Turning AA off for fights is not uncommon for energy users. I tended to flip it on and off depending on the target and distance. It can be personal preference, but at medium distance, it's the only way to actually hit someone who knows how to dodge.

does a spinning back-roll work against another sentient pilot like it does against a bot

Against a skilled pilot, a spinning backroller is almost guaranteed a loss, but they will occasionally net a win by annoying the opponent to make stupid reckless moves to score fast hits.

Also, they lose unequivocally to skilled flare attacks, depending on the exact type of ship

I guess my biggest issue with distance controllers is that I end up asking myself, "Do you really want to duel? or do you just want to hit strafe buttons for 20 minutes"

Turning off Autoaim helps a bit, but only against people actually rolling backwards. If they're doing some strange pattern at range and backing up.... good luck, there's nothing to lead. Really at above 200 m, Autoaim or no Autoaim, doesn't really matter. The shots simply aren't fast enough, with a full second between the shot fired and when it could hit, anything could happen.

For reference, average human reaction speed is about 0.2 seconds. So, at 200 m (and backing up at the same rate you are charging), a person basically gets to react 5 times.

Ideal fighting range for energy is 50-150 m. Unfortunately for us energy kids, that's ideal flare range as well.

When do i keep distance ( personally ):
Flare setups if you fly a dual flare valk, well fuck yeah i'm not gonna get in flare range, whine all you want but flares vs energy is rather spray and pray then get close.

Gauss setups: same story as flares i don't want to get hit by gauss ;).

i get close to:
Energy setups.

so if you see me backrolling then its most likely because you have the higher DPS, or flares, i hate fights where i need to keep my distance but because ITANI refuses to sell me valks (something about KOS ), a lot of fights end up like that ;).

My general combat setup is a corvult + AAPB / Raven or Gauss mk2 x2, but I do a lot of fights from a hound.

Thanks, appreciated!

The reason I asked about the spinning back-roll was because I figure there must be quite a few pilots who, when beginning PvP for the first time, use the spinning back-roll as it's all they know - it worked against bots so there's a chance it'll work in PvP too - type of thinking.

At the moment I obviously lack experience in PvP but I'm sure my curiosity will get the better of me at some stage, probably sooner rather than later. Is simply asking someone for a duel the best etiquette when wanting to try PvP?

You could just begin shooting, especially if you are in greyspace. Be prepared to finish anything you start, as it is considered bad form to run from a fight you began. You can also type /duel challenge "player" which sends a message in blue. If you want to show your opponent respect you can hail them before you begin, and tell them "good fight" when the duel is over.

Etiquette is by and large ignored in furball situations, when group tactics are the most important.

Barrel rolling at another opponent may result in a barrel-roll waltz if he or she decides to use similar tactics, but it's a way to ensure a swift death if you use it against me. Auto aim can be turned off, at which point it becomes a matter of following the circle. Some pilots have expanded the barrel roll tactic by strafing in different directions or using a 'see-saw' pattern, but eventually any repetitious method can be predicted and countered by a human pilot.

edit: a barrel roll also tends to waste momentum that could be used to stay out of an opponent's line of sight, which is fundamental to combat.

Regarding AA: Turning it off helps a tiny bit at range because your autoaim is no longer accurate. It's definitely spray and pray, it just improves your chances of getting a hit.

@Woodlander: To reiterate what a few others touched on, backrolling is an excellent defensive tactic. Great for when you're trying to buy some time for your wingmen to come help you out, backing off from an opponent to disengage or just plain old running away. Just don't expect to win any fights that way as you'll never kill your opponent by backrolling. To be clear though, footballprophet wasn't backrolling in that vid. True backrolling is holding three keys: backwards, one strafe and one roll.

@Deathzor: You actually can get up close against an enemy using gauss (provided they aren't also using flares). They weigh enough that it significantly slows a ship's ability to manuver enabling a lighter ship to get in close and spin around it, staying away from its firing arc.

edit: a barrel roll also tends to waste momentum that could be used to stay out of an opponent's line of sight, which is fundamental to combat.

You bring up an interesting point. With the right piloting skills and ship/setup I would imagine it'd be possible to almost stay on your opponents six (or at least out of his firing arc). Am I on the right track?

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[edit: I apologize, I accidentally edited this post rather than replying, I tried my best to restore the original text. No more early morning replies for me. -P.]

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edit:

Phaserlight: np, lucky I saved the original -

edit: a barrel roll also tends to waste momentum that could be used to stay out of an opponent's line of sight, which is fundamental to combat.

You make an interesting point about momentum and line of sight. Perhaps VO's combat is much more like normal air to air dog fighting than I first imagined... OK, your a lot more manoeuvrable but with the right piloting skills and ship/setup I would imagine it'd be possible to almost stay on your opponents six (or at least out of his firing arc). Or is my lack of VO experience coming to the fore, am I talking out of my arse here?

With the right piloting skills and ship/setup I would imagine it'd be possible to almost stay on your opponents six (or at least out of his firing arc).

Yes.

If your opponent is a total idiot and/or in a moth.

Yup, thought so, talking out of my arse.

As Lecter elegantly put it, it's near impossible to actually stay on your enemy's six (or even get there at all against a halfway decent pilot). But that's in essence what you should be trying to do. Even though it's unlikely you'll accomplish it, by trying to get on his six you should actually be staying out of his firing arc as much as possible.

A more realistic objective is to try to get angles that allow you to hit the sides of his ship that have large hittable areas, usually the top or bottom.

Ghost: Over the last few hours I've been trying various tactics against bots to try and get behind them but without much success, they just turn too damn quick. The best I could do was, as you say, get to a reasonable flanking position and open up from there. I've only tried it on the easier bots so far, the guardians and assaults should be fun. And at least this should get me out of the predictable habit of continually back-rolling as you described earlier.

Bots are a different beast entirely. The above advice was just for PvP. Against bots you can get a way with a standard roll.

I'd love to hear your explanation as to why it's a good idea to fight from 400m unless you're buying time to wait for help, running away or using rails.

Out of curiosity, what is the ideal range for using rails?

Rails you're probably best off at 200-400m... but that's just a ballpark estimate from what I've seen.

the optimum range doesn't scale perfectly with velocity, because as the shot gets faster, the area cross-section that you're hitting at that range gets smaller. You can be slightly off with blaster fire and still land a hit, with rails, you have to hit them at a very precise moment in time and space.

You also need to disable AA with rails much beyond 500m; closer in AA has its uses, but at medium and longer ranges it throws them off something awful.

Shape, I think 200m is too close for rails, as they're extremely heavy and allowing someone within 200m really cuts into the extra time/distance you need to dodge. A flare vult inside 200m is not something my Orion Rail Hornet would like at all. I'd say for ADV rails, 300-600m is optimal.

If you wanna get close with rails, don't use a hornet and use MKII, otherwise stay the heck away from everything is legitimate. They are long range weapons that get skewed by AA so, you really do have to take your time, be patient and keep your distance.

Where's Alamar when you need him?

I hear Alamar. I can call him to tell him to post here.

And it is hilarious to read this after 5 years and we still have the same discussion.

OHAI2U

Range and AA for rails was quite variable as far as I can recall. I used AA when there were furballs (simply due to being less of a stationary target) and sometimes when avoiding guided missiles. For dueling though, I turned AA off and mostly tried to wait out the target. Range varied a lot, but I one-shotted someone (Yoda I think?) in a bus from around 1200m at one point (the target was turboing).

I used to try to keep the target between 250-350m, which allowed me to dodge incoming positron / N3 fire decently well while at the same time being able to land shots against a target with a pulse -- unless it was Shape or Holden (or Gavan in a silly mood).

The main issue with rails in my experience was the simple law of probability. It's not about getting the hit, it's about getting enough of them before you run out of ammo. The reload means you can't spam, even if you can apply a mediocre spread from a Hornet (depending on the energy consumption of the rails you've chosen). Besides, fighting people like Shape meant that you never got 250-350m, you got 25-35m and had to time your single shots *very* well. I never did succeed well against that tactic.