Introduction
The Call For Fire (CFF) is a very powerful tool available for the Platoon Leader, the Cavalry Scout and the Fire Support Specialist. It allows them to call for a bombardment from the UT Army in the designated area. There are multiple settings for the CFF that allows it when well handled to adapt every situation. However, only the Fire Support Specialist can lower the landing time for his CFF, making its usage possible much more often.
CFF Shells landing.
Ability
Shells are shared among all CFF users, and are never reset. The Fire Support Specialist having a better version of CFF and using those shells also for other abilities that the Cavalry Scout and the Platoon Leader don't have, he is prioritary on its usage.
Also, the damage coming from the UT Army, CFF damage is not increased by Whiz Kid (WK) Skill Identifier.
Of course, the ability do friendly fire, so it is to use with caution.
- Base landing time : 10.5 seconds.
- Multiple CFF cannot occur at same time, if many CFF are called, they will be queued.
- Base damage : 1000 per shell.
- The damage indicated is only applied at the shell landing point, and diminushes in the shell radius (damage dealt in the border of a shell explosion will be lower).
- Base shell number : 200.
- Base energy cost : 90 (Cavalry Scout and Platoon Leader) ; 60 (Fire Support Specialist).
Fire Support Specialist improvements
The Fire Support Specialist has a whole tree for CFF, with each level adding some shells to the reserv and increasing damage for everyone, as well as reducing his own energy cost, range and cooldown.
| Level | Damage per Shell | Additionnal Shells | Energy Cost | Range | Cooldown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1600 | 25 | 60 | 40 | 6 |
| 2 | 2200 | 25 | 50 | 50 | 5 |
| 3 | 2800 | 25 | 40 | 60 | 4 |
| 4 | 3400 | 25 | 30 | 70 | 3 |
The Fire Support Specialist also has another tree, IDF, which unlocks additionnal abilities using shells and reducing landing time of his own CFF by 1.5s - down to 4.5s. This makes Fire Support Specialist much more effective in using CFF.
Settings
CFF mark annoucing a bombing, shells can land out of the mark, try to check the commands used by the FSS, the Cav Scout or the Platoon leader to know better how the shells will land.
CFF has 4 settings that you can change at will by typing them in the chat, allowing you to use a CFF that fits your need.
- Number of shells [1-10], chat command : "-s [1-10]".
- Allows you to use several shells in one CFF.
- Default is 1.
- Interval of shells [0.2-5], chat command : "-i [.2-5]".
- Allows you to choose the interval of time between each shell if you use many of them.
- Default is 0.2.
- Radius of bombardment [2-10], chat commands : "-r [2-10]".
- Allows you to choose the radius of the landing zone for the shells.
- This is NOT the radius in which you will deal damage but the radius in which shells will land.
- If distribution is circular, the shells will fall at random in the delimited radius.
- If distribution is not circular, the shells will land in the chosen direction espaced by this radius.
- Default is 2.
- Allows you to choose the radius of the landing zone for the shells.
- Distribution of Bombardment [0-360 or circular], chat command : "-d [0-360, c]".
- Allows you to choose the way shells are gonna land : if you choose circular, they will land randomly in a circle of set radius ; else, they will land in the direction you have chosen.
- The number you set is the distribution angle, with 0° and 360° aiming east (so 90° aims north, 225° aims south-west and so on).
- Default is circular.
- Allows you to choose the way shells are gonna land : if you choose circular, they will land randomly in a circle of set radius ; else, they will land in the direction you have chosen.
After having called the CFF, a marker will appear for everyone on the ground at target location to warn players. This marker is purely indicating the landing zone, and do not take into account the settings of the CFF. That doesn't mean in any way that you are safe outside the circle.
You can type -s, -r, -i or -d with no parameter to see what settings you are currently using.
Usage
Usually, when there is a Fire support specialist in the game, the other classes don't use it because he can get the higher efficiency of the shells. Even when there is not one, it is not very use because the 10.5 seconds of landing time makes it uneffective to support the team in most cases.
If you are Cavalry Scout or Platoon Leader, you will mostly use it to defend a set location when you see soon enough the incoming zombies, or to take down morbuses without needing someone to go kill it (2 or 3 shells are enough depending on difficulty).
The distribution is almost always set to circular, only the Fire Support Specialist do sometime use a distribution angle when incoming waves of enemies are detected, but usually you will simply prefer increasing the interval so you kill zombies as they cross the landing area (an interval of 2-3 seconds is effective against everything, including fast zombies, while an interval of 5s will be the most efficient against packs of slow ones).
This ability is very efficient in Survival mode, but not very strong in PMC mod because PMC will run away from landing zone - although you can still catch them.
A good Fire Support Specialist can handle most situations if zombies are detected soon enough and using the right setting for CFF, but this is an ability you will have to learn to use correctly. Use with caution as it can kill allies very easily - I recommend not using any other setting than -i .2, -r 2 and -d c until you are used to it.