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  #1  
Old 09-29-2009, 11:06 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Default [G] Recoilless Biplane Guide



Version 1.1

As you probably all know, Biplane has a lot of different game styles depending on your setup. It's probably the plane with the most diversity, even if the weapons aren't that different from each other. This guide will address one of the most popular biplane setups: recoilless biplane.
I strongly suggest reading The Reverse Thrust Heavy Canonnon Biplane Guide by Beagle if you haven't yet. It's a great read about another popular biplane setup.
Clic Here :


Recoilless isn't easy for a lot of reasons which we will see in the details throughout this guide. But once you become pretty good at it, recoilless biplane provides great satisfaction, flying through enemy formations and getting kills everywhere on the battlefield in an extremely short period of time. You're like a tornado, flying around the map and destroying lone wanderers, while their allies are trying to catch you in vain.

I personally have about 50000 kills with biplane. Almost all of them are with recoilless. I won't say I'm the best recoilless player out there, even if some say so, but I'm certainly not the worst either. And from what I understand, I inspired some great players to play recoilless biplane as their main plane. Images are better than words, so here are two brief introduction video featuring myself playing a few rounds with this setup.
Recoilless Frag Collection
Recoilless Frag collection #2

What's the recoilless biplane?

To put it in a few words: you're the ultimate close combat fighter. If done right, nothing can resist your machinegun at short range. But don't worry; you also have a long range weapon for long distance combat. It's much weaker than the heavy cannon, but it also uses much less energy, and has a much better fire rate. So if you aim well, it will still be very effective. Not only to finish those who try to run for their lives, but also to damage those you're about to engage with your machinegun before they're close enough.

Plus, you're one of the fastest planes there is, outclassed only by the loopy. And even then, in a lot of cases you're faster than they are. Combined with your strong damage resistance (you have almost as much health as a bomber), you can take a lot of hits and continue the combat or retreat quickly if it becomes necessary. But most importantly, you can get to a good position very quickly, because everything is about positioning with recoilless biplane. The best positioning will decide who wins a duel of recoilless biplanes. And it will decide if you win or if you die in a 2+-versus-1 situation. More than once, I've escaped a 7+-versus-1 situation, just because I managed to surprise the enemy and quickly get some place that they weren't expecting, again and again, until I was safe. Note that this also works with bomb carrying, and some of the best bomb carriers there are in the game right now are recoilless biplane users.

Comparing recoilless to the other kinds of biplanes, the major difference is that recoilless has no recoil whatsoever (yeah, I'm not even kidding). This is great for close combat-especially in a small area where you can't afford to stall or decelerate. You can predict where you will be very easily even if you engage an opponent, which isn’t the case when your attacks have recoil. Again, it is a matter of positioning.
Some good dogfighter/Heavy Cannon players are able to use the recoil of their weapons to survive some situations. If there is a downside to the absence of recoil, it's that those tricks aren't possible for us.
You're not as strong as the Heavy Cannon biplane for long distance attacks though, and you usually won't be able to win long distance duels against most planes. So usage of cover that the terrain provides is extremely important.

Last edited by tyr; 09-08-2010 at 09:28 PM.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:07 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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PERK SETUP
Using the right stuff is important.



Red Perks
  • Primary gun: Long Distance Cannon
    Even though the defining characteristic of the recoilless biplane is his machinegun, do not underestimate the importance of the long distance cannon. In the hands of a good player, it will become almost as deadly as the machinegun.
    Its rate of fire, being almost 360 rounds per minute, is pretty fast. And it inflicts 38 damage points per bullet, which is enough to kill a loopy or miranda in precisely 5 hits.
    The range of the cannon is also comparable to the Heavy Cannon. It can hit enemies off-screen.
  • Secondary gun: Machinegun
    Now, this is what it's all about. This wonderful piece of technology can fire 15 rounds per second, each of them dealing 26 damage points to the enemy for a total of 390 damage points per second. You heard me right.
    You can destroy every single plane in this game in less than a second if you keep them in range.
    The range of this weapon is maybe its only weakness. But it's actually quite long. You can compare it to the biplane’s size. The machinegun is effective up to one biplane length from the nose of your plane. Everything between your nose and your range limit will melt in less than one second, especially because as of June 22nd Patch, the machinegun has now piercing. First victim gets 100% of the damage (26), second victim gets 70% (18,2), and the third victim gets 40% (10,4).

Green Perks
  • Rubber Hull
    Forget it. This is absolutely useless for a recoilless biplane, because you need to be a good pilot to use biplane in a first place. Good pilots don't need Rubber Hull.
  • Heavy Armor
    This could be interesting, but the biplane doesn’t crave more health since it already has a reasonable amount to begin with. In many cases, if you die without heavy armor, you would have died anyway with it. Of course, this perk is always good, but I strongly prefer one of the two others.
  • Repair Drone
    This starts to be interesting, but be careful. A recoilless biplane spends a lot of time using afterburner, which means that the repair drone won't be repairing every time it’s needed. On the other hand, recoilless biplane also spends a lot of time searching for prey, which is time for the drone to do its job. It's up to you to see whether this perk fits your play style or you're more aggressive and most of your free time is spent afterburning. But consider this. If you chose this perk or one of the two above, you won't have access to the last one which is by far my personal favorite.
  • Flexible Wings
    Now, this is some serious stuff. Recoilless biplane is all about speed and agility. It’s about gaining the best position before striking hard. Guess what? This perk gives you A LOT more agility. Basically, you turn much faster, which is a great boost to gaining that positional advantage.
    The downside is that you won't have the health bonus of one of the two perks above. But, your ability to dodge enemy fire will be heavily augmented. Once again, it's up to you to see what fits your play style the most.

Blue Perks
  • Turbocharger vs. Ultracapacitor
    The eternal discussion. In my opinion, for recoilless biplane, you should use Turbocharger.
    Let me explain why. Every plane has 1000 total energy and biplane recovers 20 energy per 1/30 of a second (600 energy per second). With turbo you'll get 20% more recharge rate, so that's 24 energy per 1/30 of a second (720 energy per second), so that's one more machinegun shot per second. With ultracap you have 1350 which is 2 more machinegun shots but less recharge rate. In my opinion, you actually don't need that extra firepower in most cases, because either the enemy is already dead or he's passed behind you. You simply don't have enough time to use all that extra energy. When you come back to finish him you won't have full energy though. Because your energy tank is huge and the recharge rate is normal, you won't have enough time to fill it completely. But of course some good players like this perk because it gives the biplane more F+D firepower (we'll talk about that a bit later). A skilled player using ultracap will be able to preserve some of the extra capacitor charge by only firing when he is in contact with his enemy and holding fire otherwise.
    On the other hand, if you have turbocharger and you use all your energy the first time (again, you won't be able to use much more anyway because of your speed), you will have all your energy again when you come back to finish him, and you have more flexibility : you can use the afterburner more often without really losing firepower as you'll recharge your energy faster.
    As you can see, I personally prefer Turbocharger, but both are okay and are used by many recoilless users, so it's up to you.
  • Reverse Thrust
    I personally don't like this at all for recoilless. I just don't see how you can effectively mix this perk and recoilless. I've seen some people try it, and I tried it myself and I find that it’s just not good. I strongly recommend taking one of the others.
  • Ace Instincts
    If you're an experienced player, this is one of the blue perk for recoilless biplane. To exploit this perk to the maximum, you'll need to frequently have silver/gold bars. Bars give you more damage, speed, and agility. Recoilless biplane already has a lot of these, but with bars, you have even more! And this perk gives 50% more bonuses to bars. Trust me, the sight of a 3gold bar ace instinct recoilless biplane brings fear to more than one. In the hands of a good player, this is arguably the most deadly thing in Altitude right now.

Last edited by tyr; 09-08-2010 at 09:31 PM.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:07 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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HOW TO PLAY IT
Using it well is important too



Flying and Game Flow

Yeah, maybe it sounds strange. But flying a recoilless biplane is nothing like flying some other plane. You'll have to fly extremely fast most of the time, sharply control your plane while turning, make split second decisions, and monitor everything that’s going on around you. In order to find enemies to track and to kill, I try to be cognizant of half the map at the same time (and I’m not kidding).
This may sound funny and cliche, but you need to have feel for what you're doing. Also, you'll be able to predict where the enemies are and what they're doing, even if they're not on your screen. This means you can get a great positional advantage if they are coming your way. If you can do all that at the same time, you'll be a good recoilless pilot.

For those of you who know the Touhou Project, I find many similarities between flying a recoilless biplane, and playing Touhou:
- You have to be very quick making your decisions
- You have to have good reflexes
- You need to be very precise in your movements
- You need to not only look at yourself, but also at everything that’s going on around you
- You have to dodge tons of stuff thrown at you
If you don't know Touhou, here's a youtube video of the extra stage of Touhou 06 - The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (I personally finished this stage a few times already, muahaha).

CLICK HERE

As you can see, most of the game is dodging. It involves reflexes and memorization. It's exactly the same with recoilless biplane. After a while, you'll be able to predict how your enemies will react in certain situations, and will already be able to try to counter their counter, and so on. This works of course for all the planes, but since you're most effective at close combat, it is even more important to you since the danger will be right next to you. If you can predict what your enemies will do, you'll have made a huge step towards the pro-itude in Altitude. This can easily be applied to wallage. If you know what path your enemy will follow in the next two seconds, you can easily wall him. By the way, walls are extremely useful to recoilless players. I'll talk about those power-ups a bit later.

Try to always predict also where you will be in the next few seconds. Do not expose yourself if it's not absolutely needed. If you're monitoring the battlefield well, you should know what the potentially dangerous zones around you are, and where the safe zones are. If an enemy is in a dangerous zone and seems alone on your screen, well, he's not. And it will be very risky to engage him. On the contrary, if an enemy is alone in a relatively safe zone, he's all yours.
After a while, this will become automatic and you'll immediately see which targets can be engaged, and which can't.

Let's analyze this situation:



As you can see, it seems there isn't a lot of stuff on the screen, but you actually can see what's happening in the whole map.
Three purple players have died in the last few seconds, which means there are 4 players remaining. We have two on the screen (GGQ and the bomb carrier), which means there are two of them somewhere (assuming the guy that has just gone spectator is still playing). Even if we're not sure EXACTLY where they are, we can make quite precise assumptions.
Their bomb is in the field, and most of the time, even in public games, there is a little escort, so let's say there is one of the two remaining guys there, which leaves us with one enemy. Here is what we know:
- I have vision on everything what's going on in the middle, and on their side of the middle (where GGQ is)
- The turrets seem still active
- Zero and pig just killed one guy each in the top right section (where the explosion is), and no one is shooting at them
- GGQ isn't firing, and Monxy isn't on the screen, which means they're not close to each other, which means Monxy is probably on our side, preparing to engage the enemy bomb carrier
I think you're beginning to understand. There are indeed very few possible locations for the last guy.
Since the turrets are still active, there are very few chances he's on our side, and he's not in the middle since I can see everything (not at the top either, since Zero and pig aren't engaging him). That leaves us only with the possibility that he's either near their base near GGQ, or he's also escorting the bomb.
What does this means to me?
- If I had the bomb myself, this would be the perfect opportunity to try and hit their base, since there's at most 2 guys defending it
- I can try to engage GGQ, but there are still turrets in there and possibly one more guy so it's not the best plan
- I can try and quickly go reinforce our defense
- I can continue idling in the middle to cut THEIR reinforcements as they come and give my team enough time to come back in the middle after the defense

All this came from an image. Imagine what you can get from a moving thing.
With a little practice, you'll have enough experience to quickly interpret different information you have on your screen with good accuracy, without even thinking about it.
This is important for everyone of course, but especially for recoilless biplane since it will be your main source of information as to where to find possible enemies to kill effectively. Remember that safe/dangerous zone thing?
This is also extremely useful for competitive league play. It will give you timings for counter attacks, will improve your defensive skills, will give you spamming coordinates, and much more.
Following the gameflow well is what makes a decent player, a good player.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:08 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Weapons and Basic Tactics



Long Distance Canon

This can be used 3 different ways. Note that dueling at long distance isn't really an option, since you'll always want to get to close range ASAP. If you can kill them before that, it's OK, but don't try to keep your enemies at distance. If you need to break your approach for some reason, or if you get badly damaged before being at close range, just retreat and don't engage that same enemy before you have fully recovered.

1: Spam

I don't really have to tell you how to spam. Aim at a choke where enemies might come from, and press F. If there are indeed enemies there, they're either a) dead, or b) badly damaged, and you can finish them with your machinegun by closing in if they are on your side of the choke. Use long distance spam if you don't have anything else to do, or if you're approaching a choke you're going to cross and there's no enemy in sight. Since your shots can hit stuff off screen, it's worthwhile.
You can use all your energy bar spamming and it will recharge quickly enough to be full by the time you're at the choke.
Also, if an enemy bomb carrier is close, you can try to aim at him using the bomb sign as a marker. It usually works pretty well, and even if you miss the carrier, you'll have good chances of hitting his escort if there is one.
Really, this is spam basics. If you're good with bomber, you'll be good with this usage of the long range cannon.

2: Aiming at enemies in sight but not at close range

This is slightly different than the spam mode, even though you also only use your primary shot. The enemies are moving, which means you'll have to aim a bit in front of them in order to give the bullets enough time to reach their target. Bullets aren't slow but they aren't THAT fast either, and fast planes can easily dodge them if they're far enough away. So be careful, and aim well. Once again, predicting enemy reactions will be capital for success. If you're not sure what they're going to do, don't take any risks. Just shoot at them and see what happens.
BUT BE VERY CAREFUL! Unlike the spam mode, this time you actually see the enemies, which means they're not very far and can come at you quickly. So if you don't have enough energy for your afterburner or machinegun, you're pretty much screwed.
If you're not very confident with that kind of shot, either try to close the gap as quickly as possible without shooting at long range, or try to gain positional advantage using your energy in the afterburner. In both alternatives, follow up by using your machinegun if you’ve saved enough energy.

3: F+D

We're talking about the best damage output in the game (well, ok, Heavy Cannon's F+D is slightly stronger, but still).
Let's see what kind of damage you can do, firing both your shots at the same time.
In 0.5 seconds (about the time you'll go from 100% to 0% energy using this mode), you'll have shot your primary weapon 3 times, and your machinegun 7 times, which is 3x38+7x26 damage or 296 damage in 0.5 seconds. That is, if you’ve hit everything of course.
Technically, you can one shot every single plane in the game with this. But in the field, it actually isn't the case unless you have a lot of bars, because you actually don't have enough energy to sustain F+D for 0.5 seconds.
Anyway, you can deal A LOT of damage with this shot type, and can oneshot loopies/mirandas even without any bars, so use it.
There are two difficulties with this mode: speed and precision.
Even if you're close enough to your enemy to use your machinegun, you're moving fast, and your enemy is also moving fast. Since you have to play on reflexes at this point, if your enemy only slightly turns when you're starting to fire, you have good chances of missing some of your shots. But worse than that, if you're at high speed you simply may not have enough time to kill him before running out of energy, and since you have no recoil, starting shooting won't help you.
Make sure to reduce your speed if it's really high, before starting to shoot.

Machinegun

There are three ways of using this weapon. One of them, we've just talked about. The other is to use your machinegun alone in which there are two situations.
This uses a lot less energy than F+D, and you can sustain machinegun-only fire about 1 second at full power, which is also a lot. You can easily destroy most enemies if all your shots hit.

1: situation against a single opponent

Use this against damaged enemies or if you know you'll have a lot of time shooting at them (shooting at a stalled explodet from his top, for instance) and just want to keep that extra energy to keep some flexibility for the afterburner, just in case. Or just F+D him and move on.

2: situation against multiple opponents

This is the real reason to use machinegun-only fire.
Because it now has piercing, it is much more interesting to use it than before, since if you have two or more enemies in front of you that are very close to each other (or flying over each other which is even better) you can damage them both at the same time and not one after the other when the first dies, as it used to be.
While F+D would still be effective in that case, you can achieve the same goal (killing/damagine enemies) by keeping that extra flexibility of having more energy in the tank which gives you more options for the upcoming seconds.


Power Ups

I guess we can talk about them in here, since they can be considered weapons, if used well.

1: Shield

You're a close combat fighter, and a shield is deadly if used during final approach of the enemy. If he tries to shoot, he's basically dead. That works for all the planes, but you'll spend most of your time at close combat, so a shield is even more useful to you than it is to other planes.
Note that you can also be an extremely useful bomb escort with a shield. Not only do you shield the carrier, but you are also immediately at range of your opponents. You can't be more effective than that.

2: Wall

I'm one of the few who actually prefer walls to shields, and I’ve even been nicknamed "the biggest waller in the game" by some people. Let's be clear. Walls are GREAT for biplane. Everything that's right in front of you melts to your machinegun, and your only weakness is enemies coming from behind you. Walls fix that problem. Not only do you stop them from following you, but they're also dead/damaged/EMPd, so you can come back and finish them.
Just learn to use the walls at the best moments, where it's the most unforgivable. Don't use them immediately as most people do. Once again, learn to predict your opponents’ moves.
Walls are underrated.

3: Missile

It's a missile. Always effective.
You can use it to finish an enemy you damaged with your long range canon during the approach if you're too lazy to use the machinegun, or if the zone is too dangerous.
There aren't really unique ways to use this with recoilless biplane.

Last edited by tyr; 09-08-2010 at 09:44 PM.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:09 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Combat Situations / Positioning and Advanced Tactics



Because the way you play isn't the same if you come from different directions.

Coming from over/under your enemy



This is an easy situation, for several reasons.
First off, they can't shoot at you, whatever their plane is, without turning a lot, which leaves you plenty of time to F+D them to death. I find bombers the easiest targets for that, since they're quite long and have less HP than explodets. Perfect targets.
Also, since they can't shoot at you, you're relatively safe doing that. All you have to care about is to monitor your speed and not miss your opponent.
There isn't really much of a difference coming from the top and the bottom. You'll have more momentum if you're coming from above your enemy. This can be a good thing, since it gives you a lot more options (retreat quickly if there are more enemies around and you don't want to engage them, or on the contrary, engage another target very shortly after the first one is destroyed to surprise him), but it can also be bad if you're not good at controlling your speed.
If you really want to finish your opponent and don't think you'll be able to do that with only 1 sweep, just align to your opponent once you're on him and adjust your speed to his, while continuing to fire. The important thing is to be ON him if you're fighting a bomber or explodet. You'll avoid their rear gun/mines that way. For the lighter planes, it may be better to be just a little bit behind them, so you'll have more time to adjust to any trajectory change if there are any.

Coming from the front

Every plane can shoot in front of them so this may be the most dangerous approach. But sometimes you don't have a choice. If you have a shield this is auto-win, but if you don't, you may be in trouble since you can't fire at full force until you're at close range. Meanwhile your enemy will fire at you as you approach. If you're not dead by then, just F+D him, but make sure you finish him because you probably won't have a second chance, being badly damaged already.
Anyway, this is not the type of approach I would recommend. If you can, try to use any cover the terrain can provide and attempt a different approach (like circling behind a rock while the enemy approaches, so you can engage him from below, or at least, reduce the distance between you).

Coming from behind

I wouldn't recommend doing this against an explodet for obvious reasons. Bombers are annoying too but still much more manageable than explodets. Just make sure you fly a bit over him so his machinegun can't track you.
For any other plane, this is pretty easy. You either have (almost) the same speed or a speed advantage. Slightly use your afterburner if you're not sure, but keep enough energy to be able to fire. This is probably the main difficulty there.
Use your afterburner once every ~0.1 sec so you basically have a higher speed than normal, except your energy will be almost at the maximum, which is what you need. Once you’ve caught him, just shoot at him while being careful to track trajectory changes and it should be enough to kill him.

Forced engagement around a corner



This is a technique every recoilless user should master.
You wait, flying slowly behind a corner until the enemy comes just in front of you. There is absolutely nothing he can do, and you have the perfect target just in front of you. In the image it's a loopy, but in this case, you have enough time to destroy even the toughest opponent. Once you master this, you can use it even in the fastest fights. For instance if a loopy is chasing you, run behind a wall and make a small loop. Your nose is just facing the corner when the loopy crosses it. With this tactic, your enemy is forced to turn through a large angle to point towards you (and he may over or under turn), while you are automatically aimed right at him without having to turn much at all.
Note that the more experienced players can see what you're up to, and may slow down as well to try to counter this so that YOU would be right in front of him crossing the corner. Make sure that doesn't happen by slowing down far from the corner itself if you see that this kind of situation is coming. You can also try to start going at full speed just before crossing the corner so that you surprise your enemy long enough to escape.

Intentional Stalling



This can be hard to master, but is also very effective against some of the faster planes.
Basically, if you didn’t kill the opponent in the first passage, you will make a loop and come back, while he does the same. If you keep missing, this can become quite a long fight. The alternative is to intentionally stall yourself and turn, tracking your opponent and using machinegun. If done correctly, he can't travel faster than you turn and he can't hit you either because he can't turn fast enough. Once he's dead, just point your nose towards the ground and use your afterburner to regain engine power.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:09 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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PLANE MATCH-UP
Because we like tradition.

There aren't any easy match-ups with recoilless. Every plane has something very annoying which can pwn you very quickly, so let's see how to proceed.

vs Loopy

Loopy is the plane you can probably F+D to death the easiest. But it also has the most annoying thing in the universe for recoilless biplane: EMP.
If you fight a loopy 1 on 1 and you get EMP'd, it's over. You have more than a 90% chance of dying. You won't be able to turn quickly and won't be able to retreat as well, while the other guy can simply fly around and shoot his tracking missiles at you. The solution is to not get EMPd, and that is easier said than done.
You can either abuse cover until you have an "around the corner" situation, try to quickly F+D him before he EMPs, or try to dodge every EMP (but that's hard since it has a ridiculous area of effect). If you get EMPd, your only chance is to quickly finish him (if he's right in front of you for instance), or try to go into intentional stalling and kill him them. But once again, your chances are slight.
If you don't get EMPd, this is a piece of cake. Just don't let him use his tracking missiles to their full potential by abusing cover from the terrain, and once you're close to him destroy him.

If he uses acid, this is much easier. Try to not hit the acid and just approach him and kill him. Of course, he still has tracking missiles and being followed by that isn't good. But he doesn't have EMP, which means you still have all your agility and speed, and can try to outmaneuver him.

vs Bomber

Bomber have a lot of health but they're also huge and slow targets. And they aren't that dangerous either if you can approach them quickly. Once again, use cover. Of course, engaging from behind them exposes you to the machinegun/flak canon, which can be very deadly. But just try to not be in its line of fire and it should be enough. Try to approach the bomber by being a bit over him so that the machinegun can't lock on you, and once you're upon him just dive and shoot.
This is probably the easiest match-up for biplane, there really isn't toooo much difficulty if you can avoid the rear guns.

Grenades aren't hard to dodge because of the pattern of fire, and if shielded, they will tear the bomber apart even before you engage. Anyway, if you try to engage a bomber who's behind a choke, be very careful, you'll be a very easy target while crossing the choke. Try to spend the least possible amount of time in there, or use a shield.
When it comes to chokes, don't engage the bomber unless it's absolutely necessary. They are the kings of chokes.

vs Explodet

Explodets can just mess your approach up so quickly... Not only will their missiles make you fly in a completely different direction, but so do their mines. Your only safe approach is from over the explodet, or under him. Try to abuse the "around the corner" situation as much as you can, this is pretty much the only way you can easily kill an explodet. In every other case, try to stay out of range of the missiles and mines.
If you approach from behind, try to stay out of the trail of mines and fly above/under them until you reach the target. If you come from in front of him, he can easily hit you with a missile so this is something you really need to avoid if possible. It’s best to not engage the explodet at all until he's in a very bad position.

If the explodet is camping in a specific area, laying mines everywhere, and you absolutely want/need to kill him, wait until he's busy shooting at someone else and approach him from a good angle (i.e. not in front of him or behind him).
Explodet users also get knocked around if their mine hits you at point blank range. So you can try to exploit that if you have a lot of life left and there are no walls in your immediate proximity, hoping that he, on the other hand, crashes into a wall in front of him.

vs Miranda

Mirandas are annoying. If you can't kill them at the first sweep with F+D, you'll have to make them run out of energy by forcing them to shoot (and miss) you, or by forcing them to reverse/time warp over and over. In both cases, it's hard because they only need a few shots to kill you, and you'll have to be faster than them. It's very important to predict when and where they will use their reverse/time anchor capabilities and try to be there at that moment and ambush them.
Intentional stalling can work too but it's less likely than against loopies since miranda players play completely differently.
In any case predicting the miranda's movements is the key to victory, and you'll see that after a while, any miranda user is predictable.

LAZOR is annoying but easier than the trickster versions, because to use it at full efficiency, he'll have to be a very good pilot and use a lot of energy to reverse at proper times, and that's exactly what you want. If he runs out of energy, he's dead. Just try to avoid the lazor until then.

vs Biplane

Two recoilless biplanes fighting each other is like a ballet. Turning around each other while trying to get a good angle again and again, until one of them goes down in flames. The one with the better alignment will win, so you need to be very careful to not miss your opponent. Note that intentional stalling works pretty well if done well, but be careful. If you fail, you'll be the perfect target. So do not fail.

If you're fighting a HC biplane, try to stay out of sight until you're at close range. But even then, be careful because they actually have a F+D that's stronger than yours. So be even more careful to not expose yourself at close range too much. They can't shoot their canon too much before they run out of energy so you can try to time your attack when your target doesn't have any left (if he's shooting at someone else for instance).
If you're fighting a Sniplane, you'll have to react very quickly if he starts to reverse, because he'll have a huge positional advantage and will have you right in front of him. On the other hand if he misses or you're able to dodge, his moves will be extremely easy to predict, because of his momentum. So the advantage will then be yours.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:10 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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CLOSURE
Congrats, you read it all!

I hope you enjoyed reading this. I personally enjoyed writing and editing the video and images.
Hopefully this will make you start using recoilless if you haven't tried yet, or make you better at it.
I will keep editing this if there are any changes. But even if there aren't, I'm pretty sure I can improve this by adding some more stuff (like adding a bomb-carrying section). So keep checking it out.

I'd like to thank eth, Shades and Beagle for their awesome guides which inspired me to write this one, and also Curious who did a spell check before I actually posted the guide. Because as you know, I'm French, and I suck at English.

On a side note, I'm totally terrible at creating images, so if someone is kind enough and willing to create some images for the guide, please PM me for more information, and I'll be glad to use them and put your name in the list of people I want to thank.

On this note, see you in a server in game!
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:11 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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09-08-2010
1.1 Changelog :


Major:
-Updated machinegun-only use to reflect the piercing changes.

Minor :
-Updated kill count
-Added second video
-Updated stats and math.


1.2 update will be coming for the 1-year anniversary of the guide in less than a month with multiple new sections and more updates.
I'm still looking for someone who could make an actual introduction banner for the guide (the one at the very top).

Last edited by tyr; 09-08-2010 at 09:48 PM.
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  #9  
Old 09-29-2009, 11:20 PM
Kuja900 Kuja900 is offline
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Eh bout time someone from ACE did something useful, good work.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:34 PM
Loli.ta Loli.ta is offline
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Very nicely made guide, Frenchman. I've watched the videos, and now I have some things to keep in mind if I ever play biplane. I'm good a Touhou (as well as a huge fan.), maybe it'll help me! Once again, fantastic guide. Nice animated gifs to illustrate your words. It's like outplan the planner.


This just in, I just played my first time serious biplane, from reading this guide I got really nice scores, and a mega kill. This guide is beyond fantastic. READ IT!

Last edited by Loli.ta; 09-29-2009 at 11:52 PM.
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Old 09-29-2009, 11:43 PM
Stormich Stormich is offline
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A really nice writeup about one of my favorite setups, thanks for bringing recoiless to the public
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Old 09-30-2009, 01:10 AM
Massi Massi is offline
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very nice guide i might go try recoiless again
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Old 09-30-2009, 01:35 AM
iPlane iPlane is offline
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Excellent work Tyr! Kinda makes me want to play recoilless again right now
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Old 09-30-2009, 02:24 AM
Curious Curious is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Loli.ta View Post
Very nicely made guide, Frenchman. I've watched the videos, and now I have some things to keep in mind if I ever play biplane. I'm good a Touhou (as well as a huge fan.), maybe it'll help me! Once again, fantastic guide. Nice animated gifs to illustrate your words. It's like outplan the planner.


This just in, I just played my first time serious biplane, from reading this guide I got really nice scores, and a mega kill. This guide is beyond fantastic. READ IT!
good work
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Old 09-30-2009, 02:40 AM
eth eth is offline
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Quite a stellar guide indeed, good sir! Especially enjoyed watching the video ^^
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Old 09-30-2009, 02:57 AM
Beagle Beagle is offline
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Long and in-depth, but very concisely written - there's no waffling on, it's all on topic at all times. Really great stuff! I was especially impressed by the section where you explained how you analyze your situation - very interesting!

I agree that Rev + Recoilless is a setup that seems very contrary to itself, but then again, a lot more people are starting to use Rev/HC now so maybe I should try and make it work and break some new ground
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Old 09-30-2009, 11:22 PM
Curious Curious is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beagle View Post
Long and in-depth, but very concisely written - there's no waffling on, it's all on topic at all times. Really great stuff! I was especially impressed by the section where you explained how you analyze your situation - very interesting!

I agree that Rev + Recoilless is a setup that seems very contrary to itself, but then again, a lot more people are starting to use Rev/HC now so maybe I should try and make it work and break some new ground
i personally think it is viable but i was not able to get good enough at it in a short period of time to be sure.
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Old 09-30-2009, 11:42 PM
Beagle Beagle is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Curious View Post
i personally think it is viable but i was not able to get good enough at it in a short period of time to be sure.
I've played a bit with it yesterday - pretty fun! I've also tried out Flex wings again and gone HOLY CRAP at how much more alive it makes me feel, I'd really forgotten what it was like. I might try Dogfighter/Flex/Rev though, just to be that much more different seeing as no-one ever uses Dogfighter
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Old 09-30-2009, 11:48 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beagle View Post
I've played a bit with it yesterday - pretty fun! I've also tried out Flex wings again and gone HOLY CRAP at how much more alive it makes me feel, I'd really forgotten what it was like. I might try Dogfighter/Flex/Rev though, just to be that much more different seeing as no-one ever uses Dogfighter
Vipr uses dogfighter and he's really good with it.
Without reverse though.
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Old 10-01-2009, 12:12 AM
nobodyhome nobodyhome is offline
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i actually used dogfighter/reverse in the previous league before. it's great on asteroids, where mobility/positioning is key since there's so many paths on the map and so many places to hide. of course, adding flexwings to that combination makes it just crazy, but i'm too reluctant on giving up my repair drone
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Old 10-01-2009, 03:54 PM
Triped Triped is offline
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I LOVE the situational analysis. I use it in bridge and poker, but never thought about using it in Altitude that way. Time to practice! Great work here.
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  #22  
Old 10-01-2009, 06:29 PM
Evan20000 Evan20000 is offline
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Urge to try recoiless rising...
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  #23  
Old 10-01-2009, 09:52 PM
Loli.ta Loli.ta is offline
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Quote:
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Urge to try recoiless rising...
For every guide made, the material within the manual will cause the public to increase the usage of the guide's perk plan.
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  #24  
Old 10-01-2009, 10:06 PM
Evan20000 Evan20000 is offline
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I agree with you on that.

We need a Bomber guide and a Randa guide next.
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  #25  
Old 10-01-2009, 10:08 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Well, Bomber guide is about how to spam the most effectively.
That comes from a pro Bomber player.

I would love a Miranda guide though, it's my worst plane.
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  #26  
Old 10-01-2009, 10:11 PM
Evan20000 Evan20000 is offline
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I might be up for writing one in a day or so. Let me know if you guys would be interested. =D
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Old 10-02-2009, 05:05 AM
ZidaneTribal ZidaneTribal is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan20000 View Post
I agree with you on that.

We need a Bomber guide and a Randa guide next.
and a bomb-carrying guide
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  #28  
Old 10-02-2009, 05:11 AM
Evan20000 Evan20000 is offline
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And a hownottobeanoobguide.

That's a big one :P
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  #29  
Old 10-02-2009, 05:32 AM
Beagle Beagle is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan20000 View Post
And a hownottobeanoobguide.

That's a big one :P
There's no way to write a guide that would successfully convince idiots that they were idiots and they needed to stop being idiots without getting at least twenty infractions at once
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Old 10-02-2009, 07:01 AM
Evan20000 Evan20000 is offline
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So true.
Painful truth telling is frowned upon here, sadly. D:
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  #31  
Old 10-13-2009, 03:08 AM
Vi* Vi* is offline
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I managed to not notice this thread before. Great guide, Tyr! I really love the analysis of the picture.
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  #32  
Old 10-16-2009, 12:08 PM
4th 4th is offline
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I love sniplane and im practicing

I want to be a good reverse thruster and a sniper just like beagle

Last edited by Pieface; 10-16-2009 at 05:36 PM.
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  #33  
Old 12-02-2009, 11:48 PM
Antonov Antonov is offline
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OH. MY. GOD... You're definitely my hero now tyr. Never did I see such a mastery of the art of the recoiless bip. You've taught me the value of spamming also. This guide will definitely help me out. Thanks!
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  #34  
Old 12-27-2009, 04:28 PM
Shiro Shiro is offline
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amazing guide tyr! thanks to this, i'm starting to get more gold bars more often. Enjoyed watching the video too, it was awesome.
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  #35  
Old 02-24-2010, 11:18 AM
mlopes mlopes is offline
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Default Very nice guide, thanks.

I don't usually play the biplane and when I did it I always used the HC perk, but yesterday I read your guide and I gave it a try to the biplane with Recoiless, Turbo Charger and Repair Drone (because of the ACE thing I ain't got the Flexible Wings yet).
I gotta say I loved it, I'm still pretty irregular with it, sometimes I can make lots of kills other times I just can't seem to hit a thing, but after a couple hours playing with this setup I must say it is awesome.
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  #36  
Old 05-13-2010, 03:17 AM
Nolari Nolari is offline
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This is awesome! Both the guide and playing it. Recoilless/Flexible Wings/Turbocharger is my new favorite. Thanks a lot, Tyr.
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  #37  
Old 05-13-2010, 10:57 AM
mlopes mlopes is offline
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I posted here about 3 months ago saying I didn't usually played biplane. Thanks to this guide, I now play Recoiless Biplane with flexi wings like 90% of the time.
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  #38  
Old 06-10-2010, 09:30 AM
Josker Josker is offline
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Great guide tyr, I tried thrusters/hc for a while but it wasnt efficient enough and when I read this guide i decided to switch to recoilless. It also helped me since I didn't know what perks to have with it. Good Job
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  #39  
Old 09-02-2010, 01:30 PM
tyr tyr is offline
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Put this in the "finished" guide section plz as it was and still is the best guide written so far.
I'm thinking about adding some stuff for a few months now but I dont have the motivation ...
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  #40  
Old 09-02-2010, 11:21 PM
Pieface Pieface is offline
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Congratulations! Your guide has been appended with a "[G]" tag and is almost ready to be moved to the Completed Guides subforum. If possible, please look over these suggested changes and make appropriate edits as you see fit.
  1. Fix or remove outdated stats throughout the guide, primarily in the Perks section. With the biplane's recent buff it almost definitely has a different rpm, does different amounts of damage, etc. Not sure if all the updated stats have been posted so if not maybe it's better to just talk in more general terms. Similarly, in the Weapons section please fix or remove the F+D combo stats.
  2. Have the more recent assorted biplane buffs changed the way you play at all? If so quickly updating the guide with that information might be helpful.
  3. If you'd like, you could also link to your most recent recoilless video!

This message has also been sent to you via PM. When you're done making any edits you feel are necessary, please post a concise summary of what you changed in this thread so we know when to move it to the Completed Guides subforum. Looking forward to seeing the finished version!

- Pie
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