Cadet II/Dogfighting

General dog fighting

If you've come this far in Allegiance you should understand the fundamentals of flying and more importantly the basics of combative flying. Now we're going to expand on that understanding and hopefully bring you to a more competent and competitive standing in dogfights.

Evasion

This isn't a turn-based game, combat is real time, so you're going to have to learn how to combine perfect offense and perfect defense. This ability is the most important aspect of dogfighting. You can have the sharpest, most precise aim possible for a human being ... but still have the majority of your engagements end in losses if you have poor evasion. Learning how to efficiently evade fire is how can defeat people with greater kill bonuses, and perhaps even superior technology.

First thing first, it's important that you have your thrusters mapped to a convenient location. Here's an example of what one of the top dogfighters uses:

Keyboard		Joystick
W	Thrust up	HAT	Look around
S	Thrust down	X-Axis	Roll
A	Thrust left	Y-Axis	Pitch
D	Thrust right	Z-Axis	Yaw
Q	Roll left
E	Roll right
Z	Thrust forward
C	Thrust backward

Secondly, keep your forward/backward mapped to something which is easily reached. The reasoning is that while you hold on one of the side strafe keys 100% of your engine power is put into that directional thruster (which are nearly always far less efficient than your main thrusters). If you hold on forward at the same time 50%^Verify is put into the side thrust, and 50% into forward thrust. This allows you to keep your forward speed high and prevent you turning into a sitting duck.

It is also useful for counterbalancing speed losses from booster shaking, flying in formation, slowing down at alephs, docking, and many other situations.

Watch and evade

This part is fairly simple, all you do is pay attention to incoming fire. Most players make the fatal mistake of only strafing one direction while they hold on their own trigger. Might as well be flying straight at your target IMO, since even mediocre pilots will have no problem re-adjusting to train their aim on you. If you're hit, change directions, if you see particles getting closer to you, change directions. Keep them guessing and make them have to constantly re-adjust. Watch the particles coming towards you to guage which new direction you should be taking.

Tip: Change directions perpendicular to the direction they're readjusting. For instance, if the enemy pilot is already having to readjust his aim from left to right, dodge either up or down.

Playing at max range

Gat has a range of 600, gat 3 660, and all miniguns have a range of 400m (the only exceptions are TF and Rix). Learn the ranges well because they are critical to keeping your hitpoints greater than your opponents. Use your backthrust while strafing to back away from combat, and play defensively. It's much harder to hit someone at max range then it is at 150m. If you can out-range someone, chances are they'll boost in to try and resume the engagement, this is your chance to "joust" with your opponent. You can use their forward momentum to boost over/under/around them while you score a few minor hits while passing.

At this point you have two options, continue to play them at max range (this is how a fighter stands a chance vs an interceptor, you must joust or you will die once you're in mini gun range) or simply keep boosting forward, gain a headstart, and break the engagement.

Learning how to manipulate the ranges of the craft you're facing and knowing the limitations of the one you're in is an invaluable aspect of combat awareness.

Control your range

Everyone has a particlar range where they are most comfortable in. Players with higher lag tend to get in closer to ensure their bullets are hitting. Learn your optimal range. It's the point where no matter what, you are going to hit their ship and not miss, the point where you are most capable of precise aim.

Now consider what we told you about forward- and back-thrusting. If you're busy holding on side strafe during a dog fight then you aren't moving forwards. Chances are your opponent isn't either. Thus, you will stay at the same range, so here's they key - if the current range does not match your optimal range, then use your forward or backward thrust to make it your optimal range.

Learning how to keep the range *you* want in a fight is like maintaining the high ground in a sword fight. If you are facing a lesser or equal skill opponent, they will be forced to give up ground to try and get you to surrender your advantage. Be warned though, don't focus on gaining the high ground to such an extent that you leave yourself open to a dumbfire to the face. Manipulate your thrusters carefully and cleverly.

The reticule is a merely a guide

Ahhh, the reticule. If it turns green, you fire, right? There are four things you need to learn about the reticule:

1. The hitbox

The size and shapes of space craft in Allegiance are many and varied. The reticule is not perfect, and will sometimes show you green when actually you're shooting just between two armour plates.

2. The primary weapon

The green reticule is based on your primary weapon. Most of the time this will be the weapon in your primary slot. Say you have three miniguns in a widely spaced arrangement. Although the stream of bullets from minigun1 may hit the target, the bullets from minigun2 and minigun3 may be missing completely!

Tip: If you're the kind of pilot that often puts two miniguns and one gatt on your Belter fighter, then press 2 twice to make the minigun your primary weapon and make it easier to hit with!

3. Range upgrades

Some factions have a range upgrade (Rix being the key example). All factions can purchase additional upgrades. The green reticule never factors in these range upgrades (it only considers your bullets' basic speed). This means it will turn green "late", well after your opponent has already entered firing range.

Range upgrades are achieved by increasing the particle speed, and thus not only is the reticule "late" it is also inaccurate. Thus when you have an upgrade you need to aim slightly inside of the green reticule in order to hit.

Example If you fire a bullet at a target that would hit if the bullet traveled 100mps, then it's going to miss if it's actually traveling at 120mps.

These three points all add up to one thing: You should always watch your bullets to see whether they are hitting or not. The reticule is only a gauge to see if you're in the right ball park. If they aren't hitting, do something about it. Adjust your aim, rotate your craft, close with your enemy. But don't pay attention to the green reticule.

4. Extra for experts

The reticule will turn green once the enemy is in range. The reticule does compensate for your speed (so if you are moving faster it will turn green at a longer range, because your bullets will travel "further" before expiring), but it doesn't compensate for the enemy speed.

So let's say you have perfect aim, and even though the enemy isn't in range you have your crosshairs all lined up so that once they are in range, you can let rip and hit them with everything. Let's say you wait until the reticule turns green before you actually let rip. What's wrong with this picture?

• Consider what will happen if you wait for the reticule.
• Consider what will happen if you let her rip early.

Be careful though, you don't want to be firing for no reason because this will lead to you reloading at the worst possible time. The best bet is to fire a few "tracer rounds" to find your range.

Best of all replace the default Allegiance reticule. Get a small dot, small cross, or even nothing at all. Before doing this it's imperative to have good hand eye co-ordination, if you're lacking in that, stick to missiles. As a matter of fact if you're the kind of person who has poor hand-eye-game coordination then you're going to find dogfighting very hard.

Rotate your craft

Sometimes people will come in at a funny angle. Sometimes they will be oriented towards you in a way you don't like at all. Sometimes your guns will not line up with the hitbox of their craft.

There are many reasons to need to roll your craft, and it is important that you don't forget to do so. Consider your opponents orientation and your gun mounts, and decide if all may hit or if 1 or 2 may miss. If rotating your craft will mean 2 bullet streams are hitting instead of 1, then you have doubled your damage output. If you're only hitting with one out of three guns, then you're wasting 66% of your ammo. That's a lot of wasted ammo.

With the exception of 3 factions (GT, Belts and Dreg) all interceptors are wide and flat. Having your craft perpendicular to your opponent will not gain you anything, while being parallel will gain in most cases gain you a nice even weapon spread. Fighters are a different story because some of them are boxier.

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