When to thrust in combat

TheFlatline

T
Dortmunder said:
Thrusting downward while chasing someone who's turning up can help you stay on their tail easier, up for when they turn down from you.

I like to thrust down and to the side when I end up in a head on pass with someone. And slowly turn my ship as I pass them to keep firing longer.
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I've noticed that circle strafing will add to your velocity and if that velocity exceeds the blue bar your rate of turn will actually decrease somewhat. You'll "rubber band" when you stop moving vertically and your velocity hits the sweet spot again but it's definitely something I've noticed, making circle strafing questionable at point-blank range.

A far better solution I've found is to turn off flight assist and while yanking back on the stick to thrust *upward*. Due to newtonian physics you whip your nose around *way* faster that way. Make sure you have a key bound to some reference point for throttle: I have two bound to 50% forward and 50% reverse so I can instantly recover from my new funky velocity and then fine-tune from there, since when I use the keyboard the throttle sticks at 0% until I let go of the key and depress it again.
 

eachann

E
one maybe stupid question... when you say thrust down... do you mean apply the thrusters down (moving your ship up) or do you mean thrust so that the ship moves down? I actually found this thread quite interesting and I'd like to hear more of these kind of discussions... I do just fine in my dogfights with NPC's but I know I will get owned the first time I run into a reasonably skilled human pilot. I'd like to learn more about tactics in dogfighting to evade enemy fire while getting myself in a position to fire on them.
 

dioogio

D
Trashberg said:
Not a big fan of FA-OFF myself, tend to use it mostly in calm situations e.g when approaching a station. When in a fight, I just spin totally out of control when I try. Love to watch those awesome FAOFF-videos though. But it feels like I might aswell learn to play the violin instead.
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I thought that until I got the viper and was constantly chasing tail (so to speak).
Now I throttle down, reverse thrust, fa off and full pitch and turn on a dime. Couldn't manage without it.
It gets a bit hairy if you accidently add some roll into the mix - but even that gets more fun the more you do it.
Its definitely worth a try.

Edit:
I also thrust up during the turn(and it helps) but I find I have upthrust on almost all the time in combat...
Its on the thumb of my left hand and I have trouble controlling it (just like on the guitar!)
 
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Draven Darken

Draven Darken
Carcharodon said:
Isinona did a guide back in Beta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtD41MRibe4 Some good tips there that can help you get better at it.
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Only problem is ... wasn't that video made back before FA Off mode was purposely made less stable by FDev in order to encourage combat with FA On? In that video, every time Isinona shuts off FA the ship remains completely stable, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

That having been said, there is still useful information to be found in that video ... but to the original poster, I wouldn't recommend expecting to be able to precisely duplicate the maneuvers shown in that video.
 

aRtFuL

A
ringus said:
thanks all, I have been trying the downward thrust while pitching up


Problem

it seemed to me that my rotation was slowing i.e I wasn't turning in a tight loop.
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If you want to turn tight without drifting you don't thrust downwards while turning - with FA off you tap your throttle between max power and best manenvering speed to power into the turn, kinda like how when you are driving you want to do a tight but gripping turn.

Down thrust up pitch is more like drifting. Drifting might take longer to complete the turn but it allows you to come out of the turn gunning your speed in the right direction.
 
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