A Guide to playing as Paladin

[mead]

The last major Phantom X update introduced a new feature to the mod, the addition of paladins.

What is a paladin?
A paladin is an innocent player that gets a moderate resource bonus. With default settings, that bonus is 45% of what a phantom receives. This allows a paladin to last significantly longer in a fight against a phantom. Also, the energy bonus that a paladin receives enables him to build T3 Air Superiority Fighters (ASFs) earlier and in greater numbers than normal innocents can, which is crucial in games where phantoms attempt to rush a T4 air experimental.
Depending on the lobby settings, the paladin may be the only player whom the phantoms are revealed to (this is not the default, though).


Why were paladins introduced?
Simply put, the game balance before this addition was skewed very heavily in favor of the phantoms when they broke early and rushed the innocents together, leaving the final fight among themselves for later. Several suggestions to fix the balancing issues were put forward (see other threads here), and the paladins were implemented. Arguably, they improve game balance significantly.

So I'm paladin. What do I do?
In general terms, the paladin has to use his increased resource income to the greatest possible effect in fighting the phantoms and / or protecting the other innocents. This especially means that the paladin is responsible for getting early-game t3 ASFs - they are very energy-costly, and the other innocents typically just cannot afford them in sufficient quantities to protect against phantoms rushing T4 air experimentals (on Roanoke Abyss, an Ahwassa can be expected as early as min 17:00, a Ripper a minute earlier).
If the paladin is next to a phantom, he should engage the phantom in a defensive 1vs1, freeing at least 2 other innocents to deal with the second phantom. If the paladin is situated far away from the phantoms, his role shifts to support. This generally means getting air superiority, and other energy-costly investments like nuke launchers, as well as protecting the other innocents as well as he is able (for example by donating mass).


I dont like this. I want my old Phantom N back!
While there is no simple on/off option for paladins, the game host can set the paladin-phantom ratio in the lobby. The default is 1:2, so for every 2 phantoms there is one paladin. For a typical 6 player game, if the host sets the ratio to 1:3, and 2 phantoms are chosen, there will be NO paladin.

[HEAVY]

Nice one mead, well thought out.. now get on FAF and play

[Duck_42]

While there is no simple on/off option for paladins...

Actually, "None" is one of the options for Paladin ratio.

[HEAVY]

I have not seen a single paladin follow this good advice yet :/

Duck, I assume your comment implicitly means you agree with mead?

[Duck_42]

Mead's suggestions on how a Paladin play are correct.