I figured when i reconnect my interner (in 2 days) I would start mainly using a scythe, any tips? I dont have a mouse with any thumb buttons, but im finding from what im watching i wont need it. Anyways any ideas of what to cert and any tips? I guess i want to be mainly hybrid leaning towards aerial thanks
You will need it thumb buttons. Perfectly smooth, rapid turning without moving your mouse is mandatory for dogfighting. Goodies: flares. pods. performance 3 of some kind. Skills: Don't crash Avoid lock-ons without wasting your flares Avoid getting turbo-gibbed by flak Flee at the first sign of danger if you want to keep flying AND ALWAYS HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN. Taking that extra second to blast the target is a free ESF kill for someone else. And then dogfighting is a whole nother group of skills you'll need to learn. You have to learn where they're coming from, how to get away and when turning and fighting is suicide. Also flying backwards.
Hey dude. ESF flying is a great skill to learn and has great rewards if you get really good at it. To start with, you'd probably want to cert your timer before anything else!!! Getting shot down and not being able to respawn your scythe because of a timer gets frustrating quickly. Being able to jump straight back in your scythe and go again is totally worth certing out the timer to max. Well, if you don't want to get that last 1000cert timer to make it a minimum of 5 minutes, just be careful when you fly, and keep in mind how long ago you grabbed the scythe before trying anything a little risky, like getting into an outmatched dogfight or flying over an area with heavy anti air. The three different airframes are all useable and they do have advantages in their own way. But I'd say go for dogfighting airframe first, as it will give you better yaw (rudder) ability to help with your aiming, above all else. Once you get a lot better with the scythe, at some point down the road try the high G (vertical thruster) airframe, you'll find you can do some really tricky manoeuvring with it, in dog fights and attacking ground targets. There's a really cool video on youtube about literally flying backwards using the high G airframe. (not continuously of course) You should probably get the lolpods (dual photon pods) as they're at the moment a little on the powerful side, they're great for shooting down enemy aircraft as well as tanks and infantry. Grabbing Night vision eventually or even thermal makes it a lot easier to pick off stray infantry on the ground. Eventually with this, you'll want to cert the reload speed out, but grab the ammo upgrades first, because even at full ammo cert, you've only got 14+70 rockets to shoot, which runs out faster than you think. Practice practice practice with these rockets, as they're good if they direct hit vehicles, but otherwise they don't do much damage even if they only miss by a little. You'll find momentum counts for a lot, so keep in mind what direction the craft is travelling when you line up a shot. Get the Halistorm Turbo lazer. If you're stuck for cash or certs, grab this before the rocket pods, as it is paramount for dogfighting ability. Upgrade ammo for this along with clip size. The reload is really fast on this, so an extra %15 reload speed is not worth it. Once you have clip size with the lazer maxed, and the reload speed on the rockets maxed, you can switch from one to the other, continuously firing while the other reloads. It's deadly for taking out liberators and bigger targets. Stay away from the Light PPA. It's totally useless. Having said this, I'm sure people will probably prove me wrong, but I don't find it any good at all. The A2A missile pods make are great for keeping your scythe alive. Unless the enemy has a decent stealth cert, you can sit back from range and spam missiles if you've got enough ammo certed. Having said this, I don't find this style of play satisfying at all, because it's pretty easy to just sit still and point a lock on at an airborne target and watch it go down. (STRIKERS TAKE NOTE And speaking of strikers.... get flares. You'll need them. That should be your utility slot if you're going to be flying anywhere that has TR. Infact this should just be your utility slot, unless you want to specifically use the scout radar for a battle for some reason. When the enemy is locking on to you, see if you can actually wait until just immediately after they fire their weapon before using the flare. Even at max certed flare timer, 20 seconds is way too long to wait for the flares to reload, you'll get shot down when the heavy reloads very quickly. By waiting until they fire their rocket, you not only waste the maximum time the heavy has to lock onto you, but you can possibly see the rocket fly up off the ground, and take him out before he has a chance to get you. Generally speaking though, when getting locked on, I fire my flare after the rocket is launched, and get the hell out of there pretty quick. Don't bother with ejection system, unless you're super keen to keep your immaculate k/d ratio, something I really could care less about. Don't bother with fire suppresion either, the scythe doesn't really have enough health anyway for it to be super useful, I find it work sometimes on a liberator, but in a situation where I would use fire suppression, I just find getting on the ground quickly and repairing works better. Defense slot? I used to do vehicle stealth, and you may want to do this to start, but I've now turned to using nanite auto-repair. It just saves you having to get on the ground and repair all the time, plus in long drawn out dogfights, you can gain a little health back sometimes if the enemy doesn't hit you for a while. Armour? Haven't tried it... can't really comment. Could be good, not sure. Flying tips? Use T key to fly in 3rd persion mode when scouting. You get a much better view. Switch to in cockpit to fire weapons, unless you're top gun, and can fire 3rd person. Some people are actually good at that, I just switch in and out as required. When dogfighting, don't run. If you find yourself low on health, and they're winning, stick with it. Keep turning and twisting, trying to shoot the other guy down. If you try to make a run for it, it just makes you really easy to shoot. Possibly if you're flying somewhere like the canyons of indar or around bridges etc you can make a getaway using cover, but generally its better to just fight it out, and make the other guy work for his kill. You may get him critical yourself and nothings more satisfying than turning a losing dogfight into at least a tie. Run from bursters. You hear that **** firing you don't wanna be there! A decent max only needs a few hits and you're in trouble. You can sit back of course if you know where he is and pump rockets at him, but do it from a safe distance. Fly with other scythes. Make an air squad. There's nothing like flying around with 4 of your buddies and dominating the sky. Look at youtube video's on ESF flying. There's some really great ones out there, and I've learned a few great tips from them. Check out the flying backwards one i mentioned earlier. Thats all I got for now, but good luck with the esf flying matey!
A lot of green tea... Alcohol will do as well eventually.. Also prEtty much everything else aforementioned.
You'll have a hard time learning it, sorry. Yes, watch youtube. And tell us if you want an A2G or A2A layout. Both are pretty hard to do, because most pilots left in the air are not bad, the bad ones gave up long time ago when it became incredibly hard. Tell us specifically what you would like to do, maybe we can help you further
The A2A missiles are pretty bad stay away. Just 12 hours ago I shot 6 A2A missiles at a mossie and only one did damage. They all connected and blew up but I am not sure if it is a glitch or on purpose that the A2A dont work worth crap to other ESFs excluding the lib and gal. It is pretty infuriating. For A2A fighting I recommend using the the hailstorm and afterburners. The light PPA is pretty powerful against infantry. Only problem is if you face another ESF you run because you have no chance with the PPA. If you are in a safe zone I recommend using the PPA because it will burn through infantry like crazy. Pair it with night or thermal vision and no one is safe. Of course get the photon pods. Not much to say there. It is basically point at what you want to die and shoot. I went from having level 3 racer frame but I mainly use the level 3 hover ability now. I find I have more control over my aircraft when fighting infantry. Shoot tanks in the *** for extra damage. I usually spot a tank. Figure out the orientation and fly toward it so I can get a nice bead of photon rockets to the backside. Usually it will take all 14 rockets to destroy the tank but it is a hell of a lot easier than hitting them anywhere else.
First save up about 2000 certs before even thinking of flying. You'll need it for rotary, rocketpods, flares and nanite auto repair. You can fly without rocketpods but I personally don't like it, they help against other aircraft and are decent against ground when there's nobody else flying. So, your shopping list: -Rocketpods with IR and good ammo capacity -Flares, level 1 is fine, 2 is better, everything else is luxury -Nanite autorepair, level 1 for a start, but you should max this out quickly -Racer frame for scythe probably, it's 800 certs I think so you might want to get level 2 first and wait for level 3 -Rotary with good ammo capacity -Several levels of the timer are pretty cheap The others fave you some pretty good tips for fighting. You can fly without those weapons and certs, but it will be very frustrating.
2000 Certs? I struggle getting 50! Thanks guys ill watch ESF specific videos. And I like the idea of dogfighting, i would like to take out INFANTRY. Ill make sure to bookmark this page for future reference too. If anyone has any more tips, please share them. I appreciate the time it takes to write all that. Later guys Blacky
Stick with 1 or 2 other ally ESFs when you are new. Flying by yourself is suicide for new pilots. The best way is either join a flying squad or outfit if there is one or have a friend fly with you that you can communicate with using a 3rd party VOIP client like skype or something. Makes things a whole lot easier. Flying with someone else is important because you don't want to get flanked from the back. You can watch each other's back and tell each other of dangerous places to not go to.
there is currently a 90 degree cliff as a learning curve for piloting in this game....there's a reason you see little to no new pilots; it's a very uninviting role for anyone that hasn't been in the pilots seat for 100+ hours. Dont ever fly alone, you wont last long; and as for rocket pods or AA....neither......your a new pilot, you will need all the survivability you can muster, use the afterburner pods....if you think your going to hop in a ESF and run around farming infantry.....think again.....those days are over.
