Notes on Air Transport

[Yoyi]

This is something I see happening. A bit less now but still happens quite often.



- If you know yourself to be a not so exelent pilot do not try to do fancy manuevers and get everyone in your cargo hold killed. Keep it safe and get them from point A to point B this is not that difficult. If you don't know how to land then call for a Bail Out as you hover a safe distance over a flag, or a marker, or wherever you are going. Then try to land on a safe area.



- If assaulting a flag land the transport a safe distance from the flag and its obstacles, somewhere where the transport won't get tangled up and explode is preferable. I know theres many people out there that are really good at flying but this is simply unnecessary and can get people killed. I know speed is of the essence but it will take more time having to respawn than simply exiting capping and re-entering the transport. If you decide to fly the transport and ferry troops then be prepared to be patient and not get many points.



- If you are a passanger on a transport please please PLEASE wait untill the ship has landed to exit. Don't pod out right under the transport and get killed, this really does not help anyone. It gives negative teamkill score to the pilot who really is not at fault here, and it gets you killed wich is one less body at a flag or defending.



- I should not even have to mention this but I still see it often. DO NOT exit the transport if you are the pilot. It is preferable that YOU die and give everyone else time to get out as oposed to bailing and getting everyone killed. This is especially important in Titan mode where transports are a movable spawn point. Go down with the ship if you have to.



- If you are a beginer pilot (on conquest) take off straight up then adjust your heading with the A-S keys. The mouse will tilt the transport and make it harder to control. On titan there is no way around it you have to take off straight forward or get your tail tangled in the titans' roof. Oversight on their part I'm sure.



- Conquest: You are driving a transport do not go flying off into the sunset on your own. Wait for it to load up with troops. Preferably from the same squad.
-Titan: Fly high over enemy silos or titan to avoid AA fire and allow your team a spawnpoint avobe the action. This position is not a fun one but it will help out your team. In the case that the titans are close enough to eachother this tactic is less effective.



- When in a titan map be careful where you leave your transport and or apc. Once boarded by an enemy once it will become their spawn point and work completely against you.


This is it for now if I remember or think of anything else I will try and post it.


Edit 1: Added one more Revark reminded me of.
Edit 2: Added one by Sharpish
Edit 3: Addition by Tarenth

[Revark]

Ah, my favorite. Love getting into a transport or gunship, just to have the idiot pilot crash into a street light pole before they are 100 yards from their base!

[Sharpish]

One you missed out:

On Air-transports, DON'T GO SOLO! They are transports, Gunships are more for Solo (But still have a second seat ).

[Tarenth]

On Titan maps you can go solo since the troopship and APCs count as mobile spawn points as long as the last person to enter them was on your team.

That means you should enter and exit every transport you see to enable the spawn and take them back from the enemy.


You can also pull off HALO drops on Titan and keep your troopship high in the air to drop troops down. Since people can just respawn into your troopship you'll never run out of people to drop and it's rare to encounter AA resistance if you're too high to be seen or locked on.

[jonan_]

Agree with everything. One question I have though. Sometimes when I am a passenger and I bail out I get killed by the tail wing or something and unfortunatly give the pilot a team kill. Is the transport going to fast at these times for me to jump out? It has only happened about 5 times but it frustrates me to no end.

[johnflenaly]

Originally Posted by jonan_

Agree with everything. One question I have though. Sometimes when I am a passenger and I bail out I get killed by the tail wing or something and unfortunatly give the pilot a team kill. Is the transport going to fast at these times for me to jump out? It has only happened about 5 times but it frustrates me to no end.

No havent really figured this out but, if the pilots smart he will pull up were you want to bail. Its when noising down that seems to kill people.

[Yoyi]

Originally Posted by jonan_

Agree with everything. One question I have though. Sometimes when I am a passenger and I bail out I get killed by the tail wing or something and unfortunatly give the pilot a team kill. Is the transport going to fast at these times for me to jump out? It has only happened about 5 times but it frustrates me to no end.

This happens ussually when the transport is descending too fast. When you pod out at times there is a small delay when the pod is release so what basically happens is that you are been ran over by the transport in mid air.

[jonan_]

So if the pilot bails out and the transport starts to drop it is too late too jump out? If that is the case I agree even more with your statement about the pilot going down with the ship.

[johnflenaly]

Originally Posted by jonan_

So if the pilot bails out and the transport starts to drop it is too late too jump out? If that is the case I agree even more with your statement about the pilot going down with the ship.

Really depends on the oreintation of the aircraft neat thing a learned a week ago if you roll the transport over you will bail out gunship style without the pod.

[Eroak]

heh, I have a butt load of flight time on me. If you bail and the ship is moving forward or down to fast you will get killed about 15% of the time. Use the S key and pitch up 4-5 degrees, then call bail out. Keep your ship up and move out ASAP to distract emeny. If you are OK land the craft near you squad and hop another flag if it's ok. If not distroy it so enemy can't use it and let it spawn for another squad.

Yes the craft is harder to control then the gunship. The only pointer is if you can fly it, keep low. Your a very slow target. I distroyed 5 with a tanks main gun. If you stay low your harder to see and your pods spend less time in the air and keep your squad closer together after bail out.

Gunners, Don't shoot anything. keep your stealth. I like this tactic though. Keep one gunner on ship if you have a full squad. Fly circles around the flag. That gunner might not get many kills but it can keep the enemy pinned for your buddies to get into a flank move or cap a safer flag.

[Yoyi]

Originally Posted by Eroak

heh, I have a butt load of flight time on me. If you bail and the ship is moving forward or down to fast you will get killed about 15% of the time. Use the S key and pitch up 4-5 degrees, then call bail out. Keep your ship up and move out ASAP to distract emeny. If you are OK land the craft near you squad and hop another flag if it's ok. If not distroy it so enemy can't use it and let it spawn for another squad.

Yes the craft is harder to control then the gunship. The only pointer is if you can fly it, keep low. Your a very slow target. I distroyed 5 with a tanks main gun. If you stay low your harder to see and your pods spend less time in the air and keep your squad closer together after bail out.

Gunners, Don't shoot anything. keep your stealth. I like this tactic though. Keep one gunner on ship if you have a full squad. Fly circles around the flag. That gunner might not get many kills but it can keep the enemy pinned for your buddies to get into a flank move or cap a safer flag.

Yeah I forgot to mention the gunners on the list.

People get trigger happy when they are on the transport. You don't have to shoot EVERYTHING if you stay hidden you are going to do more good than harm especially on a hotzone.

[Elite_Master]

Originally Posted by Yoyi

Yeah I forgot to mention the gunners on the list.

People get trigger happy when they are on the transport. You don't have to shoot EVERYTHING if you stay hidden you are going to do more good than harm especially on a hotzone.

Great point! I would like to expound ..

If you are the pilot, land in a spot as close to the flag/silo as possible BUT also which is not out in the open and taking fire. The dropship is best landed near the target point and in an area that has some sort of cover from nearby assault vehicles in the vicinity - even landing on the other side of a building can save all the lives of your crewmates.

If you are the pilot, DO A FLY-BY first!! don't just come into a new hot zone area and land the drop ship - I for one sometimes sit with a tank hidden and wait for drop ships to land at a silo/flag so I can blow them all to hell with one shot outta no where. Ideally, if you have a full load, on the fly-by one or two dudes will pod out and give you any extra intel on the ground that you didn't notice on your first fly-by, if all looks safe from the air, try either landing in a good spot (outlined above) OR try hovering just above and letting everyone jump out right on target, then don't land in that same spot - the drop ship is not a fighting vehicle, go nearby and honk once the flag/silo has been taken to let everyone know that you have a safe extraction point.

If you are the pilot, before coming close the ground to either land or hover, USE the COUNTER-MEASURES.. why? why not? when entering a hot zone it can save lives as you are mounting and dismounting soldiers. Then once the shield runs out, start hovering and begin flying to safety.

If you are the pilot and everyone runs out of the dropship and you are landed but there is enemy infantry in sight, don't just sit in the pilot view, switch to guns and lay down some suppressive fire for your dudes that you just transported. There is no point in successfully landing an attacking crew who just dies because while they are running to safety the dropship failed to provide suppressive fire. OR, IF there are no enemy vehicles (ground cannons/aa guns) in the vicinity, you can try hovering over the enemy infantry and letting your dudes take them all out with the dropship turrets (note: this is dangerous, don't do this for too long).

If you are the pilot, make it a habit that when you are planning to evacuate an area, don't just start taking off, let everyone know how much time you expect to wait for dudes to make their decision as to stay or go by honking the horn in repetitively and make the honks continuously faster until you are holding down the honk horn at which point that is when you take off (so for example.. honk, 1 second, honk honk, 1/2 second, honk honk honk, hoooooooooonnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkk + TAKE OFF!) - this is really helpful for most assault dudes who just want to fly around and capture stuff.

Lastly, if you successfully drop everyone off near the target but their movement is impeded or they are pinned down by an enemy vehicle, take off again and either distract the tank/walker while you hover around (this is dangerous but using shields and evasive maneuvers sometimes you can really distract and lead an enemy vehicle on a goose chase while your dudes are capturing the silo/flag) OR simply bail out and let the drop ship RAM into the enemy vehicle (IF this is allowed on the server - sometimes you will get kicked for ramming).

[Improviz]

Haha, I have a knack for spawning into a transport a split-second before the solo pilot bails ... I don't realize there's no one flying the thing until we crash!

I also love the technique of landing on a roof (Shuhia Taiba comes to mind) to spawn people and protect a flag. If you can land sideways so the guns can bear, all the better.

Also, when trying to use the guns to clear a hot zone of infantry, I wish pilots would remember that they shoot DOWN and to the SIDE and not so much straight ahead - if you're facing the target, we can't help you much....