Stop, Drop and listen

[Danylia]

I played last night and I had the bad feeling that at least one player had already pegged me as one of the "noobs" because he started targeting me after every death, even to the point that he was waiting for me when I respawned and actually chased me back to the capital ship trying to kill me again.

Unfortunately, these things will happen. I played 10+ matches today, and I think most of them went in a "fair spirit". However in the last match there was a group of 4 fully upgraded ships (3 Flashfires and a Gunship), most likely a premade, which just wanted to prove that their epeen is the biggest. Not only did they pretty much "oneshot" everyone due to their Burst Lasers and Ion Railgun, I also saw them chasing the players right around the spawning point - like vultures over a corpse. Honestly, if you experience a game like that, best you can do is to remember the names, and as soon as you get paired against them again, leave and hope for a better matchup.

[Vadua]

Here are some suggestions:

 

Some Basics

Learn the Function keys. F1 = guns; F2 = shields; F3 = engines; F4 = balance. When surrounded and no allies are near, boost out of there and hit F2 to quickly regenerate the shields. (You can do this while defending a satellite alone, too, or in between strafes while fighting an enemy.) When first going to a satellite, hit F3 to provide more power to engines and to allow them to recharge once at your destination. (It was stated elsewhere, but Barrel Roll is an amazing travel power to turbo to any location, and not just a defensive tool.) When attacking an enemy, hit F1 to provide full power and regeneration to the guns. Eventually you will alternate between any of these when in a dogfight to maintain fighting strength.

 

Some Useful Loadouts

Poor Aim? Burst Lasers are only on Sting/Flashfire and Quarrel/Mangler, but these have the highest accuracy of any weapon, but you have to be close (less than 3000m). Combine them with Damage Capacitor and Blaster Overcharge for the best burst in GSF. Still need more? Add a crew member like Gault for a permanent, passive weapon accuracy of 6%, or Salana for the Wingman skill (select her as copilot), which gives a 20% accuracy buff for 20 seconds.

 

Aim good, but want range? Try Quad Lasers or Heavy Lasers, depending on the ship, for 5000m and 6000m, respectively. (Range Capacitor will boost these to 5750m and 6900m, giving near maximum missile range on lasers.)

 

Love the sound of pew pew? Try Rapid Fire Lasers with the Frequency Capacitor and Blaster Overcharge (with Increased Rate of Fire upgrade) for a what is known as "The Hose". (I have not tried this with Light Lasers yet, but the power drain on those would be very high. Not sure if there would be more DPS on that setup to compensate, but will test, eventually.)

 

And Your Crew

Never underestimate the passive buffs of crew members that will compensate for ships that are poor in certain areas, or where you need help most, like aim. The Minor Components are where I upgrade first to make the ship behave the way I want, for example, better turn rate on the sluggish Strikers.

 

Attacking a Gunship

Approach in a way where the target cannot see you until you are at their six and they are otherwise engaged with other targets. (If there is cover between you and target, fly behind it in a large circle, but if no cover, fly very far above, or below target.) When at less than 3000m from target, pop any offense boost, like Blaster Overcharge, or Targeting Telemetry, and fire lasers until target is space dust. If they were surprised, this may immediately result in a kill, and if not, they are at least wounded and running. Do not use missiles, except rocket pods, as the alert will scare them off, whereas lasers will provide a stealth kill.

 

Defending a Satellite

Practice until you are able to rotate effortlessly around, and even between the fins (yes, you can fly at least a scout through that narrow separation), which will kill the odd chaser if they are not careful. If alone, as stated above, keep F2 on to keep the shields at max, but try to obtain an opportunity to take the attacker out and switch to F1. If more than one enemy, you may last long enough for allies to take over, or you may kill them all. Way to go, ace!

 

Teamwork

Help your allies if you see them alone at a satellite and being attacked, or between objectives and being swarmed. Try to kill any attackers chasing your team's gunship, and as mentioned already, do not linger in the open unless forced to. The two maps available are only domination, so its pretty clear where to be. If you played well, you will have the most medals, even if you did not hunt enemies.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Vadua

[-KeggER-]

Love the sound of pew pew? Try Rapid Fire Lasers with the Frequency Capacitor and Blaster Overcharge (with Increased Rate of Fire upgrade) for a what is known as the "hose".

 

It's "THE HOSE"! AKA "Laser Bukakke"

 

So OP'd

[Kain_Turinbar]

Here are some suggestions:

 

 

Aim good, but want range? Try Quad Lasers or Heavy Lasers, depending on the ship, for 5000m and 6000m, respectively. (Range Capacitor will boost these to 5500m and 6600m, giving near maximum missile range on lasers.)

 

.

 

My range capacitor max'd heavies are 6900m. Love that combo but the secondary upgrades are so cheap to max I'm thinking about maxing the damage output and losing some of that range to see how I like that.

[Vadua]

My range capacitor max'd heavies are 6900m. Love that combo but the secondary upgrades are so cheap to max I'm thinking about maxing the damage output and losing some of that range to see how I like that.

 

Thanks. Corrected my post.

[CloudCastle]

The guy who met me at the spawn point got blasted to pieces by the capitol ship, so at least he got some payback.

 

I'm trying to collect tips and see if I can get any better. I'm still not sure what ship I want to attach myself to yet either. That makes it hard because I'm trying to learn 3 ships at once and remember all their abilities.

[Vadua]

The guy who met me at the spawn point got blasted to pieces by the capitol ship, so at least he got some payback.

 

I'm trying to collect tips and see if I can get any better. I'm still not sure what ship I want to attach myself to yet either. That makes it hard because I'm trying to learn 3 ships at once and remember all their abilities.

 

Here's a quick note on each ship type:

 

You love close dogfights: Sting/Flashfire - Best lasers and 3,000m range

You love white knuckle close dogfights: Blackbolt/Novadive - Moderate lasers and 3,000m range

You love missiles: *Quell/Pike - Best missile capacity (2 choices to switch in fights) and 7,000m range (proton torpedoes are 10k, but meh)

You love ranged dogfights: *Rycer/Starguard - Best laser capacity (2 choices to switch in fights) and 7,000m range

You love to snipe: Mangler/Quarrel - Best one or two shot skill in Rail Shot and 15,000m range

You can't fly worth a damn: Any bomber - Best team support (node protection) with mines or drones

You like to be a sitting duck: Dustmaker/Comet Breaker

 

* On the strikers, you may not get Burst Lasers, but Quad Lasers are pretty good and have better range at 5000m. The accuracy also does not diminish as much as it does for Burst Lasers, which drop sharply even at middle range, so they are a more consistent weapon.

[CloudCastle]

Well, unfortunately tonight I just had the worst experience in GSF that I have ever had in my month of playing.

 

I knew things were going to be bad when I arrived and saw that my team was made up of almost all people with the two default ships only and the enemy team had people with 4 and 5 ships each. As you can imagine it was a slaughter. The next game was even worse. I arrived to a game already in progress (is this normal?) where the enemy had over 700 points and my team had 4. I'm not sure I got any hits in because I was killed before I could even reach any of the satellites.

 

Is it possible for the third game was even worse? Why yes it was. By this point, the enemy team (all the same people I could see) had decided to simply hover in groups around the capitol ship killing off my entire team over and over before we could even reach an objective point.

 

In all three games we never once captured a satellite.

 

I don't know guys. That sort of game play just isn't fun. Think I'll be taking a break from this for a while.

[Ramalina]

As a combat flight sim fan, and rather an old hand at them, I'm going to point out to any new GSF pilots that those who have discounted the importance of teamwork simply do not know what they're talking about, no matter how good their personal piloting skills are. Ships flying as teams do not scale in a linear additive manner. Meaning a team of two really terrible players should be able to handle two mediocre solo pilots with relative ease, provided they support each other when flying against the more dangerous opponents. The more geared and practiced you get the more this scales. Any combo of ships works as long as you stay close enough to support each other. Personally I'd recommend a 4 ship group, that seems to be the best balance between mutual support and having your side as a whole be able to respond to events across the map, but as long as you're not flying alone you can be flexible with flight size.

 

Of course having said this, a good question is, "what does close enough to support mean?" It means not more than a second or two of maneuvering to be able to threaten someone threatening your wing. Max weapons range +4 km might be a decent approximation assuming you have enough fuel to boost for two or more seconds. Advanced pilots can start bending the rules a bit in some situations and still not loose the benefit of team flying, for example with a scout plus gunship team the scout might be at max weapons range +12 km.

 

Flying as a team maybe doubles or triples your effectiveness, flying as a team with voice communications will easily double that.

 

I'd recommend trying to form groups to queue for GSF with. Get in chat, offer people the chance to join your group, recruiting may be easier if you point out that the queues often pop faster for groups than for solo queues. having a VIOP server of some sort your group can use is a bonus, but not a requirement. Be friendly and chat with the people in your group. MMO players typically have terrible in game teamwork and communications skills by combat flight sim squadron standards, and I'm including competitive PvP teams and progression raiders in that assessment. The first step is usually convincing your group members that they like each other enough to WANT to work as a team. Getting from there to the point where your wingman knows that if your shields are at 50% both of you need to bug out so that you can recharge your shields, even though your wingman could finish off that annoying enemy with just one more shot, well that's a very long road in an MMO population, but every step helps.

 

Someone who won't give up a kill to cover a wing's retreat is a crappy team flyer, but be optimistic, be friendly, help your teammates have fun moving in to that truly vast room for improvement that they probably have ready and waiting. If you eventually manage to build a team where everyone flies on the principle, "the most important person on the team is my wing," you should be routinely crushing all opposition in GSF, or if the other team is doing the same, at least holding your own against them.

 

A point that I think got skipped in earlier posts is a detail about resource management. You are not out of fuel and shields when your fuel and shields are at 0%. You are out of fuel and shields when your fuel and shields are 50%.

If your resources are depleted to the point where you can't maneuver long enough to replenish them, then you're basically dead. That means that you need to start working on replenishing resources before you run out of the resources you need to replenish your resources. You need time to regen, and in GSF shields and fuel are what you need to buy time. Fifty percent isn't a hard rule, but the more your resources are depleted the more likely you are to be killed before you have a chance to regenerate them.

 

It could also be said that if you are flying within 15 km of a gunship with a fully upgraded ion cannon you have zero resources. Dealing with that is sort of an advanced topic. For beginners, just try to keep something solid like an asteroid or satellite between you and any gunships.

 

It's been mentioned in other threads, but in terms of surviving the upgrades you want are ones that improve speed(engine power is the best speed improvement), shields, and turning ability. Defensive cooldowns are also a good buy in terms of survivability. At the high end skill and teamwork are the primary determinants of survival, but for a beginner tired of respawning survival related gear upgrades can make a huge difference.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Ramalina