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Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.01 22:12:00 -
[1] - Quote
Skihids wrote:Surviving Combat:
Experienced pilots, send in your hard earned lessons!
I recently started having some success with my Myron (finally) and while I can't offer detailed advice on the mechanics of piloting (thanks for this post, by the way, I wish it'd been around before I learned most of that stuff the hard way!) I can try to offer a few pieces of tactical advice. Some of this may not be applicable if you fly the Gallente dropship.
1) Speed is key. You can't outmaneuver swarms because, as mentioned above, any rapid turn costs you speed and altitude. Keep nanos in your lows and start running.
2) Swarms have a max altitude, you and your gunners (near as I can tell) do not. If the fight is too full of swarms to be effective fly to a high altitude and maintain a high speed orbit around the battlefield. Basically, imitate an AC-130. You won't get many kills like this, but you'll keep your dropship. After a while go back down. If you're lucky a lot of them will have died and switched to anti infantry fits.
3) At least one gunner (preferably both) must be someone on comms, and should be someone you trust. You camera is permanently facing forward. You can angle up and down, but you can't look left, right, or back. This means that there is a very wide arc where you can't see incoming swarms. A warning from your gunner is the difference between a full strength hit and a swarm exploding behind you and doing only light damage. Have your gunners use clock directions (Swarm incoming from 4 o'clock!) with 12 o'clock being the direction the dropship is facing.
4) Know what's hitting you.
4a) Four to six hits in rapid succession doing medium to high damage means swarm. These are your biggest threat, as infantry can get them for free, they lock on, they're difficult to evade even with warning, and it will only take 3-5 volleys to put you back on the earth with all the ground pounders.
4b) Many shots in rapid succession adding up to significant damage is a blaster. It's rare (but not unprecedented) to see these on HAVs. Usually they're on installations. They can angle up pretty high, but if you can maintain a tight orbit over them one of your gunners should be able to hit them.
4c) One shot doing significant damage is a railgun. These are popular both on HAVs and installations and can be very dangerous in the hands of a skilled operator. Keep an unpredictable movement pattern and a tight orbit and they'll struggle to hit you. Don't underestimate these, and be ready to turn tail and run if it seems like things are going **** up.
4d) One to six hits doing minor damage is heavy missiles. I don't know if it's a bug or what, but these don't seem to actually hurt dropships much. You can pretty much ignore them.
5) Know your targets
5a) You won't be able to distinguish one dropsuit from another, but try to keep an eye out for what they're using. If someone is firing swarms they're priority one for your gunners. Figure out where they are and either get a good firing solution for your gunners or avoid the area.
5b) Installations go down pretty quick to sustained fire. They're also worth 100 points. I like killing installations.
5c) LAVs can be tough to hit for a new gunner, but my buddy was doing pretty well against them after a few matches worth of practice. I don't think we went up against any good drivers or any non-militia LAVs, but the strategy for the pilot is the same: keep them where your gunner can shoot them.
5d) HAVs can shoot at a higher angle then you'd expect. The only exception, I think, is heavy missiles. They don't seem to be able to get an azimuth higher than 30 degrees. Point is, they can shoot back unless you're right over them. **** fit HAVs go down quickly. I've seen madrugers go down in 10-15 seconds. Well fit HAVs may require a full minute of sustained fire, and that's assuming 100% direct hits. A HAV's greatest strength is its ability to flee combat to repair before returning to wreak more havoc. If you see a HAV fleeing a group of friendly infantry, now is your time to strike. He can't run from you.
Edit: One thing I forgot
6) Piloting a dropship is possibly the hardest role to take up in this game. Therefore it's only natural that it is also one of the poorest sources of warpoints. Your gunner will be getting about the same amount of kills as a good sniper, and you, the pilot, will only get 70% of the warpoints for them. Putting a defend order on your dropship doesn't work for giving squad leader commissions or order-following bonuses. Your best bet is to set a defend order to a friendly HAV, or to some installation or objective before getting into your dropship.This way any kills obtained by your gunners nearby get you a squad leader commission. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.02 03:35:00 -
[2] - Quote
Iron Wolf Saber wrote:Sooo... how do I stop rolling on lift off?
If you're holding down L1 and not touching the left stick you should go more-or-less straight up. Shouldn't be any rolling.  |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.02 14:17:00 -
[3] - Quote
Shiro Mokuzan wrote:wathak 514 wrote:Shiro Mokuzan wrote:I never seem to be able to lift off at all. Am I missing something? Do I need piloting or something to fly a militia dropship?
I can rotate it, and the thrusters move, but I can't lift off no matter how long I hold L1. I've even tried bumping it with an LAV. R1 is thrust hold it down to create thrust after that just fallow the directions in te first 3 or 4 posts of this thread No it's not, unless you are using the southpaw configuration, which I'm not.
Known bug. That happens to me intermittently too. Power cycle your PS3, that usually fixes it for me. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.02 14:23:00 -
[4] - Quote
Skihids wrote:Regular practice of the ground reference maneuvers will provide the feedback to wire this in your brain.
Oh, this actually brings up something I've been struggling with a bit. If I get enough altitude to where I can't see buildings anymore, I have a really hard time maintaining awareness of where I am on the map. I have to use the down-looking camera after that, which is a pain in the butt and often doesn't help.
Any thoughts on something that might help with that?
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Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.02 18:58:00 -
[5] - Quote
This post is intended as an instruction manual for dropship gunners. I've never gunned myself, so as far as things like "aiming" I can't offer much.
1) Your primary role is not to get kills. You are your pilots eyes in directions he or she cannot see. Every few seconds scan the area for incoming swarms, railguns that have taken an interest in your DS, or other threats. When you see something give your pilot an identification, and clock direction. E.g. "Railgun shots incoming from 7 o'clock"
2) The pilot is in charge. If the pilot says "target the guy by the pillar at 11 o'clock" then that is your primary. I don't care if you've got a bead on three snipers right next to each other who would be a perfect triple kill. If the pilot says bail, bail. If the pilot has not given the bail order, do not bail.
Also, I've created a channel in game: "0k0d" (a DS pilot's ideal KDR). This is intended as a "pilots seeking gunners" channel. Basically a special purpose "LFSquad". |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.03 03:35:00 -
[6] - Quote
I was doing some thinking about my dogfight earlier today, and I've been theorycrafting some dogfighting ideas. These aren't tried and tested like my other posts, so I'd love some feedback.
For the pilot:
1) Dropship turrets can reach all the way in front of the dropship, given a target far enough away, and almost all the way behind. They can also shoot directly below. That gives you a deadzone directly above or behind the enemy dropship. Try to be there.
2) At the same time, try to keep the enemy out of your deadzone. Make sure at least one gunner can always hit the target.
3) Keep in constant communication with your gunners. You don't have to make a wild course change to keep the target lined up with a single gunner as long as you're making sure the other knows where and when to expect the target to come into their field of view.
4) Know the state of the fight on the ground. Does your team have a lot of swarmers? If so, try to force your opponent to fight at a low altitude and vice versa.
For the gunners:
1) Make sure your pilot knows where the enemy is. Constant communication.
2) Aim for the passenger compartment. The splash damage can kill off the people inside, including the gunners.
3) Watch your health bar. If you're taking damage tell your pilot. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.03 12:21:00 -
[7] - Quote
I have a friend who is more-or-less always my gunner. He tried out rails and blasters and hated both. Same with cycled launchers. He said he lost too much accuracy in all cases. I don't know if the non-militia rails "feel" different to a great enough degree to justify switching to them. As is dogfights aren't common enough to justify sacrificing my efficacy against infantry.
I would've liked rails if we could make them work. I'm told they're more effective against shields, so we'd actually have some hope of taking out the well fit HAVs with them. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.04 02:22:00 -
[8] - Quote
My gunner hated the cycled launcher, too. The accelerated launcher covers the distance between you and your target a lot faster, so they don't have to lead as much. It also does more damage and has a wider blast radius. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.04 03:17:00 -
[9] - Quote
My preferred way to stop is simply to pitch my nose up. You won't get an immediate stop, but you'll get a pretty quick one and it since it doesn't require turning around it's not as jarring for your gunners.
One of the real challenges is simply sitting still. Every once in a while you'll get lucky and find yourself near an objective where no one has a way to attack air. At that point you want to hover and let your gunners rake in as many kills as possible (I've seen "vehicle kill assist" pop up 10 times in 20 seconds), but holding steady for them is a pain in the butt. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.04 15:09:00 -
[10] - Quote
How would it cap objectives? |
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Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.04 17:18:00 -
[11] - Quote
TEBOW BAGGINS wrote:Sees-Too-Much wrote:How would it cap objectives? i think he means air calvary there sees..? like in vietnam the Huey crew were called air calvary, hence the 1rst Cav Division
So...paratroopers? Everybody loads up in dropships at the outset, we drop everyone over the objectives and then the dropships lay covering fire while the ground pounders take the objective? Current maps aren't really big enough for it, but it'd be pretty awesome otherwise.
*hums "blood on the risers"* |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.06 00:05:00 -
[12] - Quote
Huh, I was just about to post to this. Nice of you guys to bring it to the front page for me.
So I just lost a dropship, and in considering what happened I think there are a couple lessons-learned I can pass on to my fellow fly boys. Allow me to describe the events.
This match was extremely hostile to dropship play from the start. As soon as we started moving toward enemies we had swarms coming at us. The enemy team also deployed two dropships. I engaged them and I think they both died to boundary violations. We certainly didn't kill either one.
From there we went hunting, but pickings were slim as I was forced to spend most of the match dodging swarms. We got a breather for a moment, enough time to pick off a Soma. After it went down I went in low so my gunner could pick off the person that fled the tank before it exploded. This was mistake number 1. A moment later a swarmer popped up from behind a ridge and launched rockets. My nose was pitched up hard, I lost altitude and began flying backwards. I began pitching my nose up and jamming R1 trying to stop (mistake 2), but slammed hard into a rock and lost the ship.
Now, if you read that and thought "What was that dumbass thinking?" then good, you've identified what I did wrong. The question comes up often: "How do I stop?" and I had conditioned myself to think "When I need to stop I pitch the nose up and jam R1." But what does that ACTUALLY do? It applies acceleration toward my six o'clock. Since I was already travelling that way, I was actually exacerbating my situation. I should have pitched my nose forward, which would have helped me regain control and altitude. Lesson learned: be aware of the mechanics of your vehicle and how it works.
That was the second mistake. The first mistake was going anywhere near obstacles when I know AV equipment is on the field. At speed you can evade swarms for a while, and the few that hit you won't do enough damage to cause problems. The main danger posed is actually loss of control. Even if I had not reacted poorly to losing control of my aircraft I may still have crashed simply because I had not given myself enough of a reactionary gap to bring the dropship back under control. Lesson learned: if the field is hostile don't be less then 25m from anything you can be knocked into.
This was the first dropship I'd lost to enemy action all day, btw. Keep practicing if you want to be a pilot! |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.06 03:21:00 -
[13] - Quote
Really high or really fast. If things are particularly hot, do both!
Dropships have to decelerate to turn around. You can get some limited success by pitching left or right, but swarms are way more nimble than your dropship, so it won't work for long. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.17 04:50:00 -
[14] - Quote
So I finally got a chance to sit down and play for a couple hours. I devoted that time to fielding cheap vipers and trying to fly them at high speed and low altitudes to get practice avoiding swarms. Has not been going well. I don't think the problem is the doctrine, I just haven't gotten the hang of the precise flying involved. Plus swarms are still super popular.
Also, I managed to get really bad latency problems in a game that featured two guys with forge guns. Being stopped dead in front of guys with forge guns is not good for a dropship's structural integrity.  |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.17 06:01:00 -
[15] - Quote
My thought process is that by flying low I have obstacles between me and incoming swarms, so dodging becomes s pretty minor issue. Y'know, in theory. |
Sees-Too-Much
332
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Posted - 2012.09.17 12:39:00 -
[16] - Quote
STB Vermaak Doe wrote:Sees-Too-Much wrote:My thought process is that by flying low I have obstacles between me and incoming swarms, so dodging becomes s pretty minor issue. Y'know, in theory. Dodge forges. Try it. I DARE YOU!
I was actually doing okay with avoiding the forges until I hit a lag spike. |
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