CQC Can you get the Sidewinder to turn tighter

[mattig89ch]

hidy ho all,

I'm getting back into the swing of things in elite dangerous, but I just played a training mission last night that I think qualified as a CQC match. It was the advanced combat mission, where your sent up against another sidewinder pilot who is damn good, and told to kill him/her/it.

Most of that fight, for me, was spent trying to turn far enough to actually bring my guns to bear on that ship. And it actually got rather anoying, if I'm honest about it.

So my question is this, can you get the sidewinder to turn any tighter? Or is its turning ability pretty much set as is?

 

[Monk]

Turning whle in the blue zone of your throttle (approximately 1/2 throttle) gets you the best maneuverability. It makes a huge difference.

Also, putting more pips to engines will speed up your turn rate. When in a dogfight, I charge in with full power to weapons, trying to lay as much damage as i can in, then when it comes time to turn about, I put full power to engines until I've got a new bead on the target. Flip the power back to weapons and continue the onslaught.

Alternatively, you can perform a boost turn. While boosting, your turn rate is improved. However, it comes with a consequence...after the boost is over, you will be going overspeed which hurts your turn rate significantly. If you are going to boost turn ensure that your will be finishing the boost in a favorable position.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So my question is this, can you get the sidewinder to turn any tighter? Or is its turning ability pretty much set as is?

It turns as fast as it turns - but you have options for controlling this a bit.
- 4 pips to engines helps a bit.
- FA-off, boost, turn, FA-on can also give a quicker turn.
- using vertical thrust will make you slide into or out of the turn, which doesn't change how fast you turn as such, but does let you change where you point afterwards.
(and not that it helps in CQC or the tutorial, but fitting A-grade thrusters helps a bit too)

 

[mattig89ch]

What are pips?

I haven't tried the whole max power to engines/weapons thing yet, but I'll give it a go tonight. Thanks for that suggestion.

I tried sliding while turning, it only seemed to help the npc. As I down thrusted while turning up, he always seemed to be able to get behind me.

 

[Monk]

What are pips?

I haven't tried the whole max power to engines/weapons thing yet, but I'll give it a go tonight. Thanks for that suggestion.

I tried sliding while turning, it only seemed to help the npc. As I down thrusted while turning up, he always seemed to be able to get behind me.

I usually thrust towards the inside of my turning arc. Pull up, thrust upwards...tightens the turn a little and keeps you moving towards your target. I'll do the other way, pull up while thrusting down to put distance between me and the target (more of a move for heavier ships that need the extra space and time to turn).

pips are basically littles portions of your ships power. the panel on the right that shows three columns...one for SYS one for ENG and one for WEP will have pips allocated to them. By default, they all have an equal amount. Pushing power to engines means you will only have a limited number of pips to assign to WEP and SYS (weapons and shields). So you should only use it for maneuvering, pursuit or escape.

You might assign all pips to ENG and the rest to SYS if you've put yourself in a poor position. The power to ENG will allow you to get your ship into a better position while the 2 pips to SYS will help your shield absorb damage (more power to SYS the stronger your shields get). Or, you might put half of all your pips in ENG and the rest in WEP if you want to maintain a balance between sustained fire and maneuverability. However, you shields are extra vulnerable in that scenario.

Power management is all situational, and the best pilots (and NPCs for that matter) are differentiated by their well timed use of it. Especially in an evenly matched fight, such as sidey vs sidey...the person putting pips into ENG at just the right moment to get a slightly better turn than the opponent is going to have the upper hand.

 

[mattig89ch]

So I took your advice, and thrust towards the enemy sidewinder, as well as reduced my forward thrust to the blue zone during turns. and that made all the difference! I beat him twice last night.

First time I rammed into him, head on. Took me down to 50% hull, and him down to 30% ish. Was a short fight after that.

Second time I was a little less aggressive, and just used my lasers on him. Managed to beat him quite handedly.

Even started on the next mission, where you have to destroy one of those heavy transports, and I couldn't pierce his shields w/out ramming him. And even then, the armor this thing had made it damn near invincible. At least to me, and my 2 other sidewinder ai friends.

 

[Monk]

We knew you'd get the hang of it!

Keep at it but don't feel like you have to complete all of the training. There is one there that some veteran CMDRs have trouble finishing

Hop into Arena for some cheap thrills. You'll get blown up a lot but you will also get to blow some others up (the ships in Arena have very weak defense so even a new pilot can take a few down).

 

[Bacalao]

So I took your advice, and thrust towards the enemy sidewinder, as well as reduced my forward thrust to the blue zone during turns. and that made all the difference! I beat him twice last night.First time I rammed into him, head on. Took me down to 50% hull, and him down to 30% ish. Was a short fight after that.Second time I was a little less aggressive, and just used my lasers on him. Managed to beat him quite handedly.Even started on the next mission, where you have to destroy one of those heavy transports, and I couldn't pierce his shields w/out ramming him. And even then, the armor this thing had made it damn near invincible. At least to me, and my 2 other sidewinder ai friends.

One piece of advice about ramming, just before contact, make sure you have 4 pips to systems, it makes all the difference. There is a an increasingly larger benefit the more pips you put to a capacitor. In other words, the shield strength gap between 3 and 4 pips is much larger than the gap between 2 and 3 pips. So if you are going to impact, put full pips to systems and your shields will hold much better.

 

[mattig89ch]

good advice, but I don't actually know how to move power around yet.

I'm sure there are keys for that, but idk what they are.

For some context, I'm using a customized keyboard layout. I didn't like the keyboard/mouse configuration.

 

[mautaban]

Alternatively, you can perform a boost turn. While boosting, your turn rate is improved. However, it comes with a consequence...after the boost is over, you will be going overspeed which hurts your turn rate significantly. If you are going to boost turn ensure that your will be finishing the boost in a favorable position.

How do I notice that the boost has finished?

 

[mattig89ch]

I think it has something to do with how the handling performs. That and the sounds the ship makes. Though I'm not an expert by any means.

 

[woodhouse]

good advice, but I don't actually know how to move power around yet.

I'm sure there are keys for that, but idk what they are.

For some context, I'm using a customized keyboard layout. I didn't like the keyboard/mouse configuration.

If it's your custom layout, how can you not know the keys

 

[mattig89ch]

Yea, this is a custom layout from 3 months ago. The last time I tried getting into this game. At the time, I didn't have a reason to learn to fly, other then I bought this game dammit.

Now I'm learning, because I have a ship to pickup and fly in.