To the people saying 'learn how to fly' - I'm not contending I'm the best pilot out there, but I've certainly flown against the top 25 and can hang in there just fine. I have a little under 2k cmdr kills, roughly 1k of these are league and organized matches. I have a moderately depressing number of hours in this game - my parents wouldn't be proud of this statistic. Forgive the chest puffing, I know it can come off lame, but it's quite difficult at times to determine who knows what the heck they're talking about. This is not a build issue. This is not a flight issue. I could fly the clipper to protect the plant in pvp prior to super pen. I research my ships, I know my soft spots. Honestly, just consider for a moment that this is a fair notion to entertain: the chieftain canopy mechanics are potentially an issue for it being able to contend as a combat ship. It's not the end of the world, the game isn't broken (comms menu bug is the thing breaking the game right now), but yes, it's worth discussing. Again, I would've preferred they kept the c6 a c5 and strengthened the canopy instead.
That said - I'm still pretty fresh on this ship. In the matches I've had so far, here are my initial observations:
- AMFU works but the issue is that the canopy is quite susceptible to a one shot pop. It's kinda high maintenance in general - the typical fight involves a lot of AMFU tinkering time. Pre-selecting the canopy on the right screen is essential, and an AHK is probably handy.
- Avoiding the joust is critical against any hitscan once your shields are down, your dps suffers greatly in this regard as anyone good with the fairly broken LR5 (should've capped this at 3.5-4ish k FD) will boost out of any attempt to maintain a close range brawl, flip, and snipe your nose. Since you can't keep pace with the other combat ship speeds, you end up offering them time facing your nose. It's difficult to avoid, and I'm beginning to think the chief is a rings only pvp ship. In this regard, fighting anyone playing the reverski LR5 game should be promptly made fun of, and you should always wake out. Hopefully your typing skills are strong enough to pull this off before your canopy pops.
- Watch out for c4 PA's on the joust. They will one shot your canopy. Always, at the very least, maintain directionals with a staggered roll against a c4 pa or a rig that's pa heavy so the reticle jumps too much for them to land on your nose. Roll to their weakness - yaw on FAS etc. Obvious stuff - just pointing it out for new folks.
- Lead reticle builds may be more viable for 1v1s as you'll more naturally maintain a nose up posture and you can hopefully maintain an orbit with this posture. Enforcers on the c1's, pa's etc.
- The above is a moot point for wing fights and the likelihood of super pen. It also means that if your canopy does pop - you're near worthless as you've lost your reticle. In this regard, I'm guessing chieftain builds will likely migrate naturally towards full hitscan, or frags I suppose (too slow for them imo unless you're big rig hunting), so that you're still viable after your canopy pops. This means the ship may become somewhat one dimensional.
- It's a beefy ship. In the good as well as the bad way. The hull is beefy and takes awhile to wear down. The shield regens quite quickly and you can get decent stats out of it. But your shield hitbox is quite generous. Not clipper generous, but it's a big hitbox. If you offer your belly when shields are down, it's a big hitbox. If you offer your nose, your canopy is going to pop.
- Directional thrusters are wonderful. You can control a close brawl quite well. Again, humans will realize this and boost out of it, and you're slower than the competition. In PvE - people will start to think they're godly pilots. I think this is the driving force of a lot of the 'learn to fly it' drivel.
I like the ship. It's funky, it's fun. The canopy is quite annoying, and if we're going to 'realism', there's no way any company would put something out marketed as a combat ship with this glaring a weakness. To summarize where I think it stands - it's not top tier, it's going to have a lot of trouble in wing fights due to the canopy, open space fights are going to be a weakness as it's going to rely on cover more than other ships, people will build to fight with a broken canopy, and since it's new and popular, people are going to build to pop that canopy. This is the build I've been testing with, it needs some changes (wanted to test vent holding the hammer trigger to start) but linking it so that the typical forum-goer doesn't waste time talking about MRPs or AMFUs.
I don't know everything in this game, but that's my gut feeling so far. Hope it helps, and I hope FD considers giving the canopy a little love if it's an easy tweak that doesn't require much dev time.
That said - I'm still pretty fresh on this ship. In the matches I've had so far, here are my initial observations:
- AMFU works but the issue is that the canopy is quite susceptible to a one shot pop. It's kinda high maintenance in general - the typical fight involves a lot of AMFU tinkering time. Pre-selecting the canopy on the right screen is essential, and an AHK is probably handy.
- Avoiding the joust is critical against any hitscan once your shields are down, your dps suffers greatly in this regard as anyone good with the fairly broken LR5 (should've capped this at 3.5-4ish k FD) will boost out of any attempt to maintain a close range brawl, flip, and snipe your nose. Since you can't keep pace with the other combat ship speeds, you end up offering them time facing your nose. It's difficult to avoid, and I'm beginning to think the chief is a rings only pvp ship. In this regard, fighting anyone playing the reverski LR5 game should be promptly made fun of, and you should always wake out. Hopefully your typing skills are strong enough to pull this off before your canopy pops.
- Watch out for c4 PA's on the joust. They will one shot your canopy. Always, at the very least, maintain directionals with a staggered roll against a c4 pa or a rig that's pa heavy so the reticle jumps too much for them to land on your nose. Roll to their weakness - yaw on FAS etc. Obvious stuff - just pointing it out for new folks.
- Lead reticle builds may be more viable for 1v1s as you'll more naturally maintain a nose up posture and you can hopefully maintain an orbit with this posture. Enforcers on the c1's, pa's etc.
- The above is a moot point for wing fights and the likelihood of super pen. It also means that if your canopy does pop - you're near worthless as you've lost your reticle. In this regard, I'm guessing chieftain builds will likely migrate naturally towards full hitscan, or frags I suppose (too slow for them imo unless you're big rig hunting), so that you're still viable after your canopy pops. This means the ship may become somewhat one dimensional.
- It's a beefy ship. In the good as well as the bad way. The hull is beefy and takes awhile to wear down. The shield regens quite quickly and you can get decent stats out of it. But your shield hitbox is quite generous. Not clipper generous, but it's a big hitbox. If you offer your belly when shields are down, it's a big hitbox. If you offer your nose, your canopy is going to pop.
- Directional thrusters are wonderful. You can control a close brawl quite well. Again, humans will realize this and boost out of it, and you're slower than the competition. In PvE - people will start to think they're godly pilots. I think this is the driving force of a lot of the 'learn to fly it' drivel.
I like the ship. It's funky, it's fun. The canopy is quite annoying, and if we're going to 'realism', there's no way any company would put something out marketed as a combat ship with this glaring a weakness. To summarize where I think it stands - it's not top tier, it's going to have a lot of trouble in wing fights due to the canopy, open space fights are going to be a weakness as it's going to rely on cover more than other ships, people will build to fight with a broken canopy, and since it's new and popular, people are going to build to pop that canopy. This is the build I've been testing with, it needs some changes (wanted to test vent holding the hammer trigger to start) but linking it so that the typical forum-goer doesn't waste time talking about MRPs or AMFUs.
I don't know everything in this game, but that's my gut feeling so far. Hope it helps, and I hope FD considers giving the canopy a little love if it's an easy tweak that doesn't require much dev time.
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