PvP ++ Circle-Strafing ++ Truesilver's Top Tips [Beginner's Guide + VR PvP Vid]
- Thread starter Truesilver
- Start date
Your best course of action for simply getting the target in your sights after passing in a joust is to immediately bring your speed to 50%, thrust down, and pitch up. When the target is about 135 degrees behind you, engage reverse thrust, while still pitching up. When the target is about 90 degrees behind (directly above), switch down thrust to up thrust. The idea behind this is to maximize your pitch rate (getting to 50% max speed blue zone), while at the same time positioning yourself to minimize the amount you actually have to turn to face your target.
Here's a fun tidbit: they actually stack a bit differently between FA off and FA on.
With FA on, you don't get an acceleration boost, but you do get a top-speed boost.
With FA off, there's an acceleration boost, but the top-speed cap is already maxed out because of FA off.
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If you flip FA back on right as you boost, you can take advantage of the lateral deceleration bonus as you reverse course. Won't change how quickly you get the nose on target, but will prevent the one blowing through from opening as much distance.
I really do not understand this; Also, If I was able to get to G5 drity, I would not need this guide, right?
Hi - can you tell me what it is you don't understand? I'll try to clarify.
Concerning getting g5 dirty drives, anyone can do that in a few days without any combat experience at all.
To an extent, yes - in particular they'll stop the considerable benefit of 4 pips to eng.
That said, I regularly circle strafe with 1 pip to eng and even sometimes in 4-0-2 config, which is the same as if someone is using drag on me. So although drag is certainly a counter ... against a ship with g5 dirty enhanced drives, it's not necessarily a complete one.
I will try to pinpoint it, but it is hard to explain as i do not see the concept yet: I looked at the video but did not noticed any circles and did not really understood what was going on (except shooting the opponent now and then). Concerning the g5 dirty drives; i tried for several days to get the right materials, but never found some of them, so gave up. If there are hints for getting the right materials, i am all ears.
The explanation: ###
That means choosing a ship with powerful lateral thrusters and, ideally, excellent pitch (Viper III has lateral but not pitch, Clipper has pitch but not lateral, FdL is pretty good at both, etc.)
### Lost me there already, how do i check these things or how do i know this?
And, in a small ship, you should first be fitting Enhanced Drives: the Enhanced + g5 Dirty combo is what you see in the vid.
### Enhanced drive is also a Engineering thing? how can i combine these?
Finally, depending on weight sensitivity of your loadout, you may well want to be modding down and dropping down. My Courier in the vid had a D-rank FSD and various lightweight mods.
### modding down and dropping down????
But please note that although all of the above is strongly advised for serious combat duties, none of it should be treated as a complete pre-requisite.
### ok, these were not the big things, got that, still...
First steps: find your asteroid
If using the Training scenario, just jump straight in. In fact, do this first.
In the main game, fit a small fixed laser and a good distributor. This will allow you to ‘trace’ the practice target. (Don’t use a mining laser due to limited range.) If your distributor can handle it with one or two pips, choose a beam laser.
### not doable with gimballed?
Fit a good shield and HRP’s for accidents.
Drop into a ring, in the sunlight, not in a RES. Boost away from any NPC’s that spawn.
Find a stationary asteroid with safe clearance around it to minimise the risk of a crash.
Let’s circle-strafe!
4 pips to engines.
Start thrusting down while pitching up.
### not sure I understand this: Down as in 'R' key and piching up as in "nose up" (in my case mouse up)??
You will notice that you start to drift away, backwards, from your asteroid. In combat this would defeat a large part of the object as you’re now re-entering the enemy firing arc. (It will make you more difficult to hit but it’s not what we’re after today.)
Practice synchronising the two inputs to minimise this drift. It will vary by ship.
### I only get away from the asteroid loosing it ??
At this point, though, many start to think, ‘Doesn’t work or too difficult.’
### check!
To some extent, pre-Engineering, this was true. Modded drives have made a big difference, particularly with FA-on. But there is a missing input.
The missing jigsaw piece: forward/reverse thrust
What I hope some will draw from this guide is that forward and reverse thrust are the missing part of the jigsaw.
What follows, with FA-on, can be done with forward/reverse thrusters or throttle. With FA-off you can only use forward/reverse thrusters, not throttle. I advise using thrusters for both, therefore.
### totally lost here... Like in 'W' key and 'S' key?
So: return to the exercise. Counteract your drift away from the asteroid by using forward thrust. If you get too close, use reverse thrust. Practice, practice! Find the sweet spot.
### What goal am I "sweet spotting" to??
Use your beam laser also.
You're now pitching up while using down thrust and measured input of forward thrust. You’re circle-strafing!
A lot of questions but I did ask you for more, so that's cool! I'll try to answer in full but it may take me a day or two to get back, so I'll treat this as a placeholder and edit later.
EDIT:- Now answered more fully at Post No.48
Just three things for now:
1. About the vid, what you're seeing is an opponent who is turning conventionally - most of the time, using the best possible pitch while moving forwards at about 50% throttle. Meanwhile I am pitching upwards, whilst also using my downthrust and also thrusting forwards at 100%. The effect of this is that although normally his turn would bring him onto me, actually I'm constantly inside his turn. So I can shoot him but he can't shoot me. You don't see circles because we're both moving, but if he was a stationary asteroid, you'd see me circling him while facing him.
2. About flying/thrusters generally, my impression is that you're still learning the six axes of motion in a spaceship / helicopter sim. You might consider just flying your ship conventionally for a few more hours, then return to circle-strafing with a bit more experience. I mean, I did more than a hundred hours just using pitch and roll to control my ship. I was hardly even using the throttle, so that's like two out of six axes, which is perfectly normal at first.
3. About Engineering that's really beyond the scope of this thread but the best thing to do is search the Engineering forums and google for whatever it is you're after, and if you can't find the answer, just post your question as a fresh thread in the Engineering forum.
Hope this helps, will try to edit asap!
o7
Truesilver
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One thing I'm surprised no one has done is put together a list of optimal corner speeds for the various ships with A thrusters pre-engineers. We did this with SWG for each ship and it was a handy reference guide, as well as a max radian rate for each ship.
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Arguendo
Volunteer Moderator
Not to interfere with you answer to Pipo, but does this mean that digital input for forward thrusters isn't a big deal? On my joystick I only have a thumb-hat available for forward/aft thrusters, and it will only allow me digital input, so in essence 0 or 100%. I figured that would leave me without enough fine control to make it work, but perhaps that is only true for the other axis?
I think if you are truly working towards being an FA-off God, you will benefit from analogue control of all thrusters.
Personally I'm on digital for vertical/lateral and fw/rev thrusters and yaw - my only analogue is pitch/roll - it's good enough for my typical FA-off/FA-on mix, which is probably still the most popular way of PvP-ing.
In the vid in this fresh thread I'm mixing FA-off and on all the time with constant digital inputs, as I normally do:
"D-sensor Gimbals v Plasma & Phasing ... Courier v FdL PvP"
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...uesilver)-v-FdL-PvP-Vid?p=4913582#post4913582
I accidentally set up my joysticks to use digital input. So that's pitch, roll, yaw, lateral and vertical thrust. Even after changing the pitch and roll back to analogue I still didn't realise that my other directions were set to digital as well. When I bought my new joystick to replace the right one for the pitch, roll and yaw, I checked over the controls and realised that some of them were still set to digital. I changed them and it a definite difference. Movement just seems more organic. It's like ice skating on a 3D space rather than a 2D surface. But setting it to analogue and upgrading to a T16000m for the right hand joystick means that fixed weapons are now viable to use.
I use lateral and vertical thrust as much as I use pitch and yaw. Just as much for landing and taking off as for combat. It also works really well for avoiding being hit by plasma accelerators or to position myself around a large Anaconda to fire at its power plant.
I use lateral and vertical thrust as much as I use pitch and yaw. Just as much for landing and taking off as for combat. It also works really well for avoiding being hit by plasma accelerators or to position myself around a large Anaconda to fire at its power plant.
SO I'm trying this but your average NPC doesn't seem to want to play this game. They just keep boosting off and forcing you into a joust....
Am I doing it wrong or does this tend to become a PvP only strategy?
Am I doing it wrong or does this tend to become a PvP only strategy?
I don't do much PvE but I do generally find it helpful against larger ships. That said, the AI behaviour varies ship by ship and changes patch to patch.
One thing I find is that when an enemy (NPC or Cmdr) is at longer range I continue to behave almost as if circle-strafing anyway ... ie using near continuous lateral and vertical thrust ... because it hampers their aim.
I've just put up a new PvP vid, gimballed Courier v plasma FdL which hopefully illustrates this:
http://https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/316133-D-sensor-Gimbals-v-Plasma-amp-Phasing-Courier-(Truesilver)-v-FdL-PvP-Vid
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Yes actually. I'm practising mostly on the smaller ships, Vipers etc. and they like boosting or rather they are fast enough to get a good lead out on me. The Pythons etc not so much.
Because even NPCs have better ability to break out of a situation than the plank in that vid.
I seldom get to sit there all day flying around an opponent firing at them. Typically when one of us has broken away, often them to try outmanouevre my ship (I oft fly an iCourier too), it's an effective way of avoiding fire while you get them back where you want them - and yes keep them there while they don't realise what's happening.
TBH I am getting better and better at hitting the Vipers even at 1.5 km+ and OMG, what is this....
My new T.16000m FCS HOTAS has just arrived!!!!!
Have fun man
I still have my full warthog setup even though I swap to mouse for certain firing situations. I want to get mouse level precision on my stick, but it's taking some practise and settings tweaks...
In Air Warrior 3, we used to call that the Rope a Dope. 109 pilots would get people to chase them into a vertical climb and then do a hammerhead and come back down guns blazing while their opponent floundered because they'd stalled. Very common against Spit and Zero pilots. They wanted to turn and burn and we made it a turning vertical fight.
