CTF Tips

by **Loki** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:13 pm

Some CTF Tips from the userecho post about why people hate CTF...

Most people I've seen play CTF have no idea how to evade carrier fire long enough to even reach the flag, let alone after they pick it up. They probably view the flag as unreachable.

So here's some tips:

- don't fly in a straight line within the turret's range; turrets will lead you if you fly in a straight line, but they can't predict where you're going if you're weaving. Aim for the gaps in the turret fire. You can steal the flag and even escape without ever getting hit by carrier fire! (Yes, in a Mamba!)
- use your rockets/missiles to distract the turrets
- approach from cover to hide yourself from the defenders
- approach from directions that present the fewest turrets to shoot at you
- tap your afterburner to maximize it
- always save afterburner fuel for escaping the carrier
- always have an escape plan
- escape using asteroids as cover
- upgrade all your speed options; the Mamba is a rocket with all the engines, afterburner, afterburner fuel tank and fuel pump upgrades!
- shield upgrades increase your lifespan after you pick up the flag
- use the hull of the carrier to block turret fire
- BE SNEAKY!!! You can disappear on the carrier if you know how...or where. Explore your own carrier to figure out where the turrets can and can't see

(I'm named after a trickster for a reason...)

by **SuPerKen** Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:59 pm

Here is a good tip for the Noobs... (I think Ferc Polo will agree with me) DO NOT go head to head with a Barracuda. They will eat you up and spit you out. LOL Must have shot down 5 in a row today.

by **Snubby** Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:15 am

* I personally prefer dividing the "Tactics & Strategy" Forum into areas according to skill-level and game-play style (solo, wing-man, squadron) as so many of the tactics you'd use can be applied to any type of ship if the pilot is skilled enough. Also, Rookie/Pilot/Ace means primers posted can be written in-character, so to speak...

Agreed.

by **jazzycat** Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:43 am

Was just re-reading the first couple pages of this thread and the thought popped into my mind - "Gawd, I wonder what the graffiti on the toilet walls of a Government/Pirate Rookie Squadron dormitory would look like..." cheers

by **Jiel** Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:09 pm

Useful tip for certain dogfighting scenarios: If you're dogfighting with an enemy and coming in at too shallow an angle to strafe or if they're oriented towards you on your approach such that beginning to drift in order to strafe them would get you peppered, then the two of you will zip past each other and you'll need to quickly turn around.

A split second before you pass him, but after you're out of angle of his guns' reach, spin down your engines or cut your AB. If you're on your AB on the approach, then you can spin them down earlier while maintaining the AB. Proceed then to do an inline flip. Pick the most suitable corner of your screen(or an area along the edge near a corner) and simultaneously orient your sights as far as you can up there and roll in the opposite direction to do a hard turn. As you approach the 90 degree point in your turn, hit your AB. It should be maxed as you complete your turn. Approach him this time at a less shallow angle or you'll just end up going back and forth over and over again.

There are two options for this move, whether or not to spin up your engines again as you turn and how long if at all to hit your AB. Base this off of the type of ship you're up against, the speed at which you've passed, and whether or not you're next to an enemy carrier or in the middle of a swarm of enemies.

Afterburner speed is unaffected by your original speed. You don't need to spin your engines up again as you tap your AB. Keeping them spun down can be appropriate sometimes as after you drop your AB on the approach, you go back to your original crawl. Doing this can leave you fairly vulnerable to wingmen and turrets, however. Caution should be exercised as to when to do this.

I use the verb "spin" here for your engines because you control it using your mouse wheel. That and I'm a fan of the re-imagined BSG.

by **Jiel** Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:31 pm

There are hiding spots on the top and bottom of the carriers. The ones on the bottom are wide enough to circle inside of at minimum speed normally. The one on the top is fairly narrow however, so you'll need to do a tighter diagonal rolling turn to sit in it comfortably.

The Broken Moon is your friend. Hug tightly the Broken Moon and he will reveal to you great secrets of the enemy's formations.

If you're out of fuel, surrounded by enemies, sure to be killed soon, but still otherwise unscathed, committing a 'tactical' suicide against an asteroid will prevent the enemy from getting credit for killing you. You'll respawn with a full tank and your bounty will remain in place.
*Note: this is only effective if you are COMPLETELY undamaged; even a single hit from a machine gun will grant credit for your death to the opponent that hit you.

After taking out the two turrets on the side of a carrier, you can immediately proceed then to nuke it. Hugging the side will put you out of line of sight of the other four side turrets.

The rate at which you need to tap your afterburners to maintain a reasonable boost increases as you wiggle more. If no one with normal guns is within 800m of you or 1960m for beam cannons, you can be fairly complacent in how you dodge fire so as to conserve fuel. Do slower, narrower spiral.

Don't wait until you're out of AB to let it refuel when evading enemies, unless you're certain that you'll die soon either way. If you're not in immediate danger when ferrying the flag back, refuel as the gauge hits the red. If you run out of fuel entirely, you're liable to be shot as a sitting duck.

The damage range of an exploding nuke is 500m, stay at least that far and you'll be fine.

If you find shooting down a torpedo to be somewhat difficult, use a remotely detonated missile to destroy it. The damage range of an exploding missile is 50 100m.

Advanced torpedoes travel 20% faster than normal nukes and take only 4 seconds to arm versus the 5 seconds of a normal nuke. The one advantage normal nukes have is that their detonation does more AoE damage. Advanced torpedoes do at most 1500 damage while normal nukes do 2000 damage. Both of those numbers decrease with range. The damage of hitting a carrier with one is the same between them, however.

You should fire a torpedo at least 500m away from the desired impact surface.

In a close dogfight, spin down your engines and use the AB for any thrust. Do a diagonal rolling turn by aiming at a corner or half way between the corner and the middle of an edge of your screen and simultaneously rolling in the opposite direction.

A sword is useless in the hands of a coward. Take initiative and attack when you can. If you are forced thereafter to flee, you've still at least made an attempt to attack.

by **Loki** Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:17 pm

And there it is...all laid out...mostly Wink

lol

Curious now...Did you learn it all on your own? Or have some help?

by **Jiel** Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:26 pm

The damage range of nukes, the distance to fire them from, and their AoE damage and range I gleaned partially from this thread. It doesn't list the torpedo speeds that you would need to know in order to find the minimum distance but it does point to where you can find that information. For Advanced torpedoes the distance in actually 480m, but that's close enough to 500m to not be able to tell the difference by eye.

by Bif Fri Jun 15, 2012 9:44 pm

I think it's time to start a Wiki. We have enough content already to make a fantastic wiki.

by **longshot** Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:54 pm

you're absolutely right.

by **Loki** Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:08 pm

Drifting.

Here's how it is.

Don't turn up or down, but go left/right instead; there's more room to push your mouse further horizontally.

Keep your speed up for harder drifting (see my tips for better drifting that Nyxy posted).

Turn left or right while holding down one of the roll keys (Left Turn uses Right Roll & vice versa). For really hard turns, push your mouse into the corner of the screen.

How to tell that you're doing it right; you should see your ship turn sideways. You should see the horizon stay level on your screen (no roll). Easiest place to see/practice this is launching on the Broadsides map; when exiting from the hangar, hold down the Left Roll key and put your mouse to the right edge of the screen. Alternately, you can get shot a few times until you're smoking, then try drifting and check out your smoke trail. You can draw a circle with it.

You can practice drifting & shooting around your own turrets; they're stationary and won't fire back at you. You'll look like a crazy person, but that's ok. Hint: don't fly straight at the turret, but approach with the turret at 2 or 10 o'clock and keep your speed up (that means a touch of afterburner) before you start to drift. In almost any ship (even bombers) you can hold the drift long enough to overheat your guns.

Once you get some practice at shooting your own turrets, you can find a quiet server and practice on the enemy turrets. This will make you better at this game.

by **jazzycat** Sat Jun 30, 2012 11:13 am

Q: How do I regain health?
A: Regenerates over time. There is a 10 second delay after being damaged before shielding starts to regenerate and you start to regain health one 'bubble' at a time. If damage is taken during regeneration the 10-second delay will kick-in again, so fly fancy/hide/return to the carrier for cover. You should see full shields restored within 10-20 seconds from fully depleted depending on your ship class and model.*

* According to MB Newswire; if this info's changed since, let me know so I can update the FAQ.

by **Loki** Sat Jun 30, 2012 11:18 am

jazzycat wrote:Q: How do I regain health?
A: Regenerates over time. There is a 10 second delay after being damaged before shielding starts to regenerate and you start to regain health one 'bubble' at a time. If damage is taken during regeneration the 10-second delay will kick-in again, so fly fancy/hide/return to the carrier for cover. You should see full shields restored within 10-20 seconds from fully depleted depending on your ship class and model.

If you have any other misc. questions, post them here!

Different ships have different recharge times for shields. Check the Shield Delay value on your ship stats for the specifics.

Mamba & Rhino have quickest regen time at 8 6* sec before it starts. Most others start regen after 10 seconds. Top tier ships (Viper, Merlin, Swordfish, Panther) is 12.

Your Shield Regen Rate upgrade increases the amount of shields you regenerate per second after the delay is over. This upgrade should be secondary to your primary shield level; if you break off to rest, it won't hurt to stay hidden a touch longer.

*updated with latest ship stats

by **Loki** Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:49 pm

Boost Feathering Techniques
Lifted from some posts at the Userecho forum;

Loki's post;
There's a technique to using your booster that can extend the duration of it for more than twice as long. Try this;
Don't hold your down spacebar like a gas pedal, but tap it instead. This gives your boost a chance to replenish between taps and once you hit top speed, you'll stay there briefly without having to hit the boost. Play around with this and you'll learn where the peak of your boost is and how long you'll stay there.
Don't neglect your ship; every upgrade is important, and if you want more speed, the top 4 items on the upgrade list are the ones for you.

Jiel's post;
It's a lot longer than twice if you tap. You don't tap it that fast either, just at a steady moderately paced beat like 1-2-3-4. Try to tap it as slow as possible while still keeping the burners maxed.

I know couple of people have accused me of cheating by flying to their base by the time they launch, but there is a method i follow to dominate CTF:

1. Use an F-3X Sidewinder with all speed/afterburner/fuel upgrades.
It's a lot easier to pull off sustained afterburners because of its high acceleration. It's about twice as efficient as a normal F-3 Mamba when you just use short pulses.

2. Select your ship in the lobby.
It lets you launch right at the start of the round instead of having to waste 10 seconds to select it and wait for the next launch interval after the round starts.

3. Make good use of the initial launch speed.
This one is a bit more useful for low acceleration ships like a normal Mamba because they take a hefty portion of fuel just to get to their max afterburner speed. To use the it effectively, just start tapping as soon as you launch so you sustain that speed without having to waste a bunch of fuel for accelerating.

Using those three points, I can usually zip all the way to the other side of the map, wiggle through turret fire, and grab their flag while they're still getting their pants on. Making it back safely after that takes a bit of cleverness though.

4. After grabbing the flag, stop tapping, turn down and coast into their ship from behind.
When inside, continue slowly until just before the internal turrets orient themselves to you to fire. What this allows you to do is refill your fuel tank a bit before the sprint back home.

5. Punch it and zip past a bunch of really confused people in the launch bay.
Fly in a straight line directly to base while you still have afterburner fuel. This seems really counter intuitive to some, but it's actually a lot harder to hit someone straight on from a distance, especially when they're flying away from you really fast, your profile from their point of view is very narrow. By flying through and past them from inside their base with your afterburners, you more or less achieve this. They won't be able to make any arc shots on you either since your flight path appears, from their point of view, to be a small line along their depth of vision.

6. If you run out of fuel on the way back, then do an irregular wiggly spiral dance. Doing this lets you dodge fire while you wait for your tanks to replenish. After about 4~5 seconds of wiggling (or more if you can afford to), hit the afterburners again and tap them back to base.

7. After you capture the flag, hurl yourself into your base to commit suicide.
This lets you launch again. Repeat ad ridiculum from point 3.

Of course, this is only one basic method and if you do it over and over again, people will adapt. I mix it up a bit for the second and third flags, but usually do this for the first one. Also, you can't really slow down to coast into their base if they have a flag guard, but this usually isn't a problem for first one if you do it right at the start.

by **jazzycat** Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:26 am

WJ wrote:The targeting cross-hairs goes red when your weapon is in range. It doesn't mean that you will hit. In fact, against a moving target you will almost never hit what you are aiming directly at. With machine guns I start firing and then adjust to burn down a target, or spray a scattering of shots to keep an enemy from recharging shields. The shot velocity for cannons have been increased lately, so you don't have to lead as much.

Certain weapons can cause bonus damage against large targets. The damage caused is based on health remaining. For example, rockets cause 25% of the targets health if that amount is larger than its based damage. This causes the reducing attack power effect, however the attack power never falls below its baseline (which has never been decreased, so the secondary weapons cause more damage than they did in the past). This is admittedly a complex (and unexplained) mechanic, but it makes secondary weapons useful against large targets without letting them one-shot smaller targets. The take-away point is that firing secondary weapons against targets is very useful to start with, but you usually have to finish targets of with standards.

Some veteran players are very difficult to kill. I have been playing for a long time, and there are some ppl who I have to spend the whole match trying to hunt down.

I would suggest you try out the (newly upgraded) Kingfisher. It has the speed to catch anyone, and Light Cannons (which have a nice shot velocity, making them easier to hit with). If you use a Mamba, try and get in close before you open up with the machine guns. You don't want to give warning, and it is very difficult to hit from a distance.

--wj

http://moonbreakers.userecho.com/topic/119786-why-the-attack-power-drop-off/#comment_135619

by ratcharmer Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:42 pm

If I could be so bold as to suggest a few?

~~-Never fly in a straight line near enemy turrets. Especially don't fly directly towards an enemy turret. Aim at it long enough to get a shot/burst off then aim away again.~~(already listed)

-Rockets do more damage to targets with more health. Thus early on rockets will deal massive damage to turrets, but once they are low guns are often more effective.

-Nukes take 5-6 seconds to arm, so don't fire them point blank. Once armed the bomber can detonate them manually. It's important to keep this in mind when chasing bombers.

-Nukes can be shot down, and should generally be your highest priority target when defending in Carrier Assault.

-Don't try to fire Nukes directly at a turret on the carrier. They WILL get shot down.

-Tracking Missiles lock on to the target in the center of the screen, not the one by your cursor. They can be fired without a lock (and will fly in a straight line like rockets).

-Know the mission objective. If you drop in partway through a game press F2 to learn what type of game it is. Remember that EVERYTHING else comes second to the mission objective. Getting 5 kills and no deaths out in the middle of nowhere doesn't help your team capture the flag.

-Get an idea of what roles the ships you have access to excel in. In general, bombers aren't for defense.

-In Search & Destroy, try to fight as close to your carrier as you can, and avoid getting close to their carrier. There's little benefit to damaging the carrier and the turrets provide a significant "home turf" advantage.

by **Loki** Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:53 pm

ratcharmer wrote:If I could be so bold as to suggest a few?

~~-Never fly in a straight line near enemy turrets. Especially don't fly directly towards an enemy turret. Aim at it long enough to get a shot/burst off then aim away again.~~(already listed)

-Rockets do more damage to targets with more health. Thus early on rockets will deal massive damage to turrets, but once they are low guns are often more effective. Rockets are indestructible and cannot be destroyed. Rockets can be remote detonated after firing by right clicking again.

-Nukes take ~~5-6~~ 5 seconds to arm, so don't fire them point blank. Once armed the bomber can detonate them manually. It's important to keep this in mind when chasing bombers. Advanced torpedoes arm in 4 seconds.

-Nukes can be shot down, and should generally be your highest priority target when defending in Carrier Assault.

-Don't try to fire Nukes directly at a turret on the carrier. They WILL get shot down.

-Tracking Missiles lock on to the target in the center of the screen, not the one by your cursor. They can be fired without a lock (and will fly in a straight line like rockets). Missiles can be shot down by turrets or machine guns and destroyed with rocket or torpedo remote detonation.

-Know the mission objective. If you drop in partway through a game press F2 to learn what type of game it is. Remember that EVERYTHING else comes second to the mission objective. Getting 5 kills and no deaths out in the middle of nowhere doesn't help your team capture the flag.

-Get an idea of what roles the ships you have access to excel in. In general, bombers aren't for defense or dogfights.

-In Search & Destroy, try to fight as close to your carrier as you can, and avoid getting close to their carrier. There's little benefit to damaging the carrier and the turrets provide a significant "home turf" advantage.

by **tedwj** Sat Aug 18, 2012 10:32 pm

My tip:

Please spend your time flying and killing the bad guys...Telling me what to do, or what to fly is just a waste of your time.

by GratuitousLurking Fri Sep 14, 2012 5:15 am

Sadly Steam changed it's old forums, so I can't find my thread I did there of tips from back when I was really nuts for Moon Breakers :< A few users even gave piloting tips liberally for various ships too. Aw well, guess it's time to get back in practice :3

by Kackling Kobold Fri Sep 28, 2012 3:40 pm

learn the ship designation, particularly the mean ones (the A-80, the F250, X99) ect.

Hit tab to see what people are flying & you can anticipate what you're up against.

If you know there are A-80 pilots, watch for those names and open with a rocket; it jams the missile lock, which will keep you alive a few seconds longer, if not wreck the A-80's day entirely.

by **Nightwing** Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:36 pm

tedwj wrote:Please spend your time flying and killing the bad guys...Telling me what to do, or what to fly is just a waste of your time.

I totally agree... I've lost COUNT of how many times I've had people trolling in a match ("You should be using the ___" "Don't aim at noobs" Etc.), and I've wished for a friendly fire option (The team votes to kill the troll) or target designation (the troll has a permanent targeting marker on them that can be seen through obstacles, like the flag beacon in CTF).
Either of those options would be QUITE helpful in making the game more enjoyable...

by **longshot** Sun Oct 21, 2012 4:41 pm

Just a mute option would be nice Wink

by **Nightwing** Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:07 pm

longshot wrote:Just a mute option would be nice

Or maybe an option to kick them from the match...

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