[Vehicle] ESFs; teach me! Am I doing this right? Am I AIMING right?

My history

The fastest things in the world are all flying; for this I am thrilled to fight in the air.

I've witnessed myself as one of the more capable pilots in two other games, and one obscure multiplayer flight-RTS hybrid with the best mouse control I've felt in a combat flight simulator (virtual joystick; i.e. imagine a 'neutral point' on your mousepad. The ship's turning speed is determined by how far away your mouse is from that point). But Planetside 2? Planetside 2 is strange!

Let's start with the basics... (Shooting and Aiming)

Aircraft steer much like the old DOS X-Wing and TIE Fighter; you turn only when your mouse moves. It's so strange that I've only seen one game (the aforementioned obscure hybrid) offer the more intuitive mouse-virtual-joystick control.

I looked for reference from an exemplary pilot, and in comparison my aim seems very 'all-over-the-place'. Freeridda's crosshair in that video was very controlled and met its mark. I am pretty envious, wishing I too could aim like that.

Settings?

My mouse is set at 3500DPI. Flight vehicle sensitivity is 0.328.
Raw mouse input ON, reduce input lag ON, mouse accel OFF. Windows 7 OS mouse acceleration is also disabled. (But steering, to be honest, actually feels like there is still some mouse accel in effect. e.g. If I move my mouse 1cm/s, my ESF pitches 1 degree per second. If I move my mouse 2cm/s, it pitches 10 degrees per second. For this reason I feel insecure about lowering my sensitivity. Or should I just do that regardless?)
http://i.imgur.com/HnxPxP1.png

Other concerns - Dual Photon Pods
I also seem to be firing them all-over-the-place; footage in latter half of video.

The footage
A few 'easy' running-away ESFs and bombing Lightnings.


High-res Google Drive download (900p vs Youtube-compressed 720p)

The next step - advanced?
Got bested countless times by ImYourSenpiNC. He's amazing. I'd charge at him from behind, he turns to face me, he afterburns vertically. Maybe mirroring his moves (getting into hover mode and afterburning vertically to keep up with him as he does) is the way to go, but I can't say for sure. But, I digress...
____________________________________________________________________________

The main problem I'm having right now is how to reliably hit anything, or at least improve my aim.
Am I doing anything right, and what am I doing wrong?

bind your control axes to keys, at least pitch anyway. that should let you use a much lower sensitivity for precise aim without losing maneuverability. also check that "analogue throttle" is bound, it kills speed faster than S. practice hover mode with special attention to careful use of afterburners to move along all 3 axes at once. this is commonly referred to as "reverse maneuver" but really it encompasses a whole class of 2 and 3 axis translations that are unique to space fighters like PS2, E: D, SE, and SC.

your best bet is to send a message to good pilots that you encounter, because dedicated air players have formed a fairly close community and individuals within it are often very receptive to people who are willing to put in time practising and flying in a wing. the best method for rapid progression is to pair within a squad and trade fighters. this allows you to shoot "your" fighter and avoid involving the grief system. this way you and a partner can get in several practice fights near the friendly warpgate, and generally gain more progression per fight than you would simply flying out into a live battle.

hope that helps. I'm actually rubbish in a fighter but you are welcome to look me up when you're ready to learn the Lib.

Thanks for your advice; S key rebound to analog throttle. I, too, looked up reverse maneuvers on LMSTVx's Youtube channel. Guess I'll try to earn a handshake with Matyis6, too.

But I have to ask, for I am not familiar with the E: D, SE and SC acronyms you mentioned... I assume PS2 refers to Planetside 2?

I'm back with more footage of what I wish to build up. This time it's against aces; not outnumbered, but outclassed.
My configs are visible in the video. One of them seemed to be running vehicle stealth. Thus far I've relied heavily on my engagement radar to turn and face my opponent.



I reduced my sensitivity to 0.299 here; it doesn't seem to do me any good.

Well, I just want to start by telling you to run from this forum like hell. 99% of the advice you'll see hear is really really REALLY bad (like beyond imagination bad).

I could give you some advices myself, but I'd feel like I'd be losing credibility for telling you not to read what's here.
Instead go to www.reddit.com/r/planetside
You can see the outfit tags there, and you'll already shave off a big chunk of the terrible players here.

But yeah, if you want actual advice, I'd be more than willing to come around to help you. But since I know 99% of what's going to be said here is going to be terrible, I prefer to redirect you to a better place. If you want some in-game help, feel free to ask, please don't read what most people on this forum will say.

Actually not, analogue throttle is just the equivalant of holding "S" constantly.
Just had to say it :3

On ESFs or on everything?

I'm only an above average ESF pilot, so I can't speak to high level performance. But I can still help new pilots develop along their early learning curve. I can also speak to how to deal with dangers when you're not an elite pilot.

And when it comes to topics like "aiming like the pros" (like this thread), I shut up. Cause my aim is terrible. So I just read the thread and hope to pick up some usable advice myself.

Yes PS2 he means Planetside 2, not playstation 2 lol.
E: D = Elite: Dangerous
Not sure on SE
SC is Star Citizen

There's some decent info for infantry classes for sure, but anything that relates to air game is...
A lot of players seem to think they got way more experience than they actually have, or they "heard from someone" something and assume it to be true.

For instance, do you remember when you first started, some players you talked to at some point probably had all these ideas about balance, or ideas about how something should of been played, maybe you even had a few of those yourself (I sure as hell did). Well, those "ideas" is what you'll mostly find on here. Uninformed opinions basically.

And that's usually another problem. I get the intention is good, but there's a lot of "average" pilot that try to give advice to begginers. And while that advice might push them, odds are it won't push them in the good direction, or simply give bad advice without even realising it.

Most of the advice I see around is so wrong, it pains me every time I come back to the forum for a few. There's also a whole lot of misconceptions that people go around having, and they're just spreading them around. For instance above here, someone suggested binding "Analog Throttle" to S. And while I personally wouldn't suggest it, it's mostly harmless unless you're trying to land. It might even help in some situations, but the problem is that it does not actually make it slow down any faster. But for some reason, that person was probably told that at some point, and now he just told it to a new player who's going to take it as a given-fact and is going to repeat it to whoever else wants to hear it. And it just creates a circle like that.


To give you an idea, here's a thread from earlier: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/vs-cheat-faction.238483/page-2#post-3361685
This guy is the leader of the biggest zergfit on the Emerald server. It's mostly a joke of an outfit, but just read that that first post of his, and then wonder how many "ideas" of his does he have about how "stuff works". He's the kind of player that mostly populate this forum, and I hope you can understand why most of the information on here is very unreliable.



Now, to leave on a good note, there sure is some good information around. I mean, a lot of it is crappy, but some of it is actually decent. And there's a few good players on the forum too, but most of them usually don't post much or simply come and go.

Sorry to tell you this, but aim in this game only comes with practise ... loads and loads of practise.
You should fully expect to suck at aiming for at least a month or 2 and even after that you will be worse than most "full-time" pilots.

Now how does one improve their aim:

1. The first step is to learn compensating for your own movements
Go to the vr pick any of the static targets (i would start with something big, like a liberator), fly over it, to a reverse manouver (since you ll probably need practise with that anyways) and unload your clip.

Repeat this until you can fly full speed around your target, while still landing the majority of your shots.
Switch to a smaller target and repeat.


2. Train fast aim adjustments:
Pick 2 targets in vr, fire at one, roll to the side and try to get your aim onto the other target as fast as possible.
Rinse & repeat.
This basically simulates, you losing aim due to your enemies movement and the goal is to lower the time you need to get back on target.


3. Ctrl+Space:
Same as with the rm practise but for many people a lot tougher to pull off.
Alternating between upward and downward trust is an easy and effective way to reduce the amount of hits that the enemy lands on you.
In practise you would alternate as soon as you get hit again, in the vr try to simulate it with 1-2sec cycles ... shorter and you won't move enough for any shots to miss and waiting longer would dimish the practise (again readjustment of your aim).


4. Out of the vr:
Once you feel that you have mastered these steps or at least got a good warm up, head out.
Your primary targets early game are enemy A2G esfs.

Learn to sneak up on them (sadly this is actually extremly easy) and practise on them.
Your goal is to finish a running esf with 2 clips or less (and yeah most of them will just run).
This will help you at least somewhat with learning to compensate for bullet drop ... but sooner or later you ll need a buddie to learn with.


5. sparring:
Get a pilot that is at a similar skill level as you (preferably a little bit better) and pull esfs.
Then squad up, open the vehilce to squad and swap esfs.

Now the game will still give you a friendly fire warning, but since you are only damaging your own esf (regardless who is actually in it) the game will not lock your guns.
This way you can train hover fighting very well ... but again it will take time.
1-2 matches wont get you anywhere, be prepared to spend several full ingame sessions practising.


6. Sensitivity Settings:
There is no right answer here.
Some people work realy well with high sensitivity settings and have the fine motor skills to make it work.

I am not one of those guys.
It will take some time to figure out your prefered settings ... BUT if you plan on going for the low sensitivity route, remember to rebind pitch up and down.

As you ve already noticed, your esfs movements are very dependent on your mouse sensitivity.
Having low sensitivity requires you to rebind pitch up and down (thumb mousebuttons) or you will run into problems, when it comes to keeping up with enemy esfs and the manouvers they can pull off.


It's a sad truth, but to get good as a pilot in planteside2 you have to accept that you will not be doing anything else during your playtime ... for at least several months.
After that you will have some wiggle room for breaks, but you will lose some of your "skill" regardless.

Welcome to the hardships of piloting ... months of training and hard work and if you did it right, you will get a lot of hate in return.

Why anyone even remotely interested in "flight" would want to play Planetside2 is beyond me. The physics are absurd. Developers have allowed the Reverse Maneuver exploit to be the gold standard of the air game.

This is an infantry shooter with token vehicles who's only function is to ruin good fights and groundspam infantry.

If that's your thing, well, ok. But I think you'll be really disappointed coming from those other games.

So much salt

I see you got killed by Reli a few times in your videos. Which instantly alerted me to the fact you play on Briggs =3. Hurray, another pilot!

The biggest mistake I saw you making in your videos was using yaw to aim. That's a bad habbit and the sooner you break it the sooner your aim will increase. Don't get me wrong... you can use yaw to aim... but you have significantly more control over pitch.

Other than that, if you're just looking for aiming advice, that's about it other than 'practice'.

However, if you want to become a good pilot in planetside 2 you're going to have to completely change your flying style. Standard dog-fighting just doesn't cut it in this game. If you want to know what I'm talking about, just look up "ESF montage" on youtube. You'll see how real aces fly.

Not much of a flyboy, so my ability for advice is limited. Actually I'm a dedicated flak gunner .
On aiming advice, pay close attention to the direction your target is facint and their velocity relative to you. ESFs can only move in reverse when using the reversing maneuver, which is usually seen in dogfights. From there they'll usually be rising or descending at a fast rate in a circle around you.
I've gotten rage tells for "interloping" in sky duels as an AA by tracing a circle around my ally. From my point of view I'm supporting a friendly, who may very much need it.
As counterintuitive as it is I would say to not use the zoom function for high turn rates. It will help you keep an eye on your tracer and it will be easier to turn fast.

For your Photon pods against ground targets, you generally want to be within 130m or less to aim well. I suggest taking themals to highlight targets. You will need a straight approach vector or be hovering in order to have good accuracy, but keep in mind that telegraphs your intentions and makes you an easy target. People are going to rage tell you if you pod infantry, honestly just ignore them and do it anyways. Mass killing infantry is contribution to your team, and only occurs due to lack of air deterrence.

As for survivability, my advice is primarily from a ground standpoint. As tempting as it is to fly in low behind an MBT for back hits, the angle you need to do so makes you vulnerable to the main cannon, which will almost always OHKO. Try to approach from relatively hight to avoid random shells. You'd be suprised how good some tankers are at sniping air.
Against lockons, you generally want to find terrain the moment you hear beeping. Try to figure out the general direction and get outta dodge if you are at less than 50%.
Against flak, start running as soon as you hear the signature booms. Flak creates an area of denial, as you approach the combat zone you should get a feel for this AoD. Fly high and fast to keep out of range, and if you need to escape boost while curving and zigzagging. I tend to get flak kills off of people boosting straight away, since it makes their path very predictable.

Thats all the advice I have. As a sidenote, your humility is refreshing in comparison to typical forumside salt. Good luck.

Well, some little Tips I can give you to improve your aim:

1. Turn off bloom effect - this might make your and enemy tracers less visible, but causes explosions to interfere less with your vision (e.g. the Dual Photon Pods on the Lightnings)

2. Use Hover Stability Airframe (I can't tell from your video which one you're using, well it's not Racer...)

3. Use Thermal Vision on all Weapons

4. When not shooting, use 3rd person view for "cqc" dogfights to reverse and also find your enemy.

Space Engineers, or How I Learned to Build My Own Liberator.

People gotta work with what they got available. And sometimes even the half-baked feedback from other novices is better than nothing.

Current PS2 is a very complicated game. A very "cryptic" game. With very cryptic gameplay and a very cryptic learning curve. It is complicated, deep/extensive, and non-intuitive.

In addition, PS2 is severely lacking in easy (for novices) to find, reliable sources of info to help people develop along that learning trainwreck curve. There is some there, and some great, but it's hard for people to find, hard for people to tell the good from bad, and hard to tell if it's outdated or not.

So people are basically left trying to figure out what they can, however they can. They read and post on forums, ask questions and get feedback. Not all feedback is the same. Type or quality. And many posters will post specifically to speak to the quality of other feedback. The OP is gonna navigate that and get what he can, as will any lurkers, etc.

If you don't like feedback, then say it. As you did. If you have better feedback or good info to share (like links) then share it. As you did. It's all part of the process. And for current PS2, that process is pretty rocky and pretty ugly. But it's what we got and it's the best (and for many) only road really open: so people are gonna take it. And it will provide some help (two streps forward, one step back) along that learning curve.

Here are some videos on Aiming by MattiAce. MattiAce is/was one of the best ESF pilots ever on PS2 and he did many Tutorial Videos on ESFs and other aspects of PS2. I cannot speak to what from these vids is outdated (game settings, loadouts, etc.), but most the fundamentals from them are still solid.

Planetside 2 - Dogfighting, aim and leading the target


Planetside 2 - Leading - Aim tutorial


Planetside 2 - Mosquito - Sensitivity and graphics settings


Planetside 2 - Flying tutorial - ESF turns and maneuvers


Planetside 2 - Flying tutorial - Dodging and manouvering while aiming


Here's a long playlist of MattiAce ESF Flight Tutorials:

Playlist: Flying tutorials - ESF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nryco1C49t8&list=PLfjSgtIwLF_OsMjrw2NRfasx48Rc0tri-

Here's the thing. Asking for advice on here is a really bad idea, the better idea would be to figure out what outfit is considered a top outfit on your server, and then simply sending a message to one of their members asking your question. Most people will be glad to answer, and you'll get an answer that, even if it's not the best, will at least be relevant. Taking advice from another novice player is a bad thing overall. Not ill-intentioned, but still bad.

I suppose it depends what you want, and at what level of knowledge you're coming from.

Many active players can't tell you who the top Outfits are. Or where each Outfit ranks. So those types of players asking one is the same as asking another, and there is not vetting of the quality of the sources.

I have been playing a long time, and in terms of "Top Outfits", I only notice some of the more elite ESF Outfit tags, which is a pretty obscure thing. Personally, I am much more likely to notice and start chats with top players, than I I am to notice or start chats with top Outfits.

Also, a lot of good info is based on who knows/understands the specs best. I've done a fair amount of data crunching and spreadsheets and in-game/VR testing on PS2 over the years, and sometimes (depending on the topic) that can be more telling than just field experience or Outfit accumulated knowledge.