Author: AntiChuck
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I've been asked by several players lately for a few tips on air cav. Now I only started playing in mid February, but I figured some information would be better than none, and I did manage to go from n00b to br20 in less than 6 weeks. This is written with reavers in mind, but the mosquito works almost as well air-to-air and absolutely destroys infantry.
--Afterburners and Airtowers
Airtowers are gold. Know where the nearest towers are and defend/CE them if necessary, as a quick reload/rearm station can keep you alive for a LONG time. The one exception is when your empire has a secure dropship center linked to a base nearby, enabling all the repair pads.
Basically I would recommend staying clear of the action until you have at least 3/4 of your afterburners charged up. Without lots of afterburner enemy aircraft and AA maxes will have little trouble finishing you off.
--Air-to-Air Combat
Basically air to air combat is a matter of exploiting small advantages. When there are lots of enemy aircraft about, try to stay at maximum speed, or close to it, and don't stray to far from wingmen, friendly aircraft, and friendly AAA. Once you're tail turns red, start thinking about repairs, as sometimes it can be quite a fight just to disengage from a large battle. Remember, you're enemies have enhanced targeting just like you, and they will jump at the chance to kill a damaged ship flying away from the fight. (Chuck Yeager in his P-51 used to wait for superior german Me262's to run outta fuel and he'd shoot them down when they tried to land.)
Oh, for crying out loud, save your rockets for ground targets or aircraft that are not moving at all(which you should almost never do unless the air is totally secure!)
When a n00b shoots rockets at me, I laugh. At close range you MAY be able to hit a galaxy, lodestar or liberator with rockets, but that’s about their only air-to-air use.
However, many air battles seem to become a one-on-one kinda deal. If your ship is too damaged to have a chance, I'd recommend using those afterburners to get to some friendly AA cover. Use trees/hills for cover if you have to fly very far. And never fly straight and level if you even THINK someone might be on your tail. Fly like a spaz, you'll live a lot longer.
If you believe you're on equal or better ground with your opponent, use the following technique. Set your throttle drop to Zero, or close to it, and climb and strafe, keeping your nose pointed at the enemy. This allows you to stay behind newbies who don't know this trick, and even against skilled players, if you get behind them first or have an armor advantage, you will win. Now if your opponent has a wingman, you're dead meat, so be warned. If you're in Death Wing this is a pretty safe tactic.
Finally, sometimes you're plane is all red and you just HAVE to run like hell. Neilix has a great technique to break loose from someone on your six. Start turning one way as hard as you can while climbing, and after about 90 degrees of turn, crank it over the other way (turn AND strafe), while diving and hit afterburners at the same time for about a second. The idea is to quickly change direction and altitude. This will stump most pilots cold. Since we have no peripheral vision, it's hard to tell when a plane goes somewhere unexpected. Once you execute this run like hell to someplace protected by friendly AA maxes, skyguards, or turrets.
--Air-to-Ground
This is why we certed Air Cav in the first place. First, unlike air-to-air combat, you wanna stay low. Be low enough to hide behind trees, hills, etc if possible. The higher you fly the easier target you are for guided AA systems. Afterburners are much more critical here, so make sure they are full before you make a strafing run. Remember to approach from weird angles and approach by "poping-up" from cover at high speed, killing stuff, then running away before they can react.
Most of us feed the AA max BR when we're new. These tips should prevent that from being as much of a problem in the future.
-VS AA Max(Quasar?) - This thing is a pain in the ass. They can jump over a volley of rockets so even when you surprise them, you may have to run like hell and hope you're wingman can finish the Max. They can use the jump to stand on antennae and trees, making rocket splash almost totally ineffective.
That being said they do have a huge problem you can exploit. To hit you with those energy balls of hate, they have to hold their reticule right on your bird (like a striker). If something obstructs their view even for a second, they loose lock. So above all stay low to surprise them and then hide behind ground clutter. Never climb away from a VS max.
-NC AA Max(Falcon?) - This thing is marginally less of a pain in the ass. They can't avoid your fire entirely like the VS, but the shield they have means you're rockets must be right on target to kill them quickly. Unlike the VS Max, the AA missiles they shoot at us are fire-and-forget.
Again, stay low, but more for surprise than anything. Make your runs fast and surprising. Once you hear missile lock, you better use that afterburner to get clear. Rinse, repeat.
-Skyguard - Well, no avoiding this, it sucks. Basically the only way to engage these is to either surprise them when parked (one rocket volley and some 20mm will take them out very fast if they don't move), hit them with 4+ reavers, or (my favorite) hot-drop, emp grenade, decimator them.
Phoenix - NC infantry AA weapon - This thing is wire guided and does a lot of damage. There's no warning about a lock, so you will have to listen for the tell-tale sound of a phoenix launch and watch the radar for those red arrow blips chasing you around. The range is short and they aren't as maneuverable as a reaver, so these are easy to avoid unless 3 hit you at once :)
Lancer - VS infantry AA weapon - Weird ass gun, they just hold the reticule on ya, and it hits without much of a delay. Good new is they can't really kill you very fast, so just leave, come back from a weird angle, kill them, etc.
Don’t forget:
--Keep you tactics fresh, the same stuff 3 times in a row will probably net you a nice greeting from the enemy.
--Don't be afraid to run, air cav is so fast we can repair and be back in 30 seconds.
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