I pretty much whizzed to level 3 combat (yes, this is a newbie post) and suddenly hit a brick wall with my experience progression. I am basically getting shot to hell by even the Tycos Assault.

Using an Itani BorderGuard or a Hornet, the only way I can survive is roll-while-strafing (flight assist off, of course). This tactic keeps me from getting hit but it's dang near impossible to score any hits on the attacking bot.

Am I missing something, such as a particular ship/weapon setup? Any help much appreciated.

I personally don't like botting in anything so big and unmanueverable as a hornet. The IBG should be fine, but try turning off autoaim. When you are flying in circles, the autoaim I think plots a straight line and you will only score one hit in a in one hundred. With autoaim off, you can concentrate on where the target is and where your shots are going, and learn where to concentrate your fire.

Also, assault bots are very thin and hard to hit - you might want to try guardian bots, they are large (but have more armor).

The other thing to consider is battery charge vs weapon speed/delay. If you don't mind waiting between shots for your battery to recharge, try the heaviest gun you can, and the fastest firing (the velocity matters a lot - the faster it is, the easier it is to hit with it). If you prefer just firing a long stream and hoping a few will hit, get something small that doesn't drain so easily.

Also, work on trade until you can get the fast charge battery (which charges at 50/s, good for infiniboost and rapid recovery of energy when using big guns).

Aye, this is the point where you get tossed into the deep end. The rolling strafe is usually what you'll have to do, but they key is to get the timing down for the chances to shoot back. There are windows where you can come out of the roll for a moment and get in some good hits, but these are short. You'll also have to fire in bursts, as higher weapons use too much energy for constant fire, not to mention that the bots are quite good at dodging a constantly fired weapon.

Here's a practice tip- Get your favorite loadout and find someone who's the same nation as yourself. You can fight each other in an empty sector pretty much indefinitely- nation players can't hurt each other (well, unless one has bad standing). It's a good way to improve your skills with minimum risk and expenditure.

See this: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/7965#93102 among other valuable bits of advice, note Spider's and Chao's posts about how to use roll. And destroy all those bots in style :)

In a fairly light ship, a properly applied diamond strafe will kill a TyCorp Assault in under 10 seconds. A "full" diamond strafe is a little tough to explain in a forum post, though.
-:sigma.SB

Be careful of crossfire. You need a technique for keeping all the attacking bots in front of you. I find simply backing up works.

Now that you've got all the targets in front of you, learn how long it takes them to hit you. Hold down one of the strafe keys. Watch how long it takes to actually get hit -- probably 4 seconds or so. During that time, you can be shooting. Don't move around other than holding down your strafe key, or your aim will go out the window.

At the end of four seconds, you need to (a) roll 90 degrees or more; or (b) switch to a different strafe key. If you choose (b), you must change your strafing angle by no more than 45 degrees, or you'll fly right into the line of fire. In either case, wait until your ship accelerates on the new vector. The acceleration/speed meter will dip a little, then go back up. When it's back up, you're ready to shoot again for about four seconds.

Rinse, repeat.

[edit] Strafes should change by 45 degrees, not 90. [/edit]

I tried to do lessons ingame together with Ruby in just this, and we found the end result was that ingame strategies for group teachings just don't work. there will always be somone who'll blindly charge into the asteroids and whine for help, or who doesn't understand to go out around and boost in order to get away so their teachers can clear their back.

Gimme a holler when / if you see me ingame and I'll go for private lessons, but I'm to the point where I'm ready to give up about groups.

spider,

Ay,you need to keep it on a 1 on 1 person. Or a max of 1 - 2 (1 teacher 2 disciples).

otherwise it starts to become hard like you stipulated. Manageable but hard.

Although, I don't know if I was ever that good as a teacher to say anything about that.

cheers

advanced combat mission :

easiest way according to me : chain tycorps assault

how?

tactic :

run far away 2000 ms
take them in front (they come in pairs)
use straff on a side and every 3 sec add a lit rotation (1/4)
look at your radar (if you are straffing on the right side. do no let them shoot you from the right -> use rotation in this case to keep them on the good side)

a lit practise. and you will able to chain them.

PS : take off flight assist.

I'm do what Nya does, it's one of the best ways I've found to kill bots. It's also a good idea to use a cent, due to the fact that the vults long wings seem to make it get hit more.

If your Vulture wings are getting clipped, strafe upwards or downwards instead of left and right.

Another bit of bot logic: they are much less dodgy against one gun. A one-gun Centurion or a Warthog can land a looong string of shots because the bot apparently doesn't see one gun as too much of a threat. Two or three gun volleys make them strafe and/or back off a hundred meters (spoiling your autoaim). For this reason, a Warthog with a single Neutron Blaster can usually destroy bots just as fast as a Vulture with two.

I've found that two guns can be effective for botting, if you apply alternating fire. Although doing so easily seems to require a two-button mouse...
-:sigma.SB

Yeah, I do the same as Nya, slow-roll the bots

Leveling heavy weapons before you get rockets is painful. I mean, I'm a terrible botter, don't get me wrong, but these bots are dodging my plasma devastators better than players do.

to get the tycorps you need to graduate from side strafing to up-down strafing. also you may need to roll occasionally to keep both bots in front of you. I feel that auto aim works fine in this situation and that you should just keep firing at the little yellow crosshair on your hud. Eventually it will be bye bye tycorps!

(tycorps by the way are the best balance of skill earned and skill required.)

I don't find Valents to be much harder than Tycorps and they give out 50% more combat pilot experience.