Second, also not unimportant, how to use your controls, a few are obvious, but other are underrated.
The obvious ones
- Pitch
- Yaw
- Fire
- Missiles
- Counter measurements
The underrated:
Targeting:
I use a 4 way hat switch for targeting:
front: Reticle focus
back: Pin focused
left: Cycle all
right: Nearest hostile
If you fight with more people a swarm, then it doesn't make sense to pick all the same target. Choose a group of targets and go for them.
If you kill one, then you might go after the closest, but the closest gets chosen the moment you killed your target. If the new target was flying in the opposite direction, then it may not be the ideal target any more. You must make a 180, while doing that losing your speed and be a perfect target for other enemies. Since speed is one of your best evasive actions, you rather want to keep it up.
A better approach would be to kill a target and choose manually a new target with reticle focus. Choose a target in front of you, if possible a target going in the same direction as where you are turning to, but closer is better because you can do more damage. Too close is not good because the chances are great that the target will pass you and then you must turn / loose speed to keep it in your reticle. Also never turn in to a target if its wingman is flying behind him, in case of 2 targets, always pick the last one. You can approach them in 2 ways, head on firing all guns or pass them on some distance to turn into them so you will get behind them. Head on means a tight turn, if more enemies are close then you will be a perfect target for them.
That is why the reticle focus is always under my thumb, always try to get the best target and that is often not the nearest hostile.
Pin focused is good to pin your allies, In 2.3 the pinned target always had a pointing arrow towards them, so you always knew on which direction they are. If you want to work as a group, then a good target not always is the best you can kill. If you can prevent that an ally gets shot down, then it will help you too to progress. Allies have 2 functions, the obvious is that they help you to defeat the enemy. The second function is that they will spread the focus of your enemy. If every enemy is aiming at you then you are more concentrated on evasive actions then killing enemies. Your primary target is killing as fast as possible as much a possible enemies, because if they get time to concentrate their fire on you, then you will be death soon. This implies, your primary target is killing as much as possible enemies and try to keep your allies alive. Help them if possible
Strafe:
If you engage an enemy head on, then you will get closer. There are 3 types of distance to your target: too far away, firing distance and too close. When engaging and using strafing and strafing, you primary are avoiding enemy fire, but if you strafe away from your enemy, you are also increasing the time that you are in firing distance, meanwhile keeping up distance so your turn into the enemy will be wider so you loose less speed. If enemy anticipates your strafe, then you will get hits. An opposite tactic is strafe towards your enemy. You will get a short time in the line of fire, but your enemy will loose target and must turn in the opposite direction to catch up again.
Another advantage of strafing is that if an asteroid is in your path while keeping your guns focused on target, you can alter your path without loosing focus.
Strafing also helps turning tighter without loosing speed. If I engage a target and strafe away, then I will reverse strafe while passing the target to speed up the time to get that target in my gunsight without loosing too much speed.
Boost:
While turning boost helps allot to gain speed again, Speed is your best friend in dodging fire and missiles. Also if you are heading for the next big rock, make a 180 or whatever is necessary to get away from it an hit boost to speed up the evasive action. In emergencies hit the afterburner, but beware, boost overrides you G-force safety, release it on time to avoid blackout.
Zoom:
If closing in on a target, then Zoom helps allot to improve your aim. remember to zoom out on time, you won't see asteroids in your path while use strafe and zoom at the same time. I tend to stay zoomed too long, need to practice that. Zoom really is fantastic. Before zoom my Gladius was a nice to have but way undergunned, with zoom my Gladius became really effective.
Throttle:
In my 350R I need throttle to avoid blackouts. On all my other fighter I hit full throttle on spawn and keep it that way. I try to maintain target distance with strafe.
Roll:
Realistic roll is on the stick left/right and yaw is on the rudder. I'm an old fighter pilot. In the beginning we didn't had roll, only pitch and yaw, (we also had digital joysticks!!!!) so the stick always was pitch and yaw, you can't do without, roll is luxury. When I got my HOTAS without roll, I missed roll. When I got my rudder pedals I got used to missing roll and more appreciated the left brake pedal as zoom.
Roll is good to keep target focus and to minimize negative G-force effects. Lets keep it simple. If you are turning and your head points to the inside of your curve, then the blood would leave your head. Blackout. If your head points to the outside of your curve, then the blood will go to your head, Redout. You can have more Blackout G-forces then Redout G-forces. Use roll to keep your head on the inside of your curve.
Another good use of roll is evasive actions If you are flying away from or engaging towards your enemy, he will try to shoot at you. If you apply strafe, then he can anticipate. If you use roll and strafe together, then you are flying in a straight line but rolling around that line. Very hard to his. If I'm not mistaking, this is called a barrel roll. I find it not that useful while engaging a target, but it is surely useful while trying to fly away and evade enemy fire. Also very useful while trying to evade a missile.
Keeping your speed and maintain strafe also is very useful while evading missiles.
