[Appeal to FDev] Let's talk about combat

[CMDR Plexus Ironrot]

I have a Remedy to your situation good sir

Buy Keelback
Put Biweave in it
some hull and 2 mrps
A rate EVERYTHING
Engineer it so much that if you even so much as bump a wrench Tani Shoved into your armored power to shunt some power safety what not she was rambling you where not paying attention it will explode
Slap 2 Efficient PA's on it Bill give you for reasons you don't wanna know
2 long range rails from TOD (endure the combat stories)
Higher some Pretty blond...fire her because your wife said no...Hire Frank...ugh..Frank -.-
Put a Beam Tipain in it
oh yeah Chaff Point defense and one Phat Skill booster... i mean Shield booster

Go to your local mission supplier...Get a wing Assassination mission

Go HAM


Your welcome

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

If any thing needs work in the combat department it would be the targeting system.

The shield covers the ship so its all good it having a health bar.

The hull is a well a hull it should have integrity which should be hard to destroy so should not be the primary target.If you blast holes in it there should be decompression and things flying out of the holes.

The modules! They make the ship work so they should be the target!

So if you target the power plant damage it that should have consequences as in unstable or tempory loss of power all the way down to shut down dead ship but no baboom.!

Fuel tanks result in baboom! But hard to damage.

Cargo bays should eject cargo when damaged enough but do little to the ships functionality.

Distributors if damaged should malfunction all the way down to stop working where it jams in neutral 222.

Engines would malfunction then shut down ship unable to move.

Thrusters would result in minor loss of control to shut down and ship out of control.

Fsd would result in malfunction to not being able to jump.

So you catch my drift to what I'm saying, right now you target a ship and blast until 0% then boom, we have the ability to target modules but it just isn't used to full potential which is a real shame.

Imagine gameplay where you were given a mission to capture a target ALIVE so you need to disable the targets ship then turn on a beacon and summon your employer.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Right now small ships in this game lack any real purpose other than a stepping stone.

A krait mk2 is faster than most small ships and is quite maneuverable. There is no reason ever to choose a small ship over a medium or large ship for any reason.

An enhanced drives small ship will outrun any medium without even having to boost.

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required.

 

[Hooplah]

I have my own complaints about combat, but it has nothing to do with lack of toys. If anything, Frontier gave us too many toys. Engineered NPCs doing FA-off flips, popping SCBs like candy (no heatsinks required), yet piloted by an angry Jar Jar Binks has all but ruined combat for me. I think I would have loved this game more before Engineers and PowerPlay modules were introduced, when combat was about the pilot's skill, not artificial "skill" by making engineered Belugas that fly like Vipers.

Lately I'm seeing module damage by NPCs with my shields never dropping. I earned combat in Combat Zones using mostly a Vulture then the FAS long before all the new ships were available. With the new NPC updates I'm not sure that a Corvette would survive. Might have to go to the 500 m/s boost Cutter. I'll see soon enough in my second account.

 

[Powderpanic]

Combat sucks in ED now, engineers are to blame.

1 v 1's taking 15-20mins of attrition FAO.

The small number of ships being truly viable.

Some ships will never die unless the pilot is inept or asleep.

Cheese builds

The huge gate between engineered and non.

Lots of focus has been given to combat. It just wasn't good focus and the Dev team clearly didn't listen to the right people.

While you might not like the top PVP groups like SDC, they know the gaming mechanics to a T and would be ideally suited to help build the game around fun and exciting combat.

Powerpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[Aashenfox]

Neither outfitting, nor engineering, nor combat itself is anywhere near as simple as the OP makes out.

There is room for tweaks, but elite Dangerous's combat model is the best fantasy flight combat model ever made in a video game with a near infinite skill cap.

Engineering as a crafting activity is deep and satisfying, though way too grindy. Particularly armor and shield engineering combined with the weight management that is required makes for extremely complex builds, is very challenging and allows the thoughtful theiry crafter to gain small advantages over his peers. The difference between an FDL who has been told what engineering to do on a forum (HD this, A rate that) and one who worked it out for himself, how to have huge shields and still boost 570 (appropriate use of E rated shield boosters, D rated sensors, etc, is MASSIVE.

There is so much more in this game that needs 10x the attention and more urgently too.

 

[Valorin]

Calling someone "kid" is not constructive, you know?

I'd be really glad if the combat part haven't changed since the release times, and all this attention was directed to the exploration/trading. But this is the thread about combat, and we have to deal with something we've already got, so it's a bit out of scope.

"Kid" was meant metaphorical and not exclusively directed at combat players. Like the kids who like to play with war toys got a lot of those to play with while the kids who like to play with other stuff (including me) didn't get much over the last years though there's a really great park outside to explore...
Now?

 

[EternalSorrow]

"Kid" was meant metaphorical and not exclusively directed at combat players. Like the kids who like to play with war toys got a lot of those to play with while the kids who like to play with other stuff (including me) didn't get much over the last years though there's a really great park outside to explore...
Now?

Well, exploring has got some major improvements. But i cannot say, that combat game part experienced qualitative heap from release times.

Yes, we've got engineering and some new weapons, but so much new entities without any common idea of how it should be balanced leads to the negative results - stale meta, optimal/garbage builds, time-to-kill mess, and overall combat experience spoilage, even in PvE.

Every new entity being added to a game creates a links between itself and every other entity presenting in game already. It leads us to the exponential links number increase, which makes a task of nice balancing all of them almost impossible at some moment; we can see it in the game now, after Horizons updates, when we've got a huge number those "entities" (simply speaking, any kind of modded/not modded module/weapon/any other stuff influencing your combat possibilities) without any understanding of how it will affect the combat experience at all.

That's why I'd rather prefer simple solution, described in the first post.

 

[Avetorian]

An enhanced drives small ship will outrun any medium without even having to boost.

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required.

1. There was a point where the viper mk4 had near the same agility as the python, no joke it was laughably bad. As for the enhanced drives, that really depends on the small ship in question, not all small vessels benefit from them, especially if they are geared for combat.

2. Haven't noticed much difference in that regard, I doubt it is enough to impact my gameplay, even so super cruise has very little gameplay involved so I don't see the value in it.

3. In the most extreme cases perhaps. I've never had difficulty using my asp though? idk

4. Never really been an issue for me using a medium ship.

Medium and larger ships do more relevant things better. From cargo to jump range, save for the dbx, but even then the anaconda will out range the dbx as an explorer vessel. I feel like the enhanced drives were a start. If we want to bring price into the equation, fine make smaller vessels that are more capable or more specialized more expensive. Maybe the game play for them just isn't there yet. who knows.

 

[Junagu]

An enhanced drives small ship will outrun any medium without even having to boost.

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required.

I don't know. I detect a particular mentality behind "small ships are no use". As cod substitutes they probably aren't much use, no!

What I do know is that I've been having an absolute blast jumping into multi-crew on a bunch of Adder's that are engineered out for speed. Pure joy. As the post I've quoted points out - small ships definitely have use - they can be made to be virtually unhittable in combat and have a real feel as surface scouts and cheeky mine layers etc. Very much like the original game in a way! Some of the hugging-the-floor-flying across planet surfaces I've sat in on are seriously enjoyable. And atmospheric too. Not to mention the sense of closeness on the bridge of the smaller ships. A bit different from the Anaconda "is that you over there?!" sense of sp-a-a-a-c-e.
ED has flaws, for sure it does that (like pretty much everything else in life!) but myself I am really enjoying all the stuff since 3.3 - the game hangs together that little bit more convincingly and the social aspect is really starting to do a weave.
I just do not get how people get so bothered about getting the Absolute 100% Edge over other players.

 

[Deareim]

Not combat again....

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

An enhanced drives small ship will outrun any medium without even having to boost.

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required.

all of which are pretty meaningless as there's no gameplay evolved around them

i.e

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

• they dont really - the cutter and corvette can equally shave time off their approach speeds using the same methods, all ships accelerate / decelerate the same and have the same top speed in SC, there is no benefit to flying a small ship, even less so now with FSS.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

• these condas, and cutters had no issues along with many more CMDRs showing its fairly easy

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

• never in 4 years been an issue, there is always solo too.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required,

• what exactly? what uses do they have?

small ships do need some love, access to class one weapons, and all hardpoints (C1 versions) inc AX weaps would be a nice step in the right direction.

 

[EternalSorrow]

Small ships have considerably better supercruise agility than mediums, which allows better and faster approaches to planets and stations for non-cargo missions.

• they dont really - the cutter and corvette can equally shave time off their approach speeds using the same methods, all ships accelerate / decelerate the same and have the same top speed in SC, there is no benefit to flying a small ship, even less so now with FSS.

Small ships are much easier to find landing sites for in rough terrain.

• these condas, and cutters had no issues along with many more CMDRs showing its fairly easy

Small ships can land at outposts even if there's already a medium ship there.

• never in 4 years been an issue, there is always solo too.

Medium and large ships are better at a lot of things - they should be better at something, with that price tag - but small ships have their uses where neither cargo capacity nor raw firepower is required,

• what exactly? what uses do they have?

Agreed, those arguments look far-fetched. Small ships are really just stepping stones now, and nothing more.

I was trying to reflect this in my suggestions in the first post, by proposing of a large ships maneuver reduce, to give small ships a possibility to utilize their agility to evade the fire. And yes, small and medium crafts also need some tweaks; Cobra Mk III has lesser acceleration along the all three axes than a FDL, and that's not the only example.

 

[bicarbon8]

Small ships are really just stepping stones now, and nothing more.

completely disagree... only after getting over 1000 hours in the game have I gone to the Small Ships for the challenge, the low rebuy and the fun they present. I use the following ship to chase down Large and Medium ship Commanders and distract them from killing other Commanders in systems like Deciat and Shinrarta Dehzra

https://s.orbis.zone/1P9m

and I've several other builds of Vipers (Mk IV and III) that I rather enjoy using

 

[B1rdy]

completely disagree... only after getting over 1000 hours in the game have I gone to the Small Ships for the challenge, the low rebuy and the fun they present. I use the following ship to chase down Large and Medium ship Commanders and distract them from killing other Commanders in systems like Deciat and Shinrarta Dehzra

https://s.orbis.zone/1P9m

and I've several other builds of Vipers (Mk IV and III) that I rather enjoy using

Thanks for sharing. The ideal game would provide specific use cases for small ships. Virtually tying an arm behind your back by flying a small ship, isn't exactly a purpose.

 

[bicarbon8]

Thanks for sharing. The ideal game would provide specific use cases for small ships. Virtually tying an arm behind your back by flying a small ship, isn't exactly a purpose.

the ships I'm taking on are Chieftains, FDL's and Corvettes... If I were to go up against these commanders in a Medium or Large ship of my own I would get wrecked and, at the very least, incur a significant amount of damage that would need to be repaired... In the above linked Viper Mk III build, even if I get destroyed, the rebuy is nominal, but the ship is so fast that I'm usually not getting destroyed; and with its Phasing Sequence effect on the Focused Pulse laser, I'm slowly (read: VERY SLOWLY) whittling away the other ship's hull even while their shields are up so they incur some cost from the engagement. That, to me, means this small ship serves a very important role.

I also recently put together the following Diamondback Scout https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb5 that I'm using for "Hack the megaship" type missions. It can run in Silent Running for a LONG-LONG time meaning I needn't be worried about being detected and it can fit in the tiny crevices around the megaships to avoid being spotted.

and then, there's my Haulers, that I use to get me into places far away even when flying through dangerous systems with known griefers: the slower one: https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb6, the faster one: https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb9

none of my other ships serve these purposes as well as these few small ships do.

 

[Avetorian]

the ships I'm taking on are Chieftains, FDL's and Corvettes... If I were to go up against these commanders in a Medium or Large ship of my own I would get wrecked and, at the very least, incur a significant amount of damage that would need to be repaired... In the above linked Viper Mk III build, even if I get destroyed, the rebuy is nominal, but the ship is so fast that I'm usually not getting destroyed; and with its Phasing Sequence effect on the Focused Pulse laser, I'm slowly (read: VERY SLOWLY) whittling away the other ship's hull even while their shields are up so they incur some cost from the engagement. That, to me, means this small ship serves a very important role.

I also recently put together the following Diamondback Scout https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb5 that I'm using for "Hack the megaship" type missions. It can run in Silent Running for a LONG-LONG time meaning I needn't be worried about being detected and it can fit in the tiny crevices around the megaships to avoid being spotted.

and then, there's my Haulers, that I use to get me into places far away even when flying through dangerous systems with known griefers: the slower one: https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb6, the faster one: https://s.orbis.zone/1Pb9

none of my other ships serve these purposes as well as these few small ships do.

A medium ship can do what your viper mk3 can do to a much greater effectiveness + carry a fighter, to fight through those small crevices around the megaships and such. See the Krait Mk2. Just because the cost of using said small vessel is low, does not mean it is relevant in the grand scheme of things. If you use enhanced drives for combat you are sacrificing a lot of the benefit of those drives for combat capability. The maneuverability is not so much greater than medium ship, in fact some medium ships will take down small ships with relative ease, and if you are engaging a large ship, he may have a fighter bay and that fighter will simply take you out so your "Cost from engagement" is pointless especially anyone flying a large ship will repay that on a single bounty kill.

Come on man, lets be serious, all you've described the small ship to be capable of doing is basically screwing around. Which is all they are good for.

 

[bicarbon8]

and if you are engaging a large ship, he may have a fighter bay and that fighter will simply take you out.

went toe-to-toe with an imperial fighter launched from a corvette while in my above linked Viper Mk III. Held my own quite well, thanks.

 

[Avetorian]

went toe-to-toe with an imperial fighter launched from a corvette while in my above linked Viper Mk III. Held my own quite well, thanks.

Let's analyze that engagement a bit further, Did you kill the corvette or its fighter? or did it result in you having to flee? And for arguments sake, lets say that you managed to destroy both targets. Just because a ship can be used to do something does not mean its efficient.

And that's the point, anything you can do in a small ship I can do in a medium or large ship better. Except maybe run away, but if you're outrunning my Krait then your ship is not fit for combat.

 

[bicarbon8]

Let's analyze that engagement a bit further, Did you kill the corvette or its fighter? or did it result in you having to flee? And for arguments sake, lets say that you managed to destroy both targets. Just because a ship can be used to do something does not mean its efficient.

And that's the point, anything you can do in a small ship I can do in a medium or large ship better. Except maybe run away, but if you're outrunning my Krait then your ship is not fit for combat.

Didn't kill either (though I did take down both their hulls a bit). That said, I did convince the commander to leave the system; which to me, is a success. And no, I didn't have to run away (though I ended things with only 3% hull left).

How many engagements would you be willing to lose in your Krait? I could take my Viper in thousands and lose every time and still not care because the rebuy is so low (not that I typically need to rebuy). That same Viper, has no problems in a Conflict Zone (so it can be used for ranking up, Conflict CG's, etc.)

I'd say that if I can achieve my goals of protecting other commanders in some system, while within a small ship, then it is much more efficient than in a medium or large. Also, because the costs are so extremely low, the barrier to entry is also so extremely low and zoomies are so extremely high, it far surpasses medium and large ship combat, for me.