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Despon's Guide to Killing Gunships


caederon

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-How about a guide to counter:

3 GS at ~5km spacing, each with bombers in tow with mines, drones and repair/ HB, just zerging to your satellites or perched in their 1/4 of the TDM map and setting up shop?

:)

 

In DOM they can zerg all they wan't. As long as the satellites belong to my team I don't care. If attacking Gunships get too annoying, let Bombers stay at the satellites and send Scouts/Gunships to get rid of the enemy Gunships. If their Gunships are burried in with their Bombers at satellites, shoot them with Ion Rails and send a Scout/Bomber in to clean the satellite of whatever is left over from the Ions.

In TDM, if they decide to make a mix of Bombers & Gunships, your team needs to get more Gunships, kill their Gunships and then their Bombers. If they are extremely Gunship heavy either do the same and hope your pilots are better or get a mix of Scouts/Gunships to attack them.

 

Games like those are the reason why I always try to fly with a wingman. I can't Ion Rail them and at the same time kill them with BLC. I can't block a satellite and kill the Gunships that are trying to kill me at the same time. After all it's a team game and even having a team of just two people is incredibly helpful.

Edited by Danalon
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Games like those are the reason why I always try to fly with a wingman. I can't Ion Rail them and at the same time kill them with BLC. I can't block a satellite and kill the Gunships that are trying to kill me at the same time. After all it's a team game and even having a team of just two people is incredibly helpful.

 

I've only recently come back to GSF, so might have missed some nugget of news. I would have hoped for target markers or 'select target of target' might have been added - or even a decent mini-map, showing what ships are what type.

I find it frustrating that I can't cycle through all available targets, without losing the reticule for shooting the one I'm aiming for. - Which means while I'm harassing 1 enemy, the other three are turning and frying my tailpipes.

 

Whatever the counter is, it's so tricky to keep out of LoS of 2 or 3 GS, let alone do a looong sheepdog outrun to get behind them, on a narrow depth map, without blowing all one's booster CDs - which I need for my escape. :D

 

tho' I might add, let someone else do the damage and get enemy GS attention, then go for the kill!

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I've only recently come back to GSF, so might have missed some nugget of news. I would have hoped for target markers or 'select target of target' might have been added - or even a decent mini-map, showing what ships are what type.

I find it frustrating that I can't cycle through all available targets, without losing the reticule for shooting the one I'm aiming for. - Which means while I'm harassing 1 enemy, the other three are turning and frying my tailpipes.

 

Whatever the counter is, it's so tricky to keep out of LoS of 2 or 3 GS, let alone do a looong sheepdog outrun to get behind them, on a narrow depth map, without blowing all one's booster CDs - which I need for my escape. :D

 

tho' I might add, let someone else do the damage and get enemy GS attention, then go for the kill!

 

If you expect to fight 1 vs 3 and win - you must have your skill level on a significantly higher level than that of your opponents as well as a ship that was properly selected for the task with appropriate build and preferably mastered.

 

The game gives you sufficient information about the enemy team:

 

Pressing M at any time during the game shows the screen where you select your ship. It has information about your team composition and the enemy team composition. Use it from time to time to see what the other team is doing and check it while you're respawning.

 

There is a decent mini-map that shows visible enemies with arrows pointing in the direction they are facing.

If the arrows are not moving and are at range, they are likely gunships. If the markers are round - those are mines/drones/beacons.

 

When you select a target, you can tell by the visual in the targeting window:

Ship type

Weapons equipped

Direction they are facing

Who they are targeting

How far they are from you

Current health and shields

 

Red triangles around your firing arc tell you about the enemies around and the size tells you the distance.

The bigger the triangle, the closer the enemy is.

 

Master these and you will become a better pilot.

 

 

There is no need of a target of a target as there are no skills in the game that require you to "target" an ally.

Also even if you had it, you still will need to rotate your ship and attack that target as you normally would (being in range and relatively centered).

 

And you should have enough awareness to pull back instead of focusing like a madman on that one target playing a bait. So many times I see unskilled pilots chasing that one gunship/scout, deep in the enemy territory away from objectives. If the target runs from you well, switch to the next target or pull back. It's always a better option to attack a target that is attacking someone else instead of trying to duel or attempting predictable revenge runs.

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sage advice, thx.

 

- I think I should have put: "Focus target + target of focus target - for 2 people attacking same enemy" not "target of target" - my mistake. :eek:

 

okay...next Question, recommended crew / cooldowns specifically for attacking GS in scouts. I fly scouts ~90% of the time, and have mastered Blackbolt and nearly finished off Sting so far on a brand new pilot character. My style tends toward maximizing boosters to go as fast as possible...unload and get away. I don't always get 100% backup, so there's often a lot of defensive flying (hit and fade) needed if my wingmen get picked off. EDIT: not claiming I'm any better than them, it just happens sometimes...:)

Edited by Storm-Cutter
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Whatever the counter is, it's so tricky to keep out of LoS of 2 or 3 GSD

 

It's not necessary to keep out of LoS of every Gunship. Depending on the skill of your opponents and depending on how busy they are it's enough to stay out of range.

You can check the distance of every opponent appearing on the scanner by mouseovering. If one Gunship is significantly closer than the others you usually have some seconds before they can react and don't need to care about LoS to them for a few seconds.

You can check the facing of each opponent by targeting them. If some of them face the wrong direction they usually also need a short time to react.

Railguns are the only active weapons in game which don't require selecting a target. You can target one opponent and shoot at another by aiming at their square. This let's you keep track of two people at once.

 

okay...next Question, recommended crew / cooldowns specifically for attacking GS in scouts.

 

The Scouts who annoy me the most while I'm in a Gunship use TT, Wingman and Pods and the following tactic. They wait for all their cooldowns to be ready, preferably get a DO too, boost in range, hit TT & Wingman and shoot. That's usually enough to kill anyone who's not prepared for it and most Gunships tunnel vision anyway or don't react fast enough to survive. The cooldowns last long enough to kill more than one Gunship, if the Gunships are close together. They usually don't dogfight or pursue fleeing targets, except they're fighting a bad team. When their cooldowns run out, they usually run away until cooldowns are ready again; if running away is not possible because of their position they will try to kill some more before being shot down.

 

In short: stack damage cooldowns, choose target(s) wisely, kill as fast and many as possible, preferably unaware or non-reacting targets, don't get tunnel vision by chasing or dogfighting, if you can't exit, go kamikaze.

Edited by Danalon
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  • 2 weeks later...

To be a good a gunship killer, you have to know the ship very well.. ie, if you're good with GS, you will be good at killing them too, becasue you know what they hate the most.

 

Basically it's simple: You have to spot them early,.. and jump on them with sting, flash when they least expect and blast them of the sky. Many GS pilots will react slowly to your assault because if they see you flying to them, they will try to snipe you till the last moment which is why it's very important NOT TO FLY A STRAIGHT LINE to them. wiggle around a bit and they will likely miss their snipe shot and u will be shooting down by the time they charge again. that's how I do it at least and I love killing them. ;)

 

I am kinda veteran at this GSF. was Uvora, Nimris on Harb and Voshka, Ashni Zihani on TRE. We've probably met. :D

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  • 3 years later...
Especially the part about not flying at them in a straight line.

 

When the big GSF patch went in a couple years ago, strike fighters and scouts got an extra bonus when in F3 (strikes get the bonus in any non-F4 setting, but that's not important here). The important thing is this- if a scout or strike is flying at an angle to a gunship, with F3 active, it's harder to hit them in the current game than it ever was back in the day. No compensatory changes were ever offered to gunships- if a ship flies entirely traverse, they are extremely hard to hit, and any movement relative to the nose of the gunship is at least harder than normal to hit, even if the ship is netting a bunch of forward movement.

 

Gunships are support ships. If you attack a gunship and no one peels you from that endeavor, the gunship should end up dead or peeled, period.

Edited by Verain
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