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Piloting help please and thank

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nanoduckling:
So one thing to note here is that typically a pilot gets two roles for the price of one (which is why it is often seen as the most mentally taxing of the jobs on the ship), you are also typically a captain as well as a pilot.

Lots of people have given you good piloting advice here so I wont bother to go into detail on that (besides I'm a mediocre pilot). There is some good captaining advice here too, but I'm just going to throw some thoughts in the mix.

You could serve under an engi or gunner captain if you just want to practice your flying. This isn't a terrible idea as far as practice goes but it is a temporary measure while you learn to fly in combat conditions (you should fly every ship you plan to take out in the blast yard first to get an idea of their capabilities, but you will really only learn what they can do when people are shooting at you at the same time). The reason it is temporary is that the captain has to act as an information conduit between ships and the crew and makes most of the strategic and tactical decisions; the pilot is in the best position to implement those decisions immediately. Putting an engi or gunner in that role will almost always add time between making a decision and implementing it and that is costly.

Captaining is one of those things that is full of subjective judgements and lots of people will have lots of ideas about how to do it, so I'm not going to say what you should do, I'm going to tell you some of the things I try (and often fail) to do and why and you can decide for yourself it will work for you.

This isn't an actual military. You cant court martial your crew and you have no authority. If I want my orders (although I rarely give orders as such, "let's go say hi to that Pyramidion" isn't much of an order) followed I find it is best to convince folks to follow them by showing them it gets them something they want (be that a fun experience, winning matches, playing with the toys they want to play with). If you get to know your crew, get to know what they are after and try to provide them with it you'll find folks want to fly with you and will do what you say under pressure.

No player is perfect, and most crews don't expect you to be. Failure to acknowledge your mistakes (or worse blaming your mistakes on your crew) wont win you any friends however. When you screw up, admit it. Don't linger on it, don't look for sympathy either, just say "I did X wrong, in future I will try to do Y" and move on. By admitting your mistakes you make it clear to your crew you know there is a problem, and by saying how you will do things differently you show them that you are learning and will avoid (as much as possible) similar mistakes in the future.

Any plan is often better than no plan. If no one is taking charge then ships will be poorly co-ordinated and will often be picked off one by one. If no one is leading I will often just step up and do it. Let's say the ideal ship to target is X, and you tell your ally to join you attacking Y. This is usually still better than you attacking Y and them attacking X and failing to focus fire. If the other captain is more experienced or seems to have better situational awareness I let them call the shots, but if no one steps up, odds are pretty good you will only make the situation better by taking charge.

If a match is going to be hard I find it beneficial to make it clear to crew (especially inexperienced crew) that this is the case. We often seek validation in others opinions of us and I don't want to leave people with the impression I think they suck. If your ally has a massive pile of derp, the enemy is two experienced captains and that gunner you know never misses, meanwhile you have a couple of level threes who you are still teaching chem cycles then setting expectations of victory and glory is foolhardy. I try to make the standard on my ship fighting hard and never giving up, not winning constantly.

I try to make sure I know something about what is required of my crew in the roles I'm assigning. Don't have to be good at it, just know what being good means. You are going to have to teach powder monkeys, and you may as well make the best of that. Since you have some experience in other roles this shouldn't be a problem (although knowing something and knowing how to teach it are two entirely different things).

Have fun and happy flying.

Admiral Ackbar RTDT:
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that you can still jump of the hull to repair things. If your balloon is down or all engines are down you can't do much until they are up. On most ships the balloon is close to the helm so you can quickly jump off and hit it with your spanner. For example on the junker you only have to look up. Just be carful when leaving the helm. Putting the ship in neutral before jumping off will keep your ship from running off or turning when your engines get back up.

Mean Machine:
I'll keep it short and point out some wrong things that I see 80% new pilots doing.

- Don't show engines to your enemy
- Don't rely TOO MUCH on side guns, a lot of new pilots (especially i see it on goldfish) use that side flamer more than front gun :S Front gun is your primary weapon! Don't turn arcs away when front gun is reloaded! Learn reload times and then you can properly use both, front and side guns. Also communicate with your gunner.
- Don't use pilot tools like hydrogen just because. Use them only when it's absolutely needed, when you want to keep arcs, avoid hitting wall/rocks, when dodging etc..
- Don't fly with AI.
- Tell your crew what loadouts they should take. Tell them what are their positions and roles on ship.
- Communicate with your ally, if they dont reply, follow them and stick together.
- Don't fly junker with same weapons on both sides.

The fact that you have some experience with gunner and engineer that's very good, use that knowledge when you pilot. It will help you a lot. Good luck and have fun!

Squidslinger Gilder:
Want to get good, work on keeping your ship alive first, then build on that. All allies are expendable until you get it down. This focuses you on mastering 1v1 and thinking steps ahead. Understanding what your enemy is thinking and preparing ahead of time to counter. Then you apply those skills to allies and you'll find you are better to fly with. When your ally doesn't have to worry about you handling yourself, it frees them up to focus more on tactics and strategy. Same can be said for you. The best allies I've ever flown with, are the ones I don't have to be talking to or constantly checking the map for. When that doesn't happen, I end up constantly checking on their status which distracts from what I should be doing. This is a nail in the coffin for boats which rely on one another to be effective. If one goes down, the other can't to squat. End up losing a lot of matches.

I can't tell ya how many matches I've flown in now where even though my ally had a good build, I had absolutely no confidence in their flying. Usually in pubs you can just take a squid or munker then leave them to die. Pick off a couple kills for your trouble. But in veteran matches, oh its painful. You approach every engagement knowing its going to turn into a 2v1 and when that happens you just don't even want to engage.

I've flown with lots and the best pilots I've ran with are the ones who I don't have to worry about. I can just relay positions and ship placement and then realize they're either already in that position or going to it. Zuka used to be like this when I'd fly with him. Half the time he'd be drunk at the keyboard having a blast but for some reason, it never diminished his pilot skill to the point I'd have to constantly worry how he'd die or how I'll get out of a 2v1 after it. I'd be like..."Lets flank, attack two sides. This rock, that rock." he'd go: "*Zuka Giggle* YEAH LETS GET THOSE FILTHY PEASANTS!" If something went wrong, he'd be tanking till I arrived. Live through it with a sliver of HP but he'd be there. Then he'd go on and get another couple kills before going down. Why I'd never worry. Even if his ship was torn up, he'd be effective.

You could gauge all this this by calculating your K/D ratio, but Muse removed the stats last patch and screwed pilots here. So best thing I can say is to keep mental track. If you consistently go into matches where you score 3+ kills with few deaths, then you're getting there. Shows you think before you engage. Even if you lose the match thats fine. More important that you do well than it is winning the match. At least until you master it, then you can work on winning. Course winning starts coming naturally as you do better.

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