Electronic Counter Measures??

[D.D.Hariman]

I am a 69 year old Female, BUT,, I started playing space games and flying combat on a vic 20 serial number 00567. I have literally thousands of hours of combat time in an old game Wing Commander Privateer and some later releases of Wing Commander that EDH reminds me a lot of. NEVER before had a gimbaled or tracking weapon. Did have some “rear turrets” but they were still direct fire. Always direct fire. In the beginning there wasn’t even a targeting computer. You had to figure out how to lead your targets in your head. Did a lot of bounty hunting in a Centurion. Never had flight Assist. I lived and died by figuring out how to keep the enemy inside my field of fire while I stayed out of it’s field of fire. I know how to fly combat.

I choose not to since it isn’t in my character “role play” so I have found places to mine where the pirates never spawn.

I will fight if I am cornered and when I fight I don’t fight fair.

Because of the tracking weapons in EDH , I quickly realized that I needed to have a much better understanding of the various ships fields of fire. I made and just finished updating this list..

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wSZiCUGn3oYuZFJMillye9P4c0xGZvKYeZHJJkNG6Bg

I have also worked out basic “field of fire” diagrams for all the small ships. The Vulture is a small ship and both its large guns are on the top and placed such that they probably cannot take full advantage of the range the gimbal mount allows directly forward of the ship. Likely only able to depress to about 10 deg below the ships C/L.

Like I said. I don’t fight fair. To start with, I fly backwards in the AspX or the Cobra MKIII. As someone noted, the NPC’s are predictable. They fly like they are in a fighter jet with all the weapons pointing frontwards so they try to keep their nose pointed at you.

I have Voice Attack commands for combat, evasion, pips control, speed/direction and targeting.

When first confronted with something I cannot outrun or I know I can beat, I initiate “battle stations”. Brings out the hard points, targets hostile, (now does a trigger pull since I am running target only turrets) cycles NEXT FIRE group where I keep all my weapons sets back full speed.

Since I started out years ago not having “YAW” I tend to pitch/roll to the target.

Since the AspX has most of it’s firepower on the bottom, I roll so the bottom is oriented to the side of the hostile that has the least fire power.

Initiate “REGROUP”. This is a Boost, set pips to 1.5 Shields, 3 Eng, 1.5 weps, (this will strafe the hostile on their side with the least fire power so they cannot hit me as much as I can hit them), automatically does a second boost followed by an FA OFF back flip so I am facing the hostile, sets back 1/3 speed, adds a pip to weapons to recharge them. Roll manually to get my belly oriented to the hostiles least offensive side. Pull the trigger again when the target is locked using a VA command “PUNK” to lock closest hostile. When the MC’s start firing set back full and start slightly pitching the nose up to make a backward loop with the least offensive side of the hostile on the inside of the loop so my belly guns are facing it.

If shields start to fail, “REGROUP” again and when it completes set BACK FULL and Charge Shields (3,3,0 pips).

Lock the target and pull the trigger again and if shields are NOT at full, Do “REGROUP” again and set pips to charge the shields and back full again. Repeat until Shields are at full.

Now repeat the backward loop.

 

[Sylow]

On ECM: it does work. You have to press the button, let it charge up till it has enough range, then release the button to release the EMP pulse. This does destroy missiles and disable torpedoes for a little. Then it has to recharge for a while.

Which means, Torpedoes are just slowed down a bit. You will still have to deal with them. And missiles, while being destroyed, have a much faster refire than the ECM has recharge. So you destroy one volley, the attacker just fires more. It doesn't do too much good. You're much better off using point defense instead.

That being said as NPCs usually only fire when your shields are down, shield boosters might be the better choice first. Only if you run out of energy and still have utility slots unused, point defense might be considered. It needs much less energy than shield boosters, after all. Also note that if you bring point defense, i advise to engineer it to be armored. NPCs fire when your shields are down, PDs don't defeat all the missiles, so some damage will be applied. Regular PDs get knocked out after a few hits. Armored PD lasts much longer. It's more likely that your ship blows up than armored PD gets disabled. This longer time of operation thus is the best choice.