Newcomer / Intro newbie combat dilema

[Northpin]

Just got the EDDiscovery installed and apparently there was a lot of heat damage, next to the hull damage. Still a bit astonished about how fast the ship went down, even with basic hull, but I will do a test tomorrow with a friend, to shoot at my Cutter and time it to destruction.

I know the game looks realistic, but an option to show damage values, ingame, on screen, would be much appreciated, instead of looking into journal.

Thanks for the comments, I got back to the game after a long break, I was used to shoot several seconds at ship hulls, before they were destroyed, but apparently I was dealing with combat ship builds, not transport builds like this cutter is.

900 hull is not that much.
And Conda can pack some big guns

as blown up in aprox 2 seconds after my shields when down, by an NPC

I'm absolutely sure it was way more than that - but getting completely caught, with all your senses, in a battle does some funny stuff to our time perception
I think you simply didnt noticed your hull going down until it was really too late.

That or...

One other theory is that you rammed the Conda (or you got rammed) When i played the Cutter in combat i used to ram everything.
And Everything used to go boom very fast (except those pesky Vipers...)
So it is indeed possible that you did a frontal ram to the Conda and at the same time she dropped a salvo from her big guns (They often carry plasmas)

Or a combination of the two.

edit: for clarity

 

[aRJay]

And combat or even jack of all trades Cutter is way different build....

The problem with jack of all trades builds, even in a Cutter, is that they are compromised for anything they do.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

The problem with jack of all trades builds, even in a Cutter, is that they are compromised for anything they do.

That they are. But for some players like me it is convenient to have thing that can do all I want well enough. Yes specialised trader can carry more cargo, but does not defend well. Specialised combat vessel has longer endurance on battle, but is very poor in trading, and so on. But it is major hassle to change configuration, and keep note where every module is stored and so on.

 

[d8veh]

The ships that interdict you are fully-optimised for combat. You were in a trade Cutter. The odds were stacked against you from the start. Why did you fight the interdicting ships? What did you expect to gain? If you win, you might get a small bounty, but you would lose 20 million or more by wasting ten minutes fighting when you could have been making your delivery. If you lose, you lose your ship and all your cargo. Let's put some numbers to that. I'd say you'd get about -13 mil if you win and -30 mil if you lose with the odds stacked against you winning. Either way, that doesn't make a good bet. It's much better to submit and boost away to carry on with your delivery. By the time the stuff is delivered, you might lose about a minute, which could be worth about -1.6 mil if you have a good trade loop.

Your ship simply wasn't equiped for combat, so it would make no sense to engage anyone. What caused your ship to blow up was lack of logical thinking - never mind anything else.

Your trade Cutter is extremely similar to mine. I never fight anything with mine. When I want a fight, I get a combat ship and never lose. Chuck all your weapons, then you won't be tempted. All they do is slow you down and reduce your earnings potential.

If you have an nVidia graphics card, download nVidia experience and keep it running in the background. It has a setting to record the last 5 minutes continuously, so if ever when you're playing, there's something weird happens or something you don't understand, you can replay it, study it and see exactly what happened. You'd be surprised at how many "bugs" are completely logical happenings in line with the normal rules of the game.

Finally, what's the point of 0E shield boosters? I've never seen anybody use them before except because of misinformation. By changing them to 0A and getting all your shields engineered correctly, you can nearly triple your shield strength. No need for point defence if you don't lose your shields. Why have 2 heatsink launchers when you only have to drop one or zero heatsinks per interdiction?

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

or with permaboost to get you out of range before they even open fire:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

While I'm here can I express my opinion about your Corvette? These comments only relate to PvE -as above. To me, some of it doesn't make sense. A Corvette with prismatics and SBCs should never lose its shields, so things like HRPs, MRPs, AFMUs and point defence are a complete waste of time. Instead, you could use those slots to boost your shields substantially, to make it even less likely that you'd lose your shiields. Secondly, using M/Cs as your main weapons, you're going to run out of ammo before you use all those SCBs, so you might as well chuck 2 of them and make your shields stronger still. This is how I'd do my shields on that ship. The shields are 50% stronger than yours. The large beam laser doesn't do much because of its position, so isn't that useful for long-range thermal venting. I'd change it to efficient, where it will do more damage at shorter range:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Stabby_Dave]

No need for point defence if you don't lose your shields.

Hatchbreaker limpets.

 

[d8veh]

Hatchbreaker limpets.

With a boost speed of over 500m/s, the hatchbrakers are never going to get near. I've never seen a hatchbreaker fired at my trade Cutter in 9000 hrs of playing the game. I'm only talking about PvE. Has anybody else seen one when using the submit and run strategy? If so, how slow was your ship?

 

[Stabby_Dave]

I've had it on my mining, mission runner and trade ships. All over 500 m/s. PD almost always gets them. Can only remember once when they got through.

 

[d8veh]

I've had it on my mining, mission runner and trade ships. All over 500 m/s. PD almost always gets them. Can only remember once when they got through.

Let me get this right. You submit to the interdiction, then immediately boost, and instead of shooting you, the NPC interdictors fire hatchbreakers at you while you're boosting away at over 500m/s and somehow the 300m/s limpets get close enough to your ship to activate your PD, and one time a 300m/s limpet actually caught you up at over 500m/s and landed on your hatch? Is that what you're saying?

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Nope. PD shot them down. A 500m/s ship still starts at 0. Almost never been caught. Doesn't mean I cant be. I'm sure CMDRs have been hit by missiles when they have sufficient speed to outrun them. Depends entirely on the situation.

I've never lost to a Thargoid. Doesn't mean I'm invincible.

Everyone equips their ships the way they see fit.

Also, my local has stopped serving Strongbow. Spoons.. s.

 

[d8veh]

Nope. PD shot them down. A 500m/s ship still starts at 0. Almost never been caught. Doesn't mean I cant be. I'm sure CMDRs have been hit by missiles when they have sufficient speed to outrun them. Depends entirely on the situation.

I've never lost to a Thargoid. Doesn't mean I'm invincible.

Everyone equips their ships the way they see fit.

Also, my local has stopped serving Strongbow. Spoons.. s.

When you submit to an interdiction and boost, you're facing away from the enemy. By boosting immediately in a reasonably fast ship (350m/s + boost speed), you gain a distance of over 1000 meters before the enemy opens fire, which is the whole point of the technique. It gets you into the fall-off distance where laser weapons can't do so much damage. There's no way in the world a 300m/s hatchbreaker can catch you up. In those circumstances, I've never even seen an NPC attempt to fire one in 9000 hrs of playing, even when using slow ships, like Anaconda or T9 . Missiles are different. They fly at 625m/s, so could indeed catch you, especially if you have a sub-optimised PD.

Personally, I think you're completely mistaken about seeing hatchbreakers when using the submit and boost technique after an interdiction by NPCs. The only time they come into play is if you stay and fight the NPC or if you do nothing. Your memory is probably playing tricks with you regarding the circumstances when you saw them.

Hatchbreakers are another reason you shouldn't fight NPCs that interdict you, especially if running with mission specific cargo. In the heat of the fight, you don't notice the hatchbreakers, and, even though you win the fight, you go to the delivery destination only to find that you're 5T short of the cargo, so you can't complete the mission. You could use point defence to guard against the hatchbreakers, but, like OP found, that compromises your shields and makes you more likely to lose the fight.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Well, ok. There's no point in arguing about it. If you say it hasn't happened to you, I've no reason to doubt it. I've definitely had hatchbreakers launched at me.

 

[Frags]

Power plant blown?