[Commander Zane]

High-frag?

[Scotty]

I'm in the speed is life category as well.  It's kind of interesting in a shielded fighter if you remove all energy from shields and give it to engines and guns.  Once you lose shields, its just like unshielded combat, but you're faster than before.  I generally keep my hand depressed on the accelerate button unless I need to stay behind a bomber to rip it apart, and I can't live without my afterburners.

I prefer short range missile combat.  That sounds really funny when you actually say it.  Tempests are my favorite secondaries because it's basically a high-power dogfighter primary with ammo.  Other than that, I use harpoons and hornets when I drop to about 300 meters to make it a little more challenging.  The trebuchet just took all the fun out of missile fights.

I can't live without targeting some kind of ship.  It doesn't even have to be the one I'm after lol.  All I need is a little picture of it in the bottom left and I can hit it fairly easily.  I have almost 73% accuracy with primaries, and 84% with secondaries, mostly tempests.  That's mostly because I had the 'joystick demo' with only the first ten missions for about four years before I got retail, and four or five of those you can only use tempests/rockeyes.

Beams:  I love beams.  Beams are awesome.  Beams make everything easier to hit when it slams the brakes on an unlucky fighter.  The hit stops it or sends it corkscrewing away slowly.

[Mongoose]

I honestly prefer shielded combat to unshielded, but this is because I'm one of those overconfident idiots who strafes the surfaces of Cains and Typhons for kicks. Surgical strikes and bombing is made so much easier when you've got a blanket of energy to dull the enemy impacts. I suppose it depends on the person's play style as to whether they like shielded or unshielded.

What this man said.  I'm very much a plow-through-everything sort of pilot, so I vastly prefer shields for the simple reason that they allow me to ignore most small-to-moderate enemy fire until I'm done plowing through whatever I'm trying to plow through.  Even back when I first played FS1, and especially going back to it now, those unshielded missions generally prove to be rather frustrating, since I'm forced to take so much care avoiding enemy fire that I'm far less able to dish out damage on my own.  It's no fun flying if you have to worry about every stray MX-50 knocking off half of your hull integrity.

(Also, the only time I ever use the match speed command is when I want to give my hands a rest during a long escort mission.  It's probably the worst thing I could think of using during an actual dogfight. )

[NGTM-1R]

Which is why, canonically, there are no bombing runs without shields, save for Good Luck, but the shockwaves in that one are watered down for this reason.

Considering FS1 bombs can cut direct through your shields with their shockwave unlike FS2 bombs, the difference between shielded and unshielded bombing in that era is not as great as you might think.

However whenever I hear someone complain that shields water down the combat, it indicates to me that the game is being played on a lower difficulty, or mission design was not impressive. Three or four Thoths on medium can really ruin your day if you're not practiced in this sort of thing.

Yet, on the other hand, FS2 is not a dogfight simulator because it can't be, it doesn't have the means. This isn't Falcon 3.0 where you had a mode that let you keep track of your target visually. You can't fight the most immediate threat because it's difficult to be sure which one that is. About the only time you can really apply good dogfighting skills is missile defense: put it on your three/nine line, hit your burners, dump some decoys, pray, and break hard at the last second.

[Commander Zane]

Actually you can bind a key to constantly view whichever ship you have targeted.

[Scotty]

Actually you can bind a key to constantly view whichever ship you have targeted.

  What sort of magic is this?!  I must know the secret!

[darkdaej]

Shields don't make the difference between life and death against beams however, you might as well be fighting FS2 armed cruisers in early FS1 fighters, so your first reason contradicts itself.

I explained badly.  I meant the heavier fighter has more of a chance surviving assaults from anti-fighter beams.  Of course big beams are deadly whatever happens and a faster ship has better chances but its rare that i have to afterburn my way out of a beam's path.  Once though i died on a "beaming-after-death-before-turret-blows-up" death after blowing a a cruiser which promted the end of the mission.  I actually died from big beam fire while my jump engines were starting (speed at 35, meaning i was close to warping out as node entry speed seems to be 38-42 m/s.)

[Scotty]

The cut-to-3rd person limit is that, but the actual jump out speed is almost exactly 40.  Why can't it be the ~200-300 for big ships?  It would make things a lot easier (I've actually been beamed to death while watching my ship warp out, and done it to hercs and ulysses  :lol:0

[Commander Zane]

Actually you can bind a key to constantly view whichever ship you have targeted.

  What sort of magic is this?!  I must know the secret!

Misc control tab, Target Padlock View.
Although I should mention that keeping your reticle on the lead indicator (At least for me) becomes significantly more difficult.

The cut-to-3rd person limit is that, but the actual jump out speed is almost exactly 40.  Why can't it be the ~200-300 for big ships?  It would make things a lot easier (I've actually been beamed to death while watching my ship warp out, and done it to hercs and ulysses  :lol:0

And I've literally had my charging sequence interupted for five klicks until I freaking died.

[Killer Whale]

Like trying to take out respawning dragons in a Herc mark II, Interruption galore. I also think that your shields disappear as soon as you press Alt-J

[Commander Zane]

They don't disappear, and thank god they don't.

[Killer Whale]

Well, i seem to die whenever i try to bug out.

[Commander Zane]

Because anything that dinks your ship while you're waiting to jump makes your ship move and makes the sequence last longer.
Maybe with one ship on you that doesn't have many guns won't do much unless they're Morning Stars, but have a bunch of ships on you and you just never jump. Like I said before, I ended up five kilometers away from a jump node before I finally popped.

[Sololop]

I hate that. Struggle through a mission, try to jump, and you get constantly bumped around by enemy fighters until you either try to kill them, or die.

I almost always prefer going intercept. I like the fact that going full burns, you can sometimes outrun missiles without taking any evasive maneuvers at all. Also find it much easier to get away from those AAA beams. 

[Commander Zane]

When it comes to me and beams, the best defense is to not move at all.
Seriously, I get hit maybe once every 20 bursts when I stay still...
Then when I'm flying around it's every other burst...

[Lucika]

When it comes to me and beams, the best defense is to not move at all.
Seriously, I get hit maybe once every 20 bursts when I stay still...
Then when I'm flying around it's every other burst...

  This means that we're overpaying those who are firing the cannons.

[Commander Zane]

[Sololop]

Maybe because the game engine is trying to predict where you will be going, and shoots there. Odd.

[eliex]

* Whistles for the coders.

[Woolie Wool]

The coders really, really don't like working with the AI.