5 Questions for Experienced Players

[Tezzward]

1. Does anyone know how many rolls it takes to get G5 engineering? (during this time of reduced costs) I know so far it goes 1-2-3-3-?. I'd like to plan ahead but I don't know if it takes 4,5,6 or more rolls for that final G5.
2. Is it true that freshly mined ore is not considered "cargo"? From what I understand, once you jump to supercruise (or log off/log back in) it becomes "cargo" and pirates will see it when they scan you. I'd like to mine in a RES but I can't remember if freshly mined ore will trigger their attack?
3. When fighting NPCs, and the combat evolves into circling each other, facing each other, and driving towards each other while shooting (like a jousting match), what's your method of breaking that pattern? My fights with NPC's consistently go into this jousting match.
4. When building a ship in the Coriolis website, I tend to always build something that "NEVER" drains weapons systems. What's your suggestion, or your personal limit, for how low you'll go (time-wise) with regards to this stat? (draining WEP systems)
5. I just bought an Alliance Chieftain. WOW. Just...wow. Tactical Ice and Blue laser mod for it. I'm happy. I'm currently working on gathering materials to engineer 6 Efficient Burst Lasers (w/ Oversized), for efficiency's sake, to do PVE bounty hunting. Are there any "meta" PVE builds that I should know? (I'm very nervous about Fixed weapons. My joystick is incredibly sensitive and I don't know how to change it's sensitivity, and I struggle with any fixed weapons, so I use gimballed)

Thanks!
Dustin

1. it can take up to 9 rolls. I use ED engineer to make sure I have enough for 5 rolls for grade 1-4 and 9 for grade 5.

2. It will trigger it in a RES. There are pirates that just go around scanning there. When you're mining in areas that aren't RESs, after the first 2 scan you, you won't see any more.

3. strafe up or down, and to one side, diagonally, and use throttle to regulate distance between you and the target. A lot of times, lower throttle can help you get up behind them.

4. I always use a mix of energy and kinetic weapons, so the energy weapons have a chance to recharge in between jousting sets.

5. Exigeous/ED Tutorials on youtube has a pretty decent build, like this one:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sF_olY2mS8

I basically followed that but used 2 engineered burst lasers in the first 2 hardpoint slots, and engineered multicannons for the rest. The 2 smallest hardpoints I used the corrosive experimental for 1 and thermal for the other.

 

[Tezzward]

5b.

Are you able to program a deadzone for your stick? Either with its software, or using the game.
Basically it puts the first part of the axis as doing nothing, so little wiggles don't move the ship.

you can in the control settings. Find the control that you want to change the deadzone for and click on it. It should drop down more options including deadzone for that axis.

 

[Ouberos]

One method of fighting NPCs is to use reverse thrust (reverski), flying backwards whilst they are in front of you and still chasing you.

This is not the way.

 

[Clicker]

Didn't say it was the best way....didn't even imply it was a good way...just one different way....that many new commanders may not think of.

I appreciate you may think it is the wrong way and I'd appreciate some context....and, no doubt would the OP.

Thanks.
Clicker

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Under the current boost it seems to be 1,1,2,3,6.

 

[Lightspeed]

Keep changing your speed .... a boost, then speed set into the blue zone for your turn, gives you opportunity to turn back on your opponent before it gets itself together for another run. Changing speed disrupts the AI calculations and the boost is the easiest way to do this.

If you can also use FA off briefly to turn, then FA on again with a boost, this can also disrupt the pattern you are locked into.

 

[Ydiss]

So I'm only answering 3 because the rest are pretty straight forward.

First, you need the right ship. You've got that with the Chieftan.

Keep their vector so they're going to fly "above" you (rotate and use your down thruster to force this). As they get to the point your gimble loses track (assuming you're using gimble) hold flight assist off, pitch up, thrust down and throttle reverse. Do that until their radar pip is directly above you. Then reverse everything, keeping flight assist off and pitching up throughout. So, thrust up and throttle forwards. This'll flip you extremely quickly so you're facing them before they're finished turning.

As soon as they're in sight again, set thrusters to 50% for the blue zone.

In a Chieftan, you can do this without adjusting pips to engines, just keep your preferred setup throughout. But you could optionally switch full pips to engines to make it even faster. I just don't bother in my Krait or Corvette.

I've yet to find many npc opponents that'll be able to consistently keep up the naff jousting approach when I do that. Much more so with an SLF.

Edit: ignore most of this with anaconda or t10 targets. Throttle control is almost always enough to force them to remain in place, though getting into the habit of doing a flight assist off turn will dramatically speed everything up when they boost. Pythons are particularly notorious for this... So flipping on them helps a ton.