How do you use aerospace properly?

[CHHš Jazz]

My ASF Tips (I apologize for any repeats  ):

-Avoid AA (obviously). If AA is close to your base, don't even launch. Wait till allied units take it out.

-Coordinate with ground: If they don't destroy it, they better have pressure on that enemy AA position before you move in to support.

-Ground forces are covering you just as much as you're covering them. Their front line is your front line. Fly beyond it and you're on your own.

-NARC + Keeping your distance = Success. Especially with the Thunderbolt Sulla and the LRM-boat Shiva.

-Don't expect dogfighting in beta right now - balance makes that highly unlikely anyways. Stick to ranged support and passive dive bombing if the AA is skimpy enough.

Good hunting

[Redvan]

avoiding AA would work... if the AA didn't have a huge range...

and yeah, one parti will take out 3 aero easy... doesn't even have to be a very good parti driver

it used to be fun when anti air responsibility was spread between AA tanks and air superiority fighters.  But now the Sulla Prime is basically worthless because Parti AA is so much easier to use, and can easily keep 3-4 aeros down.

[Perk]

I love the Hawkmoth but am not such a huge fan of the other Aero atm.  The Moth can hide in terrain and slides around the map avoiding AA with few problems.  The ASFs have to keep up speed and can't terrain mask.  With the basically unlimited range of the AC5s, they're just coldcuts on the tray.

It's too easy for one AA tank to sit behind the mech line, basically impervious, and shut down all Air activity on the map.  The only real counter at the moment is a suicide slash attack with a UAC20 Shadowkitty or similar, and then hope the AA driver decides to switch to a mech.  I don't mind that the AA tanks are deadly to Aero, that serves a valid role of balancing the Aero's mobility and protecting the frontline mechs.  There just needs to be a way for the Aero drivers to reasonably fight back.

I'd like to see the T-bolt get a damage bonus against the Partisan, to the point where it's a one shot kill against side or rear armor.  That's a massive missile hitting a light tank, and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to think it can overmatch light armor.  Besides, if I'm good enough to sneak into range with a Hawkmoth, NARC, and get a T-Bolt off before I get shredded, that Partisan driver deserves to die =)

[Perk]

As for tips...  The Hawkmoth is awesome with a HOTAS setup + rudder pedals.  I mapped the joystick to the roll and pitch axis, and the rudder pedals to the yaw axis. 

If your joystick drivers support it, setting joystick curves is especially helpful.  This allows for the joystick inputs to be scaled down the closer to the center they are - meaning if I deflect the stick 10%, it only sends a 1% control impetus, but when I'm deflected 100% it's 100% impetus.  This allows for very fine control in the center of the stick and pedals while still retaining a high overall sensitivity and full command authority.  Extremely useful for blipping the crosshairs over a mech to start lock-on while still moving.

Don't forget the Hawkmoth thrusters.  I flew for a couple of days before I found that one.  While the Hawkmoth can be easily moved about like a helicopter - tilting the nose down to vector the lift and move forward - it's also got a thruster that can move it forward faster while keeping the nose level.  It's the same key as the Afterburners or MASC (left shift by default).

Don't be afraid of all three dimensions.  The Hawkmoth is a highly maneuverable little bastard, and it doesn't have the lift problems that a real VTOL would when upside down.  You can point the nose directly at the ground, get a lock on, NARC flip it over on its back, do a barrel roll, and pop right back up to salvo your missiles.  It's also extremely effective to point the nose at the ground and light off the thruster to go screaming towards the deck and that wonderful masking terrain.

Terrain is your friend.  Hide behind it.  Slide around it.  Pop up from behind it, attack, and then duck behind it again.  They can't shoot you if they can't see you.

Turn off your damn radar.  Unless you need it to lock up an enemy, turn it off.  You're small and can pop up above terrain to visually spot, you don't need the radar to tell you where they are, there's no reason to use it to tell THEM where YOU are.

NARC stationary targets from range with the radar off.  The NARC missiles are unreliable beyond 1k and can sometimes tumble, but you can often get good hits out to 2k by dumbfiring.  Since you're mostly going to be hunting missleboats and Longtoms anyway (at least that's what *I* do with the Hawkmoth muahah), they're quite likely to be stationary.

[Aposiopesis]

You fly around with the LRM hawkmoth and use easysauce LRMs to make enough money for the Sulla B, then you use narcs + lolbolts to drive people mad and make a crapton of money until someone on their team goes AA, in which case you use the money you made with the lolbolts to get a good mech because that one AA tank has officialy rendered the entire map unflyable if the guy in the partisan is even slightly skilled. Then you wait until later in the game where the partyvan driver is no longer around because he's getting owned by big mechs and there's no aircraft to shoot, then you use the money you hopefully made with mechs to either A: go easysauce LRMs again with the 4 LRM 20 Shiva, or B: you want to practice so you can actually be good at aeros when LRMs eventually get nerfed so you have fun with the gauss Shiva, until someone buys a single AA partisan again, once again rendering your (and 3 other people's) 90k CB aero useless on the entire frigging map with a single 47k CB tank.

That pretty much sums it up.

(MWLL is still in early beta)

[RenoBlade [GDL]]

before starting a new topic about the same...
i dont have a joystick for ASF /VTOL atm and its very difficult to fly one. as soon as the VTOL starts sinking down without the engine hovering, i lose my aim and usualy get sniped down.
its much worse on ASF because of the short time untill you get too close to the ground, often results in a crash before getting killed.

i like to know if its even possible to fly these things with a mouse.
on the other side, it seems i cant get enemy ASF down as easy as they do get me down.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

use the num key pad for tiered throttling.

Dog fighting with a KB/M is hard, but doable if the other guy isn't awesome.

[sgnl05]

• The Anti-Aircraft cannons are overpowered now, so Aerospaces are VERY hard to use. It's a great shame... but next patch will fix it

Compared to what? 0.2.0?

I really hope this isn't true

[^sPikE-]

• The Anti-Aircraft cannons are overpowered now, so Aerospaces are VERY hard to use. It's a great shame... but next patch will fix it

Compared to what? 0.2.0?

I really hope this isn't true

that post was from way back in april. 0.3 just came out, so its plausible he was referring to the previous verison. 

[sgnl05]

Ahaha, I should learn to read post dates.

I was really concerned for a second there 

[Phasics]

The real trick is your angle of approach

Firstly you can scout where the enemy will be from a safe height, your fast they are slow odds are they be in a similar spot when you come back

Second attack runs should be from either the side or behind where you forces are attacking, for the simple reason they unless somone gets a radar ping they rarely if ever look left/right or behind them to check the skies, this includes AA most of the time they look ahead so they can snipe mechs while waiting for a soft aero to pop in.

And lastly radar , active radar gets you killed , period , passive radar gives you a 50/50 chance

as reommended above dumbfire weapons are best since you need never turn on your radar
if you want to use the 80LRM boat look for stationary target and fire in passive mode without lock, they won't get a missle warning so chances are they won't move if they're already standing still.

and ONE volley per run, don't get cute and try for 2 it'll have you in close enough that thier active radar will see you even though your passive and your dead.

And lastly, if they are spamming AA units don't get pissed and slam your head against a wall, grab the biggest mech you can buy with a high dmg alpha, passive radar and walk behind enemy lines and smack those AA units right in the face , and keep doing that until they get tried of it and swap back to mechs, in which case you then go back to air hehehe 

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

as soon as the VTOL starts sinking down without the engine hovering, i lose my aim and usualy get sniped down.

Try this: Press [K] than adjust speed of the VTOL. [K] switches between acceleration modes.

its much worse on ASF because of the short time untill you get too close to the ground, often results in a crash before getting killed.

Don't dive-bomb. Use classical approach, with something about -30^o, drop bombs/missiles, than pull up. Don't drop Fbombs if you are less than 30 meters above the ground cause you'll get damage from the explosion.

And lastly, if they are spamming AA units don't get pissed and slam your head against a wall, grab the biggest mech you can buy with a high dmg alpha, passive radar and walk behind enemy lines and smack those AA units right in the face , and keep doing that until they get tried of it and swap back to mechs, in which case you then go back to air hehehe 

I love this tactic! Though stopped using it after reading all these frustrated people trying to AA. It makes me feel bad now ~_~

[Squibby]

Stay away from mechs and vehicles armed with LBX cannons... don't go near them, don't drop low, don't loiter in the area within 400m of them and above all don't overfly them...

Unless you enjoy being one shotted out of the sky.

If you've got a deathwish and you feel the need to attack them. Go passive and hit em at range with LRMs or direct fire weapons, preferably from behind. After shooting them break off hard and don't come anywhere near them let alone overfly them.

If you have to overfly them, hit your burners and gain altitude as fast as possible.

I say this as a guy who rolls around in the lbx heavy hitters who's blown up his fair share of planes swooping over me and loitering around at low level.