AIR WARRIOR SURVIVAL TIPS By Cap'n Trips (DF115645) Air Warrior is a realistic simulation of combat flying. The first thing you need to realize about aerial combat is that the main objective is to survive. Shooting down enemies is just icing on the cake. This is what makes Air Warrior so much more than just another shoot-em-up type game. There are basically two types of planes in the skies of Air Warrior, hunters and targets.(This is true in real air warfare as well.) EVERYONE starts out in the second category. The best way to get into the first category is to employ techniques and adopt an attitude that increase your chances of surviving combat situations. At the risk of making myself an easier target, I will present some techniques that have worked for me. As anyone who has met me in AW combat will tell you, I am not invincible, but I do make my opponents work hard to get me. I do not stay in someone's sights for long, and I can usually reverse an unfavorable position if my opponent is not being VERY careful. PRACTICE MODE Kesmai has thoughtfully provided you with a PRACTICE MODE. This is where most of your basic training for AW takes place. Anyone familiar with other flight simulator games will be able to transition to Air Warrior with little trouble. The Practice Mode is much more useful than just a place to learn basic flight, however. I practice all my combat maneuvers in practice mode, as well as gunnery, and landing/ditching practice. I still spend a few hours a week in practice mode to keep from getting rusty. It's free, use it! Get into practice mode and take off. A very useful technique for practicing is to use the tops of the mountains as if they were targets. You can't actually shoot anything in practice mode, but you should practice hard turns, and coming out of turns lined up on target. Do some very tight turns in both directions, and when a mountain comes into view, stop the turn with the top of the mountain centered in your gun sight. This is a VERY HELPFUL exercise. It may sound dull, but the skill you gain by doing this really helps in the game. Practice using the rudder to help line up targets. The use of rudder in combat is very important, and should not be overlooked. When a target is to the left or right of your sight, the fastest way to line it up is rudder. Most pilots I've talked to use it constantly. If you don't, you're giving away some advantage to them. Practice doing rolls, keeping a mountain top centered in your sight the whole time. This is another exercise that will help you keep an enemy in your sights when playing the game. Learn to use the rudder instinctively. Now is also the time to hone your landing and ditching techniques. I am surprised by the number of pilots in this game who have a hard time landing their planes. If you are shot up, and can ditch in friendly territory, your opponent does not get credited with a kill. Any streak of consecutive kills you have going is not wiped. Not too many pilots know this, but If you are forced to ditch in enemy territory, you can roll back home. It may take a little while, but it is definitely doable. It is fun to see pilots crash into the ground trying to attack a rolling plane, too. I've done that many times, and boy, is it embarrassing! Now, if I see a plane rolling for home, I don't bother attacking. Flying into the ground is unproductive. SOME TIPS FOR DOGFIGHTING First, ALWAYS use your view keys to keep track of your opponent. I didn't use them much at first, and I can tell you that it makes a tremendous difference. Set the picture cache size to at least 4 or more views. This makes changing views almost instantaneous. Remember, ALWAYS LOOK AROUND! If you don't know where your enemy is, you're as good as dead... Always use expert mode for combat. Non-expert mode is useful as a sort of "auto pilot" for long hauls, but for dogfighting, expert mode is a must. You cannot turn as tightly in non-expert, and the rudder keys are inactive. Practice expert mode flying until it is second nature!! If you hear the dreaded "bink, bink" of bullets hitting you, you'd better do something fast. A good evasive maneuver is the barrel roll. It makes it very hard for a plane on your tail to get a shot at you. It often causes your opponent to overshoot you, and become the target. To do a barrel roll, you pull the stick (mouse) so that the indicator on the dash is at one of the corners of its travel. This puts you into a corkscrewing roll that is very hard to follow. I've run out of ammo, and escaped with this maneuver. Try it in practice, and take a look out the back. Do you see what I mean about it being hard to follow? Dogfights often become "turning duels" where the two planes fly around a circle, each trying to get on the others tail. A maneuver that can help in this situation is the "Rollaway". It is performed by doing a barrel roll away from the circle, and then continuing. If you are circling to the left, for example, you would hit full up elevator and right aileron. as soon as the plane completes the roll, center the aileron and continue the circle. This maneuver can often put you on the opponents tail. A double rollaway, which consists of two barrel rolls can also do the job at times. SOME STRATEGY Never engage multiple enemies by yourself. This is as good as suicide. If you are attacked by two or more fighters, you will probably die, but you can increase your chances (slim as they may be) by NOT concentrating on any one plane. Take shots when one of them is in your sights, but don't follow any one plane for long, or you'll be an easy target for the others. Always turn and change direction, don't give anyone an easy shot at you. This is the only hope you have when outnumbered. Remember, any time you are flying straight you are a TARGET. Don't attack planes near their airfields. The ack ack will wipe you out in no time. Stay above 5,000 feet to avoid being hit by ack. On the other hand, if it looks like you're getting creamed near an enemy field, make the most of your death and dive right onto their ack ack gun. This will take it out for a while, and help your teammates. (You also get points for it.) The ack ack can be recognized by the 701x number, it is located around halfway down the runway at each field. Always try to fly with someone. Two pilots working together can attack much more effectively than one. The formation that seems to work best is for one to stay around 1000 yards behind the other. When the first plane makes a pass on an enemy, he continues on, and the second plane then attacks. Meanwhile, the first is turning for another pass. Two pilots working like this can be almost invincible. Be careful not to shoot your teammate. The only thing worse than being hit is being hit by your own people. ABOUT THE PLANES You may notice that everyone seems to have a favorite plane. Every choice involves some compromise. You should choose a plane that fits your style of flying, and don't let any one feature be the major influence in your choice. Based on many hours of flying, here are my impressions of the available planes in Air Warrior... P-51D MUSTANG The 'Stang is not the fastest, tightest turning, or most heavily armed plane, but it is durable. I've gotten home after taking quite a bit of damage in this plane, and its six fifty caliber machine guns do pack a nice punch. It seems to top out at around 350 kts. or so in level flight, but can easily exceed 400 in a sh allow dive. It is my favorite all-around plane. MITSUBISHI ZERO The backbone of the Japanese fleet in WW2, the Zero is fast, light, and agile as a cat. It is armed with two machine guns, and two cannons. The Zero can take off quicker, accelerate to speed sooner, and outclimb most any plane in the game. Very deadly in the hands of a skilled pilot, the Zero is great for defense of your airfield, as it can get airborne and engage an enemy while other planes would still be trying to get off the ground. On the negative side, it does not stand up well to damage at all, and the wings have a tendency to break off in violent maneuvers. SPITFIRE MK IX The Spit seems to be the most popular plane in the game. It packs a very heavy punch, with four thirty caliber machine guns and two cannons. The Spit can do a lot of damage, but it has a tendency to lose oil pressure after only a few hits. Fortunately, it glides well, and is fairly easy to land or ditch. It turns well thanks to its light weight, and can be very effective, as NICK BIGROD(1176) or Pan(4803) have shown. It's only my survival instinct that keeps me from using this plane more than I do. I usually take a few hits in a fight, and I don't like losing oil pressure and having to disengage. MESSERSCHMITT ME-262 The first operational jet fighter, the Me 262 is the fastest plane in Air Warrior. It carries four cannon for great firepower. While it is fast, it doesn't turn well at all due to its high wing loading. Most piston engine planes can defeat it without too much trouble in a dogfight. If you like the hit and run approach, this could be the plane of choice for you. If you prefer to dogfight, I'd avoid it. MESSERSCHMITT ME-109 I'm not sure about this one... I've had some great successes with it, and also some miserable failures. It carries two 15mm cannon in the wings, and a 30mm cannon in the nose for reasonable firepower. It is quite fast, but doesn't seem to turn all that well for me. It can dive away from most any plane, if it has to. FOCKE-WULF FW 190 D-9 The Focke Wulf is the fastest piston engined fighter in the game below 5000 feet, but loses its speed advantage at higher altitudes. For firepower, it is equipped with two 13mm machine guns, and two 20mm cannon. I find that it is a nice flying plane, but I don't like the lack of visibility that the big radial engine causes. If you need to escape a situation in this plane, fly low and straight. No other plane can keep up with it in those conditions. HAWKER HURRICANE While the Spit got most of the fame, the Hurricane was England's real mainstay in the Battle of Britain. It carries six fifty caliber machine guns in the wings, and does pack a punch. It is the only plane that can keep up with the Fw 190 at low altitudes. I haven't used it much, but some who do swear by it. BOMBERS AND WW1 PLANES Bombing is a whole subject in itself, and I won't try to cover it here. The WW1 planes are not too useful against the WW2 fighters, but when the WW1 theater opens up (coming soon) they will be a lot of fun. SOME MORE TIPS It is almost impossible for a single fighter to shoot down a bomber with gunners on board. Don't even try. They will make hamburger out of you. You can't always tell if there are gunners on a bomber, but a good indication is if the roster (esc R) shows more people than there seem to be planes for. A bomber without gunners is an easy kill. Just stay behind it and hammer it to death. None of the bombers can maneuver with a fighter, but the A-26 comes close. Never overshoot a bomber, as the guns are capable of doing terrific damage to you. If you see two enemies from opposing countries fighting, wait until one gets it, then go for the survivor. He will often be crippled and fairly easy to kill. On the other hand, he might not be damaged at all... you take your chances, as they say. A smoking plane is not always an easy kill. Always be careful when attacking. I'm not sure why, but smoking is not always a sign of engine trouble. Even when it is, a plane can smoke for quite a while before its engine quits. I've been killed many times by smoking planes, so watch out. Here's one for newcomers... As soon as you go on-line for the first time, change your handle to something unobtrusive before flying. Most of the players know people by their handles and player numbers, and if you don't pick a handle before flying, the roster will show something like "4946 New User". Anyone seeing that will be on the lookout for that player number for a while. The FIRST thing you should do when you get into AW is pick a handle. Crazy handles also attract attention. Try to keep a low profile. Anytime you shoot someone down, make a note of their player number, their handle if you know it, and what you did to beat them. I have an extensive list of tactics to use against particular players, and I'm sure others are keeping notes as well. Don't let yourself become dependent on a "pet move". Once you do, people will know what to expect from you. Surprise is a good weapon. use it. I recommend the custom art files highly. Most of them have a better gunsight than the default one provided by the program. They usually have a center reticle to help line targets up better. It also enhances the realism of the game. As a Mac pilot, I've been using the art files done by Ridge Runner(292). They are really beautiful, and worth the time to download. A WORD ABOUT SPEED The typical Mac is at a disadvantage when flying against a MacII or Amiga because of the slower frame rate. The plane itself isn't any faster, but the faster display does make flying much more precise. As a Mac pilot you should do the following things to maximize your display speed: Use combat or abridged picture mode for dogfighting. Turn engine sound off, turn gun sound off, turn tracers off. Air Warrior runs fastest by itself. Any Inits, or memory resident programs should be disabled before running Air Warrior. If you can justify the expense of an accelerator for your Mac, it will really help things out. I use the Radius in my SE and I've been happy with the results. A WORD OF THANKS I'd just like to take a few seconds here to thank the folks at KESMAI for this wonderful game. As long as I've been playing with computers, a multi-player flight simulator was on my wish list. Air Warrior is the first implementation of this concept that is really playable, and I don't think I could ever thank them enough for it. Writing this is my way of trying to give something back to the game that has given me so much enjoyment. ONE LAST HINT There is a book that can be found in the computer section of most bookstores called "Jet Fighter School". It applies to the game F-15 Strike Eagle by Microprose, but the section on air combat maneuvering is directly applicable to Air Warrior. It's worth reading. See you in the skies of Air Warrior, Cap'n Trips (DF115645) P.S. Any specific questions not covered here can be sent to me by EMAIL at DF115645 and I will be happy to reply if I can. these unfortunate events occurs. The criterion for being awarded a kill on an enemy plane consists of the f