WC3 - How in the world do you 'slide'?

N

niklaos

Spaceman
Hi all,

Bought WC3 again off ebay, for $5 australian.

I'm loving it so much, but i hear of everyone 'sliding' around to avoid being hit etc. I cant find the control for how to do this? All i know is to increase and decrease speed, and use my mouse to aim and shoot lol

Anyone able to help me? The idea of being able to stay alive abit longer sounds great! The control sheet that came with the game doesn't list slide anywhere on it..

And it had afterburners set as "TAB" when infact I have to press "~" to enable then "CAPS LOCK" to afterburn..

wierd.

Cheers.
 
Not all ships can slide. The Arrow and the Excalibur can. We have the WC3 game controls online here.
 
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My phantom edit was late. I usually keep the auto-slide key (caps lock) pressed while I slide, but you can toggle it as well. If you need to cross a long distance, get up to speed with the tab key before enabling autoslide.
 
hmm my version must be wierd

"~" does toggle the afterburner to enable it

but mine has "caps" as the afterburning

and "tab" doesnt seem to do anything, i might mess with it all when I get home
 
I have never tried the shelton slide, thou I will have to try one day when Im playing. At the moment I am replaying Prophecy/without secret ops ..... :( and I might see which fighters can do the shelton unless they cant....
 
The Shelton slide always played a major role in deciding which ship to use. I never effectively used it as an actual combat maneuver. I found it to be most useful for extending your afterburner time. If you use slide while at full afterburner speed, you'll hold that speed without using up afterburner fuel. This is useful for patroling nav points without pressing autopilot and escaping from your enemies. This is also useful for leading enemies back to your fleet so your destroyers can shoot them down. With the slide function, you can quickly move in and out of nav points in order to accomplish patrol objectives or search for the primary objective (transports, finding Flint, etc.) without having to actually engage the enemy.
 
By Crazy WC Physics! (TM)
BTW, IF you afterburn a bit and then turn shaprly 90° to the left or right, you will slide sideways a bit.

Concerning the TAB, ~ and CAPS LOCK thing, this is PRETTY weird. WC3 always uses the same keys... And in EVERY SINGLE wc game, TAB is afterburner.

Are using some kind of non standard keyboard?
 
Edfilho said:
By Crazy WC Physics! (TM)
Click to expand...

Actually, the slide works by turning *off* crazy WC physics. ;)

Here's a quick primer:

- Ships in WC move under pulse fusion drives similar to the (very real) Orion and Daedalus drives.
- The fuel for fusion pulses is interstellar hydrogen
- Interstellar hydrogen is collected using a Bussard RamScoop field.


Here's where things get a little wonky:

- Ramscoop fields are generated via the use of monopole magnets, remnents of the universe's creation. No new monopole magnets can be created, so they are highly sought after in ship building.
- The ramscoop produces sufficient drag against interstellar matter to allow allow ships to bank and perform other "aerial" maneuvers.
- Afterburning is accomplished by streamlining the ramscoop field to channel all the interstellar hydrogen collected directly into the fusion reaction. This bypassing of the fuel tank effectively doubles the fuel flow into the fusion reaction. Unfortunately, fighters run at a slight fuel deficit. As a result, they have a limited fuel supply and thus range.


Here's where physics return to the land of all things normal:

- By disabling the ramscoop field, a fighter's drag against the intersteallar medium becomes insignificant. The resulting effect is that it continues on whatever course and speed were set before the field was switched off. This is called the "Shelton Slide."

Anything I'm missing LOAF? :)
 
I know the explanations... but ingame everything related to physics in WC is crazy. And, of course, I think it's just fine, because it is FUN.
 
The Physics of WC are very good, gameplay-wise.

Oh, the ships somehow dump inertia requires constant acceleration to keep moving. If you turn of your engines, you stop. That doesn't mean there's no inertia, however. Since WC1 you can use the Shelton Slide maneuver.

That change from game to game. On WC3 and WC4, it doesn’t work well. On WCP and SO, inertia is back. Pressing the Caps Lock on the Arrow and other ships from WC3 on also allow you to drift without the inertia-dumping effect, what can be useful to reach distant targets without using afterburner fuel, or for making attack runs on capital ships.
 
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