Flight Academy: Defense

Recruits!

This is your instructor speaking. We're glad to have you on-board for our third lesson and hope you have been paying attention during our previous sessions on the basics and offense. This time, we'll be turning our attention to defense and how it can save your virtual pilot's life. When starting out, you'll find yourself on the wrong end of a dogfight sooner than you imagine, so it's of the utmost importance that you know what to do to maximize your survival chances.

It’s not ‘all over’ when you’ve got somebody on your six. In fact, you have a multitude of maneuvers at your disposal to shake off your opponents yourself, or sometimes even take them down as they are pursuing you. So let's find out what they are!

Defense

Know the danger! - When flying your first rounds, you should be very cautious and keep an eye out for danger – especially as you'll still be figuring out your plane and won't be as effective in combat. It is very likely that somebody else will choose you as what they'd like "for breakfast" and you should anticipate this accordingly!

The first rule of playing Defense is to try and avoid having to play it at all. Don’t go into known trouble areas! Know your limits and don't go rushing into dense fighting grounds if you think you are slower, weaker or outnumbered. You'll need to be on the lookout at all times to avoid surprises. Spotting attackers coming at you from far away gives you more time to initiate an evasive maneuver, which more often than not can save your life. Don't only concentrate on your target! For example, beginners flying bombing aircraft often tend to pick a destination and fly towards it in a straight line, forgetting everything and everyone that's around them. They think they need to be first to score the ground target, and this can give them "tunnel vision", where they lose track of everything but their destination.

A clever pilot always watches not only their back, but also all of the other sides of the airplane. Keep an eye on the mini-map! It'll show you where your-team mates have detected enemies. Use this to deduct the less populated areas and reroute accordingly if you have to.  

When you have a quiet moment, use right-click + mouse to rotate the view around your plane and check your sides. Stay in contact with your team and watch out for their signals. Communication between team mates can significantly improve your chances of survival.

Don't waste time! React immediately! - Of course, the first rule of Defense is that all the cautiousness in the world will not able to shield you from all the harm that's out there. Sooner or later, you'll head into battle and end up having an enemy on your six. Know this in advance: That's normal! There is nothing to panic about. From the rookie to the pro, everybody has to play defense once in a while.

However, what will usually determine the outcome of such a situation is how quickly you react to it. When you discover that somebody is targeting you and the first shots start flying, you'll have to be ready to act. Ideally, by then you'll have already scouted your surroundings, and found out what kind of chances you have against your enemy (see point above!). Depending on what type of plane you fly, you'll want to initiate the proper evasive maneuvers. Evading the danger should be the FIRST thing on your mind as long as you're still an inexperienced player. Drop whatever it was you were doing (pursuit of an enemy, helping out ally, flying towards ground target) and deal with the situation immediately! Getting away from your six can be quite difficult and will require your full attention. You'll know from your own experience how the attacking player feels; when he has set his sights set on a target and how relentlessly he's ready to pursue it in order to get the kill. Don’t wait until half your HP is gone! React as quickly as possible if you want to survive!

Don’t be an easy target! – When on defense, you'll need to make yourself as hard to hit as possible. Use all the moves in your arsenal to make life for the attacker more difficult. Dive, bank, roll or rise to get rid of your tail! Whatever you do, don't fly in a straight line! Unless you're trying to gain speed in an all-out dive to the ground (which is already dangerous enough), you should always stay in motion and change direction as often as possible.

The second thing to keep up when trying to break free is your speed. Maintaining or even increasing it is just as important as getting out of the line of fire. Managing to escape a salve is not helpful if you lose half your speed in the process. A slow plane is less dynamic and less nimble than a fast one and is therefore much easier to hit.

So, when escaping your six, you'll need to find the proper compromise between keeping in motion and keeping it fast. If you know that you have the stronger engine, you can try to simply outrun your opponent to get out of the conflict zone. Also, although it can be dangerous, you can try breaking out upwards and use your boost to escape to greater heights. You’ll know from your own experience that targeting a plane with your nose up is more difficult than when you’re diving. If you gain sufficient altitude early enough, you can evade potential damage by staying directly above your attackers.

It helps knowing your own and your opponent's plane inside-out, so that you can make such a decision literally "on the fly". If you've always felt that rate of climb is kind of a pointless stat, you may rethink your position once you've seen it with the eyes of a defender.

Use your base as an ally! - When you're on your own or outnumbered, don't be ashamed to go back to your base and have your AA's distract and damage your pursuers to buy you some time. Many players, especially those concentrating on light fighters, have the tendency to disregard ground targets (be it allied or enemy ones) since they've become used to only chasing planes. This is a crucial mistake.

When you find yourself in a tough spot, regardless of which plane class you're flying, you should consider leading your pursuers back to your own base. It's there that an armada of helpful Anti-Aircraft guns (AA's) will gladly give your attackers hell while you cruise away to safety.

Don't underestimate how powerful these virtual team mates can be! Sometimes just a little damage is enough to shake an opponent profoundly enough for him to reconsider his strategy and abandon whoever he was pursuing. Even if your AA's don't make your pursuer let go, they can still "rough him up a bit" - maybe his wing or engine become damaged. In this case, he won't be able to continue his pursuit as effectively and again you'll be able to simply leave him in the dust.

For best results, you should fly at around 200 - 300 m altitude when passing over your base. It's at that height that your AA's are most effective and can do the most damage to your enemy.

Take a load off! - If you play a heavily loaded plane, get rid of your bombs and rockets as early as possible. There is no point in carrying around your load until the end of a match and having to deal with the additional weight when going into plane vs. plane battle. Should you find yourself on your own and needing to play defence with no support planes in sight, then sacrificing your pay load in order to become more nimble is a viable option. You'll be surprised how much faster your aircraft can be after you get rid of your extra weight. Also, your engine will be able to carry you higher, improving your rate of climb, which can be useful when on the run (see "Don't be an easy target!").

Don't worry about wasting your bombs or rockets on nothing! You're worth more to your team alive and without bombs than dead with all the firepower in the world.

However, you should not abuse this rule to just mindlessly get rid of all your assets as soon as you see attackers on the horizon. This is obviously to be regarded as a last resort safety measure when everything else has failed.

Want to know what to do to also score some kills while defending? We’ll tell you in the next part of our Flight Academy special on Defense.

That’s it for now, Recruits. You’re dismissed.

Get Airborne!