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BF2 - Helicopters

H

Hulk

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
6,279
I want to be really good at flying helicopters, especially the attack ones. When I say good, I mean the best, hovering in one place, flying sidways, etc.

What is some advice on how to accomplish this?

And also, what setup is the best for really mastering the art of flying, both helicopters and planes, but mostly helicopters?

1) keyboard and mouse
2) controller (like a PS2 type)
3) joystick

And also what view do you guys use?

I use keyboard and mouse, havent used the other methods that's why I am asking first on here if they are worth it or not.

I fly best when using the cockpit view because it shows all of the data. I cannot fly at all with the outside views. Would flying with a controller be easier when using the outside views?
 
Find someone who plays and is a pilot ask if you can follow him around, ask a lot of questions and just pay attention to him. Most people will teach you how to do things.

I'm no pilot but I do pretty good as a gunner. The few times I have flown though I've been told I don't do that badly, I have a lot of problems staying in the air though.
 
I just keep practicing with the keyboard. From the first time I piloted....*still remembers hearing everyone in the copter yelling BAIL OUT BAIL OUT* till now i've progressed a bit.

The only thing that keeps me from buying a joystick is the idea of going to someone's house or something and not being able to tear it up with JUST the keyboard.
 
Adionik said:
I just keep practicing with the keyboard....The only thing that keeps me from buying a joystick is the idea of going to someone's house or something and not being able to tear it up with JUST the keyboard.
Click to expand...


There is no substitute for practice. Forget the joystick too...there is tons of control using the keyboard - mouse. Once you've mastered the attack choppers, you can pretty much own the open ground, too! :D

Ax
 
I fly with a keyboard and mouse. Controllers make it a little difficult to immediately stabilize. You need to get stable or you'll wobble and screw up your gunner's aim. Play against bots with a teammate. It lets you practice helicopters without having to fight for possesion. You can do this play starting a singleplayer session, then having your friend connect to the IP of your singleplayer session as a lan game. You can create a virtual lan with the free and secure program Hamachi

I fly in cockpit view, once you enter the chopper, hit the cockpit view key a second time to eliminate the obscuring cockpit. Just flip out to other 3rd person views to quickly spot enemies who're shooting you from off screen.

Controls:
Control the helicopter pitch and yaw with the mouse, but also bind secondary keyboard keys to pitch and yaw. This way if you need to make a really steep dive in a direction(I use it consistently to get below tree/clifflines to get away from AA), you can press the key to get maximum re-balancing at a constant rate, instead of constantly sweeping your mouse to rebalance.

Teamwork:
A huge help is to play with a friend on ventrilo or teamspeak. Have him/her be your gunner so you can work on teamwork. You need to play as gunner for awhile to understand the targeting range of the gunner and where their projectiles come out of from the different chopper. This allows you to know how to aim him at infantry. The gunner's view also jerks around a bit as the game tries to sync his view with the way you move your chopper. This isn't very smooth due to the update rate(on multiplayer servers that is, singleplayer gunning is not representative of actual online gunning), so you should try being a gunner so you know how smooth you need to pilot to get your gunner to shoot accurately.

Gunners, you can hit more often by letting the chopper's drifts and wobbles move your crosshair over the enemy. If you move your mouse directly onto the enemy on your own, the jerky chopper drift shakes your fire up so that you may not hit them at all. So if the pilot is drifting left, the gunner should start shooting to the right-side of the enemy until the drift carries the shots onto the enemy. This isn't as necessary with MEC choppers since they have the huge blast radius for the gunner's weapon.

Also, and more importantly, knowing what it's like to play from the gunner's position is critical for using TV missiles on enemy vehicles. The TV camera is actually around 1.5 centimeters /below/ your pilot crosshairs with a very small turn aiming radius. This means that the pilot needs to be the one pointing the missile without using a crosshair, instead just estimating where a TV missile crosshair would be if they were the gunner. You need to communicate to determine whether the gunner will kill the target with a tv missile or if you plan to fire your own missiles to kill them.

Have your gunner hit AA guns since it's easier for them to destroy them. AA guns are the priority targets now. Also, have your gunner spot out vehicles and helicopters so you know when and where to spin your chopper to help them TV missile them.

Tactics:
Stay high to fight enemy choppers, because if you need to aim your missiles upwards at an enemy chopper you'll tilt backwards and lose altitude until you're out of control or a crater in the ground.

Stay low to fight everyone else. You're easily spotted when you're high in the air(especially by AA), keeping low means only nearby enemies can shoot at you, and hopefully at this range your gunner should already have torn them to pieces. You also are prone to crashing if trying to use pilot missiles on land vehicles from high altitudes, so stay low. You should be able to fly through the streets of most maps. Start slow and build up speed so you can learn how to do 90 degree turns at an exact spot because infantry will also be doing 90 degree turns through those exact street corners and you need to follow them. It sounds harder than it actually is, lots of people can do it.

Fly behind obstacles to sneak up on AA. AA takes time to lock onto you, so if you only pop out at close range, you'll kill them before they can ever lock. Then you blow up the AA gun so you don't have to worry about it. MEMORIZE THE AA positions. Always be aware of where they are. If you're doing well as a heli pilot, they'll be pissed at you and will be looking to shoot ya down with these. You need to shoot'em first.

Use the AA gun a little while, learn how long it takes for the AA gun to lock onto a target. Then when piloting, pop chaff just before enough time has passed to get a lock. If you wait longer to pop chaff you can fly farther before they can finally get a lock. Popping early just allows them to get started on the second lock while your chaff isn't ready and you don't have a chance of running out of lock range.

This one is important. The pilot's missiles come out of the left or right side depending on the chopper and whether it's an even or an odd number of missiles left in the clip. They also don't come out directly onto the crosshair since they fire out from your sides. You need to estimate this distance to the right and left just like you have to with a TV missile.
THEN, when shooting each missile don't fire willy-nilly as fast as you can. Since you now know how where the missiles are coming from on your chopper you can now aim them precisely by shaking your chopper's nose side to side with the rudder. Practice in single player, you should be able to land a missile on an infantryman with one shot. It's not hard once you try it.

Chinese and U.S choppers are more or less identical. MEC choppers are less agile, and bigger than Chinese and U.S choppers, but their gunner shoots explosive rounds that have a large blast radius, making it much easier to kill infantry.

Manuevering:
You need to move and turn fast without wandering all over the place. Move where you want to move and then stabilize because drifting will have you smashing into buildings and dying.

Use the rudder for adjusting aim side to side:

When enemies mass up in a particular spawn, circle strafe over them as low as possible. Tilt your chopper sideways while using the rudder to keep your nose on them. Makes the circles as low and tight as possible.

Stabilizing doesn't mean hovering in one place, it means steady reticle movement. Moving left and right is ok, but only if moving left and right at a constant pace so that your gunner can recognize this and compensate for the movement. Unpredictable wobbling makes gunners miss and pilots crash. Predicted wobbles are good since it makes you hard to hit while your gunner can compensate and you are still in control enough to correct and move in another direction. You want to avoid hovering in one place as much as possible.

This tip is another important one, and probably the hardest to use: if you have flown past an enemy, pitch forward or backward sharply, then tilt the chopper sideways, while also using the rudder to spin. This is a MUCH faster turn than simply hovering in place and using the rudder to turn around. It's also much safer since you're moving around as you do this. The key is to be able to do this quickly so that you don't move too far and into obstacles or too far away from the targets. This is hard for me to describe and is something you definitely need to practice to be able to pull off consistently. It's easy once you learn to get the feel for it, but not easy to get the first time. Hopefully somebody else can explain this better.

I'll explain firing pilot missiles better here. If you're at a high altitude and you want to shoot missiles down at a land vehicle, you end up moving your nose down to aim the missiles at them. This causes your helicopter to dive and sweep forward very fast. This causes many pilots to end up crashing since they either hit the ground, or can't stop their forward momentum after the missile run and crash into a building. You need to start your missile run from a low altitude so that you don't sweep past the enemy too quickly and can correct your course if something goes wrong. If you pass over them too quickly you may not have enough time to shoot enough missiles to kill before your momentum carries you past them. Also, don't do low-altitude missile runs on tanks from the front, they can shoot back:p Hit them from the sides or rear or TV missile them from a distance.



Most of these are common sense once you fly regularly, and I expect most veteran pilots will notice they've already been doing these things. Once you get these down you should be a pretty decent pilot and will have started to learn some map-specific tactics as well. Learning and using the terrain and various attack angles helps.
 
bear - awesome advice.

Question - what settings are optimal for mouse sensitivity, pitch and yaw?
 
I put pitch and yaw on max - wow what a difference, no longer do I have to roll the mouse up or down half a foot to get a response. It is so much easier to lift the helicopter up and down now.
 
I use the Saitek X52 Flight Control System. I been owning with it sinces Xmas "thankz to my cus that dont play games" hehe. Ya using that made my flying much better. The handling is very good. All i need to work on is making the Tank Turret turn faster.
 
ReDgUaRd008 said:
I use the Saitek X52 Flight Control System. I been owning with it sinces Xmas "thankz to my cus that dont play games" hehe. Ya using that made my flying much better. The handling is very good. All i need to work on is making the Tank Turret turn faster.
Click to expand...
Can you still use your Keyboard and Mouse while that is connected? , I am thinking of buying it soon.
 
I use the saitek X45 flight joysticks. It makes things a lot easier. Just play around with the pitch and yaw settings until you find a good place for you. On this stick there is a throttle and a control stick, two seperate units, there are controls for anything yoiu desire, I've been playing around with dialing in my desired forward pitch on one of the two rotary dials on the throttle so I don't even have to worry about pitching out of control, yet can still checnge pitch if I need to avoid fire. With 3 programmable modes you can have three different setups for the type of chopper or type of flying you'll be doing.

ReDgUaRd008: I have my joystick setup so that for land vehicles I only use the throttle to both steer (with the rudder controls) and control acceleration. I don't even touch the joystick, instead I use my mouse to spin the turrets and guns, I've found this way to be much more effective.

And to the just previous poster, yes you can use the keyboard and joystick while it's connected, you can use them at the same time in any combo you want. I use they keyboard and mouse for when i'm on foot and the joystick to control the vehicles only.
 
bigbadgreen said:
And to the just previous poster, yes you can use the keyboard and joystick while it's connected, you can use them at the same time in any combo you want. I use they keyboard and mouse for when i'm on foot and the joystick to control the vehicles only.
Click to expand...
Kewl might get it in about 2 weeks, for now I might just practice with keyboard and mouse in both BF2 and BF2 SF(on teh different maps).

I have played with it for about a min or two at a Harvey Norman Store but it wasnt configured to teh game, but it was kewl though.

How much was your's?
 
I have the X45 http://www.saitekusa.com/usa/prod/x45.htm

not as fancy as the X52 and not as programmable (still has 3 modes where each button can be programmed differently, as well as 3 aux. settings per mode meaning you really can have 9 unique configurations), or flashy, but it's built very solid, and has more than enough controls for most people. I bought mine over one year ago for $75 during a sale. I'm not sure what they go for now. I know the X52 is going to be a more but not sure how much.
 
I have an expert helicopter badge, and am a dedicated pilot for my clan.

Disregard people who say that a mouse and keyboard are valid tools, as there are simply no subsitutes for a good joystick. I recommend a Logitech but in the end it really doesn't matter as long as its heavy enough to where it doesn't come off the table when you go to pitch.



Above all flying is extremely easy, the thing that makes or breaks a chopper is the coordination between the gunner and the pilot.
If you don't have a dedicated gunner that your use to flying with over voice communication then your not flying at full effiiency.
As a pilot you won't ever get kills. Your score will be 1/2 of what your gunner's is because rockets are the choppers worst weapons. Theres very few times in which rockets are efficient, so most of the time you should be lining up your gunner with good tv shots or maneuvering for him to take out infantry with the chaingun.


Remember a good chopper is 80% gunner and 20% pilot.
 
I don't fly the helo's in normal BF2 anymore since I'm in 21CW. In 21CW we have the mod were the helo's are tweaked, they are wayyyyy faster in every aspect. Also the pilot has it's normal missles along with AA missles to dogfight. The gunner has Anti-Personnel and Anti-Tank rounds along with the normal TV-Guided missle.

It's a whole different expirience along with the tournament all together. I've explained how the tournament works here many times and it's fun as hell. No other way to play BF2. And it's no clans, you get signed to your division and that's what you stick with.

Some of you guys here sound like veteran chopper pilots which I need a couple more for the Airforce in my divison. We have Bomber Pilots, Rotary Pilots, and Fighter Pilots (I'm Maj. in the airforce for my division in 21CW). I mainly need to get my numbers up in the Attack Helo side.

If any verteran pilot is interested then PM me, the battles are nothing but intense fun.
 
I agree with kelbear. A joystick isn't needed. It maybe a little easier to learn with but I prefer to use a keyboard and mouse, especially since I also like to do other things than just fly.
 
I just got a joystick and I totally suck at flying now.

Any tips on learning how to fly with this thing? It's like starting all over again.
 
I fly the choppers with the mouse/keyboard and use the cockput view with a hotkey for teh mouse look so I can look around to a point without turning the chopper.
I also have my mouse set to inverted when flying.
For the planes, I use a joystick, but I hardly fly the planes so the joystick just sits on my PC.
I originally got teh joystick for the chopper and planes, but it was too hard to convert to joystick for the chopper since I was already so good with the mouse.

I practiced in multiplayer with no players on the server so that I could just learn to fly.
I practiced by flying the choppers into the boat hanger on teh backside of the carrier.
 
Eihli said:
I have an expert helicopter badge, and am a dedicated pilot for my clan.

Disregard people who say that a mouse and keyboard are valid tools, as there are simply no subsitutes for a good joystick. I recommend a Logitech but in the end it really doesn't matter as long as its heavy enough to where it doesn't come off the table when you go to pitch.



Above all flying is extremely easy, the thing that makes or breaks a chopper is the coordination between the gunner and the pilot.
If you don't have a dedicated gunner that your use to flying with over voice communication then your not flying at full effiiency.
As a pilot you won't ever get kills. Your score will be 1/2 of what your gunner's is because rockets are the choppers worst weapons. Theres very few times in which rockets are efficient, so most of the time you should be lining up your gunner with good tv shots or maneuvering for him to take out infantry with the chaingun.


Remember a good chopper is 80% gunner and 20% pilot.
Click to expand...


i agree with all of this but the rockets thing - i find i can quite easily rack up multiple kills in one run before i have to repair myself, using a mouse - but it may just be the servers i play on

And how exactly do you strafe in the damn thing? I find i can only do it when i take a long run adn suddenly turn, with momentum carrying me along - i can never do it deliberately.
 
Yeah I'm thinking of spending a day or two controlling the helicopter with the joystick and if I still suck at it I'm going back to mouse and keyboard. Flying the planes is a lot easier with the joystick though, but I hardly ever fly them.
 
When I "strafe" with a chopper using a joystick I just gently nudge the stick to the right, lower my throttle a bit and it "strafes" right. The chopper is angled in its axis but it flies in a straight line horizontally. Takes a bit of practice... I don't think you can "strafe" in a chopper without angling the chopper in that direction. Am I mistaken?
 
I first used my logitech rumblepad 2, I could move quickly and easily, but precision was blah. I used my logitech joystick as well(One of the lower-end force-feedback corded ones) and did even worse. I eventually settled on the mouse.

The thing I liked about stick movement from the controller and joystick was that you could continuously do max tilting in any direction while the mouse can't, that's why I also use the keyboard to get continuous max tilt. The problem with the controller was that the tiny little thumbstick was way too imprecise for tiny adjustments. My joystick's center force was utter crap(it was basically nonexistent, if you relax, the joystick naturally sags to the sides) and I couldn't get the darn thing to stop drifting me in one direction or another, I may just suck at keeping joysticks still.

A joystick could definitely work, assuming you can get proper center force and deadzone. The joystick was critical for flying planes though.


As for the pilot rockets, TV missiles are definitely better for killing vehicles. Faster, more powerful, and more reliable. I fire my rockets only when there's something else occupying the gunner. Anti-tank infantry, AA guns, or a second vehicle, I only use my rockets when there's too much for the gunner to take on at once.

Strafing is just tilting sideways, you can't really slide too far since the game automatically takes away the momentum.

Think about the top of your helicopter. Picture the blades as a plate. Whatever direction food is sliding off your plate is where your chopper is going to move towards. So when moving, just be sure your tilt is where you want to be sliding.
 
i dont know if this helps.. but my mouse is inverted for the heli, and ive been told i was a great pilot... ive went a whole round ( arg unranked server!) with a gunner just going back and forth to the ship.. the only thing that usually takes me down are jets
 
Everyone sucked at flying at first. It's something that takes a lot of practise! I use to kill more of my team then the bad guys at first.
Then I quit playing online and spent 2 weeks playing single player and empty servers. Learing how to fly the choppers and jets. It took about 2 solid weeks to get my skills to where I wanted them, but Now I can OWN.

I have become so good at flying that I get only a few kills per game, because I spend so much time flying around and dodging between bridges and silos.

Anyway, Practise in single player and in different views. Learn what each Jet can do and what the choppers can and can't pull off safely. Then once you can fly like a madman and not get blown up, go back and try it online.
 
I use a joystick while my friend on the PC behind me guns, its total ownage. I feel sad for the people we've killed and dominated.
 
Sorry to go off-topic here, but does anyone know why this thread is labeled, "moved"?
 
kelbear said:
Sorry to go off-topic here, but does anyone know why this thread is labeled, "moved"?
Click to expand...

Because [H] split the gaming forum into general, console and PC. It all used to be in "games and entertainment".
 
I tried flying with a keyboard but it just basically sucks. So I dug through some boxes and dug up this old thing (going on 6 or 7 years old now).

http://www.joy-stick.net/reviews/joysticks/precisio.htm

Its so old that it uses a gameport plug but came w/ a USB dongle. But you know what? It works almost perfectly as it can do everything that is needed for BF2 aricraft.
 
Coldtronius said:
Joystick. Anyone whos says differently is not bipedal or lying.
Click to expand...


Heres my vote for the Joystick...I used a Microsoft FF2, bitching J/S especially for BF2...hat switch, 3 thumb buttons, and the trigger, and add the 4 buttons on the base....program to your delight....go RSU (Rip-Sh*t-UP)....
 
i love flying when I can get a heli. Are there any "just heli" servers out there? I played some in BFV and the most fun. Everyone on these servers are aces and makes you a whole lot better when you play a mixed bag server.
 
I use saitek X45.

The biggest advantage over mouse+keyboard, which I can also use in a pinch, is the throttle. With a dedicated throttle, you can set it a power percentage and it stays right there. Quite a few of the maneuvers I pull off require quick and precise throttle adjustment, which is just not possible with keyboard. Throttle is even more important this patch, as it is much more important to hug the terrain, duck behind trees/buildings/mountains.

The key to flying copters in BF2 is practice, practice, and more practice. With the latest patch, you're pretty much limited to practicing in single player or on empty servers. Trying to learn on a pub---which is generally considered bad form anyways---will just get you blown out of the sky before you even see an enemy. You can only learn so much on single player though, since the computer isn't going to aggressively try to take you out, or even hide from you. On the pubs, everybody is out to get you, the apcs, the tanks, any infantry with a nearby mounted machinegun, etc.

One other thing, mentioned by a couple others: Do not expect to get gold medals. You'll be getting the silver medal, while your gunner gets the gold, since he'll have twice as many points as you do. On a good helicopter map, assuming we monopolize the copter, my gunners end up with around 100 points/per round. Sharqi is the best, imho, since the infantry is concentrated, there are no jets, and there isn't that many stinger sites. Only downside to sharqi is it is littered with Vods and Hummers, all with mounted machineguns. Fortunately, there aren't that many people clued in to how deadly the Vod is to a copter, especially after this patch.

Find a dedicated gunner, setup VOIP, and prepare to spend a couple weeks working together before you become really effective.
 
Good advice overall.

I liked the part about an attack chopper is 80% gunner. Very true. Remember that you are flying for the gunner and if your gunner cant TV missile, do everything you can to TK him away from your ride. Nothing pisses me off more than lining up a shot, taking insane amounts of fire and all the gunner does is chaingun the tank. Makes me want to land the helo, get out, paint a big red X on the target and type "Shoot the friggin X, you moron!"
:)

Edit: My usual line is "You have 2 options, TV missile or eject. You pick"
 
I use this Joystick

and this throttle for a really kick ass HOTAS system.

Note* I haven't played BF2 yet, so IDK how it will do for vehicles, but the consensus seems to be yes. This combo kicks ass in all other sims, from flight to tank to mech. Hell, i use the throttle for ALL my FPS, it blows other keyboard replacements like the nostromo out of the water!

Keep in mind the direct price is a little high, you can order online or go down to fry's and buy cheaper.....
 
I had been using a joystick to fly helicopters because I always just figured it was the "right" way. I just tried using a mouse/keyboard combo and it is SOOOO much easier, at least for me. Way easier to aim and enter a nice hover. For planes joystick is still the way to go.
 
Spiff1333 said:
I had been using a joystick to fly helicopters because I always just figured it was the "right" way. I just tried using a mouse/keyboard combo and it is SOOOO much easier, at least for me. Way easier to aim and enter a nice hover. For planes joystick is still the way to go.
Click to expand...


We have a guy who uses a keyboard for flying and he's really good at it. I'll have to say that I enjoy gunning for him. However in a chopper dogfight, I'll outmaneuver him more because the joystick lets me do some aerobatics that is just not quick enough on a keyboard.
 
For those of you saying to use the KB + Mouse, you are CRAZY. A joystick owns all other forms. Just make sure you get one with X,Y, and Z axis.

You CAN have the joystick plugged in and a KB & M all at the same time and use all of them, I don't know where you guys thought it might disable one or the other but whatever.

I'm no expert at flying, but i'm not horrible either. I rack up quite a few kills as a jet or heli pilot, but my main roll is a tanker. For flying a heli remember the main rotors are pushing air away from them towards the ground. If you angle them the rotor will fly towards the direction it is tilted.

If you look at the picture I put below you can see how the force from the rotor is facing down pushing the craft in the oposite direction. The more force, the faster/higher it goes.
If you use less force (throttle) it will go either strait or drop slightly. It depends on the weight of the craft, momentum, etc.

Just practice in single player doing some fun stuff, no harm there.
chopper.bmp
 
Bullitt said:
Good advice overall.

I liked the part about an attack chopper is 80% gunner. Very true. Remember that you are flying for the gunner and if your gunner cant TV missile, do everything you can to TK him away from your ride. Nothing pisses me off more than lining up a shot, taking insane amounts of fire and all the gunner does is chaingun the tank. Makes me want to land the helo, get out, paint a big red X on the target and type "Shoot the friggin X, you moron!"
:)

Edit: My usual line is "You have 2 options, TV missile or eject. You pick"
Click to expand...

No Kidding.
It's so hard to find a good gunner.
Most times they just don't pay attention, you try to fly nice and level for them, so they can do the work (like they are suspose to) and they SUCK.

I have had a few good times. I was the gunner and I found a GREAT PILOT. We ended up being First and second in points every round. He knew how to fly and I know how to aim a guided missle.
 
^That's why I don't pub, and keep everything in 21CW. I have some kickass gunners there. Nothing like moving on a point and whatching my gunner take out 7-12+ guys, and then whatching one of the line companies move in and take the point.

Nothing like a good battle in the tourney.
 
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