Ask Loki

lag in this game is a problem... and gfx have their issues too

eg, if you start typing ingame chat as you're launching the first time in a round, gfx switch to high on mine on their own... high gfx is absurdly poorly written, insofar as i can tell it is just different shaders being used between high/med and no shading on low. the shaders might be in some poorly supported form, like CG shaders (which are rarely used on nvidia cards last i looked, with a possibility they are emulated)

i can safely say that you should only play on normal or low... high WILL cause lag for you. but because your framerate goes down, so does your firing rate, and your latency increases.

for everyone else, the server latency increases too because of your delays, and when the delays become substantial and a paradox is created between client / server (eg, destroying a nuke launched by a laggy player sooner than the feedback is received to that player that a nuke exists now) often crashing everyone within the vicinity with runtime errors to the effect of 'pure virtual function called' or 'memory access violation'.

its.... pathetically poorly written... sorry to say lol

Good, good, good.

I just felt it in my veins, that throwing away my current VGA won't solve the problem.

Poorly written, but has so big potential... I love this game and the ppl playing it.

X wrote:If you guys need help on drifting, let me know on Steam. I can give you guys a little training lesson if necessary.

Since X is no longer on, I can help with drifting lessons...
I'll normally be on either US West or EU, at around 8:00-11:00 P.M. in the U.S, Pacific time zone.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. The best players are almost always willing to help new players get the hang of the game...

Nightwing wrote:

X wrote:If you guys need help on drifting, let me know on Steam. I can give you guys a little training lesson if necessary.

Since X is no longer on, I can help with drifting lessons...
I'll normally be on either US West or EU, at around 8:00-11:00 P.M. in the U.S, Pacific time zone.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. The best players are almost always willing to help new players get the hang of the game...

Sadly, I haven't heard from X since the summer.

I agree, though; many of the better players will be more than willing to give out a lesson or two, so don't be afraid to ask.

If 8:00 Pacific doesn't work for anybody, I can also help teach drifting between 9:00 and 11:00 A.M. in the same time zone.

I will normally be on different servers, depending on time of day: During the 9:00-11:00 time slot, I'll normally be on EU West. Any time after about 4:00-5:00 Pacific, I'll switch to U.S. West. If anybody requests assistance, I ask them to give me a PM on this website, and we will arrange a server to meet at, as well as what time we meet.
Most times, I will suggest going to the (deserted) Asia Pacific server for lessons.

does X still play? and what times can I catch him/her?

Nostromo_Crew wrote:does X still play? and what times can I catch him/her?

X does not play MoonBreakers anymore as far as I know. Just after creating this forum (and making me his co-admin), he went on a vacation, was gone for a month, then said his skills had deteriorated too much to continue to play.
I bumped into X once back in late August, though haven't seen him on since.

Everyone, can we please not use my Q&A thread to advertise your times to train rookies? I suggest putting "Send me a PM for training!" in your signature.

Haha, seamed like people are trying to hi-jack your thread out of jellous or something, maybe spite for their deaths XD, but if thats the case a death is the quickest path to learning.

So i ask the great expert veterain or wich ever name people call Loki (i my self shall call him Loki till he his self asks me otherwise).
I seam to have issues with dogfighting, iv learned so much about turning since startin, i can now dogfight a F-3 in a FM-25 and come out at top.

BUT, my issue is with against hevey fighters, their turning seams to be well overated and they seam to beat me all the time,
mainly use the G5 against heavys, F3 has to litle shield to engade dogfight and even if it does it lacks firepower, the FM-25 lacks the turning abilitys.
The G5 has become my choice out of all my currently owned ships but i still struggel aginst the heavey fighters, paticaly FH Serires of heavey fighters (yes pretty much all of them and few pilots like the A80 in my experiance)

Do you oh masterfull and sweeten upwordies and stuff have any advice?

Magazorb wrote:Haha, seamed like people are trying to hi-jack your thread out of jellous or something, maybe spite for their deaths XD, but if thats the case a death is the quickest path to learning.

So i ask the great expert veterain or wich ever name people call Loki (i my self shall call him Loki till he his self asks me otherwise).
I seam to have issues with dogfighting, iv learned so much about turning since startin, i can now dogfight a F-3 in a FM-25 and come out at top.

BUT, my issue is with against hevey fighters, their turning seams to be well overated and they seam to beat me all the time,
mainly use the G5 against heavys, F3 has to litle shield to engade dogfight and even if it does it lacks firepower, the FM-25 lacks the turning abilitys.
The G5 has become my choice out of all my currently owned ships but i still struggel aginst the heavey fighters, paticaly FH Serires of heavey fighters (yes pretty much all of them and few pilots like the A80 in my experiance)

Do you oh masterfull and sweeten upwordies and stuff have any advice?

Just Loki is fine; it's arrogant enough to be named after a god of trickery and cleverness without adding more icing to it

You are correct; the FH-100, 200, 250, and A80 all have tighter controls than your G5 or F3, even though your turn rate is technically better than theirs. I made a post about relative drift capability as a way to put some numbers onto a relatively subjective thing as drift capability and to help learn if the numbers in the ship stats could be formulated to match my observations (tl;dr: they did). Their ships have lower drift, so they tend to go more where they want, while your fighters have high drift, so you spend more effort (afterburner) getting up to speed.
Your ability to control your heading is different from controlling your actual directional vector.
Your FM-25 has a much lower drift ratio, but a low turning rate, so you have the opposite problem of your other ships; low speed with poor turning rate equals large turn radius.

If you find you're not turning around fast enough, you can try starting your turn before you get to them (as the anger recently suggested); anticipate their distance, flip around and drift backwards to settle right behind them. This way, you will already be facing the correct direction and they will be out of line. It's risky, though, so be careful.

Try to avoid jousting matches; if you accelerate towards each other, then turn after you pass them, you will end up 300-500m or more away from them. This gives them a long time to hit you with their superior weapons (quad guns, dual cannon, tracking missiles) vs your lighter shielding. Instead, remember that even though your G5 and F3 are much faster than they are, you can directly control your turn radius. If you avoid using the afterburner and "spin down" your throttle (term coined by Jiel; you can spin your mouse wheel to alter your base speed), you will be able to match or beat them in turn radius. By slowing down when they do not, you actually fly right off the leading edge of their screen (in the direction they're turning) and out of their reach while they move right into your sights. Keep it in mind and use it often.

more on the slowing down thing -

if you look at it in terms of field of vision, it is only worthwhile to slow down in a circle-duel if there is a region where their field of vision cannot reach (the center of the circle / center of engagement). a scenario where such a region does not exist is when both parties are drifting around a common center, otherwise the first person to enter this region and slow down will have the better shot at the other.

Just Loki is fine; it's arrogant enough to be named after a god of trickery and cleverness without adding more icing to it

You are correct; the FH-100, 200, 250, and A80 all have tighter controls than your G5 or F3, even though your turn rate is technically better than theirs. I made a post about relative drift capability as a way to put some numbers onto a relatively subjective thing as drift capability and to help learn if the numbers in the ship stats could be formulated to match my observations (tl;dr: they did). Their ships have lower drift, so they tend to go more where they want, while your fighters have high drift, so you spend more effort (afterburner) getting up to speed.
Your ability to control your heading is different from controlling your actual directional vector.
Your FM-25 has a much lower drift ratio, but a low turning rate, so you have the opposite problem of your other ships; low speed with poor turning rate equals large turn radius.

If you find you're not turning around fast enough, you can try starting your turn before you get to them (as the anger recently suggested); anticipate their distance, flip around and drift backwards to settle right behind them. This way, you will already be facing the correct direction and they will be out of line. It's risky, though, so be careful.

Try to avoid jousting matches; if you accelerate towards each other, then turn after you pass them, you will end up 300-500m or more away from them. This gives them a long time to hit you with their superior weapons (quad guns, dual cannon, tracking missiles) vs your lighter shielding. Instead, remember that even though your G5 and F3 are much faster than they are, you can directly control your turn radius. If you avoid using the afterburner and "spin down" your throttle (term coined by Jiel; you can spin your mouse wheel to alter your base speed), you will be able to match or beat them in turn radius. By slowing down when they do not, you actually fly right off the leading edge of their screen (in the direction they're turning) and out of their reach while they move right into your sights. Keep it in mind and use it often.

right, and all this i allready have in practice, however i often find that they will be doing the same and thus can still get shots of at me, albe it not many at a time, i am inable to put enought shots into him befor he can into me... generaly i can get a FH-200 down to abour 20-40% health befor they kill me.

sorry if i made the question unclear but it was against pilots who knew all this as well... i find that their turn seams way overpowered and altho i do get a few kills against them, it is often only when they make a mistake, fail to perform this piloting as suggested by you, or simply i catch them of guard and I'm able to drift behind them whilsed having a contiunious fire at them (this is the most effective way i have found at killing FH series of ships however this is hard to pull of as you can only do this when their faceing the opiset direction to you and then try to engade you (doing this has lead to 100% success even managed to do this in the FM-25 once, however initiainting is extreamly hard due to their ability to easly turn and fire at you befor you can get behind them to start a drift for when they next turn, Althoth execution once initilaised is easy)

If you have any advice as to any tatics or piloting that maybe albe to increase the initilisatioin of the tecnique i just suggested could well lead to a tecnique other then torp fishing to kill the FH series (iv noticed that pilots useing the FH series tend to have the hightest or near the hightest kill count per match) and thus may equal the scores a litle

anything with quad machine guns has the capacity to tear through light ships almost instantly. if you are able to damage them even half way your aim must be about twice as good as theirs (they have 2-3x the shield by amount), so the problem is your approach to the situation.

this is normal. there are walls to tear down about how you think when facing a sentient opponent (one able to think for themselves). in other words, everyone sooner or later will need to learn how to read their opponents and look for opportunities in a battle, in order to progress their skill any further. naturally, some hit this wall earlier than others for various reasons.

point being, you gotta get in their head and under their skin, and look for a way into their personal space where they can't hit you as easily. but aside from that i would suggest you pay very close attention to the 'habits' everyone has when flying and attacking... the opportunities are there

PS - turning into the lower corners of your screen, and rolling / banking into it, is the fastest turn you have.

Here is my 2 cents on the subject (sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds here, I know this is the ask Loki section, not the ask MJ). I fly the G5 to counter the FH menance and here are some of my techniques.
First, don't turn with one. Try to hang out on the fringes of the fight. When you have a good opportunity, use you boost to zoom up to his tail and get a few cannon and rocket shots on him. If it looks like he is going to turn in on you, boost away. Your speed and fuel tank mean you can outrun any heavy. Let your boost recharge, and repeat.
Against The FH200 and 250, don't be afraid of the head on attack (don't seek it out either, you will get chewed up even if you win). Your cannon has more range then his MGs, you must start shooting first. Your profile is so narrow that unless he is really good, he will only be able to put two of his MGs on you at one time, your centerline cannon will be an advantage. When he fires missles, use your remote det rockets to take them out. If you time it right they will damage his ship as well. If I start shooting first, I come out the otherside about 80% of the time. Watch out for some of the Reapers, they have enough experience with the 250s to get all 4 of their guns on you, and you will get to watch that countdown again from the inside of your carrier.
Use the tab key to see who is flying that missle spamming A80. Then keep an eye out for him, make sure to hug cover and try to anticipate where he will be. Pop out of cover and let them have it. If he gets a missle launch off at you and you can take them out with remote det rocket, do so. Otherwise, use your big boost to out run them and try to sneak back for more backstabbing fun.
People who use heavys to beat up on Mambas become my primary target and I encourage others to gang up on them.

MJ is correct; you have a few advantages with the G5's in the centerline cannon, narrow profile, fast-filling fuel tank, and the rockets; you can fire one every 2 seconds and remote detonate to keep your DPS high.

The ship that puts the other heavies to shame is the FH-90 Stingray. Go head to head with this one. Zoom in from 1700m, press and hold the mouse button to win. You can make it drift like a Mamba if you're heavy on the afterburner, and though the small fuel tank runs out quickly, it fills very fast.

As for advice against other aces...I'm still looking for that myself! Don't give up, keep at it, and the practice against them will make you a better pilot. I used to duel (due to lack of other players on at the time) Abstractness and Deviant Saint almost every morning and they used to absolutely destroy me. They probably still can, but I'm better against everyone else for it.

Thanks for all your advice, altho i see no direct way with dealing with them some of your suggested tecniques does seam to show a couple of posibilitys, will try peaceing them together to find the most effective way of dealing with them 1v1 (i know its best to take them down as a squad, however this makes the other squad members vanuable from other pilots to attack them, thus learning to dispose of them in a few short seconds (wich i have manage to do) solo will help)

as i say its endageing with them i am having issues with, but all your advice does suggest a couple of alternative ways as aposed to my somewhat aggresive style of attacking.

just so you guys know i have been out ran by a FH-200 on moonbreak at CTF, yes you can blast your AB and get ahead of them but just litle nudges, they seam to bealbe to keep up.

now to practice the ideas of endagement, thanks guys!

P.S. the A80 seams to be a useless ship... never once has it killed me unless its picked me of when i ran out of AB... even then i have still killed some, you guys allready have suggested the anser to combating the A80 and its effective.

And also banking into your turn seams the quickest way, untill your target is directly in highter pitch... try not to bank into turns untill the exit i find most effective, till then bank the other way to keep the hight turnrate till that point nearing the excite of the turn where u bank in and turn really fast. (just my take on the banking in at turns)


EDIT:

If your style is admittedly aggressive, maybe the change you need to make is less of a skill issue and more of a choice of which tactics to use. Adapt to fit the opponent and see what happens. If you find yourself losing to the same player by trying the same tactics repeatedly and expecting to win, that's more or less the definition of insanity. Don't hate the player, change the game.

FH-200 is the original afterburner king; it can outlast many other fighters if you use your afterburner properly.

I will never use the A80.

Also; Updated my drift ratio post with some normalized numbers biased towards afterburner.

Since we're on topic...

Some general advice for taking on a heavy;
If you fly head to head vs a FH-200/250;
- Don't do it. Failing that, try the following;
- zoom in to see the enemy
- roll your ship so they appear vertical (wings are up/down relative to your view)
> this keeps your ship out of their main lines of fire and they can only put 2 guns on you
> your generally narrower profile will be kept out of line from their wing-mounted, non-converging guns
- works with most ships, but not all
- do not fly head to head vs a FH-90/100; you will be eaten by a grue.
> try to get at them from the side or from behind

More general tips...
- a Mamba/Sidewinder/Merlin/Krait/Viper/Hammerhead/Piranha/Swordfish can fire their rockets/missiles and not worry about the projectile blocking their own guns as long as they fly in a straight line
- ships with single guns in the absolute centerline (Stingray & Kingfisher) will have their bullets blocked by their own projectiles
- a rocket fired may block the enemy's bullets/beams; a missile will block 1 shot and be destroyed

also: rockets can take out other rockets with remote detonation

dear Loki,
I have recently taken up ace hunting to help improve my dogfighting skills and would like some tips. basically- how do I kill you?

theSignal wrote:dear Loki,
I have recently taken up ace hunting to help improve my dogfighting skills and would like some tips. basically- how do I kill you?

The simple answer is that there is no simple answer; lots of constantly changing tactical variables based on position of players vs asteroids vs carriers vs ship types vs player experience going on here, and it mostly comes down to exposure to various situations and how you react to them. I've gone on a 25-kill rampage because everything lined up at the time, but I've also gone entire matches where I could barely get out of the hangar (usually on mornings before coffee was applied).

The easiest way is bring some friends and blindside me while I'm busy sending them back to the carrier.

After that, we need to talk about developing your skill set with various weapons and ships and how they handle (where the practice portion comes in), but you also need to develop your own bag of tricks that you can fall back on when you get in a tight spot. Some tactics are fairly common and I'll talk about some of those for you to try (or watch for).

Hit & Run A.K.A "Nyxy Special"
Pick a fast ship. More DPS the better. Lurk somewhere an enemy will fly by. Wait until that enemy is facing another direction or busy fighting a teammate, then swoop in and hit them with everything you've got; rockets, bullets, missiles, whatever it is, wait until they can't dodge it. Whether or not you kill them on the first pass, leave the immediate area and seek cover. Repeat. You won't earn friends like this, but if someone's putting you on the hangar deck more often than not, this will likely get the job done.

Come Get Me A.K.A "Fragile Jiel"
Jiel/Mercurius perfected this technique with the Sidewinder, though it works for any any light ship; lurk somewhere off to the sides of the map, but let yourself get spotted as a lonely, helpless light fighter (bonus points for firing guns off into space like a rookie). Lure someone out there, get them to chase you around an asteroid a bit, out race them and take them from behind. Problem with this one is that anyone could bite and you may find yourself outmatched and alone against a superior pilot.

Drift Duel
You've likely been in one of these before; two decent players don't die on the first pass against each other and start circling around an invisible center point trying to land shots on each other. Not to be mistaken for Jousting, which is where you both overshoot each other by a large margin (+500m, not recommended as this becomes another head-to-head encounter), Drift Duels are where you've got two pilots with enough patience to lay off the afterburner; the more speed you have, the wider your turn radius, the faster that other ace will blow you away, so slow down. For best results, use your mousewheel or S key to reduce your base throttle speed. Bonus points for doing this using a tiny asteroid or turret for cover.

Loki Twist
If someone catches you from an angle you can't immediately shoot back, blast your afterburners towards some cover (carrier, asteroids, moon chasm, etc) that is in your forward arc (which means something you can see, don't go hunting for it). The sharper the edge of the cover is, the better, so an overhanging ledge on Broken Moon or those large asteroids with holes are ideal. Anticipate the turn, drift to break line of sight, drop your throttle and turn as hard as you can towards the surface of the cover you've chosen, then throttle up (no afterburner). Expect this to become a circle as your opponent chases your ion trail and blast away.
Also works if you're trying to shake a bunch of pursuers; some will anticipate that you will circle the entire object, some will stick right on your tail, but either way, you've got at least one of them by surprise and they're all going the wrong direction now.

Follow First
This one is more of a happenstance of positioning of opponents and works better on the larger maps (Moon, Field).
Pick two opponents spaced 1000-1500m apart and heading roughly in the same direction, but not towards you. Aggressively pursuing the leading ship will certainly attract the attention of the second ship. Break line of sight while appearing to still pursue the lead ship, then perform a Loki Twist to catch the pursuer off guard.

Through the Never
Lower your speed and squeeze through tight spaces to evade groups of enemies. Works best on closely-packed asteroids, though sometimes on the carrier tower or hangar bulkheads for the side entrances. Pick off enemies as you circle. Watch out for moving asteroids!

Yes, moving asteroids... they have more kills on me than any players combined... xD

Loki wrote:<snip>
Come Get Me A.K.A "Fragile Jiel"
Jiel/Mercurius perfected this technique with the Sidewinder, though it works for any any light ship; lurk somewhere off to the sides of the map, but let yourself get spotted as a lonely, helpless light fighter (bonus points for firing guns off into space like a rookie). Lure someone out there, get them to chase you around an asteroid a bit, out race them and take them from behind. Problem with this one is that anyone could bite and you may find yourself outmatched and alone against a superior pilot.</snip>

I'm kinda trying to get outmatched and alone against a superior pilot. but yeah. this one has its issues. (beamer bait.) thanks for the detailed answer though!

one tactic that isn't mentioned, more of a maneuver in its own right...

if it has to have a name, call it 'splicing the drift'.

in a circle duel / drift duel, many pilots get caught up in maintaining the plane of rotation as it is. nothing wrong with it, but it is straight forward and can be countered...

the basic idea here is to change your plane of drift sharply, or escaping it momentarily altogether, to either confuse your opponent or to land on them in your sights from a pursuee position. (this is everywhere in my nighthawk dogfighting, if you've seen my crazy turning patterns, this is what im up to. gets more effective as you move to more agile ships)

this comes in many forms, the simplest is when you're being chased by a high drift enemy (F3/G5 for example) - slowing down sharply and letting them overshoot and fly in front of you. this is typically a risky choice to make, but that is where this maneuver comes in... if you were to drift into a turn no more than 90-135 degrees and then repeat the degree of drift but in a perpendicular direction (2 perpendicular changes of direction via drift in succession), there is a greater chance that your enemy will end up drifting in a wide arc trying to track where you're headed.

this happens because it is generally unexpected to see someone drifting erratically, so when prey drifts, you tend to follow suit... intercept or, when line of sight is not guaranteed, chase (which ends up with motion heavy with drift).

the more generalized version of this maneuver is in drift dueling. generally, the first person to run leaves themselves open to being chased. however, the rule applies to whomever cannot keep up with the pattern of drift directions and angles, of which escape is just one possible instigator (ie, giving up). there is an analogy to torque here - whomever has the greatest control of the plane of the circle formed by the drifting, is the one who will have the greatest advantage. the goal is to enter the middle of the circle, aiming at your enemy. to that end, all the maneuver involves is forcing your enemy to drift out of the circle / drift duel while you race ahead of them and establish another one.

it's a cat and mouse maneuver, but on a meta level. rather than it being a question of who catches up to who first, change the race into a 'who can form a one-sided drift duel first'. if it is unfavorable, establish a 'new' drift duel along a different plane of rotation.

if you have to visualize this, i have this classic picture in mind: imagine two fighter planes, one chasing the other. the one in front cannot out-maneuver the one chasing it; both planes are identical in potential performance. imagine what happens if the one in front were to fly up, back, down and forward again - it could easily, eventually, end up chasing the plane formerly behind, if that plane's pilot could not keep up at every turn! in the interim accuracy goes down for both parties... the same principle here, but with drifting the assumption is you're always on some sort of curved flight path.

far easier to show in action than describing it for pages at a time, remind me in-game if you want to know more and ill gladly demonstrate the concept

we need to compile this into a BFM/SCM....