The Final Appendix: Gambits

[Ash]

For those of you who didn't arrive at this thread via a link from the main guide, here's a link back to it for context.

Ash's Complete Guide to Trading, Smuggling and Not Getting Caught!

The Final Appendix

GAMBITS

So you're on the run. You've managed to keep yourself out of reach but you can't seem to find a way to shake off the guy who wants your money or your life. But don't lose heart, what you need is one of uncle Ash's gambits to get you out of trouble and you'll be back in time for tea.

These manoeuvres are all subject to circumstance and aren't universally practicable. So check yourself before you wreck yourself. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

The Backhander

Requirements: Gun/Turret Weapons
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Medium

This is a nifty gambit that's gotten me out of trouble countless times. If you find you're being chased through trade lanes then give this a go. As you come to the end of a lane, switch to turret view and fire at the last ring behind you. This does the metaphorical equivalent of shutting the door behind you. By disrupting the last ring your pursuer will be forced to undock between the last two rings. It's an easy way to gain 4k from your pursuer and when executed consecutively is a good way to loose them for good.

The Forehander

Requirements: Gun/Turret Weapons or a Mine
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Hard

A variation on the backhander; The Forehander is above all a hail mary and a trick shot. It involves firing a shot at the first ring in the fraction of a second before you dock. This requires immaculate timing and carries with it a very high risk factor. The forehander, when executed perfectly, is a home run. It's impossible for your pursuer to catch up. So it's best to practice first if you ever intend to use it.

Note than the forehander can only be done with charon turrets. If your ship is small enough to have a mine slot, drop a mine instead, it carries a much lower risk and gives you more time to dock.

The Plough

Requirements: Transport Class Shield
Suitable Against: Fighters and Bombers
Difficulty: Easy

If you find yourself near the crow or walker nebula (namely the Sigmas, Omegas, Omicrons and parts of Rheinland) then fields containing gas pockets provide a unique opportunity to counter snubcraft. Set a destination/waypoint that takes you through the nebula, hit GO TO, then switch to FREE FLIGHT once you're on course. As you enter the nebula, gas pockets are going to go off left, right and center. Your transport class shields will shake off the damage as you plough straight through unscathed. Though the fella who's unlucky enough to be chasing you won't be having such a pleasant ride. The smaller shield capacity on fighters and bombers makes ploughing through gas pockets pretty devastating. So they'll have to choose to switch to autopilot to avoid the pockets (which costs them distance), fly around them manually (which costs them more distance) or soak up the damage thus weakening them. This gambit is good for sapping your pursuer's resolve. As their shields, hull, and regens dissipate, so will their confidence in confronting you. So you could also use this gambit to wear down your pursuer before confronting him on your terms.

Sidenote: You really need to have a minimum flight time inside a gas pocket nebula of around 20 seconds for this gambit to have any effect. The longer you can expose them to the hazard the better. So try to travel through these nebula along their longest axis.

The Sundive

Requirements: Transport Class Ship, Universal Armour Upgrade Mk VIII+, Full Load of Nanobots
Suitable Against: Fighters, Bombers, Freighters and Some Gunboats*
Difficulty: Medium

Sundiving, for those of you who don't know, is a common form of suicide in Freelancer. It involves flying directly toward a star until you burn up and eventually explode. We've all done it. So considering it as tactic for escape is undoubtedly dumb from the outset. However, there is a silver lining to a sun's corona that plays to our advantage. It deals out massive damage indiscriminately. For pursuers in smaller craft, flying near a star is ten times as lethal as it is for you. The idea is that you fly near (but not too near) and past the star, not directly at it. By staying course and reducing time spent stationary you'll have a chance to escape the corona before it's too late. The good thing is, by the time you're deploying your first round of nanobots they'll be sipping down their last. For pursuers in small craft, they either know what they're getting into and let you go, or they don't and die. It's as simple as that. Sundiving is a hail mary. There's a high chance you'll die because each star has a corona relative to it's size which is always different. It's therefore impossible to predict how close you can get and survive. You just have to bite the bullet and hope you don't go down icarus style.

Sidenote: Don't even think about trying to pull this off if you have anything less than a full loadout of nanobots and a MkVIII universal armour upgrade.

The Sunskimmer

Requirements: Transport Class Ship, Universal Armour Upgrade Mk VIII+, Full Load of Nanobots
Suitable Against: Fighters, Bombers, Freighters and Some Gunboats*
Difficulty: Medium

This is a variation of the sundive gambit where your initial position allows for you to enter a sun's corona at a shallow trajectory. What i mean is, instead of flooring it toward the star as you would in quick decision scenarios, you fly along an inward spiral around it. To start this manoeuvre you need to be flying toward the star at least 50k out (size varying). Around the sun you should see a large ring, it will usually be too large to see it whole. This ring indicates the parameter of the sun's corona. Where it glows to the right or the left of the sun, fly toward that crescent line. As you near it, it will grow in size, but stay on course. As soon as you hit the corona and start taking damage, immediately note your distance from the star. This is the outer parameter of the corona's radius. Moving closer to the star from here will incur more damage and moving away will pull you out. So if the corona's radius is 10k for example, what you do next is orbit the star at 10k, 9k, 8k or less depending on the amount of damage your ship can withstand and for how long. Knowing how far away the boundary of the corona is allows you to time your escape before you pose any serious threat to yourself. As for your pursuer, it's their choice to follow you on your trajectory and soak up the damage, take a wider orbit and risk losing you or try and cut a shorter orbit and risk death. Bear in mind that there is little interest for a pursuer to disrupt a shipper within the corona of a star. At this point, if they're crazy enough to come in after you, it's only to keep you within range. So it's a game of chicken, only if your pursuer is in a ship with a lower hull rating than yours, they're going to lose.

The Slingshot

Requirements: None
Suitable Against: Transports, Liners, Cruisers, Destroyers, Battleships, Battlecruisers, Carriers and Some Gunboats*
Difficulty: Medium

This one is good for shaking larger ships in particular. It involves using a planet, moon or other bulky object like 'tekagi's arch' to outmanoeuvre your opponent. Simply put, you lead the chase around one of these objects so close to the atmosphere that you're practically skimming the surface. This takes some skill and some practice to perfect but the result you'll achieve when done right will, at the very least, put a few extra kilometers between you and your pursuer. The best outcomes i've had performing this manoeuvre have been cases where the chaser tries firing a cruise disruptor and ends up hitting the populated planet. The place goes red for him and he's then trying to keep up while dodging fire from NPC cruisers, bases and a docking ring. In even better instances the chaser flies too close and becomes a fireworks display for everyone planetside.

However, your limitations are your turn rate and the planet's size. Basically, the planet's circumference must be bigger than the circumference of your turn circle while cruising. Another important thing to consider is the distance between you and your pursuer. To help explain, let's consider a hypothetical scenario: You're flying a supertransport, your pursuer is 10k away, Maine (Pittsburgh's moon) is coming up. As you approach and start to turn your pursuer is going to see you're headed behind it and will simply alter course to the opposite side for when you come around. Then on top of that you're flying off into the Pittsburgh debris field because you're in a supertransport and can't turn fast enough. Now an ideal scenario would be: You're in a supertransport, your pursuer is 8k away and Planet Fuji (new tokyo) is coming up. The Planet is so big that by the time your pursuer knows what's going on, it would actually be a bad move to alter course to intercept you because he's already in deep orbit. If he wants to keep track of you he has no choice but to follow you around.

Slingshots are good for getting ahead of enemies that are slowly closing in on you. If they try and fire a cruise disruptor at maximum range while you're swinging around a planet, the missile will turn too sharply and hit the dirt. So unless your opponent has had their own practice with this manoeuvre, you can bet that he won't catch you in orbit. This gambit also provides an opportunity for you to change your course and head wherever you want without giving any ground to your pursuer. So keep that in mind if you find you're being chased into nowhere.

The Overdose

Requirements: Transport Class Ship, Universal Armour Rating Mk VIII+, Full Load of Nanobots
Suitable Against: Fighters, Bombers, Freighters and Some Gunboats*
Difficulty: Easy

Radiation hazards tend to be nothing more than a minor nuisance in the discovery mod. Discovery ships have hulls so thick that a little trip through Omega 41 will incur nothing more than a scratch in the paintwork and a repair bill thats a tad more expensive than usual. However, there are a few considerable exceptions. The Discovery development team have recently picked up on the insignificance of vanilla radiation and decided to pump it with steroids for a few select locations. Here are a few examples:

Omicron Chi
Hokkaido
Unknown
Omega 11
Texas
Kepler
Galileo

Death by radiation is slow. Though with the sheer abundance of it in certain systems it doesn't require much navigational finesse. This plays to your advantage if you have the time to play the waiting game. Most pursuers won't actually believe you intend to deal with them with radiation until they're deploying their first round of nanobots. It's a game you're guaranteed to win if you can stay out of their reach long enough. The ongoing effect it has on your pursuer is a slow demoralisation as they soon come to terms with the fact that if they don't bail or catch you soon, they're toast.

The Neutraliser

Requirements: Transport Class Ship, Universal Armour Upgrade Mk VIII+, Full Load of Nanobots
Suitable Against: Fighters, Bombers, Freighters and Some Gunboats*
Difficulty: Easy

The Neutron star in Omega 41 has saved my ass more times than I can remember. If you find yourself in the area and need to shake a pesky pirate, get up close an personal with the neutron star. Unlike other stars it has no corona, but instead has layers of radiation damage around it. Swinging by the neutron star in a fashion similar to the sundiving gambit gives you a slowed down version of corona damage. This gives you ample time to adjust your course if you're getting too close. Therefore there's a lower risk for you, a massive risk for your pursuer and fun times had all round. Bear in mind that flying this close will cost you considerably in repairs. But then again, when you compare it to your profit margin and the thrill of escape, totally worth it.

The Border

Requirements: None
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Easy

Zones of Interest dictate where a player can and cannot go. This is outlined in their ID. So if you know a thing or two about your pursuer's faction, check out how far they can legally chase you. A short diversion into space outside of their jurisdiction can easily deter an enemy.

The Sieve

Requirements: Medium/Small Transport
Suitable Against: Transports, Liners, Cruisers, Destroyers, Battleships, Battlecruisers, Carriers
Difficulty: Medium

This Gambit employs the obstructive nature of asteroid, ice and dust fields. The basic principle is: if you're being chased by an enemy in a larger ship than yours, you can pull this off. THIS IS THE ONLY REASON YOU SHOULD EVER FLY INTO AN ASTEROID FIELD IN A PURSUIT. Usually i'd strongly advise against going anywhere near asteroid fields. They're a nightmare for most transports and offer an easy win for your pursuer. The thing is, asteroid fields will always be the biggest hinderance to the person with the largest ship. So when you turn the tables, by taking a detour into one you can lose whatever oversized enemies you have on your tail. It's also pretty satisfying to watch all that firepower amount to nought as they head butt rocks at every turn. You can use autopilot to get you away if your enemy is considerably larger than you. Though to play it safe, it's best to navigate manually by strafing or gently turning. Some examples of systems that are notoriously good for this are:

Bering
Magellan
Tau 23
Tau 31
Alaska
Omega 5
Omega 11
Omega 41
Omicron Beta
Omicron Chi
Omicron Minor
Chugoku
Dresden
Dublin

The Bluff

Requirements: Transport Class Shield
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Hard

Playing tricks on your pursuer can be difficult. The guy will have you selected in his HUD, his crosshair on your ass and will be watching your every move. So slipping anything past him for more than a second is virtually impossible. But then you only need to fool him for that long for this nifty gambit to work. This gambit only works in situations where your pursuer is right on top of you and your closing in on a jump hole; about 10k out. For him, disrupting you at this time will mean shooting at your lumbering butt as you use thrusters to hobble your way into the next system where you'll be no better off. So if he hasn't already done this, he'll just jump right after you so as not to lose any ground and catch you again on the other side. What you do is hang back intentionally for your pursuer to catch up so you're practically neck and neck. You can do this without raising suspicion by opting for an early docking procedure with the slow approach. If you're in a transport then you should be able to soak up whatever he throws at you in the few seconds you're docking. Then, just before you're about to enter, hit FREE FLIGHT. The idea is that your pursuer will be so keen on staying behind you that he will already be in the docking que and sitting on the hole (for the quickest dock). So when you hit FREE FLIGHT, he jumps to the top of the que and gets sucked into the hole. The good thing about this is that he'll be stuck in another system for at least 60 seconds until he can jump back to come after you. Not to mention the time cost in transit. This gives you a nice long window to take a deep breath, rethink your course and fly off into the sunset.

The risk of this gambit is that if after you give up what distance you have on him and he doesn't hit dock in the critical moment, you're toast. If he calls your bluff and waits to see you go first, you're toast. If you time it too early and he's still approaching when you stop the dock, you've lost precious distance. If you time it too late then he'll have plenty of time to turn you to ash before you can pull it off. It's important to keep your cool and wait for the opportune moment, choose your timing carefully and watch your enemy to gauge if it's working.

Because if you pull it off, you'll be feeling as smug as the troll meme and as l33t as Keanu Reeves in the first Matrix movie. Like that bit when he stops all those bullets like it's nothing. What a film. Not the second one though. That one was lame.

The Swerve Shot

Requirements: Medium/Small Transport
Suitable Against: Transports, Liners, Cruisers, Destroyers, Battleships, Battlecruisers, Carriers
Difficulty: Medium

The Swerve Shot utilises minefields to shake off big bumbling predators like cruisers, battleships and carriers. Your advantage in this scenario will your superior knowledge of the layout of the minefield ahead and how to traverse it in the quickest and most dangerous way possible. The idea is to swing your ship into the minefield's passageway to reach your goal, cutting the corner as close as you can at the entrance that it will be too much for your chunky pursuer to pull off. Minefields entryways make for great ways to get rid of larger enemies because people tend to lose their common sense around them. Nine times out of ten the guy is going try and go for it and end up balls deep in a very noisy cactus patch.

Above is an example of how you should and should NOT attempt to execute this gambit. To start with you want a shallow approach and then as the entrance comes up you're going to want to trim your trajectory to under 45° in reference to the angle of the minefield's inner walls. This is where your mental map comes into play. Using visible reference points like passage markers, take your ship right by the corner of the entrance. What you don't want to do is follow the red line perpendicular to the field and attempt a last minute 90° turn. That's a sure way to end up very, very dead.

The Sidewinder

Requirements: None
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Easy

This easy gambit utilises a side effect of bailing out of trade lanes that forces your ship to veer off to the right. Hitting the free flight button while traversing a trade lane will make this happen and also decelerate your ship to impulse speed. The way you can use this to your advantage is when you are approaching a trade lane junction and you intend to turn right. Here your size will be your disadvantage as you hastily try to move your ship into position at the next trade lane without messing up the angle or missing it entirely.

Just before the end of the lane you hit the free flight button. This should point you in the general direction of your next lane. This should save you the time of that extra turning where you'd approach in a wider arc. From here you can carefully plot your approach and make sure you hit it first time. In addition, pairing this gambit with The Ricochet can help you get through those tighter junctions where your approach trajectory is perpendicular to the lane entrance.

The Ricochet

Requirements: None
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Medium

The Ricochet is a ballsy move you can break out if you're approaching a tradelane at a perpendicular angle. It takes skill, experience and a smidge of luck to pull off flawlessly. But if you know your ship and how to handle it, you're already half way there. The ricochet is a manoeuvre that involves gliding your ship into alignment with a lane ring while travelling at near-cruise speed. So that when you hit the engines you're all lined up for a quick dock to be carried away toward the nearest base.

This is how it's done. Say you're flying toward a trade lane ring at cruise speed. Firstly, you need to determine which of the two rings facing you will take you in the direction you are travelling. To do this, hit dock (F3) at any distance under 18k and your ship will align with the right one. Then switch back to free flight and carefully align your ship not with the ring itself, but the space just in front of it. For example, if you're approaching at an angle of around 70°, then you can aim for the space between the ring brackets on the far side. This will position you nicely in front of the lane. Here you need to be mindful of how long your ship is. Remember all ships turn on a central axis, so longer ship's bows will protrude more. This can be enough to put your ship's bow too far through the ring that it will cause the quick dock to fail, then autopilot will take over and screw up the rest. If you're flying a long ship, position your ship further back. Once you've adjusted your angle, at about 5k out hit E-Kill (Z) and bring your ship about to align with the lane's vector. You can use reference points such as distant lane rings and the lane's destination objects to help guide you.

This is where knowledge if your ship becomes vital. Larger ships drift farther when they drop out of cruise compared to smaller ships. This drift will affect your positioning. So for super transports and ships of a similar size, as soon as you see the first lane brackets hit center view hit dock (F3). For medium transports, wait until your ship is positioned 25% of the way across the space between the lane brackets. For everything in between, it's down to you to establish how far you can push it.

The ricochet won't rid you of pursuers but will keep you well out of reach so that you can make your escape. It carries with it the risk that if you screw up, you're as good as caught. But with practice, the chances of you screwing up diminishes and you'll be a tokyo drifting, cruise speed shifting, trade lane grifting god.

The Swarm

Requirements: At least one fellow player
Suitable Against: All Enemies
Difficulty: Medium

The swarm is a very useful manouevre for a convoy of pilots who are sitting on one side of a jump hole with what is most likely a group of pirates waiting for them on the other side. This scenario equates to a blockade, whereby your pursuers are quite aware of where you will be entering their system, and have stationed ships to catch you as soon as you jump in. Usually, when tackling this scenario head on, traders jump through and are forced to evade or tackle the pirates with all the usual disadvantages, except they are all huddled together and must start from zero speed. In other words, a single train cruise disruptor shot could pin several ships within seconds. So not ideal!

The swarm is a gambit that can tip the balance back in your and your buddies' favour by elimintating the stopping and huddling issues. However this gambit only comes off well if everyone on your team knows what to do. To pull this off, follow these instructions to the letter.

1. All but one pilot must sit on the jump hole, as when quick-docking
   
2. The one pilot who is not (preferably the one with the most agile ship) drifts 2k away and prepares to slow dock
   
3. Everyone must agree a direction they will head in (Up, Down, Left, Right) once they make it through the jump hole
   
4. The one pilot commences docking, when the HUD disappears as part of the standard sequence, they call out to everyone else on the team to 'Go'
   
5. Upon hearing 'Go', every other pilot starts their cruise engines (Ctrl-W) and immediately forms on the one pilot who is docking (F4)
   
6. Upon forming on the one pilot, that pilot will be immediately sucked into the jump hole, their engines will continue to charge during the jump. When they exit the jump hole, they will automatically be at full cruise speed
   
7. Each pilot will head in their respective direction causing the convoy to scatter, this reduces the risk of multiple pilots being disrupted
   
8. The pilots regroup once everyone is through the blockade
   

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Gunboats*

Some of these techniques will only work for gunboats that have stats that will weigh in your favour depending on which one you're trying to pull off. For the sundive, sunskimmer, neutraliser and overdose gambits, if your pursuer is flying a gunboat you're going to want him to be in a low end model with nothing more than a MkIII Capital Armor Upgrade for the best chances of success. As for the slingshot gambit, a lower armor rating is always desirable but what you really want is for him to be flying a bulky model, particularly a wide one. Good examples of these are:

Churchill
Asco
Conference
Perilous (Council)
Perilous (GRN)
Scorpion

The reason for this is that with wider models, they're forced to take a wider orbit due to the fact that their lateral extremities will dip into the atmosphere if they fly on your flight path. This is only provided you aren't flying anything equally as bulky.

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