FSD interdiction practise

Before I take on pirate assassination missions, I like to practice a bit doing FSD interdiction on wanted NPC ships.

Most missions I've read says to scan the Nav.Beacon. Is this like doing item recovery mission where you jump into a system and the mission giver gives you further instruction (without you actually having to scan the beacon) ?

Will scanning the nav.beacon manually come up a list of something (which is not likely so as I've tried scanning the beacon [without any mission] and when completed.. nothing comes up) ..I'm pretty sure this is the wrong way. :rolleyes:

On another approach [again, without a mission], I've tried to look at the Contact tab for ships which shows up during supercruise, after locking in, some ships are faster than my Conda. There is no way to get behind them for the interdiction range.
 
I always get a mission update immediately on entering the system these days. Looks like the mission system is broken in regards to needing to scan either the NavBeacon or using the FSS. Personally I'd force always using the NavBeacon because that would give more reason for the NavBeacons to actually exist. Regardless, scanning it -does- resolve all USS's in the system; much faster than using the FSS.

As for interdicting ships in Supercruise, once they have a headstart and are out of range, you cannot catch them until they slow down. But, unless they are just heading off into deep space, they will always slow down before you as they approach their target destination, which is when you can catch them.
 
I always get a mission update immediately on entering the system these days. Looks like the mission system is broken in regards to needing to scan either the NavBeacon or using the FSS. Personally I'd force always using the NavBeacon because that would give more reason for the NavBeacons to actually exist. Regardless, scanning it -does- resolve all USS's in the system; much faster than using the FSS.

As for interdicting ships in Supercruise, once they have a headstart and are out of range, you cannot catch them until they slow down. But, unless they are just heading off into deep space, they will always slow down before you as they approach their target destination, which is when you can catch them.

Thanks! I'll give it a go again later.
 
I was heading to an Anarchy system for refuel and discovered everyone is Lawless. Had fun practicing FSD interdiction there once, but failed.

Then every ship I approached was jumping away as though they knew I'm the bad guy... :D
 
I see quite a few of these missions that say you may need to interdict, but then I see quite a lot of posts from cmdrs that run these missions saying their target interdicted them. So is it really necessary to carry an interdictor and learn how to use it?
 
I see quite a few of these missions that say you may need to interdict, but then I see quite a lot of posts from cmdrs that run these missions saying their target interdicted them. So is it really necessary to carry an interdictor and learn how to use it?

Not really. Pirate lords will (in my experience anyway, and I've done a bunch recently) interdict you and save you the trouble.

If you do scan the nav beacon, the pirate will very often drop into the nav beacon next to you and attack you there.

Failing either of these, scanning the nav beacon will give you an inbox message that will tell you where the pirate is going to be. Head for that location, and in most cases the pirate will interdict you, or you will find a mission USS that you can drop into.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to interdict them, as when you find them in SC they are normally trying to get behind you to interdict, so just slow down, let them get into position and submit when they interdict you.
 
I think these missions could be made a bit more engaging by having you work harder to track them down; at least, sometimes. For example, they might currently even be docked, so you have to wait for them to undock, then track them, follow their high (or low) wake, etc. Possibly continue the hunt over several star systems. If you lose their trail perhaps you would then have to hunt around several local systems to see if anybody has seen them. If you take too long they can repair and even call on some friends to come to their defence, or lead you into a trap in an anarchy. Worst case, they actually got away and you fail the mission.

Slower? For sure. More engaging? I think so.
Would definitely require NPCs to be more persistent though.
 
Not really. Pirate lords will (in my experience anyway, and I've done a bunch recently) interdict you and save you the trouble.

If you do scan the nav beacon, the pirate will very often drop into the nav beacon next to you and attack you there.

Failing either of these, scanning the nav beacon will give you an inbox message that will tell you where the pirate is going to be. Head for that location, and in most cases the pirate will interdict you, or you will find a mission USS that you can drop into.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to interdict them, as when you find them in SC they are normally trying to get behind you to interdict, so just slow down, let them get into position and submit when they interdict you.
Thanks cmdr, I suspected this was the case. I've never bothered learning how to use an interdictor or even practice winning interdictions, I usually submit, then either kill the pirate or run away, depending on my ship loadout. I've always viewed the interdictor as a pirate device, and piracy doesn't seem to be lucrative enough to bother with.
 
I think these missions could be made a bit more engaging by having you work harder to track them down; at least, sometimes. For example, they might currently even be docked, so you have to wait for them to undock, then track them, follow their high (or low) wake, etc. Possibly continue the hunt over several star systems. If you lose their trail perhaps you would then have to hunt around several local systems to see if anybody has seen them. If you take too long they can repair and even call on some friends to come to their defence, or lead you into a trap in an anarchy. Worst case, they actually got away and you fail the mission.

Slower? For sure. More engaging? I think so.
Would definitely require NPCs to be more persistent though.

Yes, these suggestions could make pirate hunting much more believable and fun. That was sort of the way it worked in Frontier : Elite 2, you were told a target would be leaving a place at a specific time, you lay in wait, scanned their wake and followed them. It wouldn't really work here because it's real time, so they'd simply have to say your target will leave a particular station or port and have them spawn and leave whenever you got there.

As you say, anything like this would require NPC persistence, which we have to assume is not currently possible, and a change to the mission templates, as right now, if you destroy a target in a system other than that given in the mission it doesn't count against the mission.

Thanks cmdr, I suspected this was the case. I've never bothered learning how to use an interdictor or even practice winning interdictions, I usually submit, then either kill the pirate or run away, depending on my ship loadout. I've always viewed the interdictor as a pirate device, and piracy doesn't seem to be lucrative enough to bother with.

No problem. The FSDI isn't that difficult to use with NPC's, either as the interdictor, or fighting an interdiction. That said, I very rarely use it now, and only very occasionally try to evade an interdiction, and that will usually be because I've run out of playtime in a session and just need to finish a mission off quickly.
 
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FSD Interdiction is a dark art.

Been doing it a while and still have no idea whether it works through Skill, Luck or Sheer bloody-minded persistence.

At the moment I stay “in the blue” when pitching rolling or turning, and otherwise try to match speed with the target. Not full throttle.
And rather than keep on target, I wave the reticle back and forth over the target, pushing the throttle as it crosses.

And for avoiding - I go full throttle or “in the blue” to turn.


Does my technique work better than just randomly waggling the throttle? - I really have no idea.

Opinions sought.
 
FSD Interdiction is a dark art.

Been doing it a while and still have no idea whether it works through Skill, Luck or Sheer bloody-minded persistence.

At the moment I stay “in the blue” when pitching rolling or turning, and otherwise try to match speed with the target. Not full throttle.
And rather than keep on target, I wave the reticle back and forth over the target, pushing the throttle as it crosses.

And for avoiding - I go full throttle or “in the blue” to turn.


Does my technique work better than just randomly waggling the throttle? - I really have no idea.

Opinions sought.

Opinions are divided... :LOL:

A long time ago, FD stated that throttle had no bearing in the interdiction process (other than throttling down to submit). I'm afraid I won't be able to go looking for the post, it was back in the days when we had a little series called answers from the devs or somesuch. I think you may remember those days. A long time ago...

(They also confirmed that the size / class of FSDI only affected the range at which you could interdict, and had no bearing on the likelihood of success.)

Then, in 1.4, they tweaked NPC's ability to interdict and evade and based it on ship type (smaller more agile ships were better) and rank (higher ranked NPC's were better at it), and made it very, very difficult to evade an NPC interdiction as well as pretty difficult to pull them out of SC. This led to the common practice of submitting to every interdiction to avoid the long cool down and then various methods of running away and avoiding the combat - usually having an 'escape' system targeted so you could high wake out.

The trouble is, FD probably want players to shoot at NPC ships, combat after all is part of the fun. :)

So now interdicition (an invitation to combat) is just that, an invitation you can either accept or decline with comparative ease on a case by case basis. Some think it's too easy, but in the end, when it was difficult people just chose to avoid it anyway.

Whatever, if your technique works for you, I'd certainly stick with it. :)
 
So now interdicition (an invitation to combat) is just that, an invitation you can either accept or decline with comparative ease on a case by case basis.
Against NPCs sure, but not against humans.

Got interdicted the other day where I was pretty close to the centre which, during an NPC interdiction, at least means no increase in bars (and usually that blue increases at least slowly), but even when I was nailed perfectly on the centre the red bar kept going up. When I realised there was no chance of winning this one I submitted but then crashed out with a failed interdiction escape and long cooldown. Needless to say I got destroyed; a CM3 is no match against an engineerd Python with frags.

Anyway, at least anecdotally it seems that there's more to it than "small ships are better and Interdictor Class makes no difference".
 
Against NPCs sure, but not against humans.

Got interdicted the other day where I was pretty close to the centre which, during an NPC interdiction, at least means no increase in bars (and usually that blue increases at least slowly), but even when I was nailed perfectly on the centre the red bar kept going up. When I realised there was no chance of winning this one I submitted but then crashed out with a failed interdiction escape and long cooldown. Needless to say I got destroyed; a CM3 is no match against an engineerd Python with frags.

Anyway, at least anecdotally it seems that there's more to it than "small ships are better and Interdictor Class makes no difference".

That's absolutely right, I was referring to NPCs.

The thing with the interdiction process is that it's a two way thing. Even if you are centered on the escape vector, if the interdictor is also centered then you will not gain anything.

I think what FD did when they tweaked NPC ability is that they made it so the interdictor was not always centered, whereas a player may well stay centered more effectively.

It may well be that FD changed other parts of the process too, but I'm inclined to believe them, certainly about the FSDI size / class only affecting range, and honestly about the rest too. If the player interdicting you is good and can stay on target, they will be very tough to beat even if you feel you are on target also. :)
 
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