PvP advice

Despite having played Elite a lot only fairly recently have I started PvP. My practice is going well, that is I am getting lots of practice! Somethings are obvious, pip management needs to be much better, not using FA off puts me at a disadvantage (I use K and M and have found I'm going to need A LOT of practice to get the hang of it). Connected to that is a need to vary my approach--I think I'm a bit one dimensional.

I do have a few questions and would appreciate any tips:

1) My fights have a tenancy to turn into jousts, it invariable results in me losing. How to I go about breaking a joust scenario, especially against more experienced Cmdrs?

2) My aim is woeful, when I drop a Cmdrs shields I then can't press an advantage because they fly evasively and I don't land much of anything. Any thoughts on how to improve aiming? Beyond obvious practice? On top of that I find I've often drained my Distro doing his shield, but that's my pip management problem right there.

3) Even in a joust scenario and given this seems to be a default for me, does anyone have thought or tactics to get the best result? Does this simply then degrade into a battle of stats? Videos can be seen on Bigmaec's thread if anyone did feel like having a look.

All advice appreciated, and my thanks to all those in game who have obligingly given me tips and advice, in future could I possibly have the advice before you mash up my ship?!

Finally if anyone is in Colonia do head up to Carcosa for a duel, especially if you, like me are not very good at PvP.
 
Despite having played Elite a lot only fairly recently have I started PvP. My practice is going well, that is I am getting lots of practice! Somethings are obvious, pip management needs to be much better, not using FA off puts me at a disadvantage (I use K and M and have found I'm going to need A LOT of practice to get the hang of it). Connected to that is a need to vary my approach--I think I'm a bit one dimensional.

I do have a few questions and would appreciate any tips:

1) My fights have a tenancy to turn into jousts, it invariable results in me losing. How to I go about breaking a joust scenario, especially against more experienced Cmdrs?

2) My aim is woeful, when I drop a Cmdrs shields I then can't press an advantage because they fly evasively and I don't land much of anything. Any thoughts on how to improve aiming? Beyond obvious practice? On top of that I find I've often drained my Distro doing his shield, but that's my pip management problem right there.

3) Even in a joust scenario and given this seems to be a default for me, does anyone have thought or tactics to get the best result? Does this simply then degrade into a battle of stats? Videos can be seen on Bigmaec's thread if anyone did feel like having a look.

All advice appreciated, and my thanks to all those in game who have obligingly given me tips and advice, in future could I possibly have the advice before you mash up my ship?!

Finally if anyone is in Colonia do head up to Carcosa for a duel, especially if you, like me are not very good at PvP.
Regarding your last point: I'd estimate you're already better than at least 90 percent of all Elite players in PvP - if not 95% - simply by having that much experience you have now.
You know your limits, you won't run around like a headless chicken if encountering a situation where someone is shooting at you.
You may propably not win many fights at the moment, but there wasn't one fight me against you where you would've been destroyed except if you'd allowed it.
The rest is practice practice practice and finding a build that suits you. You know mine, it's far from meta because I can't hit much with the meta, but with that build I win more
fights then I lose. Oh, and then there is more practice.
There is a good video for everything around on youtube, I remember a good PA training vid by deZpe, just google it.

1) Jousting needs two, so simply don't boost in the direction of your enemy but use your vertical thrusters to orbit more. Look at the vids where Besieger uses his Vulture to orbit
and take notes how he uses boost and thrust.

2) Practice and pip management. Someone here said pip management is best done when all your cap is nearly drained equally. So if your cap is full in one category, take all pips out of that one. If in joust, don't forget to put 4 pips to sys though. Don't be afraid to have no pips in sys when not under direct threat of high damage (PA volleys, ram).
Remember your cap isn't drained equally too. Your sys drain is very low, if using a prismatic. Generally you only need pips in it to get the damage reduction, regen is negligible.
With a bi-weave it is different, you have a constant drain because you rely on the regen. But the drain can be taken from a full cap, so if full, again you can take pips off until nearly drained. Engine is directly influenced by your boost, if you boost often in a "high boost drain" ship, you need more often pips in them. Weapons the same. Especially using a full PA loadout can drain your wep cap in one or two salvos, so always keep that in mind and put pips in to reload the cap quickly...
Look at that schitt Schitt does (pun intended)... I'm not sure I'd even be able to change pips that fast, let alone not knotting my fingers by that 😂

3) You need to know when to joust, when to apply pressure, when to ram, etc. For example I fly a low dps build with my phasing pulses, I try to not joust at all with my FdL but orbit and evade. It's an attrition game against that build.
Of course there are two in a fight, so it won't work all the time, but against a PA enemy I try to evade as much as possible, don't get into a joust, and only press the attack with rams if I have a clear shield advantage for example.
 
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Thanks @Bigmaec really appreciate the advice.

I think I also need to settle on a build and a ship, or two, maybe three.... practice with them lots.

Time for some YouTube I think and then find some more willing or unwilling people to fight with!
 
Unwilling is useless.
People fly non-combat builds, combat-log, highwake out if competent, or simply get ganked.
The few who stand and fight aren't unwilling and would propably fight anyways if you ask or even try to gank you.
Nowadays there are always some people in Colonia who are willing to fight, and in Carcosa too.
It's useful to keep everyone you had a good fight with in your friendlist, to ask for more fights later.
 
In fairness I need the C1 slots for every little bit of hull or module reinforcement I can get, no space for a interdictor on any of them!
 
I've always improved the fastest when working with restrictions. For example I think the kraits aren't the best ships for getting better, since the "two pips in engine permaboost" doesn't force you to improve your pip management at all. The same applies for Prismatics, those are really good, but they won't force you to keep the system capacitator in shape. I recently switched to a hybrid biweave vulture and while I regularly lose, I'm improving faster than ever before. Losing doesn't matter though as the rebuy is tiny and it's the faster way to restock.
 
Vulture
Reactive Surface Armor - Grade 5 Heavy duty with Deep Plating
4A Grade 5 Overcharged Plant - Monstered Secondary
Charged Enhanced Distro Grade 5 with Super Capacitors secondary
Grade 5 Dirty Drives with Drag Drives Secondary
4D Lightweight Sensors and Life Support
4 Ton Fuel Tank

5A Shield Cell Bank x2
4A Prismatic Shield Generator with Grade 5 Reinforced mod/ Lo Draw Secondary
2D HRP - Grade 5 Thermal Resistance with Reflective Plating Secondary
1D MRP
1A FSD Interdictor

3 A Rated Shield Boosters
1 Grade 5 Thermal Resist with Lo Draw Secondary
2 Grade 5 Heavy Duty with Super Capacitors Secondary
1 High Capacity Heat Sink (4)

2x Class 3 Plasma Accelerators
Grade 5 Efficient
1 Target Lock Breaker
1 Dispersal Field.

Total Shield Health - 1445mj 45% Kinetic 29% Thermal 58% Explosive
1000 Armor with 40% resistance to everything
551-555 boost

You will double bank with the Heat Sink. Also when deploying hardpoints you will have to turn off the INTERDICTOR, CARGO HATCH & FSD.
This enables you to run everything and keep the bank's ON. Once the bank's are depleted, shut them off and your FSD will come back on.

I have successfully beaten multiple HD stacked FDL's with this build. It is amazing in wing fights. A hard counter to it is a FAST REGEN Bi-Weave FDL.

o7

This guy seems to know what he's talking about! I found his Vulture build on an old post so might launch it at Carcosa soon!
 
Avoiding jousting: hide behind something, use cover. Far more interesting to fight in a ring system or something where there's a bit more to it than "pointy end towards enemy". Or, go for a speed-focused ship and build, so that you have more control over when and how the joust happens than your opponent.

Pip management practice: consider CQC for that - you get an unengineered C-rated distributor, so you really have to keep those pips moving, and if you get it wrong you get instant feedback in the form of your ship exploding, which is much better for learning from than slowly being outclassed over ten minutes and then exploding once because you were terrible in a whole variety of ways.
 
Avoiding jousting: hide behind something, use cover. Far more interesting to fight in a ring system or something where there's a bit more to it than "pointy end towards enemy". Or, go for a speed-focused ship and build, so that you have more control over when and how the joust happens than your opponent.

Pip management practice: consider CQC for that - you get an unengineered C-rated distributor, so you really have to keep those pips moving, and if you get it wrong you get instant feedback in the form of your ship exploding, which is much better for learning from than slowly being outclassed over ten minutes and then exploding once because you were terrible in a whole variety of ways.

Oh my god! The only advantage to fighting within a ring is when I crumple my Krait on an asteroid @Bigmaec might fall off his chair laughing and give me a chance to hit him for once!

I have played CQC a little bit, not much. I see mixed thoughts about it with quite a few people being very negative. I did also try the training exercises a few times--I can't get passed the 'competent incursion' which I fear leads to the conclusion that I'm not...

Ho hum! That's what the practice is for!
 
1. FA-off is a good solution. Alternatively get used to range control and use your manouvering thrusters alot. Try orbiting and only boost when necessary or in turns. Depending on what weapons you are using, this works better or worse.

2. It is mathmatically impossible to hit certain ships at a certain range with projectile weaponry. The best example is a dumbfire missile against a Viper MK III with performence enhanced thrusters G5 DD engineered. Assuming it is slower than 750 m/s, it must basically be right in front of your launcher to be hit. If it is faster than 750 m/s, there is a 0% chance you will hit it at all.
The solution to this issue is a hitscan weapon. Beams, railguns, pulses, bursts, etc.

3. Many fights are unfortunately a game of stats at the moment. Namely shields vs hull is utterly unbalanced. Le ta hulltank fight a shield tank with full seekers and the seekers will win every time, without exception.
In general scenarios though it is a good advice to check your opponent's loadout first, this is a huge indicator of his skill level and shows weaknesses. Your job is to find these weaknesses (through experience) and then exploit them. This way you will gain a significant advantage that you can use to win the encounter.
An example: Your encounter is a full hitscan boat (railguns, lasers, etc.) whic hmeans it's effective burst damage is 0 and it can be pip pressured pretty good. Try going agressively as longer engages will lead to a disadvantage.
 
CQC is a completely different style of combat to main-game PvP. In CQC you're flying disposable fighters with a combat lifespan of seconds in a light-hearted explosion cycle ... in main-game PvP you're probably not doing that. It appeals to a completely different style of combat player, and a lot of things don't transfer between the two all that well. Pip management does, though.

(It's sort of like the difference between core mining and laser mining - they appeal to different people, they mostly use different techniques, but both of them will give good practice in not forgetting your limpets)
 
I'm not sure I'd even be able to change pips that fast, let alone not knotting my fingers by that 😂

not seen that video, but i guess most of those wizards use macros, e.g., auto-hotkey. that's why such a micro managed pip system is a bad idea skill wise, specially if you consider that 'full pips to x' is more often what you need rather than a fine-grained distribution of pips, so there's little compromise in automating.
 
not seen that video, but i guess most of those wizards use macros, e.g., auto-hotkey. that's why such a micro managed pip system is a bad idea skill wise, specially if you consider that 'full pips to x' is more often what you need rather than a fine-grained distribution of pips, so there's little compromise in automating.
I somewhat disagree. When I tested voice attack I used a simply command for pips to sys, pips to eng, pips to wep.
All can be done by one click, while currently I need two or three clicks. This will make a difference. It's not "skill" but it is simply faster and less prone to misclicks.

Edit @NCFCpaul you have no idea how bad I am in rings... really, you should fight more against other pilots. I'm mediocre at best.
 
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I somewhat disagree. When I tested voice attack I used a simply command for pips to sys, pips to eng, pips to wep.
All can be done by one click, while currently I need two or three clicks. This will make a difference. It's not "skill" but it is simply faster and less prone to misclicks.

i don't see where we are disagreeing here ;)

every "full to x" can be done with 3 inputs. reducing it to one, as you say, considerably diminishes the chance of miss-click and is much more straightforward, and faster. on some videos you see the pips instantly go from anything to max, i don't think that's possible to do manually.

can be used without voice command at all. i have a setup (i don't actually use) where a hat on the right stick is 'pips' and the same hat on the left is 'macro pips'.

my point is that since it gives a good advantage to those using macros, and those macros are undetectable and unavoidable, it's a poor design choice for a skill based 'competition' (i know, i know, there hardly isn't any). it could be said that different devices also give advantage, which is true, but that really adds to variety and multiplatform which is desirable, even sought after. everything else being the same, that some can use a pip repeater while others don't doesn't really add anything of value, it's just plain 'tinker to win'. 🤭
 
Don't forget the all important Self Destruct tactic.
That'll learn 'em.

In my case that's also known as starting combat!

Been putting in lots of practice aiming with my PA's at the local CZ, trying to manage my pips as best I can too.

As yet I haven't put a Vulture together but I think I've got most of the bits I might need in storage so it's coming.

Got to say some kind of macros for the pips would be really helpful. I am better at it but to use them I lift and move my left hand, it's not ideal.

I just shoot newbies in their Sidewinder. They don't even get a chance to turn around, let alone joust ;)

To be honest I am the newbie at this whole PvP lark...
 
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