Aeroracer
6th August 2009, 08:31 PM
:nodControl Setup Methods:nodAfter picking many expert player’s brains and also writing posts asking the same old questions that top players have already answered a thousand times, I have decided after taking a suggestion from one of these top players on this site to put all this information into a guide which is aimed at helping other novice to intermediate players like me, with the intention of preventing further repeat posts and time wasting as players try to find out information and experts having to repeat themselves constantly.
I hope this guide is helpful and useful and will save people time. It’s my first game guide ever..hope you like.:nod:nod:nod
D-Pad Vs Analogue sticks Vs Six-axis Vs Negcon
After holding a poll and speaking to many top players as well as from my own experiences it appear that the following is the general trend with regards to what control methods are good.
D-pad
D-pad tends to be used mainly by veteran players from previous Wipeout games where analogue stick was not available. The D-pad is digital so it possible to train yourself to do exact cornering for example a certain corner on a track need 3 quick pushes of the D-pad to get around it well, another corner you just hold the D-pad in fully to complete the corner. This is good for consistent racing, but at high speeds and online racing when things don’t go to plan this can cause a few problems. I find on speed laps and time trails this method of control is excellent, another really good aspect to the D-pad is the ease and speed of barrel rolls, with your thumb in the middle of the D-pad you can perform a barrel roll much quicker than with a stick as the movement needed to pull it off is much less. So I would say the D-pad would be strongest for speed lap or time trail mode.
Stick control
As the stick is analogue its much easier to do minor adjustments take shallow corners as all strength of turning is dictated by how far you move the stick. From players I have spoken to and from my experience I have found the stick works really well on the Zone modes as the speed is always changing the turning and steering need to be finely adjusted to compensate for the increasing speeds, the D-pad being digital doesn’t seem as easy as the stick at high speeds. In online racing the stick is good when you need to adjust your self from situations in a game for example you just got rammed off your racing line before a hard corner, or hit by a weapon.
So I would say stick is best for racing/eliminator and Zone modes.
100% six-axis
I have not found any top pilots who use this method. To be honest I only know of two players who use this method. I wouldn’t recommend this method for playing Wipeout. Not because it is rubbish but because getting good at Wipeout heavily relies mostly on a great many hours of practice and holding a game pad level and ensuring you are sitting correctly is a real pain. I like to crash out when I play and my game pad is always in different positions depending on how lazy I feel when I am playing games, for this reason I would never be able to put enough hours in to get good with six-axis.
Negcon
If you can rig one up, these twisty style gamepads will do wonders for pitching and barrel rolls, takes a bit of getting used to. I would almost consider these an upgrade for a D-pad user.
Control Settings
Air brakes
Having the sensitivity lowered might seem a good idea as the ship will turn faster but this will make medium turns a bit tricky as a gradual air brake may be all that is required. Most players I have spoken to generally use from 50 to 70% sensitivity. High sensitivity can cause over steering issues too and generally makes handling a little more difficult and over responsive. I started off on 10% as I have improved I am now on 70% and feel much more in control. But saying that there are top players who change their sensitivity of the airbrakes to match the track they play on for example 90% on Moa and 10% on Subenco.I wouldn’t recommend this till you really know what you are doing as it takes a lot of practice and skill to fly in many different configurations. Best to stick to single setting till you have become skilled then review it from there.
Acceleration
Set to 10% you need to maintain maximum speed throughout the game. Nearly all experts agree on this.
Views
Far view is the most popular mode due to the fact you can see more as well as on both sides of your ship and a little to the rear. Most top players use this.
Close is similar to far but with less vision, so not really as good.
Cockpit is the coolest view as the screen spins and rocks as the ship moves but your vision is restricted and when you get hit by a rocket or severely rammed you get severely disorientated. I personally love this view and always use it because it’s cool. But if I really wanted to win an online race I wouldn’t use it. I need to know what’s happening on all sides and behind and need to be able to react to things as they happen during a race. Use this mode for showing of on Youtube.
Rear view
Configure your gamepad so rear view isn’t, L1 L2 R1 R2 as they will interfere with air brakes. Use a button that won’t affect your handling as much when used. Rear view is important if you need to block other racers or drop mine well. Your scanner is ok for this too so don’t forget to use them both as required.
Pitching
Pitching is important. Pitch up to help pull off barrel rolls you would never have time to pull off, pitch down to stop your ship from hitting ceilings or losing speed while gliding. Pitch up on upward hills and pitch down on slopes. Bad pitching cost speed and control don’t overlook this.
How do I pitch the best?
There is no answer to this question, I have asked many top players tried myself, read articles and players are split on this, it appears all methods are used and no method has an advantage over another.
I personally use 6-axis pitch only with sensitivity set to default. That works well for me. The most important point is just remember to pitch accordingly.
Ship selection-What is the best ship
Top Speed
First of all most important thing to note is Icarus isn’t the best ship just because its got 10 for speed and Feisar is the worst because its got 7 for speed. These scores are misleading as there is only a measly 8 km/h between slowest ship and fastest ship.
1. Icaras - Top Speed 10: 792 km/h
Piranha - Top Speed 10: 792 km/h
2. Auricom - Top Speed 9: 789 km/h
Triakis - Top Speed 9: 789 km/h
3. Assegai - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
EG-X - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Harimau - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Mirage - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Qirex - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
4. AG-Systems - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Feisar - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Goteki45 - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Fast ships with poor handling need to travel further to make a corner than a better handling ship with low speed. Take this into consideration before you take your piranha up Subenco climb.
I personally like Feisar because you can really mess up a corner badly and still recover from it because the handling and turning circle are incredible.
Top sped isn’t important for novice to intermediate. Getting around a track with a perfect lap is more important. Only when you become a top player will top speed be important to you.
Handling
Handling is an important factor too.
In my opinion Icarus ship should be used by an elite player that can get ahead of the pack early and simply just need to do perfect laps to win. If you can’t do that you will lose in an Icarus as the poorer handling will cost the average player and the small speed advantage will be lost while they get smashed about the place by weapons and racers as well as hitting the sides.
Thrust
Crap players benefit from ship with good thrust as they won’t lose as much time accelerating from there many crashes. This becomes less important as your skill grows.
AG is similar but really has good thrust.
To be truly honest there is no best ship in Wipeout. The elite players use all ships to equal effect. The key is finding a ship that suits your style, your ability and the track. Don’t pick the same ship as an elite player and expect similar results. Elite players do tend to use many different ships to suit their current situation.
Shields
Shield is not really too important facto on ship selection considering weapon absorb can counter low energy quite easily. Big shields become important when eliminator is played when speed and handling are not so crucial and the emphasis on giving and receiving of damage are priority.
I hope this guide is helpful and useful and will save people time. It’s my first game guide ever..hope you like.:nod:nod:nod
D-Pad Vs Analogue sticks Vs Six-axis Vs Negcon
After holding a poll and speaking to many top players as well as from my own experiences it appear that the following is the general trend with regards to what control methods are good.
D-pad
D-pad tends to be used mainly by veteran players from previous Wipeout games where analogue stick was not available. The D-pad is digital so it possible to train yourself to do exact cornering for example a certain corner on a track need 3 quick pushes of the D-pad to get around it well, another corner you just hold the D-pad in fully to complete the corner. This is good for consistent racing, but at high speeds and online racing when things don’t go to plan this can cause a few problems. I find on speed laps and time trails this method of control is excellent, another really good aspect to the D-pad is the ease and speed of barrel rolls, with your thumb in the middle of the D-pad you can perform a barrel roll much quicker than with a stick as the movement needed to pull it off is much less. So I would say the D-pad would be strongest for speed lap or time trail mode.
Stick control
As the stick is analogue its much easier to do minor adjustments take shallow corners as all strength of turning is dictated by how far you move the stick. From players I have spoken to and from my experience I have found the stick works really well on the Zone modes as the speed is always changing the turning and steering need to be finely adjusted to compensate for the increasing speeds, the D-pad being digital doesn’t seem as easy as the stick at high speeds. In online racing the stick is good when you need to adjust your self from situations in a game for example you just got rammed off your racing line before a hard corner, or hit by a weapon.
So I would say stick is best for racing/eliminator and Zone modes.
100% six-axis
I have not found any top pilots who use this method. To be honest I only know of two players who use this method. I wouldn’t recommend this method for playing Wipeout. Not because it is rubbish but because getting good at Wipeout heavily relies mostly on a great many hours of practice and holding a game pad level and ensuring you are sitting correctly is a real pain. I like to crash out when I play and my game pad is always in different positions depending on how lazy I feel when I am playing games, for this reason I would never be able to put enough hours in to get good with six-axis.
Negcon
If you can rig one up, these twisty style gamepads will do wonders for pitching and barrel rolls, takes a bit of getting used to. I would almost consider these an upgrade for a D-pad user.
Control Settings
Air brakes
Having the sensitivity lowered might seem a good idea as the ship will turn faster but this will make medium turns a bit tricky as a gradual air brake may be all that is required. Most players I have spoken to generally use from 50 to 70% sensitivity. High sensitivity can cause over steering issues too and generally makes handling a little more difficult and over responsive. I started off on 10% as I have improved I am now on 70% and feel much more in control. But saying that there are top players who change their sensitivity of the airbrakes to match the track they play on for example 90% on Moa and 10% on Subenco.I wouldn’t recommend this till you really know what you are doing as it takes a lot of practice and skill to fly in many different configurations. Best to stick to single setting till you have become skilled then review it from there.
Acceleration
Set to 10% you need to maintain maximum speed throughout the game. Nearly all experts agree on this.
Views
Far view is the most popular mode due to the fact you can see more as well as on both sides of your ship and a little to the rear. Most top players use this.
Close is similar to far but with less vision, so not really as good.
Cockpit is the coolest view as the screen spins and rocks as the ship moves but your vision is restricted and when you get hit by a rocket or severely rammed you get severely disorientated. I personally love this view and always use it because it’s cool. But if I really wanted to win an online race I wouldn’t use it. I need to know what’s happening on all sides and behind and need to be able to react to things as they happen during a race. Use this mode for showing of on Youtube.
Rear view
Configure your gamepad so rear view isn’t, L1 L2 R1 R2 as they will interfere with air brakes. Use a button that won’t affect your handling as much when used. Rear view is important if you need to block other racers or drop mine well. Your scanner is ok for this too so don’t forget to use them both as required.
Pitching
Pitching is important. Pitch up to help pull off barrel rolls you would never have time to pull off, pitch down to stop your ship from hitting ceilings or losing speed while gliding. Pitch up on upward hills and pitch down on slopes. Bad pitching cost speed and control don’t overlook this.
How do I pitch the best?
There is no answer to this question, I have asked many top players tried myself, read articles and players are split on this, it appears all methods are used and no method has an advantage over another.
I personally use 6-axis pitch only with sensitivity set to default. That works well for me. The most important point is just remember to pitch accordingly.
Ship selection-What is the best ship
Top Speed
First of all most important thing to note is Icarus isn’t the best ship just because its got 10 for speed and Feisar is the worst because its got 7 for speed. These scores are misleading as there is only a measly 8 km/h between slowest ship and fastest ship.
1. Icaras - Top Speed 10: 792 km/h
Piranha - Top Speed 10: 792 km/h
2. Auricom - Top Speed 9: 789 km/h
Triakis - Top Speed 9: 789 km/h
3. Assegai - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
EG-X - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Harimau - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Mirage - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
Qirex - Top Speed 8: 786 km/h
4. AG-Systems - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Feisar - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Goteki45 - Top Speed 7: 784 km/h
Fast ships with poor handling need to travel further to make a corner than a better handling ship with low speed. Take this into consideration before you take your piranha up Subenco climb.
I personally like Feisar because you can really mess up a corner badly and still recover from it because the handling and turning circle are incredible.
Top sped isn’t important for novice to intermediate. Getting around a track with a perfect lap is more important. Only when you become a top player will top speed be important to you.
Handling
Handling is an important factor too.
In my opinion Icarus ship should be used by an elite player that can get ahead of the pack early and simply just need to do perfect laps to win. If you can’t do that you will lose in an Icarus as the poorer handling will cost the average player and the small speed advantage will be lost while they get smashed about the place by weapons and racers as well as hitting the sides.
Thrust
Crap players benefit from ship with good thrust as they won’t lose as much time accelerating from there many crashes. This becomes less important as your skill grows.
AG is similar but really has good thrust.
To be truly honest there is no best ship in Wipeout. The elite players use all ships to equal effect. The key is finding a ship that suits your style, your ability and the track. Don’t pick the same ship as an elite player and expect similar results. Elite players do tend to use many different ships to suit their current situation.
Shields
Shield is not really too important facto on ship selection considering weapon absorb can counter low energy quite easily. Big shields become important when eliminator is played when speed and handling are not so crucial and the emphasis on giving and receiving of damage are priority.