Overview
Some tips and things to expect when you’re new to Strike Vector.This guide was written after only having played for 4-5 hours.A lot of my tips come from strategies I use in normal shooting games.
Strike Vector – What to expect?
So you’ve heard of it, the jet-based fast-paced shooter known as Strike Vector.
But should you buy it?
My first tip, is to never buy from the Steam Store unless it’s on sale.
My second tip, is to always see if you can obtain it some other way, such as trading. I got this game for $10 when it was $25.
Is it worth paying for?
That depends on your preferences and how willing you are to learn the mechanics of a new game.
When you first try out the game, it’s going to be very disorienting. You will crash into walls a lot, you will find yourself unable to kill anyone much less aim at them, and you will find yourself feeling like everyone one hit KOs you all the time. You will end up with very negative scores because crashing subtracts from your score and your “kill count”.
Don’t be disheartened by it!
It only took me 2-3 hours of practice to get used to the flying and another hour to get used to not crashing into walls and whatnot. I can even weave through some pretty tight spaces and escape enemy players.
Once you get used to the flying you’ll progressively keep getting better until you’re really on par with the people who always seem to top score.
By the time you stop crashing into walls, you’ll find yourself never getting negative scores. The only way to go negative is to crash into walls. So if you can avoid crashing at all costs while going for kills, you’ll at least have a score of zero and more importantly be able to get a positive score.
Flying – The Basics
The first basic issue will be your orientation. Your ship will constantly spin uncontrollably, you won’t be able to stay right side up, your ship will move extremely fast and be hard to control, and you’ll constantly keep accidently exploding into that wall.
There are two different flight modes. “Jet” mode and “Harrier” mode. These can be switched by pressing Space [default key].
There are a few ways to describe Jet mode.
Jet mode is like sprinting is one way to describe it if you really want to compare this game to actual First Person Shooters. Another way to describe Jet mode is the “Racing Game” mode. More accurately, a jet based racing game. The controls are very much like controlling an airplane or helicoptor or car or anything kind of fast moving vehicle with a gun. You’re literally operating a jet. You can press Ctrl to see behind you because it’s otherwise difficult to actually perform a 180 degree spin in this mode.
You will find that while in Jet mode, as long as you hold down A or D, your ship will spin. Do not hold down A and D all the time, they do not move you left or right that way and will only disorient you when used improperly (held down constantly).
To control your left and right or up and down movement, you have to aim your cursor in the direction you want to move. W and S (up and down) control your speed. Holding down W makes you boost forward in Jet mode and S makes you slow down.
Don’t use S to slow down while in Jet mode. Instead, switch to Harrier mode if you need to stop fast. Here are a few pointers:
1. Don’t switch too late. If you have momentum from Jet mode, and switch to harrier point blank next to a wall, you will crash and die.
2. In Jet mode, no matter what, if you bump a wall from the front, you will take massive damage and most likely die. Sometimes you get lucky and bounce off, only to crash into the wall again and die because you’re boosting forwards anyway. Even if you’re not holding W for the speed boost, you’ll take massive damage and most likely die. Grazing walls on the sides will do minor damage. In Harrier mode, you can fly into walls all you want and take no damage as long as you’ve slowed down first.
3. Switching from Jet to Harrier allows you to stop very quickly. It’s also a great way to stop and 180. You can’t 180 in Jet mode without doing a huge loop due to turn restrictions.
I highly suggest disabling Jet Auto-roll. This forces your ship to rotate in order to align itself with the horizon (make you face right side up). You should abandon the notion of being “upside down” or “right side up” and instead focus on “not hitting that wall” or more importantly “facing in whatever direction the enemy is in”. Ignore the angle the landscape is in, fly through it sideways or even upside down. It doesn’t really matter, I fly sideways a lot of the time and usually only need to orient myself right side up to grab repair kits that are on the floor of an area.
Once you get used to flying around by aiming your cursor, if you haven’t already, you can focus on getting used to using A and D during your flight as well. I can’t explain how to use it in relation to your flying because it’s simply one of those things you have to “feel”.
Some people may talk about “rebinding W”. This is no longer an issue. The problem used to be, that in Jet mode, your W key wasn’t actually bound to activate the Jet mode post-combustion and thus you wouldn’t boost forwards as fast. It worked fine for me when I got the game.
This game also allows you to Do A Barrel Roll. To Do A Barrel Roll you must double-tap A or D to perform the Barrel Roll. Because A and D also rotate your screen in jet mode, your screen will start to do that whenever you Do A Barrel Roll.
Try spamming Barrel Rolls. The Barrel Roll can help a little with dodging things. If you Do A Barrel Roll just as soon as a homing rocket is about to hit you, you might even be able to avoid it. You might even be able to avoid someone else’s aim by using it.
Next up, is Harrier mode.
Harrier mode, or “Hover mode”, is like aiming down scopes. You move slower to help with your aiming accuracy. You can even actually scope in while in this mode like you would with a sniper rifle. My way of describing this mode would be more accurately “Human mode”. You can stay in one place and look around you. You can slowly navigate spaces as if you were walking through them. The only difference from a human standing on the ground is that you’re a human with a jet pack. And you might be upside-down a lot of the time. One small thing to note is that switching to Harrier mode will rotate you to be right side up.
In Harrier mode, you will find your aim much less restricted. You can actually turn around 180 degrees on the spot with your mouse for example.
A and D will make you move left and right instead of rotating your screen. Fortunately, you can still Do A Barrel Roll even though it will actually only be a regular dash.
W and S make you move forwards and backwards, just like in Jet mode. You can move around just like you would in Jet mode if you want, but it may be more effective to also pay attention to your E and F keys which make you move upwards or downwards (rise and sink) while in this mode.
Basically think of it like leaving a car – you’re a human again and can look around. You’re also much slower than a car and are probably easier to hit.
Surviving.
Ever manage to get in the Top 3 in Bounty Hunter only to get chased down instantly by everyone? Ever get piled by 4 enemy ships in a Team mode?
1. Learn to fly. Learn to fly in Jet mode. Go practice the flying basics again if you’re still crashing into walls often. If people are literally knocking you into walls, that’s different, and read on.
Practice going in jet mode and weaving through tight spaces with your boosters on. Remember that cutting a corner means your enemy can’t aim at you until they cut it too.
You can switch to Harrier mode to do a quick 180 and go in the opposite direction. It’s a great way to temporarily or completely lose people chasing you down when you stop and go in the opposite direction while they’re still flying the other way and have to realize you turned around.
Do not fly straight, even in open spaces. Wiggle yourself up and down or left and right. This will make it harder for anything to hit you, especially rocket users.
If you know the person chasing you is specifically using rockets, you can probably also time dodges or Barrel Rolls against their fire rate while dodging. Try to imagine the person aiming at your or you aiming at someone and try to move off of that cursor.
If someone is extremely persistent in chasing you down, turn around and fight. If they’ve been chasing you down for a while, maybe you can even catch them by surprise by suddenly attacking them. I’ve managed to clear myself of danger by directly killing the danger a few times.
Use boost rings. If you fly through a lot of them, you can get very far from people very fast, and it may be tricky for them to get through. Since you also move much faster, it’ll be harder for attacks to hit you. You can outrun missiles for example. Remember to try not to fly straight to them, because that’s predictable.
If you really need to, you can be tricky about it. In Harrier mode, boost rings do not boost you at all. In Jet mode, even if you’re moving as slow as possible, it will boost you. You could do something like, approach the boost ring, switch into Harrier as you pass throug hit, turn around, and boost in the opposite direction. If the person chasing you jetted on through it, you are now both moving very fast in opposite directions.
If you get good at running, people will get bored of chasing. Some people love chasing, in which case you have two options.
1. Turn around and fight.
2. Try to lose them in a crowd, if there is one. If it’s bounty hunter, then the crowd might be chasing you and all I can say is it takes skill to stay in the top 3.
Keep “Area of Control” in mind. Use your radar. Do not run into a group of 4 enemy ships on your radar. Try to find people who are alone and single them out. Only attack groups if you have groups to back you up.
In regards to the radar, there are things you can do to stay hidden from it.
While in Harrier mode, you don’t appear on the radar.
While in Jet mode, you will instantly appear on the radar while boosting.
You appear on the radar while attacking.
There is one perk that makes you harder to track on the radar as people have to get closer. Another perk allows you to see enemies who are farther away.
I’m not sure about this one, but I believe if you’re in jet mode and not boosting, you only appear if you’re close to people. I think it also depends on whether or not they are actually facing your direction while you aren’t behind an obstacle. Again, I’m not entirely sure.
Health packs. Learn to grab them without crashing. Learn to grab them in jet mode as opposed to going into Harrier mode to safely grab them.
Harrier mode is still useful though! It’s a great way to get into small spaces. If you need to, just switch to Harrier mode to fit into a small tunnel, then aim out of the tunnel and switch to jet mode. Don’t try to jet through small cracks while you’re in a pinch unless you’re really good at it and are sure you won’t crash.
If you want to grab some health scattered on the ground, be wary of your enemy’s weapon. It might be tempting to go into Harrier mode to grab 3 packs, but this could be fatal if they have a rocket launcher and you position yourself next to a wall. It may as well be better to jet through, grab one, and keep up with evasive maneuvers until you can run into another somewhere else.
Some people say Nanomachines is like painting a big target on yourself. I usually use it at around 50 HP only if I’m being chased and so far it really helps me get away from people. To me it feels like having the shield but for a longer amount of time. I don’t worry about healing enemies because I usually only use it to escape and they have to get really close for very small benefit if they want to leach off of it. Shield might be better if you get used to even quicker paced fighting and actually counter attacking with it. Do note that the Tesla can counter Nanomachines quite effectively, which is probably one reason Shield is better.
In general, I usually go with the Fuel Siphon or Fast Amigo perk. I usually go Fuel Siphon for bounty hunter where I run away with cash a lot, or Fast Amigo for general fighting. But that all depends on your playstyle. Seeing enemies farther or being less detectable, defense, etc are all good too.
Fighting.
Once you’ve got Flying under control, you can start Fighting.
Starting out, I had no clue whether or not I was hitting people. I was definitely getting hit though. Here’s some information on how it works.
To tell whether or not your hitting people, pay attention to your cursor. When you hit, it shows an X over it as a hit marker.
The game also has hitsounds, that are very well hidden. To “enable” them, set your ambient sound settings to max, and the rest to nearly empty. I didn’t make the rest silent because not having the extra sounds makes the game feel awkward to me.
One note: There is no differentiation between a “strong” and a “weak” hitsound. You’ll just have to get used to how much damage each weapon does in order to get an idea of how fast you should expect people to die.
Try increasing your field of vision. The default is 110. I seem to be able to go up to 140 without it being too weird. The higher your field of vision, the more you can see behind or around you and chase people down. The trade off is that it will make things appear smaller or father away, so only use really high FoV’s if you think you can really adapt to it. 150-170 are really bizarre for me enough that I’d never be able to play them. Additionally, with lower/default FoV it’s easier to weave through small things. You’re more likely to crash accidently at high FoV’s just because you’re zoomed out more and can’t pay attention to that small thing you just ran into as easily.
Another big thing this affects is your ability to aim in Jet and Harrier mode. It seems that the lower your FoV, the easier it is to aim in Harrier mode and harder in Jet mode. At higher FoV, it seems easier for me to aim in Jet mode and harder in Harrier mode if I have Harrier Free-Aim disabled. With it disabled, Harrier Mode centers your orientation on your cursor, forcing your aim to the center of the screen while rapidly rotating your ship. In free mode, it’s like Jet mode, which can make it harder to spin around. I recommend keeping it disabled for lower FoV and enabling it (unlocking your aim from the center) if you decide to go with a very high FoV. In the end, it depends on what you’re able to get used to.
To change your FoV, press ` to open the developer console. (The button to the left of “1”).
Then, type in the following command: An alternate way of getting to the developer console is to open the chat and backspace until the “say” or team say command is gone, because that actually uses the same console.
fov 140
You can change 140 to whatever number you want. Max is 170 and default is 110.
There is no option for it yet, and this will have to be reapplied every map change.
I have made a script that actually toggles between default FoV and a custom FoV.
SetBind FovToggle “fov 110 | SetBind x ToggleFov”
SetBind ToggleFov “fov 140 | SetBind x FovToggle”
SetBind x FovToggle
You only need top copy+paste each line into your console once for this key to be saved as a toggle. Credits to this wiki[udn.epicgames.com] for having the documentation I needed to make the bind.
With bullet weapons like the gatling gun, you can best tell if you’re hitting someone by seeing whether or not your cursor changes to an X symbol while you’re aiming at them. Bullet weapons are not hitscan, but generally if you have your cursor directly on someone, you will be hitting them. The gatling gun and LMG are not hitscan. You will need to lead your targets in some cases.
Missile weapons, such as the Carabine and Missile launcher, have travel time. It might seem hard to airshot ships that can move in any direction, so your best bet for getting people is if they 1 on 1 you in Harrier mode until you can actually get those air shots. With enough practice, you can also start trying to track people in Jet mode.
One important tip with missile weapons, is that they do have a blast radius. You will be able to splash people next to walls.
For the homing missiles, it will not do you any good to just shoot them randomly. I think they probably do fly towards the closest target, but you want to actually mouse-over your cursor in the enemy till you hear a few beeps and see a red box around them. This means you’ve locked on to them. I believe you have to continuously aim at them to keep them continuously locked on, but I’m not entirely sure. It seems like it’s safe to leave them after firing.
I suggest starting out with Carabine for a bit if you want to eventually get used to the normal rocket launcher.
Aim your swarm missiles. These missiles don’t actually turn very sharply. (Neither do homing missiles, actually). You want to aim them directly at your intended target. I’m not sure if the targeting system as with the homing missiles applies to them too, as I haven’t used them enough to pay attention to that. I seem to do generally fine with just aiming them straight at my enemy though. You cannot just rely on shooting them in some random direction and expect them to 180 into the guy who’s flying behind you.
Also, let all of the rockets reload before you fire again, instead of spam firing them. If you spam fire, it’ll only shoot one each time, as opposed to a swarm of 4-8.
The shotgun is hitscan. Just click directly on your target. It should take quite a few shots to kill someone unless you get a full on point blank shot.
As with that, comes with tips on how to aim. In Jet mode, it’s generally a lot harder to aim. I often switch to Harrier when I want to start aiming. I usually only switch when I’m closer to an enemy as well, and gun them down while I’m still in Jet if I’m trying to close in on them. Harrier mode is basically like actually standing on the ground in an FPS and looking around you. Jet mode is like actually being in a jet, having your aim restricted to what’s in front of you, and having a hard time shooting at anything behind you.
Do not get in a habit of flying giant loops in jet mode in order to try to rotate yourself towards an enemy. Instead, go into Harrier and 180 almost instantly and then go into Jet mode again if you need to chase them.
As far as weapon selection goes, dual rockets seems to be one of the main choices for veteran players. Starting out, it’s fine to use the homing or swarm missiles. To veteran players it could potentially be like not equipping a weapon however. I’m still not too great but seem to do okay sometimes with gatling and swarm. I don’t like to go dual gatling because if I’m missing, I’m completely missing. In the case of gatling and swarm, I can be missing with the gatling gun and probably still get them with some missiles.
That seems to be less of an issue with dual rockets, but I have noticed it to be easier to escape from people using dual rockets. I’ve also made use of the Carabine fairly well. If you want to get good, I suggest trying everything eventually and learning how to get good with everything.
One final tip, you can disable the weird mouse acceleration by editing this file…
C:Program Files (x86)SteamSteamAppscommonStrikeVectorUDKGameConfigUDKInput.ini
Change
bEnableMouseSmoothing=true
To
bEnableMouseSmoothing=false
In your options, I repeat, I recommend disabling Jet-Autoroll. This forces your jet to constantly spin to where it’s right side up (aligned with the horizon) so you aren’t upside down all the time. You should not be caring about whether or not your right side up. It makes no difference. Instead, care about whether or not you are in a direction facing your enemies.
If you want the game to be brighter, max out your Gamma Correction.
Other than that, I was pretty much fine with the default controls. In that UDKInput file I changed my LookRightScale and LookUpScale to both be 300. Well, my LookUpScale is -300 apparently.
Chasing
I’m really no good at this yet, and can offer little information.
My only tip for now is to abuse the position you and the person you are chasing are in. Someone is running away from you because you’re strong, or they’re weak, or they’re overwhelmed. A good player probably will never be in a situation where they’re running away.
If you’re too strong for them, you probably don’t need this guide.
Assuming they are weakened or being overwhelmed, they might be aiming for repair kits. If you have the rocket launcher, this is a great time to abuse predictable movements and aim at the group of repair kits they’re flying into. With any weapon, they might stop in Harrier mode for a second to get those health kits.
Other than that, try to keep your cursor on the enemy or lead your targets on them.
You can also use Harrier mode as a form of “cutting corners”. For example, if someone is in a panic escaping in Jet mode and decides to do a big loopy-loop, you could just go into Harrier and boost straight to the location they are looping to and cut them off.
Keybindings / Configs
I had some configuration stuff scattered throughout the guide, but I’ll repeat them here for people who are only interested in that stuff.
I suggest disabling Jet Auto-Roll.
To toggle your FoV, you can use this bind:
[link]Or if you don’t want to toggle it and just want to set it to the custom FoV, you can use this one:
[link]Alternatively, I made another bind for myself that makes your FoV large in Jet mode and default in Harrier mode. Included is a different version of the toggle bind above that can be used to fix the SpaceBar bind in case your FoV switching gets stuck switching between the wrong value.
(For example, if you die in Harrier mode and get stuck with the large FoV instead of default, you can switch it back with x).
[link]To disable mouse smoothing for better mouse movements, navigate to this file:
C:Program Files (x86)SteamSteamAppscommonStrikeVectorUDKGameConfigUDKInput.ini
Open it with notepad.exe and change the following setting:
EnableMouseSmoothing=true
to
bEnableMouseSmoothing=false
You might also want to change LookRightScale and LookUpScale to the same value for more consistent mouse movements. I have them at LookRightScale=300 and LookUpScale=-300. LookUpScale is negative because the value that was already in UDKInput.ini was initially negative for me.
Max your gamma correction for more brightness.
Max your master volume and ambient sounds to be able to hear hitsounds. Lower all other sound settings to something around or less than 10% of the bar. Mines are probably around 5%.
Extra Information & FAQ.
Q. This reminds me of Star Wars. Is it like Star Wars?
A. It definitely feels like what I’d expect Star Wars to be like. Especially that Inferno map, which reminds me of the Death Star.
Your guide is bad, I have a suggestion!
If you have anything to add, or want to improve one of my tips, please do post in the comments.
My tips/suggestions are based merely on my first 5 hours of gameplay. I wrote this guide literally after 5 hours of gameplay. They may not all be correct and this guide doesn’t cover every little thing. I mostly mentioned stuff that I quickly found to make a difference in my gameplay.
The guide is kinda poorly split up at the moment, which I intend to fix some time.