Killed by Ramming

JackBassV · Jan 31, 2015

Just lost my second ship.

The first was my fault. Someone shot at me and I returned fire while in the no fire zone of a rather large station. Shields went in a couple of seconds and boom went the sidewinder.

This time it wasn't my fault. Honest.

I was hunting in a low intensity warzone (needed a break after the 8 kills in a high intensity one,) and locked onto a nice easy target, in the form of an eagle, piloted by a Novice npc. Took his shields out when I was rammed by a Python.

No shields, structure down to 30 odd percent. Watched him disappear to my lower left, when I got hit again by another python from the right. Boom. No ship. No money. Now I have to pay back my insurance backer at 10%. I had just fitted a new higher powered beam laser. Reckon it'll take a few hours to pay it back. Maybe tomorrow at the latest. Have to find some new star systems. Not a problem since I'm on the edge of known space. Well, at least populated space...

CloneWarrior85 · Jan 31, 2015

You can dodge everything, it all goes down to your piloting skills.

Better luck next time.

Almighty Bob · Jan 31, 2015

Jack good man for fighting, but 5 weeks in. fighting in a side you must know better.

ComradeFresco · Jan 31, 2015

Helps to have an eye on the radar. i fly an eagle so rams are insta-death for me at all times - i've gotten very good at being able to roll away from collisions and am grateful for it. Lost my eagle a few times before i learned how to avoid crashes.

TheDeathsHead · Jan 31, 2015

I lost a type A asp to a player interdiction , cobra was shooting me and in the middle of waxing his ass with 2 beams and 4 cannons his friend in a viper rammed me and I lost 1.5 mil in a second. Worst thing is I had two pips in shields and had mostly full shields, so not sure how I died but he lived. His name if we go by the book was cmdr runswithothers.

WalterHWhite · Jan 31, 2015

The bigger NPC ships certainly care less for avoiding you. Seems to be part of their 'AI'. In that respect, it's more on you to dodge them.

Presteign · Jan 31, 2015

ramming is deadly but in the end it is all about your piloting skills. as said before, you can always dodge or avoid it.

where is this conflict zone?

Eleonore Nali · Jan 31, 2015

WalterHWhite said:
The bigger NPC ships certainly care less for avoiding you. Seems to be part of their 'AI'. In that respect, it's more on you to dodge them.

It's not only NPC ships, it's player ships as well.

If my T9 leaves a station and an Adder is blocking the station entrance I just push it out of the way.

Almighty Bob · Jan 31, 2015

J for your info I have attacked a player T9 in my cobra. I had 'A' shields and extra armour 2x 260,000 beams ( approx price) and missiles.

Its Shields went down quickly.
My heat seekers did little against the hull for the cost.
I had to plug away with lasers for a long time, and hit chaff a lot.

S/he kept trying to ram me I nipped under and if I stuck to its rear I did not take damage

It took a long time and a lot of damage to me, to kill it. On reflection it is not worth attacking a player T9 in a cobra.

Then again it is not worth attacking a cobra in a cobra.

JackBassV · Feb 1, 2015

The problem was they both came from my blindside - the right rear. First thing I knew was when they hit.

Target blindness was part of the problem (FYI: When you're concentrating on the target in front and don't notice anything else.) And it's difficult to spot anything on the radar when there's something like 30+ blips - 10 or so ships plus missiles and mines. It was the first time in the game that the term "furball" came to mind...

Then again it is not worth attacking a cobra in a cobra.

But it IS fun attack a cobra in a cobra. I'll take on anything up to an Asp without a second thought. Don't like taking on Pythons and Anacondas just because they take so long to take down - and they're armed like porcupines. Unlike in the original, where you just needed to stay on their tail.

For those who say you can dodge anything: Not true. You can't dodge what you can't see. And as far as piloting skills are concerned, I used to fly powered gliders acrobatically (rated at +3,5. -1.5 G) as well as military trainers. So pilot skills are not really a problem. The blind spot problem will be reduced when I (eventually) get an OR. At least it'll make checking them easier.

Ratas · Feb 1, 2015

Ramming damage seems to be rather random at times. I've rammed a lot of ships just for kicks (playing SideWinder billiards at station is fun) and tend to kill the NPC bounty hunters with Clipper wing when they come scanning me. Cobras are kind of special, sometimes they deal huge damage to you, sometimes they just explode. Ramming someone from behind seems to deal much more damage than head on. It makes sense though, when looking at the ship designs.

Urbanski101 · Feb 1, 2015

JackBassV said:
The problem was they both came from my blindside - the right rear. First thing I knew was when they hit.

Target blindness was part of the problem (FYI: When you're concentrating on the target in front and don't notice anything else.) And it's difficult to spot anything on the radar when there's something like 30+ blips - 10 or so ships plus missiles and mines. It was the first time in the game that the term "furball" came to mind...

This....

I'm sorry to say that those holier than thou 'learn to fly/dodge' posters are talking out of their thrusters.

In a conflict zone with 30+ ships in close proximity in a huge fur ball it is almost impossible to spot a ship heading on a collision course if you can't see them.....and don't say scanner, with the number of blips the speed and the manoeuvres everyone is doing it's just not readable.

To the op, I tend to pick a target at the fringe of the melee and lead them further out if possible but my only ship loss so far was due to a collision in a conflict zone so I share your pain