Piloting Consistency

[BlackenedPies]

Double carronade, incendiary ammo squid. One of the builds me and Zanc are trying... Unfortunately every crew we get someone drops incendiary for default, or heavy... Or someone asks to go gunner, so they take heavy, incendiary and heatsink, request engineer for fire control when they have 3 stacks and use heavy instead of inced.... But will keep pushing to test it to its full.

I like front greased and side incendiary. Preload the side with greased. I like the wrench buff extinguisher on front and spanner mallet buff side.

Piloting is all about awareness and an important aspect is knowing when you should engage. Sometimes your only option is to avoid fire while other times you can keep engaging when your ship is crippled. Ducking out of a fight for repairs can kill your ally so don't run away when they're engaging. Buffed balloons are amazing. #1 tip for piloting is burning lots of tools and smart stamina use. Using kerosene is cheap and spanner repairs twice as fast so burn it constantly.

[Ruairi]

Mindset is key. However there are multiple things that factor into this. I'll try to explain these as best as I can at this early hour... For instance, do you:

A. Play by the map you are flying on? E.g. Open spaces vs. close quarters, or something in between?
- Do you use terrain to flank?
- As cover?
- To manipulate your enemies arcs/approach so that you get the first shot...

B. Play by what the enemy team is taking and try to counter to the best of your abilities?
- What is the enemy good at? What are their weaknesses?
- If I do this, my enemy will do this... Therefore I will do this...
- How can I use this to my advantage?
- What is the enemy relying on to maximise their chances of winning?
- What tools and load outs does the enemy have? (2 buff kits? 1 buffkit and a gunner? Pilot hasn't taken any vertical tools. His arcs are this... Therefore I can do this...)

C. Your crews strengths coupled with your ship strengths?
- I am comfortable flying this ship on this map...
- My crew is capable of repairing and shooting these guns to this degree...

*Plus more that I am probably forgetting at this time...*

Usually I approach every battle with the aforementioned in mind, while adapting the following thought: "How can I minimise damage to myself and maximise the enemies pain?" 

Hope this helps!

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu

[Kamoba]

Double carronade, incendiary ammo squid. One of the builds me and Zanc are trying... Unfortunately every crew we get someone drops incendiary for default, or heavy... Or someone asks to go gunner, so they take heavy, incendiary and heatsink, request engineer for fire control when they have 3 stacks and use heavy instead of inced.... But will keep pushing to test it to its full.

I like front greased and side incendiary. Preload the side with greased. I like the wrench buff extinguisher on front and spanner mallet buff side.

Piloting is all about awareness and an important aspect is knowing when you should engage. Sometimes your only option is to avoid fire while other times you can keep engaging when your ship is crippled. Ducking out of a fight for repairs can kill your ally so don't run away when they're engaging. Buffed balloons are amazing. #1 tip for piloting is burning lots of tools and smart stamina use. Using kerosene is cheap and spanner repairs twice as fast so burn it constantly.

I was thinking of mixing greased on one and inced for the other, didn't think of prelpaded.greased but it does make.sense

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I'd actually avoid disable squids if you want to get better. Their strategy and tactics is reliant on maintaining position and winning the attrition battle. If you do this you are easy prey. You want to be evasive and able to change targets quickly. Its about the hit and run, not sit and grind down. Your eyes need to be focused more on what is around you and less on your target. Disable squid pilots and crews tend to get tunnel vision much quicker vs AT squids. The flow of movement on an AT squid is a bit more active as usually only the bow gun needs to be manned most of the time while the side gun is free to come and go. You only need the side gun when you have angle and you'll usually have a good 5-10 sec lead in alerting your crew of the coming movement. Disable squids need both guns maintaining to do anything. Flamer alone can't do enough, nor can a carro alone. Plus they have to be both maintained to get full effect.

One big reason I like flak on the side is because I can unload a full clip and reposition in minimal time. Mortar is useful against big ships cause you can rain down on them well. Banshee I don't use often as it puts me in a similar situation of needing more time or multiple passes to get a kill. But it is a good place to start to learn the build and get used to firing angles.

[Newbluud]

Noting a lot of things down here. It'll be a bit tedious for me to quote everything and go "yes, I agree!" so I won't. Just know that I'm loving all the advice coming in.

Apart from one thing:

Take carro/flame rather than gat banshee, and recognize that many allys can't support a squid, because they're more likely to try to run, engines exposed from the enemy, rather than force the enemy to pay attention to them instead of you. Understand that they're not going to be able to learn to divide attention between hull and engines the way it needs when they're still learning to prioritise whatsoever, and don't hate them for it.

People tell me to learn to pilot using squid, as it is hard, but of all the ships I fly, I have the most success on it. With use of vertical tools, flanking, getting and maintaining spots without being spotted and kiting those sluggish mobulas. I find it hardest to succeed on a galleon of all things, even with a good crew. I hate the playstyle of it. In response to the point about specialisation, I think more hands-on, fast-paced ships will be my strength in time to come.

Also, do not ever try to take my gat/banshee away from me. I'm married to it. It's probably the build I have the highest win ration in and often carry noobish allies simply by positioning around their incompetence.

Overall I feel a lot of the advice given for general piloting - playing to the map, coordinating with ally, using cover, flank routes etc. - is already pretty well internalised for me. It's maintaining it all at once and consistently. I have the tools, but some days I don't have the skill to use them, I guess.

Still, a better response than I expected. Less "do it more" and more actual pragmatic advice. I do know that "do it more" is the best way to get better, but it's doing so efficiently and ensuring I don't develop bad habits during.

[Hunter.]

Why would you need explosive damage when you have fire, terrain and tar?

Double carronade, incendiary ammo squid. One of the builds me and Zanc are trying... Unfortunately every crew we get someone drops incendiary for default, or heavy... Or someone asks to go gunner, so they take heavy, incendiary and heatsink, request engineer for fire control when they have 3 stacks and use heavy instead of inced.... But will keep pushing to test it to its full.

Count me in if you ever see me on to assist with testing.. for science!

[Dementio]

I find it hardest to succeed on a galleon of all things, even with a good crew. I hate the playstyle of it. In response to the point about specialisation, I think more hands-on, fast-paced ships will be my strength in time to come.

That doesn't sound like you have tried Brawlgalleons yet. But if you win so often with a Squid compared to other ships, maybe you have to learn yet that every other ship can be just as, uhm... stressful? adrenalin inducing? to pilot on as a Squid, kill or disable. I say that because it sounded like you start slacking off more the slower your ship is.

About that general piloting, I got used to always open the map for a second, every few seconds even when fighting somebody else, so I never lose track of any ally or enemy. And the Mobula made me pretty much perfect my Hydrogen timing, on a lot of ships. I also rarely don't use tools compared to other pilots. Maybe that is what you need? Just literally use everything available to you, all the time? (Some engineers may not handle the pressure.)



I tried a double Carro Squid once, before the nerf came out. Heavy clip and Incendiary on the front (gunner op) and Heavy clip on the side, to disable guns as quickly as possible and then grind them down. It didn't work in 4v4 and in 2v2s I missed my explosive damage.

[Newbluud]

I find it hardest to succeed on a galleon of all things, even with a good crew. I hate the playstyle of it. In response to the point about specialisation, I think more hands-on, fast-paced ships will be my strength in time to come.

That doesn't sound like you have tried Brawlgalleons yet. But if you win so often with a Squid compared to other ships, maybe you have to learn yet that every other ship can be just as, uhm... stressful? adrenalin inducing? to pilot on as a Squid, kill or disable. I say that because it sounded like you start slacking off more the slower your ship is.

About that general piloting, I got used to always open the map for a second, every few seconds even when fighting somebody else, so I never lose track of any ally or enemy. And the Mobula made me pretty much perfect my Hydrogen timing, on a lot of ships. I also rarely don't use tools compared to other pilots. Maybe that is what you need? Just literally use everything available to you, all the time? (Some engineers may not handle the pressure.)



I tried a double Carro Squid once, before the nerf came out. Heavy clip and Incendiary on the front (gunner op) and Heavy clip on the side, to disable guns as quickly as possible and then grind them down. It didn't work in 4v4 and in 2v2s I missed my explosive damage.

I'm sure they can, friend. I've gone brawl galleon a lot, even got a few moonshine galleon squashes in my time! But as soon as I'm against anyone that knows their arse from their elbow, I feel like nothing but a big target. My play feels passive instead of active. It's probably a problem with me, not the ship.

I actually think I overuse tools. I've overshot enemies with kero and hydro many a time, costing me that perfect engagement. I also treat chute vent too much like a crutch. It's good for disengaging as a squid but I think I do stupid things because in my head I feel I've got "escape enemy" bound to 4.

[BlackenedPies]

Rebind your keys. You need your map and target keys close by and ideally you need to be able to use all movement, throttle, number, and voice keys simultaneously without overlap. I use C map, X tab, F spot, and Shift/Ctrl for voice. The mouse buttons work great for throttle and my 1234 keys are Alt Mouse3 Mouse4 Q.

Get comfortable with all the ships. It's more fun for you and the crew to switch up the ship between matches. Galleon is a great ship but is very vulnerable to disable. I love brawl galleon with gat-minotaur-hwatcha carro-hwatcha and 2 buffs (buffed galleon OP). Learning how to mobula was a ton of fun (Ryder revelations).

Double carro squid relies on impact to do damage. Their balloon will never be alive. It can't kill without impacts but is certainly viable. It works well with AI and is often better than AI gat banshee. Double flame squid used to be a perfect AI ship and I had a 43 match win streak in an all AI flame squid.

[Newbluud]

Rebind your keys. You need your map and target keys close by and ideally you need to be able to use all movement, throttle, number, and voice keys simultaneously without overlap. I use C map, X tab, F spot, and Shift/Ctrl for voice. The mouse buttons work great for throttle and my 1234 keys are Alt Mouse3 Mouse4 Q.

Get comfortable with all the ships. It's more fun for you and the crew to switch up the ship between matches. Galleon is a great ship but is very vulnerable to disable. I love brawl galleon with gat-minotaur-hwatcha carro-hwatcha and 2 buffs. Learning how to mobula was a ton of fun (Ryder revelations).

Double carro squid relies on impact to do damage. Their balloon will never be alive. It can't kill without impacts but is certainly viable. It works well with AI and often better than AI gat banshee.

As it stands, my keybindings are default bar my throttle/tar (mouse 1,2 and 3). I'll look into some more ergonomic keybindings some time soon, then proceed to fail due to how not used to them I am. I have no doubt, however, that they'll help in the long run.

Squid is my go to if I'm intimidated by my enemies, which I feel is ass-backwards for most pilots who'd go squid when they feel safer. I do try to branch out though. I want to be adept at all and impressive at some specialist builds. I feel I get a feel and in the zone for one ship at a time though, so when I switch up, I forget how to play. 

[Daft Loon]

Whatever you do make sure to rebind map and captains spot. The importance of map is as others mentioned and m is a logical but really unhelpful binding for it. Captains spot is very useful because your crew can't afford to stand around button-mashing their spyglasses at clouds but for the pilot it is essentially free if bound to a convenient key and gets you spots you wouldn't otherwise get.

[BlackenedPies]

I agree squid is often a safe choice, but is also the most complicated to engineer on. Switching up the ships will make you a well rounded pilot and will help you understand how enemy pilots and crews react. Giving crew orders is great practice as captain. I find it useful to constantly keep the crew informed of the situation as they often have a limited view.

Have fun with loadouts. My two new favorite are double mortar mobula and hades Minotaur spire. With double hades Minotaur spire you use buffed heavy clip Minotaur and greased hades (one buffed greased). Burn in and rain down greased hades with the Minotaur for disruption.

The mobula has left side greased banshee-mortar, top buffed burst mortar, and right side incendiary flare-carro. The top buff engi buffs left engine, runs to right, and jumps to top (if the top engi is buffing your engine, tap the main engine). They then rebuff engines and prebuff balloon with the goal of maximizing buff time before combat. Sammy calls it the stealth fire ship because we burn in then rain fire damage down. All the guns start fires and mortars do enough damage to break components. Combat flares are a thing. Armor break = death.

[Dementio]

Rebinding may help you, but it may also not since I have no problems with the default ones. Map on "M" for the win!

And if you overuse tools then may just don't use them for a time and find out when you actually need them.
I myself find it very relaxing to pilot without using tools, I am even going so far to start that sandbox lobby and roam it with a Pyramidion. The lack of having to use Phoenix claw on the Mobula is one of the things I like when piloting it. However, because competitive expects you to be as quick as possible, I don't stop using them.

Double Carronade on the Galleon I like, double Carronade on the Squid is really really slow and then there is that other ship too!



Btw, I am just talking about random stuff. I don't really think there is consistent piloting. In competitive I see it time and time again that I win just because I managed to fuck up less than the enemy ship and the same applies everytime I don't win. Maybe you really need to go full competitive for a little bit to minimize your lack of cinsistency by flying against pilots that make you?

[BlackenedPies]

Double carro kills just as fast as carro flame if not faster. Of course it's less effective on maps with higher flight ceilings but on others it can quickly lock the ship into terrain and ram. It's slow but so are all tactics relying on balloon popping (lumberfish ftw). Unless I'm mistaken ram force = 1/2 m * v^2

Again, being captain is all about awareness. I'm not sure if going straight into competitive is the right call. If you want to then it'll be a great experience but it can add stress. I recommend vet matches.

[Newbluud]

I have no intention of piloting competitively. I already crew as part of the main Predators roster and am getting proficient at that. I'm in my happy place as a gungineer. I just want to improve as much as I can at all aspects of the game, piloting included.

I feel I talk about piloting the most because it's the area I've got the most room to improve.