Moon Breakers New Player’s Tips

Moon Breakers New Player’s Tips by Snubby

Hi, I just wanted to give a few simple guidelines for a more fun (and credit filled) Moonbreakers experience.

These tips pertain to all ships. there are techniques for flying each ship, for they all have pros and cons. but here are some basics:

DO NOT shoot your guns at nothing !!!!
I can not stress this enough. you over heat your guns and give away your position.

Know your weapon ranges !  
Don’t shoot at a ship just because you can see it. if it doesn’t have a yellow box around it , it’s NOT in range.

Mamba missles DO NOT TRACK !!!!
You must be RIGHT ON TOP of your target to use these. unless they are not privvy to my next tip

DO NOT STAND STILL !!!
Sitting duck is a term for a reason. if you aren’t moving a lvl 1 Mamba can give the “the whole nine yards” and you wont know what hit you. Unless you are in a bomber, then they need two passes.

SAVE YOUR THRUSTERS FOR EVASION ! 
That means the getaway. or turning faster (the idea here is to slowdown real fast then turn and thrust+accelerate in the new direction, this can leave you temporarily vulnerable at the moment before thrusting) or avoiding tracking missles (outrun them).
Once you are more familiar with your ship or have upgraded it , using thrusters is great for blitz attacks but this leaves you without a quick getaway so there is a trade off. but I digress.

These are just the (my) basics. Feedback encouraged.

More Tips by Moving Target

Cool, I’d like to add a couple more.

Fire in bursts.
The rate of fire on your guns drops dramatically when they overheat. This can lead to it taking longer to kill an enemy, which gives them time for backup to come in and kill you, or for them to finish off your carrier. Fire when you’ve got a solid bead and let your guns cool down when you don’t.

DON’T GO HEAD TO HEAD!
The most dangerous maneuver in real life dog-fighting is a head to head pass. It tends to leave both fighters a bit shot-up. It’s no different here. I’ll be the first to admit that I break this rule the most, and I have paid for it every time.

Play to your fighter’s strengths.
The Mamba, Sidewinder, and Cobra are fast, agile fighters. They work best in dog-fights and can outrun any other fighter. While they work well as interceptors, they tend to get deaded when they stay glued to a bomber’s six. If you are attacking a bomber, weave. This makes you harder to hit and allows you to put more bullets on target because your guns get a chance to cool.
The Stingray, Hammerhead, and Piranha are slower, heavier fighters that use hard hitting weapons and have some pretty heavy shields. They are not really dog-fighters, but a skilled pilot can make one deadly in turning dogfight. They can maintain a longer burst of fire without overheating, and their missiles do track. These are primarily interceptors and escorts that are meant to keep the heavy fighters on the other side busy and the light fighters nervous.
The Rhino, Timberwolf, and Grizzly are bombers, NOT DOG-FIGHTERS! While they do have heavy shields and can maintain their rate of fire for as long as the heavy fighters, they do not have the agility to fight one-on-one with a fighter. These are what you use to take down carriers with. That doesn’t mean that they are totally useless in Search and Destroy. A good tactic would be to lure in unsuspecting fighters with a bomber, and then pounce on them as they ignore Golden Wizard’s fourth point.

Be aware of your surroundings.
Not just the rocks, but where your allies and enemies are too. Nothing is more embarrassing than slamming into an ally and getting the both of you killed because you weren’t paying attention, and I do speak from personal experience. In addition to that, remember that you don’t turn on a dime. This can mean the difference between smashing into a rock and going around it to avoid a missile.

I’m not nearly as good as most of the people playing. I just know a little about dog-fighting.

More Tips by Lord Static

I’ve thought of writing something like this for the last month as well, so here is my advice. Some may contradict that of some others, but I’ve made it work.

PRACTICE
This is the most important thing. Log into an empty server, and just spend time flying. If you want to be truly competitive, you MUST become comfortable with the asteroids. Wedging in between tight cracks, crevices, and being comfortably spinning while shooting at a target, and being “upside down”. If you get in the habit of considering something as “rightside up” you are already set up for failure. Be able to spin, adjust and fly at any angle, and as close as you need to to asteroids. And when I say close, I mean CLOSE. Learn to be able how to skim the sides of them where you can hear the gravel scrape the side of your plane and twist and turn around them at high speeds without slowing down. This will also teach you when you should and shouldn’t slow down. Aim at points on the rocks, and spin and shoot, and various tactics. But practice, practice, practice. This game is about more then just flying and shooting.

EXPERIMENT.
Don’t get locked into a style. I’ve tried the game with a gamepad, a joystick, keyboard, various input devices. I tried it with all the ships, I tried runs with X where all we did was just destroy the carrier 14 times in S&D, or just destroyed turrets. I’ve done runs only using guns and no missiles or vice versa. I’ve done ones with 10 on 10 teams where I didn’t allow myself to kill at all, just fly in the center and not dying. So don’t just play the game, but test yourself, and make up rules that push your technique and style to the limits and challenge your style. 380 levels later, I am still trying to come up with new ways to turn, twist, use the asteroids, aim better, and step up my game.

SHOOTING
Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes. That is how I find targets behind asteroids and sneak up on them, is following the gunshots. This is a bit trickier now that they made all the gunshots from the players the same color, but if you follow everything happening on the screen, you get used to being able to figure out who is who just by gunshot directions. So don’t give your position away with useless gunshots, and burn up your gun. Listen to the Carrier your carriers gunshots when you are near, and watch where it shoots to help you discover where targets are sneaking up from. Don’t shoot when following a target just because you are behind them. I try to get a good missile lock and let fly before I start shooting, so its too late for them to dodge missiles. Soon as I feel gunshots on my back, I start rolling, dodging, and weaving, and after a while you start to be able to predict exactly how to mess with another players head to get away while they burn up their gun, and dodge their missiles. So, don’t warn them of your attack until its too late. Likewise, sometimes I will shoot randomly in brief shots to lure people to a trap, or antagonize them. Just think about your opponent, use gunshots strategically, not merely for kills.

HEAD TO HEAD
I do this all the time. You have to know what you are doing. But I don’t do this randomly, know what you are doing! If you are attacking a heavier armored plane, fly by it and circle around, do not ram it. If it is a weaker armored faster plane, sometimes I will ram it to stop them in their tracks so I can get them. If their armor is low, Ill push the throttle to fly through them as they die to mess with someone trying to track me. There is more, but mainly, this is an artform so don’t go in there all crazy. Analyze the situation, and make a judgement call each time on how to do it and practice it.

MISSILES
Know which track and which don’t. Seriously. G Wiz is very correct about this. And weapon ranges. Except when using it in psychological warfare.

THRUSTERS
Learn to tap your thrusters as needed, not hold them down. I use my thrusters almost the entire game, but it is in small taps constantly with brief periods of cool down, and an occasional burst. To many people make the mistake of holding down the spacebar like its racing game, and that is what makes you move.

DRIFTING
I’ve seen only a handful of other players get this down. Its deadly when performed in a Mamba. If you can do this, it will seriously enhance your game in any craft.

SOMETHING SPECIAL
I don’t want to give this away, but I will give a hint. I started doing this ages ago, and it put me at a serious advantage to everyone else, and so far I think X is the only person to figure this out as I have started seeing him do it lately. If you figure it out, you will be on a new level. My hint is this. Sometimes to run faster, you need to walk backwards.

More Tips by Foxhound

A couple more thoughts for the new players:

–Don’t chase down and try to shoot your own flag bearer in CTF mode.  It draws attention away from the enemy swarm right behind him.  Learn which color you should be protecting and which you should be trying to capture.

–Use the terrain proactively in evasive flying.   I see a lot of Mamba pilots try to evade in open space, usually over-steering and bleeding precious speed, or when giving chase, slam themselves into the asteroids.

–Situation awareness.  Just because you don’t see an enemy indicator around your Carrier doesn’t mean no one is there.  I have seen a couple games where a player in an FH/B is camped out behind the carrier—destroying turrets one after the other.

–Help a brother out.  If you see a bandit on a team mates tail—take him out ASAP.  You save your team having to wait for that player to respawn at base.  Also, its no shame to run screen/escort for the bomber pilots.

Fly aggressively—fast and with purpose

More Tips by Agent of Change

Here’s some of my own tactics to add to the pot:

Engage on your terms – Ambushes, quick passes through furballs, and tag teaming.  You have a higher chance of guaranteeing a kill if they don’t see you coming or you have friends.   Lurking behind rocks at slow speeds until some one streaks by and tail them, dive through a combat and shoot at whoever crosses your sights, or fall in with a wingman to combine firepower are all examples of this.  Where possible disengage, get your shields back, and then pick a new target.

Carriers are Fun and pack a punch –  Avoid fighting in range of your opponents carrier unless the mission requires it, no need to risk getting pasted by a turret while dogfighting.  Conversely bait your opponents to fight as close to your carrier as you can.

Avoid tunnel vision – This is slightly different than situational awareness though there is overlap.  What i’m speaking to here is locking in on a target and forgetting the rest of the battle.  For my part if the target isn’t dead in 10 seconds disengage get your bearings and reengage.  The easiest way to get tailed is to hold a tail.

Pay Attention to the Mission – this is a big one less for individual skill but more to winning rounds and teamwork.  Credits are weighted to the game type you get more for certain thigns and everything else is worth less – seek and destroy is kills; Carrier assault is turrets, missiles, and carrier damage; CTF is flag pickups deliveries and kill a flag bearer.  If you play to what you get the best credits you will help your team win more, just going out and dogfighing isn’t necessarily going to help you gain creds or win a  match.  For example a player in Carrier assault with 2 kills 5 turrets an 3 carrier hits will out score a player with 20 kills.