Elite / Frontier Did any one else enjoy combat in frontier?

[Mike]

Lads, last night I got to thinking, I never had an enjoyable combat engagement in Frontier in my entire time playing. (Also im not having a go, I loved the game)

I'd always wizz by my enemies too fast, was I doing something wrong? Usually if i got into combat I'd run away until i had a ship with a turret in which case I'd pause the game point the turret at it and blast it, kinda poor that i was able to turn my turret while paused but anyway.

Did combat exist as it showed in the intro with the Imperial Courier ship chasing the two smaller craft to a planet?

So, what did you think of the combat?

 

[caol]

I have to admit combat could be pretty frustrating at times! Especially if you were in a disreputable system in a small to medium sized trader that was too slow to outrun the pirates and too poorly gunned to make combat quick and easy. I did the "pause the game and use the gun turrets" thing quite a lot too when flying larger ships!

It was always annoying how pirates etc always attacked in threes (except assasins who usually worked alone). Didn't seem to make much sense to me.

The most fun combat was taking on assassination missions in the Eagle Long Range Fighter you started with were the target was something huge like a Panther Clipper. That was quite a challenge! Also hitting large ships was so much easier in a smallish fighter coz they weren't nearly as manoueverable or fast as you were - much more satisfying and a whole hell of a lot less frustrating!

So, yes, combat was fun sometimes. But it was generally more frustrating than fun imho.

 

[zmurf]

I usually had a Imperial Trader with front and rear guns, and if I just didnt fly to fast there usually was a real space combat a little like in the intro...

I often went to places like earth and sold my Trader and bought a smaler spacecraft, then shot at the base as I took off and flyed to a town (something like london or paris) and then tried to out manover the police Vipers between the houses. Super fun, but very, very hard. And a great way to learn how to manover the ship.

 

[essezeta]

I never liked the First Encounters combat model: enemy ships drop out in group and often they kill you before you can even realize you are under attack.

The mods online imho put some balance in gameplay.

My best ship for combat in FFE: Constrictor

My best ship for combat in modded FFE: Gecko

 

[zmurf]

I never liked the First Encounters combat model: enemy ships drop out in group and often they kill you before you can even realize you are under attack.

I never played FirstEncounter, but I liked the "all against me" thing when I attacked bases in Frontier. The best way to win was "fly low, fly fast", then most of the enemy ships went into the ground, and you could take out the remaining ones by getting some altitud and then blast them.
And ofcourse, if there was any buildings in the area, I usually fly past them, and some of the enemy ships whould just fly into the buildings and die horribly.

The space fights wasnt as much fun... the biggest problem was that the autopilot often accelerated to too high speed, so when you got attacked you whould just pass the other spaceship and it could take forever before your relative speed against the other ship was the same.
I usually solved this problem by setting the speed manually and didnt use the autopilot until I was just some few AU from the planet I was going to. This way I saved a lot of fuel, and didnt go to fast to get a real space fight when I got attacked. The downturn was that it took ages to get to the planet, so it wasnt usable when I was on a tight schedule.

 

[Captain N]

And ofcourse, if there was any buildings in the area, I usually fly past them, and some of the enemy ships whould just fly into the buildings and die horribly.

Couldn't you just fly through the buildings in Frontier though? Or did that work differently for the AI ships?

The space fights wasnt as much fun... the biggest problem was that the autopilot often accelerated to too high speed, so when you got attacked you whould just pass the other spaceship and it could take forever before your relative speed against the other ship was the same.

I don't think your travelling speed has any effect on the starting relative velocity of the attacking ships in combat... I usually use the engines off mode to travel to my destinations even faster than the autopilot would (using the "accelerate until mid-point, then turn around to decelarate with main engines" method), and I never observed the combat being more difficult because of that.

 

[zmurf]

Couldn't you just fly through the buildings in Frontier though? Or did that work differently for the AI ships?

Well... at least in the Amiga version you crasched if you flew into buldings... and so did the AI:s

I don't think your travelling speed has any effect on the starting relative velocity of the attacking ships in combat... I usually use the engines off mode to travel to my destinations even faster than the autopilot would (using the "accelerate until mid-point, then turn around to decelarate with main engines" method), and I never observed the combat being more difficult because of that.

I experienced that if I went fast, the attacking ship whould move several AU:s back and forward for quite a long time before it was near enough so I could blast it. This didnt happen if I flew slower.

 

[essezeta]

I never played FirstEncounter, but I liked the "all against me" thing when I attacked bases in Frontier. The best way to win was "fly low, fly fast", then most of the enemy ships went into the ground, and you could take out the remaining ones by getting some altitud and then blast them.
And ofcourse, if there was any buildings in the area, I usually fly past them, and some of the enemy ships whould just fly into the buildings and die horribly.

One funny thing I like to do when I'm bored to travel from a system to another is to choose a system and become a local pirate:
I search for a massive arrival cloud, then I wait the owner just like I do in assasination missions.
Sometimes you can get very nice rewards

The "all against me" attack is simply frustrating in FFE:
There is a very annoying bug: sometimes the enemy is still in stardreamer speed, so even a 1Mw pulse laser is lethal for you.
If they have a more powerful laser, you haven't even the time to open fire!

At least, there isn't a speed bug in FFE, but actually there is no collision detection on buildings..

The space fights wasnt as much fun... the biggest problem was that the autopilot often accelerated to too high speed, so when you got attacked you whould just pass the other spaceship and it could take forever before your relative speed against the other ship was the same.
I usually solved this problem by setting the speed manually and didnt use the autopilot until I was just some few AU from the planet I was going to. This way I saved a lot of fuel, and didnt go to fast to get a real space fight when I got attacked. The downturn was that it took ages to get to the planet, so it wasnt usable when I was on a tight schedule.

Personally I'm using a mod wich give more balance in gameplay.
In combat and engine off flight, you can use numpad to control each ship thruster and you can make some interesting maneuver: my favorite one is when a bigger ship attacks you: I fly close to it, then I start firing retrothruster and right thruster so I can rotate around enemy always firing at it

 

[Steve O B Have]

Personally I enjoy a "flight sim" style dog fight but at the same time enjoy the flight physics being more realistic. Catch 22 really.

If I had to choose, I would go with a Frontier style combat situation over the Elite style but with a computer aided laser system so that the computer could do the fine tuning for you.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

I could never get in to playing Elite. Did nothing for me and I didn't like the style of flying. Frontier and FFE were totally different, a quick read of the flight manual explaining the relativistic model used and all was clear.

IRL, most air to air engagements tend to be long-range jousting affairs as pilots want to avoid dogfighting as it places too much strain on the plane and the pilot.

 

[Steve O B Have]

I could never get in to playing Elite. Did nothing for me and I didn't like the style of flying. Frontier and FFE were totally different, a quick read of the flight manual explaining the relativistic model used and all was clear.

IRL, most air to air engagements tend to be long-range jousting affairs as pilots want to avoid dogfighting as it places too much strain on the plane and the pilot.

I dunno - imagine the g-forces experienced in the constant slingshot manuvering of your enemy accelerate...decelerate...accelerate...

 

[VR jefranklin18]

I dunno - imagine the g-forces experienced in the constant slingshot manuvering of your enemy accelerate...decelerate...accelerate...

But that is what siloplast was invented for!

 

[Steve O B Have]

But that is what siloplast was invented for!

Siloplast????

 

[Prycon]

I did like the different approach to dogfight in FE2. But I would like to have to option of selecting your enemy ship as a relative target, so the speed and control would relate to his ships position. I would love to have directional control over your ship it will make dogfighting easier. I like the dogfight in Babylon 5 they used Newton physics.

 

[Steve O B Have]

Thats a very cool idea - I mean, we have the technology B5 control is cool but over range very difficult to remain relative, having computer control regulating this for combat would allow for an arcadish aspect - if desired of course

 

[Prycon]

Like I wrote in another post, I had a hard time being a pirate. I could not fly and pick up the lot from the wreck this was because the ship controls was relative to the star or nearest planet, and not the object I wanted to scope.

 

[Dragonstar]

I just hated combat in Frontier. Combat for me was pausing the game, lining up on the enemy and then unpausing the game. Repeat ad naseum. Using missiles was useless as well, the only way to hit the enemy was to shoot the missile then put time acceleration to max. Instant hit. If I didn't do that, the enemy always outran the missile. Physics in Elite were better if unrealistic. For example if I lost a docking computer in Elite I could land at a space station, but not so in Frontier. Lose the docking comp and I would definitely have to reload the game.

BUT.... I still loved the game! Go figure

 

[Bounder]

I much prefer Frontier's handling, but being able to select frames of reference would be nice.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

Siloplast????

Isn't that the stuff the Faulcon De Lacey environmental systems were made out of? (Mentioned in the Frontier manual)

Sadly, it doesn't exist for pilots IRL - rubber bladders with variable air pressure is what they have to rely on to prevent blackouts at high g's

 

[Steve O B Have]

Isn't that the stuff the Faulcon De Lacey environmental systems were made out of? (Mentioned in the Frontier manual)

Sadly, it doesn't exist for pilots IRL - rubber bladders with variable air pressure is what they have to rely on to prevent blackouts at high g's

LOL - close - Siloplast is something that they make silos out of - your thinking of Silastoplaston