AFS/Weapons

Weapon Basics

Weapons in Allegiance come in one of three varieties:

	Pros	Cons
Energy Weapons (EW)	Consume energy instead of ammo. Since your ship's energy recharges this means you don't have to return to base as often. You can carry useful equipment in cargo instead of spare ammo racks. The bullets travel faster than particle weapons making it easier to hit your target. Generally have less spread than particle weapons.	If you run out of energy in a dogfight you are in a lot of trouble. It takes a lot longer to recharge energy than it does to reload ammo. Cloaking devices and nans also require energy so you may find you are unable to use them if you waste energy firing. Energy weapons are usually specialised against a certain armour class, meaning they do little damage to everything else. So you need to learn which EW is useful for which task.
Particle Weapons (PW)	Good damage against most armour classes. Doesn't depend on your energy levels. Doesn't take long to reload.	Needs to be reloaded. Your ship is useless once you run out of ammo. They're more difficult to aim, due to their spread and "slow" bullet speed.
Particle Energy weapons (PE)	PE are unique to Technoflux although any other faction can use them if they steal them. They are very similar to PW in terms of Pros and Cons except:
	No spread whatsoever.	Slightly less damage than their PW equivalents. Consumes both energy and ammo when fired.

Mix-and-match weapons

Most ships have the ability to mount different weapons in different gun slots at the same time. While you may think you're getting the best of both worlds by using a combined-arms approach you are really just shooting yourself in the foot. The differences in range, rate of fire, and bullet speed between the different guns makes it impossible to get all your guns to hit your target unless you're at point-blank range.

Aiming right ... for real

You will have noticed the reticule on your HUD which shows whether you're leading your target properly or not - it turns green when you'll hit, red when you won't. Right?

Wrong. The reticule is not entirely accurate. A green reticule does not always mean that you will surely hit your target with all your guns, all it indicates is that you're close to hitting it with your primary weapon. It may be missing by the narrowest margin or even if they're hitting perhaps the bullets from your second gun are missing - very possible with the gunmount layout on certain ships! You have to look at the bullets themselves and verify that they're hitting. Most pilots don't do this and so waste most of their ammo, making themselves easy pickings for good pilots.

Tip: *Rebind your rotation keys so they're easy to reach. Rotating your ship is the easiest way to bring all your weapons to bear. Shooting at someone moving at right angles to you is difficult. If possible try to come up behind your opponent and you will find them a lot easier to defeat. It is highly recommended that you replace the default reticule with a player created crosshair, many of which are available here.

Dispenser weapons

Prox mines & mine packs

These deploy a small cloud of mines behind your ship that remain stationary. Any enemy ship flying through them will take damage proportional to the speed they go through. They take 4 seconds to activate and so require a bit of forethought to get a kill with them - try boosting away from your opponent and once you have a decent lead drop prox so that they smash into it as they chase you. Or fly through an aleph and drop them just as you exit the other side.

Plasgens

Plasgens are unique to technoflux. They deploy a small tower behind your ship that remains stationary and fire upon any enemy ship in close range. Unlike the prox mines that you want your opponent to go through as quickly as possible, with plasgens you want your opponent to go past it very slowly. Dropping them while you're circling each other dogfighting is a good idea. Once again, they take 4s to activate.

Combat drones

CD are unique to Rix, normally dropped by stealth fighters. Like plasgens it is a small tower which fires upon the enemy. Unlike plasgens CD have a long range but only fire at the person you had targeted when you dropped it, making it quite difficult to use. A good trick is to fly in front of your target and lay them beside their path so that they're flying towards them as they arm. Once again, they take 4s to arm.

Optional: See the weapons article and the damage chart for more detailed information.

Missiles

Missiles are classified by their range levels. Short-range missiles can be fired from approximately 150 to 1400 meters from their target. On the other hand, extreme-range missiles can fire at distances close to 6 kilometers. The abbreviated terms of SRM, MRM, LRM, and XRM give a quick indicator of the range of the missile.

Usually, missiles that inflict the highest damage are short-ranged due to the heavy charge inside. However there are many exceptions, like the XRM Hunter Killer (HK) that has the greatest range, greatest tracking, and can kill a small-class ship with a single shot.

Supplies

As with ammo missiles must be reloaded when your current rack is depleted. Since you usually only have 1 to 5 missiles per slot you will be reloading missiles pretty often and unlike ammo or fuel reloads it's not a special event to which you must pay particular attention. The only critical missile reload is when you're bombing because time is your most important asset as every available enemy ship will have you as a prime target. Furthermore reloading anti-base missiles takes longer than other kinds of missiles. Therefore be sure to have your missile slot full before the assault so that you don't have to reload in the middle of combat.

Note Regular bombers carry 4 anti-base missiles per rack, heavy bombers 5, stealth bombers 2, and fighter/bombers 1.

Firing straight

The amount of tracking that a missile has varies from type to type. Some like the Seeker, Hunter and Hunter Killer don't require you to fire in a straight line because they are pretty agile (in fact the Hunter Killer can basically turn around and hit a ship behind you). Just remember that if a missile has to turn to reach it's target it may run out of fuel and fail to hit, even if your HUD says you're in range and locked on.

A short video explaining the behavior of dumbfire missiles and how to aim them can be found HERE - Watch it, dumbfires are important missiles and don't act the way you expect them to.

Other missiles can barely turn, such as the Dumbfire, Anti-Base, Killer, and Tactical Nuke. With these you must ensure that your ship is not only pointing in the right direction, but flying in the right direction too (since missiles launch travelling in the same direction your ship is). If your target is headed at a perpendicular trajectory to your's then these missiles will surely miss because they will have a hard time turning. Always wait for the missile lock if possible. A locked missile has twice the chance of hitting than one shot without a missile lock.

Missing your target with a missile can be costly to you in a dogfight, but can be devastating to your team when bombing - even unforgivable. Many important targets have survived because of the incompetence of pilots who missed 1 or 2 anti-base missiles and died while reloading.

Tip: Don't fire after being rammed as your missile is likely to be thrown off course.

Rockets

Many factions use missiles that don't aim at all and they are called either "Rockets", "Torpedoes" or "Projectiles". For example the Rixian and Technoflux eXtreme Range Projectiles (XRP) ot the Ga'Taraan Federation Medium Range Torpedoes (MRT). You must aim these missiles like you would a gun, by leading your shots and firing at where your target will be.

Some of these rockets don't even have acceleration of their own and thus you must first speed up your ship before "throwing" them at the target! With these types of missile it is VERY important that you get your motion indicator to point at the target before firing otherwise they'll go sailing straight past!

Optional: See the missiles article and the damage chart for more detailed information.

Final tips

Here is the sneaky part, you don't have to be in range nor have a lock to fire a missile.

Why would you want to?

• If you're firing an agile missile then it may not need lock if you have a good angle at your opponent.
• The enemy will still get an audible warning. Spook them into wasting countermeasures, or cloaking and running away.
• If you're moving then your missile will gain your speed when it launches, increasing its effective range.