From: jimmyhua@aludra.usc.edu (Jimmy Huang)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Hell Peacock
Date: 12 Oct 1992 21:24:06 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu

esj@cs.brown.edu (Eugene Santos Jr.) writes:

>Yes, dogfighting is a good skill to have. The best players are usually
>good dogfighters too. But it's not really a necessary skill. Everything
>you mentioned above can be accomplished without being a good dogfighter.

>1 - Obtaining kills (Offense)
>	You can scum them from injured opponents, use 2+ team tactics
>	and give away kills to team, scum kills by killing oggers
>	ogging a friendly carrier or base, etc. Killing base oggers is 
>	a very popular thing nowadays to get easy kills.

If everyone was clued but couldn't dogfight.. where would they get kills?
All oggers would be dead (no injured opponents). What carrier with no
kills? Killing base oggers? That takes skill (good phasorlocking ability.
Good streams of torps (elements of good dogfighting). 

>2 - Mutualling an enemy
>	Is not digfighting in my opinion. It's a simplified form of ogging.

Hmm, i always thought of this as demented form of dogfighting, not ogging. 
Because it usually accomplishes nothing (just for laughs, i find it amusing).
This is because you usually end up killing someone with no kills, at the
expense of your own life. 

>3 - Defense against planet takers
>	I know several people who don't dogfight very well but can protect
>	planets against a taker who is a superior dogfighter. The key is
>	to never actively engage the opponent. Yes, I mean runnerscumming
>	but not for the sake of running away. It's a very predictable
>	path orbiting a planet. A tactical placement of torps will
>	discourage a would be taker. Using pressors (not tractors), to
>	dislodge opponent. Once carrier cloaks, there is NO dogfighting
>	involved anymore.

NOT! A superior dogfighter would push the runnerscum so far back. The
planet taker could take, without having to cloak!!! The guy who cloaks
while trying to take planet under defenders are people who have no 
insurance that they are that much better, and so tries to rely on 
the uncertainty of his position. (giving up his firepower). 

As for orbiting planets, (yes, predictable), but only when you know
when and where he first starts orbiting. Tricks such as go through 
planet (overshoot on purpose), or pause, can really puzzle defenders. 
This works great on LPS when no one wants to escort you in. 

>4 - Escorting
>	You mutual on enemy, blow up on them, phaser them, just cripple
>	them, tractor, pressor, etc. no dogfighting here.

What if there were more than one defender? oopps. 
What if the planet was close to the home planets? Big ooopps. 
What if he cloaks and tries to ogg the carrier!? Uh-oh. Can't find
him unless you had skill.  

>I consider myself a mediocre dogfighter. When I run into a situation
>against an inferior dogfighter, I will try to engage. Only the less
>experienced players fall into this trap. The more experienced who
>have an idea how good you are will employ one of the above.

>Flt. Capt. Quovadis (bezier)

Um, i do recall your name somewhere as one of the "better" dogfighters.
That's not mediocre, if you play where you usually play. 

Jimmy

P.S.
Pace it, You use dogfighting to your advantage, and it is therefore
essential to a) being a good player b) winning the game. And 
engagement is a relative term.  Theoretically, SB's can only take
on one person at a time. But i've seen, really good sb's tractor
one guy, phasor one guy to death, and torp another to death, while
giving the tractored prey a kill to his teammate at same time, i.e.
3 explosions in one sec, and the tractored guy died last. (Then, again,
only on calvin :) )
>uucp:	...!{ihnp4,decvax}!brunix!esj		Eugene Santos Jr.
>bitnet:	esj@browncs.bitnet			PO Box 1910, Computer Science
>arpa:	esj%cs.brown.edu@relay.cs.net		Brown University
>csnet:	esj@cs.brown.edu			Providence, RI 02912
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek