I wonder how to get better with the shaft. Is there any tutorial on how to correctly use it? I wonder what's the best mouse sensitivity setting, best fakeshaft %, hints how to keep the beam on a moving opponent while moving oneself, anything that makes me a better shafter!

From my experience, good LG comes mostly from good map knowledge. Knowing where your enemy is likely to move, rather than actually follow him based on reactions.

Other than that, your hardware is pretty important. Good mouse with no acceleration and 500/1000 hz on USB-port, good pad, screen with 100+ hz and low input lag if lcd (crt is the best for shafting), and stable 308+ fps.

I use a MX518 and play on a 60Hz laptop screen. As mouse pad I just use my sofa. Have to check my FPS, but I don't think it's over 300. Maybe I should spend some money on equipment

Thanks for the hints!

Sitting on the sofa using a part of it as mousepad while trying to play qw sounds like your major problem here

What Rikoll said, good shaft comes from map knowledge and obviously decent gear will help you by a long shot. What I used to do back in the days when I wanted to improve my shaft was to play DMM4 (deathmatch mode 4, basically you spawn with every weapon and full armor/health) on various popular maps. Say I play DM6 for example with a friend, we used to always base our fights around the Red armor area, maybe play 5-6 matches everyday (shaft only) just on that area alone, then move on to the next, say Bigroom on dm6 (with the shaft hatch) and continue on to various other maps and situations. This gives you a good knowledge of how the opponent will act and will teach you how to aim properly. Also watching demos of other good shafters help, you will notice different techniques that you can also use, play the map povdmm4 vs an equal opponent for example, you'll definitely notice an overall improvement in LG efficiency from playing this map.

I'm actually lying on my sofa, with my left arm at the laptop on the little table beside it and my right arm pushing the mouse across the sofa. Not very sporty I admit

Arnstein and me play povdmm4 to train LG. He's slightly better and I'm looking for the ultimate trick to pwn him

That's the spirit!! =) hf crushing him =)
for mouse pad i recommend Roccat Taito. for shaft aim i recommend what valla said =)

What helped me was a good crosshair, as visible as possible, and making sure I aim with the crosshair and ignore the beam. But I am a lousy shafter anyway.

I think exactly opposite: my LG crosshair is barely visible and I correct my aim only on the shaft beam (fakeshaft 2 because my EU ping doesnt accept fakeshaft 0 for obvious reasons)

heh, so much talk about equipment but barely anything about "how to shaft".

Though I can't say I actually know how to put that in words either and my shaft isn't the best.
But I would definetly say that there are more of 'tutorial' information you could get about how to shaft that would definetly improve your shafting skill without having to buy blabla mouse/pad/monitor, it gives a boost sure but equipment is far from the major part of aiming.

Only tip I could give about how to shaft is try to move your mouse as little as possible while shafting, try to read your opponents movements and use strafing to hit with your shaft, try to use the mouse to adjust your aim as little as you can, because when you get a good shaft in your mouse is basically standing still while you're just using strafeing to keep the shaft onto your opponent.
One thing I do when my shaft is missing is to stop shooting, and redirect my aim so I feel I got a good aim locked on the enemy then I start shafting again, instead of being stuck missing for a long period because I can't get into "my flow" or the flow of the enemy if you may.

I have to agree with rkd. Try to use the mouse until you hit the enemy and then adjust with strafing and only minimal with the mouse.

In the beginning I had a horrible aim, so I started to play povdmm4 against bots (the lgc3 version) and had my weapon status visible, so that I could exactly see when I got off of the enemy. But you need to play 1on1 a lot as well, since povdmm4 ist mostly aiming on a flat ground, in real maps you have stairs different floors and so on. But I found it a good start to get a basic shaft aim and it will help you a lot winning direct LG to LG confrontations.

Well thanks, it works I always tried to strafe not to be hit, and move the mouse to keep the beam on the opponent. If I don't move the mouse and just aim by strafing, I'm not worse dodging the enemy but have better aim. Might be enough for Arnstein

Yeah all good advice but if your mouse sens. is 2cm/360 you are not going to hit much

So make sure its not too high. You can also use lower sens. or even lower fov for shaft only.
You can calculate your sensitivity here http://www.notalent.org/sensitivity/sensitivity.htm and here http://www.funender.com/quake/mouse/index.html

A couple of years ago when I was really good at shafting I used a CRT, Razer DA and played a loot of povdmm4.

For me a small dot as crosshair was most efficient, I only had that as reference point and actually was more interested in the beam.

Back then I played on Windows and i must say it's a huge difference regarding mouse input compared to my current linux setup, it's much harder to get higher
percentage in Linux for me atleast. I tried switching to Windows and instantly got better accuracy of the shaft. Most likely due to me being used to play
on windows, or it just fit me better, I dunno.

As many has said already, a proper place and setup is of big importance, but the most important thing is to practice and get that feeling that you are comfortable with the shaft, that you know your weapon

That totally doesn't make any sense to me. Are you saying Linux is somehow inherently inferior to Window w.r.t to mouse input? Could it just be ezQuake that is inferior on Linux (assuming you use ezQuake)? Personally, I use Fodquake, and my LG accuracy is at least as good in Linux as in Windows (I get slightly better FPS in Linux). Also, changing mouse polling rate couldn't be easier than on Linux.

So guess who beat Arstein on povdmm4 tonight Thanks for all the tips!

I have about 4cm per turn. I also use only a dot as crosshair. A big crosshair confuses me.

Tonight I was also pwned by H1N1 and he told me that on some servers there's something called antilag that works bad with fakeshaft. I have fakeshaft disabled anyway.

nono, antilag needs fakeshaft, set it to 2, or try other values like .8 (its 80%). on x4all servers, turn it off i suggest, because thoose servers doesnt have antilag. If you want to find out wich server has antilag, just type serverinfo to the console. 4 cm is very high sens, i would try 12-14 cm, that is about middle. gl hf (h1n1 is me )

I strongly agree on ~15cm for 360degree turn

Have seen eachother killing from sg by myself and bps on wargamez past week in 4v4.
Its not possible to be in real qw physics at all, but with antilag code its possible.
Youve been change the game physics and rules, dont like it.

How is this related to the thread?


If you think you found a bug on antilag code, go bother Qqshka and maybe he'll fix it, if qw-dev is fixed by Deurk.