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(Edit: Revised for post-patch adjustments to cockpit shake and hill gradient speed reduction. New notes: 5. 6.)
(Edit: Included changes to JJs that occurred on 10/1/2013. New note: 7.)
I like to repost this every once in a while to help players understand the significant advantages associated with JJs. Used properly, they open up a level of maneuverability to any sized mech than can in effect increase your groundspeed and survivability.
First, a few rules of thumb:
1. Never land moving in the same direction you launched from. By landing in a new direction, you will throw off your opponent's convergence.
2. Never use 100% of your fuel to launch, save at least 10-20% to land, preventing valuable leg hitpoints from being lost. Sometimes, more or less fuel is required, depending on your elevation from the ground.
3. Never get too close to terrain or other mechs. By getting stuck or hitching on other pilots, you will take leg damage or body damage. A single sticky mistake can result in death for lights and some mediums.
4. JJs are highly, highly underused. When your mech has them, it is not limited to the flat map every other mech is. By not using your JJs at every opportunity for an advantage, you may as well have an AMS without ammo, or an LL that you never bother to fire.
5. Never attempt to scale an object or hill you cannot fully reach the top of with room to spare. Landing on the edge of a hill or building will cause your mech to cease moving, making you an easy target. If you feel you are not reaching your landings effectively, you may need more JJs. Previously, 2/4JJ was enough for most maneuvers, but now more than ever, your JJ count should be closer to max.
6. Whenever firing from mid air, you must always take your finger off the jump key long enough to fire. Imagine it like the clutch in a manual vehicle. If you don't take your foot off the gas to change gears, or you try to gas at all during the changeover, you're gonna have a bad time.
This takes much more rapid aiming and careful JJ use to make mid-air shots worth anything than previous client builds, but is still a valid tactic with some practice. I myself have found it to be very little impendiment to my GaussJack, but I still find the action of doing so challenging. (But not insurmountable)
7. As of 10/1/2013, JJs now provide a slight forward boost when used, even from a full stop. This increases their effectiveness in air slightly and helps to prevent "stuck" issues. With this being said, be cautious while pop-tarting, as the forward momentum can potentially land you in a less safe position slightly forward of where you are. (Think hills and buildings.)
8. Jump-Jet numbers are important. In order to attain enough thrust to clear buildings or terrain, you need to have enough jumpjets to do so. In addition, it is very important to time your jumps based on your groundspeed, and the height/distance of the object. In example, on my 2JJ BJ-1, if I wish to jump onto the dropship port in river city from lower, I must jump before I completely pass the end of the buildings, within a small area, in order to make it.
Adding more jumpjets increased the speed at which you rise, making better use of your fuel and making your ascent more safe through rapidity. Remember that jumpjets are a tool, and if you underfit them, they will not be as useful. With only a couple JJs, most mechs can only use them for short ascents and maneuvering. With more/max JJs, your mech becomes much more capable.
USE JJs PROLIFERATELY
Circumventing Terrain: The most obvious use of jumpjets is jumping onto, or softening your landing from, cliffs, mountains and ravines. Because your mech continues to move in your current direction when jumping, some lips may catch and get you stuck, so jumping at the right time before reaching the cliff is essential. In this way, you can avoid finding a ramp or another way around, effectively cutting your travel time.
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Jump-Firing, (AKA Poptarting): Poptarting is the act of flying into the air from behind terrain, firing at a target, and falling back into cover before taking damage in turn. I always recommend doing this while moving, as moving targets are much more difficult to hit. By releasing and tapping your spacebar, you can also effectively "hover" right above cover, where you can easily fire but are more protected.
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Air-Turns/Shorthops: When in air and if you have fuel remaining, you can redirect your legs, causing you to move in a new direction when you land. By doing this during a very short burst of JJ, you can change direction quickly without losing significant groundspeed. This is essential to your survival when dealing with other pilots. Ballistic-type weapons are especially dangerous to lights and mediums. Airturns can make convergence with these weapons very difficult, as most will fire at you as you land. Use this to move erratically.
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Stop-drops: Because many light mechs move at such high speeds, convergence can be somewhat hard. Certain situations where you are not at high risk for damage can be used to hit X in mid air, and then push back to full speed as soon as you land. This gives you a brief moment to fire easily at enemies who are alone or vulnerable, giving you better convergence without a risky speed-drop. USE CAREFULLY.
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Clouding: Many maps have water and dust elements that rise when using JJs. By repeatedly tapping your JJs while moving erratically, you can send up a visually disruptive cloud that makes convergence on you and your team very difficult beyond "firing at the red box." This is also a great way to safely disengage from slower enemies.
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Flyovers: Keep in mind that doing this can potentially cause leg damage when done incorrectly, so make sure you don't jump too late and bump your legs on them. Most JJ'd mechs are able to swing arm weapons low enough to fire into the torso/face of your enemy when they are directly below you. By simply hopping over enemies, you take yourself out of their convergence with arms briefly, and their torso for most of the jump. While this sometimes gives your enemy a shot at you, doing this when they already do have a shot helps to make convergence difficult, reducing the damage from a shot you would have eaten anyway.
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The 360 Shot: (Courtesy DodgerH20): The 360 shot is a maneuver using torso twist to run in a straight line, jump, and then turn half or all the way around in mid air to scout behind you or fire at targets chasing you. After your mid-air scouting or dakka, you then turn back to your original facing and land in the initial direction, allowing you to keep running where you were going. This move is great for adding damage to enemies who are hot on your trail, instead of simply running away and taking free damage.
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Large-Mech Evasion: Larger mechs equipped with JJs are more rare, and much harder to make good use of, however, they can still use JJs to great effect, mitigating damage or cutting through otherwise impassible terrain. Against targets close or far away, jumping high enough or dropping fast enough at just the right time can force your opponent to miss, or at the very least strike a section they did not intend to. When using this tactic, and large JJ'd mechs in general, you should always have full leg armor. The more often you do this, the more leg damage you will find yourself taking, often resulting in a leg death on mechs that do not normally fear such a problem. Your legs are, in effect, being used as a shield. Every hitpoint is integral to your survival.
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Instant Chicken (AKA 180 turn, courtesy Hayashi): This advanced tactic should be used very cautiously, as it exposes you to enemy fire, leg damage from dropping and leg damage from enemy 'Mech collision. However, it is very useful against single foes and in certain brawl situations. Mostly, this tactic is for lighter mechs such as the TBT/BJ or lights. I recommend that new players avoid this move, as it requires a good feel for your mech, as you must be tracking many different issues at once to avoid taking damage. The wrong move can result in instant death for lights.
When chased or turning around to face an enemy, simply jump upwards high enough but no higher than is necessary to do a full 180 turn. Preferably, do this at an angle to the chasing foe, giving them a harder target. When you land, land facing one side of the enemy, as if you are going to run past them. Then, immediately use another tiny burst to change direction slightly to face the other side and run past that way. Depending on how far away from the foe you are, continue using burst-turns to evade fire until you can pass.
DO NOT GIVE THEM AN EASY TARGET. Be very careful not to strike the enemy mech with your own, or you will take severe leg damage, equal to being shot by a weapon. It is also important that when you first land, you wait just long enough to get some groundspeed, as landing resets your mech walking speed, and rebursting too early will make you a very slow, easy target.
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Mountain Rushing: (Works best for lights, but for anything works if the mountain is steep enough)
(Important note! With the new movement mechanics in place, moving up a mountain with JJs still works, but slows the mech considerably faster. Larger/slower mechs should use great caution and ensure they will not become stuck half way up a hill, or they will face becoming an easy target)
Keep an open mind for this tactic and the explanation. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (Tesseracts notwithstanding) When you travel up a mountain on foot, you travel at (with my sdr as an example) 151.5kmh. This speed is uniform over all the little "invisible" bumps and gullies below your feet. While it may appear that you are traveling over the distance at the same speed as flat terrain, you are not. All those little direction changes are adding up over time to increase the actual distance of ground your are covering to reach the top of whatever hill or mountain you are climbing, in effect reducing your speed without you noticing.
So if you hold your jets while moving up a mountain, you repeatedly cross those tiny gaps as your forward momentum carries you over them and onto the pathing behind them. Because this "nanojump" is so tiny, and the time spent in air is so short, your speed averages down to 150.9kmh, but you circumvent every tiny hitch in the mountain. While this all seems like an exercise in ******* while running, it avoids many of the dangerous hitches that are ever-present in the game, allows quicker evasion while traveling up a surface, avoids unclimbable patches and sends up a large cloud of dust that acts as cover in certain maps.
In short: Jethopping up mountains is safer, ever so slightly fast, and avoids the risk of death due to terrain problems. Simply hold or tap your jets while moving full speed at/up a mountain.
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There are a dozen more things you can do with JJs, so you should spend a lot of time getting to know how to use them and getting accustomed to doing so at all times necessary. Anyone who has seen me pilot (I use JJ'd mechs almost exclusively) can attest to the fact that I hate gravity and am almost never not using my available fuel, even in my HGN.
Seriously. F*ck gravity.
Enjoy the Skies. :3
Edited by TheFlyingScotsman, 05 October 2013 - 09:16 AM.
