IV. Warhawk vs Warhawk:
These are a few simple principles that will give you the upper hand in air combat:
-The closer you are to the enemy warhawk when shooting missles, the greater the chance that these will hit the target.
-This is very much a game of first strike; you see the enemy first, you have a better chance of taking him down.
-This is a game in which having the stronger weapon will make your life much easier; (3 homing missles>15 regular missles).
-Keep an eye on the radar and look at the numbr of enemy warhawks vs your team's own; if the difference is 3 or more, you will have a hard time staying in the air.
-Use the radar to see where the enemy warhawks are; don't go into a group of enemy fighters unless you're suicidal/have invisibility. Try to pick off the ones that are outside of the group.
-If you see a warhawk attacking ground troops/shooting a TOW missle, you know that it's an easy kill for you.
-Be unpredictable with your evasion moves, in fact, be unpredictable with everything you do.
When in the air, one should always try to have at least homing missles and electricity (long range combat/short range, respectively).
When following a warhawk and letting loose your missles, go into hover mode close to him while he's doing the "shake them off dance". You should still be able to keep locking on while he's doing it, then boost right at him and release; it should be unavoidable.
I can't emphasize this enough: USE EVERYTHING FOR COVER; as long as you know from where you're being shot from (easy to figure out due to machinegun fire), you can almost always find something to hide behind and take the bite out of the missles. Anything, a broken building, a terrain elevation difference, a mountain, a bridge, an arch; anything can be cover. Once you get behind it, go into hover mode and stay there to see what happens. Either your enemy will fly right past you, (meaning now you're the one on his tail), he might also slow down and fly around where you are trying to find you (in which case, you have the advantage since you know from where he's coming from; electrify him or shoot a homing missle first). He might also stop and hover right around where you are, but not coming into your line of sight. In that case you can either come out hovering and have a duel (if you have strong weapons), or just boost right past him, laying down a mine right on top of him if you have one.
Don't underestimate the hover mode on the warhawk, switching to hover mode in the middle of a dogfight can cause just enough confusion to give you the upper hand (especially when in close proximity to your attacker). Just be ready to look at the map and follow where he is in case you got disoriented.
Don't get suckered in into a game of flying around each other trying to get a lock on, because in most cases, those using pro flight will get the better of you. Keep an eye on the radar to know where he is, and go into hover mode and get some shots in before boosting away.
What's important is that you mix it up and to do something that the enemy won't suspect; like for example in long range and being followed, use the right stick to do a backwards 180, then boost right past the guy following while using chaff, so that you're unharmed. By the time they turn around, you can be flying off in yet another direction, or if you're ballsy, change to hover mode (never standing still) right next to the guy, and get a lock on while they try to find you.
Having invisibility in your inventory can help you escape ANY situation in the skies, just make sure to use the chaff at the last minute (to take care of all incoming missles) THEN quickly turn on invisibility before they have a chance to lock on. This is one of the most common mistakes, turning on invisibility assuming that they don't have any missles locked on, then getting killed while invisible. Make sure everyone's off your tail; if not, use the chaff, you can get more while invisible.
V. HELP ME GAF I'M IN A WARHAWK AND THERE ARE MISSILES LOCKED ON WHAT SHOULD I DO?!
-Very important: turn up the sound and listen to the sound that's made when missles are fired at you; you should be able to differentiate whether regular missles or turret missles have been fired.
First thing to notice has to be how many missles are coming at you; If there's only one, it must be an RPG, a homing missle or a single regular missle (keep in mind that last option is great for making people waste their chaff).
If there's two, then it's either a turret missle or 2 regular missles; you should be able to hear the difference. 3 or more means that they are likely regular missles, which are pretty easy to avoid. This is the only instance where I've felt relieved in the sense that more missles = easier to avoid. With some practice you should be able to avoid 12 out of 15 easily.
Air acrobatics *default controls*
-Let's try to keep this brief; as soon as you hear the missle warning, one should start evasive action, the sooner you start, the better. Boosting as soon as you hear it buys you some time to decide what to do. Quickly think to yourself: "what powerups are nearby?" "how far away can I get with my remaining boost?""what's in the vicinity that can be used for cover?"
-The most asked question; how to shake the lock on: in my case, you make a short boost (keep going straight, or aim towards a powerup/hiding place), then with the right stick you either go up or down, for just a bit, then move the stick a bit diagonally, so that you start barrel rolling while going vertically. then after a bit press diagonally so that you start barrel rolling in the opposite direction. That should be enough to get rid of regular missles (the more missles locked on, the more you roll) in the end, you level off and you should still be going in the direction where you started. It should look something like this: ----[---- (on right stick: down, down-left, down-right, up (to stabilize)) Once you hear the noise for "missle dodged", just keep doing what you're doing and the others will soon follow suit.
-For homing missles, just repeat the above pattern but with more boosting to put more space between you and the missle, and more rolling vertically up and down. The most important thing is to not get carried away, cause you'll just end up spazzing out in the clouds and become an easy target for everyone.
-Turret missles: if these are fired at you, you better pray that the turret is far enough away from you so that you have enough time to do aerial acrobatics and get them off you. Think about the missle turret locations and the area of land controlled by your team to get an idea of from where the shots were fired. Once you have an idea, think of where you can hide so that the missles hit a mountain or building; quickly dive out of the playing field if you get the chance to make sure you avoid it ( For example, in Eucadia, dive behind the mountains near the edges of the map; there's no possible angle that a turret missle in that entire level will follow you there). If you think that's there's no place to hide or that the turret is close to you, hit the chaff, it's probably either that or you're dead.
-Another lag effect is that sometimes you'll see (and hear) that big homing missle right behind you as you're boosting; it hasn't hit you yet, but no matter the amount of dodging that you do, you're not going to lose it. In these occasions, don't bother wasting your chaff, because that missle WILL hit you. By not wasting your chaff, you have a chance at using it against the other missles fired; this might seem like a small detail, but it happens at least twice a game for me. Saving that chaff has allowed me to escape later and heal up.
-RPG's: 2 of these will take down a WH; Don't go into an infantry infested area if you have less than 1/2 health left. When providing support for the ground, keep your fingers near the chaff and be ready to deploy as soon as you hear the mssle warning. With that you can delay a hit once, then take a hit; after you take the hit and are down to 1/2 health, boost out of there. You will almost assuredly be locked on again while you escape, but now there is enough distance for you to do some acrobatics and avoid it. Get some chaff and health, then go back there to provide air support.
VI. Advanced Pointers
-When going to protect your flagcarrier, air mines can do wonders; the enemy will likely be hovering above the carrier, it's just a matter of boosting right through there and placing them.Easy kills.
-if you see a TOW missle going to kill your flagcarrier, throw a charged lightning shot at the carrier (stick it to his jeep, if he's healthy); that lightning will blow up any TOW missle aimed at him with no damage to him.
-Making sure that the road is clear of mines, boosting onto an enemy jeep can be hilariously effective. For maximum lulz, do it while invisible. Eucadia in particular, that winding road around the mountain just before scoring the flag, it's very easy to boost into a jeep from behind and send it into the ocean; Instant flag recovery! Great for desperate situations! Impress your friends!
It's also possible to do in Island Outpost, but much tougher, though. Doing this on a flagcarrier's jeep will at least turn him over/crash him against something, making it easier to kill him...
-It's possible for one pilot to monopolize the entire invisibility for a level, particularly Island Outpost, Archipielago, Eucadia and Omega Factory. What I mean is, get one invisibility, then get the other and activate it; when the counter gets to around 120, the first invisibility that you grabbed will have respawned, filling your supply to 200. Then when the counter reaches around 120 again, go to the second invisibility that will just be respawning and resupply again. Rinse and repeat. This way you can stay invisible the entire time, while denying everyone else of invisibility. Not that useful combatwise, but keeping it out of the hands of your opponents is always a plus.
-When the enemy team is recovering the flag, there's no better time to shoot a homing missle/TOW from right above it; use invisibility if you have it so they don't see it coming.
-If you run into one of the so called "red barons", do your best to avoid him, seriously, it's a smart move to recognize when someone is just plain better than you and try to avoid him. If you can, take out other warhawks that are supporting him, and perhaps your team can gain the upper hand in the air; then, as a team, you should be able to take him out.
VII. Air Mine Placement and Avoidance
Let's get right down to it, as cheap as they are, EVERYONE that's a good player uses air mines. In fact, I contend that making sure that your team controls the air mines should be a priority in ALL game modes. (At the very least we'll save Manky from a couple of deaths). A team that is slowly controlling the spawn points can easily pin down the other team with intelligently placed mines (as cheap as it seems).
Make sure to recognize which mines your team has, red team has the spiky balls, blue team has the air balloonish type. I can't believe it took me around 150 hours to figure this out; I used to have to die at least once for me to know which type wasn't our teams.
Three mines people, remember that; only when you see that you got a kill from a mine, then you can go and lay down another one (unless it's an emergency).
Remember that the mine is left right behind the WH, and a little bit higher than where you were, so if you're trying to place it on top of a powerup, you have to go through the powerup and preferably be just a tiny bit on the lower part of it. Don't be afraid of slowing down and going to hover mode for a second in order to place it as perfectly as possible.
*Where to place them (I'm talking about the largest variation of the maps):
1)Island outpost: On both invisibility powerups, and on the homing missle powerup on THEIR side of the island (the top of the foggy mountain). Keep these places mined; even if they know it's mined, they'll have to waste time shooting the mines down, and that will let you get the drop on them.
2)Badlands: There are many possibilities here, try to mix them up once they wise up: the center health powerup, the nook on the right side where the mines are (try to place it so it'll blow whether they're going for the mines, or the electricity, but yet they can't see it when coming from their side). The homing missle powerup on their side, but place it inside the little cave there is after the powerup so they can't see it well (you can mix up that one by placing it on your side of the arch that surrounds that powerup, place it so the arch covers up the mine). The area near the TOW missle, but place it low enough so it won't stick out. You can also place mines in the nook where the mines are, but their side (the left side), these place them very low in that nook, since they have a clear view of the area coming in. Also, the invisibility powerup. My personal preference is the first three places I mentioned, then I replace the mines when they've been hit.
3)Eucadia: The homing missle powerups under the bridges near the base, the invisibility powerups, the center health powerup bridge area. I actually prefer to keep one mine on me for emergency purposes, since mines are very easy to detect and avoid here.
4)Destroyed capital: Homing missle powerups, health powerups on the buildings near the homing missles. For some reason this map doesn't appear too frequently in the official servers which I usually play, so I don't have many ideas for this one. The places I mentioned do work great especially in dogfights.
5)Archipielago: Both sea level caves that hold invisibility and the TOW missle area
6)Omega Factory: The one level I wish that there wasn't a limit of three; mines work here extremely well, I suspect due to the fact that the level is so dark. Prime positions are both homing missle powerups, air mine powerups (real close to the ground) and the health powerup in the center near the water. Place the mines here not ON the powerup, but just before or after it, depending on from the the other team will fly into it. For example: MINE-POWERUP<-----------They come from here.
Finally, the area under the bridge at the home bases is excellent for mines (right where the flags are), but I like mining the only when I know a teammate is taking their flag, or when our own flag is being assaulted.
*Avoidance:
Well, you're pretty much screwed if the opposing team is controlling the skies; look for mines placed primarily on all the locations that I described above. Should your team become trapped at the home base, be aware of mines right above the warhawk spawnpoints (always look up before boarding, take them down with the pistol).
Don't be afraid of going into hover mode and hitting reverse if you suddenly see yourself going into a mine. Also, be kind and blow up enemy mines whenever you have a chance, even if you're not running into it. You have to assume that eventually that unexploded mine will cost a life for someone on your team. Of course, try to take it out quickly and not at the expense of getting killed yourself; if you get locked on or machine gun hits, boost away as soon as possible (not into the mine, of course).
Argh..I give up...there are many more things that I wanted to add that I just forgot about while I wrote....
