StarHawk Corner - Jetpack Tango

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The Rocketeer vs Ground Troop

By Erebus-of-Dark
Edited by Guardian_Bob

Jetpacks have an advantage over troops. Why shouldn't they? They paid the Rift for the advantage. Players can only obtain a jetpack through buying, not through dropped items. That being said, there are some ways for a single troop to survive against the jetpack.

1. Be aware!
   • Jetpacks are always shown on the maps when flying, whether they are shooting or not. This gives a ground troop a good opportunity to spot incoming jetpacks from across the map. More importantly when you're not getting hit, and you see a red dot on the mini-map that is moving fast, it is almost surely a jetpack. If it is coming straight at you, they are probably moving in for the melee or shotgun kill.
2. Evade!
   • If you see that red dot coming straight at you and your back is turned, don't look at it like some gawking teenager. Let then get in close. only when they are pretty close should you start strafing and turning. If they came in for that melee you need to wait till they commit and you can follow up with your own melee. If this fails they'll be much closer to the ground and you can follow up with the shotgun. The key is letting them think they are getting an easy kill unnoticed.
3. Stay at range
   • If a jetpack attacks you from a distance, you can use your sprint to evade their fire. Doing so makes you just as hard of a target to hit as they are. Zig-zag and move away. When you become harder to hit, the jetpack usually becomes easier to hit back as they tend to stay still as they aim. This puts you on even ground as they can't move up and down as much, just like you. Most jetpackers will close in, rather than try to aim and lose maneuverability. If instead they move in close you need to keep sprinting away without taking fire which should give you lots more time to find cover. As they keep closing they will get faster, so keep strafing.
4. Find cover
   • When you get a jetpack on your tail, find cover quick. This gives you a spot to recover, keeping you in the fight longer. Also it will narrow the field of fire making the jetpack come at you at only certain angles which reduces the benefit of his mobility. If you can only both shoot each other face to face, the playing field is level.
5. Threaten
   • So far this has been a lot of running around and hiding, how about we fight back? First step is to threaten. That may mean making the fight long distance and firing with your rifle (if they are shooting you with one, remember they are now a lot easier to target). Or it might mean blasting a few random shotgun blasts when the jetpack gets close. It might even mean dumb-firing an RPG in jetpack's direction if you don't have time for a lock to at least let him know you got an RPG. The trick is, don't concentrate on getting the kill, instead concentrate on staying alive. Dodge first, fire second. This is a battle of attrition, the longer you last, the more you will hinder your target. Many jetpacks will try to hit unsuspecting troops en-route as an easy kill, so your goal is to prove that you're not an easy kill. The jetpack will likely move along to their original objective.
6. Survive
   • Doesn't sound very impressive, but this is the key to winning against jetpacks. They have limited fuel for all that flying around. If you can stay alive long enough at some point you will see the Jetpacker do one of two obvious things:
     1. Go to ground (with some obvious sputtering of engines, showing his fuel is actually gone).
     2. Fly straight as a shot to a higher ground.
7. Return Fire
   • If he landed on your ground without fuel, they are now a troop just like you. Time to show him the folly of their ways, as they are weak to all the same troop to troop attacks. If they tried to fly away and you have the RPG this is likely your only shot at getting a kill so use it. You can also use the Rifle here as players tend to seek high ground in a straight line.
8. Move on
   • If they escape you to higher ground, congratulations. You've survived against a superior force in one on one combat. Now it is time to go back to your objective. Unless you are defending, a jetpack will not hunt you down specifically again. They will continue their own mission in frustration that they lost a supposedly easy kill.

Did you know

• Did you know that mines will jump from your hawk to a turret? You can take one out without missing a beat if you're careful.
• Did you know you can hawk stomp an auto turret? Not sure if you're supposed to, but you can.

StarHawk Corner - Newbie Help

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A quick note here from now until the 21st I'll be moving, so StarHawk Corner posts may not happen as quickly as they were last week.

Just Starting in StarHawk?

This post is dedicated to you and trying to bring you into what's going on with this beta. So let's start out, this beta isn't like a normal beta. Most betas these days are glorified demos. They are meant to help find some bugs, but generally not much more than that.

StarHawk is different in this respect. The developers are looking for much more. They are tweaking everything from weapon balance to actual game mechanics. What that means is you, new recruit, can't sit on your butt and not participate.

Crashes

So the first stop on this tour will be about crashes. They will happen, your PS3 will freeze. So back up your saved games now. When the game freezes or crashes, you may have to hold the power button on your PS3 to reset it. When your PS3 comes back up, it will ask if you'd like to send a crash report to Sony. Say yes.

Let me repeat that, if asked to send a crash report to Sony say YES.

The crash reports are used by developers to identify what's wrong and why the crash happened. They are vital to developers.

Forums

You'll be expected to participate in the forums. Please do so, here's a link: http://community.us.playstation.com/community/games/shooter/starhawk/starhawk_beta

Don't worry, that link only works for PSNs that are actually in the beta. Now before you go shooting your mouth off, there's a couple of things you need to do. First look to the right of the posts, there are subspaces. Are you in the right one for what you want to talk about? If you're talking about weapons, that probably doesn't belong in the general discussion. If instead you're talking about something that cuts across multiple sections or general game play, yes the top level forum is probably good for that.

Second, look to see if someone has posted something similar. It happens a lot, and there are already a lot of posts. If so, don't start a new topic, add to the existing one first. If you do need to start a new topic make your title descriptive.

Finally, this is a place to share opinions and ideas, but doing so without justification is generally frowned upon. If you don't like something, say why. If you can't say why, at least try to give the devs an idea of what's really the problem. Here's an example:

Shotgun Sucks (BAD)
The shotgun is over powered (BETTER)
The power of the shotgun when at a medium range is too much. It can go further than the rifle and cause more damage. (BEST)

Note, the last one tells what is wrong and why. The first one does nothing to help.

Bugs

If you're playing, you might stumble upon a bug. I know, heaven forbid, but it might just happen. You can go to the forums and complain or you can file a bug report and have it fixed. There is a special subspace for bugs and a sticky post on how to post a bug. Do start a new topic for new bugs or if it is already existing and you feel you have extra detail to add, add it. "Me too" isn't any extra detail. Take pictures and video if you can, and attempt to repeat the bug before posting. (If you can't repeat it, do post anyways.)

StarHawk Corner - Being Sneaky

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Sneaky Uses for Things

There are some tricks people should try out. These come from the space map. The first is a set of platforms under the map. Grab a jetpack and go for them. You can sneak across the map into the enemy base without drawing a lot of attention.

Three hops and you should be grabbing their flag.

Just know you can't use the same way out.
Additionally, in Space you can land on the asteroids. Why might you want to become a sitting duck?

To plant some mines of course. Throw them all around, and then get out of there.

These tips come from Seventy_X_Seven and LeatherHeart respectively. Also MadProffeser points out you can land your hawk in a couple of places under space, so you can use your repair tool.

1.0.5 Update

Yesterday saw another new release from LBI. Those guys can churn out builds. The major changes were to limit the range of the shotgun while increasing the range of the rifle. Accuracy and spread of the rifle were not affected. This leads some players to complain the wrong portion was changed; however, it would be best to wait for hard numbers to confirm or deny the effects of this change.

Did you know

• Did you know that on the Acid Sea bridges, there are two levels? Not sure what it is useful for yet, except avoid jeeps/detection
• Did you know you can't jump out of a flying hawk, even in mech mode? You'll get a can't dismount prompt
• Did you know the first bullet of a rifle burst is always dead center? Just wait long enough between bursts to have it trigger
• Did you know the rifle does more damage against the head? Pop off a few rounds, and check it out.
• Did you know the rifle is fairly effective against the auto turret? Make sure you wait between bursts, and aim for that red light.
• Did you know the jetpack has limited fuel? Watch it and don't run out!
• Did you know you can't auto scrub missles in the warning phase? Even changing into a mech won't scrub them. The only way to get rid of them is to dump a flare or have them hit something else.

StarHawk Corner - Holy Updates Batman

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1.0.4

Yesterday brought the first patch to StarHawk based on direct feedback from the Warhawk group. It also brought 5000 new players from Warhawk in. Full details on the patch are here but the main thing people seem to like is the hawks fly faster. Other things to note the grenades have been beefed up, so use them, and give your feedback.

Did You Know?

• Did you know swarm missiles lock on to more than other hawks? They'll lock on to air mines, and even troops with jet packs.
• Did you know you can dismantle an auto turret? Get close and hit R3.
• Did you know hitting the red light on an auto turret does more damage? You can even use a rifle, just be careful to burst your fire.
• Did you know there are 4 speeds in a hawk? Normal speed, slow speed, fast speed (light press R2) and boost (fully press R2).

What do I do?

This is a new section dedicated to helping out various scenarios. Today's case was presented by OverlordSpike.

Given the other team has made it into your base, has 3 auto turrets up and 2 pod beacons, how do you handle this?

The first target is the auto turrets. Land on them (use the map zoom if need be) and hit R3 to disable them before they lock on to you. Next throw all 3 grenades at the pod beacon. If they hit, this will weaken the tower substantially. Wash, rinse and repeat, you'll have all 3 turrets gone and both pod beacons in 3 spawns or less. Given to spawn all of that requires 14 rift pips and they can no longer spawn in your base, expect them to start spawning near barrels. On the plus side, all those buildings you destroyed gave you rift, you should be able to spawn a bunker by now.

StarHawk Corner - Being a SeaHawk

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Acid Sea

So today we'll finish up the map series for now. Let's get right to it:

Map

This map has the same legend as the last one, red H for health, yellow H for homing missile, purple S for swarm missiles and green M for mines. Not shown is the second group of homing missiles, but the map is symmetrical.

Did you know?

• Did you know you can zoom in on the spawn map. Press up on the right stick to zoom in, down to zoom out.
• Did you know that a beam turret links to the walls? Works great for filling in those gaps.
• Did you know you can't use a jet pack if you have the flag? Drop a garage or you might be walking back home.
• Did you know the walls have ladders, but upgraded walls don't? Be careful in placement, otherwise they are useless against troops. The side towards you during placement always has the ladder.
• Did you know that walls have a place for auto turrets but upgraded walls do not? Use care in upgrading.

RSS Feed and Yahoo Alerts

I've been informed that Yahoo alerts won't work on the main site's RSS feed. As such, the URL you should use for all the latest FFG StarHawk News is: http://fullfrontalgaming.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/Starhawk?alt=rss

StarHawk Corner - Hawks in Space

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Flying in Space

Since I started with Acid Sea for the ground, I'll start with space for the air. As such I present the Space Air Map.

Map

The red H is health, yellow H is homing missile, purple S is swarm missiles and green M is mines.

Did you know?

Today's did you know comes from LeatherHeart.

• Did you know you can use a jetpack to knife a mech driver? Sweetest kill in the game.
• Did you know you have a suicide option? Hit start and select respawn.
• Did you know that the bunker has 3 spots for auto turrets? Place them on the roof to keep people from getting the drop on you.
• Did you know that you're safe in the bunker? Shots go out, they don't go in. Watch that top entry though.

StarHawk Corner - Armed to the Wings

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Weapon Pickups

So far we've focused on the ground game, and while this post will include a screen shot or two from the ground combat, today we'll be focusing on the hawk.

So let's talk about flight, or more appropriately hawks. The hawk is a mech that can transform into a plane and it can be devastating. It comes with a load of swarm missiles and a gun with unlimited ammo. In mech form you can jump, stomp, walk and shoot your gun and missiles. It appears to be basically impervious to rifle fire and the driver appears to be mostly protected when in mech form. (I've tried shooting the driver specifically, either it isn't possible to get a clean shot while they're moving or they were protected.)

The rocket launcher will lock on to it when in plane mode, but not in mech mode. Grenades do reasonable damage against it, but using rocket launchers is really key. It can transform quickly and boost away when in trouble.

So as for health, there is no bar or anything showing your health, however the screen appears to be cracked the more damage you take and if you're flying you can sometimes see your own wings on fire.

The movement in mech form is slow; however, you can grab the flag and then board a hawk. Trying to run the flag back in mech mode is kind of like running the flag in a tank in Warhawk. It is big, it is slow, and you feel like a sitting duck.

Just a side note, like the hawk, you cannot fly a jet pack with the flag. Keep that in mind when you grab it.

As for weapons there are air mines, swarm missiles, homing missiles and the gun as mentioned above. While you can attempt to collect barrels while flying, transforming into the mech does help a lot.

The transformation from plane to mech conserves your momentum so take that into account, or you'll over shoot and end up in the drink. Also hitting things while boosting is bad. Your hawk will go boom. Gone are the days of collision damage, best I can tell. If you hit something hard enough to damage your hawk it'll just blow up.

On acid sea, you can land on the pipes and in space you can land on the asteroids. What's truly frighting about landing on the pipes in acid sea (other than missing) is you can build some structures on those pipes, provide they are small enough.

The energy shield appears to only prevent incoming shots, hawks can fly/walk right through it.

The air mines come in packs of 4, but launch in packs of 4. They don't appear to be as powerful as they were in Warhawk; however, just like Warhawk you can keep pooping them out. They are also much smaller and harder (as there's now 4 of them) for ground troops to clear. DeadSpider points out they are magnetic now but can be removed by using the automatic scrub.

Power Ups

So how do you get these fantastic weapons? Simply fly through the appropriate floating hologram. Here's what they look like:

Swarm Missiles

Homing Missiles

Air Mines

Health

Did you know?

Today we have a couple of did you know tips, the first from @MonkeyJoe315 and the second from Seventy_X_Seven

• Did you know until there are at least 6 players no one gets rift energy from the pod beacons or home base? If you're trying to play around in pre-game, hit up those barrels.
• Did you know the proximity mines will jump from where ever you place them and attach to the enemy vehicles? Place them on the Razorback and drive by a hawk to watch it go boom. Note the mines have a 3 second delay on them so you can get away.
• Did you know during the pre-game you can't capture the flag? You can't even drop it, so don't even bother picking it up.

One final note, for those who are still wondering what the mine pickup looks like, here's a picture for you:

EDIT:

changed a few details based on updates from DeadSpider

StarHawk Corner - Spacing Out

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Space

So this is the second in the series of maps for ground combat. While Acid Sea has a few places to harvest rift, right now space has the mother lode.

Map

So here's the map:

So here I've shown:

1. The repair tool
2. Rifle ammo
3. More rifle ammo
4. Still more rifle ammo (bottom level and top level)
5. Mines (top level only)
6. 2 barrels
7. 2 barrels
8. 3 barrels (top level)
9. 2 barrels (top level)
10. 2 barrels (top level)
11. 3 barrels (top level)
12. 3 barrels

Strategy

Spawn at point A and hit those two barrels. You'll be up to 4 pips of rift energy if you get both of them. Run to point B and climb up the ladder. Try to drop a pod beacon (aka outpost) at point C grabbing the mines.

If you fail to take C use points 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 to get rift energy and drop a pod beacon on point D. Use the aim on the rifle for points 11 and 12, and slow down your fire. Attempt to take point C as it a key to victory here. Once you have C hit up points 8, 9, 10, 11 for a total of 5 pips of rift each time. They respawn fast enough you won't have to wait long to fill your bar up. Place a bunker, etc at point C.

If/when you die at point C (with the pod beacon still up, attempt to land at point E. Place a pod beacon between the two towers for protection. This will allow you to basically spawn on the enemies flag. Because the map is symmetrical, this works for both teams.

Did you know

Today's did you know comes from @DeadSpider.

• Did you know that the sniper rifle has two levels of zoom? Hit L1 to use the scope and R3 to zoom in further

StarHawk Corner - No Swimming

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Holiday

Today in the US this is Thanksgiving, or as the rest of the world knows it, Thursday. In the US it is customary to have a huge meal with friends and family followed by some kind of entertainment, American football for example. Increasingly Thanksgiving has also been a day of video games, as everyone has the day off.

So in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to fill you up with a huge article. And stay tuned for dessert, you don't want to miss it.

Acid Sea

That's right folks, I'm doing a map analysis, at least from the ground. That means weapon locations and my own strategy.

So let's start with the map:

The Map

So let's start off with weapons. I'm not claiming this is all of them, and this is just for the ground game, but here's where you find:

1. The repair tool
2. Rifle ammo
3. Mines
4. 2 barrels
5. 3 barrels
6. 3 more barrels

Note, the map is basically symmetrical, with the exception of the mines so only 1 side is shown.

Strategy

So what I like to do on this map, is to spawn as close as possible to point A. In fact as the drop pod is coming down I'll steer it as close to A as possible. Next, I'll grab the repair tool and drop a garage at point A. Jump in the jeep and get moving, time is of the essence.

As you go past point 4, take out the two barrels, as you'll be down to 1 pip of rift energy. Keep driving up to point B and shoot all of the six barrels between point 5 and point 6. Now that you have 3 pips of rift energy, drop an outpost, aka spawn beacon. This gives you rift energy as you continue to blast away at the barrels. Now you'll be spent on rift energy, but your outpost will start feeding you some.

Wait for the barrels to respawn and shoot all 6 again. Place 3 walls at the mouth of point B and upgrade one to be a gate wall. You're now somewhat protected. Keep hitting those barrels and in no time you'll have your launch pad up, second garage, bunker, beam turret, auto turret or two and energy shield. Take care when placing these items that they do not obstruct your line of fire for the barrels or driving though this place. I usually wait till the end to put down the launching pad or garage. From here you have a great striking point to attack the enemy.

During this time having a team mate or two stay at home and build up walls around your flag is a very good idea.

Dessert

So, here's a set of did you know tips.

• Did you know you can change positions in the Razorback 4x4? Simply hold X and select the position just like you would have done in Warhawk. Why the change? Well, in Warhawk the game had to delay a dismount to see if you were pressing the button or holding it to change seats. By moving the change seats button, you can dismount as fast as you can mount.
• Did you know you can start driving or firing while still changing seats? While the animation is going you can simply start doing things instantly.
• Did you know the passenger in the Razorback can also fire? They can throw grenades and shoot, so riding shotgun isn't so bad any more.
• Did you know the pulse rifle has a scope on it? Hit L1 and it'll zoom in a little. This makes the gun a whole lot more accurate, just don't practice spray and pray.
• Did you know you can control the beam turret? Try it out, feels bad ass!
• Did you know you the auto turret has a weak spot? Look for the center of the auto turret and hit it with a sniper rifle for a 1 shot kill, or aim carefully with your rifle to take it down quickly
• Did you know you can mount a turret on a wall? Makes the wall into an offensive weapon.
• Did you know you can spawn a building while in flight in the hawk? Takes practice but if you fly low enough you can drop an auto turret in the middle of the enemy's base.

Stats Explained

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The Rifle and Other Weapons

As noted the rifle appears to have way more kills than pickups. This is due to the rifle being a weapon when spawning. In addition the player gets a set of grenades. And indeed the hawk mech comes with swarm missles.


While I can normailze the graph (approximately) for these spawned weapons, I cannot do the same for the hawk weapons. The resulting graph is:



So there's a couple of things to note. First, as I said above the swarm stat is biased and should not be trusted. Second, the rifle drops in effectivness when compared to the previous graphs. This is because you spawn with it, so I've counted every kill as a pickup. The same with the grenade which is now in the sub 1% range.


What I don't have is how effective each weapon has been in total. For example, I often use up my grenades on structures instead of people. Also combination attacks are not taken into account (for example attacking with a rocket launcher to finish the player off with a rifle). As a result these stats should be taken with a nice helping of salt.

The source for these numbers comes from the Lighbox Interactive StarHawk Beta News page