The Stasiepedia is getting a bit long, so I may have missed one somewhere, but I didn't see a good section on using recordings of GSF games to improve your piloting skill.

So I thought I'd write one up.

Editing, corrections, comments, what recording software you use, would all be welcome contributions. Once I've got feedback I'll make edits, and copy it over to the Stasiepedia. Now that it's all stickied I'm inclined to try to get things edited before I add them to the thread.

Gun Cameras and Data Recorders

Learning from the record.

Why you should record video of your GSF matches if your computer can handle it.

In modern combat aircraft, the base airframe comes standard with the parts that are considered so important that you would never want to fly a mission without them. Things like wings, engines, and ejection seats.

Then there are parts that are added as needed for specific missions. Things like ECM pods, external fuel tanks, missiles, bombs, ammunition for guns.

Gun cameras and data recorders normally come standard.

Let's repeat that just so it sinks in. On a modern fighter, the camera is included in the category of parts that is considered much more important than the category that includes all of the weapons.

Why?

The answer is that the information from the camera and the data recorders allows pilots to learn from mistakes much faster than they would just by direct observation while flying. Figuring out why you almost lost a plane in a training exercise and teaching all your pilots to avoid that mistake is a lot better than loosing a lot of planes and pilots to avoidable mistakes during real combat.

In GSF we don't have some of the concerns that an Air Force would have. Replacing a crashed unit doesn't cost us 30-150 million dollars, we don't discipline pilots for breaking operating procedures, ROE, or laws of war.

We also don't have a built in way to record video in GSF and there's no combat log that we can access.

There are third party recording applications though, and if your computer has the capacity to run GSF and record at the same time, watching those videos can be very helpful if you want to improve your piloting quickly.

When you're flying, you're thinking about what you're doing and what you're going to do. That means that there's not a lot of mental bandwidth left to analyze everything that's going on. So you tend to miss details. Lots of details. In GSF combat, details matter.

If you watch a video though, all of that attention that was focused on flying can be used for observation and analysis. You can notice things like, "I bet that fight would have ended sooner if we hadn't flown past that Damage Overcharge three times in a row before I saw it and picked it up." Does that seem too obvious to really happen while you're flying? Check out research in the science of perception, it is amazing what people can fail to see or hear if they're focusing on something else (like not getting your ship blown up by those three guys locking missiles on you).

You probably don't need to record and watch every match, so which ones do you keep and watch, and which ones do you delete? I'd recommend keeping a few really good games, a few really bad games, and a few average games.

So you've watched your videos, and they're so full of you making enough silly mistakes that you know you're never posting to something like Twitch or Youtube where other people can see. Now what?

Priority number one is to find the mistakes that you made in most or all of your games. Those are the things that are going to improve your performance in every game if you work on correcting them. Also look at your best games. Figure out what it was that made them go well, and in particular, what did you do differently than in your average and poor games.

Another thing to look at is how people that defeated you played, if you can see that in your video. Did Drako, Verain, Siraka, and Stasie clobber your team 50-0 or 1000-0? Forget the advantages in gear and communication that they may have had. Forget the 6 people on your team with zero kills, little damage, and no objective points or medals. Look at what the aces were doing that worked well against you, and see if there were times when you could have done something differently that might have let you do better against them.

At this point take a look at the list of mistakes you want to avoid in the future, or the things you want to practice getting better at, and pick a few of the ones you think are most important. Then fly for a week or two concentrating on improving those few elements of your play. Don't worry about the rest, don't worry about recording every flight. When you think you've made noticeable improvement, record a few average matches and see if those things you've been working on improving are still your biggest problems in GSF. If they are, practice some more. If not, start the video review process again, and figure out what your next most important areas for improvement are.

If you're really new, or just aren't sure what's causing you problems, you can just swallow the embarrassment of all those Power Dives into asteroids, and put some of your videos on Youtube or stream to Twitch. Then drop by the forums with a link and a request for advice. More experienced pilots are usually happy to review and comment as long as the video isn't too long.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

There's a lot of recording and streaming software out there. Unless your computer is a powerhouse when it comes to graphics you'll probably want a fairly lightweight program meant for recording and/or streaming games instead of a heavy duty program meant for professional media content creation.

Keep in mind that the video quality doesn't have to be great as long as you can still tell what's going on. I usually dial the quality down until the text starts getting blurry at the edges.

Recording places extra burdens on your computer's CPU, GPU, and Memory.

Streaming creates all of those burdens and also increases the bandwidth demand on your internet connection.

Video recording programs:

OBS (open broadcasting software) free and open source.

FRAPS Commercial purchase or trial version.

XSplit Broadcaster free or commercial versions.

Overwolf Twitch App free.

Nvidia Shadowplay (if you have a compatible Nvidia GPU)

Raptr (AMD cpus, AMD/ATI gpus)

If you stream to Twitch, it has a list of programs for recording the stream, and fairly extensive guides to how to configure them.

Check the internet for solutions if you have trouble getting the video recorder you picked running, most of the time you can find workarounds to problems.

Great Job Rama I love this idea.

Just to let anyone know that might not want to post their videos on forums or anywhere else, I've done many personal video reviews. Basically we just both get on mumble (or whatever voice works for you) and we just go through the videos as Rama suggested. I point out as many mistakes as I see for you so you can work on those.

I've even done some follow up ones afterwards and some of the pilots the differences were astounding!

Thanks Rama

Can't see the point, really.

GSF is an ultra-casual rip-off of Star Conflict hastily tacked onto an ultra-casual rip-off of World of Warcraft, by devs who probably won't even bother balancing GSF this year...unless that balance happens to involve micro-transactions.

Can't see the point, really.

 

GSF is an ultra-casual rip-off of Star Conflict hastily tacked onto an ultra-casual rip-off of World of Warcraft, by devs who probably won't even bother balancing GSF this year...unless that balance happens to involve micro-transactions.

Get off my lawn.

Nvidia's Shadowplay is a great game recording tool, the only requirement it has is that you need Nvidia GPU from certain series (there is a workaround that allows you to use it on low end Nvidia GPUs, google it!). It doesn't lag at all, has no watermark and it has the neat feature that current gen consoles have (it always has available the last 15 minutes for you to save with a keystroke)

I think this is a good idea, not only as a way to help new pilots, but maybe it can also generate interest in this highly underrated aspect of the game.

I'll start recording games.

Just thought I'd mention that AMD (f.k.a. ATI) has a game client overlay which includes a recording module now too.

Raptr: http://raptr.com/amd

I haven't tried the recording part of it, but the other features (like adjusting game settings to perform well on your system) seem to work pretty well.

Great idea! Unfortunately my computer is super slow and it would run at super low FPS during video recordings. I wish I could get some feedback on my game, I'm sure it would make me a better player.

Just bully Drako into flying a scout and following you around recording for the entire match. It won't catch your cooldown use, but gotta take what you can get I guess.

It's a good point though, if anyone knows what the least demanding recording/streaming application is in terms of computational resources (ideally a free version of a program), that would probably be one of the most useful things that could be included in this piece.

It's a good point though, if anyone knows what the least demanding recording/streaming application is in terms of computational resources (ideally a free version of a program), that would probably be one of the most useful things that could be included in this piece.

The option I mentioned, Nvidia's Shadowplay, is the least demanding (according to my own experience), I don't think I've ever lagged using Shadowplay (except during the first round on ancient hypergate -ground pvp- when everyone rushes mid, but even without anything running in the background I lag a bit until every gfx is on cache).

Pros:

-Free

-Does not lag (It doesn't need a hardcore gaming pc)

-No watermark

-Saves the last 15 minutes of gameplay with a keystroke

-Captures video at whatever resolution you are running

Cons:

-Requires Nvidia GPU (It can be an entry level GPU if you google the workaround for it)

Another VR people might want to consider is Overwolf.

http://www.overwolf.com/

I see I'm a bit late. For what it's worth:

- I'm all for free, open-source software, like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), but Fraps (trial version) has better (frame-rate) performance on my machine than OBS.

- If performance is an issue, record 8 vs. 8 matches, not 12 vs. 12 matches.

- Off-topic but related to previous point, good CPU/GPU/RAM not only improves frame-rates, but also allows you to use higher video settings, which allow you to see power-ups from further away.

- OBS took a little tinkering. I run OBS as administrator, and SWTOR in windowed mode.

- For editing, I use VirtualDub.

If an enemy is recording, that might make an even better video. I always wonder what I look like to my enemies.

I suppose the least impactful to your gaming PC would be a second computer with a capture card (or a device). But if performance is an issue, that's probably not an option.

I did have a friend in another game once who created a little rig to hold his cell phone to record (brief) periods of game play by pointing it at his monitor.