Newcomer / Intro Newbie really struggling with combat and speed of controls

[Sykopaf]

Hi, I'm brand new to ED, I bought it after being disappointed with the complete lack of story elements and missions in the otherwise brilliant X4. I am familiar with space sims from the X universe but this is my first experience in Elite.

I keep trying the training missions and rage quitting and coming and trying again, rinse, repeat. I must be doing something wrong, the controls are just so sluggish.

Working my way through the training missions, I keep getting stuck on the Advanced Combat one. The enemy ship is quick and nimble and essentially stays behind me as it takes me forever to get turned around. So I can't get enough shots in to do any real damage and definitely not get a missile lock. I am using the pips to divert power to shields or engine when needed and after initially trying to use yaw as is natural, I'm now rolling as it seems the game wants me to and keeping my speed in the blue. But my ship still corners like the moon. It's incredibly frustrating.

I have ventured into a solo game and have got the hang of exploring and docking etc.. but if I can't beat the damn training combat missions I don't stand a chance against real enemies.

The rest of the game looks impressive so I'm pulling my hair out not being able to get the fundamentals. For info I'm using an XBox One controller.

Any help is appreciated!

Cheers

 

[Hans v Martell]

To be honest, I have skipped the training missions so I can only guess
Have you tried boosting? It speeds up turning considerably. You can also turn a bit quicker by momentarily switching flight assist off.

 

[mimozine]

ah i was where you are a few weeks ago matey, dont sweat the training mission its hard. go into solo and make some money, get a descent ship and find you some pirates to practice on. the controls do take some geting used too, but all you need is practice, just keep at it and you will pick it up

 

[Chris Simon]

Hey, don't stress it, OP. If you can't beat the combat training, just move on, for now. Play the game. Learn how the ship handles, reacts on inputs,... Fly around, do something fun, build muscle memory. One day in the future you will return to the Combat training and find out it's doable.

Let me use an IRL example of how things work:
[video=youtube;0elkSCTHecg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0elkSCTHecg[/video]

This is Czech jazzman Jaroslav Jezek. Arguably the best jazz pianist (IMO, anyway) that ever lived. He gave an interview to a journalist who asked him:
"Your songs are really hard to play. Are you tired after the performance?"
And he replied:
"No. The thing is... If you know how to do it, it's actually really easy. It's fun."

Elite is like playing a Bugatti Step. So many keys and buttons, so many things happening at once. At first. Then you start to understand and in six months, you'll be in Dangerous Discussion saying that AI should be buffed.
Just don't tunnel-vision and don't get frustrated. Elite is vast and you can do whatever you want. Keep your enthusiasm intact and the skill will emerge on its own.

 

[Elliot Dan Geruss]

Don't worry about the advanced one yet. I've been playing off and on for almost a year and I still struggle with the advanced combat one. I think I managed to get it once, and I'm primarily a bounty hunter. I did it on the PS4 with the DS4, but haven't yet with a HOTAS.

I use the lasers to take down the shields and then lasers+multicannon to hit the hull.

Learning how to use your thrusters also helps. There are a few tutorials on YouTube, IIRC.

Keep practicing at the nav beacon. Let the System Authority Vessels pull aggro, so you can focus on just dealing damage. As you get more comfortable with it, you can't get a bit more aggressive.

Once you get comfortable with it, then try the tutorial again.

 

[Sykopaf]

Thanks for the responses.

I'm trying so hard to get into this game but there's a lot to get frustrated by. I'm sure it's just learning curve!

* In supercruise, approaching my destination, I throttle back to slow down, the indicator shows it should be throttling back and instead it gives me a long 5-10 second burst of speed ensuring I massively overshoot and then drops all of my speed. I have no idea why this happens.
* My latest session, I was out for an explore, investigating a resource collection area and I suddenly drop out of supercruise to an absolute standstill, seemingly stuck in a ring around a planet. I can't get out so I have to quit!

I don't have a problem with the many controls, I've spent hours customising them on the controller to a point where I can use them. It's the bizarre, seemingly inexplicable behaviours that are driving me insane!

 

[Chris Simon]

* In supercruise, approaching my destination, I throttle back to slow down, the indicator shows it should be throttling back and instead it gives me a long 5-10 second burst of speed ensuring I massively overshoot and then drops all of my speed. I have no idea why this happens.
* My latest session, I was out for an explore, investigating a resource collection area and I suddenly drop out of supercruise to an absolute standstill, seemingly stuck in a ring around a planet. I can't get out so I have to quit!

Just to address these two issues:
1) FSD can be thrown off by gravity of nearby objects. When you are approaching a drop point, pay close attention to the ETA timer (estimated time of arrival). When it gets to 7 seconds throttle back to the blue zone. Your ship will gradually slow down and you'll be able to drop safely dead on target.
If you don't throttle back in time, you're going to overshoot. The "burst of speed" you're talking about isn't actually a burst of speed. If you look at the speed gauge you'll find out you are still decelerating. What you hear are the engines spinning up to the max and desperately trying to stop your ship, but if you're too close and too fast (less than 6 seconds ETA) they're not going to succeed.

2) You've hit the asteroid ring around the planet, it seems. I guess by "stuck" you mean you can't jump back to the supercruise out of there? Check your Mass Lock indicator in the bottom right corner of your HUD (The same place as the landing gear indicator). If you see it lit up, you're mass locked by the asteroids. Just like when you are leaving the station, you have to move away from the mass-locking body to be able to engage the FSD again.

 

[Sykopaf]

Just to address these two issues:
1) FSD can be thrown off by gravity of nearby objects. When you are approaching a drop point, pay close attention to the ETA timer (estimated time of arrival). When it gets to 7 seconds throttle back to the blue zone. Your ship will gradually slow down and you'll be able to drop safely dead on target.
If you don't throttle back in time, you're going to overshoot. The "burst of speed" you're talking about isn't actually a burst of speed. If you look at the speed gauge you'll find out you are still decelerating. What you hear are the engines spinning up to the max and desperately trying to stop your ship, but if you're too close and too fast (less than 6 seconds ETA) they're not going to succeed.

2) You've hit the asteroid ring around the planet, it seems. I guess by "stuck" you mean you can't jump back to the supercruise out of there? Check your Mass Lock indicator in the bottom right corner of your HUD (The same place as the landing gear indicator). If you see it lit up, you're mass locked by the asteroids. Just like when you are leaving the station, you have to move away from the mass-locking body to be able to engage the FSD again.

Thanks, I guess I need more patience. I seem to spend all of my time in this game watching distance counters run down.

Yes, I was stuck in an asteroid belt. The thrust was responding and the ship turned in every direction but I wasn't moving. I was still there after returning to the game, eventually got out by facing exactly the opposite direction. And swearing. And punching things.

I think I might go back to X, I'm not sure I have the required patience for this game!

 

[aRJay]

I have been playing for years now and had a go agin at the Advanced Combat tutorial, after an energetic fight I failed. Elite is very old school about training and goes with the concept that there is no point training you to beat easy opponents as that won't teach you how to handle the really difficult ones. Most NPC opponents you meet in the game won't be as hard as that.

To get any ship to manoeuvre at its best you need to keep the throttle indicator in the middle of the blue band, however almost all the ships pitch up and down or roll much faster than they will yaw left or right this is an ancient design choice note the original game in the 1989s only had pitch and roll.

As has been said the sound of your engines is misleading in super-cruise an alternative to juggling your throttle to find the sweet spot for the approach to a station is to bind a button or key to +75% throttle then select that when you are approaching seven seconds from the station. The red Slow Down messages are not an instruction by the way they are a warning that some gravity source is causing your ship to slow down as Chris Simon said.

When you get too close to a planet or ring your ship can't sustain super-cruise and you get pulled back into normal space, planets show a ring around them in your HUD that is the limit for super-cruise, rings don't but if you can see them start to look grainy as if they were made of bits rather than solid then you are about at the limit and should slow down or turn away.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Thanks for the responses.

I'm trying so hard to get into this game but there's a lot to get frustrated by. I'm sure it's just learning curve!

* In supercruise, approaching my destination, I throttle back to slow down, the indicator shows it should be throttling back and instead it gives me a long 5-10 second burst of speed ensuring I massively overshoot and then drops all of my speed. I have no idea why this happens.
* My latest session, I was out for an explore, investigating a resource collection area and I suddenly drop out of supercruise to an absolute standstill, seemingly stuck in a ring around a planet. I can't get out so I have to quit!

I don't have a problem with the many controls, I've spent hours customising them on the controller to a point where I can use them. It's the bizarre, seemingly inexplicable behaviours that are driving me insane!

Standard way of approach in supercruise is to go full throttle until the timer reaches 7/8 seconds, then throttle down so that you're in the middle of the blue. If you get that right (it doesn't take that much practice), you'll be fine every time. Just keep the timer at 7 seconds and you're home free.

If you get too close to a ring, you'll drop out of SC. Doesn't matter how fast you're going, you'll drop out. If you're going at speed, you might also get 1-2% hull damage. To get out, head up or down through the ring (whichever is closer) using normal engines and boost until the "mass lock" light goes out. At that point, you can enter SC again, but don't get too close.

Hope this helps.

 

[phong]

Have you tried flight assist on/off?

 

[Factabulous]

Have you tried flight assist on/off?

Yeah - F/A off to turn in combat (well, that's all I do, but I am bad at combat and should probably try and learn proper F/A off). As others have said, that Advanced Tutorial is difficult, I'd leave it a couple of years

 

[Sykopaf]

Thanks for the help guys, I am persisting but with people suggesting 6 months or a couple of years learning curve are putting me right off! I really hope that's not the case!

I'm hopping around systems pretty quickly now, docking at stations no problem. I can't seem to get into a fight. I'm taking missions to attack pirates, going to the place specified, scanning random ships in supercruise, finding a target, but then what? I'm in supercruise so I can't use weapons, if I drop out the target disappears. So there must be some way of forcing them out of supercruise?

 

[Chungus]

Any maneuver performed in FA off can also be done just as easily in FA on with directional/reverse thrusters. FA off is more of an optional/preference thing.

 

[Eukanuba23]

Easiest way to make sure you don't overshoot is to bind the Throttle 75% button to something. Press that when you're 7 seconds out and you'll always slow down in time.

 

[Elliot Dan Geruss]

Any maneuver performed in FA off can also be done just as easily in FA on with directional/reverse thrusters. FA off is more of an optional/preference thing.

At least from my observations (fa on), but I could be wrong:

Pitch up + up thrusters == you pretty much flip in place

Pitch up + down thrusters == you move in a wider arc than pitch up + no thrusters (good for keeping your crosshairs on enemy ships)

I honestly hated it with a gamepad, especially having to toggle between yaw and thruster modes. "Yaw into roll" is a pain too.

 

[CooterCrickets87]

Im new too and the advanced combat kept killing me too so I skipped it.

Ive made about 10 million credits so far and have only died once.

you will be fine

 

[BinakAlgo]

Live the Space Truck Simulator: Milky Way, it's fun and relaxed!

With time you start to understand the difference between primary fire, secondary fire, weapon groups, and cockpit mode. It is a steep learning curve and takes a lot longer than the tutorial missions would suggest because the game allows several profiles, for example, a trader/hauler player flies completely different from a combat player and those play different from the exploration players who they also fly different from the VIP Space Uber drivers who also fly different from the space-airliner economy class passenger hauler, and those play different from the money-making-opal-miners... and so on... Don't rush it, you'll enjoy the game longer that way.

I've never been good in combat in any game, but I remember some tricks from the 90's X-Wing games that apply here: Power distribution management, that's the key. The easiest and most intuitive thing is to keep the power distribution equal, but when you are in combat this is a mistake.

There is a tutorial in the forum but I can tell you some basics. Power management is about assigning "pips" to three functions: Systems, Engine, and Weapons. Systems give power to your shields and other defensive features, Engine gives you more speed and "boost" power, Weapons power your weapons, even those that use munitions (kinetic).

Every function has a "pillar" that shows you how many energy is left for their use, for example, if you keep constant fire rate you'll deplete your weapon's pillar and you won't be able to shoot until more power is generated and the pillar has some lines again. Same happens with the System's pillar that replenishes your shields and the Engine one that let's you boost. Now, to keep a steady increase of energy you have those pips. There are 6 and you can assign up to 4 to one single function, the default is 2 for each one. Create hotkeys to manage them as quickly as possible.

According to each player profile, everyone will use a different configuration, for example, me as a hauler like to put 4 pips to engines, two to systems as I never use my weapons, even in a combat situation it would be useless in my big and under armed Transport-6 and I can go around in my life with that profile forever, but in combat things are constantly changing. If you are pursuing a fast enemy, put 4 pips on engines or the bandit will fly away! But keep two pips to keep your weapons charged and forget about your shields, if you are being pursued forget your weapons and put everything in your engine! To keep maximum maneuverability keep your trottle in the "blue area", that will alow you to win some turn battles.

Besides that, most of the times you'll have to bite the bullet and accept defeat, especially if you are going for PvP. Some of those guys have been griding their ships and skills for 5 years so they have 1 shot wonders, so I suggest to play in solo mode while you practice your combat skills.

Finally, I have not played X4 at all, but I must tell you that ED doesn't have a plotline either. Just the community goals, the background simulation, the factions, powers and superpowers that adds several layers of complexity to the game but also can tell stories th at affect the galaxy. They are not mandatory to learn or participate, you can perfectly play hours at just destroy ships but I want you to know about it from the start.

Good luck CMDR o7

 

[Ashnak]

* In supercruise, approaching my destination, I throttle back to slow down, the indicator shows it should be throttling back and instead it gives me a long 5-10 second burst of speed ensuring I massively overshoot and then drops all of my speed. I have no idea why this happens.

First thing is, for the easy approach, you need to have your destination targeted. In that case, the ship computer tries to help you with the approach by slowly bleeding your speed as you get closer. One simply does not drop from 2001 times the speed of light to a standstill.
The other thing is that your current speed in supercruise is influenced/limited by the local gravity field. If you approach a station that is closely orbiting a planet, and you pass by the planet first, your speed will drop when you pass the planet, then pick up again. If you don't take care to throttle back when your ETA timer reaches 7 seconds (6 is the stable minimum, you might get away with shortly dropping into 5), you'll overshoot.

Once you get a feeling for this, you can also use these effects to speed up your approach significantly - the main technique is known as "gravity braking".

* My latest session, I was out for an explore, investigating a resource collection area and I suddenly drop out of supercruise to an absolute standstill, seemingly stuck in a ring around a planet. I can't get out so I have to quit!

RESes are in planetary rings. Rings have mass (not incosiderably so), so you can't do supercruise inside a ring. You drop out with a warning "Too Close". Useful for entering a ring - ust fly to it, not too fast, until it pulls you out. If you want to go back into SC again, you have to fly away from the ring (perpendicular to the plane of the ring works best) until your "Mass Lock" indicator (on the right side of the HUD, somewhere underneath the fuel indicator) turns off again.
Occasionally, a ring may be invisible. Still the same procedure, then.

 

[Sykopaf]

Cheers people. I bought the game around Christmas, thinking I'm an old hand at X, this should be straight forward! Little did I know! Since then I've been trying, and failing, to get into it, not understanding the history that has shaped the game (like control decisions in the 1984 version still front and centre in the latest version over 3 decades later!!). After persevering with it yesterday I am now officially a bit addicted, having bought a second ship and gained a few ranks.

I'm realising I have to forget everything I learned in the X universe now, but I can't help comparing. One thing that jumps out at me someone here might know the answer to: why do you never see another 'living' creature? For example in X you'll get out and walk around station and there are other pilots of different races, or if you're communicating you'll get a little animated display of their face. Beyond the still images of a station rep, you never see a living person in Elite, it's only ships, stations and astronomical bodies, which I suppose makes the universe seem less alive. Is that another historic design decision?

Cheers for the help everyone, I'm officially hooked now (although still completely useless in a fight!).