Cloaking Cheat as a mod
Cloaking strategy:
Cloaking should not work well when dogfight is already started (weapon tracing). close range, or moving too fast. It can be used to break target lock and torpedo lock. Can use cloaking to sneak up to starting position. With cloaking capability (while enemies do not have), the player gains enormous advantage. This cheat can change gameplay fundamentally.
However, there has to be a way to prevent abusing the cheat. Therefore, I created a mod that if you would like to use cloaking, as it should cost energy to power the cloaking, the energy will be charged slower for the energy weapon so that conserving energy becomes a concern . The mod is just one file at dat/settings/device_generator. Installing or uninstalling the mod is just a matter of adding or rename/delete the file, as you wish. In addition, the reshade shader cloaking vision mode would obscure the view a little, so that it is another cost to use cloaking.
When using cloaking, you should not do target lock unless using torpedo. Locking an enemy will expose your location thus losing effectiveness of cloaking.
Cloaking is perfect to use Vendatta sniper and sizzler (with the secondary weapon mod). It is also good with one-shot high damage weapon such as doom mortar and stanley. Weapons with continuous firing is not good for cloaking as enemy can track where the bullets come from.
Weapon Strategy:
Weapon has a natural upgrade order. When a better weapon is available, it does not need to go back. Two shell types though, shell or energy. Two damage types, kinetic, EM. The weapons starting with * is the favorite weapon, superior within the group.
Group 1 Unlimited projectile ammo
Vendetta 2 (500m, fast, K 140MJ)
*Vendetta gatling (500m, fast, K 140MJ, 0.1, 1400/s)
Slow shot Railgun *Hitman (flak) (400m, fast, K 1600MJ) (reload 1.2s)
Group 2 Energy weapon
Plasma (320m, med, K 400MJ)
Plasma Jet (320m, med, K 400MJ, 0.2, 2000/s)
*Plasma gatling (320m, med, K 400MJ, 0.2, 2000/s)
*Laser gatling (400m, medium, K 600MJ, 0.12. 5000/s)
Closer range, EMP EMPactor(200m, medium, EM 62MJ) (EM)
Group 3 Special
One short slow Torpedo Standly (430km/h, 120m/s, slow, 4000 MJ)
Doom Mortar (200m, slow, K 3200MJ, EM)
(Double damage secondary) (reload 2s)
Ground, unlimited ammo Stingray (gatling , K 100 MJ, 0.075, 1333/s)
(volley, more spread, good for ground
2.75, 20x100 = 2000 one time)
*Hydra (rocket launcher) (continues small torpedoes, optical)
Unlimited ammo (volley, optical)
(primary, 280 MJ, 0.25, 1120/s)
(2nd, 10x300=3000 MJ one time)
Group 4 Sniper
Sniper Can use with bullet time
Vendetta sniper 1 (500m, fast, K 200MJ)
Sizzler laser (400m, fast, K 6000MJ)
Group 5 Torpedo
Torpedo Thresher Shark (Passive) (223 km/h, 3, 6k MJ)
Torpedo Tiger Shark (Passive) (245 km/h, 3, 8k MJ)
Torpedo Bull Shark (Passive) (223 km/h, 2, 14k MJ)
Torpedo Maneater (Ext Passive) (288 km/h, 4, 10k MJ)
Or Torpedo Flash Shark (Ext Passive) (245 km/h, 4, EMP)
*Torpedo Hammerhead Shark (Optical) (324 km/h, 5, 12k MJ)
Or *Torpedo Leech (Optical) (360 km/h, 5, EMP)
Slow & Big
Torpedo Bigbang 1 (Optical) (90k km/h, 2, 24k MJ)
Torpedo Bigbang 2 (Optical) (54 km/h, 1, 40k MJ)
The ultimate weapon load out is
Hitman + Laser Gatling + Sizzler + 2 Special (hydra/stingray/doom mortar) + torpedo (hammerhead or leech)
Dogfight auto matching speed strategy
The pilot can have better focus on aiming and strafing only. Engaging/disengaging any time. This is especially useful when using joystick, to concentrate other controls.
Aiming Assistant Strategy
Aiming assistant is mutual exclusive with manual aiming once target is locked or target is far from crosshair.
Weapon Switching Strategy
It can be unrealistic how a ship can switch weapons on the fly. It is supposed to be hard point mounted, but the screen can only show one weapon at a time, so it becomes switching weapons slowly. It is a disadvantage having to use mouse next/previous weapon to switch, because the left hand is already occupied with movement.
The remedy is to use 5 predefined buttons for 5 groups of weapons, and bind the keys before mission starts.
Buzzer
There are three levels of capability for buzzer, easy, medium, and hard. It seems the more advanced ships are, the better buzzers they have, thus countering passive torpedo more easily.
Enemy Detection
Surrounding enemy can be detected by pressing the lock key, if the enemy is in range. So feel free to keep doing that. However, if multiple enemies are in range, changing the lock is only possible by looking at the enemy in the crosshair to designate.
Sonar has longer detection range than lock range. So check bottom Sonar map first, if it detects but cannot lock target yet. Vendetta and sizzler (with mod) sniper’s zoom view can be enabled for long range surveillance.
Torpedo Strategy
Passive torpedoes are less effective for ships as they can be distracted by a buzzer. However, it is great for ground targets such as tanks because they have no buzzer.
Experimental Weapon Strategy
The game’s experimental weapons are stingray and hydra.
Stingray’s primary gatling performance is similar to Vendetta gatling. Secondary mode is similar to plasma jet’s secondary mode, because it spreads over a bigger area. It is much worse than hitman. So overall speaking, it is a weak weapon but introduces a new firing mode of volley fire.
Hydra is fully guided mini torpedos without buzzer distraction, so firepower is not wasted, to compensate its not-too-strong damage. It has the secondary volley fire mode. Hydra has more EM damage than kinect. Kinect wise, primary is like a gatling of torpedoes with damage similar to Vendetta gatling, secondary is a volley fire with damage less than any torpedo, similar to Doom Mortar and Laser gatling’s secondary. Hydra’s fun factor is its lock then fire and forget capability.
The good thing about stingray and hydra is that they have unlimited ammo. Their primary mode can keep firing forever, unlike energy weapons.
Energy Ammo Strategy
Energy generator keeps charging until it reaches 9999. So one dummy method is to leave the game idling so it will keep charging.
