I want to get better

[kilowolf]

Ok, I have been doing allot of thinking. The new AI have been kicking my butt. Now was able to solo a player in a conda in my eagle back before the horizons stuff happened and stopped playing for awhile because I did not have money for horizons and I got bored because there was next to no content back then. But I come back now and no matter what I fly, or how I fly I just get completely wrecked. Most of the time I am not even able to get the AI shields down before i'm dead. And running away has not worked. Like clockwork every time I turn to run my powerplant picks that moment as a nice time to take a nap.

Now I know the AI have some cheaty stuff going on like being immune to heat, not running out of ammo or weapons energy, much too fast of shield recharge, and the ability to fly cicrles around you no matter what you are flying, even in FA off. But other pilots are able to deal with it so I know i'm doing something wrong.

My question to you guys is how are you doing it? And I refuse to use engineers for combat against AI as it's a crutch and does not make you a better pilot. I tried in my eagle to fight a AI eagle at a RES and was killed in 2 shots. Then I was able to solo a Cobra MK3. both master rank.

TIPS!!! I NEED TIPS!!!

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

An Eagle is a hard ship to fly well, as there is no room for error.

There is plenty of content that doesn't involve combat. But if you are set on combat, consider a slightly bigger ship - Viper or Diamondback Scout.

You don't have to just use engineer mods to make your ship OP. You can make it run cool, make the weapons light weight, or higher efficiency, both of which decrease DPS. There are other mods too that can be used to personalise a ship without gaining too much of an edge though there aren't many players doing this. The higher ranked NPCs will have engineer mods, so you may eventually want to reconsider.

 

[Spacemarkl]

Do you manage your pips well? I.e. 4 ships to shields when under fire, four to weapons when you have a clear shot, 4 to engines when you run...

 

[kilowolf]

An Eagle is a hard ship to fly well, as there is no room for error.

There is plenty of content that doesn't involve combat. But if you are set on combat, consider a slightly bigger ship - Viper or Diamondback Scout.

You don't have to just use engineer mods to make your ship OP. You can make it run cool, make the weapons light weight, or higher efficiency, both of which decrease DPS. There are other mods too that can be used to personalise a ship without gaining too much of an edge though there aren't many players doing this. The higher ranked NPCs will have engineer mods, so you may eventually want to reconsider.

Oh no, I understand the point that the eagle is hard to fly because it's weak. I'm playing around in it because it's fun and I don't care about getting blown up. I have much better ships for combat and just about have myself a FDL. I was just looking for some tips. And i'll gladly mod once I get better again. It's not that i'm set on combat, it's that with the coming war and everything I want to be ready and if I can not beat the new AI then I will not beat the aliens(Thargoids or not) I like to learn first and then when I know what i'm doing I use mods and stuff.

Also working towards a Corvette right now and combat mission help your rep the most.

Edit: yes, I manage my pips constantly and even have them rebound to my mouse so i'm not moving my hands off anything.(I have allot of buttons on my mouse) but I guess that does not mean i'm going a good job.

 

[ForeverN00b]

Be careful of the fights you pick.

An eagle shouldn't be wrecking anacondas. Just sayin'.

The eagle is fun, with quite possibly the sexiest cockpit in the game....but it is a mere appetizer to the bigger combat ships. Too little firepower and shields....and to boot it's on par with the python for speed.

If you like the eagle, get an imperial eagle. The ieagle is an improved variant with much more speed to get you out of bad situations.

 

[Euklides Diophant]

First off there is something that can be fixed quick.

Your powerplant priorities. Not at any point should you need to stop moving in an eagle at powerplant malfunction or destruction, that is only something npcs' does on powerplant destruction(I would wager that it is to balance the fact that they do not get malfunctions).

Prio 1: Everything vital that you can squeeze in at 40%. You will only get 40% when the powerplant malfunctions. Thrusters are a given prio 1 module. FSD could be too but the eagle I wager does not have the capacity for both at 40%.

Prio 2: Everything else that you deem vital that you can squeeze in at 50% this is when your powerplant is destroyed, probably a good thing to have everything you need to escape at this level(Thrusters/fsd, nice to have but non essential is life support, distributor, sensors and various defensive utilities and modules).

Prio 3: Combat ready modules, everything you expect you need in a fight.

Prio 4: Supercruise modules that you can power but don't need when fighting.

Prio 5: Redundant systems. Like cargo hatch and what not.



As to the fighting, it will take a few eagles getting used to it.
There is also a new thruster, that isn't a engineer upgrade but a new module that you can find at engineer bases that deal with thrusters, like felicity farseer.
It will greatly increase your speed if you are not too heavy at the cost of power draw. It can greatly improve your survivability if you can manage to fit one.

But as said, npcs have improved and they are not cheating as much anymore. No more infinite ammo (Though there is currently a bug with ammo based weapons not depleting ammo on the player side, might be the case for npcs too now), they do get affected by heat, but as the dumdums they can be they sometimes ignore it and carry on like stuff isn't on fire.

Getting two shot by another eagle is not possible, unless you had no shields, low on armour and the eagle in question had three railguns? Feels like a slight exaggeration or you missed the anaconda right behind you that was in his wing. ^^

Fighting got more fierce, no way of getting around that. fighting things at your skill level/ship level is advisable. Taking down an anaconda in a eagle is only possible if it does not have a turret, and it always seem to have one. As it will shield cell bank (unless harmless or low rank possibly) when getting to low shield wise and an Eagle can't reasonably burst down a shield before the bank goes active. This grim reality carries down to smaller ships at varying difficulty.


As to how you are flying and what can be improved, well show us a recording if you can, hard to tell what might be improved otherwise.

 

[kilowolf]

First off there is something that can be fixed quick.

Your powerplant priorities. Not at any point should you need to stop moving in an eagle at powerplant malfunction or destruction, that is only something npcs' does on powerplant destruction(I would wager that it is to balance the fact that they do not get malfunctions).

Prio 1: Everything vital that you can squeeze in at 40%. You will only get 40% when the powerplant malfunctions. Thrusters are a given prio 1 module. FSD could be too but the eagle I wager does not have the capacity for both at 40%.

Prio 2: Everything else that you deem vital that you can squeeze in at 50% this is when your powerplant is destroyed, probably a good thing to have everything you need to escape at this level(Thrusters/fsd, nice to have but non essential is life support, distributor, sensors and various defensive utilities and modules).

Prio 3: Combat ready modules, everything you expect you need in a fight.

Prio 4: Supercruise modules that you can power but don't need when fighting.

Prio 5: Redundant systems. Like cargo hatch and what not.



As to the fighting, it will take a few eagles getting used to it.
There is also a new thruster, that isn't a engineer upgrade but a new module that you can find at engineer bases that deal with thrusters, like felicity farseer.
It will greatly increase your speed if you are not too heavy at the cost of power draw. It can greatly improve your survivability if you can manage to fit one.

But as said, npcs have improved and they are not cheating as much anymore. No more infinite ammo (Though there is currently a bug with ammo based weapons not depleting ammo on the player side, might be the case for npcs too now), they do get affected by heat, but as the dumdums they can be they sometimes ignore it and carry on like stuff isn't on fire.

Getting two shot by another eagle is not possible, unless you had no shields, low on armour and the eagle in question had three railguns? Feels like a slight exaggeration or you missed the anaconda right behind you that was in his wing. ^^

Fighting got more fierce, no way of getting around that. fighting things at your skill level/ship level is advisable. Taking down an anaconda in a eagle is only possible if it does not have a turret, and it always seem to have one. As it will shield cell bank (unless harmless or low rank possibly) when getting to low shield wise and an Eagle can't reasonable burst down a shield before the bank goes active. This grim reality carries down to smaller ships at varying difficulty.


As to how you are flying and what can be improved, well show us a recording if you can, hard to tell what might be improved otherwise.

That was very constructive and contained allot of useful info. Thank you very much. I have not been paying much mind to priority and I didn't know about the thrusters.

As for getting 2 shot it did happen. I started the combat because he had a bounty, he turned to get sights on my and with his first shot my shields were gone and I was at 78% hull and the next shot I was dead. This was with 3A shields and class 2 and 1 hull reinforcement. He was not in a wing and he was master ranked. Impossible or not it happened. Might have missed something, but I don't think so.

And i'm a competent combat rank but every single npc in the entire galaxy seems to be dangerous, master, and elite. I should not even be seeing elite ranked pilots other then players yet. Hell, I don't think I have ever seen a npc lower then a dangerous rank since I came back. But if it matters i'm based out of Furbaide in Federation space right next to Empire space.

 

[Euklides Diophant]

That was very constructive and contained allot of useful info. Thank you very much. I have not been paying much mind to priority and I didn't know about the thrusters.

As for getting 2 shot it did happen. I started the combat because he had a bounty, he turned to get sights on my and with his first shot my shields were gone and I was at 78% hull and the next shot I was dead. This was with 3A shields and class 2 and 1 hull reinforcement. He was not in a wing and he was master ranked. Impossible or not it happened. Might have missed something, but I don't think so.

And i'm a competent combat rank but every single npc in the entire galaxy seems to be dangerous, master, and elite. I should not even be seeing elite ranked pilots other then players yet. Hell, I don't think I have ever seen a npc lower then a dangerous rank since I came back. But if it matters i'm based out of Furbaide in Federation space right next to Empire space.

Well, there is the chance that you got scarred for life during the shaky first weeks of the engineer update, there was a "feature"

Spoiler

[video=youtube;s_6HjebZFYs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_6HjebZFYs[/video]

that the npcs had that sometimes would grant them railgun lasers or plasma frag cannons / multi cannons. E.I your client would assign them one weapon and the server decided for another. So when the server told the client npc shot X projectiles at this speed this quick, the client would comply with Y weapon. Had some hilarious effects and a lot of upset players until that got fixed.

Super cruise is a mixed bag of npcs, hard for me to remember as I have been combat elite for a while and seeing a lot of elite/dangerous/deadly is what I normally see.

But depending on were you go you get different difficulties. Even when I drop into a nav beacon I get a lot of harmless to masters, some of the higher but not as much.

RES sites follow a similar logic:
Low carries a lot of smaller ships and more of the lower combat rank npcs.
Res (med-low): Carries a bit more of the bigger ships, still combat ranked lower.
High RES have the same ship mix as RES kinda but with harder combat ranked npcs.
Haz RES: Have the biggest ship mix and the most difficult combat rankings on top of the absence of any police.

Also choosing a system that has a higher security level might be advised to mark as your home as police response got updated to actually matter a great deal in high security and medium security. This can ease a lot of frustration in regards to npcs that attack you unprovoked, even in nav beacons when bounty hunting or RES sites it can help a great deal.

 

[aRJay]

Regrettably the infinite reloads bug was fixed with the latest patch.

The Imperial Eagle is a very nice machine and one of the fastest, it also has fewer power issues than the ordinary Eagle, however it is nowhere near as manoeuvrable.

NPC strength is initially based on your combat rating but if one of your other ratings is higher the NPC gets bumped up a rank I believe.

 

[Muzz UK]

Be careful of the fights you pick.

An eagle shouldn't be wrecking anacondas. Just sayin'.

The eagle is fun, with quite possibly the sexiest cockpit in the game....but it is a mere appetizer to the bigger combat ships. Too little firepower and shields....and to boot it's on par with the python for speed.

If you like the eagle, get an imperial eagle. The ieagle is an improved variant with much more speed to get you out of bad situations.

I disagree an Eagle should be able to wreck an Anaconda if the pilot is skilled enough. This should be a game of skill not the biggest ship wins!

 

[d8veh]

There's no need to get better and no need to get your butt whipped. Instead, do a load of Sothis runs (about 12) to get 900 million credits, rank yourself up in the Federation and then go and buy a Corvette with A-rated modules. Do the engineers stuff to get level 5 shields, shield boosters, thrusters and everything else. At present, no AI can kill one of those. You can even make capital ships run away. No need for pip management. Just leave it on 4 pips to shields. You can read the paper while you decide when you can be bothered to swat the annoying elite Anaconda that's nipping at your butt.

 

[Euklides Diophant]

I disagree an Eagle should be able to wreck an Anaconda if the pilot is skilled enough. This should be a game of skill not the biggest ship wins!

Should and what is is sadly not what is the case in this game, considering the way SCB works there is a lot of potential HP in shields with barely any considerable side effect for a large ship, small ships usually can't fit one due to power constraints and their safe buffer zone for using one is so tiny that anything can burst through it. Not only considering that the smaller SCB have less total HP available too.
The other fact is that turrets have a very wide firing arc, and weapons are known to clip through ships to fire anyway when you should technically be in a blind spot when you shove your eagle so far up an anacondas rear exhaust that you can begin studying the handywork of a dirty drive.

I wish it was the case, but other limitations to ship small ship manoeuvrability is the power distro can not support the manoeuvring boost needed to keep up with a FA boost turning large ship, you might keep up twice, but then all distro charge will be depleted in an eagle with 4 pips into engines while the anaconda will have a near infinite recharge with 4 pips into engines.
It does not help either that in order to follow in a blind spot, the eagle in question has to traverse a longer distance to keep up with the rotation of the anaconda...

 

[c00ky1970]

Position, position, position or is it location. location, location

If you are going to take on an NPC at a RES, you take them on when they are not looking.

So, as other posters mentioned, no items in cargo, as you want to wait until NPC scans you and then says "how do you make a living" and then turns away.

If NPC is in a wing, then ignore them. 2 vs 1 or greater is not winnable for any stock ship, unless you have l33t skillz and mental buffs on ship.

You then approach the intended victim from behind, make sure you are close about 1km or less and then unleash hell on them.

From that point on for an eagle its Pip Mgmt and keeping thrust in blue for max maneuverability, and most importantly trying to stay behind, or get behind target.

Judicious use of FA off to improve your turn. If you use a HOTAS having thrust split on controller so you can go from full reverse to full throttle without having to click a button will help you improve your skills.

Targetting sub components (Power plant, ship thrusters or even that scary rail gun they have) will allow you to drop ship quicker, or eliminate the 2 shot kill weapon you are scared of.

Instigating fight near System security will allow them to aggro on your target, which if it doesnt go your way may result in target agroing back on Defense force allowing you to regroup/recharge or High Wake out of there.

I would also try out CQC, as the ships are more twitchy, but you can get a feel for a control set up that you can then use in main game without having to go through rebuy screens and SC to get back to RES site.

Most of the above is practice, and starting on small targets and working your way up. I still have to think twice before engaging an Elite NPC, and 9 times out of 10 I usually don't bother and I definitely avoid NPC wings unless I can alpha strike the main ship an d take it out quickly, 3 angry eagles can take out anything pretty damn fast!

 

[Fost]

I wish they'd gone with some sort of piggy back delivery vehicle with massive jump range - then they could explain a reduced time delay and the massive expense. Would also be fantastic to see it arriving.

 

[kilowolf]

Allot of great tips guys and thank you very much for handing them out. Now I have another question. Just thinking about combat. Python of FDL? I love everything else that the Python can do but I think I would punch my screen if it's as sluggish as everyone would have you think.

 

[Pokemeck]

Allot of great tips guys and thank you very much for handing them out. Now I have another question. Just thinking about combat. Python of FDL? I love everything else that the Python can do but I think I would punch my screen if it's as sluggish as everyone would have you think.

A python with grade 5 dirty drive thrusters is quite maneuverable. It can never be as good as similarly modded FDL, but I fought plenty of Elite NPC with it without issues. A fully modded Python also has a jump range of around 22 ly and shields that will pretty much stand up to most NPC without ever dropping.

 

[ForeverN00b]

Python is better at tanking, but the FDL definitely has more of a fighter type style. I prefer the python, as it fights better while outnumbered, but given that you are partial to the eagle, I think the FDL would be a better fit for you.

Also, the vulture is a good stepping stone ship, as it costs upwards of 100 million creds to a-rate a FDL or a python. An a-rated vulture can be had for 20 million.

 

[kofeyh]

Allot of great tips guys and thank you very much for handing them out. Now I have another question. Just thinking about combat. Python of FDL? I love everything else that the Python can do but I think I would punch my screen if it's as sluggish as everyone would have you think.

Depends on what you want to do; pure combat or more generalised? Vulture is an overgrown viper, essentially. It's two class 3 hard-points and two engines flying in formation. Combat wise it's considerably cheaper to run over FDL or Python and with two class 3 hard-points still hit's like a truck.

Vulture is also pretty maneuverable and so if you like flying eagle because it's a bit of a pilots ship, Vulture isn't a bad alternative.

 

[Adhock]

And I refuse to use engineers for combat against AI as it's a crutch and does not make you a better pilot.

Hun it's time to hang up your joystick if you aren't willing to compromise on this.

As of 2.1, the AI are no longer sleeping at the stick. ALL the AI had engineer modules. Now while FDev claim they removed the modules due to a glitch in their own network that caused the AI to develop superweapons on everything except the highest tier NPC's, I'm pretty sure they only removed the weapons because the way the AI fly, they still have resistant shields and sooped up engines.

The rapid recharge you're seeing is the AI using it's Shield Cell Banks. It's module you can use yourself in the optional internals in the outfitting. You shoot this out, they should stop recharging like no tomorrow. SHOULD. There's reports of ships still chaffing even after they've gone over the 11 chaff limit, even after the pilot shot out the chaff.

Engineers are not a crutch. They are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL if you want to retain an advantage.

Worse yet, once you reach the highest combat ranks, they will be MANDATORY to even the playing field.

The highest tier combat level ships still have all their Engineer mods and since ship rank is locked to your combat rank, when you reach Elite Combat, you will see nothing but overengineered deathships. Meaning you need to compromise to even the playing field or just stop playing.

It's the way the game works now. I'm not fond of the idea but Engineers are the best way to fight back. I was having problems too until I started getting some level one and three mods. Then I started having less trouble. A grade 3 upgrade for a Bi-weave (overall same protection a D-ranked with a faster reacharge time) was proving me with better protection than an unmodded A ranked shield.

What's up with that?

Be a machismo man all you want. Engineers may be optional but it's certainly far from a crutch when you're facing down AI that clearly don't agree on this stance.

 

[kilowolf]

The rapid recharge you're seeing is the AI using it's Shield Cell Banks. It's module you can use yourself in the optional internals in the outfitting. You shoot this out, they should stop recharging like no tomorrow. SHOULD. There's reports of ships still chaffing even after they've gone over the 11 chaff limit, even after the pilot shot out the chaff.

The problem with this is I am not blind and I do check what the other ship is running after scanning them. I have seen the same things out of NPCs both with and without SCB, I have seen a Eagle running PAs even though I know for a 100% fact that I can not do that. I have watched a viper chaff when he had none to begin with. The AI have an advantage over us to begin with. This i'm not complaining about. At least they do not die in 5 seconds.

As for the rest of the stuff, if you can beat them without mod then think of what you can do with them. I'm not entirely against mods. Just while i'm training.