So there are a couple of people out there who completely obliterate me in energy-energy battles with both of us using light ships. I've been trying to see what they do different that makes them able to hit me 10 times more often than I hit them. Do they fly with Auto-Aim off?

If so I might try to learn it myself. At the very least, it sounds fun and challenging.

a lot of pilots do turn it off for energy fights close in..

the autoaim is a simple prediction, taking into account nothing more than 2 points, (the ship was here .1 seconds ago, it is here now) and drawing a line through them to calculate heading and speed. as such it is relatively easy to fool, as it doesnt take into account acceleration or angular velocity.. (both much harder to calculate)

Especially on light fighters with "low" autoaim weapons, turning it off and learning to manually lead your opponent can have huge benefits.

Yeah I have it off and on depending on...
1) Who I'm fighting, and
2) Where they are in relation to me (Far away, close in, trying to get behind me in a furball or fighting like jousting? etc etc)

The autoaim toggle and Flight Assist on/off toggle are two of the most recent additions to my joystick...

I don't have enough buttons on my mouse... I keep switching one button between toggle flight assist, and toggle auto-aim, and I always seem to have the one I don't want right when I want it. Maybe I'll get rid of the activate button on my mouse, activate isn't as important in the middle of fighting.

I dont use auto aim for neutrons, positrons or rails, simply cos i think its wrong.

It aims too high in relation to you and your target, as a test, try this, get an advanced rail (pig shots work, but its more obvious with the faster rail) fly 1000m from a stationary target (800m with pig shots) and try hit it with auto aim on, then try with it off, set your fov to around 90 and you will see what i mean.

Auto aim needs adjusting. (me has said this lots, but he doesnt know what the fix would be)

[edit]

Errrrm, I really need to start using 1 account :P sod rp, im rubbish at it anyways :D

UPN,
Rails don't have auto aim.

lmao BoxCarRacer...how long have you been playing? rails DO have auto-aim. just a bit, but still auto aim.

tis about a 2 degree radius cone for railgun autoaim.

The only time I tend to turn auto-aim off is to shoot at backrollers. Other than that, I usually leave it on.

rails have the uber b0rken autoaim. :-p

If you see the aiming retical go yeller? = auto aim.

and aye, rails are advertised with none, that should be the case, cos having it on and having em? is a waste of a rail.

How long do you think I've been playing?

Rails aren't supposed to have auto-aim, but they do. My guess is that their autoaim value is set to 0, but due to rounding that ends up being a non-zero degree angle. And even if it was a zero degree angle, if you were right on the leadoff cursor, it would still activate the auto-aim, which with rails is more likely to turn a hit into a miss than a miss into a hit.

A bugs thread on it if anyone wants to bump it: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/10025

I use autoaim on most of the time.

Up close the autoaim is right, 95% of the time, and it gives you a little more freedom to dodge.

At longer range, you want a bit more spray, especially against players with binds. But even then, its occasionally good to switch back to autoaim on.

Basically, switch when one isn't working. Try using the other one.

Even if you're not hitting them, they can get used to dodging one kind of fire, and then not be ready for the switch, allowing you a tag or 2.

Believe it or not, for the first time today I fought with auto-aim off, and I found that in certain situations my accuracy was increased 1000%. Was really quite surprising actually, I wonder why I've never used it before...

Personally... I have AA off about 90% of the time... it's prolly why I can't hit the side of a station, but it does force me to be a bit more careful with my aim... I still roll too much - unless there are flares in the airless (but I think that is a side effect of using sticks), and not related. I have a button bound on my strafe stick to allow me to switch AA on and off at will... (just like FA)... and if I haven't hit anything for a while... I turn it on, and try it for a change (much as Shape suggested - try both).

Seta