I for one would be interested in a copy as I have a hell of a job trying to get a good weapons balance when I upgrade my ship.

Keith


There`s no such thing as gravity.
The Earth just suck`s!!!

Match your weapons here

Anyway, any combat tips are helpful I think. Go ahead and post them

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Welcome to Hotel TLR: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave
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Intergalactic Fight Combat Manual First draft
by [OPGBrock[X

(1) About the keyboard:
The keyboard, as far as I found, can only allow you hold up to 2 keys at one time. For instance, you are holding “A” (the left strafe), and “X” (reverse thruster); then you use another finger to press the “C” (Countermeasure). You will not have the countermeasure in space, unless you release one of the 2 keys you are holding and press the “C” again.

This Manual is aimed at pilots who have cut their teeth by killing NPC’s and now feel they wish to progress to Player v Player combat.
Traditionally in a combat situation, when fighting another human players, duels and battles are fought by pilots flying there ships round and round in circles in the attempt to target the enemy. Whilst this method can work,it is not as effective as other methods and I wish to cover these in the next few paragraphs.
Before you set off in your ship, it is good practice to ‘remap’ your flight control keys so they are easy to use. Play special attention to thruster, left and right strafe and reverse as you will need to sometimes use them almost all at once.

the setup i use for my keys is

W:Thrusters
A:left strafe
D:right strafe
S:reverse thrust
Z:engine kill/or if you have a 4th mouse button use this
Q:hornets/torps depending on what you prefer
E:mines
also go into the freelancer controls config and set mouse sensitivity too full this will help you turn that wee bit quicker

(2) About the fire range:
By the time you see the red cross, the opponent is already in your fire range. Actually you would like your bullets welcome him once he is in the fire range, not 0.2 or 0.5 second after. Therefore, I usually open fire 0.5 second before the red cross appear. However this shall not be considered as a general rule, mainly because of constrains come from energy usage, and the low accuracy when firing without the guide of the red cross.


Engine kill
The first thing I want to cover is the concept of flying with your engines off. To some this might sound daft. But you normal engines and your thruster are completely separate. With your engines ‘on’ if you hit your thruster and let go, your engines will automatically slow you back down to your normal ‘unthrusted’ speed. However if you have your engines turned off, then you hit your thruster and let go your ship will continue to travel at the speed it was b4 your released the thruster key. If at this point you turn your ship around your also notice your direction does not change and you are able to travel in a completely different direction than you are facing. You can alter your direction easily by applying some thruster. Practice flying with your engines off, just dabbing your thruster to steer you around. When in combat use engine kill always. Use your thruster to keep your speed high. Avoid traveling or drifting in one direction for too long as it make you a easy target, instead dab your thruster often to confuse the targeting. When you pass your opponent release the thruster and turn around as quickly as you can, if they have a quick ship or there are multiple opponents continually dab your thruster so your hard to target, get some clear space between you and him it you can, aim at them and use your thruster to zoom in.

(3) About the CD (Cruise Disrupter) and the EK (Engine Kill):
Just as Brock mentioned that CD can cancel your EK, therefore if you see (by scanning) your opponent are using Hornet, be careful that the opponent may launch the first CD at somewhere around 800m away from you. Or he may do this just before passing you. Take some practices so that you can EK very quick, cause you never know when a CD will hit on your head.

Reverse thruster
If at any point you need to come to a halt then hit your reverse key. It will stop you dead. It is worth knowing that your turning circle is wider the faster you are traveling, so at a complete stop you can turn the quickest. So it is possible to gain an advantage by hitting reverse just at the pinicle of attack and turning your ship around after your enemy and shooting them in the back, releasing reverse and hitting your thruster and zooming in to finish them. Another time reverse can be useful is using it with thruster to stop and start your ship constantly, whilst changing directions, very confusing for people attacking you.

Strafe
Strafe will win more fights for you than any other combat maneuver. Always use strafe when attacking. When attacking head to head use strafe going from left to right constantly changing so you become very difficult hit. If you are passing on the left use left strafe mostly and vice versa as it enables you to pass them but still aim at them. Be prepared to strafe in the opposite defection if needed if you find a few shots are hitting you. Using Strafe in conjunction with reverse and engine kill is very effective.
When strafing you will notice that is more difficult to target other players to, try to compensate when you strafe by aiming where you consider the target ‘X’ will go when you change you strafe direction (this will become easier with practice)

Be careful when strafing not to strafe right across in front of your opponent as they will surely hit you with there blasters.


Weapons

As Eagles are the most manoverable lvl 10 ship this makes it the prefered craft of most players in the game. An eagle combined with the right weapon load outs and pilot skils can defeat any other craft in the game. Although us being pirates we will use Sabres and Titans as these with the right skills can be more deadly than Eagles especially the Sabre as it adds a forward firing turret. The titan may be a better choice for the defense of Omega 5 as it carries more nanos/shield bats and has the strongest hull in the game so try to make the enemy fight you in the minefields around our bases so they run out of bots/bats before you and you can go in for the kill easily. Also there maneuverability bonus from the eagle will be severly hampered by the mines and asteroids so you should be able to kill them 90% of the time

I just want to outline a some Weapons that i commonly use and their advantages. Under normal circumstances most people will be running 2xdel cids 4xnomads 1xhornet CD.
Del Cid are important in Player V player combact because they can kill a lvl 10 shield in a second and because players shields regenerate it is important to get your opponets shields down ASAP. Another advantage of tizonas that not many people know of is there ability to drain a person weapons energy when their shields are down. Making them especially useful if your opponent is using codename weapons against you.

With our sabres tho this standard loadout out is not the best because of the increased energy and recharge the pirate ships have we can afford to mount codename weps in place of 2 of the nomads (such as cerbs or Diamondbacks) this makes for a very lethal combination.

My setup for the ultimate sabre is

2 Nomad Blasters
2 Diamondbacks
2 Krakens
1 Adv Debilitator Turret
as the turret fires forward this replaces the delcids as your shield busting weapon and this combo of guns will rip an opponent to pieces in the first pass. it's one main disadvantage is it's smaller damage against molecular shields.

if you feel this is not doing enough shield damage try the following:

2 Nomad Blasters
2 Krakens
2 tizonas
1 Salamanca turret

this also has the advantage of less energy use than the setup before and works against all the shields used by people in eagles (molecular,Positron and Graviton). this also reduces our dependance on hard to get Diamondbacks.

Dowie's Sabre setup:

2 nomads
1 kraken
1 tizona
2 Diamondbacks
1 Kraken turret

this is another excellent Sabre setup that is equally good against hull and shields it's only main disadvantage is low damage against molecular shields.

Mines:Until you get used to the difference is sabre combat to eagle combat i suggest mounting a hard hitting mine. This is to be used at the point just before your opponent passes you if you have his shields down drop 2 mines just before he passes you and this will almost certainly take him out if not it should cripple him ensuring a win.

Krakens: krakens are now a good choice with delcids as almost all the good pilots carry class 9 graviton shields and these weps are good at killin them

Hornets.
I’m gonna go in to hornets in more depth. In a Fight hornets and indeed wasp CD's are your best freind..they can completely screw with your attacker in many ways. Firstly they turn the engines back on of anyone they hit, instanly slowly down your target to a near crawl. If your attacker has missles, your CD's will come into thier own. Launch a CD at someone who is firing or has just fired missles at you and watch thier missle volly blow up in thier face as the CD hits, offen blowing them up in the process. If your attacker is nearly Dead and thier shields are down..fire CD's at them this can take the little hul they have left and blow them up to secure a kill. Always make sure you have a full supply of CD's and counter measures.
The only down side to CDs is..if you fire and hit someone to close to a NPC space stn or ship..the NPC's get upset and attack you instantly.

Counter measures should be enabled at all time so as soon as someone fires a missle at you, you automaticaly drop a counter measure.

Advanced Methods
When using nomads holding down the fire key constantly can sometimes put fear into your enemy, making him fly more defencively. This can sometimes by you time to recharge your shields or to get behind your opponent.[this is only recomended for use with nomads as they drain no energy
Sometimes if you are having trouble getting a hit on a pilot that is dodging well. Try to not fire at him for a few seconds or more, often they will let their guard down a little allowing you to open fire and hit them good.

When attacking in a group against a good opponent it is good to let the other players on your side know if you are the targeted ship. Then in a coordinated effort, attempt to draw your attacker in a strait line by fleeing from him on full thrust using left and right strafe to avoid being hit. IF the attacked follows you as 9/10 times they will. It makes them a real easy target for the rest to shoot at

this is based on a server running Lello's revenge NPC server side MOD for it's wep setups but all of the basic tactics and setups are universal

Edited by - [OPGBrock[X on 5/4/2004 12:54:15 PM

Cruise disruptors;
also good against incoming missiles, just sellect one off thus incoming missiles and shoot a cd at it. THe blast off the cd can also turn the other players engine back online, so he can't turn that fast anymore (co'z engine will throw his turning also into speed outward, so he will need more time to take the total turn, before he can shoot at you again).

Missiles;
their are a few types off missiles, ie. stalker, non-stalker and emp-missiles.
- stalkers
this missile is mainly maded for the turnrates, after that for the hulldamage.
have the highest turnrate off all these missiles, but will do lesser damage then the non-stalker (half damage) and cost also more. these missiles moves also a little faster then the non-stalker and emp-missile, div. is 9m/s. this missile is buyable in the classes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9.
- non-stalkers
this missile is mainly maded for hulldamage.
this missile is less agile then the stalker missile, however it cost lesser and do twice the damage in the same class off missile (class 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9). the shield damage is 1/2 off the hulldamage it can do. if you are short on powersupply from the engine core, this weap can come in handy... als a good user off this missile can have up to the hitpercentage off 100% against hammerheads. this missile is buyable in the classes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9.
- emp-missiles
this missile is mainly maded for shielddamage.
this missile is as fast as the non-stalker, ie. 90m/s. the missile is also a good weap when you know how to use missiles and if to less power is in your hands to maintain all weaps in some missions and or against some ships. this missile has also the same turnrate as the non-stalker, so it is also a good missile to use in combo off the non-stalker missile. this missile has a good strenght against shields, so don't underastimate thus missiles. this missile is buyable in the classes 1, 4 and 7. however the class 10 paralyzer is not available, only the ammo.

don't underastimate the use off missiles, co'z a some ships can have missiles on his ship with can destroy his own type off ship with only 2 missiles (1 emp-missile for shield and 1 non-stalker for hull).

_________________
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Just one second after the birth of the Universe, space was flooded with particles and over the next 300 million years stars and galaxies began to evolve into the kind of cosmic landscape that we recognise today. But there's one big problem. We shouldn't really be here. People, planets, stars, galaxies should all be impossible dreams. In theory, nothing should exist.