Ask Loki

what we really need is a grand manual of maneuvers possible in MB, with animated gifs along side to help explain things visually.

i have tried in the past to catalog these by turn types*, but it gets very messy very fast. perhaps a new section to document maneuvers / tactics? i know most squads will have their own stash of goodies but this way everyone can learn

edit - *this is the result, and it's a mess

myself wrote:
(copied from a larger writeup on mechanics in this game)
Putting it Together

Now comes the fun part. Due to how rotations are calculated, combining rolls and both mouse axis enables for some complex turning & drifting. To keep things short, ill use the notation RL / RR for roll keys, and ML / MR / MU / MD for mouse positions on screen to extremes. Sequences of rotations will be denoted with commas (if i think of any). I'll add notation for Boost too: +B to use it, -B to stop. BB = tap / feather the boost as needed.

Basic Rotations
MU = Angle Up / Pitch Up
MD = Angle Down / Pitch Down
RL = Roll Left
RR = Roll Right
MR = Roll Into Right
ML = Roll Into Left

Mouse-Only Rotations
MU + ML/MR = Centrifuge Racing (aka Death Turn, circle of death, etc) Left/Right
MD + ML/MR = Tight Roll Into Lower-Left/Right

Basic Composite Rotations
RR + MU/MD = Corkscrew Right
RL + MU/MD = Corkscrew Left
RL + MR = Turn Right
RR + ML = Turn Left
RR + MR = Hard Roll Into Right
RL + ML = Hard Roll Into Left

Composite Rotations
MU + (RL + ML) / (RR + MR) = Angle into Upper Left/Right Corner with Left/Right Roll
MD + (RL + ML) / (RR + MR) = Super Tight Roll Into Lower-Left/Right
MU/MD + RL + MR = Right Turn + Angle Up / Angle Down
MU/MD + RR + ML = Left Turn + Angle Up / Angle Down

Chained Rotations / Stunts
Broadside Drift = +B, -B + (RL + MR) / (RR + ML)
Tight Down Turn = +B, -B + MD + (ML + RL) / (MR + RR)
Broadside Tight Drift = +B, -B + MD + ML/MR, BB, MD + (ML + RR) / (MR + RL)
V-Turn Chain = +B, -B + MD + (ML + RL) / (MR + RR), Repeat to zig-zag about

edit 2 - some descriptions of the chained rotations ive got there...

the 'Tight Down Turn' is probably the single-most useful turn in jousting and direction changes >90 degrees.

broadside drift is the 'classic' drift most should be familiar with where you maintain your horizon while drifting side-on.
broadside tight drift is the same concept, but you give up the level horizon for a faster initial turn (you can level out afterwards).

the V-Turn Chain is my own invention
i don't use it much but it is fantastic on asteroid-ridden areas. each use of it will make you drift-turn downwards at more or less right angles, or tighter if you wish (hence V-Turn). whether you roll left or right, the choice will flip you upside down in the outcome - roll left and 'up' will be the former left, and so on. because this uses so little boost, it is possible to chain this maneuver several times, effectively a zig-zag path. i love it because of how deceptive the V-Turn is - without watching what direction the ship is rolling in, it is impossible to tell what direction the next turn will take them, a mistake that can end with you looking in the exact opposite direction for your target

It's odd to see basic maneuvers laid out into text like that, but they all make sense once you understand the notation. Could work better with some icons & arrows rather than letters.

hm... icons would be better... ill look for some icons (or pm me a link to a good set for this sort of thing), and make some gifs of all the possible maneuvers. only question, which ship to use to document all of these?

ideally i want to use the same ship for all of them, so there can be a proper comparison between different turning & drifting techniques... thinking either F3, F3X or G5. most likely G5 then, as it has a middle ground in turning and drifting of the 3?

edit - afterthought: on the notation being in text, im used to button mashing notation you would see in games like Tekken (5) / MK (4).

I'd suggest the Mamba since it's a starter ship.

mamba it is... good thing australian server is empty, plenty of time to record

ill cover all the turning combinations to start with, and basic movements like what drifting looks like.

to this end, i dont suppose anyone knows of how to overlay which keys are being pressed? would make things much much easier if the keys pressed are on-screen to show boost feathering and such, as this is hard to tell exactly from replays...

Hey, Anger. What if you used your 3D software to make a small vector animation of a ship (represented by a triangle) doing the maneuvers, where arrows indicate turn direction, and icons on the bottom could indicate what buttons are being pressed?

Nightwing wrote:Hey, Anger. What if you used your 3D software to make a small vector animation of a ship (represented by a triangle) doing the maneuvers, where arrows indicate turn direction, and icons on the bottom could indicate what buttons are being pressed?

3 reasons, actually...

1. people may not know how to interpret spiral motion without being shown the perspective of someone flying within one; as the turns are all spiral-like (acceleration over time is periodic), the difference is hard to appreciate without seeing the point of view of the player. imagine explaining the difference between how an F3X turns and how a G5 turns using the same identical method, to someone who doesn't know what kind of motion to expect in the first place - sort of the issue here.

2. practical application. it would be notably harder to add obstacles than to simply record playing the game to show how each turn can be used.

3. simulation. anything we make to demonstrate would not necessarily be physically accurate to the game, since we don't actually know for sure how the game's physics work (we have good theories though they are just that, theories, as we cannot prove it without having access to the game's code or any ability to measure speed in-game).

So...Clever people.

I'm having serious issues with MB.

The game keeps crashing all the time after 2 or 3 parties. But not in its usual way. My whole PC freezes in that moment, and only reset helps. No other application does this, only MB.

Any suggestions? May reinstall help? I'm so hungry for pray, but those crashes tell me not to play MB, 'cause it may do some serious errors if it countinues crashing...:S I do not need blue screen again...Which happened before also with MB-s. Maybe something injured in its files or something. That's why i think reinstall may help...

So...The one who helps me can kill me freely once. Only once... Flappy Turtle wants to keeeeeel! Help plz, to achieve this noble goal, plz.

for one, might want to check in windows' event logs in case it was something driver or hardware related. might even be overheating though beats me as to why this game would cause that to happen and not anything else...

I had an overheating problem that only occurred when playing games. It started happening after an "upgrade" from Win XP to Win 7 and was only resolved by upgrading to a new computer. Framerate dropped to less than 1 FPS and sometimes gave me a blue-screen.

As Anger said, check for new display drivers or updates that your system may have installed; these could have caused the problem. Reinstalling or removing one of these may sort you out.

Thank ypu for ur quick response.

I will give it a try, reinstall the game too and start praying...

It occured from nowhere...The hell knows why...I have a new VGA too...Eh... Same happened with NBA Live 2006-or 9. I had a Geforce6600GT Vga, and only that game overheated the VGA....With my ATI cards nothing like this happened before...

Thanks again. I go and reinstall everything.

I think i managed to do something about my problem.

I refreshed and reinstalled everything... Same shite happened.

I have that Advanced System Care application...It has a Turbo Boost feature, which turns off everything in the background, and switches to "gaming mode"...

From the time i use that, no freezes... Till now...I hope the best.

ok... that clearly means you have some background services that in all likelihood are unnecessary... if you're really interested in finding out what's causing problems, careful not to get obsessed about it. if it works, leave it alone and turn it on from across the room behind a bomb shield.

the-anger wrote:ok... that clearly means you have some background services that in all likelihood are unnecessary... if you're really interested in finding out what's causing problems, careful not to get obsessed about it. if it works, leave it alone and turn it on from across the room behind a bomb shield.

I'll do that.

That little cleaner and fixing program solved so many problems...I can recommend it to everybody.

I have a Corsair AX750 PSU with an ASUS HD 7970. I don't think that would be the problem. It is OC'd a bit by the manufacturer i guess...

Oh shite...The same is happening all the time. Do not know why, only with MBs...:S

So sorry Starbuck and Anger...I had to left.

I totally suck at missile spamming. How do pilots do it???

ærial wrote:I totally suck at missile spamming. How do pilots do it???

Missiles or Rockets? And if missiles, which type of missile? Long range or short range?

Eer... I mean rocket spamming

youre from australia, so i can shed some light there... (lag)

don't know if you have noticed or not, but rocket spam is most effective when remote detonating rockets. don't expect many direct hits on anything besides a stationary target.

there is a delay on any rocket / missile launch as well as the same delay existing on remote detonation. when launching the rocket, be mindful to add your lag-delay into how far you are leading your target, because the rocket will launch from the exact spot you clicked and in the direction you were aiming, but delayed due to ping/lag.

the same applies to remote detonation although the game makes this a bit harder than it has to be - the remote detonation explosion ends where the rocket detonates, the center of the explosion is calculated as (impact point) - (splash radius)*(rocket travel direction). on 250ms ping (US West for aus in melb / syd), you can be fairly accurate by clicking to remote detonate as the rocket passes the exact epicenter of where you want the explosion to happen (due to lag, the rocket will travel the extra distance, compensating for this weird epicenter calculation).

on euro, expect to remote detonate a full half-second to a second earlier - the lag fluctuates, so pay close attention to when you click and where you see the white flash, and adjust your timing accordingly (same goes for launch delays).

thx.

Not really working 4 me though,

Dear Loki,

Ive seen some people turn faster on heavies, that got me thinking. Does the DPI on the mouse has some effect on tight turns?

[D.o.W]P3jota wrote:Dear Loki,

Ive seen some people turn faster on heavies, that got me thinking. Does the DPI on the mouse has some effect on tight turns?

Hi P3jota,
See below, but also try reading this thread for more info.

We experimented with mouse settings and window sizes and eventually discovered that the best way to achieve faster turns is;

Settings;
- use screen resolution larger than 720P, though a squareish screen may help you achieve quicker vertical turns (modern monitors don't really allow for this)
- mouse pointer speed & acceleration affects how fast your mouse can reach the corners of the screen; find something comfortable between speed and precision that works for you because this will affect your ability to hit a target
- zoom out your camera view as far as you can go

Turn Tips;
- anticipate when you will need to make a turn like this and try to set yourself up for success (be aware of asteroids/players, pick your opponents, watch out for broken moon features, etc.)
- reduce your speed before the turn; can be achieved by flicking the scroll wheel down and avoiding the afterburner just prior to the turn
- when turning, push your mouse into the lower left or right corners of the screen (this may require you to pre-compensate by flying a little up before turning)
- rolling INTO a turn makes you turn faster because you're adding your roll thrust into your ship's normal accleration; counter-rolling during a turn makes it easier to track a target and still shoot, but if you're going for raw turn speed, roll INTO a turn
     - if you find you're starting to go too far up or down, move your mouse to the upper corner on the same side of the screen
- throttle up and apply afterburner to get moving again

All of this stuff is hard to do at first; it's a lot of steps to consider and execute in about 1-2 seconds.  Like everything else in this game, practice is the key.  Try doing only one or two of these tips at first, then add more as you get comfortable; the mouse speed in particular requires a lot of adjustment time, so I advise you remember where you had it set before you adjust it.

Some people have more practice than others.  Some ships are slower and have a smaller turn-radius (heavy fighters) when executing turns like this, though turn rates per ship class also affects to some extent.  Sometimes lag is the real enemy...

Good luck!