Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Help and Training => Topic started by: Zazen13 on December 05, 2006, 10:37:06 AM
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In light of the new set-up in LW Orange I thought it would be nice to repost my tips on how to enjoy success in large engagements here in the Help Forum and invite other long-time vets to post on this topic as well. Hopefully this will help newer players and players new to fightering not feel so much like a flying scooby snack when fighting in large, protracted engagements...
Successfully negotiating a complex engagement is pure joy for me. It is what 'floats my boat'. The process itself is half instinct and half systematic pre-meditation.
There are a few key components:
1) Patience-On each shot and when picking your prey.
2) Discretion- Know when to cut n' run and when to go balls to the wall.
3) Flexibilty-Take in everything, targets of opportunity abound, adapt to your surroundings and the evolving combat situation.
4) SA-The more you can keep track of while engaged the better, friendly and enemy. Have a general idea of relative E states of as many cons as you can, predict and visualize their probable locations and vectors while not actually looking at them, really good SA is almost like clairvoyant ESP in this regard.
5) Gunnery- Hit hard and fast, killing quickly is a factor of gunnery, bad gunnery means slow kills. If you kill slowly your're going to get saddled, cherry picked and gang-banged no matter how good of a pilot your are.
I see alot of mistakes repeated over and over that cause otherwise skilled players fail to be sucessful in complex engagements, here are some of them:
1) Blow all of their E/options on the first con they come across.
2) Over-commit to one enemy, a furball is full of targets, don't put all of your eggs in one basket, your goal is to kill as many as you can and live...
3) Falling for what I call the 'suck-drag', the 'suck-drag' can be the horizontal or vertical version. In either version you are allowing the enemy to pull you to friends and/or blow too much E. Remember the runner actually has the initiative over the chaser, he is determining when/if/how/where you will be forced to fight.
4) Poor gunnery is death assured for the furballer, in a complex engagement if you cannot kill quickly you're going to get saddled, cherry picked and gang banged ALOT.
There are a few routines and practices that will guarentee some success:
1) Before Engaging always have an exit strategy and save the E to execute it if need be.
2) Don't get 'married' to one con, stay flexible and take out targets of opportunity as the chances arise even if it means letting a fish off the hook.
3) After blowing some E for a kill don't flush the rest down the toilet in an un-educated frenzy. Re-gain some of the lost E if you are under no immeditate threat, re-assess the situation and the ebb n' flow of the battle, get your SA back up then re-engage on your terms.
4) If you are in an E fighter give preference to enemy faster than you. If in a TnB plane give preference to enemy that can out-turn you while your E state is still high. This will enhance your survivability in your local fight area.
5) Be aware of friendlies around you, have some knowledge of what they tend to do. Just because they have a friendly icon doesn't mean they can be counted on to do the most predictable/desireable thing. For example, some players are always heavy and will never engage until they get their ord to target. Some players blow all of their E at the drop of a hat to swirl around on the deck in a death spiral with 5 enemy until they inevitably get shot down. Some friends are great for pulling enemy out of the pack vertically (roping) or horizonally (dragging). Knowing all of this will help you survive and cull the herd of enemy planes at minimal risk.
I hope this helps...
Zazen
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wish i followed it once in awhile:)
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after reading and thinking about i didn't realize some of the things i was doing. good read
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"Some players blow all of their E at the drop of a hat to swirl around on the deck in a death spiral with 5 enemy until they inevitably get shot down."
Have you been watching me?
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3) Falling for what I call the 'suck-drag', the 'suck-drag' can be the horizontal or vertical version. In either version you are allowing the enemy to pull you to friends and/or blow too much E. Remember the runner actually has the initiative over the chaser, he is determining when/if/how/where you will be forced to fight.
sound advise. I find myself often doing exactly this in the 190
Althought moreoften then not Im not pulling you to my riends but away from yours.
When chased by a pack I will try to move away. knowing that eventually most will give up but there is usually one fool who just HAS to give chase after everyone else has quit and turned arounf.
Then I simply say to myself "Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly"
I'll start going into a very shallow. almost un noticable climb for a bit.
when I see him start to climb to follow me I level out again till I see myself getting more distance on him.
Then when over terrain of my choosing. usually a deep valley I pull a U turn on him and kill him off 1 V 1
2) Don't get 'married' to one con, stay flexible and take out targets of opportunity as the chances arise even if it means letting a fish off the hook.
Correct again. As often as not while going in on one plane I will spot another that will expend less of my advantage to go after.
Example. I come down with alot of E on someone but he starts to turn. Just at that moment I spot another plane I can go after that is almost directly in line with me.
If I turn with the first plane I will loose some of my E in the turn. I can go after the other plane directly in line and save my E for another time.
Too many develop tunnel vision when going after someone. they pick one plane out and just chase him till they kill him no matter what they have to do. completey ignoring other easier targets that wont cost them as much of an advantage
In the end they have blown every advantage they started with.
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Originally posted by Zazen13
Successfully negotiating a complex engagement is pure joy for me. It is what 'floats my boat'. The process itself is half instinct and half systematic pre-meditation.
There are a few key components:
1) Patience-On each shot and when picking your prey.
2) Discretion- Know when to cut n' run and when to go balls to the wall.
3) Flexibilty-Take in everything, targets of opportunity abound, adapt to your surroundings and the evolving combat situation.
4) SA-The more you can keep track of while engaged the better, friendly and enemy. Have a general idea of relative E states of as many cons as you can, predict and visualize their probable locations and vectors while not actually looking at them, really good SA is almost like clairvoyant ESP in this regard.
5) Gunnery- Hit hard and fast, killing quickly is a factor of gunnery, bad gunnery means slow kills. If you kill slowly your're going to get saddled, cherry picked and gang-banged no matter how good of a pilot your are.
There are a few routines and practices that will guarentee some success:
1) Before Engaging always have an exit strategy and save the E to execute it if need be.
2) Don't get 'married' to one con, stay flexible and take out targets of opportunity as the chances arise even if it means letting a fish off the hook.
3) After blowing some E for a kill don't flush the rest down the toilet in an un-educated frenzy. Re-gain some of the lost E if you are under no immeditate threat, re-assess the situation and the ebb n' flow of the battle, get your SA back up then re-engage on your terms.
4) If you are in an E fighter give preference to enemy faster than you. If in a TnB plane give preference to enemy that can out-turn you while your E state is still high. This will enhance your survivability in your local fight area.
5) Be aware of friendlies around you, have some knowledge of what they tend to do. Just because they have a friendly icon doesn't mean they can be counted on to do the most predictable/desireable thing. For example, some players are always heavy and will never engage until they get their ord to target. Some players blow all of their E at the drop of a hat to swirl around on the deck in a death spiral with 5 enemy until they inevitably get shot down. Some friends are great for pulling enemy out of the pack vertically (roping) or horizonally (dragging). Knowing all of this will help you survive and cull the herd of enemy planes at minimal risk.
I hope this helps...
Zazen
Here is a film of all this in practice I made less than 10 minutes ago.
P38J, 10 kills, 18:04 minutes
arenafilm1.ahf (http://trainers.hitechcreations.com/files/murdr/arenafilm1.ahf)
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Dang Murdr, I would have been dead ten seconds into that engagement.