Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: .::Tin Can::. on July 20, 2004, 12:08:51 am
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HOW the hell do you manage to kick so much ass in multiplayer? I want to know, what makes you fly around and pwn n00blets constantly? God damn, I swear, playing a round of FS2 in multiplayer about a year ago, I was CONSTANTLY pulling up on the joysticks, dodging fighters who STILL managed to pwn me!
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Maybe you should try _not_ pulling up on the joystick so much and go for more variable movement? I dunno. I was a pretty poor player too in my short playing stint.
It was rather hilarious to continually crash into the enemies though.
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Been looking for threads like this eversince I started looking for FS communities on the net :)
Any dogfighting experts out there who can show us n00bs a trick or two? :)
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It depends on what kind of player you are:
if nothing can scratch your ego you best jump into the cold water and learn it by doing lots of TvTs - I don't recommend Dogfights (never got used to them) cause they are usually pure chaos :)
if you don't like being vets-fooder maybe start with Coops - get or join some Vets here too - to see and learn the missions: never play anything below HARD difficulty!... once you know what's necessary you have more time to watch your actual flying and polish it
edited: just note that most of my Coop missions are ment for bored Vets - if you can't manage to win them alone or with no Vets around it's not your fault :D
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I am one of the trainers of the squad Darkwing www.darkwing.org.uk (http://www.darkwing.org.uk) so maybe I can give a few pointers.
I don't know how experienced you are so I will start with the very basics:
Chapter 1: Choice of ships and weaps
Ships:
There are mainly 2 schools:
- Herc II (versatile and fits all , noobs and top vets)
- Erynies (not recommended for noobs, long learning curve)
Main difference : with Herc, guns are tactical, you make the kill with missiles. With Eryn you make the kills with guns (tempest being considered as an extra gun) , missiles are tactical.
Other alternatives : Perseus, Myrmidon, Sekhmet, Tauret. All good ships but only in specific situations
Guns: Kayser, Prometheus; Morning Star. Forget all others
Missiles: Rockeyes, Tempests, Tornadoes
Recommendation: for new tvt players I recommend Herc II with Kayser + Morning star and Tornados + Rockeys
Chapter 2 to follow...?
:p
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Good tips. I'm suprised that you did not mention Harpoons though
Any tips for flying light fighters like the Perseus or the Myr? I heard that really skilled pilots can do some pretty amazing stuff with them.
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he didn't cu'z they're not available in most tvt missions I think.
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Wolf is right, Harpoons are only allowed in very few validated TvT missions (MT14 aspect lock and Mt22 Fallen timbers) precisely because they are very good missiles (best aspect lock AFAIK) extremely hard to dodge. Therefore missions in which they are allowed tend to quickly turn into a Poon spamming contests. Basically the first one that gets the lock and keeps the trigger pressed gets the kill...not much skill involved.
As for Pers & Myrm, yes they can be dreadful ships but as I said they require specific conditions and skills.
For Pers, first you need a good ping otherwise you would have a hard time killing anything (limited firepower and payload), second you must make never make a mistake because 1 single Eryn shot or 2 rounds or rocks = instant death.
Tip : Never go into a face to face duel in a Pers, you must learn to buzz around your target and bite him a number of times without ever giving him a chance to see you.
Myrm is a compromise between light ships and Erynies. It has good firepower (6 gun mounts) and still better manoeuvrability that any heavy fighter. So you should be able to outturn Eryn or Herc but not by very much. The key is to be able to maximise that advantage because if you don't, an opponent in Herc or Eryn will force you into a face to face duel that you will loose because he has a stronger hull.
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I played Squadwar and helped win a few Squadwar leagues. I was considered our teams kamikaze pilot, i used to listen to Seek & Detroy from Kill Em All during dogfights.
We used to do ALOT of 4 on 4 Team vs Team and i developed a tactic that worked each and everytime here is how i did it.
Ship: Sekhemet Bomber
3 Bays of Missiles consisting of:
1 Bay of Tornadoes (Lock On Missiles from a distance of 1599 or lower)
2 Bays of Rockeyes (Heat Seeking Missiles which lock onto any heat signature automatically from 1000 or lower.
Primary: Morning Stars (non-Lethal laser weapon which grips opponents ships like a fist and when repeatedly firing you can push them back and control their momentum. (FS ROCKS BTW)
Tactic: Kamikaze Flyer A-La Vasudan
Set your power settings for your ship to have one step higher Sheilds and One step hire Primary guns.
Fly at your enemy like a kamikaze and within 1400 of your enemy, lock on with Tornadoes and lob them at your opponent as many times as possible until your within 750 of your opponent at which time switch to rockeyes and prepare to use your primary weapon to distract and make your opponent avoid you and not enable them to lock on. This is very important, else your charge will be stopped. You must make them run from tornadoes then fear your Morning Stars. Once you have hit your opponent with the monring star and have some momentum control on them, begin firing one whole bay of rockeyes at your opponent and fire your morning stars ever so often to keep your enemy off balance, but not enough to shove them back to far so the rockeyes only give blast damage.
During this firing of your primaries and firing of your rockeyes, you are to fly in a corkscrew formation, towards your opponent WHILE banking the same way your corkscrewing for ample defense.
Why? What this does to any incoming missile is to fly straight at you, however once you get close enough to the missile, and its just about to hit you you corkscrew and spin away from missile, it will miss you when you get very good, you will even be able to dodge incoming tornadoes with ease, rockeyes will also go right by you as they heat seek less efficiently, and with your constant spin and corkscrewing it makes the rockeyes have a real hard time hitting you. Speed = Life in Freespace 2.
So basically you corkscrew and spin and fly at the guy, even RAMMING him for the death blow if necessary, heck your flying a Sekhement Bomber, probably against a herc 2. It will do a ton of damage with a ram alone, and have found myself killing many people butting heads with them.
Now, in four on four you have to worry about more then one guy. I used to lock on with tornadoes early on one guy and lob about 4 sets at them (double fire mode) then target another enemy and begin my corkscrew maneuver and when i was within 500 of them begin firing 20 rockeyes at them, head to head, and try and ram them while augmenting my forward sheilds to be full at all times. Most times i would kill one guy with 20 rockeyes, the guy before who had the tonradoes lobbed at him is busy dodging those and got hit once, that i dont even worry about him, so i move to target number 3 and beging lobbing the rest of my rockeyes at him, and attempt a fourth target lock from close range on the fourth and final pilot.
I always got two kills for every one death, part of the reason why we succeeded so much in squadwar was due to this tactic.
To compliment me, we had a Ursa bomber loaded with Pirhanas in one bay, Rockeyes in the other bay and a bay of trebuchets for the long distracting missile launches. What this did was put an anchor on our team, a person we can fly back to for protection from incoming fighters, hence why he has fighter suppression missiles and auto locking missiles. The Trebs were to distract them as they came in or as a provoking tool, or an up close and personal killer while rammming with the Ursa (talk about instant death!). Also the Ursa had two primaries, one a Morning Star and the other a Maxim. maxim was for long range provocation, and the Morning star was for missile launch control up close.
Then we had a second sekhemet bomber on our wing, which was loaded with primaries of the Maxim type, and it held one bay of tornadoes, one of Pirhanas, and one bay of rockeyes. This ship provided the kamikaze backup, and performed cleanup duty for the kamikaze. it also served as protection in the medium battle lines before the Ursa could be pestered.
Last ship on the wing was a Herc 2 fighter, which came packed with Maxims and morning stars, one bay of rockeyes and one bay of tornadoes. This ships job was to find the anchor of the other team and decmate them. If no anchor could be found or was made obvious it flew behind the kamikaze and headed for the kamikaze's first target.
Upon respawn we would meet at the anchor and then begin our flight paths as previously indicated.
We did this and won for a long time, and succeeded. We have seen the "Mexican Standoff" in action as well, where both teams just sit at their spawns and wait for the other to make the first move. It is a great strategy, unless both sides use it then your screwed.
Today im not as good as i used to be, especially without my flight stick. however, i hope my experience as a dogfighter in a bomber helps people become a better pilot. Remember the Corkscrew! It works very well!
In a one on one, i would take the same loadout described above, fly at you in a corkscrew while spinning, locking on with tornadoes and fire half the bank towars you, then begin primary fire and rockeye firing, once i got within 200 of you i would still fly at you and use my speed boost to ram you head on WHILE FIRING ROCKEYES MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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DareDevil,
Thanks for the tips. Me and my mates have been trying some 2on2 games lately and I really had fun playing the light fighters. Obviously for the Peresus you really need some skilled flying to stay alive. I recall seeing a video of a fellow doing very well with a Peresus in a TVT game but it involved some really fancy flying and hit and run tactics just to stay alive (felt dizzy just watching it).
Any specific tips on how to dodge incomming fire or methods how to go circle your opponent properly?
Lonestar,
Now thats something I'm going have to practice and try when I get around to play with my pals again :)
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:hopping: Well after all of 10 mintues playing it seems FSO multiplayer is just like every other action game multiplayer- the guy with the biggest guns wins. Fought an erinyes and did a nice job of not getting hit by him, until he just cut his engine and sat and spun around till I was in front of him for a split second- and here I thought this was supposed to be about dogfighting, but no it's just like mech4, the guy in the assault mech will always beat everyone else. And lag just makes it worse when they can fire kaysers out of their butt and still hit you.
This is why I dont usually dont play online games at all... somehow I though FS would be different and you'd be fighitng things that dont kill you in only one or two shots.
Well I guess I'll stop whining for now.
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well, sounds you met either a pretty good pilot or - if the oponent was the host - the "host advantage" of zero lag with guns...
if you don't want to be the bait: try Coops like I suggested earlier in this topic :)
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Ouch, ouch!
Soo.. what were you flying?
Erinyes is a piece of junk metal unless the pilot knows how to handle it well - possibly you met someone who knows :) (i don't)
Though, if he just sits, you have chances attacking him with torns/morning star/maxims from longer range.
GL!
Edit: Damn, Cet you were quicker :)
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sorry, Cas ;)
but a situation like his was the reason why I added more TvTs in FZP3 with Harps - to have a bit more power to deal with evil host-guns... doesn't work all the time, but better then nothing
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Sounds good Cet :)
Its great to finally have some new multi missions to play with. Haven't yet had a chance to try those, tho (but got them DL'ed).
Well, we're in no hurry here - PXO lesson #1 :)
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hope the voicefiles too - or it's only half the fun, you know :)
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I was in a ulysses- I know, I was asking for it, but I hate big-gun smashfests. I like actually relying on manuevering to get things done- I managed to stay behind the erinyes abou 90% of the time, but the two ships are just so unbalanced to each other 2 shots is all it really took. And lag didn't help.
Maybe I'll just stay out of dogfights- sounds like bad news all in all.
What I'd really like in multiplayer is a team coop- dunno if they actually exist. One of the great things about FS2 is the tactical aspect of takign down a capital ship, so one team gets to be on offense and the other defense. Now that I think would be fun, it'd be more then cirlcing each other and the guy with the biggest gun gets the kill.
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I would beat you all... :drevil:
Mwhahahaha...!!!
Don't believe me, call me up for a game sometime ;7
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Look at all these yummy replies after I let the thread sit for a minute.. ;7
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Originally posted by mrfun
What I'd really like in multiplayer is a team coop- dunno if they actually exist. One of the great things about FS2 is the tactical aspect of takign down a capital ship, so one team gets to be on offense and the other defense. Now that I think would be fun, it'd be more then cirlcing each other and the guy with the biggest gun gets the kill.
Ok, let's get the definitions straight:
Coop: all players are in one team and fight against computer AI
TvT: the players are in 2 hostile teams
Doggy: each players is on his own against the rest
not sure what you ment with team coop now...
- if you ment what is usually called Coop: yes, there are lots of such missions
- if you ment TvTs which aren't only fighters against fighters and have actually some Coop elements: yes, there are such missions too
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I meant one team plus AI against another team plus AI. The idea is for it to be a tactical engagement more than just a dogfight, where you have to coordinate with your team to attack a larger target, or defend that target. Think how much more interesting it would be to make attack runs on a destroyer when some of the defenders are human. Not sure how well it would actually work though, thing is I'm just not into fragfests. They get boring quickly.
The only multiplayer game Iv'e ever been able to really get into was the old mercnet- Mechwarrior 2 mercenaries. You actually had to think out your attacks, and coordinate with teammates to win a mission. Most online games, including mech4, all you ever do is shoot as many of the other guys as possible before you die and respawn.
I take that back- I used to play team fortress a lot also. Too bad nobody really plays it anymore, all the ppl that are left on the TFC servers are CS wannabes.
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Originally posted by mrfun
I meant one team plus AI against another team plus AI.
ok, the 2nd thought then: get a good host (good line) and at least 4 players (better 6) and try cet_mt01, cet_mt02 and cet_mt03... ;) (to find in my sig)
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MrFun, I think I know who you went against and if it can comfort you there was little you could do against him whatever ship you/he chose ;)
But you are wrong when you think that the one with the biggest guns wins. Against a pilot with equivalent skills/experience you can beat Eryn with any other good ship. You just need to adapt your flying style to its strenght/weakness (but thats already part of advanced tactics and I am still on lesson 1..patience .. :p )
And Cet is right, if you are new to Multi, it is better to fly a few coops missions first to get the feel of it. But if you are really interested in improving your skills then flying TvT online is the only way (AIs are all the same, every human is different). You will probably get trashed in the first TvTs you play but just listen to the vets advices and you will very quickly improve with practice.
And yes there are a few TvT missions with capships (e.g. Deimos duel or Aeolus duel...)
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I wish they had an attack-defend round where you got to man the guns of a capship, and the enemy team was a set of fighters, and it was their job to take out the turret positions. That would rock!
"Get on those flak guns and anti-fighter turrets! Give em hell!"
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As DareDevil said... it really isn't about the ship; that's what makes this game so much more fun than most other online games. The balancing is almost flawless. Yes, it's easier to be good with some ships than others but it's not about ping or big guns. The heavier ships are most popular, yes; but the really good pilots will beat you with anything up there: Personally I've been absolutely destroyed by Gryphon in a Perseus, QD in a Myrmidon, Tepanator in a Ulysses and High Ace in an Ursa and the list goes on.. (those that have flown against these people will know what I mean).
Just because most pilots seem to fly with Erinyes doesn't mean it's the best. Yes, it's fast and fairly maneuverable and has that fearsome set of primaries, however those same primaries will drain damn quickly with twin Kaysers and it only has a limited missile capacity. It is also not impossible to out-maneuver, it's definitely possible in a Herc2 and it's even possible in a Tauret if you're good enough, and that's just out of the heavy fighters.
Also, to emphasise DareDevil's point: What's so bad about getting beaten to smithereens? People seem to get so upset when they're outclassed. This normally happens because the other pilot is BETTER than you, and since this is the case; you'll learn far more easily and far faster when you're being 0wned. I'd rather be 0wned than fly against a newbie who has no chance of beating me... simply think about what you're doing wrong, HOW they're beating you and you'll pick up tricks and tactics, and invent your own to beat them...if you work at it, your flying will improve faster in 3 TvTs than you will in 20 Coops, ESPECIALLY if you're the underdog.
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Originally posted by Da Vinci
...if you work at it, your flying will improve faster in 3 TvTs than you will in 20 Coops, ESPECIALLY if you're the underdog.
I still would say it depends on what Coop missions you fly... if you don't improve your skills in something like TDIC you won't in TvTs too :D
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.....I prefer learning without having simultaneous aneurisms and panic attacks.....
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Well these is for certain a lack of players online. Last time I played was about a few months ago, when there were about 5 people online... :wtf:
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@DaVinci
I take that as your agreement when it comes to NOT all Coops are the same...;)
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TC: try now, with FSOPXO there are a few more.
Still, there aren't many people. But still it ain't bad for a game this old.
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I suppose not, but Starcraft is old and its got a gazillion players. :eek:
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No....they are definitely not all the same.......when I tested TDIC I nearly had a seizure...So...Many...Red.....Dots.........You're a crazy person, Cet.
And: for the record, I badly phrased that last part: I meant that flying coops is completely different from flying TvT. TvT is more personal, more about duelling and dogfighting; whereas Coop teaches survival and multi-tasking. Coop will never prepare you for an Eri on your back, mimicking every move you make and taking out your shields with a single well-placed shot....and TvT will never prepare you for a sky filled with red things coming at you whilst you try to dodge beams and flak and get into bombing range. They're almost different games, and they're both great fun.
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Now I want to dogfight all of a sudden... :sigh:
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Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
Now I want to dogfight all of a sudden... :sigh:
....don't we all?....
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Who wants to play a game right now? I'm on, check sig
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Gah, I cant. Not enough time, nor hard drive space. :ick:
Maybe in a few days.
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Thx for the clarification DaV, my internal alarms usually auto-reply when I read something like "this playing style is always 10 better then that one"... :)
and yes... wished I had a working build for ANY Coop, TvT, Doggy... and for anyone knowing me: I would even play RI if possible
:eek2: :eek: :shaking: :blah:
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Screw it, I'm not waiting anymore
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tvt still rulez after 5 years for me . :)