Hang on...what happened to shields?

[PiscisFerro]

I can say, NPCs have better weaponry now and do more damage. It happens to me with my vulture in a Military Strike (hudson CZ) a single ship just started to firing me with either a cannon or a railgun. It just destroyed got my shields and my hull down very quickly (comparing to before).

After that I upgraded reinforcement hull to military, that plus the better recharge rate made me laugh at NPCs again.

In my opinion right now fight is better and more challenging, maybe a little too hardcore if you don't have SCB (I don't)

And... wasn't the people complaining about combat being too easy?

 

[imkain]

I agree. I believe they have increased the difficulty to fall in line with the realism of the overall game. However, I just continue to buy bigger and better armor and shields before dumping money into weapons. That was my goal during my progress to become a bounty hunter in Elite: Dangerous.

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I can say, NPCs have better weaponry now and do more damage. It happens to me with my vulture in a Military Strike (hudson CZ) a single ship just started to firing me with either a cannon or a railgun. It just destroyed got my shields and my hull down very quickly (comparing to before).

After that I upgraded reinforcement hull to military, that plus the better recharge rate made me laugh at NPCs again.

In my opinion right now fight is better and more challenging, maybe a little too hardcore if you don't have SCB (I don't)

And... wasn't the people complaining about combat being too easy?

I do know that there are occasions where there is an encounter where there is a pirate who you may run into who has the strongest weapon that would go onto the Anaconda and can one shot most ships. Is this the encounter you may have landed into? I have not had the "luck" of entering an OSS with this turkey.

 

[Bacalao]

I'm ok with that, however the current heat generation is really off the scale. The current generation should be happening when you use more than one cell at once. A protective module that actually destroys your ship doesn't make any sense from an engineering perspective. When the idea is to not use them then why have them in the game at all for the larger ships or is the idea to sacrifice a slot for heat sinks to keep spamming shield cells? Shield cell + heat sink macro = bye bye nerf?

I'm ok with a higher difficulty level, because for me it was on grandparent mode. The game is called Elite Dangerous not Pink Fluffy's destroy 2 million civilizations while sleeping and dreaming about jelly donuts.

The heat gets high, but it isn't doing much damage really (mostly to utility mounts and then I only ever saw ~15% after fully expending 2 A7 banks and an A6 one charge at a time), it just sounds and looks bad and makes you think a little bit about when you should be using them. I enjoy using them without heat sinks because it just makes combat all that much more exciting! SPACE! LASERS! CANNONS! HEAT CRITICAL! Good times, I actually feel like I'm pushing my ship to it's limit in combat now.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I did a little bit of undermining yesterday in my Anaconda, using an A5 prismatic shield generator. Didn't have any issue except one time when I interdicted a wing of 3 Cobra/Diamondback Scout. I was not quick enough to activate my shield cell when my shield were almost gone and had to run for my life. Other than that, nothing special with the shields. Granted, I didn't face any serious opponents, only Diamondback Scout, Cobras, Eagles, Keelbacks, Type-7 and Type-6. I don't think I got any Python, Vulture and Anaconda (well, definitely no Anaconda).

 

[JaQ]

Oh come on people. Before this patch fighting with NPCs was as easy as making a basic sandwich. I was able to get Conda + 2xVulture combo without much effort when in Vulture (only when facing 3x Conda combo I had to run). How much you could stay in Haz Res was a matter of ammo vs laser. Also please take into consideration that armour was greatly buffed. Before when my shields went down I knew I had to run. Now in my FDL with 2x4D Hull Reinforcement I get barely scratched by those smaller ships after they pop my shield. To add another thing, mission system got buffed (at least in Horizons), so earning money is more about doing various tasks than just sitting in one place and shooting things. I feel like Frontier is trying to make us feel more like a part of the ecosystem rather than always the biggest fish in the ocean(in solo at least). So when you enter the CZ you are just another ship not the ultimate dominator, which was a bit unfair in Power Play since you could go in solo mode into those major faction Conflict Zones without risking encountering player of opposing faction and secure alot of points for your guys.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Oh come on people. Before this patch fighting with NPCs was as easy as making a basic sandwich. I was able to get Conda + 2xVulture combo without much effort when in Vulture (only when facing 3x Conda combo I had to run). How much you could stay in Haz Res was a matter of ammo vs laser. Also please take into consideration that armour was greatly buffed. Before when my shields went down I knew I had to run. Now in my FDL with 2x4D Hull Reinforcement I get barely scratched by those smaller ships after they pop my shield. To add another thing, mission system got buffed (at least in Horizons), so earning money is more about doing various tasks than just sitting in one place and shooting things. I feel like Frontier is trying to make us feel more like a part of the ecosystem rather than always the biggest fish in the ocean(in solo at least). So when you enter the CZ you are just another ship not the ultimate dominator, which was a bit unfair in Power Play since you could go in solo mode into those major faction Conflict Zones without risking encountering player of opposing faction and secure alot of points for your guys.

Yeah? I spent two hundred hours grinding to my Python. I expect it to have at least a little survivability, and annihilate smaller ships. Now, NPCs with weapons that should be doing about a tenth of the damage of my weapons are able to destroy my shield before I can even turn on them. Two hundred hours grinding for a now-worthless ship that used to be worth that grind. It's completely killed my interest, and ability to earn money, in this game. Two hundred hours building up to a powerful combat ship completely wasted. I can be killed in under a minute by an NPC Diamondback Explorer with frag turrets. And the armor buff? Not helpful. If anything, my Python's armor is worse than before. And adding armor modules makes the shield even worse than it already is.

 

[DaveB]

Yeah? I spent two hundred hours grinding to my Python. I expect it to have at least a little survivability, and annihilate smaller ships. Now, NPCs with weapons that should be doing about a tenth of the damage of my weapons are able to destroy my shield before I can even turn on them. Two hundred hours grinding for a now-worthless ship that used to be worth that grind. It's completely killed my interest, and ability to earn money, in this game. Two hundred hours building up to a powerful combat ship completely wasted. I can be killed in under a minute by an NPC Diamondback Explorer with frag turrets. And the armor buff? Not helpful. If anything, my Python's armor is worse than before. And adding armor modules makes the shield even worse than it already is.

The invulnerable annihilator is no longer invulnerable. Oh woe is me! Seriously, if you're getting wasted that fast by frag cannons then you should have spent some of those two hundred hours building up combat skill not credits. If your shields are going down that fast to light weapons then your heaver ones should shred them even faster. Open the range and use your superior standoff slugging ability. Your relatively low maneuverability is offset at range too since even a fast-moving ship covers a smaller angle at a greater distance.

 

[JaQ]

Yeah? I spent two hundred hours grinding to my Python. I expect it to have at least a little survivability, and annihilate smaller ships. Now, NPCs with weapons that should be doing about a tenth of the damage of my weapons are able to destroy my shield before I can even turn on them. Two hundred hours grinding for a now-worthless ship that used to be worth that grind. It's completely killed my interest, and ability to earn money, in this game. Two hundred hours building up to a powerful combat ship completely wasted. I can be killed in under a minute by an NPC Diamondback Explorer with frag turrets. And the armor buff? Not helpful. If anything, my Python's armor is worse than before. And adding armor modules makes the shield even worse than it already is.

First of all, Frontier made it clear that price/power ratio is not 1:1. Secondly, I would have to see it myself to believe that DBX is capable of doing this kind of damage (even if it is I am still unable to believe python would give DBX time to do something as dropping it's shields). I am flying FDL which is at similar price point as Python and sitting in High Rez I am still able to drop Clippers and Pythons, often with their Cobra/Viper wings without much more trouble than before (not using any fancy maneuvering or tactics). So if your 200h worth of Python (I assume it's top fitted) is getting dropped so fast it have to be some kind of bug I am yet to encounter.

 

[Kristov]

I suspect that you might have a problem with comprehension yourself. Read the starting post again - I was asking a question as to whether I had it wrong or if other people had encountered it as well. Unlike many, I'm not going to start raising bug reports just for things I don't like or stuff I'm not sure about; I'd much rather wait until I know that it's a problem before troubling the devs with a bug report that could be entirely the work of my imagination.

As a developer myself, I'd rather get basic reports of possible bugs as early as possible so I can check on the situation before I have a screaming mob at the gates with pitchforks and torches, but that's just me I guess..oh, hang on, others here have the same attitude towards it, guess it's just YOU in this case?

First page of this thread, reports of no issues at all and others seeing what you see, obviously a bug. Enough information is already present from your singular case to investigate the situation, they can look at the logs, see what was used against you and if it was or was not acting as it should. As a developer you should be aware of this, so why didn't you just bug report it, then make your post that you've encountered this issue and ask if others have. Your first post reads as a whine, completed by the 'is this punishment for not buying Horizons' ending, THAT is definitely a whine post.

The invulnerable annihilator is no longer invulnerable. Oh woe is me! Seriously, if you're getting wasted that fast by frag cannons then you should have spent some of those two hundred hours building up combat skill not credits. If your shields are going down that fast to light weapons then your heaver ones should shred them even faster. Open the range and use your superior standoff slugging ability. Your relatively low maneuverability is offset at range too since even a fast-moving ship covers a smaller angle at a greater distance.

Can't give you more rep today, owe you one.

Obnoxious_Gamer, well chosen nick btw, so you spent 200 hrs grinding to get a Python eh? Trading I take it, since you don't seem to understand the game's combat very well if you think a Python is THAT awesome. It's a multipurpose ship, not a dedicated combat vessel for starters. NPCs aren't using weapons doing 1/10th the damage of your weapons either, what gave you that silly idea? I'm in a Python, it's a good ship for my current purposes, mining and some combat, and now landing on planets, but I may go back to my Clipper for exploration, still undecided on that...anywho...the Python is a good multipurpose ship, and she's good enough at combat to survive for a bit, if you've got a clue. I'm not having the problems with my shields in 2.0 that you, the OP and others have reported, and I'm not alone either, so it's either a bug(quite possible) or it's user error, file bug reports and see what comes from it. And you'd best be coming to grips with the fact that your Python isn't the biggest dog in the fight either, it's outclassed by smaller ships and bigger ships when it comes to combat, but top gun it ain't, FDL is far better for combat purposes at that price point, smaller however and not multipurpose, oddly enough, the best combat ships tend to be dedicated to combat, go figure right?

 

[CMDR Harada]

Ok, so lets do a little after-action review here. You were facing three separate targets, with the disadvantage of only being able to engage one while the other two fired on you unopposed except by your passive defenses. NPCs are known to use chaff at the skill ratings of these three and you were relying on gimbaled weapons for your entire offense. In addition the balance of firepower was not in your favor with a total of one huge, five large, four medium and five small weapons targeting you while you were only able to reply with three large and two medium. This is not a completely unsurvivable tactical situation but it certainly isn't a favorable one. You chose to engage the weakest threat first. You could have tanked the fire from that eagle much longer than you could either of the other two ships. It is debatable whether the vulture or the anaconda posed the greatest threat given their differences in firepower and maneuverability but it is certain that the eagle should not have been your primary target. The time you spent popping the weakest ship exposed you to the fire from two much more powerful craft when you should instead have been eliminating at least one of them to knock out a minimum of two large hardpoints of incoming fire.

You got your rear handed to you because in a challenging tactical situation you failed to properly evaluate the threat you faced and made incorrect tactical choices as a result.

"The department of defense regrets to inform you... "

Not quite right, there, Sky Captain.. I popped the Eagle first pass, and it was never able to return fire. The vulture, while it DID deploy chaff, did not cause me to loose the ability to return fire. I switched to the second target ( Anaconda ) forcing my weapons to become unguided while the Anaconda was not in front of me. I dispatched the vulture as well, while tanking the Anacondas fire. This was never an issue prior to the update IE : tanking a COMPETENT rated Anaconda. I did use an SCB while fighting the Vulture, and found it ineffective, and causing me to damage myself.

I then had one target left, the Anaconda. With half shields and an SCB charge left. This would have typically been no issue pre-update. During combat with the Annie, I used my last charge, damaging myself again. At this point both ships lost shields, and we had to go toe-to-toe without. I decided to bail when I got to 15% hull, The Anaconda was at 30%.

So, tactics wise, there was a short period where I was outnumbered 3-to-1, but the targets where non-hostile at that point. Engaging 2-to-1 odds, while not optimal, was not an issue two nights back. The unexpected strength of the opponents, in addition to the lack of response from my SCBs, plus the heat damage I suffered, was the issue.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Can't give you more rep today, owe you one.

Obnoxious_Gamer, well chosen nick btw, so you spent 200 hrs grinding to get a Python eh? Trading I take it, since you don't seem to understand the game's combat very well if you think a Python is THAT awesome. It's a multipurpose ship, not a dedicated combat vessel for starters. NPCs aren't using weapons doing 1/10th the damage of your weapons either, what gave you that silly idea? I'm in a Python, it's a good ship for my current purposes, mining and some combat, and now landing on planets, but I may go back to my Clipper for exploration, still undecided on that...anywho...the Python is a good multipurpose ship, and she's good enough at combat to survive for a bit, if you've got a clue. I'm not having the problems with my shields in 2.0 that you, the OP and others have reported, and I'm not alone either, so it's either a bug(quite possible) or it's user error, file bug reports and see what comes from it. And you'd best be coming to grips with the fact that your Python isn't the biggest dog in the fight either, it's outclassed by smaller ships and bigger ships when it comes to combat, but top gun it ain't, FDL is far better for combat purposes at that price point, smaller however and not multipurpose, oddly enough, the best combat ships tend to be dedicated to combat, go figure right?

Having played the Python prior to this patch, it's a fantastic combat ship. And I mean 1/10th of the damage in terms of the enemy ship having two medium shotgun turrets, and my Python having two medium burst turrets and three large gimballed beams. And your best response to me is essentially "get better scrub?" Really? Let me know when YOUR ship can face and engage multiple targets at the same time. I know the Python isn't the best ship in the game by far, but it was at least able to hold its own fairly well before yesterday. And in terms of weapon hardpoints? Nothing but the Fer-De-Lance and the faction ships even come close, let alone outclass it. I've been flying into military strikes and RES sites for nearly all of my time in this game. Granted, I've made a few stupid mistakes - everyone does - but my A-rated Python being torn to shreds by two medium turrets on a Cobra wasn't due to 'lack of skill.' It used to be a massive tank whose shields could take a beating, and now it gets wrecked by ships that cost one hundredth as much in half the time it takes to turn on them.

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"Unexpected" strength of the opponents? There was a ton of beta threads pointing out that NPCs have been buffed.
Likewise, beta players informed that SCBs have been nerfed and generate heat.

All of this was known.

You carelessly drove into a one-vs-many fight, recklessly used SCBs when you clearly couldn't afford to (heat-wise), and took on one of the heaviest ships in game with half your shields. I see tactical errors and lack of being informed all around, but nothing that would suggest that it is somehow the game's fault.

Combat has become harder, players have been nerfed and NPCs have been buffed, that was made abundantly clear long before the current version dropped. Frankly, neither the nerfs nor the buffs went far enough and I hope the next patch keeps in the same vein. As they say, adapt or perish. At least you didn't get blown up last time; hopefully, all the necessary lessons have been learned.

So you're saying that you want this game to be even more of a massive grind. WHY. It's no fun fighting against ships that have every single tactical advantage, regardless of what they're supposed to handle like. Better NPCs are fine, but not massively overpowered, physics-defying, game-rule-breaking super-AI. Adapt or perish nothing, at this rate nobody but Anaconda or Fed Corvette pilots will be able to compete with the AI.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I'll say much the same as others : This isn't fun any more.

Took out my A-spec Python ( 3 Lg Gimbl burst lasers, 2 Med Gmbld MCs, sincgle A6 SCB, Mil spec armor ). Against a Competent Anaconda, Dangerous Vulture, and Dangerous Eagle. Two nights ago, This would never have been an issue. After the patch ? WOW, got my backside handed to me. Popped the Eagle quick, The vulture took some tiem... popped an SCB... HEAT DAMAGE, but popped the Vulture. Now for the Anaconda. Started hammering each other. SCB.. Ooops... Heat damage again. Now both our shields are gone. Ended up having to run when I got to 15% hull. And my repair bill was STUPID crazy. Two nights ago, I would have LAUGHED at this wing. I wasn't laughing last night. And interdictions.. My gods... every freaking 5 minutes there's someone pulling me out if SC.

After a year, over 220+ million, and a bunch of trial and error.. I got NOTHING. A ship build that doesn't work unless I switch back to an ammo based model ( Heat sinks are ammo ). Techniques that are less than acceptable. If I have to worry about two Cobras and and an Eagle in my A-spec Python, WTH am I doing flying this expensive POS ? I have to re-learn the game that was enjoyable two nights ago. "Moving Goal Posts" pretty much sums it up. The game was a grind, but it was fun.

No rage quit... But I'm not having fun any more. I don't want to re-learn the game in the belief that they won't "re-balance it" again. I'm moving on for the next month or so. I'll check back and see what up.

I was planning on getting Horizons for Xmas, but now.... I'm glad I didn't pop for it.

Looks fine to me. A fight like that should be extremely tough. Before it looks like it was too easy of you thought the fight with the Eagle, Vulture and Conda was easy. Two Cobras and an eagle should be tough for a python, and not the walk in the park it has been. I'm happy about the changes personally and love the feel of the adrenelin kicking in when things get tough.

 

[Calaban]

AI has got better. I spent a while in a conflict zone last night (had to keep my pp points up, so had to get 130 kills), And noticed a definite improvement.

For one- they "station keep" now; they wont fly straight at you and whoosh on by... they fly straight at you, then STOP, and pour firepower into you- keeping you in front of THEM and forcing you to boost just to get away/past that sustained fusillade. Pretty smart- players have been doing that "Trick" for a while now.

Anything that makes the AI ships more of a challenge is a good thing. Though, by evidence that I was able to grind in a CZ so long my 4PAC ran out of ammo, and still got 130 kills, means there may be some room to improve still.

Point of note: the quality of enemy pilots is scaled to the rank of the pilot creating the instance (all the ships I faced were master to elite), so; if a novice pilot enters a RES spawned by a Deadly pilot, he is going to be in some hot water. So that could have been what happened in OP..?

 

[Bacalao]

Having played the Python prior to this patch, it's a fantastic combat ship. And I mean 1/10th of the damage in terms of the enemy ship having two medium shotgun turrets, and my Python having two medium burst turrets and three large gimballed beams. And your best response to me is essentially "get better scrub?" Really? Let me know when YOUR ship can face and engage multiple targets at the same time. I know the Python isn't the best ship in the game by far, but it was at least able to hold its own fairly well before yesterday. And in terms of weapon hardpoints? Nothing but the Fer-De-Lance and the faction ships even come close, let alone outclass it. I've been flying into military strikes and RES sites for nearly all of my time in this game. Granted, I've made a few stupid mistakes - everyone does - but my A-rated Python being torn to shreds by two medium turrets on a Cobra wasn't due to 'lack of skill.' It used to be a massive tank whose shields could take a beating, and now it gets wrecked by ships that cost one hundredth as much in half the time it takes to turn on them.

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So you're saying that you want this game to be even more of a massive grind. WHY. It's no fun fighting against ships that have every single tactical advantage, regardless of what they're supposed to handle like. Better NPCs are fine, but not massively overpowered, physics-defying, game-rule-breaking super-AI. Adapt or perish nothing, at this rate nobody but Anaconda or Fed Corvette pilots will be able to compete with the AI.

Have you ever used the frag cannons at close range and seen what they can do? They aren't a wet noodle weapon. The python's shields are good, fine really, but not exceptional. If you gave the cobra the flat of your very juicy python back to shoot at while you tried to turn around on him and he unloaded some frag cannons into you, your shields should have taken one heck of a beating, the hull to follow shortly unless you get some distance from those frags.
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It is funny though, we have all these posts "my ship got torn to shreds by something that costs 1/100th as much!" and then you scroll down to see in another thread "my ship can't shred pirate ships worth 100x my ship!".
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edit: I flew around in an FDS last night with biweave shields and didn't have any trouble, even from big bad vipers!

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Have you ever used the frag cannons at close range and seen what they can do? They aren't a wet noodle weapon. The python's shields are good, fine really, but not exceptional. If you gave the cobra the flat of your very juicy python back to shoot at while you tried to turn around on him and he unloaded some frag cannons into you, your shields should have taken one heck of a beating, the hull to follow shortly unless you get some distance from those frags.
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It is funny though, we have all these posts "my ship got torn to shreds by something that costs 1/100th as much!" and then you scroll down to see in another thread "my ship can't shred pirate ships worth 100x my ship!".
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edit: I flew around in an FDS last night with biweave shields and didn't have any trouble, even from big bad vipers!

So you're saying medium, turreted weapons should take down shields with over 550 MJ capacity in under ten seconds? Because that's what happened. This is from three fast passes from a cobra, around three hits per pass. That's one shield bar for every three hits from a medium frag turret. I never complained about not being able to kill Anacondas and Corvettes, just that smaller ships with much less powerful weapons were doing extremely unreasonable amounts of damage. I'm sure that's a reasonable complaint.

 

[DaveB]

Not quite right, there, Sky Captain.. I popped the Eagle first pass, and it was never able to return fire. The vulture, while it DID deploy chaff, did not cause me to loose the ability to return fire. I switched to the second target ( Anaconda ) forcing my weapons to become unguided while the Anaconda was not in front of me. I dispatched the vulture as well, while tanking the Anacondas fire. This was never an issue prior to the update IE : tanking a COMPETENT rated Anaconda. I did use an SCB while fighting the Vulture, and found it ineffective, and causing me to damage myself.

I then had one target left, the Anaconda. With half shields and an SCB charge left. This would have typically been no issue pre-update. During combat with the Annie, I used my last charge, damaging myself again. At this point both ships lost shields, and we had to go toe-to-toe without. I decided to bail when I got to 15% hull, The Anaconda was at 30%.

So, tactics wise, there was a short period where I was outnumbered 3-to-1, but the targets where non-hostile at that point. Engaging 2-to-1 odds, while not optimal, was not an issue two nights back. The unexpected strength of the opponents, in addition to the lack of response from my SCBs, plus the heat damage I suffered, was the issue.

Fair enough, with those corrections I admit my analysis was flawed. With the ability to eliminate the eagle on the first pass, initiating the combat by doing so was possibly a sound tactical decision since at the point you made it you were not under fire. It remains debatable whether the 'conda or the vulture posed the greater threat but certainly the vulture was more vulnerable to your fire, able to withstand less of it before destruction. I find myself wondering if you had devoted your alpha strike ability to the vulture, could you have finished it before it became necessary to deploy the first SCB? Would the incoming fire of the eagles three small weapon mounts have added enough to that coming from the 'conda to offset the advantage you gained by hitting the vulture with a perfectly lined up alpha strike? We could probably argue that back and forth as many times as the US civil war is refought over whiskey and cigars in every officers club at every US Army base.

Ultimately, reviewing the situation in the light of your corrections, it is pretty clear that the major factor requiring you to adapt the strategies you have developed prior to 1.5/2.0 is the changes to SCBs. You're going to have to be a lot more protective of your shield strength in the post-release galaxy. Your shields are no weaker for a given number of pips supplying them but the cost of recharging them in terms of heat damage may well have been the deciding factor that led to you needing to leave the fight before the enemy 'conda's destruction - particularly in a heavy weapons platform like a python that generates a lot of heat in combat (at least in my experience, but then I favor an all-energy loadout with the biggest fixed beam lasers I can fit on most hardpoints so that may be coloring my viewpoint a little )

It will be interesting to see how this change shakes out over the first few weeks of the release. In particular how the folks that were hollering for the removal of SCBs appreciate the change.

 

[Yokoshima]

No, it's not the rails - that problem has been around since 1.4. If you read most of the posts where people are saying it's a problem, the NPCs in question didn't have rails, just bog-standard pulses and beams.

I never had this issue in 1.4. I was taking C4 PAs to the face (as well as everything else that Conda could bring to bear) and my shields held up much better than when I fought a Cobra and an eagle. I killed the eagle and popped a C6 SCB as I was at one ring (I have ~ 500 mj of shields). By the time the SCB was done, I was at one ring of shields. The lone Cobra damaged me at about the rate a C6 B rated SCB could recharge my shields. That's pretty new to me.

 

[JaQ]

I did some testing by getting in fight with NPCs, both small wings i.e. DBS+2xEagle or DBX and large ships like Conda/Python/Clipper sometimes with sidekicks. I went as far as turning off engines and counting how fast they can drop my shields with just 2 pips on them and I remain oblivious as to why people complain about NPC strength. They will drop your shields just as fast as they would before update if you remain stationary. Difference is in small enemies agility as they can land more hits and more often than before. Still not that much difference as they pop just as fast as before. I have put more attention to DBX enemies and they do seem significantly stronger equipped (large frag cannon+rail) but I had to literally put my vessel to complete stop to let them attack me. Moving even as slow as ~110 just to keep them in my sights seemed to completely negate their ability to lock on me (Tested it on 3 examples). Putting myself to complete halt made it possible to experience how fast they can get me down. With 2 pips in shields and around 700 MJ to drop it took them around 20s. I remind you I was stationary. When I entered combat properly (moving) while equipped with 4xGimbMPulse + 3PAccel I managed to kill them in around same time (~20s) but without getting much more than scratched by them. I will try with different ships and enemies and keep observing.

 

[Yokoshima]

No other ship, except larger ones, come close to the combat performance of the Vulture.

This makes the Vulture the only choice if you want to do combat without investing in a huge ship at ten times the base price (FdL).

Also, cargo being the drawback of the Vulture... all the smaller ships have issues with Cargo Capacity. Obviously, as they aren't meant for cargo transporting (except Hauler, and partly the Adder).

Point is... there needs to be a ship that rivals the Vulture, and thus gives it some competition rather than being the only valid choice for combat pilots to grind towards. Whether that should be an existing ship, a new ship, or the Vulture being toned down is up to Frontier.

Game is already extremely linear in terms of ship progression, and the Vulture sitting alone at the top of the small ships in combat performance simply proves the point.

Rather than just adding bigger ships the smaller ship lineup, especially in the combat performance bracket where the Vulture reigns supreme, can be fleshed out to give players choice, rather than singular goals to grind towards.

"No other ship, except larger ones, come close to the combat performance of the Vulture."
No , the vulture is a small ship. Most ships are bigger than it. But the Clipper, FAS, FDL, Python, Conda, Corvette, and if you do it right the FD/GS can match (if not exceed, since the Vulture only has 2 hard points) the combat potential of the Vulture.
.
.
Though for diversity's sake, there does need to be a rival to the Vulture in the small ship category. Maybe less shields and agility, but more internals, firepower, and top speed.

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They fixed the low dmg on C2 plasma accelerators. Maybe thats what those cobras used?

Do you have the source on that? Or the new numbers?

 

[EUS]

Have you ever used the frag cannons at close range and seen what they can do? They aren't a wet noodle weapon. The python's shields are good, fine really, but not exceptional.

Vs hull yes, but are you saying kinetic weapons are now viable against shields too?
Say it ain't so.