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What makes a good pilot/engineer/gunner?

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redria:
Question 2 in what appears to be a series of questions begging for TL;DR answers.

For each class, what qualities does it take to excel?

I have an answer for pilot, but not for engineer or gunner. This answer depends heavily on the concept of a macro level for a match. By this I mean a focus on the entire match including ships, loadouts, ship locations, ally and crew abilities and coordination, etc. The macro level of a match includes everything, while a micro level is, for instance, take care of the balloon and shoot your gun when necessary. The micro level does not require a player to know where the ally is, or where the second enemy is. It allows a player to focus on one thing specifically and excel at that.

I think that to be a good pilot, you must first have a good understanding of the macro level of a match. You have to be able to see how each ship can be used, even if you wouldn't do it yourself. This allows you to understand how your ship should be moved and positioned in order to take advantage of your team's strengths and your opponent's weaknesses.

Secondly you have to have a good understanding of your ship's physics and the gun arcs of your ship. This will allow you to use your ship effectively on a macro level. No amount of understanding the match will help you if you can't physically keep up with it.

Third, you need to have good decision making abilities. This ties into both the macro understanding and personal ship understanding. To be a good pilot, you must look at a situation, understand it, understand your capabilities, and make a decision.

Finally, you need to have the coordination abilities to make sure your crew is following along with your plan. With a good crew, this can be negated as they are usually quick to understand what you are doing when your ship starts moving. However, any strange decisions you make will require extra coordination as your crew might not glimpse the macro level of the match while focusing on a task you set for them. It is the pilot's responsibility to keep the crew updated on the current strategy, even if the strategy is changing by the second.

Mentally, I would call piloting the most mentally challenging class. This is not to say that gunning and engineering aren't just as important or critical when it comes to split second decisions. But all other classes call on you to physically do something, while piloting places you in one spot and allows you to look in any direction while controlling the ship. You are required to do one thing and one thing only: move the ship. With this sole focus, you are given a much broader opportunity to pay attention to the match as a whole to be able to understand the match on a macro level.

Step by step, the best pilot should be able to quickly run through:

* note (possible) locations of enemies
* note location of ally
* note status of ship components
* note location of self
* note momentum of self
* compare own current operational/soon-to-be-operational guns to same of enemies
* select the optimal target for range/arcs/ease of shot/advantage
* communicate change of target if target has changed
* communicate incoming threat if situation indicates it
* alter ship momentum to increase effectiveness of own guns and decrease effectiveness of enemy guns without unduly damaging own ship to do so
* evaluate effectiveness of any changes made
* evaluate if any dramatic changes would give an increase in your effectiveness
* repeatGood pilots should be constantly running through this mentally to keep putting themselves and their team in a more and more advantageous position.
You can see that half of a pilot's job is to simply observe himself, his ally, and his enemies. This is the macro side of the match where you have to know everything and make the decisions based on everything.

Cheesy Crackers:
I won't add much for now, maybe later on, but I think one of the best parts of being a pilot is experimenting with builds. I just find mixing things up (Serious or not) to be fun and an interesting challenge :P. You can also end up finding some funky builds.

HamsterIV:
A good pilot need to be able to anticipate  where there ships need to be 2-4 seconds before it needs to be there so that the ship can be accelerated/turned. Good spacial thinking is also a plus.
A good gunner need to be familiar with shot drop and leading for each weapon. They also need to be able to eyeball the weapon ranges.
A good engineer needs to be a good at time management and be able to prioritize based on the situation.
A good crew member needs to be able to trust the other crew members to carry out their assigned task and not overlap responsibility.
A good captain is a lot of things beyond just pilot. Redria's OP covered most of them, but in my mind the skill set of pilot is different than the skill set of captain.

Mod Josie:
In terms of engineering, if I ever get onto being advanced with the pubs and people I pick up - I say this:

Think about what's going to be happening 10 to 20 seconds from now. For instance, The Junker to the south has Gatling guns on the side that's facing you. They're about to be in range, so you should be mindful of the hull armour. If you can't get there in time, send your crewmate over there before it starts to run low on health.

In any class, communication, teamwork and foresight are essential - but then I guess that was the point of the game :P

redria:

--- Quote from: HamsterIV on April 30, 2014, 11:35:27 am ---A good pilot need to be able to anticipate  where there ships need to be 2-4 seconds before it needs to be there so that the ship can be accelerated/turned. Good spacial thinking is also a plus.
[...]
A good captain is a lot of things beyond just pilot. Redria's OP covered most of them, but in my mind the skill set of pilot is different than the skill set of captain.

--- End quote ---
Do you think the captain and pilot can be separated?

Technically, as a pilot you only need to be in control of the physical location of the ship,
Since you have less moving and multi-tasking to do than an engineer or gungineer, and since you are able to take a much broader view of scenario than a gunner, it usually makes sense for a pilot to be captain. But those alone don't require that your pilot (even an engineer pilot) must be the captain.

I think the pilot and captain positions are interlocked since the captain gets to talk to the other ship, and coordinating ships is much better done real time instead of relayed through a crewmember.

Or perhaps you mean to say that great captain =/= great pilot, and vice versa. There is a difference between the cross-ship mid-game strategizing that can make a team good, and the piloting abilities that make a ship good. The best teams are when 2 great pilots work as great captains together.

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