The reason why this video is so long is because I wanted to go in depth with the mechanics more than the dogfighting portion because I think the basics are more important to understand first rather than diving too deep into the actual combat. If I were to dive deeper into the dogfighting portion the video would probably be 50 minutes long which I didn't want. As I said, people will learn a lot more about dogfighting from other pilots and experiencing it for themselves.
@Sasha Lemay I would like to say that I know, but I don't. I've never tried doing it because I never saw it as a problem and just played with the controls as they are by default. I think I mentioned somewhere in the video that you could try to experiment to get it the way you want. Again, it might be possible but it might not, so my answer is "I don't know." Sorry I can't be of help here. Also, apologies for the late reply.
@@Dudisfludis So my comment was about the fact you missed the idea of coordinated controls. You gave examples which inferred it, came up with a bunch of manoeuvres, but never mentioned the underlying concept.
@@siratthebox I don't know why you deleted your original comment and reply. I apologize for how I put my reply to your original comment, but it still stands that I included basically everything that was said in your original comment. I don't know what you mean by "coordinated controls" but I assume it means that I should have described what exactly I was doing when doing the maneuvers. Maybe I could have gone more in depth with that, sure. However, I think that most people are smart enough to be able to copy or recreate the maneuver I'm doing just by watching the way the ESF rotates/moves. If they can't, then I doubt explaining it in further detail would help because it would then be more confusing. Yes, there are a bunch of overlapping when it comes to how you exactly do a maneuver such as rolling and then pitching down. I would say that for the majority of what pilots need to know, I think I described these maneuvers thoroughly enough. Maybe if you elaborate on what you mean by "coordinated controls" I can give a better response, which is why I assumed a lot in my response and in this one as well.
@@shepheardadi4329 It's sluggish for everyone due to mouse acceleration and smoothing. All ESFs roll and pitch at the same speed, though. None of them have an advantage over another in that regard. If you have a high flight sensitivity it will feel less sluggish and slightly more responsive, however don't expect much difference if you decide to go that route. The ESFs all have a maximum roll/pitch/yaw speed that can't be overwritten. In more advanced terms, their angular velocity is limited in terms of pitch/roll/yaw which means that even if you have a really, really high sensitivity you will still only be able to turn as fast as the game allows because of the limits placed on the angular velocity. So, yeah, it's sluggish if you're used to more responsive things. But, I am in no way "rolling faster" than anyone. (Edit) Summary: you're not doing anything wrong, that's just how it feels.
I remember a few years ago, before I stopped playing, there was an enemy Mosquito outside our warpgate. He was just shooting down every ESF that tried to go outside the shield. After a few minute we ended up grouping and engaging him in 5v1, but we couldn't touch him and he still won. I had the chance to witness his movements and I was stunned, he was like dancing through our bullets. Of course we were all beginners pilots, but that moment makes me realize how it's rewarding to master flying ESFs and how huge is the gap between beginners and well trained pilots. Also, I could talk about the day I learned that you can actually send private messages to ennemies. I was flying late in the night and an enemy ESF whispered me and ask me to stop using coyotes, that it wasn't fun for him and that I won't get better playing like this. I answered to him that I usually feel free to play as I want, but since he asked nicely, I switched my setup like he suggested me to. Then we flew together for maybe 2 hours, did some duels and then he gave me a lots of advice to help me improve my flying skills (he was way better than I was...) He even swapped to liberator just to become a practice target for me. That's one of my best memories of any online games I've ever played.
The story about the coyotes is crazy - that’s how I happened to get into ESFing too, although that was almost 3 years ago lol. I guess everyone needs to be pushed out of their comfort zone to improve!
there are some incredible moments.recently i was doing the storm buoy mission,and i asked on chat to plz not to shoot me while doing it,as i'm a shitty pilot and i'm no threat to anyone. my faction (TR) was sarcastic,saying good luck with that. NC was like "yummy come on in". the VS was quiet,just bantering with other people. in the middle of my flight,2 reavers start shooting me and i was ready to bail out just to rob them from my death and all of a sudden 5 scythes come in like hornets and kill the guys and surround me.they make some wing salute and pm me saying "we will escort until your done". man it was a strange sight a TR Valkyrie being escorted by VS,but it was so cool!
I've noticed among the trained pilots you can often challenge them to a dual or show you're friendly (if they wanna focus on ground pounding) by tapping your gun in their direction. An allied reaver and I spent bunch of time dualing and practicing with some nice scythes, provided me a lot of useful practice without the trouble of dying every 5 seconds haha
Damn I wish this was around when I was first trying to fly. Although I think you missed out the most important tip: Rebind vehicle exit! The amount of reavers I've accidentally ditched is ridiculous.
@Bo Sann It is but its right next to go accelerate *AND RELOAD!* Which is where the problem lays! It's between 2 of the most used keys in the game! it isn't a problem in a ground vehicle that you can probably hop back into fast enough but in a air vehicle that 1 problem has probably cost Millions of accidental deaths!
The flying in Planetside is so strange. I’m normally a pilot in the games where I can be, and I’ve even flown many times before in real life, but the mechanics in Planetside drove me away from that. So thank you for this video. It is much appreciated
@@DFlaminberry It is a lazy mechanic of making the machine feel like it has mass to it. The real way of doing this is physically simulating angular acceleration which works well when mouse acts as a simulated joystick like in Star Citizen or Freelancer.
Honestly, I thought "Oh, this person is gonna use Mossie or Scythe only..." Yet, he showed me piloting a Reaver for a time longer than I expected! Oh yeah, now this is the pilot I can trust on his words..!
I feel like the skill ceiling is so high for ESF. It's almost a glass ceiling in a way, because wherever I go to fly there's always an ace pilot there to kill me. Ace pilots, pilots who fly just to fight other ESF, will travel around the entire map to find other ESF and destroy them. When you're just coming into the flying scene there's not a lot of room for practice because you die so quickly to more experienced pilots, and it's not like you can just respawn either since Aircraft cost nanites to spawn, you will eventually run out. What made this even worse was the ASP and faction bonus systems they added recently. High level pilots can now get up to a 50% discount on ESF with a 30% light aircraft module on a base and the 20% ASP discount to light aircraft. They can keep pulling aircraft over and over again, so even if you or a ground unit manage to destroy them they will just pull another aircraft and come back. There's a massive barrier to entry for flying since you will get stomped by more experienced pilots over and over again. Very demoralizing.
The skill barrier can be really discouraging to those wanting to start flying. Devs need to bring back Air Anomalies, since that drew large air crowds and you could often find those with similar skill levels before you got shot down
while i wholeheartedly agree on the general mercilessness of the airgame i can attest and promise to you that if you whisper a pilot after he shot you down more often than not they will be willing to help you out, or straight up meet somewhere secluded and have some 1on1 practice! and if the first one doesnt want to the 3rd will
The fact that Yaw couldn't be rebound to mouse is the cause for my brother refusing to join this game, and he's an avid fan of air combat games. I hope Rogue Planet decides to allow rebindability. It's kinda ridiculous that they haven't.
1 small correction. there is a 3rd way to tell if youre in hover mode and thats the streaks on your wings. when youre in jet mode your wings make trails, in hover mode there are no more trails. this applies to scythes as well.
I'm here, I just haven't made up my mind on what to do next and college has started which keeps me busy sometimes. If you have a suggestion you should post it and let me know!
Okay fine you excellent tutorial making bastard, you've managed to get me interested in what I assume will be the most masochistic experience the game has to offer in what is already a very painful game. Time to cert out an ESF.
This video is amazing! after I watched this video I immediately improved with this vehicle. Im about two weeks in and can now hold my own against most fights when before I would be lucky to get a kill. Thank you so much for allowing me to be able to experience another side of planetside 2. I cant get enough of this vehicle now!
While I don't think it'll help me airduel like a pro, for sure I'll find situations where I wouldn't have survived without this and the likes of it guide. It was very on point thank you.
Thanks for the vid! I have well over a thousand hours in an ESF and I still learned a few things. I never noticed the [H] on the screen while in hover, which should be very helpful in duels and while flying a scythe. One criticism I have is with something I've noticed about increasing the max render to 6,000. It barely affects performance and makes it easier to see the things that matter in a hover duel, like my tracers and the opponent's afterburners. Fighting with the day sky as the backdrop is pretty tough, especially on Esamir. Setting the render distance really low increases the amount of sky you see, which imo is just not worth it for save a few FPS. Not to mention the game just looks better at 6,000 render and for new players it makes the continents easier to navigate. Also, I think you should point to a video about hover dueling that people can check out after watching this one. Maybe make one covering all the basics of leading shots and maneuvering or point to a good one that already exists. If you make one, you could cover other things that are more philosophical as well, like strats for using and fighting against the different ESFs, or even community aspect of it. I think people outside of the circle don't realize how happy the good players are to help those who really want to learn. They don't want to see the air full of scubs with coyotes and tomcats. There is no fun in that. And many won't kill on sight if someone is sociable and really trying to improve.
Just for the sake of some of the people who play this game on, say, a laptop or something, I wanted to make it clear that you really only need that amount of render distance. I get what you mean though. It helps to have all the reference points available when you're trying to track someone else. I could've probably pointed to some ESF dueling videos, you're right. Although, I don't think everyone should learn from just videos alone. At some point they'll have to actually try to apply the things they've learned and watching all the videos in the world about ESF combat can only help so much. As said in the video I wanted to make it as short as possible while trying to include all the basics I can. Thanks for the feedback though, man. It's always welcome.
About to learn flying here, which is a lot different to war thunder simulator but I'm getting slowly into this,because of ur tutorial/guide, Thy for that!
Amazing video dude. Thanks a lot. I've been flying for quite a bit now (not 1000s of hours, obviously) but there's been a number of things I've been doing wrong. So now I'll specifically practice maneuvers outlined here to build the correct muscle memory.
Watched the video about a month ago and since then i became way better at flying and continue to improve. Just as a little tip to other newbies like me: In the last couple of days i found that changing to the short range main gun helped me tremendously, since it fits way better the playstyle with Stealth, because you can ambush players and kill then more quickly and also because i noticed that i almost always end up on close range engagements. It seems obvious, but i didn't realized till changing, and it kinda made me even more exited to keep practicing.
Saw your reddit post and tbh expected a bad made video with crappy voice since your channel is still small. But I have to say this is some quality shit. Well done man hope for more videos in the future :)
huge props for the sound in this video. Music is pleasant and not over the top or blasting past your voice level (which was clear and nice to listen to) Thanks for the helpful hints. I've played a lot of combat flight sims and this game was by far the hardest to get the hang of. I had no idea hover was a whole mode and I have over 200 hours in PS2 @_@ It's really shocking just how high the skill ceiling is for this game.
Good tutorial I've always known about hover and plane mode but never knew what actually caused it to change between them. I ended up just learning method one by accident but with extra key presses that I didn't need but now I know what I don't need to press anymore.
Wow this is one of the most comprehensive well constructed training/informative tutorials I've listened to. You even state and clarify for the one's who may have misunderstood that you were showing the nose gun's "potential damage" vs realistic scenarios. You're amazing brother. Very excellent work 👏 👍 ❤👊💯
watching this for the 2nd time and found my problem you did a really really good job there and im thankful that you talked and showed more about the mechanics and manouvers of flying thanks a lot
i sat in an esf today after roughly 1.5 years without any planetside and almost never using vehicles and i could not get over roll on mouse, but i did see the potential especially since i'm pretty good at flying in other games so i came to youtube for help; never knew about hover, probably that's what screwed me in sanctuary a lot, dogfighting seems cool and useful on the battlefield so i'll get used to that and we'll see
in the 2044 the new gen gonna watch this video and think this is a real war pilot training video :D joke aside. Bloody good explanation, the pitch thingy is very eye opening!
Thanks for the video it helped a lot. Practiced in VR Training for about 30minutes and then went at it. Started out pretty hilarious, with some crashes, made 2 Mosqitos in a 2v1 tuck tale with my Reaver when I did consecutive damage to both of them, and my session ended with flying with 20 plus others escorting a Bastion. Ended up taking out 3 Scythes very quickly before getting taken out myself.
Ahahahahaah the switching-scythes-part had me burst out in laughter, i had completely forgotten about the old "oh damn i brought u the wrong gun"-thing lol 😂 😂 Great tutorial btw!!
Very useful video, I watched, learned, practiced, finally left the base, took only 1 shot from a Galaxy and died. Thank you very much for your teachings, but the reality of the world out there is cruel.
Im new in ps2 playing it since a couple of days now and didnt even know theres a hovermode for scythe i keept flying past hovering enemies 😂. Nice guide Thx
This was stupidly good. I would love if you made a series about what goes on in your head, why you picked a certain loud out, the perks and intent you are bringing to the table when you get in certain situations like you did at the end of the episode! You got a new subscriber and fan here.
Great guide, thank you for taking the time. I remember how flying was back before mouse accel (which happened at PS3 release). Now I see everyone struggle to aim. It's really sad.
A lot of people's flight issues in PS2 would dissolve if they just let you bind yaw to your mouse X-axis and roll to keyboard keys. Yes I know roll and pitch are coupled on the yoke or centrestick of real aircraft, and that's fine if you have a joystick for flight in PS2... but when a mouse is used to fly, yaw on X-axis is MUCH better than roll being on X-axis. There's a good reason why most modern computer game flight controls default as that nowadays. PS2 just omits this binding, because: fuck you, that's why.
amazing explanation u could also of said engineering passive ability to heal in esf everytime when out of combat its really useful stealth combo works very good
One thing Dudis forgot to mention is the Engineers aircraft synergy ability. Or does the first level (all you need for esfs) come default? Not sure. Also, to anyone that’s discouraged by the flying skill gap, just keep it up! Also, challenging someone worse than you can also be helpful since teaching someone else is a great way to solidify muscle memory without constantly getting shot down lol
I've seen a couple of vids on ESF piloting and this was probably the most comprehensive for the basics. The only thing left out was each factions unique ESF perks. IE The Mosquito is the fastest ESF, but the Reaver has the most efficient afterburners which when equipped make it the fastest ESF. Or how the Scythe's passive hover ability makes it the best at doing the reverse maneuver and also allows it to mitigate damage when crash landing or ramming if pitched properly. I would probably recommend players learn ESF fighting in a mosquito. Although the Scythe is hands down the strongest ESF when factoring in all the variables (during league duals 90% of pilots pick scythe and you'll be lucky to find even 1 Reaver in the line up). The mosquito's superior speed and profile (area exposed to enemy fire) make for excellent passive ESF superiority and the slightly lower TTK than the Reaver guns allows for better learning as you'll less likely one clip your enemies and be able to do some actual proper dog fighting. The Reaver is excellent at ambushing, but bad at dog fighting. The Scythe is an excellent ESF, but it plays a lot different to the other 2 so learning in the mosquito will cover your skills for the Reaver as well and translate better to the Scythe than vice-versa.
I would say this comment has some really good advice. I WOULD say that, however you decided to say "The reaver is excellent at ambushing, but bad at dogfighting." So, I'm going to say this comment has bad advice in it. Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
@@Dudisfludis You don't need to take my word for it. The PS2 database literally tells you the performance stats for all the vehicles and their weapons. It's not a matter of opinion that the ESF are not equal in performance. The Mosquito is a ground pound AI machine and the Scythe is an AA superiority beast. The Reaver is not far off the bat, but that is not to say it doesn't bare mentioning that there is a very clear set of advantages and disadvantages that makes it [Reaver] unfavourable for AA dualing. Regardless of whether i personally find the Reaver the most challenging ESF to dual in. I'm not saying you can't do it and the skill of players during public play is inherently variable, so the margins will be much larger and forgiving than in a league where the clear choice is to simply not choose it at all because that edge becomes so important. But to ignore those differences on an ideological basis is simply asinine. The bottom line is If you try to learn ESF mechanics in a Reaver you will find it needlessly more challenging because you'll one clip your enemies more frequently preventing you from getting the dog fighting experience entirely or the dog fights you do get into wont last very long with the ESF profiles being what they are. You can do it, but i wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
Thanks for making this great video. I have played PS2 for a while and the prospect of learning something new is exciting! I have a lot more hours in Rocket League and I'd have to say the control and mechanics for controlling a rocket powered car in that game seems similar in both depth and satisfaction of mastery to ESF piloting in PS2. I will try to work hard and improve my skills in the sky. I guess I really enjoy the aspect of a hard to master vehicle in videogames. Plan on taking your advice and putting it to good use!
towards the sense part , you can find out wich sense is for you good by circle around a small object and stay on target with the mouse, if you need to drag alot than set it a bit higher until you feel comfortable to do so.
Thanks. It helped me a lot. Good job. Now I´m way better and I´m not afraid in dogfights as before. I´m looking forward to take down some Bastion with my friends!
Thanks for the info man, it's very useful. I use a higher sens purely because i have about 5 inches of mouse room left and right of my mouse lol, I seemed to also neglect this pitch up and down thingy, I'll be getting used to that now hopefully. Cheers :)
Was hoping that this video would, potentially, have some secret way on how to actually yaw left and right with the mouse like... virtually every other game (War Thunder, Battlefield, etc.) allow you to do and which is very natural and easy to use for flight controls. But, no, it simply isn't possible in Planetside 2 - despite people asking for actual usable controls and doing so for almost 10 years now. If you ESF guys in Planetside 2 wonder why more people don't fly - I guarantee you it's because the flight controls for PS2 are garbage like this compared to... basically any other game with flight mechanics that has been released in the past decade. There's absolutely no reason to not allow fine and precision control with the yaw axis with the mouse. And that is a deal breaker for me when it comes to ESF - because you need fine aim control over left and right axis. Planetside 2 doesn't give you this and *_forces_* you to use this wonky "roll to yaw" mechanic which is more at place in lazily made Unity-engine games and something from 2006. Not in a game where it's been requested for a decade and is still live in 2022 and where aircraft are a major factor in combat. It's inexcusable.
@@nimrodbodfish946 normal mentality. air fights suck ass and most people flying dont like doing them, so sometimes it's helpful to be able to disengage air threats and just focus on the ground
@@nimrodbodfish946 if someone wears reavers and isnt confident in their AA nosegunning, it's reasonable that they would avoid air fights. why would you take a fight you arent equipped for and would likely lose, when you can just fuck off and come back later for more ground kills at a grand loss of 0 nanites. you're just mad people dont take your dogfighting bushido seriously
Today I wanted to play EFS spent 700 Certs on stealth and went out to be slaughtered by TR & VS ESFs... Searched "planetside 2 improve fighter" found this watched went back in to PS2 bought Hover thing and went out again got 4 EFS kills 1 Librator before dying (To my own mistake ramming into AMP Station.) This video certainly helped me improve a lot compare to what I was earlier today, Thank you! ^_^
I know this sounds bad but if you need certs get into an ANT . Then start farming cortium capacity. Deliver the cortium to friend bases . If your lucky you will find a contructed base that needs cortium and has a air deployment module unlocked.
you deserve a sub just for the tutorial, damn, I wanna try to learn now, so I will, thanks :) (for the next tutorial would you mind making something about how to use a Lightning effectively? thanks!)
Wow, very well put. Its an extreamly good explanation. You put so much effort into this Video, it deserves more Attention :) Edit: I have to get better at flying to defend my Outfits Bastion
