Countering the railgun - How do I do it?

[malk_]

Most ppl in insta perform dodging all the time, because they know someone can aim at them at the moment. No wonder your rail is worse in insta. You play there against ppl who are ready for you to fire rail.

He said hi rail gets worse when he plays insta. Not that his rail is worse IN insta. At least thats how I understand him. And he's correct. Playing too much insta is not good for your rail skill in other modes. In insta you can practice a bunch of useful rail skills, like:
- position
- angles
- long range rail fights
- close combat rail fights

But the problem is, that you not necessarily learn how to play if your opponent isn't holding a railgun too. Railing becomes different if someone charges you with RL/LG/PG or you always have to fear someone comes up behind you with a appropriate weapon and you still holding the railgun. In insta its only rail vs. rail. But real railskill in other modes like duel, ctf, tdm, ca is deeper. Most good insta players don't hit the same high accs in other modes.

[Dr_Mr_Ed]

I read a while ago when struggling as I moved up in tiers in CA something along the lines of "don't let a good railer pick you off from across the map, get close and punish them with LG". Now of course, this doesn't mean rocket jump into their face and start pounding away because any decent player will switch weapons and hold your butt in the air with their own LG. But it does provide the right mentality.

In martial arts sparring, there's adage to "kick a puncher and punch a kicker". You can't kick someone effectively if their up in your face, and similarly rail loses it's effectiveness up close. But across the map, the RG is the best weapon and like others have mentioned you can also use this to your advantage. If you're constantly being sniped, get closer and pound them LG/RL/PG/SG or whatever you can.

[Jacynt]

But the problem is, that you not necessarily learn how to play if your opponent isn't holding a railgun too. Railing becomes different if someone charges you with RL/LG/PG or you always have to fear someone comes up behind you with a appropriate weapon and you still holding the railgun. In insta its only rail vs. rail. But real railskill in other modes like duel, ctf, tdm, ca is deeper.

I'm not arguing with that. Best duel skills can be learn from duel matches.
Insta is alternative to gain rail skills only (both accuracy and dodging, aiming without zooming, and all mentioned by you).

Anyone who wants to improve rail skills, should be aware of advantages and disadvantages of insta.

[jigglyboobs]

Not relevant, nas

First of all, your argument is a classic case of sour grapes and false bravado. In many situations railing actually takes more guts: because of the slow reload time and weapon switch time following the rail shot, you only get a few chances (one) to do damage to your opponent before he closes the distance to hit you with rockets or lg. If you miss, you get nothing. Thus, you have to have some confidence in your ability to consistently hit that difficult shot, which is probably why a noobie like yourself don't like it. Once you get better and more confident, you will actually use the weapon more.

Secondly, in answer to your question:

1. Use cover. It takes half a second to aim and fire. Don't give them that chance.
2. Move faster. Close the distance rapidly using strafe jumps when he's reloading.
3. Put some pressure on him with accurate rocket and plasma fire and then use LG when you are close enough.
4. When you're caught in the open and he's ready to fire, move side to side randomly. Make sure you mix in a little bit of forward and back movement just to be a little more unpredictable.
5. When you get good enough, aim faster than him and hit him first to mess up his shot.

Use all of the above and you should do OK.

Lastly, enjoy some of this great footage on railing and counter railing, brought to you by our local CTF hero Incubus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liYILUyvuEY

[Cassadaga_Riots]

Countering weapons - How do I do it?

I'm finding it almost impossible to do well in a game because almost everyone uses a weapon that isn't the gauntlet. I consider these weapons (all but gauntlet) to be for cowards and since I do not wish t obe a coward I refuse to use them myself. So my question is this; How do I fight these cowards (my opinion of them) without being one myself?


(Using weapons = not an option, in case I didn't make that clear)


I'm not exactly a newcomer to the game - Quake and Doom are the FPS games I will quite happily play, even - but I don't know how it's meant to be done without sinking to their level.

[*DrewPWiener]

Well played Cassadaga...


Ha ha! Your only option is to out maneuver the other player by moving so fast that their computer overheats and explodes.

[malk_]

That's cheap

[Cat]

Most ppl in insta perform dodging all the time, because they know someone can aim at them at the moment. No wonder your rail is worse in insta. You play there against ppl who are ready for you to fire rail.

Actually, people DON'T dodge in insta. That's the problem (well, that and people don't hit in insta). The opponents I play against are so bad it literally makes me a worse player for playing against them. I've been called a hacker practically every time I've joined an insta server, and during the fastrail instagib devpick i was winning games 50-5 or less in about a minute...
Actually, I still have the demos from that devpick somewhere. Fun times.

I've literally never played with worse players than can be found in instagib servers, which makes me think Tier 4 in instagib is about the equivalent of Tier 2 in CA (since I was never able to play with Tier 2s even before the tier lock). When rating my accuracy in CA I generally consider <45% to be "meh", 50% to be "decent" and anything above 60% to be "great", whereas in insta basically every time I miss it feels like a bad shot. My best accuracies in insta are always the first few games I play. It only gets progressively worse from there, and then when I rejoin a CA server I can't hit a damn thing.

[GauntletMan]

Ha ha! Your only option is to out maneuver the other player by moving so fast that their computer overheats and explodes.

Actually there is another solution (though I'm not sure it's available to mortal men, I'm Gauntletman after all): make yourself a custom gauntlet firing bullets. Mine deals 80 hitscan damage even at high range!