Question to the High Tier PvPers

[Chongo]

Is there any way to not have the lone Vette or Conda in your wing forced to wake out or die in a 4v4 with experienced CMDRs?

In my testing and experience, on both sides of the equation, the big rig is sync'd on by the opposing 4 CMDRs and picked off faster than any agile ship or stealth ship would be. My current conclusion is that you're best off in a full wing of FDLs or smaller than bringing out any of the big ships - again, for 4v4.

And separately, something I haven't tested, if my conclusion is correct above, does it improve as the number of big rigs in wing increases or are they currently just outmatched by faster moving swarms that will wake as needed after taking down one high value target?

All input and experience is appreciated! Cheers.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I don't quite understand your question but I hope this helps you a little:

Big ships are like large battleships in today's navy. Alone, they are just a target with incredible firepower but outmatched by multiple medium or small ships since these things are extremely clunky and heavy to move.
They must be protected by support boats to actually present a significant threat to the enemy.

In Elite: dangerous big ships play a similar role. They are too slow and clunky to chase a fast ship or to outmanouver anything smaller than a T9.
However, the can still be a significant threat, especially to their own kind. A big ship can protect its smaller mates pretty effectively. It is too tanky to be focused apart from some excuses and even if it gets focused the medium ships are still there for backup. The incredible firepower of big ships present a threat to basically anything bigger than a Viper. Smaller ships like Scouts will mostly be ignored unless they run a full gimbal loadout of pulse lasers or something similar but then they trade firepower for accuracy. Depending on the loadout and matchup of a wing the target group of ships can vary from Scouts to Pythons or from FDLs to Anacondas.

It really depends on the loadout. I have an example where I have been in a wing fight 3v3 with one enemy Cutter. We would just focus on the support ships so the Cutter is by itself. It ended up in a 3v1 but as we lacked a big ship we also lacked in firepower and it turned out to be a draw. We would just look at eachother, have a nice talk and eventually a 1v1.
This was a draw due to the Cutter being outmanouvered by us but us lacking in firepower to kill the Cutter before it can escape or in other words presenting a significant threat.

With another Cutter for example we would mass lock the Cutter, gaining extra time and especially firepower to hunt down the Cutter. However, we might have had struggle with the support ships then. Our wing was build against medium and small ships as we didn't expect a Cutter farming merits in HIP 44811 back then.


In case we have the rail-boat-FDL-wing with x20 rail guns a big ship can just low wake out. Unless the pilot of the big ship is completely unexperienced and traded its way up to a big ship, there are atleast 6 seconds without SCBs to low wake out before the shields drop. This is a calculation with x20 rails hammering below 500 meters on one single big ship with average shield strength (no prismatics, no full booster loadout at maximum DPS -0.5 seconds tolerance. So if you add the possibility of popping a cell and other factors you can easily wake out before the shields pop. It will get problematic with a big ship that may mass lock someone. Then you are either forced to high wake out which takes 15 seconds or outmanouver the other big ship.

Now if the shields pop you still have hull strength which add a couple of extra seconds. Now consider the damage done by x4 FDLs to the Corvette ... the same can be dealt to the FDLs meanwhile and therefore having a serious advantage after the big ship jumped out.

This is where it comes to "damage trading" and each moves determines how many hitpoints you trade for the amount of damage you deal.

 

[Chongo]

Thanks Crimson - to clarify: Most random factional wing vs. wing fights (let's say 4v4) I run into seem to involve a lot of 'focus on killing one high value target, wake out fast' type of gameplay. 4 FDLs jump in, go full hog on the highest value target (conda, vette, etc) with high alpha damage weapons (quad rails et al), try and take it out - then jump out. Very few seem interested in fighting to the death or the victory of the wing as a whole. It's guerilla tactics that are looking at a credit loss style victory.

I suppose my contention is that it's far less effective/ survivable to bring in something slow and clunky to these sorts of fights. Especially so if you, or your wingmate, are the lone big rig pilots. I find this a bit sad as the utility of a vette in the more common forms of faction driven pvp seems limited unless it's a to the death affair. I'm hoping that more experienced CMDRs have better insight/ tactics that may alter this opinion.

 

[tawittle]

First of all the conda is trash in pvp and you shouldn't fly one ever. It just doesn't have the MJ to make it's big hitbox survive.

As for a Cutter or Corvette, if you lose your shields in a 4v1 in either of those ships, your build/playstyle is not optimal. With 4 pips to shields and adequate banks there is no way in hell 4 ships is enough to bring down a vette or cutter shields. In that case it's not a matter of skill, it's just a matter of MJ.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Bringing a large ship into the current PvP meta is just asking to get shot by all the silent running rail builds.

Going in with a large ship has one purpose, and that is tanking.

And if both sides are experienced, they will go after the silent ships before handling the large ship since large ships pose no threat with their inability to target at range and slow maneuverability using fixed weapons.

 

[Raduk]

First of all the conda is trash in pvp and you shouldn't fly one ever. It just doesn't have the MJ to make it's big hitbox survive.

As for a Cutter or Corvette, if you lose your shields in a 4v1 in either of those ships, your build/playstyle is not optimal. With 4 pips to shields and adequate banks there is no way in hell 4 ships is enough to bring down a vette or cutter shields. In that case it's not a matter of skill, it's just a matter of MJ.

How many MJs in order to be a good tank?

 

[GluttonyFang]

How many MJs in order to be a good tank?

Basically it's a balance between two factors:

Total MJ (with shield boosters)

and

SCB (restoration value)

You want to make sure you have enough total MJ to tank long enough for your SCB to kick in. Then, you want to make sure your SCB's restoration value is just higher than your total MJ since no enemy is going to sit there and wait for you to restore your shield.

 

[Chongo]

First of all the conda is trash in pvp and you shouldn't fly one ever. It just doesn't have the MJ to make it's big hitbox survive.

As for a Cutter or Corvette, if you lose your shields in a 4v1 in either of those ships, your build/playstyle is not optimal. With 4 pips to shields and adequate banks there is no way in hell 4 ships is enough to bring down a vette or cutter shields. In that case it's not a matter of skill, it's just a matter of MJ.

I only included the conda because I've seen them go down fast. Included the vette because I have one, didn't include the cutter because I have very little experience with them. I run just under 2000 mj on shields. If I take 4 competent CMDRs from my wing running silent rail builds they will trash my shields before the 3rd SCB can pop, and that's back to back scbs. From your statement I don't think you've experienced the same gameplay, or you're doing something magic to chain SCBs (that's gone with the changes, did I totally misread something and not bother to test?), which I'd love to hear about.

Bringing a large ship into the current PvP meta is just asking to get shot by all the silent running rail builds.

Going in with a large ship has one purpose, and that is tanking.

And if both sides are experienced, they will go after the silent ships before handling the large ship since large ships pose no threat with their inability to target at range and slow maneuverability using fixed weapons.

Thanks for the confirmation - was hoping I was missing something but apparently not. I think the problem in the equation I'm addressing is:

4 FDLs jump in, go full hog on the highest value target (conda, vette, etc) with high alpha damage weapons (quad rails et al), try and take it out - then jump out. Very few seem interested in fighting to the death or the victory of the wing as a whole. It's guerilla tactics that are looking at a credit loss style victory.

In these cases I'm finding it a lot more effective to be in the FAS or FDL to counter as they spread their targets more while you can sync as a wing.

 

[Raduk]

Basically it's a balance between two factors:

Total MJ (with shield boosters)

and

SCB (restoration value)

You want to make sure you have enough total MJ to tank long enough for your SCB to kick in. Then, you want to make sure your SCB's restoration value is just higher than your total MJ since no enemy is going to sit there and wait for you to restore your shield.

OK I understand, thank you. How much does Military Plating play into that equation? My line of thinking is that if I have my Anaconda with an A8 Distributor, an A7 Prismatic, a bank of SCBs and Military plating that I'm pretty well built for tanking.

On that same line of thinking, if I put an A7 Prismatic on a Clipper with Military plating and no SCBs; how well am I positioned for PVP? My thought is that the military plating will make up for the fact that I can't recover my shields.

Thanks for the replies! This has been one of the better PVP education threads for me.

 

[Princess Nia]

If you have a good setup (with prismatics) it's almost impossible to lose shields in a 4v4, the other wing just simply lacks the alpha damage to put that vette or even a conda out of the fight. focusing on a vette in a small wing fight like that is just costing them ammo and time. time for you to clean up their wing

 

[Crimson Kaim]

If you have a good setup (with prismatics) it's almost impossible to lose shields in a 4v4, the other wing just simply lacks the alpha damage to put that vette or even a conda out of the fight. focusing on a vette in a small wing fight like that is just costing them ammo and time. time for you to clean up their wing

Basically. Big ships have their purpose but scoring kills isn't one.

 

[Bazinga!]

Big ships are useful when the enemy has big ships. For example a vette and duel and cutter and keep it from attacking its wing mates. They are built to tank. You need high base shields with at least 2 banks active. 1 8 class on the cutter is OK. Turrets can be used against silent targets.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

1 wing of fdls should not break your shields. If that happens you are doing it wrong. At least when your in a cutter or vette. Taking overwhelming damage? get out of there!

Edit: by fdls I mean Rail Lances

 

[GluttonyFang]

OK I understand, thank you. How much does Military Plating play into that equation? My line of thinking is that if I have my Anaconda with an A8 Distributor, an A7 Prismatic, a bank of SCBs and Military plating that I'm pretty well built for tanking.

On that same line of thinking, if I put an A7 Prismatic on a Clipper with Military plating and no SCBs; how well am I positioned for PVP? My thought is that the military plating will make up for the fact that I can't recover my shields.

Thanks for the replies! This has been one of the better PVP education threads for me.

Don't bother with armor on large ships, if your shield is down before you begin charging FSD, you're pretty much dead. Jump out the moment you're on your last set of SCBs, and if there's too much fire for the SCB to keep up, pop an extra heat sink, retract hardpoints and start FSDing immediately. Armor is really only useful for small/medium ships that rely solely on it or half/half (shield and armor tank, which doesn't work with large ship due to slow maneuverability and module vulnerability).

For all large ships, armor tanking is not viable due to module targeting. Even if large ship goes silent, it's modules are too easy to estimate and shut down, plus repair (AFM) requires shut down of the repairing module, fixing your thrusters/distributors/etc might not be a good idea in the middle of battle.

As for Clipper, it really was never meant to be a shield tanking ship, I think silent running suits it better in PvP. Since it doesn't have enough power to run full SB + Prismatic and have SCB/decent weapon powered.

If you want to PvP in a Clipper, know that you are using a non-meta ship with terrible convergence (FAS's redeeming value is its convergence and maneuverability).

If you really want to competitively PvP in Clipper, you fill a specialized role, where you sneak up or joust other silent running ships. But it's somewhat advanced stuff so I wouldn't dive into it, not to mention you're doing this more for style points than efficient and contribution to your wing.

The current Meta just doesn't welcome Clipper in PvP, it can't compete with FAS and FDL for reasons mentioned plus its fat profile.

 

[tawittle]

I only included the conda because I've seen them go down fast. Included the vette because I have one, didn't include the cutter because I have very little experience with them. I run just under 2000 mj on shields. If I take 4 competent CMDRs from my wing running silent rail builds they will trash my shields before the 3rd SCB can pop, and that's back to back scbs. From your statement I don't think you've experienced the same gameplay, or you're doing something magic to chain SCBs (that's gone with the changes, did I totally misread something and not bother to test?), which I'd love to hear about.

Then you aren't playing the corvette optimally. If you wanna see how futile it is for 4 CMDRs to take down a corvette's shields, just check out this video, you can see 5 people from ToC try to take down my shields in the vette and they just don't have the dps. In the video, I am only using a class 7 SCB (as in, not the full recharge possible).

Theres nothing stopping you from chain running the class 7 SCB one after another, and those banks are extremely hard to out-dps. You can combine the class 7 with a class 6, or even a second class 7 (2 class 7s at once is the most I would do).


Like other people pointed out already, big ships are really only good against other big ships, but in a small 4v4 skirmish, big ships are extremely annoying because they are essentially unkillable turrets.

 

[Derath]

The only role of a big ship in a 4v4 is to attract attention, if it survives by 4 pips and SCB's its doing its job, if it dies it isn't.

Whether you think thats a useful role or not is up to you, personally I think all 4v4s are really contrived :/

 

[Chongo]

Then you aren't playing the corvette optimally. If you wanna see how futile it is for 4 CMDRs to take down a corvette's shields, just check out this video, you can see 5 people from ToC try to take down my shields in the vette and they just don't have the dps. In the video, I am only using a class 7 SCB (as in, not the full recharge possible).

Theres nothing stopping you from chain running the class 7 SCB one after another, and those banks are extremely hard to out-dps. You can combine the class 7 with a class 6, or even a second class 7 (2 class 7s at once is the most I would do).


Like other people pointed out already, big ships are really only good against other big ships, but in a small 4v4 skirmish, big ships are extremely annoying because they are essentially unkillable turrets.

Huh, good watch. Thanks. So how many heat sinks to chain 2 7A's? 2?

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Bleh, threads like this make me really wish FD would do something about railguns

 

[tawittle]

Huh, good watch. Thanks. So how many heat sinks to chain 2 7A's? 2?

if you use a class 7 with a class 6 you can get away with 2, you will need to pop 3 or 4 to use 2 class 7 at once (thats why I have 5 heat sinks).

 

[Princess Nia]

if you use a class 7 with a class 6 you can get away with 2, you will need to pop 3 or 4 to use 2 class 7 at once (thats why I have 5 heat sinks).

i get away with using 2 for my two 7A's, just have to wait 2 seconds

 

[Chongo]

Thanks Nia, tawittle. Just tested with a 7B and 6A off one sink - 125 on heat. I appreciate the insight everyone!