Flying the Reaver

Finally have my Reaver completely certed out. 20MM Mustang, Hover Stability, Vehicle Stealth, fire suppression-maxed. Been flying the last week or so. Killing mountains and trees, and I think one Vanu Trooper. Anyway, I see enemy aircraft and try to engage and I can't seem to get my nose around on to them. It's basically a Scythe or a Mossie shooting my backside while I am trying desperately to get my guns on them. Tried hovering and maneuvering, tried flying fast an maneuvering pretty much the same result. I have hung with a few enemy aircraft but not enough to call success. Any tips on getting that nose around or maneuvering would be appreciated.

I use aircraft for transport and bail. The game isn't compatible with my joystick.

Adjust your sensitivities.
Go to VR and practise on stationary targets.
Get someone who can fly to teach you.
Head out with friendly air and observe how they deal with enemy air.
Put in a few thousand hours until you master flying or give up.

Reavers have the worst turning speed of all ESFs. If you want to dogfight, you will need dogfighting airframe, and even then, you will only manage to keep up to other esfs that also have dogfighting frame (barely).
The thing about reavers is that your nose gun is considerably low compared to your cockpit and field of view, whereas scythes are level with the cockpit, and the mosquito is nearly centered to the cockpit. As a reaver, you need to position your nose reticle MUCH further ahead of their movement in order to compensate for how low your nose gun is mounted, compared to other ESFs.
I'm not sure if ESFs have been rebalance since a couple of years ago, but from how it used to be, scythes were the superior esf with smallest face2face profile and superior yaw/hover, mossies had best pitch/roll, and reavers had best top speed (about 17kph faster than others).
I usually play the speed strength and use expanded fuel tanks. I burn in on their flanks, get the kill, and burn out. Other ESFs almost never equip the extended fuel tanks to chase. You will almost never out maneuver another ESF unless you have dogfighting airframe, the reavers pitch is just too inferior to ever out-position a scythe or mossie. (A mossie or scythe count on you to make the mistake of trying to out-pitch them, you'll expose the biggest ESF hitbox to them, and you'll be an effortless kill).
It's really up to your playstyle though, you can hit and run, or stay and dogfight (you'll have to accustom yourself to that extremely low nosegun).
It's just advice, I only have around 190 ingame days as a reaver pilot. I suggest the airhammer if your going to burn in real close, and then burn out, vortex for dogfighting. I'm not a fan of a2a missiles or a2a pods, they almost never hit scythes unless you fire at them from their top/bottom. If you can hit a scythes tiny hitbox when facing them during a dogfight, you shouldn't have any problem with mossies.

If the aircraft worked properly with a joystick there wouldn't need to be tips and tricks and boost this an equip that.

As an experienced Pilot I can provide a few tips:
1. Learn the Reverse Turn and master it
2. Practice in VR training because it free resources until you can do it without conscious effort
3. Even if you're not in a dedicated air squad, trying to stick together with other allied ESFs you'll live longer
4. Switch fronts frequently to avoid AA buildup, during lower pop hours this is easier to extend your vehicle lifespan
5. Watch a youtube video on how to fly ()

Thanks all! Will dig into the tidbits provided and keep at it. Gets a bit frustrating after flying virtually in WW2 aircraft in AH3 for over 15 years and more or less mastering flight (joystick and throttle), then coming here with whole new flight model and aircraft strength/weaknesses. Never give up never surrender! See you all up there! OINK

Rotation speed is capped regardless of frame, feel free to "test" this yourself by going into the VR on every faction and pulling a Dogfighter 3 with all your sensitivity sliders for input devices cranked to max, it still won't rotate any faster than just using the Pitch DI pad options with no frame selected at all

Are you:

• Using Binary (button mapped input) Pitch Up/Down to do your 180 turns?
• Binding the 0% Analog-Throttle key and fully breaking before you do Afterburner jukes?
• Banking while using only Vertical-pitch of the mouse for precision aiming of the nosegun and NOT the Yaw inputs?
• Pre-emptive Afterburner juking when the enemy is about to line up their sights on you?
• Realizing that the Reaver is still a floating brick with very noticeable hitbox balance issues, and that 80% of serious pilots use Mossies (while the sh***rs typically run a close range playstyle with scripts/exploits in the Scythe that doubles as the best "Ramming" Empire-specific-vehicle there is) ? ?

Don't worry, it's not just you who's frustrated. If you can get actual Skyknights away from their Peacocking-Podiums long enough to have a real discussion, you'd find that they're also very unhappy with Wrel's lack of understanding and willingness to learn ESF physics and how that's led to mostly empty skies and no real determination among those who DO pull any sorts of air vehicles to learn either (usually only to get to a base that's already overpopped as one respondent already alluded to)

.

We all agree it's not good and not going to improve...we just tend to differ in our opinions of how much lax enforcement against subtle cheaters has contributed to this incredibly lopsided "All Wolves, no Sheep" dilemma

PS: the people who tell you it's "all Skill Ceiling" / aka: It's the Reverse Maneuver, stupid ... are lying to you and covering up for their associates who are either glitching out their packets / position Vectors, or never missing a single shot while rotating faster than the game actually is supposed to allow

Flying ESFs is the most difficult part of the game. At least 6 months required to get familiar with ESF's physics.
Reverse Maneuver is not the all-in-one solution for dogfights. It is a "must" but there are a lot of other critical aspects: aiming, timing, 3d awareness.

And that's why most people don't bother. Games are for fun, not for practicing rocket science without any application outside of the game. I mean, nice for theose who have the dedication, but this requirement keeps everyone but them away and that leaves them to prey on those who just try for fun and those who walk on the ground and just wish to be left the f*ck alone by aircrafts.

For fast-learning the reverse maneuver (and none of the super-long 'training videos), I used this short video (the video is using a Mosquito, but the movements are basically the same for the other 2 ESFs):



Short, simple, and to the point. It was all I needed.

Edit: And text-based instructions from the video's description:

Don't listen to Waystin, he's a Pig. Oink, Oink! Very true about the hitbox and profile of the Reaver. It's a nice juicy target. The Mossie is the superior ESF in-game. It's fast and nimble and can outmaneuver the Reaver. When you have large Outfits with squads dedicated to flying ESFs, it really helps the TR pilots keep each other's 6's clear. The Scythe is an interesting plane, virtually it's a flying disk but it has a wide profile which makes it a great target from the ground. The Mossie is nice and thin, very well-rounded aircraft. One thing for sure, practice practice practice. That is the only way you'll get better at flying in this game.

Currently learning to fly on the Scythe, but I'm doing VR practice on the others as well to get a more general feel for air physics in this game. Plenty of frustration to be sure, but that's part of what makes it interesting. You're learning a different set of physics to move in ways other vehicles and infantry can't. Sure its not perfect, but I'm having a ton of fun.

The thing that really helped me is realizing that you really are flying something that is part jet and part helicopter. You must take advantage of this. Unless you're chasing or fleeing, most of the time its correct to be a helicopter. Scan the skies and aim with pitch, and mostly ignore yaw. I'm considering unbinding yaw just to stop myself from using it to try and aim.

Still very much a newbie, but these are the things that have let me go from a flying pile of exp, to something that can occasionally win a dogfight.

Ipug licks himself.

Well back in 2012-2015 the Airforce balancing was like this:

Vanu: Best maneuverability, small hitbox but slowest of all aircrafts and poor Armor.

TR: Good and fast firing cannon. Small hitbox somewhat a balanced mix of the reaver and the Scythe.

NC: Fastest fighter, heavily armored, huge hitbox but could take a real punch. Was flying like a brick even back then.

I am a pilot too in other Games so i came back to NC to test the Reaver again and it is just....bad. Huge hitbox, flying like a brick and dying Like a brick.

At first i was wondering. Why nearly nobody ist flying on Cobalt on the NC side. Why the Bastions are getting attacked by 30+ plus TR figthers while we have 3 defending it. And then i flew the Reaver. And i thought...good god. This plane is SO BAD. Switched over to test TR and Vanu planes and they are defently better. I can absolutly understand why nearly nobody flies on the NC Side on Cobalt.

How to fly and land an ESF

And grass was green.
By the way @Miller top pilots are NC and TR mostly: Mepulan, DaddyNC, LeopoldLocust, Franz902.
I fly all 3 factions ESFs and my opinion that Mossie is the best solution for A2G combat (Banshee) and hit-and-run tactic, Reaver is the best for ambushes because of its high fire power and afterburner, Scythe is the all purpose rig for any situation.
None of them has the advantages/disadvantages that make any of them OP or UP.

If you haven't dedicated yourself to flying in the first few years, there's no way you're going to master it.


You have to rebind everything, practice maneuvers for hours. Unless you find a pro pilot that can teach you nicely, you're never going to do anything. Max out your racer chassis and stealth and just use it as transportation praying you don't come across a tryhard. Equip lol pods and AI gun if you want to wreck a bit of infantry on the way.


Most pilots are dedicated tryhards who will waste no opportunity to down a noob in about half a second, You simply don't have a chance. Everything has been done to encourage air mains to be invincible against A2A noobs and anything on the ground. The radar has been added as a default (you're safe since you have stealth), the A2A lockons have been nerfed and the coyotes changed to wreck stuff in the hands of a good pilot, and can no longer be used as "training wheels" to help dogfight.


I would tell you to ask a pilot if they can teach you, sometimes you'll come across the odd one that will actually want to help you instead of mock you, but I wouldn't count on it. You can practice all you want in VR, you won't be any match for a pro pilot. It's too late to get in the air game, and everything has been done to prevent new pilots from being competitive.



Not to destroy your dreams, I doubt you'll become a good pilot. That said, you can start by actually reassigning all the important keybindings to make it simpler to perform some maneuvers. Good luck, you're going to need it.

My personal method of doing A2A:
1) Learn how to fly. In the VR, on the continents, whatever. Don't invest too much time, just enough so you know when to speed up and slow down, and how to avoid trees, bridges and whatever else might try to ruin your day.
2) When you meet a good fighter in combat, fly away screaming, afterbruners at will.
3) Take the course with most obstructions and cease screaming. It's embarrassing and not productive.
4) Fly as close to said obstructions as you can, breaking LoS. If you haven't stopped screaming yet, do so now. Told you already, won't do again. Feel free to greet the obstacles as friends, they might do you a solid a wee bit later down the line.
5) Pray the other person is good at fighting but worse at piloting and will crash into something.
6) Profit. If the obstacle course is sufficient - which ain't the case that often unfortunately -, you are good enough and the other pilot is not as good as they think they are. So...sometimes. Saved my bacon more times than trying to fight, I can tell you. And the explosion behind you when this works is very satisfying.

You can't escape if you feel you're loosing. Good opponent won't let you to escape. Obstacles can help a little at Hossin, especially if you're fighting a Lib, but if your ESF opponent has decided to kill you they won't help.
The most valuable advice is to play and pray!