PvP "Melee" FDL PVP: should the leading indicator be a toggle option when using hitscan?

[Morbad]

Thanks for the video of your perspective.

Some points that have been revealed or reinforced by all this:

- "Objects viewed through this canopy are closer than they appear."
- FA Off aids PA aim by reducing how erratic one's own movement, and thus the lead indicator, is.
- FA On aids evasion, both because of the increased deceleration effect, and also due to the ability to take advantage of the stalls it produces in the FDL to rapidly reverse movement vector.
- A strong defense is a strong offense as it allows more aggressive tactics vs. less durable vessels.
- Hitscan weapons requiring significant time on target have too high a trade off vs. these setups to be useful, except at long ranges.
- Short range weapons requiring high ToT are useless in FDL vs. FDL combat regardless because it's essentially impossible to control engagement range with any precision in a contest between a pair of chain boosting ~550m/s ships.
- Standard velocity PAs can be readily evaded beyond point blank range.

I've been thinking a lot about these engagements and how to alter my FDL to be a more credible threat to similar builds and tactics, without having to become overly specialized, and I think I've already made significant progress in that regard. Going to take some more practice and loadout refinement, but the gimbaled kinects for short and medium range damage, while being evasive, and longer ranged hitscan weapons for medium-to-long ranges where I am not at immediate risk from being rammed and have time to react to PA shots, seems like it will be the most effective option to close the gap given my play style.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

No idea.

This is the menu I see on PC:

Nope, don't have that unfortunately.

Appreciate the vids folks!

 

[Krash]

Alright, here's my perspective of our six fights. Thanks again for the practice, Morbad.

Thanks for posting your side. This is educational for us noobs. Have you encountered gankers with this build? Outnumbered/Reverb cascade/fletchette tactics? I'm curious how you respond when the other side doesn't play fair and the odds are against you.

 

[Krash]

Sure thing. Coriolis link.

Basically G5 reinforced, hi-cap 5A Prismatic with 5 shield boosters, 3 of them heavy duty/super capacitors and 2 resist augmented (one super capacitor, one thermo block). Rest of the internals are heavy dull hull reinforcements. Armor is heavy duty deep plating reactive surface composites.

I finished my "melee" FDL build last night and started PvP testing. I followed your template for the most part with only a couple of changes:
1. I swapped pulse lasers (scramble/emissive) turrets for 2 of the med PAs. The constant TOT is nice.
2. 1 MRP (2600 hull total)

Everything else is close (e.g. I'm at 2922 MJ with similar resists). What I found in my initial testing (2v2) was the other side doesn't know what to do with a ramming FDL. And when I cant get close enough to ram (or miss) I find myself close enough for the efficient PAs to be easy shots. More testing is needed but obviously I'm enjoying this.

 

[The Replicated Man]

I finished my "melee" FDL build last night and started PvP testing. I followed your template for the most part with only a couple of changes:
1. I swapped pulse lasers (scramble/emissive) turrets for 2 of the med PAs. The constant TOT is nice.
2. 1 MRP (2600 hull total)

Everything else is close (e.g. I'm at 2922 MJ with similar resists). What I found in my initial testing (2v2) was the other side doesn't know what to do with a ramming FDL. And when I cant get close enough to ram (or miss) I find myself close enough for the efficient PAs to be easy shots. More testing is needed but obviously I'm enjoying this.

This is interesting, whenever I have flown the FDL in the past I mainly try to avoid ramming. This is very interesting....

Might convince me to go back to my heavy fdl build

 

[Krash]

This is interesting, whenever I have flown the FDL in the past I mainly try to avoid ramming. This is very interesting....

Might convince me to go back to my heavy fdl build

It is devastating to be on the receiving end of ramming ship with the mass of this FDL and boost speed well into 530m/s range. After each successful hit, I hardly noticed a dent in my shields, which was unexpected based on what I noticed in the haz res vs NPCs.

 

[Ozram]

In this video example, I'm able to ram my opponents at will by using the target leading reticule as a guide. This only appears on your HUD when using projectiles, not lasers or rails. I think this should be an option to turn on when using those hitscan weapons since the indicator is a valuable source of relative vector information. Thoughts?

Impressive.

 

[Starmony]

And when I cant get close enough to ram (or miss) I find myself close enough for the efficient PAs to be easy shots. More testing is needed but obviously I'm enjoying this.

Glad to read that you're giving it a go! And yeah, it's nice that even the missed rams result in chances for high percentage PA shots.

 

[Starmony]

Outnumbered/Reverb cascade/fletchette tactics? I'm curious how you respond when the other side doesn't play fair and the odds are against you.

I've experimented with several FDL builds including the meta 3 Pa/2 rail w/SCBs and the biweave hull tank and have found that this front loaded shield mj / hull tank setup is actually ideal when outnumbered. You have enough shields with 4 pips in SYS to tank several players at once, and if you can identify a weak link in the wing that's attacking you, you have a good chance at using the ramming/pa combo burst damage to secure a kill. In these situations, your target's evasiveness actually works to your advantage, as the flying you need to do to violently dock with them makes you evasive to the rest of their wing as well. The most fun I've had in the game in the last six months was being attacked by a Nomad wing of three FDLs and taking one of them down with me as I fought to the death.

Also, you don't see it in the video I show in the OP since I never lost shields in those fights, but this build behaves like a 2-phase miniboss fight. While still holding onto shields, I keep pips in SYS on each approach. When shields go down, there's still enough hull to continue fighting and I actually gain PA dps since I leave all pips out of SYS (I don't bother expecting shields to return with a 12 min. rebuild time/24 min. recharge; sometimes I turn shields off entirely to run cooler after they drop) and use a 0-4-2 or 0-3-3 configuration. This feels like an "enrage" phase where I shoot more often and can permaboost for maximum evasion. I'll still use ramming while shieldless, though I'm more selective and will only intentionally continue that tactic if my target will suffer more than I do.

 

[Krash]

I've experimented with several FDL builds including the meta 3 Pa/2 rail w/SCBs and the biweave hull tank and have found that this front loaded shield mj / hull tank setup is actually ideal when outnumbered. You have enough shields with 4 pips in SYS to tank several players at once, and if you can identify a weak link in the wing that's attacking you, you have a good chance at using the ramming/pa combo burst damage to secure a kill. In these situations, your target's evasiveness actually works to your advantage, as the flying you need to do to violently dock with them makes you evasive to the rest of their wing as well. The most fun I've had in the game in the last six months was being attacked by a Nomad wing of three FDLs and taking one of them down with me as I fought to the death.

Also, you don't see it in the video I show in the OP since I never lost shields in those fights, but this build behaves like a 2-phase miniboss fight. While still holding onto shields, I keep pips in SYS on each approach. When shields go down, there's still enough hull to continue fighting and I actually gain PA dps since I leave all pips out of SYS (I don't bother expecting shields to return with a 12 min. rebuild time/24 min. recharge; sometimes I turn shields off entirely to run cooler after they drop) and use a 0-4-2 or 0-3-3 configuration. This feels like an "enrage" phase where I shoot more often and can permaboost for maximum evasion. I'll still use ramming while shieldless, though I'm more selective and will only intentionally continue that tactic if my target will suffer more than I do.

I infer 3 things from your response:
1. Any tech that drops your shields unexpectedly simply puts you into enrage mode ahead of schedule
2. Your "forced" sessions in this build will be to the death, thus any targeting of your FSD is wasted ammo
3. Fletchettes might still pose a problem for you with no MRP

Another benefit of the "melee" FDL: 10mil rebuy is high for a FDL but still less than 1/4 the rebuy of my vette or cutter.

 

[Starmony]

I infer 3 things from your response:
1. Any tech that drops your shields unexpectedly simply puts you into enrage mode ahead of schedule

Yes, exactly. If they're used to fighting meta FDLs, they'll expect me to run at this point instead of getting angrier.

2. Your "forced" sessions in this build will be to the death, thus any targeting of your FSD is wasted ammo

Lucky for me, I've always preferred fighting to the death. And if I'm trying to run with shields down, my drives are the weak spot that get targeted. Can't very well armor the drives and lose at least 120 m/s of speed. My powerplant is armored, though, so I can keep fighting while drives are still good.

3. Fletchettes might still pose a problem for you with no MRP

I've fought just one opponent who had a fletchette loadout and it was a joke. They kept triggering the explosions way too late since my closing speed is unpredictable and fast. I'd be curious to see how much damage they can do to an armored ship's modules even if I was staying still.

Another benefit of the "melee" FDL: 10mil rebuy is high for a FDL but still less than 1/4 the rebuy of my vette or cutter.

Even better is the beta backer discount that lowers my rebuy to 7.5 mil

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Very interesting and counter intuitive thread.

Thanks!

 

[Morbad]

I've fought just one opponent who had a fletchette loadout and it was a joke. They kept triggering the explosions way too late since my closing speed is unpredictable and fast. I'd be curious to see how much damage they can do to an armored ship's modules even if I was staying still.

Flechettes are low velocity munitions that don't retain the momentum of the ship launching them, essentially dumbfires that are 40% slower that one has to manually trigger.

Some people are pretty good with them, but they are much harder to land than a ram, and even without an MRP, reactive bulkheads provide quite a bit of protection (they are kinetic damage).

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Friend and I dueled where I used Flechettes. We were both in FDLs. Flechette's munition speed is 550 m/s. Yeah, it didn't go well for me.

From what I've experienced in tests and seen elsewhere they struggle against properly equipped ships (MRPs, etc.).

Feels more like a pirate's weapon. Na'Quan (though he isn't a pirate) had some pretty entertaining vids of taking out PP haulers with them.

 

[Morbad]

Feels more like a pirate's weapon.

Anti-commerce warfare weapon.

Big ships with bad hull resistances and no MRPs are the use case for them.