Conflict Zones - What's the trick?

[cgcody]

I go in, take a side, pick off 1, maybe 2 enemies from the edge of the battle. Suddenly most, if not all of the enemy side are coming after me relentlessly. My vulture is toast before you can say "I'm gonna boil..". So here I am, 2 insurance claims later, one from a high and 1 from a low intensity.

I've seen videos of other folks happily engaging in 1 on 1 or 1 on 2. So what am I doing wrong that's causing 5+ ships to come after me at once?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Firstly, a High CZ is more stable than a Low CZ, so you are actually safer in a High CZ.

Wait for both sides to pick opponents before you pick a side.

Keep an eye on your scanners to see what enemy ships are nearby. Always be prepared to boost away from the fight. Join up with a couple of allied ships and help create a small group so you can outnumber the nearby enemies.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Combat zones are tricky ones - avoid boosting right in the middle. Choose your fights very carefully. It is very easy to get lost and hit both sides accidentally. And it is hard to survive if you get attacked by your target friends from behind. I usually take a look and pick targets away from central crowd.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Don't set your phaser's to stun.

 

[Winterwalker]

NEVER ignore hits on your shields thinking, 'I'll just kill this guy first' ..
Disengage and deal with the attack imo.

 

[ACQ]

The key to CZ's is been able to kill your targets quickly and stay alive as long as possible while doing it. Boost to the outskirts of the the CZ then pick a side, then just stay as close as possible to your allied side. Highest threat key is your friend. Don't wander off else aimbot vipers and eagles will sunder you with rails. If your using a vulture, kill off smaller ships first as they do the most damage. And finally set a shield low limit and pull out when you reach it, as soon as your shields drop npc enemies just fire a barrage of missile to destroy you.

If your shields do drop, max power to engines boost boost boost jump.
ACQ

 

[Wolfe3]

If you don't care about which side your fighting for check the faction status. See which one has a higher stat or rep. Choose that one before choosing a side.

Once in the cz boost to the edge of the fight, then choose a side. Watch your radar. Pick a target thats being ganged up on near the edge of the fight. Be careful though, your side will leave you hanging to fight the target. Boost out towards the edge after each target to get your bearings.

Turn your bonds in often, it sucks loosing a mil+ on being destroyed.

 

[Ceekay]

Try using a smaller ship (I used a Viper 3 for ages) as you won't be considered a high threat by the NPCs, this allows you pick off small targets and take out larger ones with your factions assistance as you wont be the primary focus of their attacks.

 

[Drelthar]

What's the trick?

Gunz, lot's of GUNZ.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

First trick, is don't select a side for a moment.
Fly out some distance, 3~km, from your nearest enemy.
The select.
Look for groups of greens, or lone reds.

Go in for the kill.

Try to keep an ally bigger than yourself nearby, they'll generally get the agro.

If you do get too much attention, go full burn through a cluster of greens, out the other side. Some red will get caught up and break off. If you can handle the rest, do it. If not, low wake out and recoup.

Keep an eye on the red/green ratio.
Too many reds, bug out and come back.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Snowymonk]

Another trick I have learnt in Low or High Rez sites is to only attack ships that are already being attacked.
If you can see either their shields taking hits or completely gone, then attack. It means that you shouldn't get singled out.

As has been said above, if you see that you are being hit, look at who / how many are shooting at you and deal with them first. Preferably from the edge of the conflict so that you can control the fight.

If too many ships are ganging up on you, get out of there.

 

[pzykozomatik]

Just to be sure, you're aware that when people say "pick a side" they mean opening the right-hand panel and ally yourself with one of the two factions before just randomly starting to shoot at ships, right?

 

[Quantis Trap]

OP, the trick is stay with friendlies and don't get ganged up on.

 

[Hanerib]

Keep looking at the scanner. It's not really about you being the winner of it all, but you making the difference so that your team makes kills quickly enough. New red dots keep appearing every once in a while. Both variety of conflict zones are perfectly viable in a Viper mkIII, but you need to know when to put some distance.

 

[dayrth]

1. Be in a wing if you can. Attack the same target as a wingmate to take them down quickly. If not...

2. If you are in a big ship go to high intensity conflict zones (but preferably not one with an enemy capital ship in it). The enemy will tend to gang up on the biggest threat. If you are in a big ship in a low intensity CZ then that will be you. High intensity CZs have more big NPC ships for them to play with.

3. Move to the edge of the CZ before choosing a side. Fewer enemy about to attack you straight away. Don't go too far out though or there will be no friendlies to help if you need them.

4. Work your way in toward the center. As you kill enemies the friendlies that were fighting them will move to toward the center and you want to stick by them.

5. Keep the pressure up. Once you have killed a few enemy your side will have a numbers advantage. Enemy reinforcements will start to spawn, but as long as you don't take too long between kills you should be able to maintain this advantage. You should then find you always have help when engaging a ship and the enemy don't get an opportunity to gang up on you.

6. If you take a lot of damage straight away, leave, repair and try again. Once you get a few kills under your belt life should become easier (see point 5).

 

[Delilah]

Good advice in this thread.

Two other important factors.

First, you have to "manage" the ships on your side of the conflict. This sometimes means picking off the small fry first (e.g. enemy eagles), freeing up outlier ships from combat so they can rejoin fleet action (e.g. an allied Python marking time with an enemy cobra), sometimes destroying a ship or two that is pre-occupying several large assets (e.g. allied anacondas), and then join in "swarms" that kill most everything in sight very quickly.

Second, your vulture's virtues are its maneuverability, 2 large hardpoints, and strong shields. Lots of advice out there about the former two, so let me speak to the latter. Don't let your shields deplete. You can engineer to the max but if you stay long enough you'll go down. So take a bit of time when you are on the inner shield ring to salvage some materials, especially from higher value ships. You have to be a bit away from the centre of action to make this work. After you've recovered some materials, your shields will likely be topped off.

Alternatively, move out to the periphery and find a small ship already engaged so you can continue the fight and recharge your shields. Put your most pips on system, none on boost, and the rest on weapons. Then patiently maneuver and plinck at the enemy ship. With your ally, you'll slowly take it down and renew your shields in the process.

If all else fails, supercruise out past a million km, drop to normal space, wait for recharge, then supercruise back to the cz.

Good speed!

 

[Chaparral]

Lots of good advice here. I can't emphasize enough situational awareness as well. Do your best to be mindful of the overall balance of the battle. Notice the total number of red and green blips. If there are more red than green leave and reset the instance. If you don't, all those unoccupied blips will see you as their only viable target. I have noticed in some conflicts, one side will repeatedly win the spawn waves. This may be due to the presence of a capital ship, the overall war state or some weird emergent rng effect. If you see this happen, move to a different system.

If you have taken a "kill 90 ship" massacre mission, you'll be working on it for days in a vulture - not really worth it financially.

If you're looking for a safer introduction to CZs, find a high intensity zone in imp or fed space where there is a single capital ship. Select the side WITH the capital ship. The cap ship will give you a substantial buff to success chances. Do your best to stay close to the cap ship (within 2km) while you engage. You may not get credit for all kills, but you'll last longer and get access to nice mats to boot.

GLHF

 

[Stealthie]

NEVER ignore hits on your shields thinking, 'I'll just kill this guy first' ..
Disengage and deal with the attack imo.

Key issue, right there.

Maybe a bit "immersion breaking" but it helps to understand how the game works.

When a CZ kicks off, the AI's all "pair off" into their own little fights.
Wait until the fight starts before picking a side and all the AIs will already have picked their "partner".

Pick a ship to attack and join in to help destroy it.
Once you've done that, a new enemy is likely to spawn and, when they do, they'll be looking for a "partner" to fight against.

If you get attacked, it means an enemy ship HAS picked you to be their "partner" so they're going to follow you around, attacking you.
That's ship should be your immediate priority.
Kill it and you can go back to "ganging up" on an enemy who's already fighting somebody else.

It's also the reason why you should try to avoid getting right into the middle of a fight, especially if your side is losing.
If there's a whole bunch of enemies who kill their "partner", they'll all be looking for a new one and several might all decide to pick you.

As a rule, I find the simplest way to have an easy life in CZs is to just stick around other green blobs.
Gives you strength of numbers.
Minimises the chances of you being singled-out for attack.
Allows you to shoot at anything friendly ships are shooting at.

 

[WhoCares]

Also don't hesitate to low-wake out, recovering shields, "resetting" the CZ should things have turned against your chosen side. Might also be the faster way to disengage/re-engage instead of boosting for 20km+ because the action has dragged/forced you away.

 

[krylite]

A lot of good advice. Probably all the tips covered now. my 2c. Play "wingman escort" with an ally medium like python or bigger ship. If it's shooting at a target along with a bunch of others try to join in and get some hits in, and hopefully the "gang" you've joined continue to jointly pick off subsequent targets one after another. If they get separated out, see if you continue to wing with the bigger ship and join on it's current target, or cover it from other ships attacking it which are hopefully only one or a couple. Then if all the targets close by are finished, follow along and see if the bigger ship joins back to another bunch of allies. If anytime you and the big ship gets outnumbered then it's time to boost-retreat to the outskirts and find another allied gang to join. If it's all red, often I boost back to the entry CZ nav point where more spawning/jumping-in ships could create a new more favorable ratio of allied vs. enemies again.