Damn he was good... how to escape?

[Karlos Ploryman]

Hi commanders,

just a little story I wanted to share...

I made a journey of 9 jumps to Shinrarta in my experimentally modded imp. eagle... (in open). I wanted to switch to some other ship. Its kinda weird build (low emmisions PP, reinforced bi-wave shield, clean drive tuning thrusters, glass armour lightweight, high ammo chaff launcher, overcharged MC with corrosive shell, long range fixed pulses).


When I arrived, USS (weapon fire detected) appeared, so I wanted to check it out... I ended up wanted (209Cr), I accidentally shot a wanted ship before scan.
Back in SC, a player in shieldless sidewinder interdicted me.


I do not like PvP, I didnt want to fight, so I tried to run. I was really surprised, I could not run away from that sidey, he must have had really well modded thrusters. When my shields dropped, I tried to "turn around, boost past him and continue boosting away before he turns", but in a few seconds, he was at my six again and I was receiving damage. I saw I will not jump out in time, so I turned to fight.


He was really good pilot, I on the other hand am rusty, I returned to Elite after long time and my piloting skills apparently decreased... I could not hit him well enough with my fixed pulses, so i mainly kept firing with gimballed MC. I did very little damage to him and he sloughtered me without mercy - I dont care about the pitiful rebuy, the travel time lost hurt me much more...


I tried all kinds of manouvers to dodge his fire (he had some kind of rapid firing cannons)... FA OFF rolling + vertical thrust (spiral), random lateral + verticatl thrust, FA ON vertical thrust + pitch, ...
Damn he was good, I was able to get out of that fireworks only for seconds, in no time he was back on me.



In a situation like this: unable to outrun the oponent, difficulties to dodge his fire... how can one manage to escape?



To the sidey pilot: wow, damn that hurt! Maybe someday we may meet again and then... ;-)


Cheers, Karlos


P.S.:
I got into similar situation in my corvette, FDL with some modified weapons, which always somehow prevented me from charging FSD was slowly but steadily weakening my shield, I could not escape and I knew it. In desperation I wrote into chat, that I surrender, I respectfully asked for my life. And the pilot was a gentleman, he let me leave. His spectating wingman (probably he would have joined the fight if FDL got in trouble, but I never returned fire) and him must have loughed hard ... :/

 

[dognosh]

Can't answer you, but +1 rep for not combat logging and posting here

 

[goemon]

do you have enhanced performance thrusters, which you can BUY in OUTFITTING at palins, martuuks and farseers base and only come in size 2 and 3?

because if not, that's the reason why you couldn't outrun that sidey.

 

[CptXabaras]

Yeah, once have been interdicted and attacked by a very good pilot with a sidey, i was in my hull tank FAS, running 2 long range C2 PA and 2 Pacifiers.

Man, that cmdr was really good and the sidey small hitbox wasn't helping either. At the end of a long jousting fight i left him with 1% hull and stowed hardpoint, complimenting him for the fight skills. I believe actually one of the funniest fight i had. Wish i could have been on a smaller and less modified ship, i felt a little bit like cheating with the FAS against his Sidewinder. I had my wingmates standing by, they wouldn't never join a 1 vs 1 duel, even if i was going to get destroyed.

An hell of a fighter pilot i met out there, and if you are reading this and remember the fight, again, cudos to you for your fighting skills.

 

[Redan]

Greetings, CMDR.

Riveting story. Let me perhaps shine some light, a lot of which you might already be aware of.

The days of fixed top speeds with minimal variation (based on internals/mass) are now behind Elite. Back then, we used to know that a particular ship can boost/fly at speed X, and so anything that could do so at a greater speed could effectively chase people down. Above that, you would simply factor in Mass Lock Factors for various ships and call it a day. You now knew who you could run away from and who you had to stand and fight against.

The game is a very different beast now. Despite what people whine about on the forums, The Engineers was one of the best updates that has ever happened to Elite. We now have the ability to truly customize our ships beyond just fitting A rated components with specific use cases for B rated ones.

We're talking about drive modifications, hull reinforcements, shield resistances and powerful weapon effects. He was probably able to keep up with you due to meticulously engineered thrusters, allowing him to stay on you and dodge your fire. He probably fixed his bulkheads/armor and might have had reinforcement packages to help against kinetic damage sources, a particular weakness of hull. He was probably comfortable enough with his modifications to fly shieldless, as you say he did.

Weapon modifications are also a significant component related to this narrative. You mention that your Vette couldn't escape an FDL due to the constant resetting of your FSD. The weapon module used is a dumb fire missile, which you can get from affiliating with Yuri Grom (Power Play). Every shot reboots your FSD (Although there is a built in immunity period here for balancing).

The solution to such a module is either to manually dodge the non-lock on missiles, which wouldn't be easy particularly easy, or you could equip point defenses to combat the situation.

With regards to the Ieagle vs Sidewinder confrontation, both of those ships have a Mass Lock Factor of 6, which means you wouldn't be able to escape into supercruise without being inhibited. But perhaps a Hyperjump would have saved you. Remember, those cannot be mass locked.

Ultimately, commander, you need to come to terms with the fact that at some point you will encounter someone who does enjoy PVP and who takes it quite seriously. The game is designed in such a way that you can enjoy it to the fullest extent alone, choosing to never encounter another soul, ever. However, if you do decide to brave the "weird and haunted shores" of Open Play, I suggest you reconsider your engineering efforts. It will significantly improve your quality of life experiences within Elite. Well worth the required grind.

P.S.

Despite this encounter having nothing to do with piracy, I think I speak on behalf of all legit pirates when I say: Thank you for not combat logging. The player to player interactions can be so damn fun in this game. You pleading for your life probably didn't mean they were laughing at your ineptitude, man. It likely gave them one of the most fun gaming experiences they ever had. One that they will remember for a long time.

 

[dognosh]

do you have enhanced performance thrusters, which you can BUY in OUTFITTING at palins, martuuks and farseers base and only come in size 2 and 3?

because if not, that's the reason why you couldn't outrun that sidey.

Is there a list of special items? I know of CRCR,and now special class 2 and 3 thrusters,and prismatic shields. Are there other items?

 

[Redan]

Is there a list of special items? I know of CRCR,and now special class 2 and 3 thrusters,and prismatic shields. Are there other items?

Every power play faction leader has a special item. Besides that, Farseer carries Enhanced Performance Thrusters (which are very specific for optimal mass) and Palin has anti-corrosion cargo racks (capacity: 2).

Beyond that you have engineer experimental effects for various weapon types.

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

do you have enhanced performance thrusters, which you can BUY in OUTFITTING at palins, martuuks and farseers base and only come in size 2 and 3?

because if not, that's the reason why you couldn't outrun that sidey.

Hello,

yes, I have performance enhanced thrusters... with clean drive tunning G3 mod (not a god roll, but until now I thought it was good enough)...

Karlos

 

[znôrt]

Hello,

yes, I have performance enhanced thrusters... with clean drive tunning G3 mod (not a god roll, but until now I thought it was good enough)...

what matters is your top speed. if your ship is overloaded enhanced thrusters won't do squat, even modded. particularly enhanced ones, they have very low optimal mass, meaning your ship must be specially light to benefit from them.

maybe you know this already, but ideally your ship's total weight (incl cargo, fuel and drugs) should not exceed 50% of your thruster's optimal mass. from there up performance degrades rapidly (going lower doesn't help as it's capped).

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

Greetings, CMDR.

Riveting story. Let me perhaps shine some light, a lot of which you might already be aware of.

The days of fixed top speeds with minimal variation (based on internals/mass) are now behind Elite. Back then, we used to know that a particular ship can boost/fly at speed X, and so anything that could do so at a greater speed could effectively chase people down. Above that, you would simply factor in Mass Lock Factors for various ships and call it a day. You now knew who you could run away from and who you had to stand and fight against.

The game is a very different beast now. Despite what people whine about on the forums, The Engineers was one of the best updates that has ever happened to Elite. We now have the ability to truly customize our ships beyond just fitting A rated components with specific use cases for B rated ones.

We're talking about drive modifications, hull reinforcements, shield resistances and powerful weapon effects. He was probably able to keep up with you due to meticulously engineered thrusters, allowing him to stay on you and dodge your fire. He probably fixed his bulkheads/armor and might have had reinforcement packages to help against kinetic damage sources, a particular weakness of hull. He was probably comfortable enough with his modifications to fly shieldless, as you say he did.

Weapon modifications are also a significant component related to this narrative. You mention that your Vette couldn't escape an FDL due to the constant resetting of your FSD. The weapon module used is a dumb fire missile, which you can get from affiliating with Yuri Grom (Power Play). Every shot reboots your FSD (Although there is a built in immunity period here for balancing).

The solution to such a module is either to manually dodge the non-lock on missiles, which wouldn't be easy particularly easy, or you could equip point defenses to combat the situation.

With regards to the Ieagle vs Sidewinder confrontation, both of those ships have a Mass Lock Factor of 6, which means you wouldn't be able to escape into supercruise without being inhibited. But perhaps a Hyperjump would have saved you. Remember, those cannot be mass locked.

Ultimately, commander, you need to come to terms with the fact that at some point you will encounter someone who does enjoy PVP and who takes it quite seriously. The game is designed in such a way that you can enjoy it to the fullest extent alone, choosing to never encounter another soul, ever. However, if you do decide to brave the "weird and haunted shores" of Open Play, I suggest you reconsider your engineering efforts. It will significantly improve your quality of life experiences within Elite. Well worth the required grind.

P.S.

Despite this encounter having nothing to do with piracy, I think I speak on behalf of all legit pirates when I say: Thank you for not combat logging. The player to player interactions can be so damn fun in this game. You pleading for your life probably didn't mean they were laughing at your ineptitude, man. It likely gave them one of the most fun gaming experiences they ever had. One that they will remember for a long time.

Thank you for analysis...

I think I will reconsider this eagle build... Enhanced thrusters are quite prone to weight, so I was trying to Drate most of internals and mod them lightweight... Maybe I will reconsider and go the "way of - standard A G5 dirty mod thusters way...



In the corvette "plead for my life" situation, although I felt "stupid" and glad (30mil rebuy saved) at the same time, it was a very nice feeling to read their "ok, you are free to go... gg" chat message ;-)



The fight with the sidey could have gone differently, If i fought from the start and not tried to run away... I started fighting with hull on less then 50% ... It took some time to make the decision to fight instead of running...
Also i will consider fitting some guided rocket launcher, it would be ideal for this fight


Cheers commander, Karlos

P.S.:

I have (and had) 3 point defence modules on my corvette... misiles are nasty these days...

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…
The fight with the sidey could have gone differently, If i fought from the start and not tried to run away... …

Probably not. The moment you see a shieldless combat ship in SC things will get ugly in a fight.
Those ships are usually designed for silent running hull tanking and you might be surprised how hull-tanky a Sidewinder can be. Together with all types of methods to prevent gimbaled or turreted weapons to lock and to remove a target indicator fighting against such builds is - how to put it? - "time consuming".

Best thing to do is avoiding getting interdicted or high wake out as soon as possible.

 

[zaikoji]

Good story!! Was your opponent Archon-affiliated?

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

If i remember, he was not with Archon...
He was clean and i was wanted for 209CR

Karlos

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Hi commanders,

just a little story I wanted to share...

I made a journey of 9 jumps to Shinrarta in my experimentally modded imp. eagle... (in open). I wanted to switch to some other ship. Its kinda weird build (low emmisions PP, reinforced bi-wave shield, clean drive tuning thrusters, glass armour lightweight, high ammo chaff launcher, overcharged MC with corrosive shell, long range fixed pulses).


When I arrived, USS (weapon fire detected) appeared, so I wanted to check it out... I ended up wanted (209Cr), I accidentally shot a wanted ship before scan.
Back in SC, a player in shieldless sidewinder interdicted me.


I do not like PvP, I didnt want to fight, so I tried to run. I was really surprised, I could not run away from that sidey, he must have had really well modded thrusters. When my shields dropped, I tried to "turn around, boost past him and continue boosting away before he turns", but in a few seconds, he was at my six again and I was receiving damage. I saw I will not jump out in time, so I turned to fight.


He was really good pilot, I on the other hand am rusty, I returned to Elite after long time and my piloting skills apparently decreased... I could not hit him well enough with my fixed pulses, so i mainly kept firing with gimballed MC. I did very little damage to him and he sloughtered me without mercy - I dont care about the pitiful rebuy, the travel time lost hurt me much more...


I tried all kinds of manouvers to dodge his fire (he had some kind of rapid firing cannons)... FA OFF rolling + vertical thrust (spiral), random lateral + verticatl thrust, FA ON vertical thrust + pitch, ...
Damn he was good, I was able to get out of that fireworks only for seconds, in no time he was back on me.



In a situation like this: unable to outrun the oponent, difficulties to dodge his fire... how can one manage to escape?



To the sidey pilot: wow, damn that hurt! Maybe someday we may meet again and then... ;-)


Cheers, Karlos


P.S.:
I got into similar situation in my corvette, FDL with some modified weapons, which always somehow prevented me from charging FSD was slowly but steadily weakening my shield, I could not escape and I knew it. In desperation I wrote into chat, that I surrender, I respectfully asked for my life. And the pilot was a gentleman, he let me leave. His spectating wingman (probably he would have joined the fight if FDL got in trouble, but I never returned fire) and him must have loughed hard ... :/

Hi wake out to another system. Easiest and best way to get out of trouble.

 

[Kingston@#]

deploy heat sink, FA off, thrust any direction and high wake out. deploy heat sink again if necessary.
unless he is real close and in a well lit area of system you should be able to lose him. though now that com trails are more noticeable this may not work as affective as it used to.

 

[I PORKCH0P I]

do you have enhanced performance thrusters, which you can BUY in OUTFITTING at palins, martuuks and farseers base and only come in size 2 and 3?

because if not, that's the reason why you couldn't outrun that sidey.

Argggh I've just finished shipping most of my fleet back from a station that's about a 100ly from Palin's so I could mod all there thrusters and I completely forgot these enhanced thrusters existed ,my canyon running I eagle now feels underwhelming .
I guess it's time to go mat hunting again.

Good story op btw +1.

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

deploy heat sink, FA off, thrust any direction and high wake out. deploy heat sink again if necessary.
unless he is real close and in a well lit area of system you should be able to lose him. though now that com trails are more noticeable this may not work as affective as it used to.

Hello,

heatsinks indeed could have helped, but I have chaff in the utility mount... I was building this eagle for PvE (tacktics: tickle, evade, wait for security, help them, get the bounty) and chaff seamed to be more usefull...


Thank you anyway! Karlos

 

[Anuranium]

Good story!! Was your opponent Archon-affiliated?

The story does indeed remind me of a certain Archon-affiliated CMDR in a heavily modded sidey with enforcer cannons. Rumor has it that he has managed to kill a CMDR in almost every type of ship there is out there, using said sidewinder.

Good story OP.

 

[Jon flint]

Send the sidewinder guy a friend request and ask him what his loadout was....

Seeing a shieldless ship usually gives an instant red flag for me.... Stealth running ninja builds can be deadly

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

Send the sidewinder guy a friend request and ask him what his loadout was....

Seeing a shieldless ship usually gives an instant red flag for me.... Stealth running ninja builds can be deadly

I will... and I will challenge him for another match ;-) Karlos