Ah, the sweet sound of weapons fire on Titan. It's as precious as the sound of a cash register to those who know how to work a dogfight. Anytime you hear a cannon or missile being fired, there's a potential for cash, amnesty, or both.

The first thing you need to do is to keep your ears open for the hiss of a Groundbase or the tap of laser on steel. Immediately upon hearing weapons fire, look at your radar in the lower right of your HUD. Fly toward any nearby grouping of Moths and start hitting your Next Target key ("y" by default).

A Typical Scenario

Lets look at working a typical dogfight. You hear a Plasma Kannon going off and see a moth at the far corner of your radar. Head toward it and start targeting with the Next Target key.

You see two Moths, both with low shields. One has some cargo and the other doesn't. The one with cargo is almost certainly a trader or scavenger being attacked by the other who is a pirate on the Police Wanted List. Now go to work.

First, kill the Moth carrying the cargo you want. Target the first piece of cargo and pick it up. While waiting for your drone, target the surviving Moth. He's your ticket to quick amnesty.

Pick up all the cargo you can and then blast the pirate. He'll already be a little weakened and needing power from his previous dogfight. Kill him, get any cargo he may have, and sell your catch.

If the pirate flies off, you'll probably find him at the nearest Light Well.

Working A Dogfight

1) The first part of working a dogfight is finding one. If you fly around through several craters you'll come across one. The two big signs to look/listen for are weapons fire and Moths with low shields. These are both indications that a dogfight is in progress or just finished.

2) Once you see the first signs of a dogfight, stop and use Radar Range immediately. See who all is around you. Use your knowledge of pilot names to determine if you've run across some simple piracy or factions business. Just get a quick, general feel of what's probably going on.

If the dogfight is at the edge of your radar range, fly toward any grouping of moths you see on your radar screen.

3) Head toward the Moth you think is a pirate. Begin using the Next Target function to see if there is any valuable cargo involved. There ususally is. If not, at least you've got an opportunity for a quick bounty.

4) Grab as much booty as you can. This is your first priority. Next kill the pirate(s) you let live in the previous step. If they've started attacking you, you're damaged, or you just don't need amnesty at the moment, go ahead and sell your booty.

Analyzing A Dogfight

As you're targeting Moths involved in or around a dogfight, try to get an idea of what's going on and where the best bet for money is.

There are basically three reasons dogfights occur:

Piracy

Somone is on someone else's Enemies List

There's been a misfire that's escalated into a dogfight

Your first priority in targeting is to look for cargo. That's your main interest. Keep targeting and "taking names", but concentrate on targeting until you've found cargo.

Your second priority is trying to find who the pirate is, if there is one. He'll be the one firing at the Moth with cargo.

If there is no cargo, there's still a bounty. Use Radar Range to find the pirate and beat everyone to the kill to collect a quick bounty. This works great for getting amnesty, too.

Faction Situations

A common situation you'll come across, especially in Alpha and Gamma, is a pirate attacking a faction transport. This gets sticky because when you attack the transport with the cargo, faction patrols will target you along with the other pirate. Fortunately, they'll generally try to kill him before coming for you because he attacked first. These are great dogfights to work, especially if you needed amnesty from the faction involved anyway.

First, target and note the name of the pirate attacking the faction transport. He's going to save your bacon and eventually be your ticket to amnesty. Now target and destroy the faction transport.

Begin picking up the first piece of cargo and target the pirate. Faction patrols will be attacking him, not you (hopefully), because he attacked the transport first. Pay special attention to his shields. Don't let them kill him or you've lost your chance for quick amnesty. Not only that, as soon as the faction patrols kill him, they'll be coming for you.

Pick up the booty quickly and kill the original pirate. If you see his shields dropping, leave some cargo (not your drone) and rush to kill him and get amnesty. If you do this before a faction patrol targets you, you can recover any remaining cargo without worrying about faction attack.

If the faction patrols kill the original pirate, things get dicey. They'll be coming for you immediately. You'll need to grab what you can and run. You'll have to get amnesty another way. That's why it's important to be the one who kills the original pirate.

It's a good idea to lay back a little when working dogfights like the one above. If the transport's shields are down and there's no hangar around, they may jettison their cargo without you having to attack anyone. In this case, grab the cargo and kill the pirate anyway. You'll get a bounty and he'll already be weakened from fighting the transport (and possible patrols).

Quick Bounties

When you see one Moth shooting at another and no cargo is involved, look things over. Be especially mindful of any cargo that might be on the ground. If you don't see any, try determining which Moth is the pirate and kill them for a quick bounty.

The most common quick bounty situation is a faction blasting away at someone in a Light Well. If you come across this, kill the target yourself. Don't waste a missile, just rap 'em good with your laser. Grab the bounty and move on.

If you need amnesty from a faction, you can often fly through one of their craters and find them attacking someone else on their Enemies List. Try to get to the Moth they're attacking and kill it yourself. This is a very fast way to get amnesty later in the game.

Remember that faction patrols and enforcers don't just quit attacking you once you get amnesty. You'll need to get out of the area and give these guys a day or so to cool off.

Summary

1) Keep an ear open for the sound of weapons fire and an eye out for Moths with low shields. These are the signs of a dogfight.

2) Find the dogfight. Use your radar to fly toward the nearest group of Moths and Radar Range to get a preview of the players in this little drama. Use Next Target to see who has what and what condition the players are in.

3) Analyze a dogfight before you jump in it. What can you get out of it: booty, bounty, or amnesty? What order should you do things in? Always get booty first and amnesty last unless you need to get amnesty immediately before you are targeted by patrols. Then kill for amnesty first and get the booty second.

4) Don't just fly off because you don't see any cargo. You can make a quick bounty of a $1000 or so just by making a quick kill if you analyze the situation and find the pirate. This eventually becomes second nature and you'll get tens of thousands of dollars this way over the course of an average game.