Silent Running in Combat ...continued

[Yodafone]

Work in progress!!

A quick post if you have any questions concerning the application of Silent Running as an offensive tactic tool during combat, instead of having to fit a Chaff Launcher or ECM to try and hinder target lock from turrets/gimbals and fill a valuable utility slot. The Chaff & ECM of course, add something extra over SR as they can be deployed with active shields.

I started a thread about a month ago because I was confused as to exactly what Silent Running did, other than shut radiator vents and hinder scanners from a certain distance. Dev Sandro Sammarco did reply to this old thread to explain the rules and coding behind Silent Running, and how certain aspects affect radar resolve and subsequently turrets/gimbal hardpoints and missile lock.

The variants in SR's efficiency are caused by:
*Sensor efficiency (different Ratings)
*Current Heat Signature (hotter you are has an impact even whilst using Silent Running)
*And distances between combatants (2-300 meters makes no difference, up to 500 and beyond depending on both above for auto-target-resolve distance).

I have continued to experiment with SR in combat, but decided to test it against one of the hardest npc opponents to get a maximum extremity.

More is explained during the battle, but if youre interested please watch:
[video=youtube_share;9h88YoXqjuw]http://youtu.be/9h88YoXqjuw[/video]

Although there's no way of knowing for sure, but I'm guessing as these Elite pirates are well armed, so I'm also presuming their sensors are high rated too, so in this particular battle, and in the end, the distance I had to get from him to hinder target lock was ulitmately too far for me to shoot back effectively. However, against a lessor foe, with lower rated even average Sensors, I am hoping to have more success to within around 1km where one is still beyond auto-resolve distance and subsequently target lock but able to make decent contact with weapons fire. At least it has shown me a benchmark to experiment with.

Whilst one has functioning shields it would be silly to activate Silent Running (like I do in the video more or less, but it was a test). But at the end of a battle, when you don't want to turn tail and bug out, perhaps Silent Running for a last ditch offensive attack, with a well timed Heat Sink launch, could make all the difference and be used to evade and destroy at the same time. (All still work in progress, I'll be the first to admit if SR definitely cannot be used in this manner, but as far as I'm concerned, at present, the jury is still out)


Lancer

Link to original post with Sandro's response copied & pasted at the bottom of my first initial post

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68069&p=1130041#post1130041

 

[Jack Booted Thug]

Thanks for the information.

I have played around with it a bit and have as of yet not found it to offer any advantage in combat itself. It looks like you are taking a deeper look and I will be interested to see what you find out.

Thanks again.

 

[Rearden]

Thanks for testing this. Do you happen to have the link to your old thread? I was looking for Sandro's comments for silent running and how it relates to smuggling

 

[Yodafone]

Thanks for testing this. Do you happen to have the link to your old thread? I was looking for Sandro's comments for silent running and how it relates to smuggling

Sure, the post was originally started on 1/12. Not much said about smuggling specifically, but presumably as scanners follow a similar principle to radar, the resolve distances should still apply, at least initially to indicate for something to point your scanner towards in the first place, if youre off radar or at the very least an unresolved target, security ships with scanners should have less time to locate you. Certainly good to know the values that Sandro describes.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68069&p=1130041#post1130041

Lancer

 

[Yodafone]

Thanks for the information.

I have played around with it a bit and have as of yet not found it to offer any advantage in combat itself. It looks like you are taking a deeper look and I will be interested to see what you find out.

Thanks again.

Who knows if I'm chasing a goose with this one, but presumably just with the fact presumably radar un-resolve happens within weapons range with lessor sensors than the one demonstrated, to me suggests it could be used against certain targets. We'll see, I refuse to fit a Chaff or ECM with the lack of utility slots quite frankly. There aren't enough as it is with 3 scanner types, and heat sinks, plus it would be a shame if all SR was for was bugging out a fight & a bit of stealth and smuggling. Watch this space I suppose!

Thanks Jack

Lancer

 

[NoiseCrime]

Hey Lancer, great video, quite a tense battle, although as you point out its more for testing than how one would actually play out this attack normally.

Have you seen 'brumster100' testing of silent running vs stealth video? Seems to me that reducing your heat is paramount to making the best use of silent running?

[video=youtube;ZBkP1QaKuBM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBkP1QaKuBM[/video]

BTW - Noticed you appear to be using a X weapon layout, class 2 MC and class 2 Beam, with class 1 MC and class 1 Beam. If so how do you find such a layout?
In terms of power I see the weapon layout options as 2+2 & 1+1, so you could have 4 MC and 2 Beam ( or 4 Beam and 2 MC) or with this X layout you have 2+1 & 2+1 so 3 MC and 3 Beam. On paper it would seem to me that perhaps 3+3 is better than 4+2 as you don't have to choose which is your 'strongest' weapon type.

Who knows if I'm chasing a goose with this one, but presumably just with the fact presumably radar un-resolve happens within weapons range with lessor sensors than the one demonstrated, to me suggests it could be used against certain targets. We'll see, I refuse to fit a Chaff or ECM with the lack of utility slots quite frankly. There aren't enough as it is with 3 scanner types, and heat sinks, plus it would be a shame if all SR was for was bugging out a fight & a bit of stealth and smuggling. Watch this space I suppose!

I recently ditched my Point Defense on the Cobra, figured I should be able to outrun any missiles and as you say utility slots are in short supply. Of course no sooner than I did that, I came up against a viper with dumbfire missiles! Never had a ncp fire missiles at me before, I wonder if they after a scan they know you have a PD they just don't bother firing them? This viper literally filled the entire space with their missiles, certainly got the heart racing a bit as I dodged around them

Not sure i'm willing to lose chaff at this stage though.

 

[Yodafone]

Hey Lancer, great video, quite a tense battle, although as you point out its more for testing than how one would actually play out this attack normally.

Have you seen 'brumster100' testing of silent running vs stealth video? Seems to me that reducing your heat is paramount to making the best use of silent running?

(check noisecrime's previous post for brumster100's video link)

BTW - Noticed you appear to be using a X weapon layout, class 2 MC and class 2 Beam, with class 1 MC and class 1 Beam. If so how do you find such a layout?
In terms of power I see the weapon layout options as 2+2 & 1+1, so you could have 4 MC and 2 Beam ( or 4 Beam and 2 MC) or with this X layout you have 2+1 & 2+1 so 3 MC and 3 Beam. On paper it would seem to me that perhaps 3+3 is better than 4+2 as you don't have to choose which is your 'strongest' weapon type.


I recently ditched my Point Defense on the Cobra, figured I should be able to outrun any missiles and as you say utility slots are in short supply. Of course no sooner than I did that, I came up against a viper with dumbfire missiles! Never had a ncp fire missiles at me before, I wonder if they after a scan they know you have a PD they just don't bother firing them? This viper literally filled the entire space with their missiles, certainly got the heart racing a bit as I dodged around them

Not sure i'm willing to lose chaff at this stage though.

Hey mate, how's things? The weapon loadout you describe that I wanted to use that I think had most value is the C2 + C2 M-cannon and then C1 + C1 Lasers, particularly as m-cannons use much less weapon's alotment with the reduced heat. Then the same weapon's energy alotment with the lasers coping well with just the C1s. The main issue with this I found is the same reason I decided to go with the 2 + 1 on each side, because at close proximity to a target, the 2 + 2 tends to be too far apart (certainly on a Cobra), and only one weapon makes contact, so your shooting blanks so to speak , with half your shots, half of the time. Even with fixed hardpoints and the little gimbal effect (is a tiny gimbal effect even on fixed yeah), still only works at range. If I had gimbals fitted all round then most certainly a great setup, I'm just loathed to use a full set of gimbals. (only reason I have any, is to sub-target with FA OFF). Have yet to try this setup on something not as wide, like the Viper, a perfect candidate.

Thanks for the brumster link, sure I had seen that, a useful guide in here for people to see, even if things have changed a little and been tweaked since, but not by much I believe. You hit the nail squarely on the head quite frankly about reducing one's heat is paramount even with SR engaged, which is where I'm hoping a well timed launch of a heat sink, just before the final attack with SR engaged to finish a target off has value, to evade & destroy like I say.

Cheers mate, will continue to test many things including weapon loadouts, particularly when I gravitate to the Viper. (Simply haven't mastered the Viper's outragious boost quite frankly as yet, to in essence waste some of its boost with backward momentum first, so as not to overshoot the target youre tailing )

All the best mate and thanks for your comments

Lancer

 

[Morbad]

While I've never been a big fan of such setups myself, I have encountered numerous other CMDRs in PvP combat who made decent use of silent running.
Silent running Eagle build that I found surprisingly challenging to fight:
[video=youtube;DWNBpJ9Aihk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWNBpJ9Aihk[/video]

Encounter a few silent runners in this one, including a very competent Viper pilot who was picking off the unwary for over an hour (I eventually drive him off, but it was not easy):
[video=youtube;5MV4vgva1b8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MV4vgva1b8[/video]
26 minutes in is when he makes his first clear appearance to me.

Some of this stuff is harder to do now; back around Beta 3 they made heat more of an issue, but silent running setups still seem viable in some circumstances.

 

[defekt]

Interesting. Also confirms to me how cheap the combat has become in this game (no) thanks to those idiotic shield potions.

 

[Yodafone]

While I've never been a big fan of such setups myself, I have encountered numerous other CMDRs in PvP combat who made decent use of silent running.
Silent running Eagle build that I found surprisingly challenging to fight:
(Check Morbad's above post for video link)

Encounter a few silent runners in this one, including a very competent Viper pilot who was picking off the unwary for over an hour (I eventually drive him off, but it was not easy):
(Again, check Morbad's above post for video link)
26 minutes in is when he makes his first clear appearance to me.

Some of this stuff is harder to do now; back around Beta 3 they made heat more of an issue, but silent running setups still seem viable in some circumstances.

Thanks for posting that Morbad, that's really interesting, at first SizzleFizzle was clearly running it unless he had no shields, but that would be ridiculous in a combat zone, but TAFFER was very good at activating SR when you were turning to face him, was clearly looking at his hud of your ship to notice when he needed it, absolutely brill to see in action, that is the first time for me. Whether since the changes since that Beta have made it much harder is very hard to gauge itself, but from my experience using SR since, as much as heat sig does climb quicker, it's not an amount that would negate its' use in my opinion. May I ask, and can you remember, what was your current Sensor spec fitted at the time?

Great post for research

Thanks Morbad

Lancer

 

[Ben Ryder]

A link to Sandro's comments would be great.

 

[Yodafone]

A link to Sandro's comments would be great.

Was posted further up, but am happy to post it again. His response is copied and pasted on my original first post in the thread at the bottom.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68069&p=1130041#post1130041

Lancer

 

[Morbad]

May I ask, and can you remember, what was your current Sensor spec fitted at the time?

In Beta 2.0x I ran A1 sensors, which had nearly identical specs to A3, but were lighter in weight. 6KM optimum range...so essentially the best that could be mounted.

After they removed the ability to mount smaller size sensors, I switched over to D3 to keep weight an power low.

 

[Yodafone]

Encounter a few silent runners in this one, including a very competent Viper pilot who was picking off the unwary for over an hour (I eventually drive him off, but it was not easy):
[video=youtube;5MV4vgva1b8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MV4vgva1b8[/video]
26 minutes in is when he makes his first clear appearance to me.

Some of this stuff is harder to do now; back around Beta 3 they made heat more of an issue, but silent running setups still seem viable in some circumstances.

Managed to watch your second vid today from 26 min onwards, didn't have time yesterday. Some great flying there Morbad to firstly evade all three Cobras hunting you down. I don't blame you running for a bit whilst they were all together, but once you started to pick them off one by one, some great boosting with lateral but particularly vertical thrusters, great technique. Cmdr KADALL was certainly using the Silent Running technique too yeah, it clearly has application otherwise why would many players be using it.

The more I've even watched my own exploit above again, there were instances where I was at the right distance so the turrets didnt have lock, and especially when I deployed a heat sink to get my temp right down, I didnt loose any hull during this period and I made decent contact with weapons fire on the conda from 12 % down to 6%, was only because I got really close (well within 1km) I lost my hull down to 6% also. It clearly does work when, distance & heat sig's are at the right values.

Again thanks for posting Morbad, some great piloting and information to digest.

Lancer

 

[starjump]

Why were all the enemies called F.B. in the video?
|
Cheers for the info guys!

 

[Yodafone]

Interesting. Also confirms to me how cheap the combat has become in this game (no) thanks to those idiotic shield potions.

I'm inclined to agree with you in part, but in a way the same could be said for any upgrade. Imagine youre deep in the void of the galaxy with none of these potions, and are frequently ambushed by a three pirate band of Cobras (for instance), it would become very tiresome and frustrating to not be able to combat this sort of scenario. Some may say the old beta or even the alpha combat without all these tricks could be considered better, but in the pursuit of creating a game with content that isnt frustrating to play (and with the fact a lot of the combat is against npcs), I feel Frontier have achieved a good balance on the whole. With PvP, I don't really have an issue as it is available to all, like I say, as are all upgrades for all modules. I'm sure it's hard to balance purist with pleasure!

Thanks for your comment defekt

Lancer