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FRONTIER HELP - COMBAT TACTICS


1. Targetting your Opponent
2. Manouvering in Combat
3. Shooting at your Opponent
4. Bombs and Missiles


Destroying enemies is a major part of the game, and so it's useful if you know how to do it.The hints below should start you off on the road to your rating of ELITE.


Targetting your Opponent

Before you can kill a pirate, it's important that you know where he is. This isn't as easy as it sounds, as a ship more than 5km away can easily be mistaken for one of the millions of stars or asteroids you can see in space. It is therefore useful to switch the Name Identification Tags on by pressing F10, or the far right button on your screen.

However, if your opponent flies behind your ship, you can waste valuable seconds looking for him. This is why it's useful to select the enemy as your target, by clicking on his ship. You might find it helpful to pause the game while you do this, as a fast-moving target can be tricky to click on, or you can even pause the game as soon as your stardreamer kicks you out of time-acceleration and use the external view to locate your opponent and select him, then you know where he is when you unpause the game.


Manouvering in Combat

When you want to shoot your opponent, you must point your lasers directly at his ship - this is sometimes harder than it sounds. This is a point when you have to stop using your keyboard to control the game - your ship doesn't respond anything like as fast with the keyboard as with the mouse or the joystick. However, when you start using your mouse or joystick, hitting your enemy should be much easier. It is also helpful to pre-empt the enemy's moves - aim your lasers at where he will be in 2 seconds tims, and hit him as he flies past, rather than following him with your guns and never hitting him. Also, don't fly directly towards your opponent unless you're heavily shielded - he'll hit you with his lasers just as surely as you'll hit him.

If you're fighting near a planet or other obstacle, flying low near to the planet's surface is a very useful manouvre. The computer is an appalling flyer, and will happily crash into the ground in an attempt to get at you - I've lost count of the number of police I've killed in that way.


Shooting at your Opponent

It is important to remember that all the lasers and plasma weapons in Frontier only have an effective range of 8km, so any shot fired from a greater distance will do no damage. It is surprising how many pilots try to atttack their opponents when they are out of range - not only does this not have any effect on the enemy ship, it also overheats their lasers so that when the enemy does come into range their weapons are still recharging. You should also remember not to fire when the enemy is heading past you but isn't in your sights - again, many pilots pull their triggers at the slightest glimpse of an enemy.


Bombs and Missiles

First, a quick word about mines - don't use them. The enemy never flies into your mines, as they quickly drift away from the scene of the combat, never to be seen again - this is due to both you and your opponent firing your engines and accelerating away from the path you were on when the mine was laid. However, both Missiles and Energy Bombs are much more use, and it's these that I'm going to talk about.

Missiles are very useful, but, even with their amazing 65G acceleration, they still don't always hit the target before their time runs out. It is therefore important to fire them towards the opponent, and at as close a range as possible, to maximise their chances of hitting. Likewise, if a missile is fired at you and you don't have ECM, you can avoid it by flying in a twisting path - move your mouse or joystick about randomly until the missile explodes. Another way of avoiding missiles is to fire one of your own at the attacking craft - the ship will use its ECM to get rid of your missile, destroying its own in the process.

The Energy Bomb is an extremely helpful piece of equipment, as it will destroy all small ships within a 100km radius. It is particularly good against the Police, as it will often take out large numbers of ships at once - however, it isn't a particularly good anti-pirate weapon as it can only be fired once.


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