Well there's concious thought, and then there more subconcious/reflexive reaction.

Anything I'm really concious of is happening pretty slowly on a vehicle operation type timescale where 0.01 second can be enough time to be really worth caring about.

A lot of what makes me more dangerous in one ship vs another is how much of the total piloting load is reflexive vs concious. The more I'm trying to handle as a concious workload the worse the performance is going to be if you control for other factors.

For the mostly automatic (in a strike)

• Power management
  
• Tracking range to target/threat
  
• Steering
  
• Missile break use
  
• When to start shooting
  
• Which weapon(s) to use right now
  
• Lining up targets in firing arc
  
• Lining up reticle over target lead indicator
  

The semi-automatic

• Location of red and green blips on the mini-map
  
• Cooldowns other than engine missile breaks
  
• LOS to hostile gunships
  
• Pilot evaluation, can I Ion-Retro-Concussion that Sting five times in a row or would that be suicidal.
  
• Grabbing powerups that are easy/near my flight path/known locations
  
• Keeping distance from groups of gunships.
  
• Knowing that big blue glows are REALLY BAD NEWS, LOS NOW! (very much a strike pilot thing)
  
• Positioning relative to the current target/attacker, am I in a good or bad position.
  
• Tactical maneuvering in a dogfight, LOS, turning out of their weapon arc, speed variation, skimming along cover, running for friendlies/minefields/powerups
  

Concious thought

• Where deadly aces are right now, and what are they doing.
  
• Are there things the team is dropping the ball on? If the Gunships are ignoring the drones and beacons, if people are dogfighting over a sat with three hostile turrets and just soaking up turret fire, other things where I need to handle it now no matter what ship I'm currently flying. Especially applies to noobs repeatedly throwing themselves into giant obvious firey pits of DOOM.
  
• Trying to remember which powerup in that cluster on the mini-map is the DO and which obstacle it's over/under/beside (for the ones I don't know well).
  
• Over all game flow, where should I be 10 to 30 seconds from now.
  
• Things I'm working on improving after looking at my own streams/recordings, zooming out when using a railgun on a gunship for example.
  

I'm sure I've left out plenty of stuff that I do think about, and the degree of reflexiveness also varies by tactical situation. The more pressure I'm under the more likely it is that concious and semi-automatic considerations will be forgotten about in the interest of staying alive for the next second or two.

Well there's concious thought, and then there more subconcious/reflexive reaction.

 

Anything I'm really concious of is happening pretty slowly on a vehicle operation type timescale where 0.01 second can be enough time to be really worth caring about.

A lot of what makes me more dangerous in one ship vs another is how much of the total piloting load is reflexive vs concious. The more I'm trying to handle as a concious workload the worse the performance is going to be if you control for other factors.

 

 

For the mostly automatic (in a strike)

 

• Power management
  
• Tracking range to target/threat
  
• Steering
  
• Missile break use
  
• When to start shooting
  
• Which weapon(s) to use right now
  
• Lining up targets in firing arc
  
• Lining up reticle over target lead indicator
  

The semi-automatic

 

• Location of red and green blips on the mini-map
  
• Cooldowns other than engine missile breaks
  
• LOS to hostile gunships
  
• Pilot evaluation, can I Ion-Retro-Concussion that Sting five times in a row or would that be suicidal.
  
• Grabbing powerups that are easy/near my flight path/known locations
  
• Keeping distance from groups of gunships.
  
• Knowing that big blue glows are REALLY BAD NEWS, LOS NOW! (very much a strike pilot thing)
  
• Positioning relative to the current target/attacker, am I in a good or bad position.
  
• Tactical maneuvering in a dogfight, LOS, turning out of their weapon arc, speed variation, skimming along cover, running for friendlies/minefields/powerups
  

 

Concious thought

• Where deadly aces are right now, and what are they doing.
  
• Are there things the team is dropping the ball on? If the Gunships are ignoring the drones and beacons, if people are dogfighting over a sat with three hostile turrets and just soaking up turret fire, other things where I need to handle it now no matter what ship I'm currently flying. Especially applies to noobs repeatedly throwing themselves into giant obvious firey pits of DOOM.
  
• Trying to remember which powerup in that cluster on the mini-map is the DO and which obstacle it's over/under/beside (for the ones I don't know well).
  
• Over all game flow, where should I be 10 to 30 seconds from now.
  
• Things I'm working on improving after looking at my own streams/recordings, zooming out when using a railgun on a gunship for example.
  

 

 

I'm sure I've left out plenty of stuff that I do think about, and the degree of reflexiveness also varies by tactical situation. The more pressure I'm under the more likely it is that concious and semi-automatic considerations will be forgotten about in the interest of staying alive for the next second or two.

Arguments of reflexive vs. automatic are more what I'm looking for in phase 2, but thanks for the reply and I'll add this to the stuff to consider.

Well the organization was partly because I knew it would be hard to remember things that I do without thinking about much. Thinking about what you don't think about thinking is challenging. I made the categories before starting my list hoping that it would help reduce the number of important things I would forget.

Oh, and add assessing enemy awareness/reaction to my position/presence to the semi-auto list.

Here's some stuff I think about in a match, assuming it's one competitive enough that I don't fly on mental autopilot while I'm talking on the phone:

Awareness

• Who are the threats and how will I have to deal with each
  
• Will I get focused by several enemies
  
• Which of my teammates know what they're doing
  
• Will I have to cover for ineffective team play
  
• Can I direct ineffective teammates into a more advantageous position
  
• From where can I apply the most effective offensive pressure
  
• How can I best disrupt the enemy strategy
  
• (TDM) Where is the Damage Overcharge
  
• (TDM) Are any other pilots likely to be going for the Damage Overcharge and can I beat them to it
  
• (DOM) Will a friendly satellite fall without my immediate intervention
  
• (DOM) Is the enemy likely to mass attack a satellite my team holds
  
• (DOM) Can I grab an unguarded or lightly defended satellite
  
• (DOM) Can I cause a distracton at an enemy satellite that will draw attackers away from a friendly or neutral sat that is under fire
  
• (DOM) Is my team so bad that I should try to direct all efforts at avoiding a 3-cap
  

Combat

• Is the enemy that's attacking me worth worrying about
  
• How long can I wait before disengaging from or dealing with a pursuer
  
• Should I just accept destruction to respawn with full health/ammo
  
• Do I have teammates nearby that I can head towards for support
  
• Will my engine maneuver splatter me on the terrain
  
• Is a shot too low percentage to take it, or should I risk it
  
• When do I need to find a safe place to regenerate energy pools
  
• Do I need to use a system/copilot ability or should I wait for a more important target
  
• (DOM) Can I intercept enemy bombers before they get to the satellite
  
• (DOM) Can I take out an enemy bomber that has just arrived at a satellite before its mines go active
  
• (DOM) Is there an enemy hyperspace beacon active, and can I find it to destroy it
  
• (T1 gs) Is a particular enemy too evasive for me to waste time and energy shooting at them
  
• (T1 gs) What slow, less evasive thing can I bounce ion off of to hit the most enemies
  
• (T1 gs) Which non-threat can I leave alive to keep bouncing ion off of, especially around a satellite
  

Despon

Nevermind, im done with this game.