Most popular SP ship so far but not many know how to use it. You can tell by the chicken tackler or doomsday rush tactic.
I cant remember if i’ve replied to this, but here you go:
If a tackler disappears it’s either attacking or running away. If you’re not the easiest thing for them to shoot at it probably won’t be you but if they disappeared heading in your general direction then pay attention. Good tackler players will go after the isolated and the weak unless they have a fixation on you. If you have a lot of damage output you can trick them into coming to you by pretending that you’re oblivious to them and your own safety. Then they come close, you drill them, they drop a load in their pants and they get the “try a little harder” taunt which either makes them come back or they decide to stay away from you for the rest of the game in pursuit of much easier risk free cattle to slaughter.
The only ones that are really annoying are the ones who use doomsday missiles or drop drones and run because you can’t stop thinking “They built a special project ship for THAT.” Since I stacked strafe they’re easy to dodge, though. I’ve sort of developed a tackler sense, so to speak. Generally I have a pretty good idea that I’m being targeted and I can usually time my combat reboot to eat their surprise attack. Since I don’t usually run curved anymore because fight dynamics have changed since a year ago, it usually turns into them having a sliver of health left and trying to run (this is of course assuming I’m not in bad shape from a previous engagement or distracted. Then it can go either way.) Depending on whether or not they really like flying in straight lines, I’ll probably get them while cloaked. For your awareness and the sake of these people the game tells you are your teammates, always keep an eye on your threat wheel and an ear out for tackler sounds so you can quickly engage any tackler that appears behind you and starts shooting at “teammates” because by doing this you can easily turn the tackler’s ganking into an unexpected 2v1. There are cases where this kind of pressure applied consistently can completely change a tackler player’s behavior when you are present. I digress.
Every game that has an isolation->kill dynamic to it also brings with it a “dive threshold” for your hitpoints. If you get weakened to a point it is almost guaranteed jackals will descend upon you. You can use this as a bait or you can use it to exercise caution depending on what you have going for you, but awareness of this dive threshold will keep you from getting ganked. The slower you are, the more at risk you are because it takes longer to reach teammates. A good rule of thumb is, if you can’t reach help within two-ish seconds of an unwanted surprise or oncoming threat, you will need to be able to quickly kill your attacker before more show up, and if it starts as a 2v1 and you can not reach help/safety or at the very least break them up, you are almost assuredly going to die unless they are bad at the game or . Or unless you bait one right off the bat into a torpedo or overdrive or something, then if you can see straight while cackling like a madman you might be able to get the other one. It really just depends what they’re flying.
Of course none of this matters if you get solod by guard drones. Just shoot the damn things they pop easy!
The best part is when I turn around to face them while they are sneaking up invisible. They must be like “wth”
Or that time I heard one and I popped mines, he blew up instantly because he was trying to do a kamikaze attack with low HP, but was within mines range while invisible 