Argh! Pirates constantly fleeing!

[Marcus7144]

Just to let you know, the three lvl 3 multicannons ripped the Fer-de-lance to pieces. The two lvl 2 beam lasers didn't take down the shields super fast, but that wasn't really the problem I was having. As you know the FDL kept warping out once it hit around 30 health so the heavy damage to the hull stopped this.
P.S. I have absolutely no joy, whatsoever, in taking out sub systems. I'm considering switching to fragment cannons as I heard they do a lot of damage. Thanks again for all your input.

 

[Screemonster]

Incendiary multis will wreck shields just as well as lasers, and more importantly they're better than lasers at damaging modules. Trashing the FSD is a sure-fire way to stop your targets fleeing. NPCs tend to carry point defence too often for missiles to be a particularly reliable weapon, but packhounds can be good at trashing drives too if you're prepared to wait for them.

 

[Marcus7144]

Screemonster,

Thanks for that, but I don't have Horizons so no engineering. Will get it sometime though.

 

[Troopi]

Try a little tweak: 1 lvl3 gimbal beam, 2 lvl2 gimbal beams, 2 lvl3 gimbal multicannons. If you get horizons and can engineer them, make the beams efficient+thermal vent, 1 smaller multicannon with overcharge+corrosive, 1 smaller multicannon with overcharge+emissive, and the big one overcharged+oversized.
Gimbals will give you time on target. The 3 beams can even negate the effect of a shield cell bank. The multi corrosive will lower the target's armor, the emissive will give your scanner better aim, in case he drops heatsinks. With big ships, target the powerplant. With small ships... just fire it all.

 

[The Lawful]

All Frags, plain and easy. Frags do insane amounts of alpha damage even without engineering. You can add ramming the opponent first as an anti-shield strategy.

O7,

 

[Marcus7144]

Troopi & TheLawful,

Yup, I'm sure that Horizons will give me full manipulation of all equipment. The thing is though, 3 lvl3 multicannons will conserve ammo, compared to just two, due to faster take down of enemy. I'm toying with the idea of fragment cannons, for subsystems and all out damage at close range as the majority of the 12 shots would need to hit to get the highest damage. It is very much in consideration at the moment.

 

[Troopi]

Remember, with frags, you need to be REALLY close. Against a fer-de-lance that suddenly tries to run away, you'll do no damage. You'll have to bring it down fast and suddenly.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

What would you recommend? Change the level 3 beams out for multicannons, with two level 2 beams for shields?

I would definitly recommand just 1 large beam with 1 large pulse and 1 large MC, for the medium hardpoints i recommand 1x railgun longrange feedback cascade and 1x longrange railgun superpenetrator.
You better snipe out the FSD from zhem as soon as their shields drop. Otherwise the frameshift wakescanner would be an option to scan the wake and follow them. This prevents respawn with full health and killing counts for the mission.

Here an example of my mission runner Python that i use for this kind of missions:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Kingston@#]

have a party. take multiple pirate kill missions. when the first interdicts you drop out. have a battle or a chat while you wait for the rest of them to arrive. believe me they are coming.
then as they drop in you run, out of their range. turn and face them because they are stupid. they have all come for you but they will start fighting each other.
the cops arrive about now and join the battle. then you can walk up to them with a peashooter and take all the bounties. you do not really have to fire on them, just enough to tag them.

 

[Kingston@#]

It works for sure. If you enter SC and then (manually) select the system the NPC jumped to it does not work.You need to use the wake scanners capabilties

following their wake and killing them dos not count, i have done one this evening.
i jumped back to the targets system and my target was back in the system after i had ......

 

[Kissamies]

Bring a wake scanner. Scan and jump. You will find the pirate NPC in the next system without full health. You can keep your lasers if you want.

Quite realistic no ;-)

I haven't done this a while so I don't know if it's fixed, but there was this bug where they then just jump out immediately after being interdicted. No cooldown, no masslock, nothing.

 

[GroG79]

I have had no problems following a mission targets wake scan into the next system. Also the problem mentioned by Kingstonas above is one I have not encountered. Lucius-Darcia seems to agree that using a wakescanner is a working option.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

I haven't done this a while so I don't know if it's fixed, but there was this bug where they then just jump out immediately after being interdicted. No cooldown, no masslock, nothing.

Still happening, especially for ships that have no "reason" to stay.
If you interdict wanted ships or mission targets, they try to flee only when hull is low.
But when interdicting a clean trader or passenger, they immediatly try to highwake during cooldown and also the fsd interrupt special for missiles DOES NOT WORK on NPCs which is more than frustrating.
So better get the shields down fast amd snipe the fsd or have a wakescanner with you

It really seems that the jumpmechanic isn't tied to the fsd module at NPCs and FD just has placed a cheap code like"when event fsd 0 = no jump" and have forgotten about cooldowns and weapon specials

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

I have had no problems following a mission targets wake scan into the next system. Also the problem mentioned by Kingstonas above is one I have not encountered. Lucius-Darcia seems to agree that using a wakescanner is a working option.

When having a specific NPC as mission target, than wakescanning counts. (Pirates, politics)
But when having a massacre mission "kill civilians from faction X in system Y" than it does not count to mission progress after following them via wakescanner. It was than the right npc in the wrong system.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Op: oh ho hoooooo I’m gonna tickle!

NPC: Get away from me weirdo [high wake]

 

[Velsomnia]

I haven't played in a long time but my tactic should still be valid, get all lasers and when you lock on go to subsystems and target the power plant. You kill that and the ship explodes instantly, it can be destroyed pretty far before the ship hits 40%.

 

[Loophole]

If you are a terrible shot - like me - then Seeker Missiles targeting their Drives is an effective way to stop an enemy escaping. Just don't do it in a slow ship - they are likely to end up tumbling away at high speed and its very frustrating when you are too slow to catch up with them!

The missiles won't be effective against internal modules like the FSD, but are excellent at stripping weapons and drives off a target!