STAR CITIZEN:Combat Maneuvering and Basic

Dogfighting

Lines of Rotation

Before heading out into your first flight as a pilot here in space, you should first take note on which axis’ your ship can move on.

Three types• X-axis – a direct line coming from your left

crossing through and moving directly to the right (Also known as the Horizontal Rotation Line)

Lines of Rotation (cont.)

• Y-axis – a straight line that comes directly behind you and leaves you directly in front of you. (Also known as Line of Sight)

• Z-axis – a line enters from directly above you, then exits directly below you. (Also known as the Vertical Rotation Line )

Lines of Rotation Model

Maneuvering

Having these lines in mind, let’s get into our basic maneuvers that you will be performing. By themselves, they can be painfully simple to follow, but some of your best flying will utilize multiple maneuvers at once.

Climb – Utilizing the Z-axis with an upward rotation. Pulling back on your joystick or gamepad will pull the nose of the ship upwards. Climbing can be used one way to help change direction to something above you.

Maneuvering

Dive – Utilizing the Z-axis with a downward rotation. Pushing forward the joystick or gamepad will tilt the nose of the ship downward. Diving can be used one way to change direction toward something below you.

Banking – Utilizing the X-axis to change your Line of Sight left or right depending on the banking maneuver (also known as yaw).

Maneuvering

Roll – When a fighter rotates around the Y- axis (or Line of Sight), this is called a roll. This will most likely be utilized in conjunction with a climb action to change your direction to the left or right, pending which way you turn your craft.

Break – A quick change in any direction. Most commonly a break is used to evade incoming fire as it is a sudden and random change in movement.

Maneuvering

• Spiral technique maybe?

Combat Technique

In many (if not all) combat flight simulators out there, they use “leading your target” which can be hard to grasp at first but it is absolutely necessary to become a combat effective pilot. If you simply point your crosshair at a moving target and squeeze the trigger, your shot will go behind your target. This is also known as shot lag.

Combat Technique

To be successful in hitting your target, you must learn to lead the target so they practically run into your fire. How much you must lead your target depends on a couple factors such as how fast they are moving and how far your target is. The faster or farther they are out from you, the more you will need to lead your shot, vice-versa the slower or closer they are the less you will need to lead them.

Basic Defensive Movement

Basic Dogfighting

The most common instance of dogfighting we will probably see is head on engagements with the enemy. The following steps will help you take a head-on situation and convert it into an offensive one.