Flying Lessons - Rule The Skies
Wraithman
Join Date: 2002-11-14 Member: 8600Members
Join Date: 2002-11-14 Member: 8600Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How to not become a greasy pancake</div> Here is some help on the art of flying, the lerk way (which is really the only way to fly) !!
- First rule of flying. Adrenaline. You can fly without it, but your ability to fly and attack is fairly negated... I see newb lerks all the time flying as fast as they can into a group of enemy, dropping down and finding they cant attack because they used all of their energy flying... with adrenaline, once you learn your rythmn, you can fly indefinatly as your energy will be replaced as fast as you use it.
- Getting around - Flying is all about rythmn. If you are planning on flying long distances, especially if you dont have adrenaline, you need to learn how to fly conservativly. You cant take off in a sprint and expect to keep those speeds up through tight corners. the best rythmn to get into is pressing jump at the apex of your previous "flap", this will get you the most movement with the least energy being used... you wont be going at top speeds, but top speed is really only for evasive manuvers and when you need to get somewhere close very fast... if you just press jump while moving forward (without holding down a direction) you will continue to go forward in that direction, but all the effort from that flap will be upward... so it will give you a sharper acent than if you hold forward/backward/ect while flapping. of course the faster you flap the faster you will rise. different combinations of holding forward and staying neutral along with different flapping speeds will get you different angles of climb. Try practince hitting a vent in a wall perfectly, preferably one that is just a hole in a wall with more wall above it as well so the celing doesnt guide you in, that way you know you are hitting it right...
- Making it around the corners - A lerk's abliity to turn around a corner is well nigh nonexistant. If you just turn your view, you will continue to fly sideways right into the wall. You need to understand how to apply force properly so you end up going the way you need to... this is pretty easy to visualize if you've ever played asteroids. You know, that old atari/arcade game... To go a different direction, you'd have to apply force opposite the way you were previously heading enough to negate traveling that direction while also putting force in the direction you want to end up at... When you go into a corner, turn the way the tunnel goes and a little bit past that, so you are pointing slightly back the way you came, use a couple of flaps to slow you down to where you are almost stationary , point straight down the corridor and hold forward and flap a couple of times, not too fast, cause you arnt shooting for the celing! Once you get to where you can do that easily, use strafe flying to slow down instead of turning backwards somewhat, that way you are ready to engage any enemy that will be there. Of course the faster you are flying, the sooner you will have to start to compensate for the turn.
- Stalling and gliding - Stalling is a very usefull tactic as a lerk. It is a way to stop rather suddenly as a surprise attack or to land on a small ledge or pipe. When you are going forward, usually rather fast, get almost to the point you want to stop at and pull up slightly, then hold back and flap a couple of times quickly till you lose all forward momentum. you want to make sure you dont do it so much that you start going backwards though... This is great for landing on small objects, or dropping down in a narrow space between a turret factory and a wall, ect. one thing to note is that lerks seem to fall slower than other guys (at least from what it seems to me) even when not gliding so make sure you are as low to your LZ as possible before you do this, unless you are not under the gun. Gliding is a perfect way to save and build up energy while you are flying, if you have a long corridor to go through, get near the top, hold forward and glide down the entire length of corridor, you may need to flap once or twice, but not too much and is a great way to gain back energy on the move. gliding is also silent, so if you need to be really quiet, use a glide...
I dont want this to get too long, but i have lots more i can say, so If anyone finds this helpfull i'll post more notes on attacking while flying and more advanced flying manuvers i've learned... let me know. It is my opinion though that a lerk who doesnt know how to fly is no good to his team and should just stay skulk or go fade! Lerks are one of the most powerfull classes when used correctly and the better you are, the better you can help your team! Good Gaming!
- First rule of flying. Adrenaline. You can fly without it, but your ability to fly and attack is fairly negated... I see newb lerks all the time flying as fast as they can into a group of enemy, dropping down and finding they cant attack because they used all of their energy flying... with adrenaline, once you learn your rythmn, you can fly indefinatly as your energy will be replaced as fast as you use it.
- Getting around - Flying is all about rythmn. If you are planning on flying long distances, especially if you dont have adrenaline, you need to learn how to fly conservativly. You cant take off in a sprint and expect to keep those speeds up through tight corners. the best rythmn to get into is pressing jump at the apex of your previous "flap", this will get you the most movement with the least energy being used... you wont be going at top speeds, but top speed is really only for evasive manuvers and when you need to get somewhere close very fast... if you just press jump while moving forward (without holding down a direction) you will continue to go forward in that direction, but all the effort from that flap will be upward... so it will give you a sharper acent than if you hold forward/backward/ect while flapping. of course the faster you flap the faster you will rise. different combinations of holding forward and staying neutral along with different flapping speeds will get you different angles of climb. Try practince hitting a vent in a wall perfectly, preferably one that is just a hole in a wall with more wall above it as well so the celing doesnt guide you in, that way you know you are hitting it right...
- Making it around the corners - A lerk's abliity to turn around a corner is well nigh nonexistant. If you just turn your view, you will continue to fly sideways right into the wall. You need to understand how to apply force properly so you end up going the way you need to... this is pretty easy to visualize if you've ever played asteroids. You know, that old atari/arcade game... To go a different direction, you'd have to apply force opposite the way you were previously heading enough to negate traveling that direction while also putting force in the direction you want to end up at... When you go into a corner, turn the way the tunnel goes and a little bit past that, so you are pointing slightly back the way you came, use a couple of flaps to slow you down to where you are almost stationary , point straight down the corridor and hold forward and flap a couple of times, not too fast, cause you arnt shooting for the celing! Once you get to where you can do that easily, use strafe flying to slow down instead of turning backwards somewhat, that way you are ready to engage any enemy that will be there. Of course the faster you are flying, the sooner you will have to start to compensate for the turn.
- Stalling and gliding - Stalling is a very usefull tactic as a lerk. It is a way to stop rather suddenly as a surprise attack or to land on a small ledge or pipe. When you are going forward, usually rather fast, get almost to the point you want to stop at and pull up slightly, then hold back and flap a couple of times quickly till you lose all forward momentum. you want to make sure you dont do it so much that you start going backwards though... This is great for landing on small objects, or dropping down in a narrow space between a turret factory and a wall, ect. one thing to note is that lerks seem to fall slower than other guys (at least from what it seems to me) even when not gliding so make sure you are as low to your LZ as possible before you do this, unless you are not under the gun. Gliding is a perfect way to save and build up energy while you are flying, if you have a long corridor to go through, get near the top, hold forward and glide down the entire length of corridor, you may need to flap once or twice, but not too much and is a great way to gain back energy on the move. gliding is also silent, so if you need to be really quiet, use a glide...
I dont want this to get too long, but i have lots more i can say, so If anyone finds this helpfull i'll post more notes on attacking while flying and more advanced flying manuvers i've learned... let me know. It is my opinion though that a lerk who doesnt know how to fly is no good to his team and should just stay skulk or go fade! Lerks are one of the most powerfull classes when used correctly and the better you are, the better you can help your team! Good Gaming!
Comments
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- "Hit the brakes, and they'll fly right on by!" - Maverick - Top Gun
When being chased by those lovely marines, Always have an escape route, if you have a plan on how to aviod and counterattack you will tear them up. I love doing this little trick. When a light armored marine is chasing you (heavies have no prayer of keeping in sight), get to a doorway around a corner or out of sight of the marine and do a stall as you cross the threashold, then immediatly flap straight up a couple of times rather quickly to go right above the doorway. at your apex, hold jump to slowly and silently glide down. If there is a ledge above the doorway, fly backwards as you go up so you land on the ledge, facing into the room you just entered... then when the little tbone with legs runs into the room after you, have your way with him like a cheap prom date! you have to be able to time this right if there is nothing to land on, so that you dont drop down untill he is inside the room, usually, they hear the flapping and think you are running for the hills so they press on full speed ahead and are not too aware of their surroundings... the best place i can remeber to do this on is on the map (i forget it's name) with the Cargo bay hive and the Great viaduct hive. There is a room that has an small octagonal whole in the middle of the room with a resource tower nearby, fairly close to marine base (i think it's called the Generator room or something) there is a ledge right above the door that only a skulk or lerk can get onto and they never check it when they run in cause it's right above them.
- Know thy map
If you know where a corridor goes, you will be able to anticipate the twists and turns of it and will find that you run into walls and outcroppings less and less... When flying to get somewhere, and not to run away, try to stay in the middle of the corridor, so little outcroppings dont slow you up or stop you... this wastes a lot of time. A lerk, especially mid game when 2 hives are up, should be the fast moving reinforcements that can get from one hive to the other without the aid of movement chambers (though they are nice) and help patch up or protect vital targets. a lerk needs to know the quickest way to get from one area to another. One thing to note, the quickest way is not nessiarily the shortest when flying, especially for novice flyers, the quickest way is the straightest. the less turns you have to take the better. With a lerks primary role being a master hit and run artist, you need to know and be aware of your surroundings at all times. with your speed, you can usually take a long loop around and attack the enemy from behind before they even know you are not in front of them anymore.
- when fighting marines, distance is a big factor in how well you do, the farther away you are, the less they hit you, but the easier it is to track your movements, the closer you are, the faster you take damage, but the harder it is to keep a bead on you flapping around and if you are very close, umbra on them and you can fly around inside of it and attack them. vs light machine guns, stay very close as they need to hit you with continuous fire to take you down and it's going to be hard to do that if you are flapping around their heads. With shotgun, keep a medium distance as one shot point blank is all it takes to take you out. if they run out of ammo, swoop in for a bite to eat. heavy machine gun depends on the wielder, if they cant aim well, or are in light armor, swoop in close and get em, if they are a good shot or have heavy armor, usually stay a bit back as it only takes a second of point blank fire to gib you. your personal style of fighting will evolve as you learn your own tricks.
- Another good trick to play on marines is the stall attack.... When you are engaging a marine in semi-close to medium quarters, fly straight at him a little bit above his head very fast, then as you are right above him, do a stall and fall down right in front of him. Most "clever" players will turn around thinking they can unload on you as you fly past them, turning their back to you. If you are too low they wont turn around and if you are too high it will take too long to reach the ground, ruining your advantage, so practice it. You may want to umbra when you land or right before you stall to help with the confusion.
- umbra dive bomb - This is kind of like the stall attack but you fly over their heads, and right above them swoop down and release an umbra slightly above their heads. keep flying over them and around a corner or turn around and munch away. This is especially great if you are in the company of a couple skulks or fades, either you will distract the marine, allowing your buddies to close the distance in time for you to envelope him (and your buddies) in a protective umbra, or he will totally ignore you and keep attacking your friends, so you can attack him from behind with the protection of your umbra, this will encourage your buddies to run up and deal with him as well... everybody knows umbra = safety!
- fly by biting - Faced with a light marine or a heavy one that you cant afford to duke it out with, fly at them like dive bomb, but bite them at head level and do a flap sideways so you jink out of the way and can keep flying down the hallway after the bite. Get around a corner and hide, if they dont come after you in a couple seconds, go back and get them again from the other way!
- be the bait - You are the most mobile of the aliens and can dodge bullets with ease, lead those killhungry marines into certain death! make a marine follow you to an ambush by playing the lame duck, or harrassing them enough with spikes till they charge after you... it's very easy to stay one turn ahead of them, letting them come around the corner just in time to see you go around the next... right into the waiting arms of 3 hiding skulks! When you are running away, jink back and forth across the hallway and vary your flapps so you go up and down erratically, making you harder to hit, but also slowing you down so that the slow marines can keep up, by the time they reach the trap, they will probably be low on their current clip and easy prey for a friendly laying in wait.
- when helping skulks attack an enemy encampment, (usually before 2nd hive is up, hence no umbra) take one for the team and flap around the room madly in a circle before they rush in.. if you move fast enough and erratically enough, the turrets will not hit you very often and most will lock onto you, allowing the skulks to rush in to dismantle the place... you will most likely die from this, especially till you get more practice, but it will really help them do their job.. they can strip the place bare qucker if they dont have to worry about 5 turrets chewing them to pieces... Once you get umbra, well no turret on earth can stop you then!
I'll have more info on taking out turrets and using umbra soon here, but i dont want one post being 3 pages so im trying to break it up.. Give me feedback and Post your own nuggets of stratigy for us all. lerk is one of the hardest classes to learn to use properly, but one of the most powerfull as well!
stickification?
I'll go with the sticky.
We need a lerk emoticon.
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> --------------------------------------------------------- <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
go play joust
Easily the best training for Lerk flying possible.
You wanna link it?
Another useful strat:
If you glide, you can rotate and shoot freely. Therefore, with some control finesse, you can strife-glide past marines. Just keep gliding, turn and shoot. You'll be moving one way and shooting the other way. While they are busy trying to follow you, you can pepper them with darts...
I believe that in the right hands, the lark can be virually invulnerable to all weapons. And I'm not talking umbra either.
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- Lerk is the ultimate anti-turret weapon. Once that second hive is up, the lerks job, unless he is supporting an offensive movement for some fades/onos, is to take out each and every enemy outpost that he can find. With practice, you should be able to take out any base (with the exception of the main base, or one that is overzelously guarded) on your own. Do not underestimate the power of Umbra. 7 out of 8 bullets shot at you will not hit you (i believe) so dont be afraid to charge right into those turrets... You should be able to bite a turret to death without taking more than one shot, and a tf without going less than half your life. Make sure you always try to position yourself within the umbra so that you are being blocked from as many shots as possible by the building you are attacking or other buildings in the outpost. Most marine commanders leave excallent deadzones where only 1 or 2 turrets can shoot you from, sometimes none at all. If you find such an area where no turrets can hit you, chomp away, but put your umbra up anyway or leave enough energy in reserve for it incase a marine stumbles upon you. It will save your life more than once. Most marine outposts are buildings so condensed that the marine may not always be able to even get a shot at you till you come out anyway.... Whenever you take out the TF (which should always be priority number one as it allows everyone else to safely rush in and help you, everyone likes to help once the TF is down!) and you get started on the buildings that dont shoot back, make sure and postion yourself so that the building you are attacking is between you and the most likely avenue of aproach by the enemy. That way they cant hit you right away when they walk into the room, and if you are behind something big like a Res Tower, where you can see past it pretty well, but it blocks you from most fire, keep it between you and the marine and chomp away like you dont have a care, when he tries to circle around it to get you, circle with him, keeping it between the two of you... This works especially well if the Tower is in a corner, circle it with him till he is in the corner, then run around and attack him, he will have a hard time avoiding your teeth when you have him trapped between the res tower and 2 walls with barely enough room to move (or for the more timid or badly damaged alien, this is your oportunity to flee, while he has the Res tower blocking a quick chase....) Whenever you attack an outpost that is guarded, take the guard out top priority, or find some way to lure him away from the base... marines dont seem to realize how much more effective their defenses are when an actual player is overlooking them... Turrets are like minefields, they are easy to get by, the more there are the longer it takes... throw in a marine guarding them, and suddenly, untill you take the marine out, time is not a luxury you have. Even if you do take him out, you will be on the clock at that point as he will be coming back for you, probably with help or a bigger gun... Another note.... dont use spikes for structures unless you have all the time in the world or there are so many turrets you are ripped to pieces despite umbra protection.... your bite takes out buildings infinatly quicker and is more conservative of your precious energy.
- Lerks are the only class with the ability to keep up sustained assaults on the enemy base.
With the lerks extreme mobility combined with his protective umbra (and with the 3rd hive, deadly spore cloud farts) the lerk has all the tools he needs to harass and annoy the enemy commander at the place he should feel safe, home base. You can easily turn the tide of a fight by taking out key structures at the enemy home base. When the enemy launches a major assault on a hive, make sure your team is working on that, it's time for you to go to town on the enemy base, repay the favor. When they do an attack on a hive, they are throwing everything they have at you, usually leaving no man at home base. Use this to your advantage and strike fast and hard where it hurts them the most (no not the command chair, good luck killing that before help arrives), hit them in the supply chain (aka the pocketbook). Taking out a resource node is all good and well, but the real damage comes from taking out key structures that cripples the commanders ability to supply his troops. These structures are also the easiest to take down as well. The observatory gives that wonderfull motion sensing that we all "love" as well as prevents us from cloaking by it. This should always be a priority target when attacking, it's fairly expensive, and you can kill it faster than you can kill a turret. Next, take out the arms lab, armorys, prototype labs, and spawn portals... they are all fairly weak and if you have lvl 3 adrenaline, you should be able to easily keep up a protective umbra around yourself constantly... once the commander finds he cannot arm his men with GL's and HA's all of a sudden, he's going to get pretty mad, and call in some help at base. a swift and devistating strike like this can insure an enemy assault withers on the vine. Pluse he needs to expend around 100 res points to get these structures back up again. an alternative method is to weaken the observatory to near death, but leave it and take out everything else on the list, then start chomping the command chair.... if the commander thinks the threat is big enough, he may use the observatory to call the distress becon, calling all troops back to home base, you will probably be toast, unless you can get out of there ASAP, but that will have effectivly cut the legs right out from underneath the enemy attack as they will have to regroup and head back out to the hive all over again, providing your teammates with more than enough time to rebuild defenses and set up ambush points, or launch a counteroffensive of their own. This has won me more than one game where all we had to look forward to was a slow and painfull defeat.
- Umbra protects structures as well as players. I cant stress this enough. It has been mentioned by many people all over the forums, but umbra works the same on structures as it does your fellow aliens.... this makes lerks a devistating defensive weapon as well... 3 offensive towers + 2 defensive towers + 1 lerk with umbra/adrenaline makes a defensive postion that will survive anything short of siege cannons and Grenade launchers. if a hive is in trouble, dont charge after the guys attacking it, fly on top of the hive where they cant hit you and umbra the hive... they will run out of ammo before the hive takes enough damage to die... and by that time your teammates should be there to finish them off. With one lerk deticated to defense, you should be able to withstand even the HA/HMG death squad attacks that normally cleave a path through even the tallest Turret walls (I dont call them walls of lame cause the lame part is how easy they are killed without help).... if a marine ever had a real reason to complain about turrets, it's cause a lerk was there making things tough for him... And remember, just cause you umbra the turrets/hive doesnt mean you have to stick around behind it, if you think you can take them, umbra the structure then fly behind them, try to take them out while they are preoccupied with killing the building (which they shouldnt be able to)... Remember, umbra lasts for 10 seconds, and it only takes 2 bites to get to the gooey center of a meatpop!
- EDIT -
Another thing i keep forgetting to mention... use those lerks to take out the GL men... the only way they'll take you out is if they switch to pistol, manage to somehow get a lucky shot on you, or they spamkill theirselves right along with you... so when your team is cringing in fear at the marines walking explosions toward the hive, just wait till 4 have exploded and he's reloading... fly like Heck at him and circle chomp around him... once he starts firing off randomly in tight spaces, get the heck outta there and watch him gib himself. if he has a buddy guarding... thats the first target to go for.
Good luck with all of you current and future lerks out there and remeber... play smarter, not harder... stay alert, stay alive
The sentries cannot aim higher than about 30º (I think it says something like that in the manual)
So, if you fly up to a ledge you can safely dispose of the factory.
This is especially true on ns_hera at the node between the ventilation hive and marine start
Teehee.
We had recently gotten a second hive up, completely undefended. A lone HA comes in, kills the gorge that made it and starts firing at the hive. Being nearby, i fly in (having just grabbed L3 adrenaline and L3 regen) and start pecking at him with spines. He turns, starts firing, i dodge all over the place, hiding behind stuff to regen, etc. We had a 3 MINUTE battle going between us, and noone else showed up to help. I was playing really defensively because i knew if i died we wouldn't get any support for a while (my team was kinda dumb), so i didn't want to just fly in, umbra and chomp him fearing hed knife me. So i resorted to strafing runs with spines. Lots of close calls (me getting behind something with 4HP remaining for example). Eventually i got him.
It was a real duel just between us. Most fun i've had as a lerk yet.
Most of what you've written is apparent to me, but this is something I've never thought of doing. So you've earned an "oh cool," from me <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->.