World in Conflict Heaven: A Guide to SpaceNeedle

A Guide To SpaceNeedle

By: Shanks13

It’s been a while since I’ve written a guide, so I’ll apologize in advance if I’m a little rusty. I doubt I will be, especially since I’ve been thinking about writing this up for a couple of days now. Hopefully you’ll find my ideas as intriguing as I do, so let’s get on to the main show here:

SpaceNeedle is one of the few true city maps that can be played in World in Conflict. It is the only map I consider to be a “city map” that can be played in domination mode. Of course, this is off the top of my head, so I may be missing a map. Anyways, most of the other domination maps that could be considered to feature a city end up being small towns with small buildings. To me, that doesn’t really define a city. We need towers, and towers we shall have on SpaceNeedle! Main Map

The Classes:

Armor:

Armor, the staple class. You’re definitely going to want some armor players on SpaceNeedle. They’re the only units that can take damage and still keep going. This is going to be important because you’re playing on a big map that is sometimes inconvenient to move around in. Infantry gets busted up too easily, and none of the other classes can capture command points and fight effectively. Thus, the honor falls on armor players.

Armor has a couple of neat advantages going for them on SpaceNeedle. Normally, helicopters will have a hellishly easy time picking off those tanks. On SpaceNeedle, this is still so if you allow it to be. Note well, I said, if you allow it. Those tall buildings aren’t just for show, helicopters have to get over them to see and shoot you. What does this mean? Use the cover that you are provided with! Don’t barrel down main street guns blazing unless you somehow know you’re not going to be massacred. Anti-air can help, but you can’t always have your hand held. Become more independent by utilizing cover and deploying smoke effectively.

Armor will be engaging in a lot of fighting, but that doesn’t exempt anyone from remembering their duties with command points. Armor players need to cap points quickly, so in the beginning of the game, prioritize. Get the nearby points first, then the out-of-the-way ones, and then consider pushing into enemy territory. If you’re efficient, you can force the enemy to come to you and engage you on [b]your[/b] terms.

Support:

Support’s main job on SpaceNeedle is to cover the armor players. Please, do everyone a favor and don’t make artillery unless you really know what you’re doing. I have a couple reasons for saying this:

No one likes an artillery noob. If you want to use artillery, great. Make sure there’s a need for it first though, and then show your team you know how that big gun thing works.
The buildings on Space Needle are tall. You’re thinking, “Duh, quit wasting my time!” I really have a point here, which is that artillery units fire in arcs. What this means is that the tall buildings are invariably going to get in the way of your shells. Therefore, forward planning and an ability to plot the course of a shell is incredibly important. You could end up missing vital shots because of a building.
There is no good place for artillery. The building constriction combined with the size of the map means it can be hard to effectively get shells to the place they need to be. If you want to hit an area, you will be placing yourself in an area you can be hit by helicopters or tanks. Therefore, any time you want to hurt someone, you risk getting hurt yourself, more so than on other maps.

Anti-air on SpaceNeedle requires forethought. Are you going to be using medium anti-air or heavy anti-air? The reason I pose this question is because heavy anti-air is only good against helicopters. On SpaceNeedle, the odds of you getting a clear shot on helicopters and being able to chase down a wounded bird are less than on more open maps. What happens if you get cornered in an alley where the tanks you are defending are assaulted? You sit useless? I think not. Build medium anti-air until you can start accurately and effectively fighting the enemy helicopters. Medium anti-air can be used to fight a variety of other units, through their offensive special. They are also highly massable, and can be used as a force of their own. The greatest disadvantage is a lack of smoke, which is why you should probably stay near tanks.

The final important part of support is repair. Again, the size and difficulty of maneuverability on SpaceNeedle means that repair tanks have to be utilized effectively. If they die all the time, they won’t be able to keep up with and fix the units they’re supposed to. This means that the support player(s) with repair tanks need to realize their vulnerability and play carefully. The other teammates must also realize that they’ll die a lot faster if they don’t defend that repair tank. Therefore, the repair tank should always be behind the other tanks. If a maneuver is performed correctly, a repair tank can fix wounded tanks from behind as they fight, allowing a weaker tank to beat a stronger tank. Repair tanks are vital to maintaining a unit’s health, and their rank, so don’t ignore them.

Infantry:

SpaceNeedle is a fair map for infantry. There are plenty of buildings and alleyways to be utilized, and the buildings block artillery fire, and do a great job of blocking line of sight. It is my opinion that infantry, for the most part, should be utilized as strike teams. Get the men in place, pop them all out at once, blow as much up as possible, cap a command point if you can, and then get out of there! Don’t worry about taking the main roads, travel through buildings. I’d also advise planning how you’re going to travel. There are some places where units can’t cross over, and when traveling through buildings, many are already half-destroyed, so don’t waste time or try to bunker down against a bunch of tanks.

Infantry units cannot be healed, and having new units dropped resets the rank. This puts infantry players in bad place and further fuels my argument of attacking quickly and then disappearing. Approach from different directions, move a few squads at a time. Make sure to hold fire and don’t be afraid to camp while waiting for a few new artillery units or a heavy tank to spawn. As soon as it stops blinking, blow what units you can away. At that point, quit camping and find a new position. Last thing you need at this point is to be napalmed.

Air:

If you’ve read everything up to this point, you probably already have some vague idea of what I’m going to tell you. Air is pretty basic, they are the units least restricted in movement capability, but perhaps most restricted in their ability to gun down units dodging through the streets. So beyond blowing the stuff with lots of armor up, here are the main things to remember:

Buildings block fire. Infantry and tanks can hide behind buildings, and you won’t necessarily be able to hit them, or even see them. Therefore, move carefully and try to corral enemies into an area where they trap themselves and can’t hide.
Anti-air units can hide behind buildings. You won’t ever see them coming, and by the time you realize what just happened, you’ll be dead. The strategy of seeing the anti-air from range and then using your heavy weapons to kill them early doesn’t always fly on SpaceNeedle. Therefore, use the buildings to put distance between the choppers and the anti-air. If you’re lucky, you can separate the anti-air from the armor using a building, have a few moments to kill the armor, and then still pull out relatively unscathed.
Many buildings are already nearly destroyed. Don’t waste time using tactical aid to deal with the pesky infantry in the towers, just use those missiles.

The Command Points:

Soviet Main Base- A three-point command point. This guy is worth about seven TA points to everyone involved in the capture. The point is also relatively encased, so it shouldn’t be a big problem for the USSR to occupy early and make it a living hell for the Americans to invade.

Supply Base- Another three-point command point, it carries the same value as the Soviet Main Base. It, on the other hand, is not quite so encased as the base, and is between two main roads. Therefore, be prepared to have plenty of fire fall on you if you’re the one occupying it.

Shipping Docks- The command point has only two points to cap, and is worth five TA to everyone involved. Unfortunately, this command point is totally isolated from the rest of the map, having what I like to call “the isolated zone” between it and everything else. It takes a ton of time to get over to the docks, and equally long time to get back to the fight, and an even longer time to recapture. Take it quickly with airdropped units, leave them there to fortify, and pray that you’re left alone.

Union Center- Another command point with two points, it is separated by a building with a tiny alleyway connecting the two areas. The best way to take this point is to get it early and defend it, using the lack of mobility available to your advantage. If you have to invade it, approach from the main road that it is situated on, and have the force split in to two groups to crush any resistance quickly.

Tunnel Entrance- Again, two points to worry about. Both points are on the same main road, but they are a bit far apart, and on opposite sides of the street. The Americans will likely snag this place early, but taking it isn’t any more challenging than any other command point. The main thing to remember is that reinforcements will arrive faster than usual.

Space Needle- Space Needle has a whopping FOUR points to cap to take the whole deal, and is worth 10 TA points to everyone involved. I’ll expand on this a bit later, but for now, here’s what you need to know: The Americans are going to get this place first. They are going to be granted an early TA lead, and it is going to be hell for the USSR to liberate this area. It is right on the spawn point of the Americans, and the command points are spread. This means all the points have to be taken at once and held. Playing tug of war here will kill the USSR off, as they won’t be able to keep up with American spawns. Speed is essential here.

Other Points of Interest:

The Isolated Sector- This area is a building-filled block where next to no action occurs. There are no command points here, and it’s out of the way. It’s a great place to travel through if you want to avoid running into enemies, but it takes a bit longer to navigate.

The Space Needle- I don’t mean the command point, I mean the building. It’s a fun building to look at, and it can be blown up, so if you’re bored and want to add insult to the American team, feel free to drop a bomb on it.

Damaged Buildings- These things are all over the map, they typically are at about half the regular amount of health. They go down faster than ever, so shred it up to prevent infantry from using the cover and transportation.

Main Road A- This first main road, it runs from the USSR spawn right up to the Tunnel Entrance command point. It’s likely that a lot of units will traverse this road, and it is carpet bomb-friendly.

Main Road B- This runs from the area between the Shipping Docks and the USSR spawn zone to the U.S. spawn zone. Units will travel along here, just not as much as on Main Road A.

Main Road C- Yes, there’s a third one. It runs along the coast, stretching from the Shipping docks to the USSR spawn. The action doesn’t get real intense here, but scuffles will occur when the Americans try to pull of another road and into Soviet territory.

The Line- You’re probably wondering what “The Line” is. It’s the area between the Soviet Main Base and the Space Needle, more specifically, it is the large concrete slope separating the two building-populated areas. It cannot be crossed over, you must go around. Save some time and avoid it.

Concepts:

You’ll want to be familiar with a few concepts when playing SpaceNeedle. They’re not very hard to understand, but can determine the difference between a win and a loss.

Command Point Score Sharing- For those of you that don’t know, when you capture a command point, you get an allotted amount of TA points. The amount of aid points received depends upon the points to be capped. Two points results in five TA. Three points provides seven TA. Four points, the limit, grants ten TA. Each player involved in a cap receive all of the TA points. Therefore, teams should share the burden of receiving TA points. The biggest example is the Americans and the Space Needle CP. If four people cooperate in the capture, they each get ten TA. If they pool those points, that’s forty TA. If everyone participates in the capture, the Americans can get as many as eighty TA points in the first thirty seconds of the game. THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO DO THIS EVER! The inconvenience of having the air players buy one less chopper to get a unit on the ground is worth it. The time it takes to get everyone situated is worth it, and shouldn’t even be a problem if the team communicates. Once you’ve got those TA points, don’t save for a nuke. Use those points to establish an early lead. Theoretically, the Americans have no excuse to lose if they can get eighty TA points in the first thirty seconds.

Airborne Units and Mathematical Impossibilities- We all know that infantry players can drop airborne squads for five TA per squad. This is why you need at least two infantry players on SpaceNeedle. By using early TA points from the nearby command points, infantry players can cap the other two-point CPs by sharing points. If it takes ten TA to drop two squads of infantry, and each player receives five TA for capturing a point, two infantry players can spend five points each, get five points each, and capture a command point. This leads me to my Mathematical Impossibility, which is indeed possible. Observe: 10 TA spread between two infantry players = 10 TA + two squads of airborne infantry (10 TA worth of units) + 80 points for the capture of the command point + a lead in the game – In numbers only: 10=10+10+80p+priceless. Go figure.

Corridor Tactical Aids, the Roads, and You- Fairly self-explanatory. Abuse corridor-shaped tactical aids (like the carpet bomb) to decimate main thoroughfares. It gives you an easy advance down a normally clogged area. The advantage granted is worth the points spent to perform the strategy. Carpet Bomb A Carpet Bomb B

Wrapping It Up:

At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done on SpaceNeedle to win. I won’t spell out any play-by-play strategies for a particular team this time because enough information is provided for you guys to come up with your own unique strategies that will be more creative and personalized than mine. I encourage everyone to play as a team and communicate, and go for the win on SpaceNeedle!