BF2S Forums The Soup Nazi's Guide for Becoming a Successful Pilot

Here's my little tutorial on Jet Aircraft:

Controllers: I'm not really going to press a point here. Some people prefer keyboards, some prefer mice, others use joysticks and a few like gamepads. I'm even sure that there's some closet nerd somewhere who's modded a Power Glove into a USB device just for BF2. It's all personal opinion here. I've played around with all of these flying mediums over the years (except the Power Glove), and I have found the joystick to be the most useful. Unfortunately for people I'd recommend joysticks to, the Microsoft Force Feedback 2 seems to be discontinued. I don't use the force feedback feature for BF, but this controller is by far the most responsive I've ever handled.

Dogfighting: Pretty much everything that I'd say about this has already been mentioned by the first post here. I'd like to add that doing some reading into traditional avoidance tactics, though BF2 flight physics are far from realistic, helps too. Generally, a good place to aim your machine gun is above your target plane. Most of the time, if somebody thinks they're being shot, they will fly up and not down. Lead your target! It takes some practice, but the better you can judge whether or not where you're shooting will be where your target will be by the time the bullets arrive, the faster you'll take down those annoying little enemy aircraft. Also, don't think that bombers can't dogfight. I've had plenty of fighters tear past me only to find themselves mowed down.

Don't get complacent if it seems your target is allowing you to chase him around. Somebody could be matching speeds behind you, getting ready to perforate your precious plane that you've waited five minutes to snag.

Bomber Bombing: If you tap the release button quickly enough, only one bomb will drop. This can save bombs. If you want to drop all of them, try to line up their destinations on as many as the enemy if possible. If there's a fight on the ground, drop them on the enemy's side away from where your friendlies are. If there is a very small window in which to bomb the enemy without friendly casualties, approach from as straight above as possible. Withhold fire if a fight is too intermingled, unless you like being punished four or five times. Check the map for friendlies! If necessary, make a pass to determine where they are, and if they'll be away from where you want to hit on your second pass. Issue a warning, if possible. Bombers on some well-organized teams clear fire missions with their commander, if there isn't a very large enemy force for free-fire.

Choose decent targets to bomb, and don't bomb anything that could just as easily be taken out with machine guns, unless you're just goofing off. Bombs can also easily destroy enemy assets (artillery, UAV, Sat).

Fighter Bombing: The two bombs you have won't do much good against anything but infantry and light transport vehicles, unless you dive-bomb from 45-80 degrees above your target. Hit your afterburners to release both bombs at a greater velocity. Aim for where your target is going to be when the bombs land. I often get more air-to-surface kills without friendly fire with fighters than bombers, because it forces me to pay more attention to what I'm doing.

Bomber Co-pilots: Despite popular belief, "locking on" to a target isn't necessary. Missiles can be manually guided with your mouse, which can wreak deadly havoc if your pilot flies straight. Alternatively, if you're in a bomber alone, you can hop to the copilot's seat, launch a missile, guide it home, then be back in the pilot's seat in about three seconds. This gives you a fairly predictable trajectory however, and I don't recommend it unless the skies are clear of the enemy. This can also help those poor MEC pilots who find that their airbase has been taken, as the co-pilot has a nifty supply of deadly missiles (Clean Sweep...bleh).

Guns: A plane's guns is one of the most underused weapons I've ever seen in this game. Even if you're out of bombs, you can still rack up to twenty kills on sheer virtue of having good aim and judgement. The ground is rich with potential targets! APC's, light transport (incl'd boats), stationary defense up to ESSEX miniguns, massed infantry, supply crates, A/A vehicles and even, though to a lesser extent, tanks, will be severely hurt by a good strafing. Try finding a flag clear of friendlies but known to have plane/chopper campers, or a flag that's being taken uncontested. Start from a distance, aim your reticle at said flag, and begin your 10-15 second strafing. I have killed up to seventeen people in a single run, though it resulted in some sort of aimbot-related kick.

Please don't own me with any of this...

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2005-10-13 04:06:14)

Good to know. Old Battlefield habits of out-of-bounds runways not rearming and repairing threw me off, I guess.

i only used the keyboard for a short while with the BF2 demo and immediately realized the need for a proper joystick.  as far as i could tell, yes, you have to keep holding the throttle up button to maintain speed.  with a decent joystick, you have a throttle slider that stays put.  this is great for choppers, as well.

The Sidewinder 2 has a nifty little built-in throttle that allows me to execute some pretty complicated manuevers with helos and jets without worrying about keyboard tapping. It also allows me to match speeds with a target fast-mover without having to think much about it. Basically, if you're going with a joystick, get one with a throttle and with a twist axis. Lots of buttons can help too, since you're going to need to fire primaries, secondaries, switch between views, hit the afterburners, pop flares and sometimes eject and parachute on fairly short order.

Also, full-speed+afterburner bombing can actually increase the accuracy of your bombs, as well as adding a better chance that one of the things might smash into the sides of your target rather than into the ground, (and usually closer together) if you're approaching at a fairly low angle. The main point of quick dive bombs is it allows you to get in, release your payload and get out with a bare-minimum of ground visibility, decreasing the chance of getting someone on your tail, or having a stinger missile sent up your arse.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2005-10-14 11:53:35)

Acceleration: Axis 3 (throttle)
Steer: Axis 2 (twist)
Pitch: Axis 1 (fwd/back)
Roll: Axis 0 (right/left)

Hat (if applicable) can control view mode, which helps considerably. A couple of extra buttons on the stick part of your joystick, asside from two for primary/secondary fire helps for eject/parachute. Two other buttons on your joy's base, if any, can be used for afterburner and flare.


Yours truly, Corporal Obvious...

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2005-10-16 22:56:44)

being the good pilot i am, i know i can always improve, so i read your guide.  most of it is right on, but i have some things i would like to say about it, starting with the joystick part.  i kick ass with jets and i need no stick, the reason is quite simple, i went into the controls.con file in C:\Documents and Settings\dave\My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\0001 and switched my yaw and roll settings:
ControlMap.addAxisToAxisMapping c_PIYaw IDFMouse IDAxis_0 0 0
ControlMap.addKeysToAxisMapping c_PIRoll IDFKeyboard IDKey_V IDKey_C 0
(i use c and v for left and right)
so now when i move my mouse left and right it pans rather than rolls, i am positive that this is the reason that people have problems flying with the mouse.

other than that i would say that your guide is great for if there is no good enemy pilots, but sets people up for constant failure otherwise, let me explain.  the persuit part is great, its right on the money, thats just how i do it.  you forgot to say that boosters increase turn speed though.  the problem is in the flight plan, bombing, and chased parts. for the flight plan, one crucial thing to say is that a good pilot spots enemy jets as to not lose track of them and that he checks his radar constantly, as to check bombing targets for friendlies and to abort if there are friendlies.  also you want to make sure you know where your friendly jets are, if 2 friendlies are on one bogey, chances are they might hit eachother.   its also important to rescue your wingmen, if a bogey is on a wingmans tail, get on the bogeys tail, air supremecy is important.  its only good to go slow when a) you are strafing armour or helicopters b) so you dont pass enemy jets you are on the tale of c) so you can get both bombs when rearming (some strips are to small)  and d) when aproching the ceiling.  the reason its bad to fly slow in normal flight is simple, you have to rely on your one chafe till you get back to full speed.  when at full speed you can always dodge missiles by doing sharp turns (at least in the fighter, the bomber needs boost)  also its easy to get on someones tail if you see them going slow.  you also want to stress how important it is to be able to think backwards, a good pilot flys backwards when they have an enemy jet on thier tail, only 2 check forward as to see if they are too close to the ground or ceiling.  it is easy to throw a jet off, but unless you can see which way they are going, you cant make your break and they will just get right back on.  also its important to stress the consevation of boost, especially in bombers, if you cant boost, you cant get away from the enemy on your tail.  one thing about being chased you didnt go into is a controlled stall evasion.  save a chafe and fly straight up and start slowing down.  use the chafe right when you really are going to get hit.  what happens is that if you are going slow when you stall you can slowly fall back to earth and then gas it to get flying again, where as your enemy who is flying fast will lose control, its also a good idea to do this one near the out of bounds so your enemy has a smaller chance of survival.  one thing you didnt mention is that there are time you want to land, if you know there isnt enemy comming or at your airfield and you have 1/4 life or less, landing can be a semi quick way to get full life as opposed to many passes.  about the copilot part, thats pretty much right on except you want to clarify that the bomber pilot should reserve his bombs for groups of enemy and let the gunner get all the single armour targets.  also id like to point out that the cannon is an awsome weapon for ground attack (strafing), its best for jeeps, essex, and static anti armour/air, but it can also saturate an area, for instance a being capped/just capped flag.  if you have no targets, it doesnt hurt to do a flyby to see where exactly the infantry oposition is, or when base rapeing people waiting for vehicles.  also dont feel that its cheap to kill jets and helis that arent airborne, this is battlefield.  and lastly its important to distinguish the difference of dive bombing and bombing while flying straight.  when you dive bomb, the bombs drop on one spot, thus, its better for killing armour or hard targets,  bombing while flying straight is better for carpet bombing a group of enemy.

you are totally right about missiles though, only use them on enemy that are bombing or resupplying.  i mean dont get me wrong, your guide is great, you covered alot of important aspects, but i just thought id build upon that.  also i love doing the tunnel on the damn aswell.  this is in direct responce to the first poster, i didnt read any other posts before writing this.  so if someone already covered something, tough.

edit: unnamednewbie13, Croak, tF-voodoochild, Strayfire, chuyskywalker all had imporant tactical advice to add, some of which i recovered, some i did not.

Last edited by roger smith (2005-10-18 08:40:23)

roger, you've got some good points in there (well, all good points, actually), and i will implement them in a future version of the guide.  (i'm hoping to land this thing in the featured posts forum, since most good guides seem to wind up in there, anyways)

roger smith has some decent points, and I'll add a couple more:

1. Hit a controlled stall at the ceiling with enough space between you and the map's border to shut your engine off, lower altitude, and get in control again. You'll be going so fast initially that most jets will give up pursuit and figure that you'll automatically die outside of the map.
2. Do NOT fire missiles at a bogey chasing your wingman. They'll likely fly right through his chaff and reacquire on your buddy. Also, a missile fired at an enemy plane will likely miss and reacquire on some friendly air asset halfway across the map, earning you perhaps a -12 teamwork score.
3. To avoid this friendly fire with seekers, check your map really quickly and be sure that your plane isn't facing any friendly air assets. To avoid perforated friendlies, don't fire your machine guns into a cluster of your own guys. This is a tactic I use against pursuers all the time, putting him in a line with his friendlies to shoot at me. I've even gotten a couple of people auto-kicked for airborne MG teamkills before he was able to get my bomber to 50% health. I should be talking though, with my whopping global 300 teamkills...
4. Missiles can be fired at people who aren't slowing down or taking off though with effectiveness. About 80% of thpilots I've fought against will spook and pop chaff after being locked on for five seconds. Switch to bombs so that their beeper turns off and they relax. 30% of the time, they won't even react to another lockon, and they're yours. 10% of the pilots I've fought against are also fairly decent at flaking about to avoid bullets, but are clueless against missiles. Take advantage of these guys.
5. I know it's really cool, but do avoid hover-combat with the JSF's. Even if there are absolutely no air assets, you're still a big nerf-launcher target, and even a guy with a PKM can polish you off in quick order. But if you're fighting against newbies, it's just too brutal. Don't you have any ethics?


Anyway, got F.E.A.R. in the mail. I must go check it out.

a wealth of useful information ruined by one post!

About the only time a Harrier takes off vertically is for air shows and training.  When it has a combat load and full fuel tanks, it CAN'T take off vertically, doesn't have the power to lift itself and several thousand pounds of ordinance and fuel.  But it can still take off in a VERY short space.  The British ski-ramp carriers allowed the heavier early versions of the Harrier to do what the lighter/newer version can now do with a flat deck.

The JSF won't have enough thrust to VTOL with a full combat load either, btw.

The Harrier did well in the Falklands, (mainly due to vastly better training than the Argentines and better radar coverage from the British fleet), but it didn't really shine in Desert Storm..it flew a lot of sorties but suffered the highest aircraft loss rate in the conflict (not to mention having a HORRIBLE crash rate in peacetime).  It's not even particularly maneverable compared to fighters of the same generation (60's era), let alone 1970's and 1980's fighters, and the vectored thrust tricks it can pull are of very limited utility in a dogfight.

Hopefully the USMC JSF will do better in combat, and with computer assisted controls and a MUCH better vectored thrust system than the Harrier, it should be safer/easier to fly as well.

...yeah, where's the rest of the ARG?

And I said it *could* be the Essex, but is probably a ship that hasn't been built yet...  I don't know that they plan to operate F-35's on an LHD.