Yeah it makes a lot of sense, thinking about it. I’m willing to bet I hit external view and start circling around immediately to find a target. I should just head straight out to the edge of the map. That’s what always happens when I’m the attack helicopter or mobile AA!
Speaking of which, it’s extremely satisfying to kill a jet as the attack helicopter gunner. I love when they’re coming right at me. Just hold down the mouse button and watch them burst into flames. It feels so crunchy, like the mobile AA used to against tanks.
Thanks, yeah I’m assuming they weren’t unaware or something. It’s frustrating when you are used to BC2 where you can fuck up a machine gunner just by sprinting up and stabbing the fuck out of his face before he can shoot.
Oh well !
p.s. I think you can knife from the front in some way as a few times I’ve been knifed and watched the other player’s face as he rips off my dogtags. :C
No, some of the animations turn you toward the knifer. I once killed an enemy doing that to a teammate, before the animation could complete.
I’m pretty sure you can get a knifing animation from the front though, if you get the jump on somebody and are close enough, or am I mistaken?
Yes, I’ve knife killed people from the front. It’s very impressive the animations that are available depending on the position. I came up on a sniper prone on the floor of an unbuilt building and the angle was a bit weird. The animation looked like I reached under his neck and slit his throat.
And you can interrupt a knife kill in mid animation. I’ve saved a couple of teammates who were about thisclose to being knifed. I saw the guy approach them and just opened fire. They both commented that they were in mid-animation and thought they were goners. I too have been saved in mid animation.
Cobra
1786
I’ve become pretty good at evading missiles so stealth isn’t very useful to me. Air radar on the other hand is very useful in dogfights as it allows me to see when an enemy is tired of chasing me. I don’t use the minimap at all.
I can’t test it right now but in my XP anything that makes you go faster makes your radius bigger.
Rockets on jets are the same as on the heli but you should never use it against other jets. The slow speed of rockets make it very hard to know where to aim. A 14 rocket burst can destroy almost any vehicle if you manage to hit them all.
This is a mistake I see so many pilots make. The golden rule to jet survival in BF2 was flying back to the safety of your base as soon as your health was below 80%. In BF3 it’s even easier. Just hide behind a mountain or fly to 800 alt. where no one can hit you and wait till your flares are reloaded and your health is back to 100%. If you have the discipline to stick to this rule you’ll survive much longer.
The dodge happens when the missile misses your hitbox. This is very hard because the hitbox of a jet is actually bigger than the model itself. I’ve had it happen to me a few times but honestly I think that it was more lag and luck than skill. Again I’ve become pretty good at evading missiles so I don’t try this.
Most SOFLAM’s are unmanned which means you can fly out of its view very quickly. You know there’s a SOFLAM on the ground when you’re consistently being locked on in one area without someone actually firing.
By evading missiles do you mean making sure enemies don’t have time to lock on and fire in the first place? I’m not sure what you mean compared to “dodging” them.
I’ll have to try Air Radar to see what it actually looks like. The wiki says it shows missiles too. This might be a way to force myself to play with more patience and awareness.
Anyway, thanks for the replies. I can’t wait to work on this stuff.
Tankero
1788
Couple of notes about jets:
The best turning radius is at 290 - 310 speed. Any faster/slower will make your turning radius wider. You can actually cut throttle entirely (0%) and use the afterburners to maintain that speed with short bursts.
Evading missiles ‘manually’ is possible but unreliable. You basically have to get into a downward spiral turn at 430 speed. (Max throttle, afterburn, nose below the horizon). Depending on where the missile was fired from, you’ll actually outpace it and hear it blow up somewhere behind you. This doesn’t always works, and the second missile might still get you. Flares remain the best counter available. ECM is really chump-bait.
As for air radar, it’s actually hard to read! Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but I can’t really tell where the jets are based on my position/altitude. It lets me know someone is out there, which means start juking.
Is there a throttle indicator on the HUD? I didn’t notice it. I can’t remember if jet speed shows up on external view, which is what I usually use for greater awareness when I’m turning a tight circle.
I’ll try watching my speed in the F35. If you let it get too low, it tries to go into VTOL mode and you fall out of the sky. At least that happens when you hold the left trigger on the X360 gamepad, the one that normally decelerates (like the S key).
Tankero
1790
I haven’t spent any significant time in the F-35. It’s just too… awkward for me.
Cobra
1791
Agreed. I used to shoot F35’s out of the sky in BF2 without ever being flanked by them. It’s a very slow plane to fly with. Especially when you’re used to the Flanker and Hornet.
Cobra
1792
Evading is everything from using flares to hiding behind a mountain. Dodging is what Tankero described.
Hunty
1793
I’m not sure this is true. I’ve knifed people from the front by surprise and done an ineffectual swipe many times. In fact, one of my idiosyncracies is an addiction to knifing. I have 137 knife kills to 80-odd grenade kills.
In my experience, if you’re in the rear 180 arc of an enemy and you knife them it’s instakill. But you have to be very close. The animation varies based on where you are in that arc and the enemy’s facing. My personal favourite is the one where you jump in front and backhand the knife up through the jaw. Ouch.
I also got my bird colonel today, after 42 hours. Averaging under one rank per hour, pretty pleased with that!
Thongsy
1794
This has happened to me a few times where I try to knife a guy from the front after I ran out of bullets killing other guys. Nothing would happen even though I am face to face with 1 feet between us. Eventually then he kills me with his pistol. I also have done the same to others where they try to knife me and I just kill them with a gun instead. I think even one time me and another guy got into a knife fight that went nowhere until one of us just unloaded their pistol on the other.
I would like to try out the jet/choppers but they’re just so hard for me to control and I usually die within 10 seconds of takeoff. It’s a bit annoying since there are some players that are so good at it and will rack up 20 kills and absolutely destroy the other team as they can’t do anything about it.
Houngan
1795
Huh, the torch kill took me about five minutes. Thanks sniper!
H.
Hey, do the paddles kill like they did in BC2? I just remembered that…
One time I was reloading my RPG and someone came around the corner to start knifing me from the front. I switched to my pistol, but it was out of ammo. Then I switched to my carbine, and it was out of ammo too. Finally he killed me. We had a good laugh about it.
Thongsy
1799
That’s a bummer. That should’ve been one of the assault assignments.
Scratch what I said about no knifing from the front. It just seems to be inconsistent. I got knife from the front today instantly, but there was no animation for it. Later I tried to knife a guy using a stationary weapon, swipe him four or five times and nothing happened so I just shot him instead.
Did you get a dogtag? If not, maybe he was already injured when you attacked.
Later I tried to knife a guy using a stationary weapon, swipe him four or five times and nothing happened so I just shot him instead.
You can’t knife people using certain emplaced weapons. It’s especially disappointing that you can’t knife mortar guys.
