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Winged Warriors

WAR PIG

Written by Isnagov

Winged Warriors Halo 3 Warthog   In Halo 3, the king of map control is the warthog. With strong armor, good handling, and the onboard gunner the hog can control, with only two people, an area that would take four men on foot. But along with the strengths of the hog come weaknesses. What follows is a guide of how to best utilize the hog, bringing it into dominance while avoiding its common pitfalls.

   

1. The Rule of Two
    The hog is a three person vehicle: a driver, a gunner, and a passenger. You should never use the hog for ANY purpose unless it requires at least two of the previously listed positions. DO NOT use the hog to transport just yourself to the battlefield. DO NOT use the turret in a stationary hog. DO NOT sit in a hog without a driver, even if you are waiting. For all three situations you are a sitting duck, a poorly defended target, and a waste of a powerful tool. REMEMBER, the hog is for no less than two passengers.

2. Codependent
    Since each job requires two people, remember that if you need two people, then both people have to work together to achieve the hog's goals. You can't slay half the other team if the driver is never bringing you near the right targets. And you can't keep the hog alive if the gunner won't keep track of and eliminate threats. Also, the passenger must remember that they have a weapon as well. A passenger that sits waiting to be dropped off is waiting to die.

    For all of the multiple combinations of hog occupants communication is key. Make sure you are discussing all the encounters on the map and assessing which one to attack and how to do it. Passengers and drivers talk about timing and drop-off points. Do not assume your driver will pick you up at a certain spot, also drivers don't assume where you are going. Coordinate these things so that it is a smoothly times operation. REMEMBER, codependent.

3. Rule of Three
    Now that we have established that you need two players in every hog, and that these two players must have a communicative and symbiotic relationship, let's address three best practices for the hog team:

    A. Follow The Line - Always be moving, never stop. A stopped hog is a turret, which is heavy and slow and an easy grenade target. Never stop. Also, never slow down, the idea that you should slow down is just a lazy version of the stopping idea. Why would you slow down when the hog is fast enough to circle around and finish them off with a second pass? Never stop, never slow down. Never bail out of a hog. While the pinging of a laser or missile may seem ominous that's what you signed up for when you got in the hog. Trust your gunner and driver to evade and eliminate threats to the hog, but bailing means you would rather give up the map control king to save your useless life. Your life is the hog's life. Never stop, never slow down, and never bail.

    To accomplish all of this FOLLOW A LINE. The idea of a line is from racing games. You find the route that allows for the smoothest turning and least deceleration and stick to that path for the whole lap. Doing this with a hog allows you to constantly be blazing past targets and eliminating one or two before they are able to react. If your human teammates are playing your advantage well, even if you don't kill players your team will eliminate all the ones you have weakened. Follow this line religiously. If you are truly dedicated you should go into maps alone and practice routes, find alternate paths and smooth transitions. Every turn, path, and area has a good entrance exit and control path. REMEMBER, follow the line.

    B. Functional Distance - The hog turret is powerful, and half of its power comes from its mobility at distance. But conversely, it is crippled at short range. At short range the turret's slow rotating speed is painfully obvious and can quickly get you boarded or destroyed. The Functional Distance of a turret must be maintained by the driver so that the gunner is always able to swivel quickly and track targets faster than they can evade. Staying farther out from targets also makes grenade and rocket hits much harder. Tracking a full speed hog with a rocket or grenade is an all-pro move and if you get taken out by that, then it had nothing to do with you, you just got rocked is all. Finding a good LINE to follow usually takes this distance into account. REMEMBER, maintain a functional distance at all times.

    C. OTPR - Remember FOIL? First, outside, inside, last? The algebraic idea of prioritizing operations to solve a problem correctly. You have priorities, but each one is different and must be approached as such. Arrange them so that you focus on the escaping objectives, then the most threatening targets, then the most powerful targets, and finally map control. An escaping flag carrier would come before eliminating a banshee, but a banshee would come before a random player. REMEMBER, OTPR: Objectives, Threats, Power Weapons, Map Control.

4. I Am Not A Platypus
    The hog is and can be a lot of things, but it is also NOT a lot of things as well. Let's go over the things a warthog IS NOT:

  1. NOT a personal vehicle.
  2. NOT a first choice for transportation, say hi to the faster MONGOOSE.
  3. NOT disposable, don't leave it unless it is destroyed with you in it.
  4. NOT a battering ram, you drive to be fast not kill, gunners kills people.
  5. NOT a tour bus. If you ride in it, you kill in it. If you see in it, you shoot in it.

5. Futuremind
    Hogs should always be driving fast, hogs that drive fast eventually flip, it just happens. We wish it didn't but when you start to consider your next spawn point as you fly through the air upside down into a waterfall, consider this instead, your hog is fine, it's just upside down flying into a waterfall. A good driver will try to right a spinning hog despite the odds.

    STEP ONE: Understand that your hog has four functional aspects when not on all fours: acceleration, deceleration, wheel maneuvering, and, most importantly, momentum. The quick combination and application of these four will correct the trajectory and landing of most hogs.

    STEP TWO: All tossed hogs are dealing with only two possible problems. The hog is spinning too fast or the hog is spinning too slowly. It may seem like more than that, but trust me, it's not. A hog that is spinning too fast can be shot over and over again before it settles and will be destroyed or the passengers will be killed. Also, a quickly spinning hog usually lands upside down or inoperably. A hog that is spinning too slowly will just roll onto its side and pop the occupants out of it, usually landing upside down or inoperably. Hmm, do both sentences end the same? Well, gosh, I guess that they do.

    STEP THREE: You need to combine your knowledge of steps one and two to adjust the speed of the hog so that it will land correctly. Here are a few common combinations that you should learn:

SIDE ROLLS
If it is rolling too FAST, turn into the roll and decelerate when your wheels touch surface.
If it is rolling too SLOW, turn into the roll and accelerate when your wheels touch surface.

END ROLLS
If the front end kicks up decelerate quickly to pull your back wheels away from the kick. This should keep your center of gravity low enough to pull the front back down again.
If the back end kicks up, accelerate quickly to pull your front wheels away from the kick. This should keep your center of gravity low enough to pull your back down again.

FLAT LANDINGS
Flat landing are situation where your hog was tossed, but during flight it naturally righted itself and will land basically on all fours. If you are landing end first, accelerate into the landing. If done correctly it should transfer your landing speed right into directional acceleration and not flip you. If you come in sideways, turn away from the landing and accelerate, this should pull the momentum into your rear wheels and spin the hog facing away from the landing direction. If done correctly all your speed gets transferred into your back body and spends itself in the following rotation.

COMPLEX/MULTI-POINT ROLLS
Every once in a while your hog will do something unimaginably twisted. It will flip and spin at the same time. It will land on one wheel and seem to balance perfectly. Once in a while it may even do wheelies up the side of a cliff. Whatever happens becomes a matter of instinct and practice. A FUTUREMIND needs to learn how to see roll, landing, and speed moves far into the toss. Predict what and where each thing will happen and combine the previous ideas together. You will be surprised how many tosses you can come out of still on top.

Isnagov

Published under the Free Documentation License