Newcomer / Intro If you think the game will get easier later, think again. I really think I'm done with it:(

[ArchEmperor]

Hate to break it to you, but I think you may not have understood why the game is called Elite : Dangerous...

Hint: It's to do with a rank in the pilot's federation.

(Note, I'm not suggesting that the game shouldn't have challenge in it, danger may be a touch too strong a word for a computer game, but that ain't why it's called Elite : Dangerous.)

The real reason the game is called Elite: Dangerous has nothing to do with the game being difficult or dangerous. Here's a video where Dave Braben explains the name. It's about 5 minutes in.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYhoFYIWmw

That was however not the point.

 

[Faded Glory]

That was however not the point.

So the point was just being rude to the OP and telling them they shouldn't be playing the game?

 

[pipo zelvelder]

Waitwaitwait... let me get that straight: you have actually *found* a way to circumvent the troubles that are plaguing you, but you don't use it because it's "not your kind of fun"?

Seriously?

You misunderstand me. I know how to flee and I do, but i don't like that concept

 

[Section47ABH]

A space combat sim is either a running-away-from-anything-that-might-turn-into-a-fair-fight sim or it's a getting-killed-a-lot sim.

The average number of kills a fighter pilot gains during wartime is less than one: most of us are basically targets. A game that lets untrained civilians score dictatorship-propaganda numbers against NPCs is slanted in the player's favour, and heavily so. That is not simulation, that is arcade play. (Original flavour Elite, back in the old 8-bit days, was pretty slanted like that. The NPCs were as dumb and predictable as clockwork and once you had a military laser you could kill teh aleins and didn't afraid of anything.)

In as much as the simulation is realistic, avoid fighting, avoid obvious ambushes, they get you killed. You are probably not Adolf Galland. You are probably more like Flt. Sgt. Albert F. Nobody, who died without ever seeing the Bf. 109 that shot him through the liver, spleen and brainmeats.

You want a fair fight? Go play draughts. You want to win a lot? Play it against the special kids.

 

[ArchEmperor]

So the point was just being rude to the OP and telling them they shouldn't be playing the game?

I said nothing of that kind.

 

[Para Handy]

I said nothing of that kind.

Actually by saying "... you are neither and can not handle this game. End of story.", you are saying something of that kind. Basically you are giving the "git gud" response.

I get fed up with people saying "The game is Elite Dangerous so it must be a dangerous combative experience" - when the reason for naming it so has nothing to do with that.



[alien]

 

[ArchEmperor]

Actually by saying "... you are neither and can not handle this game. End of story.", you are saying something of that kind. Basically you are giving the "git gud" response.

I get fed up with people saying "The game is Elite Dangerous so it must be a dangerous combative experience" - when the reason for naming it so has nothing to do with that.



[alien]

My expression "Elite Dangerous" was meant as the two words by themselves, not the name of the game, which happens to be the same.

As he already stated, he is fed up and want to quit the game, because he found out that he can not handle it. Thus, the End of the Story.

I only stated that Elite and Dangerous is the key words to understand to be able to handle the game psychologically. If you can not handle the loss of your ship and pride, this game might not be for you. But it is for me. Because I can handle everything and I am not scared like a little child..... ( but I do get scared like a real man, with heart palpation and acid reflux. )

 

[Tinnian Maso]

Well I'm a relatively new commander to ED and I have been interdicted by an elite NPC wing whilst running a mission.

As soon as I saw them and realised they were all in Cobra MkIII's, I ran. I knew there was no way my A rated Asp Explorer was going to survive.

After 2 boosts I was out of range and low waked. Got interdicted by an Anaconda which was also elite. I submitted to the interdiction and as soon as I was in normal space, boosted like my was on fire and low waked again as soon as the FSD was off cool down.

Moral of the story is unless you are fitted for pure combat and are a combat god, running away like a little girl is perfectly acceptable.

I also made the mistake of popping into a CZ in an A rated DBS... and died 22 seconds later.

None of my ships were fitted for pure combat, just enough for self defence for the odd pirate on it's/his own.

Lessons learned the hard way.

Game doesn't seem broken to me but I'm from Eve Online and I'm used to unfair fights (in eve if you're in a fair fight then you're doing something wrong).

Off on a tangent here, I played all the elite games from the original onwards and I just wondered if there were any plans to introduce military hardware as in the original games?

 

[[VR] Zakk]

Moral of the story is unless you are fitted for pure combat and are a combat god, running away like a little girl is perfectly acceptable.

Exactly. I think I spent well over 200 hours on the game by now, and while I encountered a lot of situations that were tough, frustrating, confusing or unfair, I have always managed to come up with a solution for every single one of them. And I certainly wouldn't consider myself a combat god.

 

[ArchEmperor]

Exactly. I think I spent well over 200 hours on the game by now, and while I encountered a lot of situations that were tough, frustrating, confusing or unfair, I have always managed to come up with a solution for every single one of them. And I certainly wouldn't consider myself a combat god.

Exactly.

Death can occur in so many ways, but all of them are preventable by careful planning ahead.

1.Prepare your ship for maximum escape ability: faster ship, fastest hyperdrive, fastest thrusters, chaffs, mines, silent running capabilty.

2. Learn to manage the interdiction minigame, learn the secret of speed control and movement to optimize your chance of winning.
Make sure you have the best thrusters available or the high wake route ready at hand.

3. Also, there are more than one way to get away from death situations than just flee or stand and fight.

A) Mission NPC's are dead serious and you can only avoid them using interdiction win, thrusting away more than 8 km and low wake, or high wake. They are usually 1 class above you in hull mass so they might be slower than you.

B) Another way to avoid mission NPC's is to hide at the stations, forcing them to fire at you and then let the police lower their shields, you move out of no fire zone and start helping the police to get your mission bonus reward for killig it. ( Careful with the no fire zone and do not hit the police. )

C) NPC's can also be kited using better thrusters, letting them be out of range until police arrive ( in security systems only ). When police arrive, do a boost flyby towards the police force and let them see the NPC attack you. They will start pounding its shields and you can wait for it to be pretty hurt before finishing him off with a boost flyby, guns blazing. But if you are smuggling or carrying something illegal, low wake away as fast as you can to avoid being scanned.

D) Hostile factions are a pain, and can only be handled by boosting away and low/high wake.

E) Pirates want cargo, give them a couple of thousand credits worth and save your ship worth millions.

F) Police interdiction just want to scan you, unless you are provoking them. A scan is worth millions, but it is avoidable with silent running and low wake in most cases.

G) Bounty hunters are more dangerous, the best way to avoid them is to make sure to pay your fines in time, and make sure you do not get a wanted poster of your face across the galaxy.

H) Player pirates can be negotiated with, unless they are just bad people. If you cant run, give them some cargo and love them for it, they will be helpful by instinct ( unless your wanted price is too high ). "Please no!!! Can I give you cargo?" If you die from bad people, it does not count as a perma death.

As a bounty hunter, being kind and not destroying your opponent NPC's for cargo instead, may give you a good reputation as a fair and joust bounty hunter. Next time you might get more valuable cargo in exchange for their life ( if the bounty is high enough ).

I) Extra fuel tank have saved many explorer. But extra planning ahead using star class ("KGBFOAM") for scoopable stars has helped many more.

J) Being Elite ( irl ) means you can handle both life and death. Either you clear your save and destroy your profile when you die and start over from scratch, or you reincarnate and try again. Either way is equally fun and exillirating. Make sure you have the insurance bill at hand for the latter option. ( You might want to limit the number of permadeath restarts you make because the stress will kill you irl trying to avoid death during play. The adrenaline rush for permadeath hardcore style is awesome, but taxing. )

K) The "Four NPC raiders" scenario is probably an in game special event. It occured to me when trying to go to a special "hack" location for easy money. It might be Mr. Braben having some fun with exploiters. It is always four in a wing, always the same ship types and always 1 class or more under your ship class. ( Python meeting four FAS, gg. ASP Explorer meeting four Adders, yey! ).

Hope that helps!

 

[[VR] Zakk]

Death can occur in so many ways, but all of them are preventable by careful planning ahead.

True, but on two aspects, my experience varied:

2. Learn to manage the interdiction minigame, learn the secret of speed control and movement to optimize your chance of winning.

IMHO, the interdiction minigame is         . Sometimes, you just can't win it. If you play it and lose, you enter the fight tumbling, having to wait a few valuable seconds before you can regain control. Plus, your hull may receive some damage.

I always reduce throttle to zero and submit. There are a lot of safe ways to still escape unharmed.

What is important is to always be prepared for combat. I always have my standard fire group selected, and have my power distribution set to 4 pips SYS / 2 pips ENG. In SC, it doesn't make a difference, but if I get interdicted, I don't have to fumble with my ship config, but can address the situation immediately.

If I'm not sure whom I am facing, I will usually turn to the attacker and select him as a target first. I will then quickly decide whether I want to try to kill im in dogfight, or if I want to put him behind me and kill him with mines.

Only very rarely I will high-wake away, as the mines strategy works even against wings. If I get attacked by an NPC wing, I will switch to my fire group with all 4 mine launchers and fire away. Usually, 2 attackers will go down in a matter of seconds (as you mentioned, they are usually a class below your ship) and the other 2 will high-wake away.

The only times I consider fleeing is when my hull was already damaged from an earlier flight, or when I get interdicted by a high-level NPC in a larger ship, who might destroy my thrusters before I can put enough distance between him and me to lay a minefield for him to fly into.

But even strong ships with good NPC pilots can be destroyed with mines. The other day, I got interdicted by a master NPC in a Fer-de-Lance (I fly an AspX). Some 30 seconds and 20 mines later, he was toast and I cashed in a nice ~180,000 CR bounty, biggest one I got so far.

A) Mission NPC's are dead serious and you can only avoid them using interdiction win, thrusting away more than 8 km and low wake, or high wake. They are usually 1 class above you in hull mass so they might be slower than you.

This depends on the mission level. If the mission level is above your respective character level, then the interdictors will usually (but not always) be 1 class above you.

An easy way to avoid interdictions by stronger mission NPCs is to not accept missions that are above your current level.

 

[CMDR Mr. Boombastic]

To emphasise Zakk's post, I added 4 mine launchers to the rear 4 hard points on my AspX, stacked some Imperial ranking missions and each NPC that interdicted me was destroyed with ease. (Normally I would engage in combat with lasers/multicannons and then run if my shields were destroyed.)

• Submit to interdiction by throttling to zero
• 4 pips to SYS (so shield resistance increases by 2.5 times), 2 pips to ENG.
• Throttle to 100% and Boost so there's at least a gap between myself and NPC
• Position myself so the NPC is directly behind me: 'on my six'.
• Fire the mines and the NPC flies straight into them. In my case the NPCs were destroyed within a few (maybe a few more for the higher-rated NPCs) presses of the fire button.

 

[ArchEmperor]

To emphasise Zakk's post, I added 4 mine launchers to the rear 4 hard points on my AspX, stacked some Imperial ranking missions and each NPC that interdicted me was destroyed with ease. (Normally I would engage in combat with lasers/multicannons and then run if my shields were destroyed.)

• Submit to interdiction by throttling to zero
• 4 pips to SYS (so shield resistance increases by 2.5 times), 2 pips to ENG.
• Throttle to 100% and Boost so there's at least a gap between myself and NPC
• Position myself so the NPC is directly behind me: 'on my six'.
• Fire the mines and the NPC flies straight into them. In my case the NPCs were destroyed within a few (maybe a few more for the higher-rated NPCs) presses of the fire button.

A small video with loadout and execution of your mines tactic would have been really nice!

 

[CMDR Mr. Boombastic]

A small video with loadout and execution of your mines tactic would have been really nice!

I don't but plenty on YouTube e.g featuring the T9 - the slowest and least agile ship you can buy and nicknamed the 'Space Cow' & another video featuring the AspX where in one interdiction he was being chased by 2 NPCs:

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;ZzRLt0Zm8Nk]https://youtu.be/ZzRLt0Zm8Nk[/video][video=youtube_share;bX1CWEZz9Yk]https://youtu.be/bX1CWEZz9Yk[/video]

 

[Chris Simon]

A small video with loadout and execution of your mines tactic would have been really nice!

[video=youtube;xzVYxOhteq4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVYxOhteq4[/video]

 

[Gator Country]

A small video with loadout and execution of your mines tactic would have been really nice!

It's really ridiculously easy, speaking from personal experience with a Cobra Mk III, and all I'm carrying is two launchers on the small hardpoints. In fact, in the Cobra I often have to loiter intentionally if I want the kill (which I do if the NPC is hanging around the station I'm trying to dock at).

The key point is: line them up directly behind and on the same plane as you - if they're above or below you they'll miss the mines.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

best way to win against Pirate interdiction is fly an combat engineered Federal Corvette, reverse troll is a biatch [squeeeee] they seem to stop doing it shortly after

 

[Manticore]

A small video with loadout and execution of your mines tactic would have been really nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVYxOhteq4

That was sweet!

 

[UhHowHowHowHow]

New to this game- but I'm not finding it necessarily difficult so much as perplexingly overcomplicated and very, very dull. Yup, combat is challenging but not impossible for anyone who has spent hundreds of hours doing it in SWGJTL, but the thing is- combat is pointless! The 'war' between the 'factions' seems to involve a lot of very boring space trucking. If you crank up a faction, they'll give you million credit missions and you can afford new ships to.... ummm, to.... umm fly around imaginary 'galaxies' pointing a frustratingly slow imaginary scanner at a non-existent piece of rock that looks just like all the other swiss cheese rocks you surveyed, all for a whopping 400 credits. No point to that. Bounce around on identical empty worlds picking up barrels and blowing up skimmers, which is just about the easiest thing in the world. Are you telling me that I can't find people shooting at each other in these buggies anywhere in this vast universe? Or, you can bust your hump hauling propaganda around the universe to rank up in a faction and unlock Sol, which has nothing in it. Why is there a rank unlock and grind to get somewhere where there is nothing? Can't even see the monolith on Phobos? Can land on the moon? Mars? What's the point of even modeling the galaxy if we ignore the parts we know the most about? So, there's no point to fighting, exploration is dull and not profitable, space trucking these commodities around for pennies is not going to happen, the moon buggy is only fun for a short while, bounty hunting is either real easy or utterly unwinnable, the penalty for player death is insane, Our ships are cookie-cutter geometric boxes that we can't name and are identical to everyone else's ship and hardware. Damn it! I WANT TO LOVE THIS GAME. I bought a 21:9 rig to play it! I set up my Saitek! Surely there has to be a game here under all this obfuscating complexity, right? Because it seems to me that the whole game consists of landing and taking off. In between there is nothing but an empty void and perplexing and horrible gameplay without any purpose. Please prove me wrong!

 

[Ozram]

New to this game- but I'm not finding it necessarily difficult so much as perplexingly overcomplicated and very, very dull. Yup, combat is challenging but not impossible for anyone who has spent hundreds of hours doing it in SWGJTL, but the thing is- combat is pointless! The 'war' between the 'factions' seems to involve a lot of very boring space trucking. If you crank up a faction, they'll give you million credit missions and you can afford new ships to.... ummm, to.... umm fly around imaginary 'galaxies' pointing a frustratingly slow imaginary scanner at a non-existent piece of rock that looks just like all the other swiss cheese rocks you surveyed, all for a whopping 400 credits. No point to that. Bounce around on identical empty worlds picking up barrels and blowing up skimmers, which is just about the easiest thing in the world. Are you telling me that I can't find people shooting at each other in these buggies anywhere in this vast universe? Or, you can bust your hump hauling propaganda around the universe to rank up in a faction and unlock Sol, which has nothing in it. Why is there a rank unlock and grind to get somewhere where there is nothing? Can't even see the monolith on Phobos? Can land on the moon? Mars? What's the point of even modeling the galaxy if we ignore the parts we know the most about? So, there's no point to fighting, exploration is dull and not profitable, space trucking these commodities around for pennies is not going to happen, the moon buggy is only fun for a short while, bounty hunting is either real easy or utterly unwinnable, the penalty for player death is insane, Our ships are cookie-cutter geometric boxes that we can't name and are identical to everyone else's ship and hardware. Damn it! I WANT TO LOVE THIS GAME. I bought a 21:9 rig to play it! I set up my Saitek! Surely there has to be a game here under all this obfuscating complexity, right? Because it seems to me that the whole game consists of landing and taking off. In between there is nothing but an empty void and perplexing and horrible gameplay without any purpose. Please prove me wrong!

Interesting. It would appear we are playing entirely different games.