The Tip Jar, a collection of community tips

[JaceBoojah]

My tip for pros:

After you have your crew communications skills down FLY SQUIDS

Think about Goku training in 100x gravity.

The harder you make things for yourself the better you will become.

[Qwerty Kun]

Best.
Advice.
Ever.

[Keon]

I sure hope Goku doesn't get this game, though. I'm pretty sure a Kamehameha could kill through voice chat.

[Keon]

Gunner-Captain communication is important. Saying "Turn left so I can hit him" is good, it lets your captain know exactly where he needs to be, which is crucial when using the mercury.

[Helmic]

When shit hits the fan, make light of the situation.  I win more games with cock jokes and vulgar metaphors and similes than I do by actual competence.

Man it feels good to come out of a 2v1 with 2 kills. It's not a situation you should willingly go into but sometimes when life gives you lemons...

Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with them? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who 's going to burn your house down! With the lemons. I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

-Cave Johnson

I love you.

RTFM

Actually the fucking manual is pretty fucking useless.  Really wordy, doesn't communicate the game mechanics all that well, you can't refer to it while playing youhavetomemorizethewholedamnthingaheadoftimeWHYYYYYYYYY, not a good replacement for a proper tutorial which I believe is already being worked on.  I kind of compare any shitty tutorial with Portal, game design in general has progressed past boring tutorials and manuals.

[HamsterIV]

Manual tells new players the importance of listening to pilot/captain, the difference between repair and rebuild, and how to spot. That is all I need a new player to know before they join my ship.

[Helmic]

Manual tells new players the importance of listening to pilot/captain, the difference between repair and rebuild, and how to spot. That is all I need a new player to know before they join my ship.

It also hides that among a lot of not-as-useful information.  The tools, for example, can be completely be replaced by a link to the Roles screen, preferably with an overlay telling you how to switch stuff out.  The tools already explain how they work, and moreover they're always kept up to date.  No need to worry about an outdated manual.

Of course, a game like this that relies on a rather lengthy manual is doing something wrong.  The REAL tutorial as of right now is other players, the explanations we give during the heat of battle are some of the most concise and useful stuff there is.  Seriously, just record someone that's known for quickly training newbies while he's quickly training newbies, edit it for readability, and present that as the new manual.  Ideally that tutorial will come out with Adventure Mode and will put you through a fun little mission to explain all the bits and baubles in detail without boring you to death.

[Keon]

Ask others for help! Best tip out there.

[HamsterIV]

Back in my day we had proper manuals. My fist boxed video game was about he battle of Brittan, it came with a 150 page manual that had a description for what each dial on the flight sim was. It had pages dedicated to multi step air to air manuvers. It also had a summarized history of the first half of World War 2, major air battles, and the bios of famous aces.

[Helmic]

And you walked ten miles to school in the snow uphill both ways.

[JaceBoojah]

If you jump around on the rope next to the front gun on a Goldfish you can stand on top of the front.

You can see everything from up there!

Its great for....Spotting.

[N-Sunderland]

If you jump around on the rope next to the front gun on a Goldfish you can stand on top of the front.

You can see everything from up there!

Its great for....Spotting.

XD

I prefer the roof myself. Gives a full 360° view and quick access to the entire ship.

[N-Sunderland]

A few common misconceptions:

-Being an engineer doesn't mean that you never have to shoot. In fact, if you're a gungineer, you'll spend most of the game shooting.
-The balloon isn't the most important target on the enemy ship. Most guns are weak against it. Target the hull unless you're using a carronade, lumberjack, or maybe a flamer.
-Hitting a component during its cooldown doesn't do anything at all.
-Ramming isn't a dumb, brainless type of manoeuvre. A good ram actually takes a lot of skill to pull off.

[Coldcurse]

a couple of tips:

Tip 1: speak clearly.
if people cant understand you, they wont listen.

Tip 2: try different roles.
if your sticking with one role and your bad at it, such as pilotting, people will start to dislike you.
try out different roles to get more experience in playing the game.

Tip 3: DONT !@#$!@ CURSE AT YOUR CAPTAIN
he will grab you and throw you off the ship.

Tip 4: use the spyglass to spot the enemy
not for erotic uses, unfortunatly.

Tip 5: Last words
when you are going to die, dont say f**k. try to yell QUACK QUACK! or POTATOES!. it keeps up the team spirit.

[Morblitz]

when you are going to die, dont say f**k. try to yell QUACK QUACK! or POTATOES!. it keeps up the team spirit.

Sorry dude you got it backwards. It's for when you obliterate your foe in a fiery blaze of awesomeness. You are right about it keeping team spirits high, though.