Easing the learning curve : Ace Campaign

[Marstrike]

Yeah from my own experiences on the server i play on it is quite one sided towards the reps and i often see these kind of objective scores at the end.

 

I played once against some kind of "legendary" (or so i'm told) pilot on the rep side, i was using the onslaught stock bomber at the time trying to clear an objective and learn the bomber. He was using a novadive scout and the two times he did kill me was by probing my ship to almost a stand still and bursting me down with T5 weapons. The rest of his "friends" were guarding the other 2 nodes which they also had.

 

I think i got to about 15 games before i saw even a close match and then eventually a win but before that i did consider quiting GSF all together due to the clear VOIP co-ordination on rep side with their bomber protection and GS placements but also the fact that a lot of the time us imps had 4-6 stock ship players (the starting 2) and the rep's would often have mostly 4-5. The ground pvp is not so different and its clear to see people either rerolled and/or just pvp on rep for the easy wins. Go figure.

 

I transfered to this server for the population as the server i was on from 1.2 (ToFN) was PvP, but pop getting low. The balance was also in favor of rep's (which i played at the time) slightly there too. I got one more server to try which is RP in the EU in hopes i finding fair and balanced pug PvP and im out of options.

 

VOIP and pre-made's are a seperate issue in GSF as there is no ranked. One thing i don't get though is how people say it isn't an advantage.

[tommmsunb]

Yeah from my own experiences on the server i play on it is quite one sided towards the reps and i often see these kind of objective scores at the end.

 

I played once against some kind of "legendary" (or so i'm told) pilot on the rep side, i was using the onslaught stock bomber at the time trying to clear an objective and learn the bomber. He was using a novadive scout and the two times he did kill me was by probing my ship to almost a stand still and bursting me down with T5 weapons. The rest of his "friends" were guarding the other 2 nodes which they also had.

 

I think i got to about 15 games before i saw even a close match and then eventually a win but before that i did consider quiting GSF all together due to the clear VOIP co-ordination on rep side with their bomber protection and GS placements but also the fact that a lot of the time us imps had 4-6 stock ship players (the starting 2) and the rep's would often have mostly 4-5. The ground pvp is not so different and its clear to see people either rerolled and/or just pvp on rep for the easy wins. Go figure.

 

I transfered to this server for the population as the server i was on from 1.2 (ToFN) was PvP, but pop getting low. The balance was also in favor of rep's (which i played at the time) slightly there too. I got one more server to try which is RP in the EU in hopes i finding fair and balanced pug PvP and im out of options.

 

VOIP and pre-made's are a seperate issue in GSF as there is no ranked. One thing i don't get though is how people say it isn't an advantage.

 

Nobody is saying it isn't an advantage, it's an advantage that you can easily get yourself though, even with freeware like skype, skype lets you have 4-way calls. Hell, raidcall works.

 

Personally, I never game with friends without VOIP, and I'll often hang out in VOIP even if I'm not gaming.

Edited May 6, 2014 by tommmsunb

[Marstrike]

Yeah i fully agree. I shouldn't derail this thread any further too.

 

Maybe you guys could post some builds

[Verain]

Maybe you guys could post some builds

 

Builds like crazy in the stasiependium:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

[SammyGStatus]

Ya this isn't meant to be a strictly forum thing. It was more intended to be like having a physical trainer working out with you instead of reading how the machine you're working out on operates. This way, through live demonstration and practice with prebriefings and post briefings / records, we'll be able to assess gameplay and tailor strategies to an individual's playstyle as opposed to using a generic cookie cutter one. We'd still need to start with a registration to even see how many people would be interested, meaning advertising on /gsf before anything even took off (We'll also need a cutoff date for registrations, then give it a few days maybe until the actual lessons occured)

 

ALSO, this game would be nowhere near as fun without everyone in our guild just being online and goofing off with each other. Give it a try - we don't really try-hard either (not like excessive focusing or even name calling.... it's just nice having funny people who enjoy playing together). This simple aspect is game changing. In an MMO, you actually feel like there are other people

Edited May 6, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[tommmsunb]

All of our builds are pretty well known and documented. But I'll give a few examples of neat tricks that I use that I don't think I've heard of other people using as much, at least I haven't seen many other scout pilots do them.

 

First off I'll post my build

 

Quads, I take the crit upgrade and shield damage, shield damage because typically you find that ships will have more shield hitpoints than hull.

 

Cluster missiles, I take range and the DoT, because I fly with a good number of clarion pilots and I can just ask for ammo, so the extra 4 doesn't make much of a difference

Blaster overcharge with rate of fire and damage bonusses.

Distortion field for the extra missile break,

Retro thrust with engine power choice because engine is great

Lightweight armor,

Damage Cap because of energy efficiency

Large reactor so I can take slug hits easier.

Regeneration thrusters for sustainability.

Concentrated fire crew skill.

 

Everybody's seen the reasoning behind this build ad nauseum so I won't bore you further with a rationale so instead I'll talk about a few of my tricks.

I'll start in order of easiness to perform.

 

- First off, easy easy trick, if you're having trouble aiming, turn your mouse sensitivity way down, and work your way up into a comfortable zone. You should be able to eventually get a 40%+ accuracy rating.

 

- Try to always move with LoS in mind, open spaces are your death because if you run out of engine energy you're a sitting duck, you also have the high chance of being hit by ion rail which is the equivalent of being a sitting duck.

 

- When being targetted by multiple gunships from different angles, wait around a second and a half and turn yourself perpindicular to your current trajectory, hit retro thrust (assuming you have the space.) this will force at least one of the gunships to waste their shots. resume your previous trajectory at another angle.

(Think of a right angle triangle, you'd hit retrothrust and the trajectory at the height of that line to your target would be the hypotenuse, pick something as close as you can to that hypotenuse.) Also, if you can't kill your target before you get to it, don't stop boosting, boost past it at least so they have to rotate in order to take another shot.

 

- When attacking a bomber, you can come in within 500m and you'll dodge most of their mines, it's hard to maintain so you may still get hit. If that fails, come in from the bottom of the bomber, if they're turning to face you, that's fine too because for the most part you should be able to dodge most of their shots with a future trick I'll tell you.

 

- When attacking a bomber, you can target the bomber, and shoot at its mines/drones, but hold down your missile lock so that you're still DPSing the bomber but clearing those pesky mines/drones. This also works with other ships and defense turrets, but I find I use it more against bombers. The only trick is keeping them both in your firing arc.

 

- When attacking gunships, try to spook them into using their barrel roll/dfield by locking missiles without actually firing them. If they know you do this, change it up once in awhile

 

- When people are hiding underneath nodes, bombers or otherwise, fly 10k below the nodes and line yourself up, pop all cooldowns, and if they hit their damage mitigation just ignore them for the time being, keep in mind that cooldown but you have better things to do and really they just delayed their death. That'll deal with those pesky "exploiter" bombers. (People call them exploiters, I call them food. Potato, potahto you know.)

 

- This is probably the hardest part to maintain, some people call it meta-gaming but really it's just following an old saying, "Straight means late." late meaning dead and straight referring to flying straight. When you're jousting, try to get as close to 87 degrees to your target as possible, not only does it look like the leading reticule is staying still but it also tricks peoples eyes into thinking you're not moving laterally at all, so they end up shooting where you just were but never where you are. Of course it fails when they overshoot you and you still do get hit, but you get hit a lot less than you would otherwise. I'd like to stress that this is really really advanced and will take an absurd amount of practice to perfect, but you certainly won't die anywhere near as much.

 

I still have quite a few more tricks up my sleeve and a good magician doesn't reveal all of his tricks you know, but if you're really interested in learning more send me a PM or message me in-game.

 

 

P.S. Yes straight means late follows an old tradition of WWII pilots who would link all of their piloting tricks to homosexuality in some way, hardy har har, history n stuff.

Edited May 6, 2014 by tommmsunb

[Kuciwalker]

- When attacking gunships, try to spook them into using their barrel roll/dfield by locking missiles without actually firing them. If they know you do this, change it up once in awhile

 

This doesn't/shouldn't work. Lock breaks should (almost) never be used until the missile is actually launched.

[tommmsunb]

This doesn't/shouldn't work. Lock breaks should (almost) never be used until the missile is actually launched.

 

Keyword is shouldn't not everybody is you Alex

[SammyGStatus]

He's not wrong though - never missile break early. That's just asking to get blown up. People may get a little spooked by the sound of the missile lock, but ultimately until you hear it actually get the lock, you don't pop a break

 

Hopefully your (tom) advice will help the newer / medium experience scout pilots with how to handle some of the issues they're having.

Edited May 6, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[DamascusAdontise]

I have found most gunships will not move until literally forced to by crippling damage. After you have killed them once or twice then the fakeout can work, good gunship pilots will stay calm though and fire / evade / fire / evade and be a general nuisance.

 

Saving missile breaks until missile is in air is good advice, I try to use my "break" abilities only when necessary. I still use BR to evade or DF as a stopgap to incoming damage sometimes, but you really have to weigh the situation.

[tommmsunb]

I have found most gunships will not move until literally forced to by crippling damage. After you have killed them once or twice then the fakeout can work, good gunship pilots will stay calm though and fire / evade / fire / evade and be a general nuisance.

 

Saving missile breaks until missile is in air is good advice, I try to use my "break" abilities only when necessary. I still use BR to evade or DF as a stopgap to incoming damage sometimes, but you really have to weigh the situation.

 

truth be told most gunships don't move before they die, I've noticed that since the BR change people seem to favour that one last shot over trying to survive.

[Nemarus]

- This is probably the hardest part to maintain, some people call it meta-gaming but really it's just following an old saying, "Straight means late." late meaning dead and straight referring to flying straight. When you're jousting, try to get as close to 87 degrees to your target as possible, not only does it look like the leading reticule is staying still but it also tricks peoples eyes into thinking you're not moving laterally at all, so they end up shooting where you just were but never where you are. Of course it fails when they overshoot you and you still do get hit, but you get hit a lot less than you would otherwise. I'd like to stress that this is really really advanced and will take an absurd amount of practice to perfect, but you certainly won't die anywhere near as much.

 

P.S. Yes straight means late follows an old tradition of WWII pilots who would link all of their piloting tricks to homosexuality in some way, hardy har har, history n stuff.

 

I'm not sure this works exactly like you think this does.

 

First thing to know is that all ships and lasers in GSF are illusions. There is no collision detection between moving objects. There is no collision checking between a laser you fire and whether it collides with a ship. It's all about your reticle, the lead indicator, and Accuracy vs. Evasion.

 

When you shoot lasers, here's what happens:

 

1) Your own machine asks the question: when you pressed the left mouse button, was your reticle over the lead indicator of your target?

 

2) If not, you miss. If yes, then is random(100) <= (your Accuracy - target Evasion)?

 

3) If not, you miss. If so, you deal damage.

 

This check is done before the animation of your lasers even plays. That is why sometimes you'll see damage flytext over a target before your lasers even reach that target.

 

Now I'm not denying your "87 degrees maneuver" works. But I think it only works because of the crappy UI of GSF. If I fly straight at you, then my ship (and the targeting brackets around it) aligns perfectly with the lead indicator. You have just one bit of UI to shoot at. Looks something like this [(o)]

 

However, if you fly at me slightly askew, that means your lead indicator is slightly misaligned with the targeting brackets. That means there are now two bits of UI to shoot at--one overlapping with your ship model (an illusion) and the lead indicator. Most people will go for the targeting bracket / ship model, without realizing that the lead indicator is a few pixels off center from it.

 

If the lead indicator was much brighter and more prominent, your trick probably wouldn't work as well. But either way, kudos for using it so well

 

An interesting sidenote: because you are only ever aiming for the lead indicator, if you are trying to be evasive, your focus should be on making the lead indicator dance as wildly as possible--even if your ship itself isn't moving or changing course that much. Simply pitching up and down rapidly , or slowing down and speeding up, will do this--your ship will hold a relatively level course (and in real life would be an easy target), but your lead indicator will flit all over the place and be very hard to track with lasers.

 

Of course, this will make you more vulnerable to missiles and railguns, since their lead indicator always overlaps exactly with the target and are unaffected by speed or direction of flight.

 

Speaking of missiles, note that unlike laser/railgun checks (which happen on your machine at the time you shoot), missiles are much more complicated, requiring several confirmation checks with the server--the reason for this is that, because missiles require time to lock and reach their target (unlike lasers and railguns which are both instant), the target has a window of opportunity to break the missile.

 

Since missiles require checks against the server, they are far more prone to being disrupted by lag (which is why your missile lock seems to break for no reason a lot of the time, especially if the target is near the outside of the firing arc).

Edited May 6, 2014 by Nemarus

[tommmsunb]

I'm not sure this works exactly like you think this does.

 

First thing to know is that all ships and lasers in GSF are illusions. There is no collision detection between moving objects. There is no collision checking between a laser you fire and whether it collides with a ship. It's all about your reticle, the lead indicator, and Accuracy vs. Evasion.

 

When you shoot lasers, here's what happens:

 

1) Your own machine asks the question: when you pressed the left mouse button, was your reticle over the lead indicator of your target?

 

2) If not, you miss. If yes, then is random(100) >= (your Accuracy - target Evasion)?

 

3) If not, you miss. If so, you deal damage.

 

This check is done before the animation of your lasers even plays. That is why sometimes you'll see damage flytext over a target before your lasers even reach that target.

 

Now I'm not denying your "87 degrees maneuver" works. But I think it only works because of the crappy UI of GSF. If I fly straight at you, then my ship (and the targeting brackets around it) aligns perfectly with the lead indicator. You have just one bit of UI to shoot at. Looks something like this [(o)]

 

However, if you fly at me slightly askew, that means your lead indicator is slightly misaligned with the targeting brackets. That means there are now two bits of UI to shoot at--one overlapping with your ship model (an illusion) and the lead indicator. Most people will go for the targeting bracket / ship model, without realizing that the lead indicator is a few pixels off center from it.

 

If the lead indicator was much brighter and more prominent, your trick probably wouldn't work as well. But either way, kudos for using it so well

 

An interesting sidenote: because you are only ever aiming for the lead indicator, if you are trying to be evasive, your focus should be on making the lead indicator dance as wildly as possible--even if your ship itself isn't moving or changing course that much. Simply pitching up and down rapidly , or slowing down and speeding up, will do this--your ship will hold a relatively level course (and in real life would be an easy target), but your lead indicator will flit all over the place and be very hard to track with lasers.

 

Of course, this will make you more vulnerable to missiles and railguns, since their lead indicator always overlaps exactly with the target and are unaffected by speed or direction of flight.

 

Speaking of missiles, note that unlike laser/railgun checks (which happen on your machine at the time you shoot), missiles are much more complicated, requiring several confirmation checks with the server--the reason for this is that, because missiles require time to lock and reach their target (unlike lasers and railguns which are both instant), the target has a window of opportunity to break the missile.

 

Since missiles require checks against the server, they are far more prone to being disrupted by lag (which is why your missile lock seems to break for no reason a lot of the time, especially if the target is near the outside of the firing arc).

 

I am aware of the background UI business going on, I'm also aware that people often overcompensate for tracking the leading reticule, thats another reason why minuscule differences do indeed work.

[Sidenti]

This doesn't/shouldn't work. Lock breaks should (almost) never be used until the missile is actually launched.

 

You'd be surprised at how many people bolt as soon as lock is even attempted.

[Kalphitis]

First thing to know is that all ships and lasers in GSF are illusions. There is no collision detection between moving objects. There is no collision checking between a laser you fire and whether it collides with a ship. It's all about your reticle, the lead indicator, and Accuracy vs. Evasion.

 

This is only valid for long distances, or short distances when the target is 'in-line' with you.

 

There is another post that discusses how the lead indicator does not work in short distance scenarios. In those scenarios, I find that it is best to look at where your lasers are firing, and move your aim to make their 'collision' line up with the enemy ship. I have more luck with that then relying on the lead indicator, when the enemy is very close (such as orbiting a satellite).

 

So I would not be that quick to discount ships/lasers...

[admpellaeon]

 

- First off, easy easy trick, if you're having trouble aiming, turn your mouse sensitivity way down, and work your way up into a comfortable zone. You should be able to eventually get a 40%+ accuracy rating.

 

How exactly do you do decrease mouse sensitivity. As warzones get increasingly boring I have convinced a couple of my pvp friends to try out GSF for our imp killing fix. Problem is on top of just learning how to fly around they seem unable to consistently land a shot (>5% accuracy). Their biggest problem seems to be the target for their lasers moves too fast.

[Sidenti]

You can do a lot better than turrets without a big investment of effort. Seriously, every single claim of "this is sooooo hard" is disproven by the fact that we've been making space fighter games for decades.

 

Right. Dedicated games with dedicated teams and dedicated budgets. X Series, Freelancer (to an extent), Wing Commander - all fantastic games with strong design.

 

SWTOR is none of those things. It's a game in ongoing development, which means roadmaps can and do change.

 

Bioware doesn't have an entire company working on this facet of the game. They have a small part of the workforce on it, and I suspect some (if not all) of that small part also have to do other things.

 

If we were talking about a game dedicated to space combat, it'd be a different story (and probably a non-issue). But we're not. -bp

[Nemarus]

This is only valid for long distances, or short distances when the target is 'in-line' with you.

 

There is another post that discusses how the lead indicator does not work in short distance scenarios. In those scenarios, I find that it is best to look at where your lasers are firing, and move your aim to make their 'collision' line up with the enemy ship. I have more luck with that then relying on the lead indicator, when the enemy is very close (such as orbiting a satellite).

 

So I would not be that quick to discount ships/lasers...

 

I think that's an issue with the lead indicator getting "bigger" when you are closer, but the actual "hittable" area of the lead indicator doesn't grow at the same rate.

[JeepWithGuy]

Yeah i fully agree. I shouldn't derail this thread any further too.

 

Maybe you guys could post some builds

 

I have builds for almost every ship (No Rycer/Starguard or Cometbreaker/Dustmaker) on my website. These are the builds we use ourselves. There are also tips, strategies, and other stuff there to help as well. When I learn something that helps me, I put it there. Link is in my signature.

 

How exactly do you do decrease mouse sensitivity. As warzones get increasingly boring I have convinced a couple of my pvp friends to try out GSF for our imp killing fix. Problem is on top of just learning how to fly around they seem unable to consistently land a shot (>5% accuracy). Their biggest problem seems to be the target for their lasers moves too fast.

 

Mouse sensitivity is adjusted through your mouse software. Razer synapse for Razers, Logitech has its own - you generally find it in the box by your clock (The name escapes me ATM). Try setting it around 1200 and go up/down from there.

[Ryuku-sama]

How exactly do you do decrease mouse sensitivity. As warzones get increasingly boring I have convinced a couple of my pvp friends to try out GSF for our imp killing fix. Problem is on top of just learning how to fly around they seem unable to consistently land a shot (>5% accuracy). Their biggest problem seems to be the target for their lasers moves too fast.

 

you have to change it in your computer.... not in game

[tommmsunb]

you have to change it in your computer.... not in game

 

Some mice can do it on the fly with pre-sets.

[Ryuku-sama]

Hey Rumina!!

[tommmsunb]

Hey Rumina!!

 

ohiderr

[Ryuku-sama]

ohiderr

 

Aa'ri If you were wondering

[tommmsunb]

Aa'ri If you were wondering

 

I know