One last thing with the missile (thanks Barter for reminding me of this), you have to know the capabilities of your computer and your lag in the server at the time. Again practicing in single player will help a lot with this, but as there is a certain special lag that seems to occur in multiplayer, controlling the missile with knowledge of your lag is one of the few things that you might just have to learn from experience in-game, instead of care-free single play. Getting to know your computer and how it responds will be extremely helpful in almost any situation.
Spot enemy vehicles and infantry
When being a gunner, you MUST spot enemies! Not only will this help you not to die from unknown things, it will also get you a lot more kills as the pilot will know where the enemy is and where he needs to be in order to maximize his use of the gunship.
When spotting, vehicles take a high priority over infantry. This is because many vehicles can kill gunships, while it is a lot harder for infantry to do the same. Make sure that you dont miss an opportunity to spot something, then you can worry about TVing that pesky walker or APC, but not before, because then your pilot wont know what you are trying to do. As a side note, spotting enemy gunships is your number one priority, because they have the best shot at killing you compared to anything else. My list from most important to spot out to least important is: Gunships, Walkers (they also dominate gunships, they have anti-air built into them), Tanks (they can 1-shot-kill a gunship), Transports, APCs, and finally Cars. Remember, even though that troop-laden transport looks tasty, focusing all your attention on it instead of the gunship that is right in front of you will only get you killed before you can destroy the transport.
Spotting infantry is also important as a gunner. If you spot a lone soldier about to cap an outpost, your pilot will be able to swoop in there and let you annihilate him before a control point is lost. Also, if you see a big group of enemies congealed in a certain area, but cant quite reach them in time with your main machinegun, spot them out! This way your pilot will know to circle back around so you can sweep them out and get many kills. I will cover more on this particular subject later in both the machine gun section and the piloting section, as there are many tactics and patterns that stem off of it.
You as a gunner must always be in constant lookout for the enemy; dont let yourself get distracted! It is EXTREMELY frustrating as a pilot when you spot an opportunity for your gunner to get a ton of kills, and when you fly over it your gunner has not been paying attention and thus gets you killed by the very infantry that would have been wiped out just a second before if you had been paying attention. Unless you are actively talking with your pilot they will not know whether you are setting yourself up for a better aim or if you just do not see the enemy, and this is where many deaths stem from, because the pilot will continue to circle around the enemy, waiting for their gunner to do something.
Also something that helps A TON with letting your pilot know what's going on around him is putting a Vehicle UAV directly onto the gunship itself, this way when your pilot flies past an enemy vehicle it will show up on the mini map in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Whenever I fly I always put one of these things on the gunship, as it helps an incredible amount in dogfights, and especially for surviving sneak attacks, because if I spot an enemy gunship in the UAV turning towards me, I'll put my shields up even if I don't see it. I have survived many a time when I was expected to die this way.
Know how to use the machine gun
The gunners machine gun is the second most deadly tool in his arsenal; in fact, its the only other tool he has besides his spotting abilities and the TV Missile. However, before I go into tactics on how to most efficiently use the machine gun, there are a number of facts that dont seem to be as commonly known about the machine gun as they should be.
The machine gun gives off something called splash damage. This means that you dont need to directly hit your target in order to damage it, much like the way explosives and tank missiles work. You can think of the bullets that the gunship machine gun shoots as a kind of exploding bullet. As such, when using the machine gun your primary goal should be to either spot enemy vehicles and infantry as described earlier, or to be wiping out scores of enemies. The gunship MG can be likened to a little boy with a high-powered magnifying glass on a sunny day, sitting by an anthill. And the best part about the machine gun, because of the splash damage you can even get kills if you are not directly shooting at an enemy! For example, if you saw a foe duck behind an object in response to you so rudely shooting at him, do not fret! Just aim behind that object even if you cant see the little bugger youre trying to get, and more than likely you will get your much desired kill.
