How do I kill the things?

[CMDRHLM]

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.

 

[babelfisch]

Fighting an Elite NPC in an unengineered ship can be VERY difficult but not impossible.

It really depends on which ship you are fighting though. You shouldn't have problems killing an Asp when you are flying a Viper Mk4. And you shouldn't have problems killing a Cobra when you are flying a Python

One important thing about maneuvering is speed. Don't always stay in the blue zone but try to maintain a comfortable distance (for me that's 150-250m when fighting bigger ships) and lots of thruster input.

It's also important to realise that they probably aren't really outmaneuvering you most of the time. We players usually try to get behind them AND face them at the same time while they are just trying to face you. Doing one thing is pretty easy, doing both can get very difficult. So when people say that NPCs are more maneuverable they usually just don't realise what's going on.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It's possible, but not really worth the effort. You can say: I did it and that's it.

 

[Sylow]

Frist of all on engineering: No, you do not -have- to engineer your ship to be able to take on NPCs. While higher ranked NPCs do have engineered equipment, it is not in the same league as what we players regularily field.
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When a new ship comes out, i buy it and equip it, without doing any engineering. I take it to a HazREs and give it an hour or two. I try to attack ships of all kinds and difficulty level, so up to and including Elite Anacondas. Only when the ship passes that test, i start engineering it. I haven't lost any ship yet during those non-engineered test rides. So if a mediocre pilot like me can still defeat Elite NPCs in Anacondas while flying a non-engineered ship, the engineering advantage of the NPCs is not too big. (I could now rage about engineering per se and how it scales, but that's a whole different topic. )
.
Then also to note, as you say you don't have access to dirty drives: take a look at Farseer. That's a first tier engineer, which you very likely have unlocked or can easily unlock. That one already provides grade three dirty drives. It's a real step up and worth going for it.
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Then on outmaneuvering enemies: yes, it's become much harder a while ago. NPCs learned to also use reverse thrust and such things to keep you in front. Against NPCs i still find it possible to mostly stay out of their front arc, but yes, it has become much harder. At the same time, i still think it's a good idea to start learning in one of the smaller ships. They educate to avoid the mentioned "stand and deliver" approach. They force you to learn to get around the enemy, no matter how hard it has become. Once you learned that in small ships, it also improves your performance in bigger ships. Mind you, that's all about learning. Due to ships like the Chieftain and FAS, along with engineering, I indeed can't advise to stay in small ships any more once you have learned the evasion. The mentioned newer ships (and some others) also offer very good agility, albeit at somewhat lower top speed. And what they lack on speed, they more than make up for in terms of shields, armour and firepower.
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In terms of combat efficiency there's a number of medium ships which vastly outshine most if not all small ships. Thus there currently is no real reason to be in a small ship for combat, outside of using them as learning and training instruments. (The PvP community may disagree for one or another small ship, but from what I gather, for PvE I stand to what I said. )
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Unfortunately i find it very hard to really explain how to stay on the sides or behind a bigger enemy by now. I know i use some boosting, not only to pass it, but even more so to have the higher turn rates while the boost is active. Quite often i just hit max throttle forward first to just pass the enemy. Of course, we're then back to back and the NPC already started turning. So my normal turn advantage is offset but it already have turned a bit and me moving the "wrong" direction now by actually increasing distance. Reverse-thrust boosting gives me maximum turn rate for the time i need it, without pusing me too far from the target.
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Unfortunately i know that this is just a fragment of what you actually do there. You also need to use the thrusters, etc. I hope somebody else here can fill in better. Of course, keeping enough power reserves in engines can be tricky, but it's worth it.
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Also, no matter what you do, you will sometimes be the enemies firing arc. In a smaller ship i very much advise to have chaff along for those times. Unless you're really right on top of its guns, chaff helps a lot.
.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

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.

I would suggest one manoeuvre not mentioned in your post, in case you're unaware of it: You can also boost while using translational thrusters (vertical/horizontal) to flank your target - keep your reticule on the target's flank and keep firing. Just as your target starts to recover from this to bring his guns to bear on you, repeat the thruster-boost manoeuvre.

 

[Krieger]

<snip>... I never felt like I was out-maneuvering the enemy. Only out-gunning them.

Bingo! This is by design. The introduction of Engineers reduced combat to facetanking/turreting while hiding behind big shields/armour and pressing buttons to activate special effects combos. Forget classical turning dogfights. The only 'manoeuvre' that is effective since G5 Dirty Drives is boost-flipping.

I don't like it either, but it is what it is. Initially FDEV talked about 'exciting turning dogfights' and I think they really meant it. But I suspect it turned out more difficult to achieve than they hoped and so they switched to an arcade combat style that leans heavily on Engineers.

 

[CMDRHLM]

Thanks for the replies so far. It makes me feel a bit better hearing that maybe I'm not doing everything wrong and maybe it's just the way the game is.

After making the initial post, I took on a bunch of assassination missions. They all paid out ~500,000 and had low recommended rank. The first few were "competent" enemies who were not even worth mentioning, but for whatever reason, my next target ended up being a Dangerous federal corvette. Yes. I was in an Imperial eagle with rails and a burst laser.

But it ended up being a great example. Wouldn't you think my nimble eagle should have no problem dancing around this giant? Well I was able to stay out of his firing arc- JUST. For I don't know how long I chipped away at him, finally breaking his shields and getting the hull down to ~70% before I made a slip and died to a single shot.

It was a fun fight, but it took everything I had, pushing my little ship as hard as I could just to maintain the same position for the entire fight - from my view him pointing upwards with his belly exposed. Never was I able to actually get behind or on top of him.

Am I just expecting the impossible?

(Also, I want to clarify, I am definitely not expecting an eagle to have an easy time taking out a corvette. That's just nonsense. I was fully expecting a quick death if he was able to hit me. But shouldn't it be possible with skill to maneuver around a target and avoid taking fire?)

 

[Morbad]

Quick killing things tutorial:
[video=youtube;29FXtcCY8C0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FXtcCY8C0[/video]

is it a complete waste of time attempting to take them on in a small (or even large?), un-engineered ship?

No.

Is it literally impossible to outmaneuver them?

No.

 

[Mrat13]

Fly a ship with an SLF hanger. bringing a high ranked pilot (either by training them up, or purchase) really helps.

 

[Burke]

I use short bursts of FA-off when turning, though this sometimes causes me more problems by altering my movement in unexpected ways.

Im far from a combat expert but i feel like i can make my anni soar. I do the exact opposit of what you do, i fight FA off with short bursts on when i need to turn real tight. Sometimes i set my throttal to full reverse and then set FA off (use boost to move about) so mid fight when the NPC thinks its going to zoom past me and out my fire arcs it gets a surprise when the ship suddenly stops and infact goes into reverse whilst trying to melt its face off.

 

[sidereal6]

One thing that helped me a bit (though I still suck, so believe me, I share your frustration) is that I took some time to stop shooting and just watch.

What I mean is, I would aggro an NPC, then I would stop shooting him and just concentrate on trying to stay out of his guns (assuming he doesn't have turrets). I think I got (a little) better through this exercise. One thing I noticed is that if you hold a particular thrust vector for too long, the NPCs adjust to it and it no longer works. So for example, you mentioned thrust down and pitch up. The idea is that you are circling him, right? Well, they adjust to that you end up just parked in front of them. You have to notice what they're doing, and stop doing what you're doing.

 

[DragonIV]

Thanks for the replies so far. It makes me feel a bit better hearing that maybe I'm not doing everything wrong and maybe it's just the way the game is.

After making the initial post, I took on a bunch of assassination missions. They all paid out ~500,000 and had low recommended rank. The first few were "competent" enemies who were not even worth mentioning, but for whatever reason, my next target ended up being a Dangerous federal corvette. Yes. I was in an Imperial eagle with rails and a burst laser.

But it ended up being a great example. Wouldn't you think my nimble eagle should have no problem dancing around this giant? Well I was able to stay out of his firing arc- JUST. For I don't know how long I chipped away at him, finally breaking his shields and getting the hull down to ~70% before I made a slip and died to a single shot.

It was a fun fight, but it took everything I had, pushing my little ship as hard as I could just to maintain the same position for the entire fight - from my view him pointing upwards with his belly exposed. Never was I able to actually get behind or on top of him.

Am I just expecting the impossible?

(Also, I want to clarify, I am definitely not expecting an eagle to have an easy time taking out a corvette. That's just nonsense. I was fully expecting a quick death if he was able to hit me. But shouldn't it be possible with skill to maneuver around a target and avoid taking fire?)

If you're the only thing it's firing on, and it has turrets, that may be hard to accomplish unless you're decent at flying FAOFF.

If you were able to go toe-to-toe with a corvette in your eagle for as long as you did, you'll do fine wiping out vettes when you get yourself something a bit less mobile but with vastly superior firepower, like the Vulture.

 

[dm06]

As practice shows out-maneuvering is mostly about ship and not about pilot's skills. So to stay behind some ship you basically need faster and more maneurable ship. If this is not the case then the skill won't help and other tactic should be applied in the fight.
... Long time ago I was looking videos on youtube how some dude teached to fly on a ship around asteroids and I tried to do same in almost stock asp explorer. Yeah, I completely missed that the dude used dirty drive grade 5 FDL. Well, I'm naive...
Another point is to understand that you basically do not need shields and armour if no one will hit you, right? So for small ships (which are faster) it is better to keep speed and maneurability instead of investments into shields. So, stay behind target and it won't hit you, it is more important even than shooting.

 

[Morbad]

As practice shows out-maneuvering is mostly about ship and not about pilot's skills.

Ship matters, but as your opponent's vessel gets closer and closer to parity with your own (with regards to maneuverability) how you fly becomes the deciding factor.

It's easier for me to stay behind an NPC Corvette in a Viper or Courier, but I can do it with a Corvette too.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

NPCs are both aim-bots and flight control computers.
They can input an unlimited number of commands at the same time, never suffer coordination malfunctions or any physical limitations. They get all the benefit of flying FA Off, without ever having to turn it off.

We have the advantage of organic brains.

 

[Azirphaeli]

I have no problem hunting larger ships in my DBS or Vulture (though that's been transformed into a twin charged plasma thargoid hunter as of late) so I think it's safe to say you are doing something to cause this.

Best thing to do would be to post a video of you flying combat in one of these ships so we can see what's up.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

Forget classical turning dogfights.

Indeed, forget them. You have momentum in a vacuum with the judicious use of FA-off while on enemy flank and also translational thrusters for strafing, such that you can dispense with the whole Lufbery Circle silliness once and for all.

The only 'manoeuvre' that is effective since G5 Dirty Drives is boost-flipping.

Patently false. If FA-off boost flipping is your only counter to an attack then you're in for a tedious gaming experience, not to mention somewhat limited success in defeating your foes.

 

[Johnny Cairns]

First thing i would do is ditch the eagle. Your making combat much more difficult on yourself trying to take on the biggest ships with one of the smallest. Yes the eagle is a good little ship but if any big ship gets you infront of it for any length of time your dead. There are lots of much better medium ships that can and will do the job much more effectivily that with a ship with just 2 small harpoints. If you really want to kill big ships with eagles then my suggestion is to go big then work down.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

First thing i would do is ditch the eagle. Your making combat much more difficult on yourself trying to take on the biggest ships with one of the smallest. Yes the eagle is a good little ship but if any big ship gets you infront of it for any length of time your dead. There are lots of much better medium ships that can and will do the job much more effectivily that with a ship with just 2 small harpoints. If you really want to kill big ships with eagles then my suggestion is to go big then work down.

+1. That, too, is good advice.

 

[Mrat13]

If you're the only thing it's firing on, and it has turrets, that may be hard to accomplish unless you're decent at flying FAOFF.

If you were able to go toe-to-toe with a corvette in your eagle for as long as you did, you'll do fine wiping out vettes when you get yourself something a bit less mobile but with vastly superior firepower, like the Vulture.

Well, using something like an Alliance Crusader with a high rank npc in the fighter would help too. Send in the fighter first, and let them dance around the target and gain aggro, and the enemy will most times just let you pepper them as long as the fighter is up. Just be careful in case they decide to turn on you for whatever reason. Heck, with lower skilled opponents, the fighter can even kill things by themselves. It maybe have changed now, but back when I had a keelback, my fighter pilot managed to kill a clipper all be himself (high res), it was pretty cool.