A request to ace pilots

[ThutmoseV]

I don't get 25 - 0 scores, but I hold my own. I do use different ships depending on how difficult the match looks. My ship effectiveness in most situations from high to low is: gunship, bomber, scout, strike fighter. So for matches where is looks like we badly overmatch the opposition, I'll fly strike fighter. If it looks like we have an edge, but will have to work at it, I'll use t2 scout. Matches that look even or the opposition has the edge I'll fly gunship for TDM, bomber for domination. If it looks like we are badly overmatched, it will be gunship.

 

My guesses of the relative strengths of the teams is not always right, and some opposing teams make it more difficult for a particular ship type, but that makes it more interesting.

[MiaowZedong]

Not really. With anything but BLC, you need to keep a constant stream to do damage.. So firing at high deflection keeps you from turning fast enough to center your target. It may not be a very high penality against bads.. But against good opponents with maxed ships it can make or break a fight. Sure on the other hand, high deflection shot may also be your only chance to damage the opponent... In the end all of this is mostly situationnal. Then you have Quads and their heavy cost if they miss. And finally railguns and rockets.

The problem is, the closer to the edge of your arc you are, the faster you turn but also the more tracking penalties you suffer. It follows that either the gain in turn rate is minor, or the tracking penalties you suffer are fairly small. Even against a scout and their infamous passive evasion, the gain for perfectly centered versus middle of the arc will not compensate you, in expected damage, for shots not taken on a 1:1 basis, which means you would need to keep the target centered for an unreasonably long period of time for it to be worthwhile in many cases, especially if he is near an obstacle he could use to break line of sight.

 

This is not to say that it's always a bad idea to hold your fire while trying to center the target, this obviously varies with weapon, target and situation, but in the general case it is definitely not the optimum behaviour against an opponent aware of your presence. Against an unaware opponent it is much more often ideal, since you want to maximise the damage inflicted in the short window of time before the target starts trying to evade.

 

Basically what I'm saying is that moving your cursor past the lead indicator in an effort to centre your shot is something that you have to consider, but not something that should be done systematically. Personally I find it works best on bombers, ironically because they have little evasion so the increased expected damage per shot is small. However, they are slow and have many HP, so firing times tend to be longer, and for Quads power management can actually be a concern.

Edited January 3, 2015 by MiaowZedong

[tunewalker]

Honestly 36% is not a bad accuracy depending on opponents and weapon types that you are using. If you fire nothing when the guy is 5 Degrees off center your chance of hitting is 0.... You didnt fire. But if you have 110% accuracy at that range with 1.5% penalty and your enemy has 33% evasion. You at least now have a 69.5% chance hit, well above 50%. So nothing wrong there. Is it expected that some times you take even higher deflection shots on a low health target to see if you can get that enemy dead... ya.

 

And even sometimes dead center... Scout pops all evasion and ends up around the 80-90% evasion mark, at max range some weapons only have around 96% accuracy so getting low accuracy there is a no brainer, and lag between servers and the like.... well basically you all get the gist...

 

depending on what the enemy is flying and what weapon type you have 36% is good. If the rest of the team is looking at around 15-20% then you did good. Dont look at the enemy teams accuracy as what they were fighting against isnt always the same. So comparing yourself to your opposition by using accuracy is often a waste of time.

[tommmsunb]

 

depending on what the enemy is flying and what weapon type you have 36% is good. If the rest of the team is looking at around 15-20% then you did good. Dont look at the enemy teams accuracy as what they were fighting against isnt always the same. So comparing yourself to your opposition by using accuracy is often a waste of time.

 

Never gauge yourself based on the rest of the team, the rest of the team 9/10 are doing absolutely horribly and should not be looked at as an example.

[Ryuku-sama]

Never gauge yourself based on the rest of the team, the rest of the team 9/10 are doing absolutely horribly and should not be looked at as an example.

 

This. Gauge yourself based on what you did yesterday. Then do better.

[DakhathKilrathi]

Having 37% accuracy isn't holding back much.. It's wasting your shots. It's wasting your energy.

 

Flying support for newbies is one thing, shooting completely beside the target is another. Considering I feel I'm not shooting straight the moment I go 5-7% under my averages, I can only imagine what it feels to shoot that innaccurately willingly. Are you trying to only shoot at very high deflection?? Or just not shooting on the target hoping they will learn how to go evasive??

 

I wasn't aware I needed to explain away 37% accuracy, but here goes! A few times that match, when I saw someone coming, I'd fire at them well before they got there (we were parked on a mesa) to see if they were smart enough to back off or change their angle of approach or SOMETHING. Anything but fly right into the obvious weapon fire.

 

...most weren't. They were so new that they didn't have enough sense not to fly into my quads. I like to hope that maybe, just maybe, they learned something from the experience. I also made it a point to tell them in /say to go attack the sats instead. They didn't really listen.

 

I stand by that match. That was the most fun we had that entire night. Most nights, if Evgeni is playing, he and I dominate pretty damned hard on TEH. It's not much fun to have the exact same scenario play out repeatedly. We weren't having much fun by the time that match rolled around, so we asked our team to let the other team three cap early. They weren't willing to do that, so we sat out until the other team got a lead.

 

It took them so long to do that, even against half of a team, that the match went to time. And you know what? They learned a lot more from it than they would have if we had walked all over them.

Edited January 3, 2015 by DakhathKilrathi

[Armonddd]

While I will definitely try out unorthodox or lesser ships/builds/components in less competitive games, I definitely feel no motivation to dial anything down, or "go easy" on anyone. That's just silly. It's a PvP game.

 

Have you never had a girlfriend or boyfriend that was worse than you at something you shared an interest in? You're pretty skilled at things, so I would expect that to have happened.

 

Never gauge yourself based on the rest of the team, the rest of the team 9/10 are doing absolutely horribly and should not be looked at as an example.

 

This. Gauge yourself based on what you did yesterday. Then do better.

 

You should always be comparing yourself to yesterday, but by definition the average player isn't terrible and looking at the scoreboard is a good way to ground yourself.

[Fractalsponge]

Sometimes the better pilots do go easy. It looks like this.

 

We have no idea what this is supposed to mean - if you need to explain that you were holding back, then hey, it's not obvious! The screenshot alone could easily be one of two horrible teams unable to kill each other for an entire match, rather than one team showing the supreme restraint that is being claimed.

[Ryuku-sama]

You should always be comparing yourself to yesterday, but by definition the average player isn't terrible and looking at the scoreboard is a good way to ground yourself.

 

Eh?? By definition the median player is so dumb he can't fire straight. Do I have to explain why I used median instead of mean? And what it means???

[CrazyOldMystic]

It has little to do with Ace pilots it may feel that way but I doubt it. Right now gunships can shoot and disable a system on your ship at extreme range, right now they can shoot and disable your boosters at extreme range, and they can shoot and hit you for high damage at extreme range. These gunships in the right hands tare up new pilots and veteran pilots alike, unless the veteran pilot switches to a gunship. To me thats not fun being force to fly something else because a certain ship dominates any gsf match if there is enough of them. The first several matches I thought it was bombers tear me up from range, but then I realized it was those dang gunships. They are extremely annoying and will ruin any match when used in quantity. My point op it may not be the pilots, which you think it is, rather its probably a gunship thats been picking your team off like sitting ducks. Almost forgot up top of those three weapons I mentioned they can also shoot torpedos, and have blaster fire. So what I am saying dont be so quick to assume its something. I know I did, and I was wrong.

[Fractalsponge]

Can we have one thread that is not inevitably shat up with gunship QQ? Just one *********** thread?

[Delta_V]

Can we have one thread that is not inevitably shat up with gunship QQ? Just one *********** thread?

 

Seriously. I hate gunship spam, not because it's overpowered, but because it causes gameplay to degenerate into a tedious, boring mess. But I get sick of people claiming gunships can magically make people better.

 

Just today, I was flying my Rampart (as much as I find them mind-numbingly boring, nobody else on my team had a bomber on their bars) in a Domination match and we secured the win pretty early in the match. I proceeded to screw around and have some fun by chasing down Gunships in a bomber and killing them with Heavy Lasers. I ended that match with 25 kills. In a Bomber. Chasing Gunships. Yeah. Bad pilots will be bad regardless of which ship you give them, and good pilots will beat them no matter which ship they fly.

[Armonddd]

Eh?? By definition the median player is so dumb he can't fire straight. Do I have to explain why I used median instead of mean? And what it means???

 

That's actually not part of the definition of median player (or even just median) at all. But ok.

 

I was referring to the bell curve of player skill. Not sure what you were referring to.

 

Also, there's definitely a tendency on these forums for half decent experienced players to assume that the skills they've worked hard on are basic skills that every player should have after a week (or less) of play.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Armonddd

[Ryuku-sama]

That's actually not part of the definition of median at all. But ok.

 

I was referring to the bell curve of player skill. Not sure what you were referring to.

 

Also, there's definitely a tendency on these forums for half decent experienced players to assume that the skills they've worked hard on are basic skills that every player should have after a week (or less) of play.

 

Problem is player skill isn't a Gauss curve. We don't have a huge majority at decent level. We have about 50-60 decents pilots on a server that can be ever considered decent. There is maybe half of them that can be threat for a me. Then about 10 that can reliably kick my ***.... But on the other side.. The curve doesn't look the same. In fact there is way more pilots that sucks than those that are decent. Way more.

 

Median is the best way to assert how a mean is reliable. Count the nuber of pilot you can say they are at your level or better. Than count the nuber of pilots that are still good enough to need to be dealth with. THan count the nuber of bads. Do it on about 200 matches. You won,t end up with a Gauss curve.. You will end up with a rather steep curve where you have far mor bads than you have decent players.

[Armonddd]

Median is the best way to assert how a mean is reliable. Count the nuber of pilot you can say they are at your level or better. Than count the nuber of pilots that are still good enough to need to be dealth with. THan count the nuber of bads. Do it on about 200 matches. You won,t end up with a Gauss curve.. You will end up with a rather steep curve where you have far mor bads than you have decent players.

 

This is a laughably terrible way to do your statistics.

 

There are three players on my server that are a real threat to me. There are a few dozen players that I need to pay attention to. I don't even know how many just blow up when I decide to kill them.

 

The fact that I'm one of the best on my server in no way invalidates the skill of those below me.

[CrazyOldMystic]

Instead of raging you might try reading the post next time. I said in the RIGHT HANDS, meaning it is not a I win ship, but it is op if the pilot knows what he is doing. Yes I fly a bomber and yes I have chased down gunship pilots who did not know what they are doing. This does NOT work the gunship pilots who are using a mixture of damage at extreme range, and disabling a ships boosters at extreme range. Once you boosters are disabled on a bomber you have no chance of getting to the gunship before he blows your arse out of the sky. Bombers especially a mine layer does not have the speed to make up for having its boosters disabled.

[Linuxizer]

There are many matches, however, in which one super-ace pilot completely dominates. To these guys I humbly ask, "dial it down" a bit. What's being gained by your 25-0 K/D? Certainly not anyone's fun. Certainly not your teammates' and opponents' skill levels. And certainly not the long-term health of GSF.

 

I hate to break this to you, but one player getting 25 kills against newer players may just be a middle-level player. The super-ace gets 25 kills against middle-level players. The skill gap is even bigger than you think.

 

And when I get pummelled by super-aces for several matches, then the next match I am surrounded by newer players... don't expect me to hold back. Sorry, that's just what happens when they throw all players in the same queue.

 

My advice? If you can't beat them, join them! You must have alts in both factions, right?

[Archonitek]

it is op if the pilot knows what he is doing.

 

Any ship in the right hands becomes op. So if you find gunships giving you a hard time, make a gunship killer, improve your spatial awareness, cycle targets to make sure your out of gunship range. Get in and out quick to harass if you can't out right kill them, get them to move and negate their most immediate advantage.

 

Bombers especially a mine layer does not have the speed to make up for having its boosters disabled.

 

Why are you trying to chase down a gunship with a bomber?

Edited January 4, 2015 by Archonitek

[tommmsunb]

I hate to break this to you, but one player getting 25 kills against newer players may just be a middle-level player. The super-ace gets 25 kills against middle-level players. The skill gap is even bigger than you think.

 

And when I get pummelled by super-aces for several matches, then the next match I am surrounded by newer players... don't expect me to hold back. Sorry, that's just what happens when they throw all players in the same queue.

 

My advice? If you can't beat them, join them! You must have alts in both factions, right?

 

First response, what do you think the tiers of aces are in your opinion? I'm just curious because it seems that everybody has a different opinion on what constitutes an ace.

 

Second response, I stopped having two factions on the same server recently due to how much flaming I've received doing it. Sure I know I shouldn't listen to the trolls, but when the entire GSF chat on a faction just wants to hold a pity party against me then I refuse to play with them.

[PavSalco]

Any ship in the right hands becomes op. So if you find gunships giving you a hard time, make a gunship killer, improve your spatial awareness, cycle targets to make sure your out of gunship range. Get in and out quick to harass if you can't out right kill them, get them to move and negate their most immediate advantage.

 

I believed in that too ...before I realized that pro players in gunships are nearly unkillable. I invite you to come to the Progenitor and see how two gunshippers sit at the satelitte and you will be killed either by them because they barely miss or even if you get nearby you will be finished by turrets in two shots as your ship will be already heavily damaged.

[tommmsunb]

I believed in that too ...before I realized that pro players in gunships are nearly unkillable. I invite you to come to the Progenitor and see how two gunshippers sit at the satelitte and you will be killed either by them because they barely miss or even if you get nearby you will be finished by turrets in two shots as your ship will be already heavily damaged.

 

I'm flying on the progenitor right now and I've seen people do that, it's still possible to deal with it.

[PavSalco]

I'm flying on the progenitor right now and I've seen people do that, it's still possible to deal with it.

 

For you Otoshimono and maybe Moganas. But you're in a different league than the rest of us. Besides, you're flying on the rep side and the reps have those pro gunshippers that I'm talking about Daisie and Cuv'something if I remember correctly.

[tommmsunb]

For you Otoshimono and maybe Moganas. But you're in a different league than the rest of us. Besides, you're flying on the rep side and the reps have those pro gunshippers that I'm talking about Daisie and Cuv'something if I remember correctly.

 

Guess I'm going imp next! I chose pub because I was told it was behind.

Edited January 4, 2015 by tommmsunb

[Asbetos]

Guess I'm going imp next! I chose pub because I was told it was behind.

 

On average, I think the Reps are ahead these days. Poke me when you're on Imp, name's in the sig

[Delta_V]

Any ship in the right hands becomes op. So if you find gunships giving you a hard time, make a gunship killer, improve your spatial awareness, cycle targets to make sure your out of gunship range. Get in and out quick to harass if you can't out right kill them, get them to move and negate their most immediate advantage.

 

 

 

Why are you trying to chase down a gunship with a bomber?

 

I believe he was referencing my post on the last page, where I talked about getting 25 kills in a bomber when I spent half the match chasing after gunships with heavy lasers. I only did that because I was in my bomber, I was bored, and the enemy gunships had a score of about -10 in the "situational awareness" category.

 

Of course, he missed the point that I only brought that match up to emphasize that player skill vastly outweighs the difference between ship classes. If the enemy pilots were remotely a threat, of course I wouldn't be chasing after them in a bomber, I would switch to my preferred ship - the Battlescout, which is even more powerful in the right hands than the T1 Gunship.