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In other words: If you suck at Allegiance, take all guns off your figbee.

Weylin wrote:QUOTE (Weylin @ Nov 14 2009, 09:35 PM) not sure if I agree with taking off all the guns on a figbee. It totally depends really, I can't aim worth a @#(! so I don't bother doing anything more than boosting directly to the base, evade prox and dumbfires, and try not to die.
However, I've seen a few times that an armed figbee, hell, even a turreted one, podded more than one defender and made it to the base fighting it's way through.

Yeah... no.

See, I don't mind the turret (though 10 times out of 10 2 figbees >>>>> 1 figbee with a turret in terms of base killing) but the guns? You are going to take time out of your run to DM? That's like, on the top ten list of "Things that will get you booted twice." I keep minepacks usually even though they really slow me down because they have a chance at making voobs overboost somewhere other than "right behind me," but that's about it.

90% of the time I remove the guns, but I've regretted it a few times. The worst was when an aleph drop almost failed because the aleph had a drone-tower that nobody had bothered to spot. I was the first one through, and could have killed it if I had gone armed. Instead it podded two of the figbees as we raced past.

Guns are good, how much difference does it make if you take off everything? Do you gain 1 second? 2? more? Granted every second can count but there are lots of times on figbee runs where you are behind another figbee and there is some defender trying to kill him and you are in a pretty perfect place to blow him out of the sky, can't really do that with no guns and gives the other figbee a better chance at survival.

Also depending on the defenders it's also possible to do a glorious run where the figbees stay together and just pick off base defenders as they get close and walk to the base to blow it up.

HSharp wrote:QUOTE (HSharp @ Nov 15 2009, 02:35 PM) Guns are good, how much difference does it make if you take off everything? Do you gain 1 second? 2? more? Granted every second can count but there are lots of times on figbee runs where you are behind another figbee and there is some defender trying to kill him and you are in a pretty perfect place to blow him out of the sky, can't really do that with no guns and gives the other figbee a better chance at survival.

Also depending on the defenders it's also possible to do a glorious run where the figbees stay together and just pick off base defenders as they get close and walk to the base to blow it up.

On the flip side, because there's one for everything, ABs are a huge hit on your agility. Aiming from a loaded figb is definitely harder.

If you engage the D, you risk having the same defender kill that figbomber -- which makes you the next sitting duck on the list. If you had instead rushed for their base, you could've lived long enough to land that missile that would've made the difference!


Of course that missileless faction with them huge projectiles isn't bothered by any of this

badp wrote:QUOTE (badp @ Nov 15 2009, 02:06 PM) On the flip side, because there's one for everything, ABs are a huge hit on your agility. Aiming from a loaded figb is definitely harder.

If you engage the D, you risk having the same defender kill that figbomber -- which makes you the next sitting duck on the list. If you had instead rushed for their base, you could've lived long enough to land that missile that would've made the difference!


Of course that missileless faction with them huge projectiles isn't bothered by any of this

True that slight turning to aim might lose you a second on hitting the base, but if it forces the defender to take some evasive action you are buying time for the other figbee which can as a group give you more time to hit that base to kill it.

Don't you get, what Hsharp is talking about? He doesn't recommend to turn 180° to shoot the int behind yourself. He is talking about shooting the int, that is on the tail of the figbee flying 100 m in front of you.
I often wondered how many abs got eaten by the butt of a defender, cause some voob was unable to unload his gatts at him.

I have a couple of AutoHotkey macros that send 'need repairs' and 'attack my target' to sector only, if anyone is interested.

CODESetTitleMatchMode, 3

#IfWinActive Allegiance

left::
sendinput {enter}All{tab}{tab}{tab}~nx{enter}{tab}{enter}
return

Right::
SendInput {enter}All{tab}{tab}{tab}~5{enter}{tab}{enter}
return

+Edit: Oh @#(!, forgot to mention. That requires that you bind voice chats to ~ as well as `, because for some reason AHK doesn't recognise `

Lesson 15 - Spray & Pray.

My name is juckto, and I could have sworn I'd already posted this. 'Specially considering I wrote it back in March '08. Anyway, you still suck, despite the years of teacher neglect. I'm going to blow the dust off this old advice and air it out here in the forums before I finish transferring it to its new home in the Cadet II material.


No one seems to know how to use their guns at extreme range. And I'm not talking about the listed maximum range of the bullets - I mean hitting people outside of your gun range.

It's simple physics, really. You don't have to wait for your opponent to be "in range" to open fire. If someone is flying towards you then you can start shooting before they get in range because they'll fly forwards into your bullets. If you're flying backwards you can enhance this effect even further, since your opponent has to fly through more of your bullets, and their's will be falling short.

So the question is how can you use this to your advantage in day-to-day allegiance? You may think it's only very rare occasions that this becomes useful, but not so. I use a very simple technique while dogfighting which I'll go ahead and make up a name for ... "Wounded Rabbit".

At an opportune moment boost out of the fight like your scared of losing your kb (cause you are, admit it), get a bit of speed up, then spin 180 hold on back thrust and start spraying. Most pilots will fly straight after you, giving you a nice steady target to aim at. Combine this with a side strafe to avoid their bullets, and there you have it. Slight, but distinct, advantage.

By opportune moment I of course mean that this won't always work - if they can boost after you faster than you can get away it's a waste of time. GT fig vs Dreg int just ain't gonna work. Timing your run to maximise your momentum is cruical - always run away in the direction you are already moving. Reloads are always a good time.

Another good trick is the "Drive-by". If someone is flying straight for you then shoot them as you fly past, but once your level with them (i.e. your facing about 90 degrees to your direction of motion) then straighten up and keep going, instead of turning more and getting locked in the circle dance of "Who can aim better". If they want to kill you they'll have to waste a bunch of fuel changing direction, and you'll be nicely placed to Spray and Pray.


One final note, Rix. They have a 20% buff to range, but their crosshairs do not reflect this. i.e. their gatts have a range of 720m, but the crosshairs won't appear (grey, green, red, whatever) until the target is at 600m.

I see too many damned people not firing rix when they are in range. I've turreted gs and I'll have the enemy half dead before the other turret even starts firing. I can recall fighting Sob_Larry's adv sf with my hvy scout I'd start shooting at 1400m and have him 1/3 dead before my crosshairs bothered to appear and tell me I was in range. Every other hvy scout that went up against him died to his leet sf skills, but not me cause I was Spraying and Praying.

SHOOT YOUR GUNS PEOPLE.

juckto wrote:QUOTE (juckto @ Jan 14 2010, 05:07 PM) It's simple physics, really. You don't have to wait for your opponent to be "in range" to open fire. If someone is flying towards you then you can start shooting before they get in range because they'll fly forwards into your bullets. If you're flying backwards you can enhance this effect even further, since your opponent has to fly through more of your bullets, and their's will be falling short.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't gats and minis inherit target speed? So what matters for extending range is relative speed to target, not absolute speed. In other words, if you're flying backwards at the same speed their flying forwards, no advantage.

However, I think that some other guns, such as sniper and dis, do NOT inherit target speed, in which case flying backwards while firing does give you a slight range advantage.