Any tips for a fighter pilot...

Keyzer

As the thread says.
I finally figured out how to fly the planes, doing alright I think, am flying around without crashing at all. Thing is I cant hit jack with missiles or bombs.
I get the odd kill here and there but nothing consistent.

So, any of you guys wanna share some tips with me?
I read over the strategy guide on planetbattlefield, but I need some human help...

KdjaCL

Fly slower.



/wow im good thats best advice ever

kdjac

Keyzer

KdjaC wrote:

Fly slower.



/wow im good thats best advice ever

kdjac

Eh, yeah, thanks for that invaluable nugget of information...

Dinner

Wait as long as you feel comfortable before you let off the flares. Do everything else to try shake off the guy first.

jonski

Don't eat the inflight meals

stagolee

jonski wrote:

Don't eat the inflight meals

ahhhh, thanks man i needed a laugh

Berns

Fly fast & when ur on some1's tail they can just hit on the breaks & fly right past

If see a jet flyin, would try get behind it but with bombs so his warnin dont go off. If can get a steady aim try takin him out with the guns, or switch till missiles when ur on his arse. Maybe fire one off or wait till they fire flares.

Tried recently till chase a guy who was chasin our other pilot, missile flew right by their guy & hit mine & the F***er punished without hesitation. So its puttin me off helpin ur teammate if he bein chased.

If CoPilot in the bigger jets, try not till bomb where own guys are, missile is liable till hit your team mates ....who punish. Even if it says locked on till enemy. If are in the bigger jets as pilot, be considarte till your co pilot. If your flyin flat out by the time he locked on & fired at a target your past it & missile will eather eat the dirt or go rogue into next vehicle which will possibly be ur own team.

Ya'll needa be real slow if tryin to shoot a chopper, with the flares & all ya'll prob miss first time & if have to swing around again his flares reloaded prob. No need to kami, as it annoy's the hell outta people. But i'd make an exception if it was a full black hawk at start of round.

KdjaCL

hehe seriously tho to win a dogfight you need to fly slow to get behind the othe guy if you front and the BEE BEEEP BEEP is getting louder do something mental like fly under the dam or upside down between trees.


Then turn slowly the fire back.


kdjac

Keyzer

Ok, thanks for the tips.
I was flying around full pelt so it was hard for to line up shots..

3 more questions below...

1. Roughly what speed do the jets begin to stall at?
2. Dropping bombs - Is it complete guess work? When I switch to bombs I get little green squares for ground targets.
3. Lock on missiles - Are they in every jet? some jets I have flown, I dont get lock on signals when using the missiles.

][cEMAN**

LOL does that actually work for you?

If you want to get a lock on someone, match their speed, stay a decent distance behind them. If they're flying slow, slow down. If they're flying fast - stick on the afterburner.

If you're too close they can move quickly and you lose sight of them, then they often end up behind you.

As mentioned already - if you can get behind someone, keep "bombs" on instead of "Missiles" and try to take them out with your guns. They'll think it's some random n00b shooting at them or an APC for a second or two, and that should be long enough to do a fair amount of damage.

If they're a n00b pilot they'll fly in a straight line, and try to barrell roll to dodge your missiles. Laugh at them and launch away. Always stagger your missiles by a second or two between them so as not to waste them too quickly.

If they try to avoid you, ALWAYS watch the back of them. If they slap on afterburner, slap on yours, but be wary that often people go into a dive and slap on the brakes - you're infront of them before you know it.

To avoid getting shot - I can't stress this enough - put your sensitivity up to the max in your plane. Otherwise you can't out fly them in a turn. If you get locked on from behind don't drop flares straight away. Try to turn left/right instantly and throw on afterburners to see if the lock falters. If it does it's a plane (don't waste flares). If it doesn't, it's a STINGER - drop flares fast!

The best way to avoid planes are to just turn and keep turning. Spin around and around till they get bored or until they get lazy (don't use afterburner if you can avoid it most of the time), and then throw on afterburner to get round faster, and you end up behind them.

If you still can't lose them, go up (still turning). Get around 500-600m and start to consider leveling out, or coming back down. If you go higher you can lose control of your jet. Not a problem, unless you're close to the side of the map - you might get punished before you get control back.

If you get up too high and lose control, expect that you've lost the jet because they can't follow you up there with control either, and you SHOULD be too far away for any STINGERS (i've never been tracked that far up). When your plane goes out of control, just stop. Take your hands off the controls and let it spin a bit. Wait till it drops and keep your eyes on the verticle read out. As soon as you drop back down to 500m, you have full control and should see the ground starting to appear. Get back into the fight.

Practice flying straight and learning to use your guns over missiles. It's very hand on bombing runs, and for taking out ground troops when you've no bombs left. Also you'll need it against carriers with Gunners. Practice on Oman flying as MEC towards the Carrier and taking out the gunner on the boat. It's a relatively small(ish) target and requires a lot to blow it, so you need to maintain a few seconds of steady fire to take it out.

The only problem I have with flying in this game is lack of dead point in the controls. Most other flight games i've tried have a dead zone in which no matter how much you move the mouse/joystick in that small area, it doesn't adjust your course. Sadly, in this there is no such thing, so the slightest movement can throw you off when you're trying to fly straight - especially when you have sensitivity set to max to out-turn other fighters.

Also don't try to dogfight in a bomber (2 man) jet as it's slow and has a bad turning arc. You're best to try and draw them to a point they can get shot by your own team, or draw them close to your other jet in the air. Best bet is going up up up and using that to avoid them. Turning you'll still get blown up.

Oh and one last thing - don't try to fire missiles when following someone in a turn. You're just wasting them. Keep firing your guns, and keep it on bombs. They'll think you're gone (if you miss with guns) and come out of the turn into a straight line. Then slap on missiles and fire a couple mid lock (take your time if they're n00bs, but if a good pilot they'll hear the lock and break left/right again fast so fire before they realise).

][cEMAN**

Keyzer wrote:

Ok, thanks for the tips.
I was flying around full pelt so it was hard for to line up shots..

3 more questions below...

1. Roughly what speed do the jets begin to stall at?
2. Dropping bombs - Is it complete guess work? When I switch to bombs I get little green squares for ground targets.
3. Lock on missiles - Are they in every jet? some jets I have flown, I dont get lock on signals when using the missiles.

1) They don't, it's height. About 800-1000 (m or feet, dunno which it is)

2) You get a target for any heat source. That includes vehicles and Stingers. Be wary of flags because you also target your own team, and you don't want teamkills. Practice bombing on a stationary point. Eg. a Helipad, and learn to switch views quickly to see behind you after dropping. Practice this till you know how to guess at what height/distance to drop from.

The only exception to this is as the co-pilot in the bomber. In alt view you will see circles for the vehicles. Keep watching them till it says you are locked on, then fire your missiles. It will ONLY lock on the enemy, so don't fire before hand or you could be looking at your own team mates.

3) Lock on is with every jet, but you have to make sure you're in missile mode, and not the co-pilot. As co-pilot (bomber), as above, it only locks on when it's an enemy. Choppers do not have locks.

Keyzer

Cheers Ice, you've been most helpful....

jaggeh

learn to use mouse look rather than flying around to scan for targets

immelman turns are innefective
use missile lock to make him pop his flares all the while shooting your machinegun

when doing air to ground, the vertical line under the bomb crosshair is your release timer, whatever is at the bottom of the line is where the bombs will land unless you pull off some silly manuever.

jaggeh

if you cant learn to attack at super low speeds then you wont hit anything.

jaggeh

no, you come in slow using the terrain and buildings to break up any lock they try to get on you, drop your ordanance/fire missiles. then you kick in the afterburner and shoot off at top speed. if you cant do that i suggest you stick to ground pounding.

Deadwing

LIGHTNING wrote:

Where is the Vietnam vet who use to fly F4`s over Sam infested Vietnam when you need him

Hes right here
oh how i miss the napalm strikes and heatseekers of the F4 in BFV

Keyzer

I think you should both take on board each others tactics as effective manouevers. If I fly full pelt I cant get a lock on anything for more than half a nanosecond, but I don't get hit by anything other than other jets.
Flying slow allows more time for lining up shots etc. but leaves you open to potshots. Surely a balance between both is the answer...

Hercule

If your a regular flyboy in BF2 remember, after you easily get the top score its your DUTY to entertain the ground troops with corkscrews,flying upside-down,flying between buildings and spelling your name in vehicle trails - (if your really good)

[SARCASM]Us honourable ground troops just love to see those ppl in the planes zipping round the skies showing off instead of blowing stuff up for us.[/SARCASM]

Nothing beats watching sum1 stupid "drive" a jet into a building without ever leaving the ground - only to be blown to smithereens by a ground troop with explosives

Berns

Seen some1 today hoverin in the american jet. Map with the heli in the middle spawn point & the 2 airbases at each side. Well, he was hoverin above the middle spawn & our jets didnt seem to be hittin him at all. I was in a PBR, RIB watever call the boats in this. Shootin like hell at him from mounted gun & was hittin with the wee icons on the crosshairs. Didnt seem to be doin that much damage though :-(
Now i know its "Slow" but what they gonna do there apart from hit our helis with the missiles ?

jaggeh

strafing runs on infantry require low and slow, when bombing targets i prefer to dive bomb, taking out helos is slow and steady, air to air is fast and wild to evade, slow and careful to line up.

Scruff

how can i learn to fly these winged creatures? i do be seeing them as i run around the battlefield alright and the shisters occasionally ****e on me from on high but seeing as i am on a job swap from the irish army i dont have a clue about these flying bouyos at all at all.

bf2 doesnt seem to recognise my joystick either.

Deadwing

the best way to learn is to just jump in one and get crackin. I did it in the f4's in bfv, i was intimidated at first tryin to learn to fly but you pick it up as you go

][cEMAN**

LIGHTNING wrote:

Im not telling what to do but I think Ill stick with the method that is standard military practice. Not going to argue with nearly a century of flying tactics

Fair enough. We're not going to argue with 2 months worth of thousands of people playing this game. Because this is a game. Hello? You still with us here? Cause it sounds like you're still sitting waiting patiently for the next world war. We're all just happy at home playing

You might be working on a hundred years of military flight practice, but we're going with what works. It's good having tactics and an idea of what should work, but that in games can often be a far cry from the way it does work.

And as for at what speed the engines stall...in this game you have to pretty much cut them out completely to land. Do you turn off the engine in real life and let it just coast in?

angelofdeath

http://krackhouse.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6460

very in-dept guide here

][cEMAN**

Good point. Because those people bunnyhopping around with M203 grenade launchers owning servers would be generals in real life... :rolleyes:

po0k

LIGHTNING wrote:

Was it Chuck Yeager who said fly low and fast? Well in any case its the best advise I can give or at the very least fast.

kiss the earthworms on your way past.

When going in for a bombing run try to line up your approach so you're coming from behind - or rather flying over - some cover so that you;re not exposed to AAA until you're making your egress.

][cEMAN**

LIGHTNING wrote:

My point is that if you tried bunny hopping in Ghost recon you wouldnt live very long.Not that getting a large number of kills automatically means you would get promoted to General.

This isn't Ghost Recon - it's Battlefield 2

And yes, getting a large number of kills in this game DOES mean you get promoted

JacoStanley

Is there a noticeable difference when piloting with a joystick compared to a mouse??

Keyzer

JacoStanley wrote:

Is there a noticeable difference when piloting with a joystick compared to a mouse??

I use a PS2 control pad, it rocks....

jaggeh

i use the keyboard, might have to give a joystick a swing and see what its like

JacoStanley

I have a Gravis BlackHawk Digital that I got in or around 1998 or 99. The connection doesn't fit anywhere on the computer which is a dell 4600. I'm looking at it now and it's a 16 pin plug. Is there a converter to make it USB or something??