gsummers Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 So I just had a really really rough match against an imp-premade and I noticed something a couple times. There was an imp gunship that would frequently duel me in my gunship. A couple of times I noticed the following: I got in sniping mode and fired a fully charged rail shot at him. He then moves behind an asteroid and targets me I stay in sniping mode and watch him, he remains behind asteroid perfectly still Then very slowly he drifts a little to one side and the INSTANT he is out from behind the asteroid, he unleashes a fully charged rail shot at me (I go from green shields green ship to 0 frontal shields and red ship) How can he move and charge his railgun at the same time? I thought that if he moved, he would then have to start recharging his railgun. If this move is possible, then please tell me how to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryuku-sama Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) so i just had a really really rough match against an imp-premade and i noticed something a couple times. There was an imp gunship that would frequently duel me in my gunship. A couple of times i noticed the following: I got in sniping mode and fired a fully charged rail shot at him. He then moves behind an asteroid and targets me i stay in sniping mode and watch him, he remains behind asteroid perfectly still then very slowly he drifts a little to one side and the instant he is out from behind the asteroid, he unleashes a fully charged rail shot at me (i go from green shields green ship to 0 frontal shields and red ship) how can he move and charge his railgun at the same time? I thought that if he moved, he would then have to start recharging his railgun. If this move is possible, then please tell me how to do it. Strafing!!! Edited May 19, 2015 by Ryuku-sama Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakkolich Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 You can Strafe with any ship by holding Shift and pressing A,S,D or W. Each one corresponds to a different direction and you can do it while charging a Railgun. You can also do it while flying, Sanic uses this technique in jousts to throw off his opponents by slowly drifting to one side while firing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verain Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Sanic uses this technique in jousts to throw off his opponents by slowly drifting to one side while firing. See, this is why you can't tell Drako nice things! Note that: > Some ships strafe better than others. The fact that gunships strafe well is noted in their description, but we never see the numbers anywhere. > To the best of my knowledge (and I have timed myself for several minutes) you cannot cut your pitch or yaw rate at all with strafe. It's able to throw enemies off as Drako describes, but you can't win a turn fight with it. > We aren't sure if full "boost to target" or "full boost to slightly right of target + strafe left" gets you there faster, or at the same speed. It's actually likely you might be able to arrive ever so slightly faster by strafing. If that turns out to be true, be sure to go "hut-hut-hut-hut-hut-hiyaaa!-hut-hut-hut-hut-hut!" as you progress across Hyrule slightly faster than walking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nyghtrunner Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 So I just had a really really rough match against an imp-premade and I noticed something a couple times. There was an imp gunship that would frequently duel me in my gunship. A couple of times I noticed the following: I got in sniping mode and fired a fully charged rail shot at him. He then moves behind an asteroid and targets me I stay in sniping mode and watch him, he remains behind asteroid perfectly still Then very slowly he drifts a little to one side and the INSTANT he is out from behind the asteroid, he unleashes a fully charged rail shot at me (I go from green shields green ship to 0 frontal shields and red ship) How can he move and charge his railgun at the same time? I thought that if he moved, he would then have to start recharging his railgun. If this move is possible, then please tell me how to do it. I kinda think it was me, and if so, it was definitely via strafing. Siddain used to say I strafe way too much in a GS, but I will say that the LOS => strafe, fire => continue moving thing is one of my favorite things to do in a GS duel, especially if Disto is already down. Even without that, I'll often take half charged shots with something along the lines of this pattern: scope, half-charge, fire, move in semi-random direction, rinse, repeat. But yeah, you can absolutely go into sniping mode, charge the shot, and strafe while charging/charged. As noted, the default is Shift + [W, A, S, D], and you can bind it all to other buttons in the Starfighter Keybindings. GS strafing is a very subtle, yet strong advantage (especially used in moderation), and I'm almost positive that most of my hacking accusations have come from subtle use of strafe like that. Just to note, however, if it was the match I'm thinking of, with me on Mikokoro, and with Wreca, and Jutyai on my team, I think we just ended up in the same group. I was most definitely solo-queueing, at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waktoh Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 OMG, I never knew this! I love learning things like this. 1) Scrolling out to zoom out while sniping. Making aiming easier 2) Now strafing while charged. nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nyghtrunner Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 OMG, I never knew this! I love learning things like this. 1) Scrolling out to zoom out while sniping. Making aiming easier 2) Now strafing while charged. nice! All the little tricks you never knew about. It's seriously one of the most frustrating things about GSF, though. So many of what are really basic flight mechanics/abilities, aren't gone over in the tutorials, aren't in tooltips, etc. You have to find out about them either via digging through the keybindings and trying to figure out what they are, learn from experience, or have someone tell you. At least in the ground game, you have the training dummies (and the open world) to kind of figure out rotations and abilities and such, but in GSF, the only testing you can do is in an actual match, which is far from an ideal testing environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsummers Posted May 21, 2015 Author Share Posted May 21, 2015 I kinda think it was me, and if so, it was definitely via strafing. Siddain used to say I strafe way too much in a GS, but I will say that the LOS => strafe, fire => continue moving thing is one of my favorite things to do in a GS duel, especially if Disto is already down. Even without that, I'll often take half charged shots with something along the lines of this pattern: scope, half-charge, fire, move in semi-random direction, rinse, repeat. But yeah, you can absolutely go into sniping mode, charge the shot, and strafe while charging/charged. As noted, the default is Shift + [W, A, S, D], and you can bind it all to other buttons in the Starfighter Keybindings. GS strafing is a very subtle, yet strong advantage (especially used in moderation), and I'm almost positive that most of my hacking accusations have come from subtle use of strafe like that. Just to note, however, if it was the match I'm thinking of, with me on Mikokoro, and with Wreca, and Jutyai on my team, I think we just ended up in the same group. I was most definitely solo-queueing, at least. <gasp!> It WAS you! You and Wreca and Jutyai kept such a perfect gunship setup. You guys always seemed stacked in a way that I could engage one of you on my gs, but another would be on my flank and start hitting me. If I chose a scout and moved in to destroy, there was always another gs staggered back a bit that could snipe the scouts off the gunships that were up front from a comfortable range. That was a rough match. The ops chat on our side quickly went from things like "wow these guys are really good" to "hurry and throw your trash at them so this will be over soon":o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nyghtrunner Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) <gasp!> It WAS you! You and Wreca and Jutyai kept such a perfect gunship setup. You guys always seemed stacked in a way that I could engage one of you on my gs, but another would be on my flank and start hitting me. If I chose a scout and moved in to destroy, there was always another gs staggered back a bit that could snipe the scouts off the gunships that were up front from a comfortable range. That was a rough match. The ops chat on our side quickly went from things like "wow these guys are really good" to "hurry and throw your trash at them so this will be over soon":o Believe me, it wasn't intentional. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Wreca and I have a sort of running feud regardless of which toons we're on, or whose side we're on. If he's on the opposite side as me, we tend to go after each other somewhat, and if we're on the same team, I think we try to kind of 1-up each other (or so it seems to me). Never talked to him about it, but that's sort of my impression, so you probably did end up in a match with us where we were both kind of trying to be as ruthless as possible. And regardless, Wreca's been flying a long time, and is very much at his best in a GS, and is actually very, very good at covering people if he's not harried. So as long as we were spaced out somewhat, the cover just sort of happened naturally. Not sure why Jutyai was in a GS... That one felt a little strange to me. That said, Jut's another one that's been flying a long time, and is pretty competent in just about any ship I've ever seen him in. But yeah, that's one of the inherent problems with the GSF GS wall. If they're spread out, it becomes quite easy to cover each other, even if you're not really trying to do it. So it can be really frustrating as a scout to try to break the wall, especially alone (Remind me to tell you about the time I ran into Zuckerkorn, Jaheesh, Bugglesleya, and I believe Fasex while solo-queueing pub-side... Insanely hard to do ANYTHING to them that match, since their spacing was perfect, and I refused to fly a GS back then). The difficulty scales with the competence of the opposing gunship pilots, because the best of them react to your first shot, and then it's a chase, and if there are more, one of them is almost undoubtedly going to notice you chasing a friend among their lines. I was a little surprised that the match was such a blowout, though. You had some competent pilots on your team, what with you, Mehano, and... Was Pax in there? I remember seeing at least 1 or 2 other names I recognized on your side. Anyway, sorry about that... But hey, at least you used the experience to learn something new! Cheers, gsummers! And hope it goes without saying, but if you ever need a wingman to go with you and Meho, feel free to look me up. Be happy to fly with you on pub-side any time. I mainly fly with Vorfelan over there anymore, but I occasionally hop on and run a few matches with Hawke. So feel free to look me up, since if I'm over there, I'm most likely flying. EDIT - One other word of advice... If you do run into a similar scenario again, and you're in your GS, try to go around to the flanks, and come at a single target from the north or south. The GS line is going to largely be pointing east/west, so the chances of you being noticed by help in time for them to actually help is greatly reduced, and if you can pick off one or 2 in the line coming from the flanks, you've largely broken the line. It's still not easy, but it does allow you to skirt the edges a bit so you don't have to worry so much about your own flanks being attacked by their help. If you come from east/west, you're far more likely to be noticed. And even when you are noticed coming from N/S, they will have to split their attention between the new threat (you), and the melee they were previously providing overwatch for. I know once or twice when I got you, you were sitting largely in the open looking at someone else, but still largely in an east/west orientation (looking at the map), so any of the gunships looking towards your spawn would see you, see you occupied, and see you in the open. Similar approaches with a Scout can be effective, but it becomes more and more important to actually kill the first target, since you're putting yourself in range of the other gunships. Also try thinking in 3D, and try to come from above or below (while still at a flank) as a scout (or GS, really). On Mesas (which is where we were), I tend to prefer coming from below, because of the natural cover it provides on approach, as well as having cover readily at hand if you need to go to ground in a hurry. Learn that tunnel system, and learn it well. RE-EDIT - Also, if you end up in a match with Zuckerkorn or Saevius or the like, try to watch how they move. If they're on your team, even try to just watch how/where they set up. The best of the gunners rarely leave themselves exposed in the open, and often try to short up their defenses by putting LOS objects close by so they don't have to worry quite so much about attacks coming from angles they're not ready for. And most of them move after every almost single shot, since the motion helps keep them defended in a round about way. It's not always a big move, but it's still motion. Not sure how much you noticed, but in the match with you, I spent a LOT of time around the pillars over by your spawn, and down in that trench in front of it, which helped give me cover from snipers, and allowed me to have LOS objects close by for the strikes and scouts that started to chase me, but never left me truly exposed to enemy GS fire while I was trying to loose my tail. Edited May 21, 2015 by nyghtrunner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsummers Posted May 22, 2015 Author Share Posted May 22, 2015 In my experience, any one of the three of you could single-handedly carry your side to victory. All of you together... well there's just more to learn from:D I'm glad the community responded well to my inquiry, it makes me wonder what else I don't know that I don't know:rolleyes: I've tried strafing now and as I don't have the speediest fingers in the game, I think its going to take a while to build up some muscle memory to do it well. Thanks for the offer to fly together, I'll keep an eye out for you. We generally try to do a match or two a day, but the time varies quite a bit. In the meantime, I'll work on that LOS and see if I can't unlock the uber-secret density railgun (generates a black hole within the target ship, causing it to collapse on itself; any enemy ships within 30000m are also pulled in to their doom) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemarus Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 Does anyone know what the lead indicator does if the target is strafing? Does it actually lead the strafe? I'm trying to remember, the last time I was going to shoot a strafing/charging Gunship, whether the lead indicator was overlapped with the Gunship itself, or whether it was offset to account for the strafe... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enurrsha Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 Does anyone know what the lead indicator does if the target is strafing? Does it actually lead the strafe? I'm trying to remember, the last time I was going to shoot a strafing/charging Gunship, whether the lead indicator was overlapped with the Gunship itself, or whether it was offset to account for the strafe... Nem, I can't answer your question cleanly & precisely but FWIW, the following: Last night in a domination match in my battle scout I ended up in a joust with a strike. We were very perfectly head to head, same ship orientation, everything. I had him lined up dead center well before gun range. Right as I began to fire, I noticed the target indicator & his ship shifting very slightly to my right, out from under my aiming reticle. I realized he was strafing, adjusted, and killed him. At least from that encounter, it would seem to me the lead indicator adjusts to strafing, but of course this was with a ship under engine power, not a rail-charging gunship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nireesh Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I never knew this technique,.. gotta try it for myself now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadzKaiser Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 .....huh and I thought I knew it all @Nightrunner, I think we all have someone like that. I have Several on 2 lists the friendly rivals and the ****list. I then got to know my Rival better and it turns out he doesn't like playing against people he knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickDagles Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 Fun fact - you can strafe with fortress shield active. You should still never use fortress shield. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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