The Old Stupid Questions Topic™

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:08 pm

hrm on the question of ramming the middle or one of the ends, i know we've covered this before and i want to believe it but i can swear i've seen cons rammed to move sideways w/o spinning (you have to ram it real hard) and most other times get rammed at the ends and making it spin (may be result of the realignment process).

Farnercy · Post by **Farnercy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:43 pm

Ok, i dont know where to ask this, so - as i am still in AFS - i found this would be an appropiate place.
We played a long game tonight, and this is now the third or fourth time in my allegiance-career that exactly the second before an enemy bomberrun attacked our EXP, 4-5 of our players crashed (me included), this time twice - one minute before and 10 seconds before the run. Is this some kind of hack? I know this has been happing for quite a while now from other players.
I have wireshark running, but i fear it would be server-sided...

Sundance_ · Post by **Sundance_** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:07 am

Is AFS ever starting another cycle?

corelsx · Post by **corelsx** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:48 pm

well, here is the senario: I am high in a scout, and the commander is asking for "d ...that (miner .. con )..." somewhere low.
What I should do? a)Press insert and go there (unlikely to catch in time the event before others who gone to defend or before the con...miner... die) ?
b) Continue to probbing or whatever i was up to the time of the command (and fear the boot)?

Thanks on advanced

cashto · Post by **cashto** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:18 pm

corelsx wrote:QUOTE (corelsx @ Oct 10 2011, 07:48 AM) well, here is the senario: I am high in a scout, and the commander is asking for "d ...that (miner .. con )..." somewhere low.
What I should do? a)Press insert and go there (unlikely to catch in time the event before others who gone to defend or before the con...miner... die) ?
b) Continue to probbing or whatever i was up to the time of the command (and fear the boot)?

Thanks on advanced

Like the adult diaper, it Depends.

Some commanders are better at "leading" their team than others. Good commanders will tell you 30 seconds before a con launches from base so you have plenty of time to finish what you are doing and rip home and retask in plenty of time to meet up with whatever you're escorting. Other commanders will push a con two sectors without any escort and then scream bloody murder for people to rush out and defend it. By that time the con's doom is already sealed.

You know better than the commander how long it's going to take for you to retask. It might be a half a minute. You can also look at the minimap to get an idea of the urgency of the situation. If the con is in your home sector, or if the bomber has just launched and is going to rip somewhere, you can probably retask almost immediately. The commander is appropriately pacing his team.

On the other hand, if your mining sector is already full of enemy ints, there's zero chance you can get there in time, and the commander's urgent appeal is for people who have just docked and are looking for the next thing to do. You also have the balance that with the fact that maybe 60 seconds from now, the commander is going to be screaming for probes in Rigel. Well, you were on the way to do that before you got interrupted ... now you have a dead miner AND no probes.

Long story short, you have to use your head ... commander can't do all the thinking for you.

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:05 pm

all cashto said is valid. the best way to solve your problem is to avoid ending up in the situation where you are out of position (not at the right place, at the right time) and to achieve this "situation awareness" you need to get on the command wing.

if you are on "command wing", as soon as the comm sends an op somewhere, you will be notified. that should give you plenty of time to start flying to the sector that your con is heading to to help out. it gets chatty and all you see is scrolling text (use page up/page down to scroll back) but after a week or so, you'll start being able to filter out the noise in your head and start noticing the important messages.

another way to do this, is to press f5 while you are flying to keep tabs on what the commander is building. if a constructor is halfway built and still progressing, you can use that to gauge how much further you can afford to scout/probe before you turn back to defend the con.

i added that last one after rereading your question. your only choice to catch up to the con if you are high and the con goes low.. is to fly through enemy home. chances are though, you wont get there in time

unlesss you get really lucky finding alephs

corelsx · Post by **corelsx** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:40 am

fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Aug 18 2011, 11:52 AM) hi statsguy,

you are next to con, in your scout, con is spinning to line up.
rather than being next to the con to ram its broadside, get to the tail end of the con. timing is critical here cuz as soon as it stops spinning, you have about a 1 second window to ram it on its end and INTO the rock. this will cause the con to have to realign itself and take the most time spinning again to find that correct positioning.

if you got a bunch of probes still.. and you've got your keymapping set up in such a way that you can move your ship in all 3 dimensions, then you can try to position your ship between the rock and the con and ram it on its head while deploying a bunch of probes. with any luck, your probes and you will keep the con from planting for a long long time.

-- Ram it INTO the rock? Will not speed the planting procedure ? I will try it anyway to see what will happen.
-- Probes between the rock and the con... !!! smart, i will try it too asap

corelsx · Post by **corelsx** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:52 am

fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Oct 10 2011, 02:05 PM) all cashto said is valid. the best way to solve your problem is to avoid ending up in the situation where you are out of position (not at the right place, at the right time) and to achieve this "situation awareness" you need to get on the command wing.

if you are on "command wing", as soon as the comm sends an op somewhere, you will be notified. that should give you plenty of time to start flying to the sector that your con is heading to to help out. it gets chatty and all you see is scrolling text (use page up/page down to scroll back) but after a week or so, you'll start being able to filter out the noise in your head and start noticing the important messages.

another way to do this, is to press f5 while you are flying to keep tabs on what the commander is building. if a constructor is halfway built and still progressing, you can use that to gauge how much further you can afford to scout/probe before you turn back to defend the con.

i added that last one after rereading your question. your only choice to catch up to the con if you are high and the con goes low.. is to fly through enemy home. chances are though, you wont get there in time unlesss you get really lucky finding alephs

Thanks, I tried the last route (through the enemy sectors) but I was not lucky. What if I see some others (scouts or ints, closer to the con than me, who therefore go there faster) ? Should I attempt to go there also hopping be lucky or (I guess its better)I estimate the time needed and do something more usefull somewhere else?

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 5:14 pm

corelsx wrote:QUOTE (corelsx @ Oct 11 2011, 03:40 AM) -- Ram it INTO the rock? Will not speed the planting procedure ? I will try it anyway to see what will happen.
-- Probes between the rock and the con... !!! smart, i will try it too asap

interestingly enough no. the con must not be already heading into the rock though.. cuz if it is, it is already too late and no point in podding yourself on that. it must still be spinning and right after it stops spinning, u got about a second to give it a good shove into the rock. (best bang for the buck in terms of damage received and delaying the con)

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 5:16 pm

corelsx wrote:QUOTE (corelsx @ Oct 11 2011, 03:52 AM) Thanks, I tried the last route (through the enemy sectors) but I was not lucky. What if I see some others (scouts or ints, closer to the con than me, who therefore go there faster) ? Should I attempt to go there also hopping be lucky or (I guess its better)I estimate the time needed and do something more usefull somewhere else?

i think you should at least head towards there anyway. all the paths i gave you typically go through previously unexplored sectors anyway so by virtue of traversing them, you are already helping your team. whether you reach the con or not in time is kinda besides the point. dont fall into the trap of thinking "someone else will get it" cuz it happens all too often in games and cons end up dead cuz people either gave up on it too easily or thought "someone else will get it".