a fireside tactics discussion with elixir, volume I

[elxir]

Volume I, Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven

What to do when the enemy has the ball (e.g. your team has just scored) at the start of the round:

In general: First and foremost, you want to prevent the enemy from advancing over the top of the map for an easy, quick score. This means you messed up. Take a lap if this happens.

Second, you want to kill the ball carrier quickly. This can be done in a variety of ways, but the easiest involves bullets.

Third, do not over-commit. This requires a modicum of team chemistry. By over-commit, I mean do not send the majority of your team in one direction unless that is the only possible way from which the ball can come. I'm sure you've noticed by now, but this happens...never. There is always an alternate route, except on f****** funnelpark. There, you can over-commit.

Fourth, and this is very important: all of the forthcoming remarks are predicated upon the location of the ball carrier. As soon as the ball carrier advances out of the spawn and into the map, you want to do other stuff. That discussion is for another time, however.

Mirandas: ITEMS. You are the fastest plane. Thus, it hurts your team the least if you sprint out, snag the items, and come back. Additionally, your joke-spam capabilities render your weapons largely obsolete at the early stages of a round. Grab those items!

Alternate miranda strategy (also applicable to daring loopys): Rush the enemy, and do as much damage as possible to whoever is holding the ball. Remember, you do not matter!

Note: defer to loopys and mirandas who are better than you when it comes to taking items. They will get better utility out of them. Play smart!

Explodets: Mines! Lay them around you, and around the top pathway. This creates an immediate roadblock to prevent the worst thing ever from happening - a quick enemy score from over the top.

Second, spam that rocket. At the very beginning, fire shots into the easy lanes - where enemy rushers are likely to be coming from. Once you move into range, release the shot wherever enemies happen to be. If none are in the vicinity of the rocket, release and repeat in a new direction. This requires some experience on the map so you know where they are coming from. Alternatively, fire rockets up into the enemy spawn (while retaining cover if possible) and hope to catch a peace of any remaining explodets, bombers, and carriers.

Acid loopys: Spam lanes with acid. Spam spawn with acid. If you can hit the majority of the enemy team with acid within like three seconds of the start of the round, you've done a very good thing. Acid loopys should avoid going back to scramble for items, they are much more useful up front laying the green goo.

Drug-free loopys: spam emp and bullets into the enemy mass that inevitably forms at the beginning of the match. You are also the fastest plane (that can actually affect an enemy, fkin randas), so kindly pay attention to the ball indicator on the map. If it goes down, you go down. If it stay high, you stay high.

Bombers: SPAM SPAM SPAM. Use the front gun, the butt gun, all the guns. You do the most damage with the least effort, so don't ever stop shooting.

Biplanes: I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

Thanks for reading, stay dandy.

[XX1]

Originally Posted by elxir

Volume I, Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven


Biplanes: I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

But Biplanes can kill stuff, like really fast

[Tekn0]

Nice write up

Kamikaze can be a goal saver for your team with Randa Ultra Cap. You may crash into the wall after double warp killing the ball carrier or severely damaging him but if it has to be done, don't hesitate to do it. Although if you screw up, it looks such a facepalmer.

[Evan20000]

You should have told the randas to use properk and have a blood orgy in the enemy spawn. I hear that is pretty effective.

[sunshineduck]

Playing the lanes
a sunshineduck production

This is a semi-advanced strategy that a couple of members of what used to be Twisted and I ran almost flawlessly. It allows for maximum flexibility and scoring opportunities on fast breaks, and gives a role to each plane on offense. I've posted pictures depicting what I view as the lanes in several official maps that will be played a lot. The majority of maps have a clearly defined top (green), middle (blue), and bottom (red) lanes. The object of playing the lanes is maximizing the amount of area the defenders have to cover. This strategy relies heavily upon passing ability, but a lot of these passes are very simple and practical to make with a little bit of practice. The more advanced bounce passes (which you will see me attempt a lot) take a lot more time and practice on the maps.

First and foremost, the only way running the lanes will be successful is if you understand a basic concept: always clear DOWN. When you save the ball near your goal, the optimal play is to pass it or fly it downwards and take the low route to mid and the enemy goal. On occasion the opposing team will stack the bottom lane and do what Beagle described as "salmoning". Imagine a group of salmon swimming upstream in a river, and apply that to planes all compacted in one lane. If they are salmoning low towards our goal, take it either high or middle instead. Otherwise, taking it low allows for maximum speed out of our side since you are flying downwards, and slows down the enemy push since they have to fly upwards to score.

Once you get used to clearing low and getting past mid, playing the lanes actually comes into effect. The ball is low, but that does NOT mean the rest of the team goes low as well. In fact, everyone else on the team but the ball carrier should be taking a different route. You take the middle or top lane and basically shoot towards the goal, effectively killing the defense around the goal as the ball handler in the low lane looks to either get off an open shot, pass it high to an open teammate, or dunk it in the goal if nobody on the other team shoots him. This works like a charm nearly every single time. By extending your attack from just one lane to three, you are putting three times the amount of pressure on the defensive team. If there are two whales back on defense, there is no way they will be able to coordinate shooting into all three lanes at once; therefore, someone is always open.

This strategy applies not only to loopies and biplanes, but to explodets and bombers as well. The heavies will typically arrive late to the show, but this works to the team's advantage because they can compensate if the ball carrier gets ambushed and the ball is cleared back towards our goal: they are there for cleanup duty. If the ball carrier manages to evade being killed and gets to a prime passing position, it is critical that someone be there to receive the pass regardless of plane. A mistake many novice explodets make on offense is that they rarely cross middle. Whales can take an incredible amount of punishment and therefore make prime receiving candidates near the goal regardless of plane speed - at that distance, the only thing that matters is dunking it into the goal before the plane is killed.

It's rather difficult to fully explain this strategy in just text and pictures, but if you run it well then it will serve you just as well.

http://imagesi.com/1726e.png
http://imagesi.com/88fc6.png
http://imagesi.com/8703d.png
http://imagesi.com/05292.png
http://imagesi.com/9d88c.png
http://imagesi.com/86f5e.jpg
http://imagesi.com/82994.png
http://imagesi.com/c46b7.png
http://imagesi.com/70b4b.png

PS: On planepark, I threw in a dashed line on the bottom route that signifies that it's purely a passing lane. It's rarely advantageous to actually fly through that hole, but if the enemy team is starting to salmon the low route then passing it straight up through that hole often leads to easy goals against a weak defense.

all glory to TeH ApA

[XX1]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

Nice write up

Kamikaze can be a goal saver for your team with Randa Ultra Cap. You may crash into the wall after double warp killing the ball carrier or severely damaging him but if it has to be done, don't hesitate to do it. Although if you screw up, it looks such a facepalmer.

lol.
Ok this is somthing i do not recommend at all -_- Um you have an f key and warp. you will disarm any miranda faster using that method. Crashing into a wall..... how could you in a plane that can turn the opposite direction by pressing the D button.
A lot of ball mirandas just rely on warping becuase its all they do -> ratio check please. That F key can hurt people especially with ultracapitator if you spam, pls use it.

[Tekn0]

Originally Posted by XX1

lol.
Ok this is somthing i do not recommend at all -_- Um you have an f key and warp. you will disarm any miranda faster using that method. Crashing into a wall..... how could you in a plane that can turn the opposite direction by pressing the D button.
A lot of ball mirandas just rely on warping becuase its all they do -> ratio check please. That F key can hurt people especially with ultracapitator if you spam, pls use it.

Of course, it was never meant to be as a replacement for F. It's for a situation as a last resort effort at stopping the ball carrier.

It's a trade-off between charging-time+accuracy of your shot, versus double warp. A missed snipe leaves you with nothing and with completely energy drained.

[leggomyeggo]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

Of course, it was never meant to be as a replacement for F. It's for a situation as a last resort effort at stopping the ball carrier.

It's a trade-off between charging-time+accuracy of your shot, versus double warp. A missed snipe leaves you with nothing and with completely energy drained.

So don't miss.

[Mt.Vesuvius]

Originally Posted by leggomyeggo

So don't miss.

This^^^^^^

[sunshineduck]

i believe my contributions to this thread were wholly underpraised

there goes my sad attempt at helping the ball community learn to play

[nobodyhome]

that is because you posted it in the water cooler.

no one gives a **** about anything posted in the water cooler.

[XX1]

Originally Posted by sunshineduck

i believe my contributions to this thread were wholly underpraised

there goes my sad attempt at helping the ball community learn to play

herp derp

Arent you ssd......

[XX1]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

Of course, it was never meant to be as a replacement for F. It's for a situation as a last resort effort at stopping the ball carrier.

It's a trade-off between charging-time+accuracy of your shot, versus double warp. A missed snipe leaves you with nothing and with completely energy drained.

Crashing after injuring their miranda leaves the ball in no ones hands except for having it lye around in your goal area + if you dont kill it then -> facepalm and goal for them. i don't know the numbers but i am pretty sure warp + charge shot does more damage than double warp.

[Ribilla]

Originally Posted by XX1

Crashing after injuring their miranda leaves the ball in no ones hands except for having it lye around in your goal area + if you dont kill it then -> facepalm and goal for them. i don't know the numbers but i am pretty sure warp + charge shot does more damage than double warp.

It does, never double warp if you think you will crash, double warp to get infront of them, thus blocking the shot. END.

[MajorPayne257]

Originally Posted by leggomyeggo

So don't miss.

Originally Posted by Mt.Vesuvius

This^^^^^^

Yeah because you two are the pro-est randas around.

*facepalm*

[leggomyeggo]

Originally Posted by MajorPayne257

Yeah because you two are the pro-est randas around.

*facepalm*

When did I say anything like that at all? I'm just saying it's not that hard to aim your randa so it hits a plane. I can snipe people offscreen in tbd, so it shouldn't be that hard if you're close enough to have the ability to double warp and hit him.

inb4 BUT THIS IS BALL NOT TBD