Pilot Archive
Thread: Learning To Fly! -=* A step-by-step guide for novices *=- (no, not the Tom Petty song)
OK I'll try to clarify this:
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If you fly towards the lead indicator right off, you are going to set yourself up for an intercept course - putting you ahead of him. Since he is already turning and partway turned towards you, you would then be making it EASIER for him to get away from you.
So, you need to choose a direction about 1/3 the distance between the leader and his ship -- BEHIND him.
The leader, or lead indicator, is the little crosshairs that shows you where to aim (except of course it's not 100% accurate by any stretch of the word). What this means, in laymans terms, is that you are aiming "where he is going to be" as opposed to where he IS at the time you shoot. Now, what happens in an arcing curve is that eventually you will end up in the same place, if you fly towards that, because you are hopefully travelling faster than he is.
So given that, eventually you will end up right in front of him, just like your "bullets" would. Not precisely where you want to be.
That means either slowing down a little, which would take longer, AND give him time to see it and slow down as well, or aiming to end up where he can't possibly go: where he just left 1 second ago..
Hmmm Make little planes with your hands and fly it through... (there's a reason Air Force pilots use model planes ;} ).
I'll try to demonstrate better with the next point:
2. Once the distance is closed, and the angle is closed... creep up your nose at him until you're at the leader.
When I say "leader" I still mean the Lead Indicator which tells you where to shoot.
For demonstration purposes, imagine a car driving ona straightroad, and an airplane with a bottom-mounted gun wants to shoot a bullet right under the car without hitting it. Use your hands, or apen and a nailclipper, or whatever else you have handy. The airplane starts out behind the car and above it about the same distance in a45 degreeposition. Is he going to dive to the car's level and then pull up? Of course not. Is he going to aim his planein front of the car? No way! they would collide! He's going to gently bring the nose up behind the car until it's pointing in front of it, then adjust the fine tuning from there. The very same principle applies in the game except it's not a straight line, and it certainly isn't a car 
The only difference then is the speeds and the angles, both are a little steeper.
Believe it or not even what seems snap movements are usually done "smoothly", just faster. At early levels you learn to do it slowly, and at higher levels you get faster without even noticing it. Suffice it to say thatjerky/sudden motionswill mess you up.
3. Once you're on your target's tail, how do you stay behind him if they try to break off?
First and foremost, be at a comfortable range. By that I mean, close enough to "feel good" about your ability to hit, but not so close that a quick action from your target will put him out of your sight.
Second, turn off the cockpit so you can see more. Vision is a big part of it -- not just the target, but everything around you. Including "look back", but again, something I will leave for the next post I mentioned earlier.
Third - 98% of ships (NPC and PC) GO UP! not down. So figure out where the top of his ship is, and orient yourself to be able to react in that direction. I personally try to keep the target at a relative 45 degree angle (his top at my 1:30 on the clockface) because most ships also tend to break left, though not nearly as high a percentage as up. This also gives you the benefit of being able to use both pitch and yaw to turn with him if he just pulls straight up, making your ability to turn greater than his. (2 axis vs. 1)
A little more involved... pay attention to the leader compared to the ship. Before a left-and-up turn it will for a split second (usually) do a little loop off to the right counter-clockwise, and the opposite for an up-and-right maneuver.
Last but not least, be prepared for combinations.
Popular especially with the AI is roll left 180,up and bank right, roll left 180, and up and bank left.
Sounds tough to follow..? It isn't.
In relation to you that means he starts twisting for a half rotation, putting his top facing your down. Going UP + Right for him means down and left for you, unless you followed him. Complete the cycle, now he does an egg-flip, and goes up --- nearly straight up in front of you, if you didn't follow him, so that there's no way you can follow.
So, pay attention to rolls.
The two counters are to roll exactly as he does and try to follow, (difficult), or roll in the opposite direction.
Again use your hands as planes.... one behind the other. One does a loop clockwise, the other counter-clockwise... both halfway through (inverted) and at the end of the turn, you're still in the same positions. This gives you the advantage that if he does the expected you're already on your way - and if he does the opposite then you're already rolling to adjust.
The real horrible thing here is, all of that happens in a split second - or so it seems when it's happening.
At some point you stop noticing and just do it, so trying to make it clear becomes difficult. I've recently taken to using FRAPS to capture some 30 second combat clips to examine what it is I'm doing so I can better explain to others, and sometimes I wonder myself lol...
At any rate.
MOST of the principles described here can be seen in the 2 clips I uploaded -- they are the bottom pair of links in my sig. Feel free to download and view them (please don't stream!) at your leisure; that's a big part of the reason I'm making them.
Hope I didn't just confuse you more..... 
1st_Viduus wrote:
Pitch:
Yes, as you say "climbing" or "diving" are Pitching. Neither is accurate in an environment with up and down though
Yaw: Left or Right.
Roll: Twisting along the axis of the ship; rolling, or "torquing". (Torque is a twisting force).
Yaw would be what a rudder does, correct? For me that's twisting the joystick. The ship remains level, but turnsin the direction the stick is twisted.
And roll is what happens when I move the joystick left or right? I see the ship roll around in circles but continues in the same direction, correct?
Assuming this, I tried turning as you indicate, doing all three things at once. But the ship just spiraled around and around. Can you think of what I'm going wrong?
So far, I've managed to turn in two ways. First by twisting the rudder or Yaw. This is pretty slow though. The fastest way seems to be to roll 90 degrees in the direction I wish to turn, and stop. Then climb 180 degrees. Then roll 90 degrees in the other direction. If I do it right, I end up reversing direction. Usually though, I can't judge what is 90 or 180 degrees and I end up going around in circles. There aren't any reference points in space, like the horizon, to tell.
Last night I tried your suggestion of creating a waypoint and flying back and forth across it. That's really hard. I wan't able to do it.
Hold your hand parallel to the floor. Lift it 45' up, turn it 45' right.... see? A quarter way through and you are already a quarter turn rolled.
Adding roll to a turn increases this effect, thus "ghosting" Pitch and Yaw, or, if you prefer, speeding those up by dragging them along.
Message Edited by 1st_Viduus on 02-14-2005 07:22 PM
When you run, you give an easy target. If your opponents are fast, like droid ships or Ties, you WILL get tons of fire up your tailpipe. If you really must run, use the hyperspace to get out. While calculating the jump, stick it out by fighting and continually shunting energy from your cap shields. Eshields works great, if you're a rebel pilot.
1st_Viduus wrote:
- Set up a safety!
There is a thread somewhere here that has an excellent escape macro.
When all else fails... well... RUN!
It's much easier on the wallet!