Newcomer / Intro How do people kill pirates so quickly?

[0threeleven]

By the time you get to harmless ships, you don't want to kill them at max speed because they'll die before your scan completes, then the kill doesn't count for anything.

That's one of the truest statements I've read about in combat, I don't bother with harmless pilots unless it's an FDL, Python or Anaconda. I'm always looking for mats and Anaconda's have the best I've found so far.

Use your Landing Gear to limit the unwanted speed from a boost, while retaining the acceleration and rotation, and leaving your speed in the blue zone at the end (after retracting). This powerful interaction makes the starship boost acceleration factor, an unlisted number, contribute directly to agility in a way which elevates the total usefulness of the Mamba beyond anything else.

I have a lot of respect for you Aleks, you're obviously very intelligent and have an analytical approach that is thorough and some might find it difficult to follow, I don't. At my current skill set in the game. I find the Krait Mk II one of the best ships I've ever flown in combat, but that's me, I love the space and the fact I can put a decent size powerplant and distributor in it. Large or a lot of medium hardpoints are worthless unless the weapons have a decent amount of power not to mention shields, I'm doing the grind so I like banks and boosters plus all the engineering and special effects. But hey, that's just me, I'm still learning

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I have a lot of respect for you Aleks, you're obviously very intelligent and have an analytical approach that is thorough and some might find it difficult to follow, I don't. At my current skill set in the game. I find the Krait Mk II one of the best ships I've ever flown in combat, but that's me, I love the space and the fact I can put a decent size powerplant and distributor in it. Large or a lot of medium hardpoints are worthless unless the weapons have a decent amount of power not to mention shields, I'm doing the grind so I like banks and boosters plus all the engineering and special effects. But hey, that's just me, I'm still learning

Thank you most kindly, and I understand that the Boost and Landing Gear interaction can be difficult to follow, especially just with words. I included videos which demonstrate at least the effect of boosting for agility without overshooting, though at present the best I have for learning it is a lengthy Boost deconstruction which I call Aviation. If you have the will to follow that from the basics of how Boost actually works, it should transform both your flight style and your valuation of different starships. Consider that I trigger my Boost first, then decide where I want to go afterwards.

I lack a good visual explanation, though. I have some loose ideas for how to draw exactly what occurs with speeds and accelerations, however really it requires animated diagrams. The core concept is that there is a limit to the speed which can be caused by the acceleration from Thrusters (and from Boost), where Landing Gear lets you modify that limit temporarily, and become agile in some quite "unphysical" ways. It can even stop your motion, or use Boost without moving anywhere.

That said, it is true that the Krait 2 supplies a lot of strength, mostly in the form of the class 7 Power Plant and Power Distributor. One approach is just to equip it with Multi-Cannons, fly backwards gently and hold down the trigger. A better approach is to equip Fragment Cannons and tear apart most anything... when you actually reach the target, given its mediocre speed and weak Boost. From there, learning to use Landing Gear will all but nullify its agility advantage over the Mamba, at which point the Mamba is the clear choice for destruction most swift.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

... This powerful interaction makes the starship boost acceleration factor, an unlisted number, contribute directly to agility in a way which elevates the total usefulness of the Mamba beyond anything else.
....

I was following your articles and videos on this as I was interested in a Mamba for quickly completing a stack of assassination missions. I don't like the FDL that much - too hard to access it's turn rate and the off centre seating position is just plain broken. Before I got as far as engineering weapons I took the Mamba out on planet scan missions to get a feel for it and discovered the flaw in this ship that cripples it's ability to do a stack of assassination missions quickly. It's got nothing to do with the Mamba's ability to destroy targets fast.
Many assassination missions require you to scan a comms tower at a ground base of some kind. The quickest way to do this is fly your small or medium ship's nose up to the comms tower and use the ship datalink scanner to do the scan - just as you do on planet scan missions. The nose of ships like the Anaconda are too long to use the ship data link scanner this way. Turns out the pontoons on the Mamba are too long to get the ship close enough for this scan....
So I'd have to carry an SRV I don't really have space for in a Mamba and it slows the whole mission down considerably landing and driving the SRV to do the scan.
It's no problem for an FDL, Krait II and I'm about to try a FAS frag build. I want a change from using the Krait II all the time and I keep a Chieftain for AX combat only.

It's a great shame because I really wanted the Mamba to work.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Many assassination missions require you to scan a comms tower at a ground base of some kind.

How very strange—I have never had an Assassination mission which required any sort of Data Link scan, nor any planetary approach. Occasionally the target is missing and it requires finding an informant in a nearby system, but that only involves following a Low Wake.

I am now determined to find one of these and try to discover some angle which gets the Mamba close enough for the scan. As it happens, I suspect that simply avoiding those missions may yield faster mission completions even if the Mamba could reach the data, but that is beside the point.

 

[d8veh]

I don't bother with harmless pilots unless it's an FDL, Python or Anaconda.

Harmless ships are good for massacre missions because you can kill them very quickly. When you get a wing of three, you only have to scan the first one because most times the other two will shoot you. When a ship lands a shot on you, you get the info without a scan, so you can shoot them straight away. 5 secs to scan the first one, while tickling it with your lasers to get it most of the way down, then boom, boom, boom to kill three ships in 10 seconds. One time, I had 4 wings of three drop in more or less at the same time, so I had 12 killss, all mission targets, in about 2 minutes.

 

[aRJay]

That's one of the truest statements I've read about in combat, I don't bother with harmless pilots unless it's an FDL, Python or Anaconda. I'm always looking for mats and Anaconda's have the best I've found so far.

...

I have been doing a lot of missionless bounty hunting recently and the best mats I have picked up came from a T10 unfortunately not a common ship to find.

 

[0threeleven]

Harmless ships are good for massacre missions because you can kill them very quickly. When you get a wing of three, you only have to scan the first one because most times the other two will shoot you. When a ship lands a shot on you, you get the info without a scan, so you can shoot them straight away. 5 secs to scan the first one, while tickling it with your lasers to get it most of the way down, then boom, boom, boom to kill three ships in 10 seconds. One time, I had 4 wings of three drop in more or less at the same time, so I had 12 killss, all mission targets, in about 2 minutes.

From the time you mentioned about being scanned I started using that, I find their name in my contacts, lock it and swing around and start blasting, I don't wait for a scan to complete. I've done it 40 or 50 times and never got fined, it works.....

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

How very strange—I have never had an Assassination mission which required any sort of Data Link scan, nor any planetary approach. Occasionally the target is missing and it requires finding an informant in a nearby system, but that only involves following a Low Wake.

I am now determined to find one of these and try to discover some angle which gets the Mamba close enough for the scan. As it happens, I suspect that simply avoiding those missions may yield faster mission completions even if the Mamba could reach the data, but that is beside the point.

Following an informants low wake is a rare variation for me. Having to scan a ground installations comms tower is quite common. Avoiding this variant isn't going to work for my goals as I'm taking missions for a specific faction for BGS reasons. Sometimes there are not many options for inf+ rewards and 'm trying to focus more on combat as it's the only one of the original 3 disciplines I've not reached Elite in yet. I'm just short of Elite II for exploration and trade.

I tried pointing the Mamba vertically down at the comms tower but the be ships hit box does not allow anything between the pontoons.

 

[0threeleven]

Following an informants low wake is a rare variation for me. Having to scan a ground installations comms tower is quite common. Avoiding this variant isn't going to work for my goals as I'm taking missions for a specific faction for BGS reasons. Sometimes there are not many options for inf+ rewards and 'm trying to focus more on combat as it's the only one of the original 3 disciplines I've not reached Elite in yet. I'm just short of Elite II for exploration and trade.

I tried pointing the Mamba vertically down at the comms tower but the be ships hit box does not allow anything between the pontoons.

I thought he said somewhere that he was using Horizons, I've never done those missions so couldn't comment on the difference between Horizons and Odyssey

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I thought he said somewhere that he was using Horizons, I've never done those missions so couldn't comment on the difference between Horizons and Odyssey

I've done them in Horizons that requiresa comms tower can. I'm playing Odyssey most of the time now and I'm sure I have picked up at least a couple of (non-wing) assassination missions that also needed this, but will watch more carefully for them. Planet Scan missions are actually easier in Odyssey as the scan location is always an "Artificial Structure" at a fixed location, rather than a Search Zone as in Horizons that can move around until you get a fix on the actual location - which takes up more time.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Following an informants low wake is a rare variation for me. Having to scan a ground installations comms tower is quite common. Avoiding this variant isn't going to work for my goals as I'm taking missions for a specific faction for BGS reasons. Sometimes there are not many options for inf+ rewards and 'm trying to focus more on combat as it's the only one of the original 3 disciplines I've not reached Elite in yet. I'm just short of Elite II for exploration and trade.

I tried pointing the Mamba vertically down at the comms tower but the be ships hit box does not allow anything between the pontoons.

I found this type of mission; these are the ones with Terrorist in the title as opposed to Pirate, or Deserter for the War state variant.
I think they also all say Kill Order as opposed to Assassinate.

Unless this was not the type of structure you had in mind, I think it went quite well:

https://iniv.space/s/pQ7V01.mp4

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I found this type of mission; these are the ones with Terrorist in the title as opposed to Pirate, or Deserter for the War state variant.
I think they also all say Kill Order as opposed to Assassinate.

Unless this was not the type of structure you had in mind, I think it went quite well:

https://iniv.space/s/pQ7V01.mp4

Yes that's the type of mission and ground installation. I think I've seen them as terrorist and pirate. Interesting that you could scan the comms tower with the Mamba.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I found this type of mission; these are the ones with Terrorist in the title as opposed to Pirate, or Deserter for the War state variant.
I think they also all say Kill Order as opposed to Assassinate.

Unless this was not the type of structure you had in mind, I think it went quite well:

https://iniv.space/s/pQ7V01.mp4

Although I was trying this in Odyssey. Maybe its broken in Odyssey. Will investigate.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I found this type of mission; these are the ones with Terrorist in the title as opposed to Pirate, or Deserter for the War state variant.
I think they also all say Kill Order as opposed to Assassinate.

Unless this was not the type of structure you had in mind, I think it went quite well:

https://iniv.space/s/pQ7V01.mp4

OK I completed a terrorist mission with no problems in Odyssey with a Mamba. Comms towers scanned OK. I'm now thinking the issue might be with the Odyssey "Artificial Structure" you get for Planet Scan missions.

I think someone else said frag cannons don't deploy in Odyssey. I found they deployed but only behave as fixed mount when mine are gimbled. So gimbled frags are broken. I'll stick yo Horizons missions when using frags for now.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

OK I completed a terrorist mission with no problems in Odyssey with a Mamba. Comms towers scanned OK. I'm now thinking the issue might be with the Odyssey "Artificial Structure" you get for Planet Scan missions.

I think someone else said frag cannons don't deploy in Odyssey. I found they deployed but only behave as fixed mount when mine are gimbled. So gimbled frags are broken. I'll stick yo Horizons missions when using frags for now.

For what it is worth, I had noted your original mention of using Odyssey, and recorded that footage with Odyssey accordingly.

Regarding the Fragment Cannons, that sounds very much like some confusion over the recent deployment problem in Horizons (not Odyssey!) which I was tracking here. Despite being absent from the official changes list, this problem was resolved along with update 12, such that Fragment Cannons always did work correctly with Odyssey and should now work correctly with Horizons. The fixed/gimbaled observation was true, while that problem persisted.

 

[0threeleven]

For what it is worth, I had noted your original mention of using Odyssey, and recorded that footage with Odyssey accordingly.

Regarding the Fragment Cannons, that sounds very much like some confusion over the recent deployment problem in Horizons (not Odyssey!) which I was tracking here. Despite being absent from the official changes list, this problem was resolved along with update 12, such that Fragment Cannons always did work correctly with Odyssey and should now work correctly with Horizons. The fixed/gimbaled observation was true, while that problem persisted.

I just watched your video, pretty slick, that's definitely Odyssey, you see the shield percentage in the HUD. Horizons doesn't have that. What kind of video card do you have? It looks so crisp and clean, no aliasing that I could see, what resolution? I have a 3080 and your video looks way better than mine, I'm pretty sure I'm at 1080p and I use an HDMI cable.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I just watched your video, pretty slick, that's definitely Odyssey, you see the shield percentage in the HUD. Horizons doesn't have that. What kind of video card do you have? It looks so crisp and clean, no aliasing that I could see, what resolution? I have a 3080 and your video looks way better than mine, I'm pretty sure I'm at 1080p and I use an HDMI cable.

With sadness, details of hardware used within Imperial Navy Intervention and Rescue are not eligible for public release, only sincerest apologies for any undue disappointment this may cause.

Conversely, I have considered documenting the basics I have learned for capturing and handling video footage, intended for those who would not normally seek video directions. The main purpose would be to inspire the use of video when describing sights and actions—as you saw, it was suitably more effective than saying "I tried it and it worked".

The simple answer to your quality-related question is that your video capture needs to use a high bit rate to look nice, though ideally not so high that it takes more time to transfer the video than to watch it, and the actual view size matters little other than being enough to contain the quality you want to show.

 

[0threeleven]

With sadness, details of hardware used within Imperial Navy Intervention and Rescue are not eligible for public release, only sincerest apologies for any undue disappointment this may cause.

Conversely, I have considered documenting the basics I have learned for capturing and handling video footage, intended for those who would not normally seek video directions. The main purpose would be to inspire the use of video when describing sights and actions—as you saw, it was suitably more effective than saying "I tried it and it worked".

The simple answer to your quality-related question is that your video capture needs to use a high bit rate to look nice, though ideally not so high that it takes more time to transfer the video than to watch it, and the actual view size matters little other than being enough to contain the quality you want to show.

I understand, I think a passion for it also might be a pre-requisite. If you didn't build that rig, your computer guy did a fine job. Carry on and endeavor to persevere.

 

[d8veh]

I understand, I think a passion for it also might be a pre-requisite. If you didn't build that rig, your computer guy did a fine job. Carry on and endeavor to persevere.

If you have an nVidia GPU, you can use nVidia Experience to capture your game. It's free, dead simple to use and it gives good quality results. I've been using it to make Youtube vids for years. It works on any PC regardless how powerful. basically anything that you see on the screen is recorded in the same detail. Also, it has the feature to capture the last 5 minutes of play after something happened, so when something weird happens that you don't understand, you can get the footage and analyse it in slow motion to see what actually happened and why.

 

[0threeleven]

If you have an nVidia GPU, you can use nVidia Experience to capture your game. It's free, dead simple to use and it gives good quality results. I've been using it to make Youtube vids for years. It works on any PC regardless how powerful. basically anything that you see on the screen is recorded in the same detail. Also, it has the feature to capture the last 5 minutes of play after something happened, so when something weird happens that you don't understand, you can get the footage and analyse it in slow motion to see what actually happened and why.

That's good to know, I'm a simpleton when it comes to recording video, windows has "game bar" built in and sense I use an xbox controller it's a single button push away.