Similar to single player it is of great importance to keep moving, or you will find yourself toasted pretty fast. You should get used to the common sliding techniques, sliding right/left and up/down at the same time should really be possible with your customised controls. a neat sliding-action is to move round an enemy while facing him at any time. You might try this out with a power-up.. which is a bit of a poor simulation, as human opponents won't stay at a fixed point.

When you feel comfortable with sliding you should use it to move faster: Instead of just pressing the forward-key you can add some sliding to the right/left at the same time and it will take a shorter time to pass a certain distance - this effect is called "double-chording". Of course it's a bit tricky at first, as you want to go forward rather than to slide right/left - you will have to adjust a movement (e.g. by using the mouse) which will keep you on your track. You can go even faster when you add vertical sliding (up/down) to the double chording movement - called: "triple chording". Many people achieve this effect by using the sliding-up/down vector (line of movement) as a replacement for the common forward vector, so the bike almost has its nose pointing to the ground while moving forward.

Another feature you should not neglect is the rolling-movement. Your key-assignment should allow sliding and rolling at the same time. You can pass a corner much faster when you combine sliding sidewards, rolling and turning right/left. This might sound a bit confusing, but it's simple:
Here is an example of how to use this technique at the lower end of the "ramp" in level "ship": Just fly straight down the ramp and when having arrived at the edge of the lower corner, turn right and roll to the right at the same time. Notice that the rolling movement accelerates the passing of that corner dramatically and (after some practice) makes reorientation of your bike easier.
When the above example is no problem for you, you might add triple chording to the turn/roll right movement, meaning: You fly down the ramp straight, add sliding left, rolling right, turning right and sliding down. As I assigned turning to the mouse, I have four buttons on my keyboard depressed at the same time (many keyboards won't allow this).

It is a great advantage to have the right weapon at hand quickly, no matter how critical the situation is. For this reason, you should define keys which let you cycle primary and secondary weapons. Additionally, you may assign quick-keys for important weapons like laser, titan or scatter, so you can activate them within a millisecond (or less), plus you may change the pre-select order (select weapons/weapon preferences from the set-up biker-menu) of your primary/secondary weapons. The preselect order determines, whether the weapon currently activated will be replaced by the one you just picked up. This is the case if the weapon you picked up is closer to the top of the preselect list then the currently activated weapon.

A difficult task for most is to avoid homing missiles (scatter and solaris). If there is no corner where you can hide (or the situation doesn't admit to hide there), one of the best solutions is, to wait until the missile has come pretty near and then head towards it and slide to the right or left at the same time. It is a bit tricky, but quite possible. You cannot destroy missiles by shooting at them, but you can lay mines to attract them.