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Dont know if someone already mentioned this.. but try using the M key.. for match speed. Im so glad they added that. Just like old times in tie fighter or xw vs. tie. Its dogfighting not fly behind the ship and pound them til they die. The enemy ships are SUPPOSED to juke to get you off of them. if its annoying cuz it takes longer to kill your enemy, your enemy is doing a better job than you.

Mons

The slow down just does completely against any other space combat game I've ever played...
I've been playing star wars flight sims since the demo for the original dos based X-wing...

And I played XvT online on MSN's gaming zone for a long time, only stopping when I enlisted in the
military, and I can tell you that no Pilot with any skill, Imperial or Otherwise, would EVER slow down to a crawl
for extended periods of time like the AI does.

Its just not practical. Especially if it isn't gaining you any advantage. In a furrball like that I'd always endup
excellerating to max speed, then cutting throttle back down to 1/3rd and whip it around in an attempt to
gain the upperhand.

I'd never fly in predictable pattern for long...

The AI just pisses me off. Its not hard at all, just annoying. I've never been destroyed in JTL by any single NPC fighter in
a head to head engagement. I've only died when the 5 or more of that crafts buddies decides to gang up on ME and shoot me in the ass,
since the flight patterns of the AI force me to fly like a retard in order to kill them.

. . . it would also help if the minimum effective range of the lasers was reduced until you could do damage at point blank range.
Hammering a target from less than 100 meters away and seeing my shots spark against shields for no damage really pisses me off.

(Yes, I know my grammar and everything here suck, but, hey, its 130am here and I have to be at work in 4 hours. )

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MonsPubis wrote:
Dont know if someone already mentioned this.. but try using the M key.. for match speed. Im so glad they added that. Just like old times in tie fighter or xw vs. tie. Its dogfighting not fly behind the ship and pound them til they die. The enemy ships are SUPPOSED to juke to get you off of them. if its annoying cuz it takes longer to kill your enemy, your enemy is doing a better job than you.

Mons

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I do. I alternate between the M and Z key (thank God for my large hands) to both constantly keep speed with my target, and check my immediate vicinity for people trying to sneak up on me, considering 9.9 times out of 10 when I'm in Kessel I'm overt.

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KaylBreinhar wrote:

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n3Ph wrote:

perhaps it may have something to do with the AI finally recognizing that even npc pilots of worth will know that to fly and turn efficiently, you must slow down or use throttle to gain the optimum turning speed while dogfighting ?

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Yes, but NPC craft are equipped with mythical engines that can turn 90 degrees on a dime no matter what speed they're travelling at - the slowdowns on Y-Wings and B-Wings are permanent. Shoot them, and they gradually slow down until they're moving at the speed of a fart. If anything, the AI has been lobotomized since 11.3 - a flight of five B-Wings used to give me trouble with constant missile shots, now they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

With A-Wings and X-Wings, it's just an incredible sporadic annoyance that doesn't make them harder to kill, it just takes you marginally longer to do it.

Message Edited by KaylBreinhar on 12-03-2004 09:01 AM

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Firstly, if it takes you longer to kill them then they are harder to kill, thats who you define how hard they are to kill.

Personally for the fast ships this is a big improvement over the jousting from before, they break turn hard and do their best to lose you, try fighting some of those black sun light fighters, its a nightmare to stay on their tail now.

Though you are right they seem to have broken the Y and B wings, they should break to turn and remember if done right their optimal turn speed will be a lot slower than a fast fighter so trying to keep up with their turns and stay slow enough to be behind them should be tricky, under these circumstances speed isn't the best option.

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KaylBreinhar wrote:

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MonsPubis wrote:
Dont know if someone already mentioned this.. but try using the M key.. for match speed. Im so glad they added that. Just like old times in tie fighter or xw vs. tie. Its dogfighting not fly behind the ship and pound them til they die. The enemy ships are SUPPOSED to juke to get you off of them. if its annoying cuz it takes longer to kill your enemy, your enemy is doing a better job than you.

Mons

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I do. I alternate between the M and Z key (thank God for my large hands) to both constantly keep speed with my target, and check my immediate vicinity for people trying to sneak up on me, considering 9.9 times out of 10 when I'm in Kessel I'm overt.

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I have a little manual lever on my stick that lets me shift my speed. Foundthe stickat walmart in a beat up box labeled 3D Extreme Pro for 30 buck.I never use theZ or M keys to match speed. The lever lets me ajust within a half second to the targets speed and stay on his six indefinently. the only craft that ever get away from me are the ones faster then me and have better turning rates. Myengine only has 49 on the pitch, yaw, and role but makes up for itwith its 88 speed so I am kinda outclassed in most dog fights at the moment.

Usually when anything sneaks up on me I turn on them within the first shot and blow their face off. being able to rock 3 to 4k damage cannons in a rhyyshik attack craft makes that really easy to do with my little joystick lever. Sadly moving slower then the other guys is much more effective in JTL then going at max speeds. Probably because the ships don't move fast enough in comparison to each other. Remember the old Xwing vs Tie fighter and Tie Fighter game? Everything zipped by so quick. I feel like I'm in slow motion when playing JTL.

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Einsteinb wrote:

One tactic I noticed the AI will use that involves slowing down is an "ambush" on a tunnel visioned pilot. Sometimes they will have the fighter you are chasing to slow down while the others in the wing will run up behind the attacker and shoot him up. A side effect is that with very powerful weapons you just kill the guy slowing down before the others can get into an attack position.

Other times they will slow down is to match speed with you reasonably. Try it, the AI will tend to move just slightly higher than your speed since it increases the time you are in their crosshairs, but the A-wings will probably still do that boostered egress on you though.

As someone else said here earlier, this is different from air combat sims in that there is no gravity, and no air. Therefore altitude is non-existant andacceleration is not impeded by air. Therefore it is reasonable to "lose energy" in a fight in order to get into an advantageous position since it is easy to regain that speed without air impeding the acceleration. Now I am sure the AI hasn't tuned this to a fine science, but they are showing the roots of thinking as they need to for space combat while alot of other players are trying to shift from their air-combat way of thinking to a space-combat way of thinking.

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