Confessions of a Detpack Lover

I have a secret Det Pack fetish. I LOVE them; nothing beats the rush or sprinting round a corner, pulling out your detonator and putting a crimp in some poor Tanker's day. Thought i should put together a guide, for anyone dumb enough to follow suit.

PREPARATION:
You will NEED to unlock the following:
Det Packs - first item in the Recon Assault Rifle tree.
Active Camo - Thrid item in same.

For best effect, the following too:

Recon Assault Rifle - sometimes they bail, and at that point you really need some point defense. unless you're confident at point blank with Pistol or default Sniper Rifle, wait to get this.

Stamina Shots - second and third in the 'Improvements' tree. generally useful, since they allow you to sprint further... and when has being able to be ten meters further away two seconds faster NOT been useful? you can get the same basic effect by unchecking the 'body armour' option on your Recon Customization screen. You won't be greatly inconvenienced by this given that pretty much any vehicle-mounted weapon which can damage you will kill you if they hit, but again, added not-dead-yet is always useful.

SETTING THE SCENE
you have to be patient. it's a military truism that unsupported Armour in urban combat is dead Armour. Wait in a building or behind some piece of cover. wait for the vehicle to come to you. wait for the vehicle to stop. THEN run like a madman...

Or... not quite yet. i did say 'unsupported'. Mining tanks while under infantry fire is a good way to get yourself killed. ALWAYS attempt to clear - or at least distract - any infantry escorting the tank before you make the attempt. clear? ok, RUN.

First, do not attack from the front. for one, the tank's forward armour is tougher - three detpacks will take out any vehicle, provided you don't hang them on his nose. one well-placed bomb will destroy anything short of a Mech - i've yet to manage a one-shot on a mech, but i'm pretty sure it can be done. As a rule though, i use three on most things to be safe. three will kill ANYTHING, even if aall you can get to is the flank, and means i can kill an even two vehicles with the default stock.

Second, vehicles on the whole have abysmal visibility - a single fixed camera, filled with graphical artefacts and effects which can make picking out the Stealther difficult, but if you walk through his gunsights...

Use cover. flank your target. learn the maximum distance you can sprint and the maximum duration of the Active Cammo so you're not caught short.

Your targets are Grilles in the rear and bottom of vehicles. two anywhere on the rear will kill a tank, the flank takes three, the front four... but if you can lay one on the right grille, it's a one-bomb-kill.

Mechs have a grille on the underside of the 'hips' of the vehicle. you can stand underneath and throw bombs up at it, but that's a little hit and miss. you can try jumping as you throw... or you can just plant them on the legs like a sensible person.

Now for perhaps the most important bit... RUN.
Any solid scenery will shield you from the blast - otherwise you need to be roughly 2-3 tank-lengths from the vehicle before triggering them if you don't want a haircut. hitting the Right Mouse Button when you have a Det Pack in your hand will bring out the detonator, and LMB will set them off. or, the detonator is drawn when you run out of Detpacks, so make sure you know how many you have left to use before placing, otherwise it's easy to set them off in your face.

Now, whoop. cheer in Vent, and generally make merry. perhaps send your vanquished foe a cheery message of thanks.

You are... the DEMOLITION MAN!

For the five seconds it takes his coleague to come kill you. that's life.