The fatal flaw of Northern Strike....

[dontsh000t]

seriously, if they had twice the number of unlocks and no included maps i'd have bought NS.
they should have made the maps free, had more unlocks, and maybe restrict the Goliath/Hachi to NS only... meaning you can't get in one if you don't have NS. that would surely entice a lot of people to buy NS. right now in my (very small) country all the NS servers are down due to a permanent lack of players.

[CannibalBob]

Hi m3talc0re,

I am a relative noob, so if I can do it, so can you. I bought NS only because I found out there were 10 unlocks you could get instead of career points, but it turns out I like it better than vanilla 2142 and mostly play NS maps. The unlocks are all easy to get, and here is how :

Assuming you have fulfilled the time requirements, play Bridge at Remagen on the 32 player board (the 64p board changes the Goliath spawn point). Be EU so you get the Goliath. Get in the Goliath as soon as it spawns, and hit F5. That will put you in one of two seats with the non-machine guns (can't remember what they are called). The other seat is F2, but is usually taken by Goliath campers. All of the defenders line the far bridge, so just start picking them off. You can usually get 5 kills before the Goliath gets near enough that it is in danger of being destroyed, and then if it makes it far enough that you can see the flag, you can usually pick up a few more easy kills. When it is destroyed, respawn and wait for it. Repeat. In any round, you can do this at least 4 or 5 times, and easily get the following unlocks :

Cold Front Unit Service Ribbon - 15 kills on any NS map
Transporter Duty Ribbon - 9 kills from Goliath
Vehicle Excellence Bronze, Silver, Gold - 5 mins, 8 kills, 12 kills
Arctic Combat Bronze, Silver, Gold - 6 kills, 10 kills, 14 kills

That is 8 unlocks for playing one round (again, you have to have the time put in as well, which means 4 hours global in NS vehicle as well as 5 hours playing any NS in total.

For the remaining 2 unlocks, they are a bit harder, but not much :

Winterstrike Ribbon - Destroy 2 Goliaths, 2 speeders, and die 5 times by each vehicle. Play the same round, but play PAC. Run to get into the rail gun on that first bridge the Goliath has to pass under. Then just start blasting away at the Goliath as it rumbles towards you. Use the right-click aiming to take out the 2 panels on the side, you can almost always kill it before it gets to the end of the bridge, and since you are in the rail gun which delivers the biggest blows, you almost always get credit for destroying it. That gives the the required Goliath kills, plus it usually adds 5 player kills towards your Cold Front ribbon. Do that a few times in a round, and you can get both awards easily. For the Hashimoto kills, you don't even have to blow up the speeder, just kill the driver, it counts as a speeder kill. I am sure you can take care of the dying requirements :-)

Snowflake - 5 roadkills via the Speeder and 40 global kills (with speeder).
Play Port Bavaria, always play PAC (speeder is a PAC-only vehicle). Spawn at the base camp and jump in one of the two speeders. Zip to any of the 3 ports, and start blasting away. Usually, you can only get a few kills this way, what you need is for the enemy to take over any of the three ports. Then you are are home free. Simply speed into the enemy port using your boost key (shift), and run over guys until you are dead. Repeat. You can usually take out at least 3 guys before they get you. It's very easy to get 5 roadkills in a round this way once you have the 40 global kills.

Cheers,
DD.

Those are some awesome tips, thanks. I actually got my two Goliath kills using your method listed above. I got two Goliaths in 1 round! But my question for you is: What's a good map to use the Goliath on, and if you're driving what's usually a good route to take? I found using the guns on the Goliath (F2 guns, the best ones) on Bridge didn't give many kills because everyone can see the Goliath coming and has plenty of time to hide.

[Dare978Devil]

Those are some awesome tips, thanks. I actually got my two Goliath kills using your method listed above. I got two Goliaths in 1 round! But my question for you is: What's a good map to use the Goliath on, and if you're driving what's usually a good route to take? I found using the guns on the Goliath (F2 guns, the best ones) on Bridge didn't give many kills because everyone can see the Goliath coming and has plenty of time to hide.

The Goliath is pretty good on Leipzig. There are enough places to change direction that you can avoid motion mine / EMP mine traps. Do not turn into the first flag you see, that is always heavily mined as everyone expects you to drive directly to it. Instead, turn left just after the bridge and go for the next nearest flag. Also, if you get enough unlocks, the motion mine bait works really well against them, the only problem is that someone will take your spot in the Goliath the second you jump out to throw it. I have found that Bridge at Remagen isn't great if you want the Goliath to live because it actually makes it under that first bridge only about 20% of the time. It's too easy to blast off the side panels with the rail gun, and then drop some motion mines on it as it passes under the bridge. 3 mines dropped from above will kill it regardless of the number of regeneration panels it has left.

For the F2/F5 guns on Bridge, if the server is full (32 players), there are usually quite a few guys running around back and forth on that first span. Also, engineers regularly pop up to fire their Pilons, and one shot with the plasma cannon (F2/F5) to the head will do them in. Those plasma cannons are also deadly against the rail gun occupant. It is shielded in the front, but if you keep blasting away at the rail gun, you will kill whoever is in it. That is the only way to keep the Goliath alive on Bridge.

Finally, for Port Bavaria, don't bother playing the 16-man game. You only get one single port to attack, the rest are out of bounds. The defenders have an incredibly easy time defending since you always have to pod up. I have never seen a 16-man round last long enough for the Goliath to spawn. Play 32 or 64 Port only, but don't expect to acquire any Goliath awards on these maps. In my opinion, by the time the Goliath is finally available, it is too late to rack up enough kills to achieve any of the awards.

DD.

[DarkRing]

People who play it are WAY too good at 2142! (yes, I realize that this statement means I stink). When I play NS, the teams are filled with high ranking players. I get killed at least a dozen times a round, sometimes more often, and sometimes half a dozen times by the same guy. In my humble opinion, Port Bavaria and Bridge at Remagen are the two best maps in the entire game (2142 and NS included). They are great maps with much to offer 2142 which are not available in standard maps. But the people who play them very likely only play NS over and over again because I am getting my *** kicked repeatedly.

On normal 2142 servers, I would say that there are a sufficient number of new players that I am somewhere in the middle in terms of skill. I can generally finish any normal round with between 20-30 points, but generally finish with less than 10 on any NS map.

Has anyone else discovered this phenomenon?

DD.

Noob hunting is a good sport these days and you play for the easy unlocks.

[sauzee]

The sad thing about NS was the money people paid to get a map pack.
Yep all the unlocks were part of the original game.
It's kind of sad when EA bring out a "DELUX 2142" when they don't even care about or even support the orignal version.

[Minmaster]

can't find decent populated servers, sucks. the bridge map was a blast to play when servers were still running it. i kinda think they should've released these maps as just regular assault maps too without goliaths because after a while goliaths became nothing more than sitting ducks.

[RYKUU]

I new NS would come to a crumble, why? because EA didnt put it out in stores, and even if they did its too little added to the game.

[Uncleadolph]

What really dissapointed me was when servers stopped playing Port Bavaria (spelling, I havn't played BF2142 for a while). That was most definately my favourite map out of BF2142 and Northern Strike. I lost most of my interest for the game when servers stopped playing it and it took a long time to find a well populated server with it running.

It felt pretty epic on a 64p server supporting the goliath, keeping it running and infiltrating all the way back to their final post.

[RYKUU]

^^^
ahhh yes re living the good times mate.

[-Spartan`II7^]

NS maps were the best maps for 2142, I agree

I'd like something like normal conquest on them though because esp on Bavaria, the Goliath and 3 Walkers can get annoying.

[jake_]

Probably because (mostly) only hardcore 2142 players bought NS. It was $10 for just a few maps and upgrades. That doesn't appeal to most people, especially when its only available through EA.
Hence, only the majority of people who bought it were very dedicated to the game.


I bought it and loved it though,

[sempf]

best thing in NS is defending the golliath-> easy kills and you will get resuplied and healt all the time. other than that is killing the lone wolf infanterist and people as pac. dont like the vehicles in NS there to easy.(plz dont watch my kdr as they are from the beginning when i was a noob)

[RYKUU]

Probably because (mostly) only hardcore 2142 players bought NS. It was $10 for just a few maps and upgrades. That doesn't appeal to most people, especially when its only available through EA.
Hence, only the majority of people who bought it were very dedicated to the game.

thats so true my friend.

[I am RKO]

It is available in shops, you've never seen the light blue box?

Its also in the battlefield 2142 deluxe edition.

Deluxe edition, what a swizz. You can tell now they're finished with the boosters/expanding the game.

[RYKUU]

it was in shops? i have never seen it lol

its good that they did that though they should nott have it woth bf2142 maybe just NS on its own.