How to have a fair chance dogfighting

Stealth Racer Vortek Fuel Pods is a cruel combination.

Ye, cuz Daddy isn't the number one ranked player in the world and he totally doesn't have stats that make rguitar (whoever that is) look average.

Oh and look who is second, is that Lazy TR?! And both of them on Miler?! Not Emerald!? What is this madness, how can this be!!??!?!?!?!?!

Farmers ?

I didn't see them that much those days... and by not that much, I mean "Never"

Well, LazyTR is a ground farmer par excellence with pods and banshee but not really known for his dogfighting skill, you can actually shot him down pretty easily. And Daddy, yeah, he is good but not exceptional and most of his kills/score came from lolpods back in the day. Also his outfit mates are always nearby and will gank you pretty hard.

I would even dare to say, that the air skill level is pretty much the same across all servers.

They do tend to get killed rather fast.

Daddy and his RO cronies are still very good in the air, all things considered.

Ok, here we go... Still wondering why I'm posting this? Pretty much bored and get log in to play.

First lets tackle the skill level of pilots across the servers. I flown on all servers extensively and can say there are great pilots from all three factions on all of them! With that said, it is my personal experience that some servers have better pilots in one faction over the other. That doesn't mean that the other factions don't have amazing pilots. For example on Cobalt the better pilots I've found are on TR with VS at a close second. Miller has some amazing NC pilots. Emerald also stands out for its NC pilots, but as I said before, there are great pilots on all factions and servers. (You have some good pilots too Connery )

Now for the harder part, which ESF is better? I also fly on all factions so I think I can give a pretty fair assessment on the subject. For full disclosure I'm mainly a mossie pilot. On this subject I believe your skill level has a lot to do with which ESF you think is better and I think most top pilots would agree with me (maybe).

The Mosquito - This is pretty much the easiest of all the three ESF's to learn to fly. Feels good, good speed and handles well with a slim profile and large clip size which in my opinion makes it the better all around choice for beginner and average pilots. At the higher skill levels its not the best but that doesn't mean you cant do well in one, some pilots are exceptional in their mossies! Main focus on a Mosquito should be your accuracy. That larger clip size that helps at the beginning becomes an issue at the higher levels since you have to land more shots to be effective and no matter what anyone says hitting a Reaver in the hands of a skilled pilot is not easy.

The Reaver - This is probably the worst starter ESF! It has a huge hitbox compared to the others and even though it has the strongest noseguns they are not the easiest to hit with. It's strengths lie in its strong afterburners, good maneuverability and high damage output something that newer pilots don't take advantage of (they don't know how to). At the higher skill levels the Reaver is a beast! Main focus here is learn to fly, you need to learn to use your afterburners and take advantage of the stronger noseguns.

The Scythe - This is your average starter ESF. Good noseguns, ridiculously slim profile from the front but also a ridiculously easy target from any other angle. Newer pilots suffer the most in Scythes since they cant stay facing the targets but average pilots do well simply because they are hard to hit if you can maintain your target in front of you. At the higher skill levels Scythes are amazing for 1v1 encounters but they do suffer when fighting multiple targets since you cant stay facing everyone at once.

These are my thoughts on the three ESF's from a dog-fighting point of view. There are many scenarios and situations which I'm not considering but I think this post is long enough. You just need to learn to take advantage of your ESF's strengths, they all have one.

The verdict:

New pilots = The mossie is probably your best choice
Average pilots = The Scythe is propably your best choice
Skilled pilots = Reaver or Scythe are probably the better choices but I've seen some amazing mossie pilots aswell.

Ok, flame away.

lel

I still see Daddy around often enough. The point was Emerald certainly doesn't have the best pilots, like that fellow was gassing on about

Daddy is pretty good. I know most of the best pilots on Miller and everyone dislikes Daddy. Saying Daddy isn't exceptional? Hmm, don't get me wrong, I am no fan of his, but i bet, he kills you and your buddies pretty quick in a dog fight. Again though, point still stands, that guy saying Emerald has the best air game, stats etc would disagree.

We'll see in the next SS matches if Emerald has really the best "Coordinated Airforce" (because one pilot's skill won't make the difference here, at least, not the skill alone)...

No we don't dislike daddy!
He's a cool guy.

As for the Miller Pilots, we generally avoid trying to name a single person as "the best". There's little to be gained from doing so.
I say 'we' because there's a server wide community of pilots, as I'm sure there is on Emerald, Cobalt etc.

This seems like as good a time as any to point out just how useless I think your whole outfit is. Seriously, I play against you guys on both TR and NC, and people go 'OMG PREY IS HERE', but I've literally never found a single reason to care about your irrelevant obsession with aircraft. When I played my NC toon, I would've taken a single squad of TIWs over a whole platoon of tryhard sweaty wannabee Top Gun hotshots.

Air-obsessed groups remind me of the people in Battlefield who would just stand on the runway camping the jets while we lost the game, because 'I WANNA BE A PILOT!'

I mean seriously, you admit yourselves you 'completely dominate the air on server smashes', yet how many have you actually won?

That's what I thought.

thanks, but as far as go, I'm not in PREY nor ever claimed to be.

In fact, I played drastically more infantry and am one of the best players kph wise on infantry. I personnaly don't like TIW guys (bearing in mind a few exceptions). Anyways, I'm just amazing at everything, what can I do...

I remember a post where you asked me to ask rguitar what frame he used. So, (after heavy moderation) here it goes;


I asked him in one of the comments there, should be fairly easy to find. So yes, hover frame on reaver

pretty much what omarmh/Juggernaut said is spot on. I'd like to also add that if you plan to fly all 3 ESFs, the mossie is the best ESF to start as the adjustments to your aim/flight style when changing to scythe/reaver is lesser than if it was when you are starting from reaver or scythe.

• lose the joystick
• Max out Mouse Sensitivity for flight vehicles (if you haven't done this yet, it will feel hyper sensitive, but once you get used to it, you will be able to maneuver your reaver with ease. )
• Not sure what your primary weapon is, but don't unload your entire clip unless you are truly aligned with the enemy. Use burst. You should also be maxing out your magazine size.
• Reverse maneuver is great, but you need to take it a step further now. Once the enemy knows your flight path you are as good as dead. Especially now-a-days. (this is usually what I do (youtube). Only two pilots I've encountered where for the life of me I cannot out maneuver their fire. And that is Rguitar and Glennbeckistan
• If the enemy gets the jump on you, use the Reaver's thrust speed to your advantage and make them give chase, than throw it in reverse and just unload on them.

It sounds like you know what you are doing, but you are on that tipping point now on being from mediocre and to being great; so don't give up.

There are some videos with Rguitar and Mattiace duelling they are very very close and i think mattiace is like 5th-6th best pilot on Cobalt...

One thing you might want to have a look at is old WW1 and WW2 dogfighting tactics. Even though technically "in the future", this technology is hardly modern and I've had a great deal of luck emulating tactics and maneuvers from those eras. For example, when you approach a combat area, fly at the height ceiling. When other aircraft are doing their thing, they are RARELY looking up. So you can swoop down on them and get in the first punch.

And, I hate to recommend this, but.... A2A missiles make the job significantly easier, to the point of someone who has them at the start of a dogfight will win a good +90% of them time against someone who doesn't. When you swoop down on an enemy, you can lock on and fire a missile and they still have no idea where you are. The chance of them evading the missile is virtually zero, so, after it hits, you can bump over to your nose gun and tear the remaining half of their health apart.

Lastly, bind free look to your a button you can reach easily. This will let you turn your head inside your cockpit. So, when nearing a combat area, flip over so the top of your craft is facing the ground and use free look to find a decent target. You can still spot things when using freelook, so you can tag a target on your minimap, swoop down on him, and he has absolutely no chance to get away.

Though, come to think of it, these are more air ambush tactics than dogfight winning tactics. Tomato, tomahto, I guess.

wanted to note i've had the tomcat AAMs since early, and they RARELY result in me getting kills...due to getting drilled and killed hyper fast during this process- I have better odds if they let me get a second shot in, but even then they start using flipping momemtum moves to keep circling while shooting- which i can't replicate without issues