Offline Targt

[noobnite]

Trying to improve my gunnery in GV's, and was wondering what the dot command to bring up the white target was, along with modifiers.....

[Naughty]

         .Target###    change ### to the distance you want.  500, 600, 1000  ect.   set distance at 0 to hide it.   I was always told target would appear directly north of you, but a trainer recently told me that is no longer the case.

[Wiley]

If you just do .target ### you get it due north of you, but the change the trainer was talking about would've been the addition of other parameters.  You can change it to different headings, different elevation angles as well, not exactly sure of the syntax but I'd expect it would be something along the lines of

.target 500 90 45

would put it 500 yards out, at a heading of 90 (east) from you at a 45 degree angle up.  (Edited for inaccuracy)

I'm not at my computer to confirm exactly.  Might try .help for the specifics.

Wiley.

[Kingpin]

         .Target###    change ### to the distance you want.  500, 600, 1000  ect.   set distance at 0 to hide it.   I was always told target would appear directly north of you, but a trainer recently told me that is no longer the case.

Typing .target [xxx] will set the distance at xxx yards and the target will stay North of you at that distance.

.target [xxx] [yyy] will change the direction (azimuth) of the target to yyy degrees from your position.  So .target 350 090 will make the target appear at 350 yards away EAST of your position.

.target [xxx] [yyy] [zz] will allow you to change the altitude of the target with the [zz] number of degrees, which can be positive (up) or negative (down), ranging from 90 to -90 degrees.  This is good for practicing firing in a nose-up or nose-down attitude.

You can also use the .target command in this way to practice gunning from a bomber.  Type .target 800 180 -30 and then fly a bomber north.  The target will be 800 yards behind you (south) and 30 degrees down.  

You can move the target around while in flight by putting in a new coordinate.  To "clear" a target type .target 0 and it will disappear.  Simply typing a new target setting will keep the previous bullet hits showing (this can be useful for comparing hit patterns).  Once the target has taken 1000 hits (I believe it is 1000), it clears automatically.

I use the .target command frequently to hone my shooting and to visualize the bullet dispersion patterns at various ranges, for different convergence settings in different aircraft.

Another interesting thing to do is sit on the runway (offline or in the TA) and type .target 1.  This will put a target intersecting your plane.  Go to external mode (F3) and look at your plane from the rear view.  You can see what the wingspan of that model plane looks like on the target.  You will see that most fighters (those whose wingspans range from around 30 to 40 feet will be inside the inner 2 circles.  This also is helpful for visualizing your target and understanding where your bullets are really hitting in any real concentration.

Hope this helps for a more general sense of how you can use the target command.

<S>
Ryno

[noobnite]

Thanks much! Been playing around with it!

[morfiend]

Typing .target [xxx] will set the distance at xxx yards and the target will stay North of you at that distance.

.target [xxx] [yyy] will change the direction (azimuth) of the target to yyy degrees from your position.  So .target 350 090 will make the target appear at 350 yards away EAST of your position.

.target [xxx] [yyy] [zz] will allow you to change the altitude of the target with the [zz] number of degrees, which can be positive (up) or negative (down), ranging from 90 to -90 degrees.  This is good for practicing firing in a nose-up or nose-down attitude.

You can also use the .target command in this way to practice gunning from a bomber.  Type .target 800 180 -30 and then fly a bomber north.  The target will be 800 yards behind you (south) and 30 degrees down.  

You can move the target around while in flight by putting in a new coordinate.  To "clear" a target type .target 0 and it will disappear.  Simply typing a new target setting will keep the previous bullet hits showing (this can be useful for comparing hit patterns).  Once the target has taken 1000 hits (I believe it is 1000), it clears automatically.

I use the .target command frequently to hone my shooting and to visualize the bullet dispersion patterns at various ranges, for different convergence settings in different aircraft.

Another interesting thing to do is sit on the runway (offline or in the TA) and type .target 1.  This will put a target intersecting your plane.  Go to external mode (F3) and look at your plane from the rear view.  You can see what the wingspan of that model plane looks like on the target.  You will see that most fighters (those whose wingspans range from around 30 to 40 feet will be inside the inner 2 circles.  This also is helpful for visualizing your target and understanding where your bullets are really hitting in any real concentration.





Hope this helps for a more general sense of how you can use the target command.

<S>
Ryno

   Great stuff Ryno!    I'm going to have to try that .target 1 trick and see for myself!  You may have just added a valuable tool to my trainers chest!



   

[Kingpin]

   Great stuff Ryno!    I'm going to have to try that .target 1 trick and see for myself!  You may have just added a valuable tool to my trainers chest!

 

Thanks, Morf.  It's nice to be able pay back even just a tiny percentage of the things you've taught me over the years!

Oh, by the way.  I forgot to include it in the write up, but for the "target 1" trick, you need to choose the heading of the runway you spawn onto also if not spawning north (the default).  For example, if spawning SE the correct syntax is .target 1 225 for you to see your wingspan on the target.

When I taught the VF-17 guys some gunnery tricks, I took them up and had them fire a 2-second burst at the center of the target.  Then I had them bring that target up while sitting on the ground overlayed against their aircraft, using the .target 1 method.  Since the target keeps the bullet dispersion pattern until cleared, they could actually see their own bullet pattern displayed against an aircraft (dead 6) and how many of their bullets are missing that aircraft plane form, even when they had fired while level, unloaded and at convergence.  It can be very eye opening.

<S>
Ryno

[Kingpin]

Trying to improve my gunnery in GV's, and was wondering what the dot command to bring up the white target was, along with modifiers.....

For noobnite, here is another more useful trick for learning to range and shoot at tanks rather than using the white target (.target command):

In Offline Practice mode you can set the drones to be tanks (whatever models you want to shoot at).  Even better, if you switch to Knights you can see their precise icon distances as they will display just like friendly icons do. (You should be able to shoot them still, as I think killshooter is off.  If not, let me know and I'll try to remember where that setting is.)

Then spawn the model tank you want to practice with and drive off the field to various distances to test your ranging.  You should still be able to see the icons out at long range, so this will help for learning.  I like to do this at a field with relatively flat surrounding terrain, like A30 on the default Offline Practice map.  There are a couple low hills around to climb and practice firing from elevation at A30 as well.  Once you start getting a feel for it, turn the icons off (toggling ALT+I) and try moving around and seeing if you can use the gun-sight to accurately range the tanks on the field.

To change the Offline Drones to tanks (or different model planes) go to Options-->Arena Settings-->Offline Drones and make them whatever tanks you want to learn how to kill.

Hope this help!

<S>
Ryno

[noobnite]

Thanks alot for all the input, everyone. I may spend part of my evening offline using all that has been presented