Getting a more manuverable ship off your tail...

[DukeIronHand]

Any FA ON "tricks" for this?
Did a career restart and am BH'ing in a Viper III with modest upgrades.
Doing very well until I ran into a Dangerous Adder and found he liked to get on my tail (and shoot) and I also found him very difficult to shake. In fact I would probably be dead if I didn't get lucky on two counts and escape. Like to think I am pretty good at combat but I claim no expertise.

Tried using thrusters with FA ON to increase my manuverabilty but they didn't seem to do much. Any other FA ON tricks or am I going to have to learn FA OFF?

 

[nosscar]

My main tactic if i am in a bigger ship and can't get my sights on target is to simply boost towards and past him while firing if i can, then fa off, turn 180 degrees to face him, whilst also going into reverse and then fa on again, then keep firing. This i find works for me.
I do the same, but boost away and turn if he is on my tail and can't shake hime.

 

[Mohrgan]

Without using FAoff, the Viper may be a bear. It is very sensitive to the Blue Zone. Once you stray out of it, your agility suffers. There is one trick I use, with and without FAoff, is to use the Down thrusters when I am pitching up, at a cetain point your speed will drop, then quickly switch to your Up thrusters to end up on the target. As you do this, and gain experience, you will learn the best time to make the switch.

Strafing, flying sideways, is useful for controlling your speed, and avoiding some of the incoming fire as you and your opponent face each other. Often I will use revers thrust to keep an enemy in front of me, but I don;t care to stay in reverse, even though that had been very effective against the AI prior to 1.6/2.1.

 

[Cynaqq]

I don't have any special tricks but some advice:

Make sure you are managing your energy (pips) properly if you aren't already. When you want to turn and feel that you can take the damage, full pips to engines. This will however leave your shields weakened so try to time it between salvos from the enemy or during their kinetic weapon salvos as they do lesser damage to shields. Unless you are facing the enemy in your sights, your weapons on it, and you are out of his fire arc, don't put full energy in weapons.

The easiest way to utilize an FA off turn is to make sure you have energy to boost, put full pips to system (full power shields), come face to face with the enemy and then boost right into their face. What you want to do is to miss it closely, hitting FA off right when you are passing it and execute the turn to face it. Here, transferring energy from systems to engines right when you hit FA off is important to achieve maximum turn rate. Here, you have to use the vertical thrusters to aid your turn depending on what the enemy is doing. When you start turning, attend to your pips again depending on the situation. If you are out of his firing arc, full to weapons and blast away. If it's still facing you, then full to shields, two to engines and try the maneuver again. Turn FA on immediately when you are about to fire.

At least this is how I do it. I'm sure there are more surefire methods. I'd like to hear from other commanders too, it's always good to learn about flying tactics and pip management strategy.

Edit to add: Always make sure you are in the blue zone, FA on or off, while you are fighting. Only reason to go above is if your target is getting away and you want to chase it.

 

[Mohrgan]

I think the OP was looking for advice for not using FAoff. I would suggest that his best effort would be to practice, and become acquainted with FAoff but, he asked for FAon advice.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Thank you gentlemen. I will certainly try all these ideas. Hopefully I will "git gud" at them before I get dead!

EDIT: Yes I would prefer FA ON but am not afraid to learn a new trick...like FA OFF.
Thanks again.

 

[Cynaqq]

Without using FAoff, the Viper may be a bear. It is very sensitive to the Blue Zone. Once you stray out of it, your agility suffers. There is one trick I use, with and without FAoff, is to use the Down thrusters when I am pitching up, at a cetain point your speed will drop, then quickly switch to your Up thrusters to end up on the target. As you do this, and gain experience, you will learn the best time to make the switch.

Strafing, flying sideways, is useful for controlling your speed, and avoiding some of the incoming fire as you and your opponent face each other. Often I will use revers thrust to keep an enemy in front of me, but I don;t care to stay in reverse, even though that had been very effective against the AI prior to 1.6/2.1.

I do the 'down then up thrust' maneuver too but I do it instinctively. Is there a trick to time it better or is it just intuition? I also use find it more effective in some situations to bank the ship 45 degrees and use the side thrusters with the vertical thrusters, kind of like a space bunny hop if you get my meaning. Has anybody have an idea if it's really doing any thing or am I imagining things?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Any FA ON "tricks" for this?
Did a career restart and am BH'ing in a Viper III with modest upgrades.
Doing very well until I ran into a Dangerous Adder and found he liked to get on my tail (and shoot) and I also found him very difficult to shake. …
Any other FA ON tricks or am I going to have to learn FA OFF?

If I remember correctly - it's been some time since I was in a Viper - the Viper has a terrible pitch rate. I remember having real difficulties fighting against Cobras (Adders should be the same, both have good pitch rates) until I realized the the Viper has a really good yaw rate (left right movement).
A boost with full yaw and down thrusters should put you in a position where a ship with bad yaw will have problems to counter it. If you roll a bit while doing it you can counter the pitch of the enemy ship.

Think of it like drifting in a US muscle car.

 

[Nerwan]

Any FA ON "tricks" for this?
Did a career restart and am BH'ing in a Viper III with modest upgrades.
Doing very well until I ran into a Dangerous Adder and found he liked to get on my tail (and shoot) and I also found him very difficult to shake. In fact I would probably be dead if I didn't get lucky on two counts and escape. Like to think I am pretty good at combat but I claim no expertise.

Tried using thrusters with FA ON to increase my manuverabilty but they didn't seem to do much. Any other FA ON tricks or am I going to have to learn FA OFF?

In the larger ships (my Python for instance) it's possible to kill small ships quickly with fixed weapons and avoiding being outmanoeuvered by:

1. Turning FA off as you fly away from small ship
2. Rotating with a zero throttle to face small ship
3. Once reversing away from small ship toggle FA on and full reverse throttle
4. Keep toggling FA on and off again, on while firing fixed weapons, off while accelerating backwards and off when small ship attempts to boost past you to keep him in your sites.

This is how I kill all the small ships and it's very effective, let them come to you ;-)

Note: I realize you were asking about FA on flying but the only thing you can do with FA on is stay in the blue zone, that turns into a pitching battle and if the NPC has better pitch than you you're screwed.. Flying backwards involves a bit of both but it's not that much of a learning curve compared to some other FA off techniques.

 

[Mohrgan]

I do the 'down then up thrust' maneuver too but I do it instinctively. Is there a trick to time it better or is it just intuition? I also use find it more effective in some situations to bank the ship 45 degrees and use the side thrusters with the vertical thrusters, kind of like a space bunny hop if you get my meaning. Has anybody have an idea if it's really doing any thing or am I imagining things?

There is a stall moment when you lay on either the Up or Down thruster. I find the switch is most effect if done just immediately prior to the stall. If you can catch it right, you loose no speed. I had it explained to me that it is a pendulum effect. You can counteract the full stroke of the swing, buy changing the direction of thrust. It's one of those 'riding a bike' things. One minute I was questioning maneuver, and the next it made total sense, in a feeling sort of way.

I have never tried the 45 deg. thing. I'll re-read what you said, and have a go in Spaaaace!

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

As an alternative to FA off, you can thrust down at the start of a turn up (pitch?), not sure it thrust up helps at the end, but I do it anyway.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Manouvering thrusters help alot.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Alright tried the FA ON pitch up/down in a turn and it looks like it may work - with some practice on the timing.

Also I threw a "FA OFF" toggle button to my joystick and obviously I need more practice with that. With FA OFF is it pulling back on the stick or using thrusters (which I just thought of as I was typing this) that will bring the nose around?

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

Fly Vulture or FAS and forget about all FA stuff. it is also irrelevant as this game has chosen a "sci- fi" flight model like airplanes. Agile ship = win. Less agile ship + wingmate = big win.
'Conda + Fas or vulture, or 2 vultures or FAS's maybe = insta-death. Big ships lover smaller mates. Then they become absolutely terrifying. A 'Conda or Python who does not have to worry about its backside, is not a piece of cake.
I normally fly with my Bro, bounty hunting, 2 FAS maxed out, most things die, but 4 or even 5 'Condas/ Vultures/ (dread) FAS, call for carefull planning.
IMO

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Minoo Minou]

Fly Vulture or FAS and forget about all FA stuff. it is also irrelevant as this game has chosen a "sci- fi" flight model like airplanes. Agile ship = win. Less agile ship + wingmate = big win.

I strongly disagree with this.

 

[joshman72nd]

use your environment? i found that they like to stick right on my butt in a corvette so i just squish them into the asteroid.

 

[Ouberos]

Speed is your friend against the smaller ships.

A shooty sidewinder can be a real pain if you leave all pips to Sys or WP. I find that full power to ENG but keep in the blue then down thrust as you pull back helps bring them around. Also I have a feeling their (the Ai NPC) alpha strike is better than the rest of their combat. So if you are engaged for a couple of minutes their aggression seem to fade away giving you time for a response.

I like flying an Eagle into combat sometimes and you get a sense of when it is "your turn" to hit back against similar sized ships. It might be I'm just imagining it but having fun fights with small ships does seem to be about who can stay in the fight longest.

Good luck OP!