I need to know how people are charging their railguns so fast as to get two full shots off right in a row. I have been in too many matches now where I get hit by a railgun in my own gunship, I start to move, and the person immediately fires another shot that finishes me off.

 

I do the same thing, but I never seem to be able to two-shot a gunship with two immediately successive shots. What is the trick? I am getting really tired of it.

It's quite possible you were facing a "gunship wall", a common tactic wherein multiple gunships cluster near each other to rapidly take out targets. Otherwise, a fully charged/modded Ion railgun hit would effectively remove all your shields, while the follow-up slug shot often takes you out (and offensive cooldowns may be in play too). Other factors that affect such gunship duels are what time of shields and armor each of you are using too. Edited October 21, 2016 by HeatRacer

I need to know how people are charging their railguns so fast as to get two full shots off right in a row. I have been in too many matches now where I get hit by a railgun in my own gunship, I start to move, and the person immediately fires another shot that finishes me off.

 

I do the same thing, but I never seem to be able to two-shot a gunship with two immediately successive shots. What is the trick? I am getting really tired of it.

 

1. They are not charging to full

 

2. The rapid reload crew ability affects railguns.

Lendul's right. In addition, if they have the crit upgrade on slugs that is a factor too.

It's quite possible you were facing a "gunship wall", a common tactic wherein multiple gunships cluster near each other to rapidly take out targets. Otherwise, a fully charged/modded Ion railgun hit would effectively remove all your shields, while the follow-up slug shot often takes you out (and offensive cooldowns may be in play too). Other factors that affect such gunship duels are what time of shields and armor each of you are using too.

 

Sometimes its not so much a gunship wall but simply getting hit by 2-3 gunships in quick succession or even simultaneously.

 

If it's any consolation the majority of pilots who rely heavily on gunships are unable to fly anything else. Those are usually the same people that start off gunship despite seeing a team almost if not entirely made of brand new pilots in the default ships.

You can release a full charge ion railgun and then almost immediately release a quarter charge slug railgun. That accounts for like 2300 damage.

 

Flying Gunship properly takes just as much skill as flying Scout or Bomber properly IMO. They're just very unrelated skill sets.

 

Gunships stack really well in TDM because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and there's a lot of open space to shoot.

 

Bombers stack really well in Domination because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and the area denial deployables are strong at holding satellites.

 

Scouts are typically the best ship for solo carrying in both TDM and domination because they can be in so many places at once and deliver the highest DPS. This can cause a half decent scout pilot to develop an ego. When he plays against a decently coordinated team suddenly he can't carry the same way, and out come the tears and finger pointing towards "cheap" tactics and "OP GS".

Edited October 21, 2016 by RickDagles

 

Flying Gunship properly takes just as much skill as flying Scout or Bomber properly IMO. They're just very unrelated skill sets.

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I would disagree with this because of accuracy/evasion and burst damage. It's a lot easier to learn to hit a target at range and with just minor bomber support there's not a lot of reason to fear retaliation from other ships other than another gunship.

 

Not to say there aren't highly skilled gunship pilots, but having to learn to aim in a gunship firing in a stationary position is a lot less complicated than learning to fire on the move at moving targets in under 3900m. As for the defensive stuff and evading pursuers, they would share in that regard with scouts having the advantage of course.

 

Gunships stack really well in TDM because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and there's a lot of open space to shoot.

 

Bombers stack really well in Domination because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and the area denial deployables are strong at holding satellites.

 

Gunships in TDM hardly need any coordination - give them bomber support and it boils down to skill and experience to which team takes the match. Of course SOME people will run the gunship bomberball against random new pilots and call it coordination. Decent bomber support (someone not parked in a hole with mines stacked) prevent/reduce direct engagement and typically force gunship chess.

 

Scouts are typically the best ship for solo carrying in both TDM and domination because they can be in so many places at once and deliver the highest DPS. This can cause a half decent scout pilot to develop an ego. When he plays against a decently coordinated team suddenly he can't carry the same way, and out come the tears and finger pointing towards "cheap" tactics and "OP GS".

 

I'll assume that's a dig on me since I can be parked behind an asteroid doing nothing and have 4-5 people target me simultaneously.

 

And Let's be real - people run the gunship/bomberball to reduce chance of death and maximize kill potential - which is perfectly fine against actual competition - but a dick move when the other side can't offer any real challenge. I'ts like getting a few friends to go kick a puppy and justifying it as a coordination exercise.

 

It doesn't take a lot of coordination to beat up on weaker pilots.

The GSF community is notorious for it. We can blame the lack of development of GSF failing but the community enjoys dominating the weak far more than it does welcoming the new. There are so few regulars per server (for the servers that do actually have regulars) that virtually everyone recognizes everyone.

 

One ace vs 4 aces and the math dictates the 4 will win. If all the pilots are inexperienced on both sides except for an Ace on one and 4 vets on the other - the likelihood favors the vets once again because of the math. 4 v1 those 4 can either race on the kill count, split to keep said ace occupied, or focus entirely on said ace because the rest of the pilots aren't at a proficiency level to be consequential.

 

Lastly - you really don't see special tactics, as they unfortunately aren't practical. Just once I'd like to have seen a bomber drop a hyperspace beacon and virtually the entire team emerge to overwhelm the opposition. Most I've ever seen is maybe 3-4. We don't really get to utilize anything fancy, it's typically just pick a target and 3-4 engage same target like typical mmo pvp.

Edited October 21, 2016 by SeCKSEgai

You can release a full charge ion railgun and then almost immediately release a quarter charge slug railgun. That accounts for like 2300 damage.

 

Flying Gunship properly takes just as much skill as flying Scout or Bomber properly IMO. They're just very unrelated skill sets.

 

Gunships stack really well in TDM because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and there's a lot of open space to shoot.

 

Bombers stack really well in Domination because the teamwork is easy to coordinate and the area denial deployables are strong at holding satellites.

 

Scouts are typically the best ship for solo carrying in both TDM and domination because they can be in so many places at once and deliver the highest DPS. This can cause a half decent scout pilot to develop an ego. When he plays against a decently coordinated team suddenly he can't carry the same way, and out come the tears and finger pointing towards "cheap" tactics and "OP GS".

 

Spot on!!

Edited October 23, 2016 by lwiggles

I would disagree with this because of accuracy/evasion and burst damage. It's a lot easier to learn to hit a target at range and with just minor bomber support there's not a lot of reason to fear retaliation from other ships other than another gunship.

 

The real high level gunship play doesn't involve running away from scouts all game. It requires you to maintain a high damage output while constantly being pestered by scouts. That involves getting off some quick snap shots on vulnerable gunship targets, ion splashing bomber nests, farming strikes, and even dogfighting enemy scouts when the opportunity arises. A skilled gunship knows how to beat a scout 1v1 so that he can carry on and keep his team in the game. Just dogfight the scout when his cooldowns are down and you have wingman and a shield, engine, or damage overcharge orb.

 

If you are referring to the Gunships that just sit and snipe all game and barely move, then yes I agree. That is much easier to do than fly a scout properly. But those players can only get away with that stationary sniping if their team is already a lot stronger, so it's an irrelevant argument.

 

Gunships in TDM hardly need any coordination - give them bomber support and it boils down to skill and experience to which team takes the match. Of course SOME people will run the gunship bomberball against random new pilots and call it coordination. Decent bomber support (someone not parked in a hole with mines stacked) prevent/reduce direct engagement and typically force gunship chess.

 

Agreed, but the optimal team still has 1 or 2 scouts to keep the enemy gunships moving.

 

 

I'll assume that's a dig on me since I can be parked behind an asteroid doing nothing and have 4-5 people target me simultaneously.

 

It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. We've all been in that situation where we're on the weaker team and feel hopeless. The best active scout player in the game is probably Neutrinos and even he can get terribly shut down if his team sucks. And it's not because Gunships and Bombers are cheap and take less skill. It's because the other team was much stronger and they countered his ship choice.

 

One ace vs 4 aces and the math dictates the 4 will win. If all the pilots are inexperienced on both sides except for an Ace on one and 4 vets on the other - the likelihood favors the vets once again because of the math. 4 v1 those 4 can either race on the kill count, split to keep said ace occupied, or focus entirely on said ace because the rest of the pilots aren't at a proficiency level to be consequential.

 

Agreed, but why does that matter? Teamwork and ship countering wins, isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

 

 

Lastly - you really don't see special tactics, as they unfortunately aren't practical. Just once I'd like to have seen a bomber drop a hyperspace beacon and virtually the entire team emerge to overwhelm the opposition. Most I've ever seen is maybe 3-4. We don't really get to utilize anything fancy, it's typically just pick a target and 3-4 engage same target like typical mmo pvp.

 

This is why I have been trying to organize premade vs premade battles for the past 2 years. I agree, the only time advanced tactics are practical is when most of the players in the game actually know what they're doing. Otherwise you need to use 'carry' builds so that your ship can be a multi-role fighter. A perfect example of this is the T2 scout. In a typical PUG carry game, you have to use target telemetry because you will likely be fighting under nodes a lot and you need the 1v1 jousting boost. In a proper 8v8 game it can actually be more advantageous to use booster recharge because you now have dedicated bombers to fight on the nodes, freeing you up room to do your real intended job (chase gunships and hunt hyperspace beacons).