I have slaughtered many footboys with beams and hammers
just to make a point to that settlement.
very doable but totally pointless, wrong way, seriously inefficient.
get out of your ship and shoot them as intended
or use the srv if you don't wan't to leave a hard shell.
history will show you that for every cmdr that thought it better to shoot planetary things from above, has induced changes to gameplay
making skimmers like hitting a nav beacon, immovable
making it so they can retaliate and actually take you out of the sky in pieces.
someone will always find a way.
as for the rest, never yet seen any change in ai or any part of fighting changed due to winging up.
and I bounty hunt with another of my own accounts winged , all the time.
It does affect the order of the assassins that were coming for me and does seem to reset their value temporarily.
but then after all that, I have a few things to say
ever hunt the npc's in Pirate USS's, those are tough aka very hard bodied ships, need the right ship/loadout for them.
same with wing assassinate missions - 1 fdl and 3 vultures, engineered to the max. worthless bounties, so good for the mission though.
tough to kill, read many many reasons why.
there are several ways to kill them and kill them fast as though they have no shield and butter is their dad.
the assassins that a faction sends after you for killing too many of their own, very tough. very hard to kill.
in all this the right ship and or the right loadout makes the difference.
and yes skill counts.
my bounty hunting is 99.9% anacondas that come for me.
some are tough as can be others die way too fast, all normal.
in BH in a res or a haz res or any way at all, there are patterns to the ai, to the factions you kill.
the faster you kill, the more wave they send and the thicker the waves
the weaker your ship becomes, the more ships they send and more and more aggressive they get.
these reactions or AI are dependent on you and your behaviour and your skill and ability and ofc somewhat on your ship and loadout.
Knowing they exist means you can counter them.
I usually do my killing in a vette or a conda
the conda is better at the wing assassin missions than any ship I have tried, does the job with tremendous ease.
its a tie between the vette and the conda for the rest. For me it then is a matter of preference for the scenario.
I do not use my fdl's or Kraits or mambas for any of this because they are all 1 shot ships, they are useless for continual killing unless you are able to avoid any and all damage making it so they can last a lot longer.
Things to know
use of gimballed weapons is very easy, I can and have fallen asleep at the keyboard in CZ's
because it takes very little effort, and its a way.. but it is a slow way and extremely inefficient.
once you start using fixed weapons
you will tire ten times sooner than you used to, providing you are actually trying to hit the target and not just flailing about.
as time goes by, you get used to the extra effort it takes, but your head and body may still tire faster than using gimbals.
BUT, doing so makes you at least 20-30% more effective just from the extra power of fixed instead of gimbal mounts.
Doing this now puts you in a position where no npc should be able to run away from you.
But there is still the right ship and the right loadout, not chcking this leaves you as weak as you were before.
It is nearly impossible to make one ship or 1 loadout that can take on everything.
I have ships that I put in this category, even though it is not 100% true, they are best for most situations. not all
Find a way to take out the bonus ships in a cz rapidly, and still be able to stomp a cutter in under 1 minute and take out icouriers.
if you can do that, you have a decent loadout.
I have many ships and many loadouts
my preferred weapons are
fixed beam
Imperial Hammer
Long Range MC's
a mix is important
just like the BGS that has many levers to control, change, affect a faction which using only one lever tends to mean a fail.
ship loadout is like the BGS in that 1 weapon only is weak.
my vette is
1 fixed beam - i use either LR with thermal conduit, or overcharged with Thermal Conduit
1 fixed MC -i use either LR with corrosive
3 imperial hammers - short range blaster with super penetrator
2 tiny turretted LR mc's - really doesn't matter much what experimental i use, these have a purpose.
my conda is
1 fixed MC
5 imperial hammers
2 tiny turretted beams
on the conda here, the rails destroy everything and very fast, the mc and the tiny beams, help it all fall apart waaay faster..
I picture this one as fill ship with holes, use mc and beams to remove the other bits that are holding on tight to the holes.
This is also a 1 shot ship tbh but I can usually do 3 wing assassinates or about 6-8 regular pirate kills before it needs more ammo.
the vette does this all pretty well too, but can last a lot longer in regular hunting or combat
the placement in both ships makes them far better than others at their jobs
plus the conda hull is magic
the 4A beam is powerful enough that it can be the only weapon and you are still going to kill anything in front of you.
the mc's are usually Long Range, because lr is a faster bullet and therefore can actually hit the courier or the viper - this is very useful. no matter the size.
The generation of heat is for me a desirable thing. I use it
listen to whiners or not, use your own judgement
my vette can kill a conda in 3 seconds because of the thermal conduit.
when the temp is 400 or higher, stuff melts at its touch
then there is the actual holes being punched clean through every module on the ship with the Hammers with SP.
many ships blow up with 40% to 70% hull still.
the damage my ships suffer from my own weapons is really minimal imo, that I get a kill and get it fast is what I want
I play the BGS, I do NOT care about the credits, but that bounty is pure gold for BGS and i don't care what it takes or what it costs to get it. there is ONLY ONE way to get bounties for BGS.
you can't buy them or trade for them, you must kill.
I have never yet blown up from overheating
I have tested every ship for these tolerances
the conda is outstanding and takes #1 tough ship award for this.
vette is #2
that fdl you are using is a doorstop by comparison and cannot compete without the skill to evade and cause damage and is just too tiring to use.
but the ship choice is second to loadout, so each to his own.
the small ships and medium are good, just not really as full time bounty hunters..imo
I use the cutters a lot too, because to get my bounties, I use wing mining missions..so i get to kill occasionally in the cutters too
1 class 4 fixed beam
4 hammers
2 beams or mc's, really makes not much diff here..
the hammers and that beam rip things apart as well as the vette.
there is a lot to learn a lot to discover
meaning many weapons options and many combinations
I can tell you when I started in 2014, I read that everyone thinks the beam is the worst weapon
hammers are not as good as rails
the list goes on..
Thank the stars I am not sheep or lemming and I ignored them all
and I tested every weapon on every ship it can go on.
And I end up with the exact opposite results
Beam is the single most powerful yet extremely under utilized weapon we have. imo
Hammers dont come in class 3 or 4 for a reason. and there is NO comparison to the Rail, they are quite different and I have them on every ship I own that can mount one.
the way the rail and the hammer fires makes a gigantic difference in the actual use and its ability.
next, many weapons have other ways to do things.
ex: a hammer
press fire and keep pressed, Hammer charges and fires, and keeps repeating till you stop pressing fire.
regular rail,
press fire, it charges and fires. its done. you have to release, wait a sec and press again to re-fire.
ok, part 1 of the rail
now the hammer has a trick the rail does not have
get it firing, then reduce the power to it, it starts to stutter. give full power again, it now keeps the stutter fire and just keeps going
shooting the same amount of ammo, but never more than 1 at a time instead of 3 at a time, but the 3at one time frame remains, so pure machine gun fire via hammer.
this on a 5 hammer conda also destroys anything in front of it in about 3 or less seconds. taking the hull from 100% to 0 in about 2 seconds.
This and a 400-600% temp on the 4a Beam/s makes this my #1 favourite shooter and very fun to see.
Had I watched any videos or actually listened to anyone, I probably would never have learned these things.
hope you get some useful info from all this.
good luck
don't be afraid to try the unheard of or the totally ridiculous...
never let fear of death or ship loss prevent any test.
if a ship can't take it, it isn't worth taking.
a class 1 rail alone can take out a conda.
