A total noob, even worse than me. -1 points FTL.
Don't feel bad, I suck in a Warhawk. I had to learn some more strategies in the Warhawk before I managed to get my Warhawk Recruiting ribbon this past weekend so I could rank up.
Run your own offline game on your own system and practice blowing stuff up with the Warhawk. Drive around in the vehicles. I actually did this and set up a kind of obstacle course by putting up tanks and jeeps and whatnot and practiced using different weapons and learning their effectiveness against each. You learn how much damage each does and if you need to put machine guns into the mix.
To get my ribbon I needed I had to get a vehicle and a troop kill using a Warhawk. I quickly realized that a TOW missile is a good one-hit kill weapon for all of these things, but I sucked at using it from a distance. Either I was bad at it or hitting a small target like that is all around difficult. When I tried using it in battle I usually just wound up hitting a base and hoping I was lucky enough to have someone out in the open. I learned that going in with it armed and launching it from the closest possible safe distance resulted in a quick kill, and in the case of my ribbon, you tended to kill multiple targets in the area. I was shooting at a jeep but got a jeep and two troops nearby.
Once you feel you have your controls and maps down decently enough then you can jump in some games. You don't have to be an expert. And don't go straight for a ranked server. Join in an unranked game with a few people, like 8, and learn there. It doesn't hurt your stats and you learn as you go. Plus, without so many people you have room to breathe. You get time to use sniper rifles and binoculars, you can use a Warhawk without three turrets firing on you while another Warhawk comes after you. And then before choosing a game on the right there is a little box with info about that game. There is a maximum rank limit. Find one limited to sergeant or something. That way you are guaranteed to be playing against people without a lot of ranking up experience. You might get a few guys that think it is fun to purposely avoid ranked servers so that they can keep their ranks down and hunt noobs, but not many, and then as you gain skill you find you can take them on.
Right now I can do well in team-based games, but I am horrible at deathmatches and dogfights. I pick and choose my battles and don't jump in where I am weakest.
And in the words of landseeair, while in a one-on-one deathmatch, "Where is Sold Fro? He's good No offense to you of course."
We aren't all great and we all started out with our problems.
Personal game note: I thought for sure Chief Sergeant required 2,000 points, but when I got my ribbon I saw it requires 2,500. I am couple of hundred points short. I expecetd to jump two ranks when I got my Warhawk Recruiting ribbon. Oh well, I have about two or three ranks that I need points for only and then I need a Bandit 4x4 ribbon. Does killing someone with the mounted machine gun count as a kill with a 4x4 or do I have to run them over? I've managed three in one round, but I need 5. I guess it is time to get out of the tank.
