Small ship combat sucks

[Jaggid Edje]

A person with Novice combat rank could have fully engineered ships because they did all of their initial play as a Trader and/or Explorer. In other words, it's not a bad thing to have CZ related missions offered to those with Novice combat rank. I started with mostly trade and did the leap into CZ's while still quite low in combat rank.

At a certain point, complaining about the game not holding one's hand is just not constructive; there's such a thing as too much hand holding and learning through play. CZ's are not the place to go if your ships aren't engineered. Now you know, move on.
There's plenty of other things you can still do for combat, just might mean you need to move systems (which you appear to have figured out).

It won't take you too long to get to where you can do some engineering, get a bigger ship, etc, and go back to get revenge in the CZ's.

 

[Morbad]

Except the example OP gave was 15 minutes of sustained point blank fire to take down a Cobra. Something's wrong with that.

The same defensive inflation that's affected the rest of the game.

 

[Werewolf13]

I've only been playing a short while, but I've come to the conclusion that small ship combat in ED is not in a good place, and I think there are multiple issues.

The relative manouverability of small ships vs large ships and the way FA off works makes mitigating damage through positioning a somewhat marginal prospect

Mitigating? What is that? A clever way to say that an Eagle should be able to kill a 'conda because the eagle can continuously stay out of the 'conda's weapon arcs?

Yeah - Right. Sorry Bud but a fly can't kill a wasp - just not gonna happen no matter how good a flyer the fly is.

...and from what I understand of Engineering I get the impression that it has the effect of being a non-optional grind that basically exludes anyone who doesn't want to perform that grind from being remotely competitive.

Excellent observation and 100% correct, though I imagine some will disagree.

...It has no drive so I'm able to pummel it at point blank range (<600m). My dual Beams can dissipate it's weakened shields in seconds so I'm expecting this to be pretty quick.

No word of a lie, it took my entire remaining Multi-cannon ammo (over half my entire loadout), delivered at point blank range to reduce its hull by about 40%, after which I had to grind through the remainder of his hull with my Beam lasers. The entire process took me nearly 15 minutes. This is one small class ship finishing off another (already crippled) small class ship. Is this a process that should really take over 10 minutes? what are these multi-cannons firing, confetti?

You were in a combat zone, right? Taking out the Cobra's shield with your Beam no big deal. However in a combat zone it's very likely even if the Cobra was an NPC that it had Military Composite armor and maybe a few hull reinforcement modules which makes taking out the hull with a single, size 2 unengineered gimballed MC a chore. Try fixed weapons. Even unengineered the damage boost compared to gimballed is significant.

Earlier today I found a wanted npc in a Dolphin at the nav beacon, I was able to dispatch that in under a minute so the multi-cannon seems to work ok on civilian vessels, but on anything with some armour it seems like a waste of a weapon slot. This surprises me since I've looked up Eagle builds on the web and beams and mult-cannon seems fairly conventional, but in my experience against combat ships these weapons do almost nothing. The NPCs in the Conflict Zone don't seem to have any trouble ripping my ship to shreds though.

Combat Zone - Hard. Plain ole space and civilian ship - not so hard. Are you beginning to see a pattern here OP?

What am I doing wrong, anyone got any advice on this please?

You're not doing anything wrong. Nothing. You're just new and have a b.utt load of learning to do. Don't get frustrated. Learn from your experiences. Get used to the grind because its an ED fact of life. You can minimize it and still have fun and be successful at the game (depending on how you define success) or you can become a slave to it like some (who seem to <gag> actually enjoy it.

Decide what works for you and do it. If it gets frustrating - and it will sometimes - take a break and do something else in ED for a while. You have many, many options.

Thumbs up to ya Neutrino Sunset (cool name by the way) - and may the day when y'ur atoms become one with the black be a long time in coming.

 

[WR3ND]

...

I'd say give the Vulture a try, Engineered or otherwise, though obviously with it being Engineered it'd be much more capable. Historically in the game per the meta, it's basically the small ship RES queen.

 

[Aashenfox]

I concur, a vulture with a pair of gimballed frags is a pve death beast. One incendiary, one corrosive if you have the engineering, pips 3-2-1 and watch stuff melt, ah the simple life.

 

[thistle]

From the replies so far the consensus seems to be that CZ are endgame so this is expected. This strikes me as a bit odd since the only kill missions offered in the system I'm in are Massacre missions for harmless and novice rank which specifically state that the CZ are where to find the targets.

Probably more to do with the fact that CZs were reworked completely in Beyond Q4, to make them much more interesting. They were simple combat zones previously, now they are much more dymamic with npc comms, phases to the battle etc. And much tougher npc enemies.

They existed before December 2018, but were totally different and had the same quality of npcs as res sites.

 

[Hoopes81]

I concur, a vulture with a pair of gimballed frags is a pve death beast. One incendiary, one corrosive if you have the engineering, pips 3-2-1 and watch stuff melt, ah the simple life.

This. But it is an end game play around build, you have fun (a lot of fun) but you may see the rebuy screen alot if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[Maymo]

Try changing your mindset a little bit and know your role.

You’re in an Eagle, you’re not really meant to be downing ships left right and centre.

Eagles work well in a scout/distraction role, harassing ships from behind and vanishing as they try to turn. The original eagle is great at targeting modules due to its handling. The IEagles advantage is its speed, it can vanish at the first sign of trouble and also intercept ships just as fast.

In a CZ you’re going to be playing in a support role, pestering ships, dropping their shields for your bigger brothers and kill stealing your way through any massacre missions.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t still fun.

Mild engineering and using modifications like ‘focused’ on your lasers will allow you to punch above your weight, but if you want to become a main killer in a CZ you’re just going to need a bigger boat.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

It's totally bonkers. And the grind is not worth it. It will make anything trivial. After unlocking all engineers and buffing my Kraith to godmode, I found myself doing guardian stuff, but with my old DBS. I came to this ship because at the time, a friend who introduced me to the game, was already king admiral and when he had a dozen jumps to do, I had to do three times the jumps with the other small ships. Now with a bit of engineernig it's Dual rev cascade railguns, dual small frags with one drag, one corrosive, and the best maneouverability in the game. Used to hunt Elite Condas with it. It's a radically different beast than the FAOff permaboosting Kraith brick I have piloted from the last months. It makes supercruise almost fun and FAOff is truly a weightless experience. As of now this type of gameplay is largely ignored by most, because it's not optimal.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Does the Vulture really count though?

I use that to beat up on PvP mediums on occasion lol.

 

[jnTracks]

I second the idea that a change of tactic would be enough to keep the eagle flying and being fun. I'd add that maybe a change of weapon loadout would be good, too. Tagging ships and running away is nice, so is dropping their shields quick while the bigger birds finish the kill. So maybe change the multi cannon for rails? Keep lasers for shields? Generally I think the Laser/MC setup isn't great for CZ. Just a thought. Personally. I'd go up to a vulture to tackle CZ combat. (and even then, use different guns than laser/MC.

 

[Troy_McClure]

Firstly, you're not doing anything wrong...except getting overly impatient!

The best way to become a really good pilot is to stick to the weaker ships & move along the significant learning curve at your own pace. Unlike when many of us started NPCs are now pretty good, so yeah, if you don't pick your fights sensibly you'll taste a rebuy or two & endure some frustration.

The advice I'd give is get a DBS, Courier, Viper III or Viper IV & stick it out...but if you want to be able to take on any challenge in your small ship, then a Vulture is the go-to little ship that packs the punch of a medium.

Take a look at this & bear in mind that I'm a filthy casual with average skills...in this vid I stacked a few assassination missions after ~10 mins in a HazRES to re-familiarise myself with my Hotas X on the very day that I returned after a 6 month break - a bit of an indictment of the game really.

 

[Slowfiddler]

Take a look at this & bear in mind that I'm a filthy casual with average skills.

That was intense, wish I was that "average". What is a pacifier? Is it an engineered thing?

 

[Neutrino Sunset]

What ship are you in there Troy?

 

[Ouberos]

OP there is much useful information here. I also often fly an I or a DBS in CZ and yes, the small weapons do suck sometimes but the survivability of your ship is in your speed and manoeuvrability.

Also, if you are faced with another disabled victim, never overlook the usefulness of putting all pips to shields and using the cockpit hardpoint. It costs no ammo and if you have stripped his shields it will probably remover hull points faster than your MC.

 

[WR3ND]

Does the Vulture really count though?

I use that to beat up on PvP mediums on occasion lol.

It's small and agile, so it counts in my book. A moon made out of cheese is still a moon; it just happens to be a bit tastier than most.

 

[Vardaugas]

using the cockpit hardpoint.

Loved paddling enemy ships with my Corvette when I had one. Probably the most fun part about that ship.

But for small ships, an iCourier is also great. Heavy shields for its size and I had one with three shard cannons grinding down Anacondas. The one I have at the moment, I use for illegal stuff, like hacking installations and fly-bys for scan/disable jobs planetside.

 

[Bloodsign]

I've only been playing a short while, but I've come to the conclusion that small ship combat in ED is not in a good place, and I think there are multiple issues.

The relative manouverability of small ships vs large ships and the way FA off works makes mitigating damage through positioning a somewhat marginal prospect, and from what I understand of Engineering I get the impression that it has the effect of being a non-optional grind that basically exludes anyone who doesn't want to perform that grind from being remotely competitive.

What is most galling to me at the moment though is just the sheer pants damage output. Let me describe something that just happened to me.

I'm in a Low Intensity Conflict Zone in an Imperial Eagle, I have two small Beam Lasers and a medium Multi-cannon (all gimballed). I'm doing my usual thing of trying to stay away from the middle of the fight while still getting dps on targets being attacked by other ships on my team. I notice an enemy Cobra MkIII that has been disabled and is drifting at high speed out of the fight. I close on it to finish it off. It has no drive so I'm able to pummel it at point blank range (<600m). My dual Beams can dissipate it's weakened shields in seconds so I'm expecting this to be pretty quick.

No word of a lie, it took my entire remaining Multi-cannon ammo (over half my entire loadout), delivered at point blank range to reduce its hull by about 40%, after which I had to grind through the remainder of his hull with my Beam lasers. The entire process took me nearly 15 minutes. This is one small class ship finishing off another (already crippled) small class ship. Is this a process that should really take over 10 minutes? what are these multi-cannons firing, confetti?

Earlier today I found a wanted npc in a Dolphin at the nav beacon, I was able to dispatch that in under a minute so the multi-cannon seems to work ok on civilian vessels, but on anything with some armour it seems like a waste of a weapon slot. This surprises me since I've looked up Eagle builds on the web and beams and mult-cannon seems fairly conventional, but in my experience against combat ships these weapons do almost nothing. The NPCs in the Conflict Zone don't seem to have any trouble ripping my ship to shreds though.

What am I doing wrong, anyone got any advice on this please?

As others have pointed out, Combat Zones are high-end NPC combat, even the low intensity ones. As a CMDR who focuses almost entirely on combat (only just now branching out a bit), here is my recommended progression for you:

Start by scumming regular nav beacons for pirate bounties. The spawn rate of pirates will be slow, but you'll have system security forces to help you team the heavies. I started here with a Cobra Mk3 and that ship kicks pirate hiney.

Graduate to Resource Extraction Sites, these spawn a lot of pirates. Start with the low risk ones and work up to where you are comfortable. Compromised Nav beacons spawn a lot of criminal types too, so that's good hunting, but I rate them as dangerous as a Hazardous RES site.

Once you have a solid A-rated combat ship with a bit of engineering, start moving on to Combat Zones. I'm here now; I do Low Intensity CZs in my 10% engineered Krait MkII and it's reasonably safe, though yes, it takes forever to kill an Eagle when it takes about four seconds to do so in a RES site.

 

[Schmack]

I’ve heard many say similar things about the engineering being mandatory... I think that’s kind of strongly misunderstanding the wide variety of things that can be done in the game; to suggest that CZ combat is the only combat, or something.
A better framing is that engineering is a way to upgrade further than the standard module class (still with me, I assume) and that obviously gameplay difficulty should range up to follow suit.
So yes, engineering is “mandatory” if you want to fly in the most intense combat in the game. But if you stick to low RES sites, or even high; you can have a lot of great fun there and not be outmatched.
Also, right at the top you mention that you’re fairly new. And I know your example specifically took the skill variable out of it, but still.

CZ tend to like a totally different loadout than RES combat, and so on. I wouldn’t want to do a CZ without rails or plasmas. It’s not the same things. Ships there are different. The npcs are engineered. This should be expected in a game where you can upgrade, they need to throw opponents that are worth that upgrade.

Well sure, and you can buy lower rated modules than A rated, or you can get a 8GB of memory in your new gaming laptop, with a borderline GPU. You can do all of that, sure. You don't need to engineer. If you want to stay on the porch you can just have a stock sidey. I you want to run with the big dogs you have to be able to pee in the tall grass call engineering.

OK maybe not, but still. You'll probably enjoy the game more if you have a beast under your feet instead of a domestic cat (nothing against cats).

I did several wing missions for pirate lord kills yesterday in an engineered Federal Corvette. The 3 Vulture wingmates are a pain, but if you ram the leader enough just short of dropping the shields, you can finish him pretty quick without dropping your shields and even if they drop, I have hull and module buffs out the yang. Pop his hull and leave the wasps to themselves. Still, combat zones can be tricky if you're outnumbered. Even a highly engineered ship can get into some trouble pretty quick and you have to tuck tail and run.

 

[Lori Jameson]

Sounds reasonable to me for a pair of small unengineered pulses or a small MC against a Cobra with HRPs, they have a lot of internals, over 2000 hull no problem at all in CZ.

I remember way back when it took a couple of minutes to kill an Anaconda with a Cobra Mk.3. Engineering is really odd as it has taken some of the skill and planning out of piloting, but has given us some pretty wild builds in the process.

It used to be if you wanted to get good it required owning decent modules and learning the strengths/weaknesses of your vessel. Now the process includes grinding for materials and using engineering to eliminate your weaknesses and doubling down on your strengths.

Big ships no longer turn like bricks and medium ships are better all around than the smalls for most engagements. Both points obsoletes most the of small ships from being a serious contender outside of support roles. Why engineer a Cobra Mk.3 when a Krait Mk.2 exists? Why bother with a Courier when a FAS or a Chieftan exists? The DBX and Vulture are really the only smalls that still have a relevant niche.