Cadet I/Figs & Ints

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"Just Get Something with Guns on It!"

"And get in there home!" It's an old quote, taken from a commander's response to one of his pilots question "What do we do now?" after they destroyed the enemy's last techbase. When you want to be useful and find stuff, you take a scout. When you feel like being all sneaky and lurk for hours before killing something, you take a stealth fighter. But what about the times when something simply needs killing, fast?

Well, you have two choices depending upon your faction and tech path.

• Fighter
• Interceptor

Fighters

Shields, missiles, minepacks, ripcording. Sounds awesome, doesn't it? Well, sort of.

Fighters deal more damage than interceptors, but only if you manage to use all your weapons (guns, minepacks, missiles) effectively. Whereas the int pilot only has to master one weapon system. Gattling guns use up less ammunition so you can often afford to take only a single spare clip. You can rip to teleport receivers and shields recharge, which combined mean you can potentially run around for a long while before you need to re-dock.

On the other hand, your ship will go *pop* pretty fast once people start being serious about trying to kill you. Those shields and missiles raise your signature making it easier for them to see you. All that extra cargo, especially the mine packs, weigh your ship down so it's slower than an interceptor - don't expect to outrun one.

What's a fighter good at? The global mobility is its biggest advantage. A team with fighters can launch attacks or defend anywhere on the map very quickly. Due to its impressive array of weapons it's reasonably good at killing stuff in situations where it won't come under fire - good examples of this would be camping alephs or killing lightly defended miners. Your weapons have a good range, so you don't have to get up close and personal. Let's not forget that once you get advanced fighters you can mount a Galv gun and destroy minor stations

Note This takes a loooong time if you're doing it alone, though... so better bring a few buddies.

As a general rule, you usually don't want to go places alone. A single fighter? Not so hot. Three fighters, all shooting the same target? Scary!

Interceptors

Lean mean killing machine. Thick armor, strong guns, good agility, good boosters ... minimal sensors, no shields at all. Think of interceptors as the Komets of Allegiance - very strong but if you run out of supplies you're a sitting duck. And you're bound to run out of supplies considerably faster than in a fighter.

As an int you generally shouldn't go farther than one sector away from a dockable base unless you really know what you're doing. Interceptors can't rip and have a low cruising speed so if you end up in the wrong place and without fuel it'll take you forever to limp back. This will not only be boring for you but you also won't be contributing to your team at all (colloquially known as "flying around cluelessly"). So - when you're about to go someplace in an interceptor, make sure you know:

• Why you're going there...
• How you're going to get back...

Tip: If a large group of ints are stranded they may decide to ram rocks and get a pickup from a teammate. Don't nan players that are trying to do this!

As far as fighting tactics for interceptors are concerned, it's really simple. Get up close and personal then let 'er rip with your miniguns with all the finesse of a pitbull. You have the strong guns and thick armor to make it work. Remember that you don't have a whole lot of ammo though, so don't just spray & pray.

Tip: The most common newb mistake with ints is overboosting - holding on the Tab key for too long and flying right past their target. When you're about 2k out slow down and think about what direction you should fly in to come up behind your target.

As far as loadout is concerned the default cargo of 3 fuel & 2 ammo is very good. Some people will switch one of the fuel tanks for a 3rd ammo but until you're really good you probably won't live long enough to use it anyway. Whereas a 3rd fuel tank is good for getting home fast (colloquially known as "running away").

Interceptors can mount pulse probes (PP) which will illuminate pretty much the whole sector for a short time (5 seconds) when dropped. Think of them as those sonar buoy things they have on submarines. The default loadout, once they're available, substitutes the 3rd fuel tank for a second PP. 2 is usually all you'll need except for specific situations like hunting down stealths in a sector you own. In that situation you can just take more PPs instead of extra ammo since stealth craft die really easy - you don't need a lot of bullets to kill them.

Heavy Interceptors with Minigun 3: The dream ship of defense. If you have them, use nothing else. Concentrated fire power from several Ints can shred their target in seconds. This is the ship of choice for defending bases!

Combat maneuvers

Moving serves pilots in avoiding enemy fire. The available options are regular thrusters, side thrusters, boosters and rotation thrusters.

The regular thrusters are your "cruising" engines and allow the ship to move forward in space. In a fight you use them to move toward or run away from targets. You can put them to your advantage by going in one direction and pressing l to activate the course lock. This will enable you to continue flying in a direction while facing another.

Tip: You can leave your regular thrusters at 100% and use the thrust backwards (Num 5 by default) to slow down, even reverse.

Side thrusters are the most complex to use and the most useful. The default keys are the Numpad buttons. They allow the ship to move in any direction without having to face it. Constantly changing your ship's direction will force the enemy pilot to constantly readjust his aim and his lead indicator (if there is one) will also constantly move.

Note Rapidly mashing your thruster keys will not achieve anything because your side thrusters are much weaker than your regular thrusters. Unless you're completely still to begin with you have to press and hold the side thrust key for a few seconds before it will affect your movement.

Side thrusters also allow you to move toward or away from targets in more efficient ways. As a fighter vs an interceptor you want to keep your distance, getting that sweet distance where your missiles can lock on but his miniguns can't reach you. Sidethrusting is also extremely useful in dodging missiles. Certain missiles such as the Dumbfire have low turn rates and even a brief squirt of your side thrusters can throw them off. Others, like the hunter missiles, are extremely difficult to avoid and require the use of more powerful thrusters that can allow quick surprise maneuvers: boosters.

Side thrusters are also useful when flying in one direction while looking in another, to either increase your sensor range in a certain direction or fire in one direction while flying in another. While the vector lock can do this, manual flying is always best - why lock yourself to traveling in one direction when you can travel in six? Sidethrusting is also useful for fine-tune adjustments on both your aim and your docking.

Tip: Don't use your thrusters in combinations that cancel each other out. I.E., up/down or left/right. If you are going to use a combination or alternate between thrusters use up/right, up/left, etc.

Boosters give your ship quick acceleration at the price of consuming fuel. Boosters allow you to go over the maximum cruising speed achievable with your main thrusters, to quickly change direction, or to keep a constant turn rate as you circle a target.

Example By constantly turning your ship to face an enemy bomber while boosting; you are always facing the bomber, yet turning around it, giving the turret gunners a difficult time.

Boosters also serve a simpler function in evasive maneuvers. During a simple 1 on 1 dogfight sooner or later you're going to need to reload your ammo, boosting out of enemy range during this reload is always a good thing. When you are under missile fire suddenly boosting in a new direction will allow you to outrun the best of missiles, even hunters (although you might need physical obstacles to avoid the capital class hunter killer missiles). If you fly in a direction then quickly boost in another the missile will not be able to compensate for all the momentum it has put in the first direction and will hopefully miss you. Boosters can also be used to out turn a sluggish ship which is trying to shoot you.

An interceptor fighting an eyed stealth fighter should boost to close in with the sf, then turn and attempt to find itself beside or behind it, allowing it to fire without being fired at due to the stealth fighter's low turn rate.

Regular boosters have high accel and high fuel consumption. Heavy boosters are designed for intense combat and have approximately twice the accel and fuel consumption of regular boosters. Light boosters are designed for long distance travel and have low accel and low fuel consumption. Cruise boosters are a cross between light boosters and regular boosters. The retro booster thrusts your ship backwards - note that you must either have your main thrusters at 0% or be holding on the thrust backwards key for the retro booster to work.

File:Giga-sf.jpg

A giga sf has a thick horizontal profile but thin vertical one

Rotation thrusters are used to rotate your ship. The default keys to use them are Shift-⇚ and Shift-⇛ to perform counterclockwise and clockwise turns, respectively. These keys are most useful for the Rixians because their ships have exceptional turn rates horizontally, but terrible turn rates vertically. Of course, rotating can be useful for every faction, to bring all your weapon mounts to bear accurately or to align yourself to ram a friendly bbr.

Similarly, rotating and turning your ship around is important when exposing your ship surface. Most ships have thin and less thin profiles. The best example is the GigaCorp sf which has a very thin profile but a large, rectangular profile when looked at from above or below. A GigaCorp Stealth pilot must always rotate the ship to keep only the thin profile exposed, whereas an enemy pilot can attempt to fly in a manner to expose the larger profile.

Target selection

Often choosing your closest enemy is what's best in a random dogfight, all targets being almost equal. x is the default key used to target the closest enemy. In most situations you shouldn't be dogfighting randomly and a specific target such as a miner, bomber or constructor, is far more important. In these cases you can target it by centering it in your HUD and hitting "Target Center", c.

Tip: You can bind specific keys for targeting important ships by exploring the "Map keys and controls" menu, Esc-g-c

Often an enemy nanite may be near, repairing the miner or bomber. You need to keep an eye out for either the icon of a scout nearby on your HUD, the target's hull regenerating, or the blue donuts. It is unlikely to be the closest ship and you need to use target centre to lock onto it. When turreting these two targeting systems are used in conjunction, targeting center to find the most dangerous ship or to get the ship right in front of you quickly, and targeting closest when under fire by a lot of ships and not having the time to find your best target. Use both wisely.

When in a situation where you must quickly pickup pods, targeting them is quickly achieved by pressing j which only targets friendly pods. This way, you can get a clear reading of their position quickly, and proceed to rescue them if possible.

A few closing words...

Whatever you do, remember you're part of a team. Pay attention to where you're needed, don't get bogged down into needless shoot-outs. Dogfighting is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It's easy to lose focus on what you're really trying to accomplish in the sector when you're running around shooting stuff, but try not to.

Good hunting!

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