Playing tips (multiplayer)

Some aspects of playing multiplayer missions are very different from singleplayer, and again others are basically the same but require some tweaking due to the latency the comes from playing over the internet. Below are some quick tips that should help get accustomed to playing Multiplayer games on Freespace Open.

Tips

• Weapon Lead: In singleplayer games, the lead indicator will always be correct if the target does not change direction. However, in multiplayer one often has to aim slightly in front of the lead indicator to compensate for latency, as position updates from other players take longer to arrive. The exact amount of extra lead needed depends on your current latency, and may differ depending on host and game participants, so figuring it out in each game is a bit of trial and error.

• Respawns: In multiplayer games, you may have several respawns. In other words, dying is not necessarily the end of the mission as you will simply reappear in a brand new ship as long as you have respawns left. The number of respawns is set by the host, within the limits set by the mission being played.

• Self-Destruct: Using the Shift-End key combination, it is possible to destroy your own ship. This may seem counterproductive, but you may often find yourself out of secondaries or in a badly damaged ship and thus unable to effectively play your part in the mission. Self destructing - as long as your have respawns left - will fix you up with a fully armed ship in perfect condition, which can potentially make the difference between a win and a loss in difficult missions. If you know a mission and knnow that a difficult part of it is coming up, it can also be a good idea to do a pre-emptive self destruct if you are damaged or running low on missiles, even if you still have some fighting ability left. Be aware that deaths do affect your score, so while it is useful, do not self destruct without reason.

Note that Self-Destructing can be used in some situations simply to deprive other people of kills, and is often considered cheating. Know the server rules before self-destructing.

• Communication: In multiplayer games, the 1 key will let you send messages to all participants, and in Team vs Team games the 2 key will let you send messages to your team only. The comms menu (C) functions as normal when brought up.

Lingo

• Fire: Infyrno missiles
• Fish: Pirahna MIRVs, this and "fire" frequently outlawed from mutliplayer games because of their "noob stick" nature
• Lag: "Jumpiness" in a multiplayer game due to slow internet connections. FreeSpace has always had a lag problem, and even modern, high-speed connections have trouble hosting and playing online FreeSpace games.
• Lag bombing: Double-linking your secondary slot, firing, then quickly switching to your other secondary slot and firing it. Continue cyclcing and firing secondary slots until the server finally updates and you must wait to reload. This is often outlawed in multiplayer games.
• SD: Self-Destruct (see above)
• Tab loading: A procedure by which server lag allows one to load a ship with a weapon that it isn't able to carry by default, eg, Helios on a Perseus. Specifically, keep the TAB key held down while you switch ships and quickly jump to the weapons loadout screen to load a prohibited weapon on to your new ship. The server still thinks that you have your old ship selected, and so its "weapons permissions" will not update in time to prevent you from loading something illegal. This usually considered a cheat, but some of the old multiplayer maps were actually made to acommodate this tactic.