I've been playing the game on and off since release. I've got a decent collection of ships. I fly with an X52 HOTAS. This is a long post about how I'm bad at this game.
Ever since the AI buff way back when, I've had a lot of trouble beating high rank AI. Well, more like completely impossible in a 1v1.
Before I get started, I need to know one thing - Since the high rank AI ships are already engineered, is it a complete waste of time attempting to take them on in a small (or even large?), un-engineered ship? Is it literally impossible to outmaneuver them? If that's the case, I guess I know what I need to do. Let me know now and skip this wall of text. Otherwise, maybe you can tell me what else I am doing wrong.
At the moment, the only mods my combat ships have are on weapons. I have not unlocked those dirty drives that everyone raves about.
The only way I can stand a chance at present is by using my biggest, strongest ship and tanking damage and using bigger guns. No maneuvering required. I don't want this though. I have all these smaller ships gathering dust which I imagine being able to zoom around the bigger targets and get in their blind spot, get behind them, but I just can't. Once an enemy has turned to face me, my fate is sealed.
I believe I have pip management down. I know when I should be putting power to engines, and I keep the throttle in the blue unless I'm trying to close the distance. I use short bursts of FA-off when turning, though this sometimes causes me more problems by altering my movement in unexpected ways.
As it is right now, if I try to use my eagle, imperial eagle or imperial courier on anything high ranked, no matter how large it is, they will always have their nose pointed at me. Not only can they turn on the spot much quicker than me, but they seem to be able to move faster with their lateral thrusters than I can with my main engines. The only way I can match their movements for a brief moment is by boosting, which of course is far from infinite, and as soon as I'm out of juice, they're reversing or thrusting faster than I can keep up with and I lose the advantage.
One other problem I often find myself running into when trying to out-turn an enemy (pitching up while thrusting down for example) is after maintaining the turn for some time, I suddenly find myself "stalling", and get thrown into reverse, and take a long time to recover. During this time of course the enemy has now been free to turn all his guns onto me. How can I avoid this situation?
I've gone through the training missions/challenge scenarios many many times now. The trouble is there's a huge step up from Competent (enemy makes no attempt to face you once you're behind them) to Dangerous (all the junk I've written above) and Elite. I have even completed them a few times, but I never felt like I was out-maneuvering the enemy. Only out-gunning them.
Ever since the AI buff way back when, I've had a lot of trouble beating high rank AI. Well, more like completely impossible in a 1v1.
Before I get started, I need to know one thing - Since the high rank AI ships are already engineered, is it a complete waste of time attempting to take them on in a small (or even large?), un-engineered ship? Is it literally impossible to outmaneuver them? If that's the case, I guess I know what I need to do. Let me know now and skip this wall of text. Otherwise, maybe you can tell me what else I am doing wrong.
At the moment, the only mods my combat ships have are on weapons. I have not unlocked those dirty drives that everyone raves about.
The only way I can stand a chance at present is by using my biggest, strongest ship and tanking damage and using bigger guns. No maneuvering required. I don't want this though. I have all these smaller ships gathering dust which I imagine being able to zoom around the bigger targets and get in their blind spot, get behind them, but I just can't. Once an enemy has turned to face me, my fate is sealed.
I believe I have pip management down. I know when I should be putting power to engines, and I keep the throttle in the blue unless I'm trying to close the distance. I use short bursts of FA-off when turning, though this sometimes causes me more problems by altering my movement in unexpected ways.
As it is right now, if I try to use my eagle, imperial eagle or imperial courier on anything high ranked, no matter how large it is, they will always have their nose pointed at me. Not only can they turn on the spot much quicker than me, but they seem to be able to move faster with their lateral thrusters than I can with my main engines. The only way I can match their movements for a brief moment is by boosting, which of course is far from infinite, and as soon as I'm out of juice, they're reversing or thrusting faster than I can keep up with and I lose the advantage.
One other problem I often find myself running into when trying to out-turn an enemy (pitching up while thrusting down for example) is after maintaining the turn for some time, I suddenly find myself "stalling", and get thrown into reverse, and take a long time to recover. During this time of course the enemy has now been free to turn all his guns onto me. How can I avoid this situation?
I've gone through the training missions/challenge scenarios many many times now. The trouble is there's a huge step up from Competent (enemy makes no attempt to face you once you're behind them) to Dangerous (all the junk I've written above) and Elite. I have even completed them a few times, but I never felt like I was out-maneuvering the enemy. Only out-gunning them.