ein pilot manual
MISSION
STATEMENT:
Welcome to the Emperor’s
Imperial Navy. As a member of the
EIN you are expected to serve the Emperor and Empire.
It is the EIN’s job to provide space superiority against Alliance
starfighters and provide defence for the Empire.
TRAINING
OBJECTIVES:
To develop the specific types of star fighter skills necessary to achieve victory against superior odds 100% of the time in MELEE type combat.
REALITY
BASED TRAINING:
The primary rule of training
states one should always train and practice in a manner as realistic as possible
to the actual circumstances and situation that the desired performance will
occur and be judged. Our evaluation
will occur in combat. The rules of
combat have been defined as a series of 2 on 2 melee type engagements with
reoccurring waves of enemy craft until the predetermined time limit has expired.
At that point, the pilots and team with the most points are the winners.
A pilot should not be limited to strictly Imperial spacecraft though and
should train and prepare in all craft including Alliance starcraft.
We must all remember that the
game and social environment is fun. Skill
enhancement training takes time, effort, and 100% attention to the task during
the training exercises. There are
dozens of skilled pilots out there who are committed to defeating you. You must train harder and more realistically.
Several Squads and
organisations have outstanding pilots as their leaders with a couple additional
excellent pilots. Remember a few
good pilots do not ensure success in a battle.
They may win their individual matches.
The WAR Victory goes to
the side with the highest number of points.
This is a team effort in which three or four superstars do not produce
automatic victory. Therefore, it is important that the team receive practice and
all players enhance their abilities. The
total number of pilots in an organisation does not equate with victory.
INTERNET
PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS:
Equipment levels affect the
performance. We are all NOT playing
with the same equipment. Therefore,
pilots should train to compensate for different levels of online performance.
Online XVT or XWA games have
important dynamics that must be understood by all pilots. These conditions do
not exist in single player training mode but only in multiplayer combat
situations. Understanding these
dynamics and adjusting for them will enhance both your gaming pleasure and your
ability to be victorious.
·
Quality
of connection (28.8k, cable, time of day, etc.)
·
Quality
of other players connections
·
Number
of other players
·
Processing
speed of HOST computer
All the above have major
effects upon the game. Understanding what happens during a game (beneath the
surface) will emphasise a few major points that each pilot must compensate for
individually. Depending on the
equipment YOU use these factors may or may not effect your performance.
1.
Connection
Speed: You need a good connection to the Internet to avoid
performance problems. The faster your true connection speed is; the better your
performance is likely to be. A 56k
connection is considered the minimum in hosting a smooth 4 player games.
The
Internet is like a freeway. At certain times of the day there is a lot of
traffic on the freeway (Internet). As traffic increases, Internet speeds slow
down due to the congestion, and game performance is impacted.
This
is often called lag. High latency causes poor multi-player performance. It is important to have a low latency connection to the other
players. A latency of under 500
(ms) between players is needed for a satisfactory game.
Playing
a 4-way match over the Internet is much more demanding on your computers
hardware and CPU than single player mode. For
this reason you need to compensate for the extra strain on your systems by
lowering your screen resolution to 640x460, 256 colours. Put all the
configurations to their lowest settings and turn OFF all sound effects. REMEMBER
when competing with other players the most important thing is that you have a good frame rate so you
can react quickly to your opponent’s actions.
PRE-FLIGHT
CONSIDERATIONS:
Basically
means your firing where your computer tells you their ship is!
On your computer you see a direct hit.
(But to your frustration no damage).
By the time your firing information gets to their machine, their
machine (much faster, 10-20 times) shows the ship in another location.
Your shots record as misses. Lag…(your machine is lagging behind in the
TRUE information) Generally displays their ship one or less seconds behind were
it really is. Leading the shot should take care of it. But lag changes, so
you have to change your point of aim with the lag. To them you seem to be going
in slow motion and are easier to target and destroy. Notice that all the top players on ladder ranking
systems have cable or advanced connections. Hit ALT+D at the beginning of each
game to put details at their minimum. The
less resources your machine uses, the faster it processes information (faster
frame rate) creating a slight buffer at least.
Use every advantage you can. They
will and do.
Video Cards like Voodoo II unlike Voodoo frees up CPU usage
causing smoother game
play due to the faster frame rate.
Don’t let a players rank
intimidate you. Editors are out
there that can make any pilot any rank they choose.
Also, by flying the right melees on the Zone for about three days you can
be a Jedi and never face any real competition.
Different
craft have different scoring values attached to both the kills you obtain and
the deaths you receive. Gunboats
score the highest and in skilled pilots hands can achieve them 80,000 points a
game. Get good in the ships that
score well for they are the ships usually flown in Wars.
Avoid flying mixed ships, such as one T/I and one X-Wing on each team.
This usually means the pilots with the weaker ship are going to have a harder
time scoring equally.
Lasers
Have a maximum effective range
of 1.5 kilometres. Don’t waste
power shooting at targets beyond this range.
However, if flying head on start shooting was 1.8 kilometres, the speed
of the closing ships will narrow distance and allow for hits. Remember fully
charged lasers cause approximately 35% more damage per hit. So recharge em as
often as possible. If your ship has
shields and they are sufficiently charged, hitting the “; ” key will
recharge your lasers back too full! Three or four fully (linked) laser blasts
will take out almost any craft. This
tactic is not advisable if your shield strength is below 30%.
Most players have two main settings. Which, they will use many times by a press of a button. Shift-9 and shift-0 are two presetting. They record the speed and the laser/shield charge. One should be laser recharging and the other everything to be redirected to engines… Laser recharging should be a combat mode (lasers ¾, shields redirected engines.) The other mode is useful in turning and to get away from the fire.
TRAINING for COMBAT:
It is vitally important that
each pilot train specifically for these types of enlargements.
Important skills necessary for success are:
1. Piloting skills
2. Ship awareness and
maintenance (keeping the lasers charged)
3.
Battle field situational awareness. Where exactly are the opponents. Don’t
get killed trying to help your wingman. Do
so only when the enemy’s wingman is out of
range. Easiest kill is when the enemy is
coming after your wingman. You can usually
predict the enemies move.
4. Two player vs. two player
team skills, require different strategies than playing the game
single player or 1 on 1 melees.
Below are some specific
exercises and suggestions for obtaining and increasing these types of combat
skills.
PLOTING SKILLS:
You can whip those top ace
computer AI pilots with some practice. Human
pilots aren’t so predictable.
1.
Ladder matches, Cases Ladder for Microsoft Internet Gaming
Zone (IGZ): the Zone is an excellent place to melee with players on line in a
competitive environment. Cases
Ladder is an ongoing tournament-ranking match. You can sign up at www.igl.net/xvt
or www.igl.net/xwa to be a ladder tournament participant.
Then go to www.zone.com; sign up on the free IG Zone.
Go to the XVT Rebel Base and 20-100 other online players await you.
Starts a host game …entitled “Cases Ladder”, and they come out of
the woodwork. The vast majority of
ladder matches are in unshielded tie fighters and tie interceptors using lasers
only! It’s a 1 on 1 dogfight.
Most kills at the completion of the match is the victor.
Loser reports the results of the match to Cases Ladder.
There are about 300+ registered ladder participants ranked 1-300 and as
you’re skills improve, you climb the ladder. To get into the top 75 is very
good.
What is truly valuable about these matches
is they force you to pilot your ship with precision and evade like hell without
shields 1 or 2 hits and it’s curtains. As
you play the real good pilots, watch their tactics and manoeuvres.
You might loose the match, but you are a winner if you learned something
and improved from the loss. Ladders
are an excellent skill enhancement tool. Avoid
over practice in any one craft. You
want to maintain effective craft skills in any craft you might be flying.
MELEE
TIPS:
·
Inside
of 1.8 miles never fly straight. Move
constantly. Taking brief
opportunities to fire a rapid shot at oncoming opponents.
·
Shoot
in a box pattern around the oncoming ship.
All good pilots move also and will very often fly into your shots.
·
Don’t
use the same successful approach and manoeuvre two and three times in a row.
·
Remember the most maneuverable any ship can be is when set as 1/3 speed.
Melees involve close dog fighting and require rapid turning.
If
you stay on their tail, you win and vice versa. The fastest turns are 1/3
throttle with lasers and shields set to full engines. This will drain all laser
power very quickly and unless their in the same mode, you will come around onto
their tail. You may have to readjust laser recharge rate to shoot, but you will
be behind them. Reset lasers to
full and fire away. In two vs. two,
going into a prolonged “Turning War” is not that wise. You will be turning
but moving very slowly, that will make you an easy target for your opponent’s
wingman.
At beginning of a melee
opponents are usually 3+ kilometres away. Have
your proper craft configuration memorized and immediately activate it. Full laser and shield recharge is desirable as first options.
Then cockpit mode, link weapons to double/quad, full shields forward and
select opponent (F-9, F-9, F-10, F-10, X, X, S, S, P, period).
At this point, your opponent is still 2.5 + km away. As you close distance, you will be building strength even if
flying slower than usually desirable. A
single (F-10) will put all shield recharge to engines and move you up in speed
considerably.
Both lasers
and missiles have a fixed speed plus the speed of the craft.
At approximately 1.9 km, output all shields to engines you will greatly
increase the speed your lasers or missiles are travelling, if your opponent is
travelling slower, fire and move slightly.
He may be unprepared for the extra speed your weapons are travelling.
PRESET
SETTINGS: Shift-9
and shift-0 are two programmable pre-settings. Most players have two main
settings, which they will use many times in a game. One pre-set should be set to
laser recharging mode and the other set to all power redirected to engines…
Laser recharging should be a combat mode (lasers ¾, shields redirected
engines.) The other mode is useful
in turning and to get away from the fire. By using the pre-sets you can effect
quick changes in your ships configuration settings with the push of a single
button.
In two on two melees, if you or
your wing-man destroys an opponent, wait until the additional wave (if any)
enters (remember ships frequently enter at very close attack distances.
If your going to help your wing-man you will be a sitting duck.
If however, your opponent enters 2.5, - 4 km out, turn quickly and double
up on your wingman’s target. This
can go back and forth in the spirit of cooperative teamwork and be extremely
effective. Use caution to avoid
getting too caught up in the heat of battle and let your assigned opponent get
too close and pick you off.
1) Hosting is a disadvantage in one on one
matches. In 2 vs. 2 matches,
hosting is an advantage,
especially if the hosts wingman has a bad connection.
2)
Keep moving 100% of the time when within 1.6 km of a hostile ship.
3) Never fly directly at a
person for prolonged periods.
4) Don’t fly in a straight
line. Keep moving, weaving, ducking
and dodging in between your shots.
5) Lay down “suppression fire”
if you don’t your opponent will simply retarget you and have a free shoot.
Put them on defensive and let them stress.
6)
Shoot in a rapid box pattern (single and double).
Fire just to sides, top and bottom of
opponent. This way when they
adjust to avoid flying straight you should get some hits.
If you fire directly on them by the time your lasers get there, they will
have ducked, dodged, or moved out of the way, causing a miss. If your opponent
is inexperienced he may not know to move well. If that is the case shot dead on!
7) Frequently when additional
waves first appear, they are facing away from you and are initially
disorientated as the attempt to find you, readjust their ship, and attack.
Use this initial three or four seconds to your advantage.
Be ready. Target immediately. Fire
rapidly (great time to use shield power to fully recharge lasers tactic).
It is absolutely demoralizing to appear with a fresh ship and be
destroyed again without even getting a chance to find your opponent.
When very close to approaching opponent, who is critically weakened
within .15 km, veer to the side and don’t allow him the opportunity to ram
you, killing you both. (This is a
frequent melee tactic). By the way,
use this tactic to destroy your opponent if you can, especially if he has a
reasonably undamaged ship. To be down to 5 or 6 shield strength, red and limping
and wipe out an undamaged ship is a terrific payoff. Also if you have lost all
lasers to damage, try to ram if your close. Don’t waste 15 seconds trying to
get your lasers back on a ship with a heavily damaged hull!
BEGINNERS
SUGGESTIONS:
It
takes time to become a good pilot; usually 6 months of improving will make a
decent pilot. Nevertheless, people
change tactics, so you have to be flexible all the time too.
The various aspects of piloting a craft must be mastered to obtain a high
combat alertness level necessary for survival.
New/Intermediate pilots should spend time (single player) committing
these skills to a subconscious memory level.
1.
There are two pilot cockpit views for each ship (“.” key toggles them
between the modes). Know exactly
where the various instrument indicators are located!
2.
The front and rear sensor displays are critical to success.
You must be constantly
aware of your opponent’s location and direction of travel.
Practice following ships in
close combat situations using the sensor display while monitoring the
additional environment
with your peripheral vision.
COMBAT
MULTIVIEW DISPLAY (CMD)
This sensor provides valuable
information regarding your opponent and his ship status.
The opponent must be “targeted” to be in your sensor display.
The targeted ship rotates in 3-D to reflect its current orientation in
relationship to your craft. This will tell you if is weapons are aligned and
he is capable of firing. This
sensor proves three readings of your opponent’s status that are important to
you.
1.
It’s distance in km from your ship.
2.
The hull strength; listed numerically from 1-100 and colour coded (red)
critical, (yellow) moderate damage, (green) strong hull strength).
3.
The ship’s orientation to your craft provides you with information
regarding its direction of travel.
The (HUD) heads up display mode
maximizes your view of the external environment by removing much of the cockpit
interior. The CMD, sensors and
critical data is still visible to you. This
is the preferred cockpit mode for most pilots.
It provides for maximum field of view over the battlefield during close
quarters dog-fighting. All
necessary sensors and monitors are available in this mode.
TARGETING
HEADS UP DISPLAY (HUD)
This
instrumentation cluster provides you with extremely valuable information.
During battle that must be instantly known (and rapidly acted upon) in
order to make the proper decisions and adjust your crafts systems to increase
survivability. The Outside Threat
Indicator Array (OTIA) is part of
this cluster. It tells you if your
lasers, ions, or missiles are the currently
selected weapon, whether weapons are in single, double, or quad link mode. (READ PAGES 27-31 IN THE XVT OR
XWA INSTRUCTION MANUAL). Along the
top of the (OTIA) are four warning
lights (numbered 1-4, left to right).
# 1
(Far left) - Lights up when you have been targeted by an enemy
starfighter and are within its range. EXTREMELY
IMPORTANT
#2
Targeted by a capitol ship.
#3
Indicates a beam weapon is currently affecting your ship.
#4.
(Far right) Will blink yellow when an enemy craft has targeted your ship
and is attempting to get a missile lock on you.
The light will turn solid red when he has a positive missile lock.
Well as you can imagine having
these types of information available to you in the heat of battle are very
important. Combat awareness means
constantly being aware of and analysing all these variable bits of combat data.
Summing up there combined influences and
utilizing the totality of the information to make the appropriate choice of
action.
A very good way to practice
developing combat awareness is melees (single player) at the hard level
utilizing all weapons. Create and
additional player to practice with. Don’t
worry how bad his statistics are going to turn out.
You can always delete him. Your
only objective in these training sessions is to practice utilizing all of your
available combat data to make various combat decisions.
No one is born with excellent
combat awareness. It’s a skill
that must be learned. Anyone who
tries can. Minefield melees can
greatly increase rapid target acquisition and accuracy. As you fly these
practice sessions, concentrate on what your enemy does, what you do, and what
happened as a result. After each
ten minutes melee, spend a few minutes analysing the battle.
What can you do different to increase your results.
All good pilots go through this constant evaluation and improvement
process.
Another excellent training
exercise for development of combat awareness is the custom dogfight.
Fly past two containers (X and A or T/A & T/GW).
This will get real intense very
quickly, but it sure provides you with lots of combat data to analyse. Good luck on this one!
Pilots are Officers, and as
such should act as gentlemen. Remember,
you are all imperial officers. Don’t
use profanity directed at players or other teams.
Don’t brag, or insult others piloting skills in open chat areas.
Defend yourself and respond, but be better than they are, Beat them with
tact and brains. (I’ve responded
to several foul mouth braggarts “their mommy’s should have spent more money
on their charm school”). At this
point other players join in and hehe the poor guy.
He will settle down usually or leave.
You win and in tactful and honourable way!
And to all you new players, may I add,
“The game”, as in life, is enjoyed most; by those who prepare
properly, play fair, maintain their dignity, and deal with others honourably.
You will develop an on-line reputation very quickly . . . Make it a good
one. First impressions last a long
time and do reflect on your EIN teammates as well.
MORE
NEW PILOT INFO
New pilots should complete all
the single player exercises that are specifically designed to train you in the
basics of starfighter combat. They
are challenging set at the hard level. Start
off on easy level for the first 6-10 missions.
Then start over at the hard level and play through all of them (except
eight player missions). Repeat each one until you receive an award patch of at least
good.
STAR-FIGHTER
CRAFT
Power systems are fixed at a
specific point. The energy output
flows into three important systems.
1.
Engines - Affect the speed of the craft.
2.
Shields - Affect their recharging rate.
3.
Laser type weapons - Affects their recharge rate
(remember fully charged produce more damage).
The three systems are affected
(strengthened or weakened) by the amount of energy they receive. You control which systems get how much energy.
Example
(shielded craft)
1.
You have a total power output of 100.
Normal distribution of energy would be 33% to each system.
To increase the rate your lasers recharge, you might want stronger lasers
in a dogfight. If you increased the
laser recharge rate to maximum, you are redirecting the normal use of the energy
from one of the other two systems to allow for this to happen.
An increase in one area creates a decrease in energy available to the
other. The transfer of energy either slowed the ships speed OR
weakened the shields.
Example
Let’s
say you’ve been hit by enemy laser fire and your shields were weakened to 20%.
At this point, it’s a strong possibility the next laser hit could kill
you. If you divert all laser energy
to the shields, the stored energy in your lasers is used to increase your
shields! Jumping to 50%, shield
strength by this tactic can greatly increase your current chances of survival,
and in turn, victory. Remember
the basic principal that the winner is the one that survives the longest to
inflect the most kills and receive the most points!
·
Go to the
war page and read the rules before you start playing.
·
Locate
and select the current War Reporting Page as a favourite in your browser so
you can find it quickly and report matches in the least amount of time.
·
If
you are playing against a Cable Modem (or excellent pilot) and are getting
stomped, it is poor Team Strategy to continue playing and loosing heavy points over
and over again. Instead, “thank them” for the lesson in humility, and move
on to another battle!
·
If
possible, have a wingman available and ready when joining a game that
already has two players just sitting there.
If you join as the “third pilot” YOU may get a rookie wingman as the forth pilot. Experienced wingmen will tear you
and your wingman apart no matter how good you are individually. This is a
favourite tactic of several Gamma and Iota pilots as well as the other Zone
teams.
·
A
single game takes 15-20 minutes each. The pre game details and reporting is time
consuming. So when trying to rack up points keep the chat to a minimum and urge
them to launch if they are the chatty type.
·
Squads
that dominate don’t waste valuable time chatting on the main or in games. Turn
off your zone message client and ICQ. Simply play, report, and jump back into
another game. You’ll be surprised how fast your points will add up.
·
Play
Team Matches and get good in T/Is, Gunboats, and X-Wings. They score well and
are the favorite ships in all war games.
·
Try
to play with a wingman from your squadron whenever possible. Twice the points
are earned for your squadron.
·
If
a match is laggy for YOU ……. QUIT
quickly! If you stay too
long it is a reportable match no matter haw bad it was!
·
If
you intentually quit, use the “tab”
communication system to tell the other players. Just type “ I’m out”.
Then press the “L” key and check the time you sent the message. If the time
is under 8 minutes it becomes a reportable match.
· When deciding to enter a game room for a match, look at the connections of the other pilots! If one or more have over a 500ms latency at the Zone, it would be wiser to look for another game. If you do give it a try remember to quit within two minutes if it’s laggy.