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Piloting Consistency

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Newbluud:
Going to preface this by saying that even at my best, I've got nothing on most competitive pilots and don't expect to. The biggest dream I have with piloting is to be a substitute for T.Pr if all our pilots are otherwise engaged.

Even so, here we go.

I like to read up on guides and practice my piloting in pub games, because I feel, despite usually having a slight level advantage over other players that play pub and don't engage in vet lobbies/any form of competitive, it's very hit or miss whether I'll be an asset or a dead weight to my team. I feel I contribute most as a squid, but have done my best to avoid specialising too heavily and being pinned to just the one ship. That being said, I find that my piloting on a good day is way, way too far from my piloting on a bad day.

I understand that you can't win them all, and often you'll find yourself just not in the flow of it. Be it poor work with your ally or poor work with your crew, this happens. However, it can't just be coincidence that I can carry as a kill squid vs enemies of equal experience in some games, then proceed to do nothing except fail to support my ally or feed the enemy points in the next. It's incredibly frustrating when I know I can stomp some enemies I'm facing, but proceed to get eaten alive anyway. It's taking away my motivation to do anything except stay safe in my main engi role.

I guess the question that all that waffle is leading up to is: How do you remain as consistent as you can in piloting? Is it just a matter of more experience, or is there any kind of mindset I should adjust to in order to prevent dropping from 900 matches to 15 in terms of ability?

Don't expect this to be a long thread, but any kind of advice would be nice and it might help some people with the same issue.

Dementio:
Just: Have fun

This is (mostly) what I did ever since I started the game. I had fun by flying the ships that I wanted to fly, by talking to my crew and making my ally pilot be aware of how bad we are going to lose. They had fun, I had fun, communication was present, we won, sometimes.

In public lobbies, victory is just out of your control. Maybe one of your crewmembers screwed up or your ally can't keep up or you didn't keep up as you need to or maybe your enemy actually learned from the past match and decided beating you up instead of your ally is the better choice.
Or maybe you are just mentally exhausted and are unable to play according to your own standards. Who knows, you should.

You can't win them all.

But doing silly things tends to work more often than not.

Dryykon:
Don't listen to filthy casuals: fly mob with high dps - profit.

More seriously... Most of flying is critical thinking (until a few hundred hours, where it becomes more automatic). Some matches I fly much better than other ones, based on the amount of effort I'm willing to put into decision making. Or how tired I am.

I imagine if you keep flying the squid, you will eventually know what to do in the vast majority of situations, and notice your overall consistency become decently stable.

Newbluud:

--- Quote from: Dryykon on September 22, 2015, 02:50:40 pm ---Don't listen to filthy casuals: fly mob with high dps - profit.

More seriously... Most of flying is critical thinking (until a few hundred hours, where it becomes more automatic). Some matches I fly much better than other ones, based on the amount of effort I'm willing to put into decision making. Or how tired I am.

I imagine if you keep flying the squid, you will eventually know what to do in the vast majority of situations, and notice your overall consistency become decently stable.

--- End quote ---
Considering I held my own and took a match 5-1 in a vet lobby just now, piloting kill squid as engineer (pilot DC), I think I'm getting to that sort of level with the squid. Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps.

However, the consistency issue does bother me, it's making it hard to be confident and that costs us, I feel.

ZnC:
Great advice given so far - have fun, and decision making. Indeed, many things are out of control in pubs and you simply cannot win them all. The coolest thing I found about piloting is that it's more about analyzing the situation and making decisions rather than simply positioning a ship. That's the reason why I started learning how to pilot, since I often make good decisions and have solid fundamentals as Gunner and Engi.

The advice I would give is to find and discuss tactics with someone you're comfortable with. Recently, I've been sharing and trying out different Squid builds with Kamoba; it makes the game a lot more interesting and motivating to play. Try not to push yourself over with frustration and blindly practice, take small breaks until you regain confidence.

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