PvP (PS4) First real PVP attempt at CG Niflhel: Fail!

[FoeHammer]

Thought I was a decent pilot (Master PvE), then I tried PVP...Ouch.



Didn't mind the rebuys, those I expected, but was surprised by how badly I lost each encounter, despite it being my first serious attempt at pvp. Had about 5 matches about 2 nights ago and lost every single one terribly. Went against: fdl x2, corvette, cutter, chieftain. Most were 1v1.




My mostly? engineered chieftain: https://eddp.co/u/R7isr6xu



My strategy was to be a hard-to-hit target, stay out of the firing arc and let my gimbals peel away my opponents shields. Figuring slow going attrition tactics would be best for a beginner. I was so wrong.



I found my weapons did waaaaay too little damage (firing all my mc's and lasers at once), barely getting anyones shields down. My opponents dropped my shields much more quickly then expected. Piloting was tough. My heart was racing and lots my wits a bit during the excitement.



The FDL and chieftain I fought were full on jousts. The bouts against the corvette and cutter, where I thought I had a maneuvering advantage were lost because I had trouble staying outside their LOS and firing arcs despite FA off toggling and boosting. Was hoping to be able to strafe around them more than I was actually able to. Noticed I have a problem with stalling.



Would welcome any feedback, especially if any of the cmdrs I faced out there see this would care to share on what made it so easy for them to send me to the rebuy screen.



My ship ID is FoeHammer, a Chieftain with red engine trails.



Still had a blast cutting my teeth though and definitely learned what doesn't work this time around. See yall out in the black o7

 

[Whitesnake]

I feel your pain. Almost exact experience I had there yesterday!

Same as you, in my engineered Chieftain. I thought I was OK at combat PVE but got taught a lesson in how not to do it by various PVP commanders.

All yellow ship called Koritsi.

First time PVP and first time winging up with other commanders.

All good fun, if not expensive.

07

 

[Morbad]

While I cannot comment on the PS4 or the controls most commonly used there, in my experience on PC there is no such thing as hard to hit in most scenarios that don't feature the smallest and most agile ships in the game. I'm going to land most of my shots, and keep my opponent in my sights most of the time, in my B7 (though still DD5) thruster equipped Corvette, even if I'm facing a top Chieftain pilot, and my aim is nothing special as far as experienced PvPers go. This is a largely fundamental side effect of velocities increasing faster than acceleration and rotational performance outpacing arc of movement.

Your loadout is also ill suited to fighting other CMDRs. Standard shields do not regenerate fast enough to be useful on a Chieftain. You have ~353MJ of shielding in a slot where you could have 738 more hull integrity and a significant bonus to hull resistances and you burned three of your four utility slots to get there. Even at four pips in SYS, which are four pips you don't have somewhere useful, you are barely surpassing the increased durability of an HRP.

A class five SCB to bolster poor shielding is also effectively a waste of a slot (lot of power, lot of extra heat, easily interrupted), while a fuel scoop is generally a liability in a fight (hits to the scoop may rarely prevent something else from being hit, but more likely will just deplete your MRPs faster). An AFMU can be handy, once you get the hang of using it in combat, but the Chieftain is fairly borderline (expert Chieftain pilots who do use AFMU please feel free to correct me on this) for having enough module slots to be able to sacrifice one for an AFMU, and in any case, your ship needs to hold together long enough for it to matter. Looking at your build, you are going in with about one third the effective durability of a more carefully considered and fully engineered ship.

Your weapons loadout also leaves much to be desired for fighting other CMDRs...it's a nice, low capacitor drain, setup that probably does very well against NPCs, but you are not going to win any fights against CMDR vessels that can absorb three times as much damage while doing damage to you three times as fast. More burst damage and a lower reliance on gimbals is in vogue for a reason...not that one must follow convention to be successful, but one must certainly understand convention before expecting to defy it and have any chance at success.

So, strip the fat, complete your Engineering, and go with either a bi-weave setup that can rapidly bring shields back from collapse, or go fully shieldless. The piloting you'll mostly have to figure out the hard way.

 

[Sir Judas]

I know the feeling . Don't feel bad, they say it gets a lot easier after the first few dozens of duels. And you sure picked some monsters to begin with! FDLs, Cutters and Corvettes? I salute you.
I think the more experienced guys will be able to give you better advice if you record a couple of fights. I'm just wondering, is it worth having that SCB with such a tiny shield? Does it give significantly more shilded time?
By the way, did you have a look at this thread?
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/410073-Opinions-on-aChief-v-FdL-in-PvP?page=1
07

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Thought I was a decent pilot (Master PvE), then I tried PVP...Ouch.



Didn't mind the rebuys, those I expected, but was surprised by how badly I lost each encounter, despite it being my first serious attempt at pvp. Had about 5 matches about 2 nights ago and lost every single one terribly. Went against: fdl x2, corvette, cutter, chieftain. Most were 1v1.




My mostly? engineered chieftain: https://eddp.co/u/R7isr6xu



My strategy was to be a hard-to-hit target, stay out of the firing arc and let my gimbals peel away my opponents shields. Figuring slow going attrition tactics would be best for a beginner. I was so wrong.



I found my weapons did waaaaay too little damage (firing all my mc's and lasers at once), barely getting anyones shields down. My opponents dropped my shields much more quickly then expected. Piloting was tough. My heart was racing and lots my wits a bit during the excitement.



The FDL and chieftain I fought were full on jousts. The bouts against the corvette and cutter, where I thought I had a maneuvering advantage were lost because I had trouble staying outside their LOS and firing arcs despite FA off toggling and boosting. Was hoping to be able to strafe around them more than I was actually able to. Noticed I have a problem with stalling.



Would welcome any feedback, especially if any of the cmdrs I faced out there see this would care to share on what made it so easy for them to send me to the rebuy screen.



My ship ID is FoeHammer, a Chieftain with red engine trails.



Still had a blast cutting my teeth though and definitely learned what doesn't work this time around. See yall out in the black o7

I didn't change the weapons but work towards something more like this for all the other modules:
https://s.orbis.zone/NpzZsMyf


PAs are worth learning for the damage and TLB/dispersal.
Read the Truesilver's Tips threads, those are really helpful imo.

I'm on PS4 and usually up for a duel.
Hit me up in game if you want to practice, or feel free to try to kill me with no notice, lol...
Been in LHS 20 and Diaguandri lately.

I have a Courier, Vulture, Chieftain, FDL and FGS I use for combat.
Prefer the FGS but will jump in any of them for fun.


o7
Cmdr Bob_Lighthouse in game.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Try PvP easy mode.

Put prismatics on an FDL, cover it in gimballed MCs, and 4-0-2 your way to success!

 

[KW001]

Haven't done much pvp myself either, but as someone who usually flys a not exactly agile hull tanked conda I can say that with even just basic FA off boost turns, keeping faster medium ships in the firing arc isn't difficult at all. Not meaning I can stay on target even 75% of a fight, but I've never felt like Im chasing my own tail trying to get a shot in. Particularly, both the FAS and chieftain have huge drift/slow down to account for when doing sharper boost turning. Whenever you're in a chieftain and up against cmdrs in corvettes or condas, those cmdrs are gonna be paying close attention to your flying and doing their best to make sure they have you in thier firing arc when that loss of speed occurs so they can lay on the damage. Thats also when you yourself should be using your chaff if they're packing gimbals.

 

[5miley]

Hull tank, biweaves act as a fast regen buffer.
For PvP, Plasmas and rails are the meta

https://s.orbis.zone/f9KcX9y7

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Sounds like you had a good time, which is the main thing. You live and learn with experience. If you enjoy the PvP, i'm sure you will grow as you do more fights. Some you will win, some you will lose, but every fight should teach you something.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

I have'nt looked at your build but as has been said by some PC cmdrs, PA's an Rail's are the meta (If you take the time to learn to shoot), Definatly worth going into an anarchy rs site and eyeballing t9/t7s until you feel more confident, then move onto smaller targets.

I'm also on PS4 and do mostly PvP, come down to the CG if you want some practice aye.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Also, when looking for your openings with the chief remember that full reverse to blue zone when boosting will somewhat aleviate the drag the ship suffers from with the DD5, you'll still boost, but the counteraction will kick in much faster with this method allowing you more time on sights and closer turns, typically against the bigger ships keeping the distance between you as short as possible is generally the way to succeed, as at shorter ranges they very much feel the pain from the added weight/lower pitch rates. Drag munitions would help with that too, though i often feel its not worth it over plasma/cannons as it can only be applied to missiles and frags.

If you're flying with a hotas, take yourself to the station and roll FA off and boost around the exterior of the station, trying to either sync with its rotation or to spin around one axis using nothing but your laterals/verticals, this, in time, will give you a far greater degree of control in close too combat, an far more when it comes to general avoidance. If you can be bothered to take it one step further then switch FA off whenever you do the grind, like flying around on planets, bettween docking, when you're not shooting in the res or even docking if you can manage it. (I still can't, full fa off in combat but docking is hard AF).

Long term just putting in the little practice every day with FA off will add up to being able to spend the majority of the time with it off, this is a huge edge in a lot of cases, your avoidance potential will be increased by a factor of 10.

Good luck out there cmdr. Nice to see some more folks wanting to progress as oppose to complain about being killed ina game with guns in it.

o7 and fly dangerous.