May someone teach me how to dodge flares and/or energy weapons like tachs or gauss or any other weapons. Also if you can post techniques or ways to dodge these weapons. Thank you :)

I'll teach you. When are you gonna be on?

I also would be more then happy to teach you if you ask ingame. Though I am not as good of a pilot as Roguelazer

Just from experience, dodging sunflare and gauss weapons mostly depends on the type of ship you fly and what type of ship you encounter. If you're flying in anything from a Vulture and above, you may have a great deal of success in dodging them through experience. The moment you hit the Warthog, however, you'll notice your ability to dodge these weapons are limited only by the ship's properties.

The Warthog or anything below, it just doesn't have as high of a turn rate and acceleration as the Vulture or Valkyrie. No matter how much you back off or get close with cruising speed, they'll outmaneuver you and plug you quite easily. I've seen skilled players absolutely suck in ships below the Vulture, but kick ass in anything above it. It's just the way the ships are. To me it's a clear indication that weapon balance is still a little off.

Contrary to what arolte says, it's not impossible. I routinely dodge everything except gauss in my Atlas. I can sometimes dodge gauss, but the long body makes it easy to hit.

I'd say just strafe and fire at the same time, but you have to time the strafes well. Switch direction to quickly, and you will remain stuck in the same area and be blown apart. Strafe for too long however, and they will target you and you will be blown apart!

To dodge flares and the like:
Go left. Go right. Go left. Use your medium engine to run away until they run out of juice. Shoot them.

It worked on the Heavy Def bots...

Dodging is primarily a matter of strafeing in a random but logical pattern.
by random I mean don't always use the same series of dodges,
(ex dont always follow a left dodge with a down strafe. )
and logical means don't do anything that will make it easier to hit you.
for instance, you should almost never change your strafe direction by more than 90 degrees. reversing a dodge entirely will often bring you to a standstill, and if the enemy shots were missing you just behind you, you will turn right into them.

ex. if you are strafing to the left, your next dodge should be up or down, or a combnation of up and left or down and left.

lastly, in a less maneuverable ship, (anything with medium or worse maneuverability) flying in reverse to keep some distance is a good idea. learn to hold your shots until your enemy gets impatient and turbo's to get closer to you, (he will, trust me. and if he doesn't and goes away then you live, which is a win by default if you are trading).
If you want to be the attacker.. use a smaller more agile ship such as the vulture, the valk or even the centurion.

also, catch me when you are online and i will happily give you combat / flight lesons.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. NEVER reverse a dodge completely. If you're going left and want to go right, go from left to up-left, then to up-right, then to right. That way, you're always strafing in some manner.

wow thxs alot ppl

um...... anymore techniques?

I know this thread is old--just been going through vendetta threads lately--but I am also in dire need of piloting lessons. Can anyone help?
I would REALLY appreciate it.

The best way to learn is to get in a vulture and duel people. Make sure it's a vult and not a valk. The valk's agility will spoil you.

The vults slim profile might spoil you too. So try fighting in a centurion and warthog at times as well.

Experience is the best teacher.

aye to that Magus

A while ago some one asked, what is the purpose of the centurion? To put it simply, it gives you the best training craft. Fairly good agility, only one weapon slot, and a fairly small profile. The one weapon slot forces you to decide what weapon to use.

But, if you really want to get good, follow Hoax's example and learn to fight in the mightiest of all craft. . . the Atlas.

he used to use mines i remember

Thanks for your replies. I have practiced/dueled more often lately (gesticulates to the numerous deaths on stats).
hmm, what I've learned... when an opponent's vult is doing a barrel roll, it makes a cardiod path, so I can get in a fairly good shot when the vult is vertical. if I turbo/straf towards opponent's engine, I can generally avoid the geminis/flares fired at me.

I spent a good deal of time today in s11 trying out different weapons on the bots in a vulture/centurion.
The centurion has excellent agility and acceleration (seems to be better than a vulture imo), which allows me to use railgun, tachyon, and dodge semi-well at the same time. Having only one small port weapon forces me to take a much longer time to destroy any opponent, and the hull is pretty low (barely above the bus).
hehe I have one more question:
I am almost always destroyed by a Valkyrie. When I'm in a Vulture, I can't seem to turn fast enough even when the attacker is turboing right underneath my ship. The vult has a nice slim profile from the side (I do my best to always be facing my opponent), but the broad top and bottom sides are pretty much open targets. Is there a flying tactic I could use in such situations to prevent being 'owned' by valks again and again?

Fighting valkyries is especially difficult. It takes a lot of special training to get good against one. One thing you have to keep in mind though, no matter how good you are in a non-valk, a valk with equal piloting skills as you will beat you 8/10 times. So remember that when you square off against a valk, you're at a natural disadvantage. Next time you're online look for some good gold chars to spar with you so they'll teach you how to dodge the flare-valk. I'm sure Lin would (She's good, be careful), as would Asp, 7th Blade, Hoax, Sage, Freyr, Sadistic mother or father, or ZEAL. Look for those chars next time you're playing and ask them if they're willing to train you. They're all good pilots and I think most of them would be willing to help if they have time to spare.

It's true, train in the Atlas and you will have l33t dodging skills (although you will pay the price in K/D ratio). On the other hand its oh so satisfying to be attacked in an Atlas manage to swing it around before you die and pump enough screemers into the offending valk to make them die or run from an Atlas (even worse than death if you ask me).

My take on dodging: Be proactive! Thier ship may be faster than you, but if you can predict there next move and not be there then no hit. Look for patterns, some of the most efficent attackers greatest strength is there greatest weakness. Icarus is pretty darn tough to dodge, but he's still a one trick pony. You bassically know he's going to fly out of your range, get a good angle on you and come in shooting turning at the last second to dodge and give his flairs a good spread. Even though he's fast you can roughly guess where his next approach will be from and prepare (or run!)

Second: Use your brakes. Most people use auto-aim so mess with it. Changing your speed moves the leading reticule closer or farther from you. If you strafe or charge and then slam on your brakes, many people will totally over correct and expose there flank to you. They are trying to aim where you will be and suddenly you come up short of that target. This is also a good way to close on somone facing you. Charge just off center to them, break hard, charge to otherside break, repeat until close enough.

Lastly, use offensive dodging: Shoot not as an attempt to hit but to keep your target from moving into space where they might get a good shot at you. Slow moving flairs are perfect for blocking people from charging you for a ram. Shoot while flying backwords for an even slower moving blockade wall.

Hoax

p.s. was that refering to me? I only used prox mines in the Atlas briefly. They were awesome in combination with a flair. Fly backwards drop a prox and then shoot the flair to the other side. Half the time the attacker dodges into the mine and still takes the flair on the otherside, its great fun!

The heavies have a whole different range of things you can do to dodge with. The techniques are harder to master, but can prove very painful for your opponents. Good practices are your teammates, since the NoFriendlyFire makes for nice help (you can still hear when the gauss hits, and gauss make for a fairly nice flare replacement when practicing. Can you dodge the gauss you can quickly learn how to dodge the flares)

Learning to judge the distance from where you are to where the flares will be is an interesting skill, I suck in a lighter ship, something that I guess isn't approved much by my "whatever" feeling to getting blasted. ;)

However, if you want to learn how to dodge in the heavies, look me up online.

Anansi ,
still partially disconnected.