Its impractical to try to snipe the pilot. Its not a matter of speed, because people can actually fly faster than the vehicles. The problem resides in the buggy netcode and player prediction within vehicles.
The object prediction is fine and the vehilces update their locations as they normally should. Its the player position that isn't updated promptly enough. So sometimes you'll see the pilot dismount off the vehicle and vice versa.
Heres what I usually do that gives me the upper hand on pilot noobs. A pilot noob is someone who does not know how to use a vehicle to its full potential. Btw Stu is not one of these people, though I wish he would pitchfork enemy defense more often
- Try to shoot the ship out. In most cases the explosion of the ship will kill the pilot.
- Use OS missiles to maim or hurt the pilot, this will force a retreat giving you time to pursue more important matters.
- Grenades are also effective in taking down these things. Its just so happens that the ideal attacking range of an interceptor is the same as a full toss grenade. Don't be stingy, you can always pick up more off a dead body.
- Shotgun. When in spawn you make easier prey. Don't use that plasma rifle, you're not gonna hit shit. Use your shotgun and damage the vehicle and it will explode if your shots are true.
- If you're not keen on sniping, try using chaingun weapons. They're quite effective in killing vehicles and even the pilot inside. The idea is to increase your hit to miss ratio. You're probably gonna miss a lot, but you'll also hit a lot and chew up their vehicles armor.
- Utilize high yield explosives. A phase disruptor might not be ideal for the situation if you try to mid air them, and you might just hurt yourself more by getting locked into the reload animation but if you catch an enemy driving low just shoot one off next to them. You'll be happy you did.
- Use an interceptor yourself, and kamikaze. If you are skilled enough you can actually ram other pilots right out of their ship and kill them. Promptly destroy your vehicle then hijack theirs and drive it far out of bounds. Eventually they wont be able to deploy anymore
- When dog fighting apc's or lpc's it is ideal to use a fighter instead of interceptor. The explosive trajectory deals more damage and has a more consistent hit when dealing with larger targets. Sometimes the interceptor will just shoot through the vehicle because of shitty netcode.
