I'm shooting for chairs in the bottom row? Wait a minute!

[Red]

Apologies if someone's posted this before, but this is a mistake I see even very high-level toons making.

There is absolutely no point in shooting a Toon at an empty chair. A Cog will come along and boot him out. All you're doing by putting a Toon in that chair is wasting a Toon. I generally don't even bother shooting at all until 15 seconds or so have gone by. In fact, even after 15 seconds it's pretty mich guaranteed that none of the Toons I seat on the jury will manage to stay there, but at that point it's good to start shooting to at least calibrate your aim. All that matters is who's the last Toon or Cog to occupy the chair, so there's really no reason to shoot early.

[Trish]

Indeed. And while we're on the subject, I'd rather see "I'm shooting for chairs in the 4th column" because for me it's easier to aim horizontally then keep a column filled with toons.

[FleaBag_McZilla]

I'm really really bad at the cannon. I used to have "I can't hit the broad side of a barn" speedchat to just warn people. I DO shoot immeadiately, that way if I am way off, I can get close to on track. Then I'm good to go for that column as the blue cat said, or I can work back and forth across three top row chairs, but I never get all my toons shot by the time the clock runs out, or if I do, it's like, with two seconds to spare....

[Scratchy Dawg]

I always shoot early to get my bearings and to find an area not being targeted by another toon. After that, I recon fire a few times to verify my position and current state of the jury. In the last 20 seconds I seat my toons - usually seating at least 3 toons in the jury (although I sometimes unseat another toon .

[Noisy Rhubarb]

I disagree with the OP…I have a few s/f’s that withhold their first shot until a cog lands in the chair. Waste of time and not the best use of the first toon, IMO.

By all means, DO fire a toon before the cogs land. People don’t usually hit a chair with that first shot anyway--so that toon is best used to line up the aim of your cannon. Thereafter, it's just a matter of moving to the side about 1/2 inch or so and up a quarter inch to nail each chair. Once a couple of cogs are seated, you just swing the cannon back to the starting position and refill the chairs. I generally end up with at least 2 toons seated, minimum, but more often than not, I seem to get 4 seated at the end, which is one of the reasons why I insist on working the scales (bonus weight). Regarding the issue of running out of toon fodder for your cannon, I haven't seen that happen to anyone yet, so I don’t believe it should be an item of great concern.

BTW, if you haven't done so already, try shooting a toon straight up at the ceiling. It's rather funny, and several people have actually landed the toon in a chair! It breaks up the monotony, and one toon ceiling shot isn't going make or break your CJ.

[mikehern]

Actually we found on test that if you wait until all the chairs are filled by cogs before you fire the cogs will not refill the chairs as fast. Using this wait trick we were able to get 10 jurors consistently. Some teams were even able to get 12.

Just a hint.

[Noisy Rhubarb]

Originally Posted by mikehern

Actually we found on test that if you wait until all the chairs are filled by cogs before you fire the cogs will not refill the chairs as fast. Using this wait trick we were able to get 10 jurors consistently. Some teams were even able to get 12.

Just a hint.

Now that would be cool. I've never been in a CJ with 12 toons on the jury. It would be more difficult on open because of the random runs--getting non s/f toons to wait would be hard to accomplish using speedchat. Still, it's a cool tip for groups of s/f's. Thanks!

[cincyconway]

Originally Posted by Red

Apologies if someone's posted this before, but this is a mistake I see even very high-level toons making.

There is absolutely no point in shooting a Toon at an empty chair. A Cog will come along and boot him out. All you're doing by putting a Toon in that chair is wasting a Toon. I generally don't even bother shooting at all until 15 seconds or so have gone by. In fact, even after 15 seconds it's pretty mich guaranteed that none of the Toons I seat on the jury will manage to stay there, but at that point it's good to start shooting to at least calibrate your aim. All that matters is who's the last Toon or Cog to occupy the chair, so there's really no reason to shoot early.

I agree with your general premise. It is the seats that you take at the end that you keep. I have timed how long it takes the cogs to replace my seat and I consistently get 20 seconds (4 measures). The best use of the time before the last 20 seconds should be use to establish a unique target that you can hit right away. You do not want to hit any chairs between 40-20 seconds because a cog will come to replace it and you may not have enough time to take it back.