ACE Online I-Gear Pro Flying Guide

ACE Online I-Gear Pro Flying Guide by Ireos

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT TO BE AND WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OUTCOME THAT MAY RESULT FROM THE USE OF THIS GUIDE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO BEING TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

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Hello and welcome to the best I-Gear guide on the internet. This guide is designed to accelerate your progression toward I-gear mastery. I guarantee* that if you follow the steps in this guide you will be nigh unstoppable on the field of battle, all mere mortal players will bow to your awesome might, unless they have also read this guide, in which case whoever read first will pwn your ass. Now that I’ve gotten you excited it is time to begin the meat of this epic burger of awesome.
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Table of Contents
1. Know your Gear
–a. Stats
–b. Abilities
2. Know your Enemies
–a. The I-Gear
–b. The M-Gear
–c. The A-Gear
–d. The B-Gear
–e. GM Degenerate
3. Know your Equipment
–a. Know your Weapon
—-i. Common Weapons
—-ii. Special Weapons
–b. Know your Armor
–c. Know your Engine
–d. Know your Items
—-i. Charms
—-ii. Kits
—-iii. Hologram Cards
4. Know your Maneuvers

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1. Know your Gear

How can you know anything if you do not even know yourself?
-Path of the Warrior
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So you are an I-Gear, the second fastest gear in the game after the dreaded GM Degenerate. But if you want to be truly fast you need to have the right:

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1.a. Stats
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To properly stat an I-gear you must have one thing in mind, your engine. To get the best engine in the game you will need one thing: fuel. If you don’t have enough fuel to run the engine you will be unable to boost, this works in the opposing direction as well, whereby if you purposefully over stat fuel you will be able to out boost the indicated duration on the engine by virtue of how fast your fuel regenerates. You see, the thing about fuel that nobody seems to know is that a higher fuel stat gives you a higher fuel regeneration and actually reduces the cooldown on all maneuvering skills (superboost, backmove and turnaround). This effect can be used to a maximum potential at higher fuel amounts such that you will be flying circles around people at any point on the map in record time. Your second stat should be fighting spirit, sometimes shortened to spirit. This will give you enough MP (movement points) to effectively use maneuvers in battle enough to both out survive and out fight all other gears. Fighting spirit also has the added effect of booting nation moral and at epic levels (those only obtainable by GM Degenerate, more on that in enemies) this even allows you to heal and transform. This is demonstrated very well in Gurren Lagenn and is the principal that the original DaiGurren Brigade was founded on. These two stats are the only stats that matter as an I-gear, don’t ever let anyone tell you anything different. EVER!

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1.b. Abilities
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As stated above, many of your abilities rely on fuel. Get fuel then come read this. Ok, you have fuel, good. The thing you will need to remember about skills is how expensive they are, you will only be able to afford a subset of all available skills until higher levels, most people used to be able to purchase all skills by level 83, but now with the Infected Area, most players do not have skill until after level 91. Your first priority should be your maneuvering skills in this order of importance: Backmove, Superboost, Chainrolling, Turnaround, Hypermoving. The next skill that you will want is Silence. This is a very useful and under appreciated skill, many pilots, even those considered “skilled” among the majority of players, do not know how to use this skill properly. With efficient use this skill can turn the tide of battle and even break a solid gate camp. The other skills can be purchased when you feel the need, as they are much less important to the combat functionality of an I-gear.

The list of skills:

Backmove
This is the most useful skill in the game for an I-gear, much more useful than for a B-gear. An I-gear, due to it’s speed backmoves faster than a B-gear, so backmove has some interesting properties. When you are an I-gear, backmove should be used whenever you hear the missile warning. To many noobs this seems counterproductive because you are now moving directly towards a swarm of angry missiles. Those noobs would be wrong. You see, when you backmove towards missiles, the missiles don’t know what to do. Missiles are easily confused, and a target suddenly moving towards them at high speed causes missiles to declare, in true Ackbar fashion, that it is indeed a trap and swerve off course to avoid you. This maneuver can be used so that you rarely feel the sting of missiles again. Unfortunately this does not work on the dreaded bawoo or the evil A-gear, both of which will be covered later in this guide.

Superboost
Some people call it overboost, those people are morons. The superboost is the second most useful skill to a properly statted I-gear. The superboost at high fuel levels can propel you 33% of the way across a map in only a few seconds. This is the only skill that will allow you to outrun the most ancient enemy of the I-gear, the dreaded GM Degenerate. This move will get you in and out of range of an A-gear and will promptly lose all tailing missiles in case confusing them makes you feel guilty. This skill also allows you to fire bawoos backwards, which nobody would ever expect, though if you are using bawoos on an I-gear, you must be a special sort of person. (See the Special Weapons section in chapter 3)

Chainrolling
Also called “chainloling” and “hurp-a-durp me spinspin”, this is easily one of the top 3 I-gear skills. The reason it is not higher on the list is because it is the most expensive I-gear skill, with most pilots unable to attain it without sacrificing the purchase of many other skills. This skill, when used in combination with backmove and superboost will prevent you from getting hit by any missiles. EVER! If you are using this skill in conjunction with those others and are still getting hit with missiles, please see section 5 for what to do to fix it. This skill can also be used to counter A-gears, more on that in the enemies section.

Turnaround and Hypermoving
Turnaround allows you to switch direction mid flight and blast anything behind you. Hypermoving is most useful for lining up a proper ram attack, the ultimate weapon of the I-gear, more info on which can be found in the weapons section. Used in conjunction, these are very nice maneuvering skills, but simply outclassed by those above.

Silence
This is easily the best non-maneuver skill of an I-gear and the only of such skills which really stands out. This skill has two functions: it stops the target from hearing the missile warning or seeing missiles that are locked on to them, and it stops the target from calling out for help. The second function is usually considered the most useful, and has wide ranging implications. In fact, I have been in the same room as someone who has been silenced, and the effect actually prevented them from calling out to help to me even though I was less than 5ft away. This is a POWERFULL effect and if used on those coordinating a gate camp, can be enough to break the camp.

Other skills, buffs, etc…
Buff skills are nearly useless to an I-gear. Buffs are based on percentages and since the I-gear is not made to stat to attack, defense or evasion, this makes these buffs useless. Berserker is not too bad of a skill, but is outclassed by the ultimate I-gear weapon, ram. See weapons for more explanation of why these skills don’t work.

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2. Know your Enemies
To truly know yourself you must know your enemy, only then can you fight with honor and success.
-Sun Zu
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2.a. The I-gear
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If you follow the rest of this guide you know how to play an I-gear and know what to expect from an I-gear, if you still lose to I-gears after that, you can imply this strategy: be unpredictable. In the middle of combat before executing a maneuver or deciding on a direction to turn to face your enemy, flip a coin. Head is yes and/or left and tails is no and/or right. If this aspect of spontaneous randomness in combat does not gain you the upper hand it is because you are using your hands to flip the coin and thus taking your hands off the controls. Do not do this, flip with your mouth, not your hands, what do you think mouths are for? Talking? No. They are for flipping coins mid-combat. Do this and you will have a chance to kill anyone. If this fails see section 5.

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2.b. The M-gear
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So you are fighting an M-gear and you don’t know what to do. Well, you’re in luck, this guide happens to be written by the best M-gear killer in the universe. To kill an M-gear you must first understand the concept of the ram, please see the section 3.a.i. under weapons for a full explanation of the weapon needed to successfully combat an M-gear. Did you read it? Well the go do it!!! I don’t have all day! (Little do you know I DO have all day.) Anyway, to kill an M-gear you will need to close with them fast. You do NOT want to go straight for the ram attack with an M-gear though, as this will be expected and countered. What you want to do is to close fast and about 50m from the M-gear stop boosting and hold ‘S’. The M-gear will roll, expecting you to pass beside them, but you will not do that, instead you will activate hypermoving and turn sharply into the M-gear, smashing it to pieces with your ram attack. This will penetrate even the most heavily defensive armor and should take the M-gear’s health down sufficiently that after a repetition or two it will be a smoldering husk and you will be munching on M-gear killmarks.

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2.c. The A-gear
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Ah the dreaded A-gear, the toughest challenge for any I-gear, and wholly undeserving of this title. Taking down A-gears should be the least of your worries as an I-gear, because stationary A-gears are not a real threat unless they can kill you before you can reach them. And with liberal application of superboost this will never be a challenge. To kill an A-gear, simply ram them, they are in siege mode and cannot move and bubbling will not stop an I-gear in full superboost. If this proves to be a problem, move to the top of the map and drop down on them from above, the superboost can and will propel you from the top of the map all the way to the bottom and after all, this really is the only way to be sure.

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2.d. The B-gear
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B-gears are so easy to fight that this could be done in flow chart format, but as this is a text guide, I will instead do it in FAQ format:

Q1: What do I do when a B-gear activates bombing mode in combat?
A1: Use the boost to get through.

Q2: What do I do when a B-gear sneaks up on me and I don’t notice them?
A2: Why are you moving slow enough for this to happen? You should be constant boosting! If this happens you suck and deserve to die.

Q3: What do I do when a B-gear is circle fighting me?
A3: B-gears are slower than you, line up a ram just like you would for any other gear (use hypermove) and wreak that noob.

Q4: Help! player-who-is-not-to-be-named is run-lag-proxy-invis-kit-cred-whor-killing me!
A4: That is not a question. Next!

Q5: Oh noes! Big boom! What do I do?!?!?
A5: See answer 1.

Q6: B-gears are camping me out of a map, how do I break this camp?
A6: Combine answer 1 with answer 3 and silence their leader. This will cause mass chaos as any gear in front of you is smashed to the ground and without leadership the camp will scatter.

There you have it, it’s just that easy to beat the B-gear.

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2.e. GM Degenerate
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Lo and behold the ultimate enemy of the I-gear. The dreaded GM Degenerate. If you see a degenerate in a map and have not mastered this guide, run. Use boost and superboost and any other tactics that come to mind, but get out of there. You are not ready to fight a GM Degenerate unless you are a master of this guide. GM Degenerate is the most powerful gear type in the game and the only way anyone but the top I-gears can take out a GM Degenerate is if they take them on in pairs, naturally you are not a top I-gear if you are reading this or you would know this material by heart, so get friends. You will need at least 3 people to take one of these out. If you ever wish to master the solo takedown of a DM Degenerate you will have to know the exact distance at which to activate superboost so that you may hypermove out of it in time to ram him. Here is the best known strategy for taking down a player with this gear:

1. Get to the minimum distance required to superboost to within 100m of a DM degenerate, this is more than what you need for an M-gear because if a DM Degenerate turns toward you, they will close with you FAST.
2. If you came out with DM Degenerate in front of you, hypermove and ram. Follow this with a turnaround, backmove, chainroll combo to survive until superboost recharges. If DM Degenerate is behind you use turnaround, backmove, chainroll until superboost is ready again.
3. Superboost ram them.
4. Chainroll, turnaround and wait for superboost to cooldown.
5. Repeat

This strategy may not work, and the top players have variants and secret additions to it that give them a higher success rate than the average player. I will not reveal my personal secret strategy here, but if you follow this formula and make subtle additions and changes then you too will be able to solo a GM Degenerate.

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3. Know your Equipment
The sword is sharper than the stick.
-Captain Obvious
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3.a. Know your Weapon
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Knowing what weapon to use at what time is very important. This section will make you a pro at weapon selection.

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3.a.i. Common Weapons
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The best and most commonly equipped weapon by any pro I-gear player is: Nothing. That’s right, don’t equip any of that garbage, it will just slow you down, which is exactly what you DON’T want because the ultimate weapon of the I-gear is one that you don’t equip at all: the ram. This is more of a technique than a weapon, and it’s stats are dependant on how pointy your armor is. At first this seems weird because there is no ram stat in the armor description, nor is there a pointy stat, but by simply getting an overhead view of the armor and taking a handy protractor to your computer screen you can measure the point at the front of your armor. The more acute the point, the higher the pointy stat will be and the harder your ram will hit. The best weapon for an I-gear is a good armor. There are no other commonly used weapons, because other weapons are only useful in rare cases.

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3.a.ii. Special Weapons
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The main special weapon for an I-gear should be and always has been the bawoo. This has one and only one use: fire these when running away from an opponent and they will stupidly run straight into them and take bawoos to the face. However, the size and weight of bawoos will cause you to run slower than usual, be sure to keep this in mind if you ever attempt this on another I-gear.

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3.b. Know you Armor
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See 3.a.i.

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3.c. Know your Engine
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This is a very important aspect of any I-gear. How would you ever get in close enough to ram someone without a fast engine? How will you ever maneuver close enough to impact without a good turning engine? Honestly, speed is the highest priority, as with speed when you miss you can boost away fast enough to try again, whereas if you miss turning and the enemy out turns you they will have time to shoot you down while you are activating chainrolling. Find a good balance in your engines, such as turn carding a speed engine, rather than speed carding a turning engine.

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3.d.i. Charms
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These are useless to you, the same as buffs. Sell these for cash to buy kits, pointier armor and faster or turnier engines.

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3.d.ii. Kits
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You are playing Ace Online, buy all the kits you see and munch them like candy. All the time. Eat kits in town, on the pad, in duels, EVERYWHERE!! Always eat the kits or you will eat the dirt! In fact, set a macro so that regardless of what button you press on your keyboard you will also be pressing the button for kits.

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3.d.iii. Hologram Cards
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Hologram cards, the pointier the better. When using hologram cards you do NOT want to use a rounded mob such as a sporty, you want pointy mobs such as a fate. This will actually boost your armor’s pointyness rating to that of the fate, which is one of the highest in the game. The other nice thing about the fate is that is has a high pointyness in reverse as well, so you can backmove ram your opponents. If you happen to have an armor that has a better acute angle, take that over the hologram card, as this will simply bring down your pointyness.

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4. Know your Maneuvers
I’m givin’ ‘er all she’s got capt’n
-Hikaru Sulu
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As you fight you will notice that certain skills are more effective when used in a certain pattern with other skills. These are what are known as maneuvers. There are many maneuvers in this game, some of which are almost guaranteed to win you a fight. The following is a list of maneuvers that will aid you in combat:

The GM Degenerate Killer:
1. Get to the minimum distance required to superboost to within 100m of a DM degenerate, this is more than what you need for an M-gear because if a DM Degenerate turns toward you, they will close with you FAST.
2. If you came out with DM Degenerate in front of you, hypermove and ram. Follow this with a turnaround, backmove, chainroll combo to survive until superboost recharges. If DM Degenerate is behind you use turnaround, backmove, chainroll until superboost is ready again.
3. Superboost ram them.
4. Chainroll, turnaround and wait for superboost to cooldown.
5. Repeat

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