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| For Your Pleasure | |
| Posted By: vector40 <foo@berkeleyhigh.org> | Date: 3/18/04 4:34 a.m. |
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So last night I was Bansheeing around with some mates, then yammering on Psyjnir Hotline and #hbo a bit; good training, good conversation, at least one revelation to me by Jester via Orion, which Narc has mentioned over at R.net. At one point, I was capturing some footage for Orion (for self-critiquing, something I advocate), and after sending it to him, ended up throwing it to the #hbo guys for kicks. It caused a flurry with goatrope and some of the others, who noticed that at several points, we ended up "inverting" (turning over completely, barrel-roll style), something I'd forgotten wasn't exactly common among the general populace. It's not really a remarkable thing; if you understand the capabilities of the Banshee, it's just one of the ways that it can move dynamically. But if you're not familiar with these things, it can seem like a trick. Anyway, people started having fun with that, and I ended up digging up older footage I'd taken and crunching it for public consumption, and finally figured that I might as well do something useful with all of this crap. So I clipped it together and made it available. You might find it interesting. (haha, I lie; iMovie is stupid and so is QT Pro, so you'll have to download this in three parts. Just imagine they're one. MPEG-4 format.) http://berkeleyhigh.org/provinggrounds/foo.mp4
Yes, my video card sucks, yes, the compression sucks, no, this is probably not very entertaining, yes, it can be useful. Let me walk you through it. We start with the Orion footage. Neither of us are playing our best here, and in fact we both end up getting potted by some bored tank, but the point of all of this isn't to show our 1337itude, it's to provide a visual aid -- look at what each of us does, try to parse it. Look at our respective charges -- he knows I'm probably going to fire, so his initial charge generally consists of a loose shot and then evasion while he enters, whereas mine is more active, because I know he's going to be evading rather than prisonyard-rushing me. Most importantly, look how, even though I take out his shields early (watch for the flash) and he's not putting very much fire my way (a problem of his, I need to work on his aggression), I don't manage to kill him -- why? What am I not doing? Think. Next flick: Some standard killery, then I arm myself and end up going for a tank, manned with one NthDegree256. I dodge his fire with hard wheeling turns and keep throwing shots as I enter, ending up killing him before I even get there; I then sort out an infantryman, then spin up hard to avoid fire from another tank. I'm taking heat and my gun is reloading, so I say "fuq it" and perform a bail&rocket on the tank, taking it out and dying on the landing. There are worse ways to go. Next flick: We start with another tank entry, but this one's much less happy. I know the guy in that tank, and he's a pro -- a good shot, but more importantly, very patient. I can dodge and make potshots all day, but until the tank fires a shot, I can't enter on him, because as soon as my axis of travel lines up with him, he's got an easy kill. So I dance for ages until he finally makes his shot (hard to see, look for the contrail), then enter and bail&rocket again. Was that necessary? No. I'm showing off. You think I filmed boring stuff? I barely survive the landing, then reload and blast off. Cut to an air kill, pretty standard. If there's a lesson to be drawn from this, it's that -- no matter how much you want to live, even if you've got a flag -- simply running away from a dogfight is tantamount to suicide. Stand and fight. You can't outrun someone who moves at the exact same speed as you. You're just giving them free, easy hits to your ass end. Cut to another kill, mostly illustrating how devastating and enigmatic vuln points can be, even when they're so subtle we don't know we've hit one. We move onto some infantry kills, a couple. Nothing special here, but watch how, even when I miss a crush, I never stop or hesitate -- I'm immediately up and away, coming back for another attempt. No squirming around on the ground. This is helped in part by the way I sweep-crush, making sure to get low enough to kill without actually touching the ground and being "captured by friction." This is a tricky move, like surfing, but useful, though it may not be very obvious in this footage. Cut again to me screwing up a kill on another ground target. I follow him down, and see that he's going for the Warthog gun; I zoom in to upset the 'hog with my body, but am too slow, and find myself looking down the barrel of a rocket launcher. I'm screwed, so I adjust my course slightly, and let my speed "bank" me off the Warthog's curve, pushing me laterally, a direction I couldn't move by myself. It brings me out of the line of the rocket, and I slot the gunner and zoom off. Grab the flag, take out a defender, hop in and leave; I start to take fire, so I execute an evasive maneuver that I call "shrugging," very simple and quick. It consists of slight, "wagging" side-to-side movement, keeping the same basic course but zig-zagging your path a bit. It's good both for evading sustained fire (such as when running away... hey, didn't I tell you not to do that?), and for "oh shit" dodging of tank shots, rockets, etc. After a bit of this, I'm away, and flying home. Cut again to a long approach on an air target. I open up from long range, then start to take fire from behind and promptly drop, then spin and line up -- only to realize that it's merely some wanker on my own team. I turn again and reacquire, slapping the target with a passing fuel rod, then nailing him from behind -- again, he exhibits the "Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away" behavior, which baffles me. Down he goes, and we end without formality. Drop any questions you have my way and I'll be pleased to answer them, unless it's "Why does your footage look like crap?" If you can learn anything here, it will not be time wasted for me. Have fun.
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| Replies: |
| For Your Pleasure | vector40 | 3/18/04 4:34 a.m. |
| 6DOF! | Andrew Nagy | 3/18/04 10:22 a.m. |
| Re: 6DOF! | vector40 | 3/18/04 10:54 p.m. |
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