Flat roof? Its gonna leak! Human behind you? You're gonna die!

[Angus]

I've been reading and watching you Alphans and Beatniks, with much enjoyment, and something that seems to come across quite a bit recently is that if a human player gets behind you in a combat situation, then its very likely game over.

Is that right? Is this a balancing thing that may change?

Obviously, not having played the game, its difficult to judge, but I'd have thought while it was clearly highly advantageous to be behind an enemy ship that the firm possibility of him turning the tables on you (given appropriate flying skills) existed in the game.

can anybody clue me in further?

 

[ZeeWolf]

It depends on the types of ships, weapons and the skill of the pilot.

If someone jumps me in an equal or better ship I can get away very often, but it isn't easy to get away. You still have to be a practiced enough pilot to understand the best escape method. The mistake most people make is assuming that once the guy is behind you, flashing red & white on the scanner, firing at you with deployed hard-points that you couldn't have avoided being in that situation.

If someone jumps you in an equal or worse ship it's not difficult to turn the tables. The mistake that most people make is trying to point the ship at them while allowing them to obliterate their shield and start on the hull. Then complaining that it isn't fair because they didn't have a chance.

If you have a faster ship (e.g: Cobra vs Cobra/Eagle/Sidewinder at max pips) The first thing you should do is put distance between you and the attacker. It's actually possible to get out of scanner range, turn around and return. I've done this a couple of times and taken out another player that attacked me then assumed I'd hopped it.

If the other player has gimballed weapons, engaging silent running at an appropriate distance will make his weapons fairly useless. I've had this done to me by a skilled pilot in a sidewinder who escaped my Cobra attack.

If you have gimballed weapons, then my experience is that the pilot who knows what sub-system to target most effectively does actually come up trumps.

If the other player is less maneuverable (e.g: Sidewinder/Eagle vs Cobra) you can actually get on his tail quickly and use lateral thrusters to prevent him turning on you. It does require skill and practice but its certainly possible.

I'm sure lots of people here will complain it is too difficult because the most common experience is shields being depleted very quickly followed by a moment of thrusting to get the opponent in front of you, followed by the opponent jousting towards you, followed by a free sidewinder/insurance choice.

 

[lefty1117]

Reverse thrusters will catch people off guard as well. Still though if you're in that 1500 to 2500m range and they're behind you, things can get ugly quick.

 

[Cunnah]

Another good trick is if you get into a tight turning battle you can throw a good player by reducing forward speed and use your lateral thrusters to move closer. The disconnect between ship orientation and direction of travel make predicting your movement difficult.

Also if your trying to make a break for it in a small ship, all power to engines and jink using lateral thrusters, remember most ships have a small face on profile if you turn you expose a larger target to be hit.

Finally avoid dangerous situations such as being dragged into a fuzz ball of enemy ships don't be afraid to begin to plan your graceful exit before you get into trouble.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Rear view mirrors

 

[Togg]

always.. ALWAYS be aware of your surroundings.. and never allow pride to stop you from diving into a asteroid field to break line of sight with a attacker.

that right there has saved my ship on many occasions.. whipping through a asteroid field with 4 pips in Engines... rolling and banking over around and behind asteroids until I gain some distance... drop a heat sink, go silent and then continue maneuvering in a tangent to your last direction. then drifting with all systems shut down for 20-30 seconds will most times place you way beyond their radar range.

then you can decide to bug out or maybe plan your own Ambush.

 

[ahunter]

When you run, your ship occupies a smaller area to your opponent, which means that your manoeuvres count for less, which means they have an easier time hitting you, which means you die. So running is often not an option if you're attacked by a player.

The combat mechanics are why I'm turning off multiplayer as soon as I can. I'd *like* to play multiplayer, but I see nothing to indicate that they will ever be fixed.

The problem is time. Everything takes quite a lot of time in this game - except combat. I've been killed by other players in less time than the computer takes to announce 'you are under attack'. After spending several minutes flying somewhere, this grates a bit the first time and eventually became what has stopped me from playing the beta. Shooting down someone on a trading run takes seconds, but can wipe out hours of work.

If combat were changed so that it was more strategic and so that even an experienced player would require a lot of effort to finish off a complete newbie, it'd potentially be way more interesting. A player beset by pirates would have time to call for help, and there would also be time for help to arrive. Pirates would have more reason to issue 'stand and deliver' orders (because it saves time) and players would have more reason to comply (they don't end up being chased all over the system for the next 15 minutes).

Bounties would need to be increased to make bounty hunting worthwhile, but I can't help feeling that getting a large bounty after a long chase is going to be way more satisfying than the current situation. I'd love to see the mechanics change so that you don't die unless your opponent really wants you dead: if I have an hour an evening to play, then getting killed basically wipes out everything I've done in that hour. I'd like to think that the person who killed me actually earned it.

This nicely fixes the problem of where your opponent has a ship that vastly outclasses yours: it doesn't matter. You can run, you can call for help. You have options, instead of what exists now: which is you can die, or you can ram him to express your displeasure and then die.

I don't expect to see anything like this. I expect the final game to still have short combat, because nothing I've seen in the design documents indicates otherwise. So it'll still be a dice roll as to whether or not any given instance will contain someone who's bored and wants to kill someone. All of the mechanics I've seen focus on punishing that player, but that doesn't help me: my evening's gameplay is still ruined by that random chance.

So, the combat mechanics mean no multiplayer for me, because all it seems to add is a random 'oops, you rolled snake eyes, you're dead' element to the game that simply isn't ever going to be fun, an effect made much much worse by the time investment that it demands.

 

[Dr Wookie]

When you run, your ship occupies a smaller area to your opponent, which means that your manoeuvres count for less, which means they have an easier time hitting you, which means you die. So running is often not an option if you're attacked by a player.

The combat mechanics are why I'm turning off multiplayer as soon as I can. I'd *like* to play multiplayer, but I see nothing to indicate that they will ever be fixed.

The problem is time. Everything takes quite a lot of time in this game - except combat. I've been killed by other players in less time than the computer takes to announce 'you are under attack'. After spending several minutes flying somewhere, this grates a bit the first time and eventually became what has stopped me from playing the beta. Shooting down someone on a trading run takes seconds, but can wipe out hours of work.

If combat were changed so that it was more strategic and so that even an experienced player would require a lot of effort to finish off a complete newbie, it'd potentially be way more interesting. A player beset by pirates would have time to call for help, and there would also be time for help to arrive. Pirates would have more reason to issue 'stand and deliver' orders (because it saves time) and players would have more reason to comply (they don't end up being chased all over the system for the next 15 minutes).

Bounties would need to be increased to make bounty hunting worthwhile, but I can't help feeling that getting a large bounty after a long chase is going to be way more satisfying than the current situation. I'd love to see the mechanics change so that you don't die unless your opponent really wants you dead: if I have an hour an evening to play, then getting killed basically wipes out everything I've done in that hour. I'd like to think that the person who killed me actually earned it.

This nicely fixes the problem of where your opponent has a ship that vastly outclasses yours: it doesn't matter. You can run, you can call for help. You have options, instead of what exists now: which is you can die, or you can ram him to express your displeasure and then die.

I don't expect to see anything like this. I expect the final game to still have short combat, because nothing I've seen in the design documents indicates otherwise. So it'll still be a dice roll as to whether or not any given instance will contain someone who's bored and wants to kill someone. All of the mechanics I've seen focus on punishing that player, but that doesn't help me: my evening's gameplay is still ruined by that random chance.

So, the combat mechanics mean no multiplayer for me, because all it seems to add is a random 'oops, you rolled snake eyes, you're dead' element to the game that simply isn't ever going to be fun, an effect made much much worse by the time investment that it demands.

There will be a BIG change in the final game that you may not have considered... player density will be much, much lower, meaning that such encounters will be fairly rare unless you go looking for them (eg going to a turf war). Also, there will be various measures put in place to discourage griefing.

 

[ahunter]

There will be a BIG change in the final game that you may not have considered... player density will be much, much lower, meaning that such encounters will be fairly rare unless you go looking for them (eg going to a turf war). Also, there will be various measures put in place to discourage griefing.

I did think about this, but it was this chain of logic that lead me to decide that unless something changes about the way combat is handled, I'd have to play single-player. When the beta first came out, I found that what I was doing was flying around looking for places where there weren't any other players, because my experience with encounters was so consistently negative: if it wasn't outright hostility, it was a farmed-out area with nothing to do.

So, I thought: the final game won't be like this - encounters will be less frequent so I'll be able to find stuff to do by avoiding other players. But... there'll be an option to turn off other players anyway, and then I'll just be able to do what I want without having to worry or waste so much time flying somewhere and then immediately leaving. All spreading the players out means is that these things will happen slightly less often. It'll still be a dice roll.

The thoughts about combat are simply what I think would change this situation. Make combat take at least as much time as travel. I'm not bothered about the monetary loss: it's just that having several hours of profit as a trader wiped out in seconds because I happened to encounter a player playing a pirate who was better than me who shot me while I was trying to flee just feels incredibly cheap. This game punishes death heavily: it's no fun at all being on the losing side of a conflict, and making losing fun is key to a good multiplayer experience.

The combat is too fast paced compared to the rest of the game. A 10-15 minute chase with multiple opportunities to escape or reach safety but the same result would actually feel epic, instead of how it feels right now, which is 'oh well, I'm dead again'. You die so quickly that it doesn't even feel worth trying to fight back, and it's impossible to flee (the combat mechanics put a fleeing player at a massive disadvantage even when the opponent doesn't have a much faster ship).

I'm really looking forward to the single player option. The NPCs are a bit easy, but they never feel cheap.

 

[Merf]

The battle starts way before the first shots are fired. A short battle means a failure of perception for one of the involved combatants.

/Merf - Not surprised a fight ends fast when meassured from when the attacker is in optimal position.

 

[Cunnah]

If it hasn't already been said if you see a red player on your radar, priority is them nothing else.

 

[LexTalionis]

Perhaps cargo ships could buy an EMP countermeasure, this would disable weapons and shields of surrounding ships (cargo ship included) within a 3500m radius for 10 to 15 seconds, giving enough time for an escape into supercruise.

There is a chance of a balance issue with this, so maybe the only ships affected would be the ones that are facing towards the ship originally firing the EMP.

 

[Phaedra]

Escaping into supercruise is not hard as long as you react quickly and decisively. The only time I've failed is when I changed my mind (twice) about whether it was best to fight or flee. You can even do it with a malfunctioning drive as I found out to my surprise once. It just takes a lot longer to charge up the frame shift drive, which gives your attacker more time to kill you, but if you are keeping them at long range with speed you can still survive.

 

[Amadeus]

Anyone tried dumping some junk cargo in an opponents flight path?

 

[alexios]

Rear view mirrors

That should be a feature suggestion! Is there a good reason why a ship in 3300 can't have a rear-facing camera, especially when the placement of the cockpit severely limits your field of view?

 

[alexios]

If it hasn't already been said if you see a red player on your radar, priority is them nothing else.

With my connection and current hardware, if I see a red player on the scanner, ‘eject, eject’ follows half a second later.

 

[ahunter]

Escaping into supercruise is not hard as long as you react quickly and decisively. The only time I've failed is when I changed my mind (twice) about whether it was best to fight or flee. You can even do it with a malfunctioning drive as I found out to my surprise once. It just takes a lot longer to charge up the frame shift drive, which gives your attacker more time to kill you, but if you are keeping them at long range with speed you can still survive.

Not if your opponent is a Cobra. They have twice the firepower, enough speed to keep up while firing and they make your drive take twice as long to charge once you finally get out of mass lock. At distances above 1-2km, it's really easy to keep the other guy targetted, no matter what, as the slow gimbal and yaw rates cease to have any effect.

Plus, there are several bugs that currently make the Cobra's class 4 weapons less effective than they're supposed to be. So the eventual situation will be even worse.

This isn't the main problem, though. The main problem is that by having to run, the time invested in going to an area is now wasted irrespective of outcome. Speaking for myself: I've tried to get used to this as a game mechanic and found that I simply cannot. It's too random as to whether or not a player is in a particular place: every other aspect of the game is careful and considered. Player combat is just fast and random. It's jarring and the high stakes involved make the game tedious rather than more exciting. I'm really looking forward to turning it off for good - which is unfortunate. I actually wanted to play multiplayer Elite: but if what that means is that I wind up flying around looking for places with no other players, then I'll just turn them off altogether when it's finally possible.

 

[madmechanic4u]

When you run, your ship occupies a smaller area to your opponent, which means that your manoeuvres count for less, which means they have an easier time hitting you, which means you die. So running is often not an option if you're attacked by a player.

The combat mechanics are why I'm turning off multiplayer as soon as I can. I'd *like* to play multiplayer, but I see nothing to indicate that they will ever be fixed.

The problem is time. Everything takes quite a lot of time in this game - except combat. I've been killed by other players in less time than the computer takes to announce 'you are under attack'. After spending several minutes flying somewhere, this grates a bit the first time and eventually became what has stopped me from playing the beta. Shooting down someone on a trading run takes seconds, but can wipe out hours of work.

If combat were changed so that it was more strategic and so that even an experienced player would require a lot of effort to finish off a complete newbie, it'd potentially be way more interesting. A player beset by pirates would have time to call for help, and there would also be time for help to arrive. Pirates would have more reason to issue 'stand and deliver' orders (because it saves time) and players would have more reason to comply (they don't end up being chased all over the system for the next 15 minutes).

Bounties would need to be increased to make bounty hunting worthwhile, but I can't help feeling that getting a large bounty after a long chase is going to be way more satisfying than the current situation. I'd love to see the mechanics change so that you don't die unless your opponent really wants you dead: if I have an hour an evening to play, then getting killed basically wipes out everything I've done in that hour. I'd like to think that the person who killed me actually earned it.

This nicely fixes the problem of where your opponent has a ship that vastly outclasses yours: it doesn't matter. You can run, you can call for help. You have options, instead of what exists now: which is you can die, or you can ram him to express your displeasure and then die.

I don't expect to see anything like this. I expect the final game to still have short combat, because nothing I've seen in the design documents indicates otherwise. So it'll still be a dice roll as to whether or not any given instance will contain someone who's bored and wants to kill someone. All of the mechanics I've seen focus on punishing that player, but that doesn't help me: my evening's gameplay is still ruined by that random chance.

So, the combat mechanics mean no multiplayer for me, because all it seems to add is a random 'oops, you rolled snake eyes, you're dead' element to the game that simply isn't ever going to be fun, an effect made much much worse by the time investment that it demands.

i agree, hunter... shields and hull go too quickly to really try any "tactics" either increase shield and hull or weaken weapons, would make pvp more enjoyable

 

[Razorwire]

i agree, hunter... shields and hull go too quickly to really try any "tactics" either increase shield and hull or weaken weapons, would make pvp more enjoyable

You all realise we're all on basic newbie shields right now, yes?
There will be shield upgrade modules down the line, and multiple shield generator points on larger ships.

Combat won't get any quicker, but there is equipment coming to make it slower.


Also, gimbals don't work on a spiraling cold-running ships; button up the hatches and boost to get out. You might take some heat damage, but it's far slower than laser damage

 

[Maxim Locke]

The fight didn't start when he opened fire, it started when you both ended up in the same area. Him being behind you and opening fire is the culmination and end result of his manoeuvring and/or your incompetence or lack of awareness.

That being said, depending on the ships and situation, there's stuff you can do to defend against it.