Battle Controls
Surprisingly Girls Frontline have great controls during battle! In this guide we will go over 3 essential controls: Bullet time, Repositioning, and Retreating.
Bullet Time
There's little explanation required for this function as it is turned on as default in the game. When you are moving dolls in the game into different position in the battle, you can see that time is slowed down. This will help with accurate controls and accurate controls will be more important in the later area to preserve echelon combat effectiveness. Be familiar with it, be one with it.
One thing to go over while covering controls: some people think that you have to touch the T-doll in order to move them in the battle, but in reality it is the tile that they are standing on. There's nothing more frustrating than going to move your tanker but you end up moving or swapping your DPS dealer by accident. Another small tip is that people are afraid that tile buffs from T-dolls will be removed if dolls reposition; it won't and will keep the original formation buffs. So move them without worries.
Kiting [Horizontal Repositioning]
Kiting is control for tankers with low damage potentials to reduce incoming damage and pressure. This can be achieved by at the start of the battle tanker rushes forward to 3rd column in formation grid [usually grid position 6]. Once enemies in the back-line [usually the main source of incoming DPS] reaches the tanker they will stop to prepare before shooting. Before they can fire, you return the tanker to the original position, thus forcing enemy back-line to move once more. This control, while halting enemy progress towards your Echelon, allows you to deal damage and reduce potential damage that tankers will receive.
*** I filmed it myself so not as good as those commanders in KR or CN server]***
As you can see in the video, when tanker moves forward and back, the back-line Jaegers [Snipers] just sit there doing nothing. One important thing: if your finger is fast enough you can do kiting up to twice per battle. This is pretty difficult to achieve and if you are clumsy like me, you would be only losing potential damage coming out of your tanker. So try at your own risk.
One enemy unit that you can try more than twice would be Manticore unit which has very long setup time before shooting.
Caution for later areas: as game progresses further into chapter 7~10, some enemies will be position so that there will be an immediate contact, which removes room for kiting. So always be mindful of spacing and timing of your controls. Additionally some enemies in the later area, mainly Striker [Minigun unit], does not have wait time before shooting, which makes kiting useless.
Siege Mode [Vertical Repositioning]
This is same application of repositioning but vertically up and down the column that often used by RF echelon. Because just like enemy units, RF T-dolls requires small amount of time before firing. By allowing RF T-dolls to fire immediately when enemy enters the range, this control can reduce incoming DPS. Main way to execute this control [in F formation] would be to move main tanker in position 5 in grid to position 2 and repeat the movement until enemy units are in range.
First video is RF Echelon with no control. Notice that RF Echelon moves between waves.
Now here is the Siege mode control applied to same echelon, against same enemy. Notice the difference?
While this small control does not look like much, it can be difference between your fragile HG getting de-linked in later area or maintaining strong links and surviving few extra battles in later area where enemies have little or no wait time before attacking.
Retreating
Perhaps most difficult control to master in Girls Frontline, retreating is a tricky decision that can be clutch in later area, especially in boss fight. However if you misjudge your timing, it could end up doing far more harm than good.
Using individual retreat button on the top left when selecting T-doll during battle, Retreating tanker relies on the ability of your Echelon's DPS to wipe out the remaining enemies before they hit the squishy back-line. The benefit is that your tanker will be hit less therefore less chance to get hurt further in the mission. For those who are confused, think of it as by tanker retreating, it generates additional space that enemy units have to move in order to attack again, which is another form of kiting.
While benefits mentioned above is great, but it's not the main purpose for the Retreating. Let's watch the application of retreating control in Boss fight in area 6.
What you noticed in the video is that the Executioner goes into the sword pattern where it does tons of damage. But as Thompson becomes the target, I retreat her which stops Executioner dead in her tracks... and sits there for good few seconds before she dies.
So, yes. You can skip those dangerous and powerful boss patterns by retreating the targeted T-doll from the battle, which saves you lot of repair cost and free time to put in more damage to the boss. One important thing to note: if you retreat too early because you got nervous, that boss skill will apply to next doll in the line. And you do not want that.
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Other Useful Controls/Tricks [Application of 3 mentioned above]
This section will be updated as we develop and discover more tricks in the game that benefits us commanders.
Updated at: [11/13/2018]
MG Reload Animation Skip [Now Patched and near Impossible to do]
This is not necessarily a complete skip but more of Animation shortening of reload by MGs. People say it reduces animation by about 30% of total time. First let's watch the control video with no controls applied.
Now with Control applied to Negev at the bottom left.
This section will be updated as we develop and discover more tricks in the game that benefits us commanders.
Updated at: [11/13/2018]
MG Reload Animation Skip [Now Patched and near Impossible to do]
This is not necessarily a complete skip but more of Animation shortening of reload by MGs. People say it reduces animation by about 30% of total time. First let's watch the control video with no controls applied.
Now with Control applied to Negev at the bottom left.
Notice the difference?
Just by measuring time of the video you can notice that By applying the Animation skip control, we can see the Negev is shooting immediately after motion is finished. If it's hard to compare (Because I used weaker boss and makes almost no difference in terms of time to kill the boss), you can try to compare with the loading animation of two other MGs in the video. You will notice that Negev is ready to go faster in the with control video.