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[GUIDE] The Art of Killing Gunships


GrimmShaw

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The most misunderstood aspect of Galactic Starfighter is the gunship. More specifically, how they are defeated. Using this guide, gunships will be no more or less dangerous than any other fighter. The more you practice your craft, the less threatening gunships will become. From my experience, there are only a handful of gunship pilots who are good enough to actually be threats. The rest are lambs to the slaughter.

 

Gunships should always be the first thing you kill. If left alone, even the most inept gunship pilot can turn the tide of any battle. Your first goal is always to kill the gunship. But if you can make him run and stay on his tail, you’ve still won. A gunship that’s fleeing for its life isn’t sniping your wingmen. You should enter every match with the goal of killing as many gunships as you can.

 

The most important piece of advice I can give in dealing with gunships is: maintain situational awareness. You should know where you are on the map, what kind of opposition you’re facing, and most importantly, the status of your ship. If you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings, gunships are going to blow you to atoms. Ultimately, the biggest threat to gunships is an observant enemy. If maintain situational awareness, you can turn the hunters into the hunted.

 

Phase 1: Identify

Unlike the Spanish Inquisition, you should ALWAYS expect gunships. Once you’ve spotted a gunship, you’ve already won half the battle. You should go into every battle looking for gunships FIRST. On the priority scale, they are at the top, even above fighters/scouts attacking your satellite. They aren’t hunting you, you’re hunting them. How does one spot a gunship? Learn to see the battlespace differently:

 


  • Typical hide-sites and firing locations: Gunships tend to hide in the same locations on each map. At the beginning of a fight, they will lurk on the edges of the battlespace surrounding each satellite. Think of each battlespace as a rectangle, with the satellite at the center. The most likely firing position is along the narrow end of the rectangle nearest the enemy home base. The second most likely locations are along the long side the rectangle on the border side closest to a neighboring satellite (again, more gunships will be nearer their home base). Less experienced pilots will be higher in altitude, while better pilots will be lower. Some will put their back to rocks or superstructure, but they can usually be found in open space. Learn these hide-sites and watch for ships in those locations. More times than not, they are gunships
  • Special hide-sites: Get to know the gaps between the combat zones like the holes in the asteroids on the space map or mountain tunnels on the ground map. They offer pretty good visual screening with a reasonable ability to range the space near the nodes. More dangerous are the hide sites on the satellites themselves. If you’re attacking a defended satellite, gunships like to hide very close to or right on top of the satellites. Some have even been known to hide within the model of a turret, hoping you won’t see them and target the turret instead. If you’re flying up to what appears to be an undefended satellite, EXPECT a gunship. If you notice a gunship at a satellite with 3 turrets and more than one companion fighter, abort. You need help to assault this node. Don’t be that guy who flies in straight and dumb, padding the gunship’s kill score.
  • Long range identification: Because at least half the population flies scouts, you’ll rarely have to worry about enough sensor coverage. At extremely long ranges, I find that most enemy ships show up on my HUD. Only as I get closer do they start to disappear as sensor suppression takes effect. Thus, if you’re transitioning from one satellite to another or flying back to a fight from your mothership, you have time to study the battle you’re approaching. The distinguishing feature of gunships is their immobility when using their primary weapons. Train yourself to spot stationary targets. They may disappear as you get closer so remember where that gunship was. Select stationary targets to see if they are gunships – the model of the target appears on your HUD.
  • Visual identification: Even if there isn’t a target showing up on your HUD, there is still a large visual aura that a gunship gives off when it fires its big gun. Red=slug; yellow=plasma; blue=ion As you’re flying around, you should be watching for that aura and want to kill anything that glows. Luckily, this game doesn’t allow us to damage our allies. If it did, I’d end up blasting my wingmen left and right because I WANT TO KILL THE GLOW. Many times gunships will arrive to a battle while you’re already engaged with another target. Train yourself to watch for the glowing aura as your ship turns during combat.

 

Phase 2: Prepare

So now that you’ve spotted a gunship, what should you do? Prepare to go kill it. Half of situational awareness is external (spotting the gunship). The other half is internal: what’s the status of your ship – How much engine power do you have? How much blaster power do you have? Where are you on the map? Is there anything nearby to hide behind? How many enemy fighters are in your local area? And most importantly, how far away is the gunship – am I already within his weapons range?

 

Your goal is to prepare yourself for your attack run on the gunship. If you’re inside his weapons range and you engine and blaster power are in good shape (75%+) then proceed to Phase 3. If you’re outside the gunships weapons range, build up your engines to full power (90%+) and proceed to phase 3.

 

If you’re in weapons range and your engines and blasters aren’t ready, you’ll need a few moments to prepare. Hide behind something if you can and shift your power into engines. You want to build up your boosters as quickly as possible. If you’re under heavy pressure from enemy fighters, shift your power to shields and either hide, or dodge as much as possible. But never lose track of that gunship.

 

If you have directional shields, shift them to double front. If you have options on missiles or guns, shift to the weapons that will put out the most damage in the least amount of time.

 

As you get more comfortable with space combat, you’ll learn your strengths and limitations and more accurately judge when you’re ready for the assault phase or not. Bottom Line: Get set up for your attack run. Hide while you’re building up your engine power. When you get to 75% get ready, you’re about to kill yourself a gunship.

 

Phase 3: Assault

You’ve located a gunship, and your fighter is ready for the assault. An assault on a gunship is best done in a strike-fighter. Why? There’s a good chance you’re going to take a hit. If you’re lucky, the gunship is looking in a different direction (even more likely if you were hiding) and you won’t get shot. But you should be prepared for a hit.

 

When you’re ready, fly directly at the gunship on full boosters. You want to close the distance between him and you as quickly as possible. To ensure you get there before your boosters run out, you may want to shift your power to engines. But be ready to shift them back to weapons at about 7-6K distance. If you’re in a scout and you have a long way to go, you may want to weave during the first 5-10 kilometers. But you want to straighten out at 5K to be as accurate as possible.

 

As soon as that reticle turns red, start firing your blasters and start a lock-on for your missiles. If you’re using rockets, start launching them. Your goal here is to put out as much firepower as quickly as possible. Don’t stop firing until the target is dead. In these critical seconds, you want that gunship pilot to panic and think they can out-damage you. If you’ve done this correctly, they’ll die 80% - 90% of the time.

 

If they decide to run, most gunships mount the barrel roll engines and will fly towards the satellite. NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON A GUNSHIP. If he survived your assault, you should do everything in your power to hunt him down. DO NOT GIVE UP. A wounded gunship is more dangerous (to you) than a full strength one for one reason – he’s now gunning for JUST YOU! The good news here is that you’ve already achieved a victory. A gunship that’s running from you isn’t shooting at anyone else, so you’ve already taken the heat off your wingmen, but you want to finish the job.

 

Beware! More experienced gunship pilots will retreat towards their mothership, or one of the other alternate spawn-point motherships. They all mount very powerful turrets that will quickly kill anyone who strays into their attack range. Most gunship pilots are ******es and find pleasure in allowing the computer to do their killing for them. DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! If it looks like your target is leading you towards an enemy mothership, veer off and hide behind something solid. You’re likely far enough away from the battle that you can lurk and watch the gunship. If you “fly casual,” you may be able to trick the gunship into believing you’ve abandoned the chase. Once they start boosting back to the battlespace, you can resume your hunt.

 

What do I do when?

  • I just got killed by a gunship. Congratulations! You just found a gunship! The cost was higher than you’d like but no matter, he’s still going to die. Note the killer’s name and tab target until you find the gunship. Using the map on your HUD, find the gunship’s location. That’s where you’re flying as soon as you respawn. You should be able to spot the gunship at long range. Select them and set yourself up for your attack run outside his weapons range.
  • I’m approaching a battle from an off angle and believe I’m approaching a gunship from behind. Congratulations! You’re about to get the easiest gunship kill there is. This is rare, but will happen from time to time. The strategy here is to quickly sneak to point-blank range. If you’re not sure you’ve been spotted, use the natural cover. This is easier on the space map as asteroids are plentiful. Once you’re within 2000m, give him the whole nine yards. Your blaster damage goes up at shorter ranges, so the bastard should go down fairly quickly.
  • I’m on my attack run and I just noticed that there are TWO gunships in close proximity. Congratulations! If they aren’t covering each other or on voice, you’re likely about to get two kills! If they are covering each other you’re going to take a hit or two. The key here is speed and aggressiveness. After the first gunship dies, turn immediately on the second and press your attack. You’re likely so close now that if the gunship pilot stays in main gun mode, they won’t be able to turn fast enough to target you. If he’s able to kill you, no worries! After you respawn, you’re going to hunt him down like the dog he is.
  • I’ve run out of blaster power and he’s still alive. This is rare, but does happen on occasion. To survive the encounter, you need to get out of his gunsights as quickly as possible. Fire your turbos and speed past him. You’ll want to give your blasters a few seconds to recharge, but you need to continue to press your attack. Boost for another two seconds past the gunship, turn, and start blasting / missile locking. This is a less advantageous situation as he knows you’re gunning for him so he may have turned to shoot you. You’re probably going to take another hit. Be aggressive and press your attack – it’s your only choice.
  • Wait, I killed the gunship, but he ended up killing me. What happened? The DOT from a plasma shot got you, silly! No worries. Your life is worth sacrificing to kill a gunship. Respawn and rejoin your wingmen secure in the knowledge that you died to save their lives.

 

How do I build my strike fighter / scout to kill gunships?

I recommend directional shields. They’re nice and strong and can be shifted to double front to better shield you on your attack runs. For blasters, I recommend either quad or heavy lasers. You want to hit fast and hard. Personally, I use quad lasers. They’re the best blend of damage and energy drain for my playstyle. For missiles, I recommend those with the fastest or no lock-on times like cluster missiles or rockets. For everything else, gear your upgrades to survival and damage output. Speed is less important as even the slowest builds should be able to sustain turbo-boost for 15 kilometers.

 

I do not recommend using Proton Torpedoes (PTs) on an assault. Early on, I would start my runs by locking on with PTs as soon as I could. This only alerts the gunship that trouble is coming and many pilots would run, screwing up my attack run. In a pinch, PTs can be used to spook a gunship into fleeing when your ship isn’t ready for an assault. It messes up your assault, but can take the pressure off your wingmen for a few seconds while the gunship sets up at a new location.

 

Thanks for reading my guide and good hunting!

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You're missing a sub-step between 2 and 3.

 

Try to flank the gunship. Charging straight up a gunship's line of fire is, uh, suboptimal. If they're in sniping mode it's easy to get out of their field of vision by flying a bit to the side. This will also let you see if their ship model on your HUD is indicating that they're keeping their original heading (good) or are rotating to face you (you're going to be shot at soon).

 

A good gunship pilot will spot you on the map or periodically tab target to find the range to the closest ship, and good teams will warn gunships of incoming attacks, so this only works against pilots and teams that could be flying a lot better.

 

 

Another point: watch your friendly gunships. People making attack runs on them often fly in straight easy to shoot down paths, and sometimes hate gunships so much that they won't even break off when you launch missiles on them. Also if you shoot attackers off of friendly gunships it makes them a lot more effective.

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You're missing a sub-step between 2 and 3.

 

Try to flank the gunship. Charging straight up a gunship's line of fire is, uh, suboptimal. If they're in sniping mode it's easy to get out of their field of vision by flying a bit to the side. This will also let you see if their ship model on your HUD is indicating that they're keeping their original heading (good) or are rotating to face you (you're going to be shot at soon).

 

In a perfect world? Yes, you'd spend the time to try and flank the gunship. The most typical situation, however, is a pilot noticing a gunship who's just arrived at a battle while they're already in the middle of a scrum. In this case, your best strategy is to be aggressive and kill the gunship as quickly as possible.

 

As for watching your gunships, I completely agree. That advice, however, is something that would be included in a general strategy guide, which this isn't.

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Most gunship pilots are ******es and find pleasure in allowing the computer to do their killing for them.

 

I must admit, I am guilty of this.

 

I get a twinge of pleasure each time a scout or strike fighter is dumb enough to chase me to those turrets.

I also do not recommend you waste your time chasing a gunship. If they have ANY upgrades to barrel roll or their shields, you aren't going to catch them before they reach allied turrets or ships, even in a scout. You're better off going back and capturing the objective that suddenly doesn't have Gunship coverage.

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How i kill (or at least heavily damage) gunships:

 

Novadive/blackbolt with sensors filled with dampening, treek in a crew slot. You are invisible to the gunship anywhere beyond 6km range. Light lasers+rockets, they don't give a "beep beep someone's gonna hit you soon" warning. Stay away from other enemy ships(or the gunship will get their sensor data about you). Boost within 4km, hold both right and left mouse buttons, watch the fireworks.

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If you can equip it, distortion field > directional shields in gunship hunting. Gunship accuracy never really gets hit enough to pierce evasion build + distortion activation, so it is 6 seconds of near-complete immunity. And in general, the high-evasion build will seriously frustrate gunship pilots trying to kill you.
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If you can equip it, distortion field > directional shields in gunship hunting. Gunship accuracy never really gets hit enough to pierce evasion build + distortion activation, so it is 6 seconds of near-complete immunity. And in general, the high-evasion build will seriously frustrate gunship pilots trying to kill you.

 

This.

 

There's nothing like hitting a ship dead center four times and not getting a bit of damage.

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As soon as that reticle turns red, start firing your blasters and start a lock-on for your missiles. If you’re using rockets, start launching them. Your goal here is to put out as much firepower as quickly as possible. Don’t stop firing until the target is dead. In these critical seconds, you want that gunship pilot to panic and think they can out-damage you. If you’ve done this correctly, they’ll die 80% - 90% of the time.

 

Not a bad guide but I disagree with this part here. If you start a lock-on the same time as you open up firing you just gave away an advantage. You'll want a 1-2 second pause between those two actions. Start blaster fire, wait 1 second (2 seconds max) and then start a lock-on. The reason is simple: locking on gives them an easy warning they are under attack. If he's in snipe-mode, then pausing slightly before you begin lock-on he may not even realize he's ALREADY been hit. Most gunship pilots (I'd say a good 65%+) get tunnelvision. Use that to your advantage! Just by waiting that measly little 1-2 seconds, with decent upgraded blasters, his shields will be gone or close to it; by the time you get the lock and fire he'll be finished off by blaster/missiles.

 

Another advantage to waiting before you start a lock-on is the good GS pilots will typically react with a barrel roll right off, which will break lock-on and/or cause the missiles to miss anyways in addition to giving away you are attacking them as soon as you open up.

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A good guide, obviously written from a strike fighter perspective, which mostly translates to those flying scouts as well, but with a few minor changes.

 

When flying a scout, maneuverability and range will be better and survivability worse. Since a scout can be one-shot by a fully geared slug railgun with no chance to survive (assuming Bypass is active), you don't have the luxury to take a hit. Thus you need to approach from the flank every time.

 

I find the best method is to put myself around the 135 degree arc away from the satellite in relation to the gunship. That would be halfway between the side and rear arc of the gunship if you assume it is facing the satellite. I aim for the closest cover after spotting it, weave into that arc, and then boost out. As soon as I am in gun range I slow and start firing, followed by a missile lock. 75% of the time they don't notice me until after I start firing, and most of the time that means they are dead. If they do turn towards me and start charging, I boost straight at them and trigger my distortion field. That way I rocket past and can swoop around for a second pass. More often they run, and I can follow for the kill, or peel away if it's obvious they are running for their fleet.

 

The only time I find I have trouble is if they have guards. In those cases you need to counter their teamwork with teamwork of your own. It's the only way.

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Pretty good guide. A few things though. I'm getting better flying my Gunship and your statement about a fleeing Gunship is not able to attack you. Well yeah, but from personal experience I've taken out a ship or two when I flee from you. You will probably not catch up to me when I barrel out of your sights and I can quick scope a different target to take down when you or someone else finishes me off.

 

Also, I've killed a number of scouts that tried that tunnel straight towards me tactic many times. Like you said, A Strike can take a shot..maybe, A scout will not survive a well aimed straight shot, imo.

 

Like others have said, you missed flanking and the MOST IMPORTANT thing....

 

take a wingman with you.

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A good guide, obviously written from a strike fighter perspective, which mostly translates to those flying scouts as well, but with a few minor changes.

 

When flying a scout, maneuverability and range will be better and survivability worse. Since a scout can be one-shot by a fully geared slug railgun with no chance to survive (assuming Bypass is active), you don't have the luxury to take a hit. Thus you need to approach from the flank every time.

 

I find the best method is to put myself around the 135 degree arc away from the satellite in relation to the gunship. That would be halfway between the side and rear arc of the gunship if you assume it is facing the satellite. I aim for the closest cover after spotting it, weave into that arc, and then boost out. As soon as I am in gun range I slow and start firing, followed by a missile lock. 75% of the time they don't notice me until after I start firing, and most of the time that means they are dead. If they do turn towards me and start charging, I boost straight at them and trigger my distortion field. That way I rocket past and can swoop around for a second pass. More often they run, and I can follow for the kill, or peel away if it's obvious they are running for their fleet.

 

The only time I find I have trouble is if they have guards. In those cases you need to counter their teamwork with teamwork of your own. It's the only way.

 

It's even simpler than that in a scout, depending on build. Talking from an evasion build standpoint, I'll get within 18K, let my engines power back up, then boost right at. Watch the target directional display to make sure where it's targeting. I've got two tactics, depending which way he's facing.

 

Facing me: Hard boost with engines full. When he starts glowing, count three ticks, hit Distortion Field (about 9K away at this point). Missile lock at range, blasters at max range, transfer power to weapons. Stop boosting at 2K, throttle back, just in case they're stupid and still trying to fire at me and not running. Offensive cooldowns are saved, in case they do try to flee.

 

Not facing me: Hard boost to 3K, then throttle back. Power transfer to weapons, offensive cooldowns, fire blasters at 1.5K. Three shot kill. Immediately after next target before cooldowns wear off.

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my personal fav is a prton from 11.5km out followed up by my 6900 ranged heavy lasers with full upgrades and a concusion missle for good mesure wile they are tryiong to snipe me in my pike with full speed thrusters and barrel roll set to speed man its like watchting the forth of july in 5 secs wile they are sitting there with fortress shields up they die I love it some are smart enough to flee right away when they see me but a lot arnt don't get me wrong I get caught off guard and if there is 2 gs fireing on me then it is a bit difrent and I got to go defence but I got the speed to burn and turn

like guide said situational awareness is the key to everything :rak_03:

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If you believe the gunship is already targeting you it seems to be effective to initially boost in a direction that does not increase or decrease the distance to gunship. From their perspective you moving laterally in such a way that makes it difficult to rotate to keep you targeted. In practice I tend to fly an arc, in their direction of yaw if known (they turn slower) and try and come to a stop about 1km at their side/top/bottom

 

I would recommend that everyone should spend some time behind the wheel of a gunship to understand their strengths and weaknesses - you will quickly see many of the challenges they can face and may pick up on some effective tactics.

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If you believe the gunship is already targeting you it seems to be effective to initially boost in a direction that does not increase or decrease the distance to gunship. From their perspective you moving laterally in such a way that makes it difficult to rotate to keep you targeted. In practice I tend to fly an arc, in their direction of yaw if known (they turn slower) and try and come to a stop about 1km at their side/top/bottom

 

Yes, I find it most difficult to targets moving laterally, even if they are doing so in a straight line. This becomes even harder if they are < 10km away.

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Facing me: Hard boost with engines full. When he starts glowing, count three ticks, hit Distortion Field (about 9K away at this point).

 

Just a comment: This won't work against a gunship that is abusing the ion gun tap. There won't be any glowing for three ticks, he will instantly hit you with a weak ion blast that will do no damage but will suck your energy dry. Then you will helplessly float in space waiting for him to charge up a slug shot. If you face a pilot like that, its better to hit the distortion field right away.

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One reason I don't like approaching head-on (apart from getting tapped by that gosh darned Ion Railgun :mad:) is that good gunships will barrel roll away before you can kill them. If you're approaching head-on, then you need to pull a 180 to pursue, giving them too much time to flee or line up another shot. Approaching from the side or rear lets you pursue more quickly after they go evasive.

 

Oh, and if they have burst lasers and distortion field, they can give even Strikes a nasty surprise if they go head to head.

Edited by Delta_V
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Note that, as far as I can determine, the ion gun effect only works once shields are down. At the very least I don't believe the regen lockout hits unless the shot hit hull.

 

Thats how it SHOULD work, IMHO. But no. Get hit by a double-digit ion hit into full shields = you are now a sitting duck.

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