Spent way too long walking rounds onto targets by feel, so I documented the whole chain from teletype to impact. The parts most people seem to miss:

* **The pencils do different things.** Yellow draws bearing lines for triangulation but doesn't copy anything. Red copies range and bearing to your clipboard — that's what feeds the calculator. Use yellow to find the target, red for the final turret-to-target measurement.
* **You can shoot without the calculator.** If counter-battery fire destroys it, it stays broken — but elevation is just linear math: **target distance ÷ meters per degree for your charge count**. 3 charges = 250 m/degree, so a 12,000 m target = 48°. The full table is in the guide.
* **Use the minimum charges that cover the range.** More charges changes the ratio and burns requisition, which is a hidden medal metric.
* **STAR and smoke break your kill streak.** Fire all utility rounds before your first lethal shot, or your Consecutive Kill Shots counter resets.
* **Adjust one variable per shot.** Missed long AND left? Fix elevation first, then bearing. Changing both means you can't tell which correction worked.
* **A blown hydraulic seal costs 90 seconds** — longer than whatever you saved by slamming the traverse lever. Short bursts, bleed pressure before big swings.

Also covers the loading sequence, shell types, hydraulic PSI ranges, and the hidden gold medal metrics.

Full guide: [https://apollotrail.com/blog/how-to-calculate-firing-solutions-in-iron-nest](https://apollotrail.com/blog/how-to-calculate-firing-solutions-in-iron-nest)

If your rounds keep landing a klick off target, ask — the fix is usually the yellow arrow bracket (it's \~1 km of distance, not a target marker).

Wrote up the full firing solution workflow for Iron Nest — including manual elevation math for when your calculator gets destroyed