Is the SLF fighter just REALLY bad early on or am I doing something wrong?

[Agony_Aunt]

My tips:

1) Give them gimballs until they are at least competent, better expert.

2) Go bounty hunting in a RES to get their rank up. Take the opponents down until they are almost dead and then let the NPC get the kill.

3) Keep your NPC on a tight leash. Use attack my target only for offence and maintain formation to call them back when the target is dead. Never use commands like defend or the others.

 

[Sylow]

I can confirm what Aashen already said and add a little more:

• They seem to fare better on other ships. I personally think that the imperial fighter is the best choice.
• That being said, according to my personal experience the difference in PvE isn't that big. You can pick any model of fighter and be fine, just make sure it has the right weapons.
• Give them something with more punch. Beams are a good choice. Plasma also isn't that bad, but only when your NPC has some better combat rank.
• Assassination missions are the worst choice for leveling them.
• Resource extraction sites are much better. Just keep going there, the constant stream of kills helps in leveling them.
• If you can handle it, going for Thargoid scouts is even better. Those scouts all count as Elite level enemies, so they give maximum XP.
• In that case, use an AX Taipan.
• At any rate, even the best NPCs don't know how to avoid Thargoid acid clouds. Fighters will get destroyed. Use a ship with class 6 hangar, so you can immediately launch another fighter from the other slot.
• Once your NPC reaches dangerous or above, it turns into a good asset. And while it will still fly into Thargoid acid clouds, it'll learn some defensive flying and will be more survivable.

 

[Rock Hunter]

It sounds like SLF orders/commands are similar, if a little more relaxed, to pip management. Keep on top of it and use it correctly at the right time to win the engagement.

I’m 9% shy of Deadly currently and may stay solo until then, once I hit that it may be time to try SLFs as a new game element. Bring a new lease of life to my Corvette and an entirely new role for my Krait MkII.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

If the NPC performance "unexpectedly drops", this could be due to a hang-up in their Script.

Repeating i.e. "Attack Target" once will override and re-init their Attack Script. Doesn't do magic on low-ranked Crew NPCs but often helps - at least for a while.

 

[Sylow]

Bring a new lease of life to my Corvette and an entirely new role for my Krait MkII.

Hehe, yea. I wouldn't know why anybody would fly any of these in combat without SLF. Actually the Krait MK II only made it into my rooster (and by now is the ship i probably use the most) due to its SLF capability while still being an acceptably agile ship itself.

If the NPC performance "unexpectedly drops", this could be due to a hang-up in their Script.

Repeating i.e. "Attack Target" once will override and re-init their Attack Script. Doesn't do magic on low-ranked Crew NPCs but often helps - at least for a while.

Hehe, yea. It mostly happens when they rank up. I didn't know that re-issuing the order can help, though. When my NPCs were stuck, i tried to give orders a few times, then just waited for an NPC to shoot them down. Once i launched them again, they were fine again.

Also note that there also are some other bugs. Last time i had an NPC actually acknowleding the attack order, but not attacking. After doing so for two enemies, i switched to the SLF. Turned out that the modules list on the right side panel was blank and no weapons were active. Recalling the fighter and launching it again fixed that issue.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I prefer the plasma/chaff Imp fighter.

 

[Old Duck]

- Its the Gimballed Pulse Taipan

I highly recommend using fixed beam Taipan instead. NPCs are pretty good with fixed weapons, and at 45 dps, the SLF is right up there with a HUGE ship-mounted beam laser, which baffles me since a huge beam is actually bigger than the SLF itself, LOL. If anything I feel SLFs are too powerful, from a magical Iron Man arc reactor in the chest sort of way.

 

[Werewolf13]

I hate to rain on the parade, but the pilot I have is a former member of the Federal Navy and brags about the number of medals she has in her bio and is absolute garbage. Hence why I made the thread in the first place lol

Maybe she's just the ED version of "stolen valor"?

 

[Wasp0]

Enough of the 'NERF' word. Don't let us give FD any ammo to go in and change the way SLF's operate currently

 

[Lightspeed]

A Sidey might be quite difficult to hit .... they zip around all over the place !

I try to avoid wasting time on them, unless I can get a killer hit in one or two shots.

 

[Lightspeed]

I like to use a different color to the weapons of a SLF if my ship carries one. That way I can more easily watch whether the pilot is on target or is just pretending to engage.

Some of them want the rank without the effort. It's not the same as when we were in the academy.

 

[CoyoteXStarrk]

I highly recommend using fixed beam Taipan instead. NPCs are pretty good with fixed weapons, and at 45 dps, the SLF is right up there with a HUGE ship-mounted beam laser, which baffles me since a huge beam is actually bigger than the SLF itself, LOL. If anything I feel SLFs are too powerful, from a magical Iron Man arc reactor in the chest sort of way.

I actually switched to the Gimballed Beam loadouts and now she seems to be doing fine?

So idk maybe she was just bugged or something. But now she seems to be doing a proper job. She is constantly pulling aggro now whereas before the NPC ships acted like she wasn't even there.

 

[Stealthie]

I like to use a different color to the weapons of a SLF if my ship carries one. That way I can more easily watch whether the pilot is on target or is just pretending to engage.

Some of them want the rank without the effort. It's not the same as when we were in the academy.

Or, more mundanely, so you can tell if they're out of ammo' and are just flying around, swinging the lead.

But, at the risk of stating the obvious, if your SLF jockey is deployed in a ship that uses ammo' for it's weapons, they don't actually say anything when they're dry.
They just carry on flying around, presumably muttering "dakka dakka dakka" to themselves as they do so.

 

[Sylow]

Or, more mundanely, so you can tell if they're out of ammo' and are just flying around, swinging the lead.

SLFs can actually run out of ammo? I admit, i always let the NPCs or friends fly them and never pilot them myself. Still I somehow had on my mind that they only run the magazine dry, but reload from an infinite internal supply. Not that it matters, my NPCs still loose the SLF once a while, usually long before they could be out of ammo. I noticed some bugs, see above, but i never noticed one running out of ammo yet.

That being said, yes, i also like to give them very obvious weapon colors so i can see what they currently are doing. (It's even more of an advantage in multi-crew. It helps me keeping track. And that's before mentioning that one friend always is, uh, "extremely happy" when he notices that i've put him in a ship with pink weapon color again. )

 

[KillZoneGB]

When reading their bio, don`t forget to look @ their Photo.

^^^ Always Reject

 

[bradLP560]

What if you use your pilot exclusively to fly the mothership while you run around in the SLF, will they still level up?

 

[Sylow]

What if you use your pilot exclusively to fly the mothership while you run around in the SLF, will they still level up?

Yes. But to you really want to give your valuable ship to a NPC of limited competence? I mean, just let a NPC fly your ship for a moment, then return. Check the pip setting...

SLFs are cheap, ships which can carry SLFs cost a good deal more. I rather let NPCs explode the cheap ships...

 

[bradLP560]

Yes. But to you really want to give your valuable ship to a NPC of limited competence? I mean, just let a NPC fly your ship for a moment, then return. Check the pip setting...

SLFs are cheap, ships which can carry SLFs cost a good deal more. I rather let NPCs explode the cheap ships...

It's what I do all the time, I love to see my Annie come charging in to save my skin. I cruise around in a HAZRES for hours spitting orders to my pilot in the Mothership, great fun.
Lost a few though, I'll give you that.

 

[Sapyx]

I hate to rain on the parade, but the pilot I have is a former member of the Federal Navy and brags about the number of medals she has in her bio and is absolute garbage. Hence why I made the thread in the first place lol

Those candidates that brag about how many kills they've made... yet they are still only rated Harmless? Yeah, they're lying, padding out their CV with unverifiable "facts". I never hire liars.

In truth, the NPC bio is randomly generated by tacking together selections from three one-sentence picklists: the "Where I came from" list, the "Why I need this job" list, and the "Recent combat action I've seen" list. Some of the sentences don't necessarily belong together. As far as anyone can ascertain, the bio is not an indication of any hidden skill stats which the pilot might or might not have.

 

[Hacker#451563]

I may be imagining too much, but reading their Bio is a sign of how they are in combat, I've found.

I always hire harmless too, but the ones that boast about their kills always seem to rank-up faster than the ones that harp on about their humanitarian missions.

I had one recently the Bio said something about beating an epidemic, the Bee-atch ran away during a set-to with an engineered NPC Anaconda, and stayed out of the entire fight!

I always get guys who've been screwed over by the ex-wives. They don't rank-up as fast but they love going to the bar after a good fight.