StatsGuy wrote:QUOTE (StatsGuy @ Jun 27 2011, 07:45 PM) Hello all instructors and trainees.
Time for some noob questions of mine:
1. Slang: what (or rather: who) is a voob?
voob is an insulting term for a player who has been around forever but is no good at the game.
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2. Maneuvering: Opening game. I'm in the middle of a sector (1.5-2k away from any aleph) scouting, suddenly I see an enemy scout, who I know is far superior than me. He will almost surely attack and pod me. There's no homerip yet and he's at 2.5k and closing. How do I avoid him and run away (given I probably am in a slower craft)? Lowering sig will in many situations not be enough.[/quote]
If you are in a scout, try to prox him while running in a straight line. If you can go uneyed before doing so, all the better. If you can't run, head straight up or down off the plane to get closer to the sector boundary. He'll have to fly farther back to where he wants to go, and you're closer to the sector boundary to podkill yourself on it.
If there's friendly pod pickup available close by, it can be best just to let him pod you and get back to base as fast as you can, or even suicide into a nearby asteroid so he doesn't get KB.
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3. Loadout: I tend to go all-probe on the first run and take 1 prox in later probe runs. Otherwise i go all-prox. It works to some degree, but I feel like i could do better, I just don't have an idea how. From the reading I had so far it's "you'll know eventually". Is there some more substantial information around?[/quote]
Keep in mind prox is heavy, and makes your scout slow and unweildy. If your task is probing, go low-sig (no missiles or shields) with a nan mounted and if you really want, pack a prox and gat in cargo. Sometimes its best just to take all probes.
For defending miners or bombers, take nan mounted, shields and missiles up, and cargo full of prox.
For miner O, take two probes (one mounted), one prox, one nan (in cargo), gat and dumbfires mounted, rest of cargo dumbfires. You can drop the two probes and have cargo space for your missiles and shields if you need to go low-sig, and those probes are useful even if they are randomly in the middle of a sector.
For escorting sneaky ships (eg: HTT, low-sig bombers) keep shields in cargo, nan and prox mounted, rest of cargo prox. Don't bring missiles.
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4. Driving a bomber: in small PUGs it might happen that I will be asked to bomb. Last time that happened I refused due to lack of experience to make a win-lose run. It cost us game that time (the other novice, Gunjay, took it and accidentally deployed from the wrong base). Could you provide some basic instructions on loadout and in-flight handling, so that I don't embarrass myself if I'm forced to drive a bomber?[/quote]
For high-sig or forced bombing, use the default loadout and swap some of your ammo racks for AB missiles. Even with two gunners, you probably won't need more than one spare rack of ammo. If you don't have gunners (eg: intbombing) then drop the turrets and take all missiles in cargo.
For low-sig sneaky bombing, keep your shields in cargo, missiles in cargo, and gunners optional.
Most of the work driving a bomber is setting up the run. Pay attention to the route you are going to take, which base is best to launch from, if there are enemy probes which need to be destroyed before you go. When you're in the enemy system, aim 15 degrees off of a straight line towards the base. Curve towards the base as you get close. If you see a scout in front of you, adjust your path to avoid prox.
Fire your missiles at 1000 + (your speed * 5), even if you don't have lock. AB missiles don't need a lock to fire at the base. If I'm travelling at 60mps in a bomber, I can fire at 1300m and still hit the target. 1500m at 100mps, etc...
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5. Orientation: On the above topic, the more silent commanders usually drop "we bomb tac" or "bomb Tau now!" into chat and expect everyone to know where to deploy and what's the route. I end up 1.5k behind (turns out most people know the route exactly) and have to catch up which sometimes make me come too late. How to improve my orientation on the sector locations and quickpick the correct deployment & ripto spots? Sometimes there's more than one taken sector adjacent to the target which I can go from. How do I make my choice FAST?[/quote]
Watch the minimap. Try to pay attention to sector names. If you aren't sure which base/sector the run is mobilizing in, ask in chat. Good comms will call which sector to mobilize in.
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6. Factions: I usually end up in any ol' faction against any ol' faction and simply do the same exact stuff in each one. Therefore I don't use the faction perks and nerfs, which makes me less helpful to the team. There's a ton of reading about factions, but I haven't come across a quickref of the biggest traits for each faction, which would (after being printed out) help me get my info fast and ingame and eventually get into my head, so I don't need it printed anymore. Is there anything like that flying around/providable?[/quote]
The wiki has everything:
http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/Factions
There are some quirks you only learn with experience, but the major differences are those faction modifier percentages you see, such as sensor strength, signature, ship speed/accel, armor and shield strength.
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7. Orientation: how to manage yourself and not fly literal circles for 10+ seconds in a cluster$#@! (5+ ship bomb run; combat nanning in serious dogfight; etc.)? Any tips?[/quote]
Set up your targeting keys and get used to using them. Here are mine:
1 - bomber
2 - fighter
3 - miner
4 - constructor
alt+1 - enemy bomber
alt+2 - enemy fighter (and so on...)
right click - target object in centre (this is a really important one).
Install bigger pointers:
http://www.mesialonline.com/Allegiance/pointer/pointers.html
Use your targeting keys to cycle through targets quickly. For example, you can cycle through all friendly nans in a bomb run while still aiming at the bomber to see if any need crossnanning.
Watch the edges of your screen. Its confusing at first, but you can gain a lot from it.
