Tribes2 movie demonstrating shrike flying from one hour’s worth of gameplay, when I had finally gotten into to the point of being an ace pilot, so to speak.
The first 30-minute mission (during the first song) was the first one that I felt I had reached the point of being a good pilot, was my personal high score to date, and I came in with the high score for the mission by a landslide.
The second one was months later, after this had become routine. I would frequently keep my shrikes alive for 20-30 minutes if I didn’t intentionally sacrifice it to get a kill. By then I rarely found any pilots that could best me more than 50% of the time (and only then if they were also very good pilots, otherwise I had probably at least 5:1 on average, but too bad I don’t have recordings of some of the cool dogfights I used to get into), and after that only found one pilot I could not shoot down (though I only went up against him a few times). JetSolo, wherever you are, you sure gave me a needed challenge on Houston Vehicles!
My skill is completely gone. I haven’t kept in practice, and the Reaver controls in Planetside re-programmed my brain. I can’t fight in a shrike anymore. So this movie is my way to remember my golden days of flying.
NOTE– Before you ridicule me for not having a video of uber-leet mad skillz like most of the other videos out there, let me point out this is the way I _usually_ flew, not the extremely good moments. And you’ll also notice that I’m rarely being shot at while hunting my targets. Strategic awareness and carefully choosing targets is what lets you keep flying.
Also, for everyone else, it’s important to realize just how difficult it was to fly one of these things, with a steep learning curve. Between the physics of the vertical thruster, the auto-leveling, inertia, leading the shots, lack of precision in the controls, sluggish overcorrection in the steering, energy management between shooting & afterburner & shield, and so on… the shrike fought you in every possible way, and had many variables that had to be managed. Quickly acquiring a target, killing it, and escaping an incoming missile simultaneously was what it was all about, and was difficult to master. :)
Also note: The BONES mod was primarily an admin mod. It also tweaked things like allowing more turrets and vehicles to be deployed. But the actual vehicles were not modded, with the exception of putting a tank’s chaingun on the belly turret of the bomber.
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