Edited December 10, 2023 by tocqueville8

[ArIskandir]

4 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

I think both PT and IFA are wastes. If you know how to use the minimap, these two skills do not offer anything of value.

Lol.

There's a lot of not really apparent info both skills provide. Lots of invisible threats you have no other practical way to be aware of. More importantly, it provide you the tools to safely maximize your DPM while preserving HP.

[iDuckman]

I rarely take IFA, but from what I remember, the notification takes the form of a red arc centered on the firing ship, like Radio Location.  (And an icon too, I think.)  This gives you the direction the salvo is coming from.

IMO, you don't want it on a ship with a slow rudder.  "Oh, there's a salvo coming."  What you going to do about it? 

Now that I think about it, it might benefit throttle jockeys.  Of course, on ships that have a decent throttle.
@WES_HoundDog

[AdmiralThunder]

17 hours ago, WES_HoundDog said:

Ok, so i've never taken this commander skill, at least i don't think i have.    However i was sailing around in my migrane ship.. err i mean minotaur today and was thinking about what commander abilities i might add to it.  I was looking at IFA and was wondering how it works.   If anyone with knowledge would let me know.   Does the enemy ship need to have you targeted for it to register shells coming at your ship or or does like  alert when the dispersion elipse of shells coming at you are on part of your ship?  Anyone know?

I personally use it on every ship and find it useful for any game mode be it Co-op or Randoms. PT+IFA are mandatory for me on every build.  It is extremely useful to know IF you are being targeted, by HOW MANY if you are, and WHEN the reds fire at you (if under 4km or so +/- IFA doesn't activate but you can easily see ships that close so not needed). Lets me play a bit more aggressively as I can concentrate more on close up for incoming torps, making sure my angle is right to close reds, and such and the PT/IFA icon keeps me informed on what is going on elsewhere and at distance so I don't constantly have to be watching reds in the distance.

Another value I find in them is that I have vision issues due to MS and I have a hard time seeing reds at a distance firing at me and the incoming shells (especially the white/gray AP). I can easily see and keep an eye on my PT and IFA icons and A) - know I am being targeted and then B) when I am fired at so I can adjust angle/course/speed, or even try and go dark, as needed.

IFA works a lot better when combined with PT. IMO you need them together for maximum benefit

Just a great combo of tools for me. YMMV.

17 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

The concept is very easy, everytime anyone has you targeted and fires at you, you get an alert notification. 

If you are not targeted (like when being blind fired) you don't get the alert. 

Can be a bit annoying if you are under ripple  fire from a high dakka ship.

If the red shooting you is close (like 4km +/- or less) it doesn't trigger the IFA notice. The ship firing has to be beyond that minimum range for the IFA notice to trigger when they fire.

Edited December 10, 2023 by AdmiralThunder