PvP Weapons

Kalius · Jan 18, 2016

Generally I don't play in Open simply because I don't have the time to build my skills up enough to defend myself ha but I was considering giving it a try. I have some questions regarding loadout:

1. Missiles: no one uses these because of countermeasures, is that correct?

2. Gimballed weapons: no one uses these because of chaff?

3. Because no one uses either of these things, I don't need chaff or missiles countermeasures?

4. If we assume I'm correct about the first three, could I just bring missiles and gimballed weapons to a fight because no one would expect me to have them and therefore wouldn't have defence against them?

Serpentis Ictis · Jan 18, 2016

You are correct that most people don't use missiles, but that is primarily due to the low damage.

I would carry chaff as some Commanders do use gimballed or turrets as do NPC.

Get good with fixed for PVP, and ensure your vessel has good survivability.

Space Pigeon · Jan 18, 2016

1. Almost no one uses missiles because of the low ammo and relative low damage. Torpedo's can work in certain builds (strip shields, fire torpedo's, hope for the best, restock at station), but generally the heatseekers and dumbfires really don't do enough for the cost of placing them on your hardpoints.

2. Correct.

3. I do recommend keeping your chaff launchers. People often make the mistake of thinking they don't need it anymore due to recent changes to the shield cell banks for example (higher classes overheat, players need heatsinks). But I still run chaff on all my PVP ships because people make those mistakes, and most other active PVP players I know still run chaff as well. No one uses missile countermeasures though. Not worth the trouble, if you have your shields up, missiles barely do any damage, and if your shields are down you can turn on Silent Running for a short while to break the incoming missiles' lock.

4. Sure, but you still have a chance that other players will run chaff and have the advantage. In case you didn't know about this yet: When your opponent uses chaff, you can deselect your target and use your gimballed weapons as 'fixed' for the uptime of the chaff launcher. As soon as the chaff is done, select your target again and let your gimballed weapons do their work. Can work quite well, but can be a bit stressful when you're not that experienced yet.

tawittle · Jan 18, 2016

The point about no one using gimballed weapons in pvp is quite frankly completely wrong.

Big ships (corvettes, cutters, anacondas) will usually have gimbals, as will Clippers and often pythons. Lots of people use gimballed multicannons for hull damage as well.

Having a single chaff is an extremely valuable asset in pvp. a lot of people use 2 so they can have chaff up continually.

Missiles are not very strong, even the special packhound missiles are lackluster. Good kinetic weapons can target modules, and missiles are lousy at that, in addition to doing lousy damage. That makes missiles useless.

SpeakerToAliens · Jan 18, 2016

1) Nobody uses missiles 'cos they suck.

2) When your target drops chaff, deselect it and your gimballed weapons become fixed. Then you can fire at your target anyway (or wait and let your capacitors recharge). When the chaff runs out, reselect him and your weapons become gimballed again.

3) Chaff can save your ass when a wing of NPCs jumps you. I've never felt the need to have missile countermeasures though.

4) If you have fixed weapons you have to face directly at your target in order to fire at it, and your target has to face directly at you to fire back if that's what he has, so both of you are easier for the other to hit. Of course, if he has gimbals/turrets he can fly at an angle to you, so his heading relative to you is constantly changing, so you have to adjust your aim constantly, and many ships don't turn quickly, so he's a lot harder to hit than you are.

I find it very hard to hit anything hard enough for long enough without using gimballed weapons. Historically I've won exactly half of my 1v1 PvP battles (won == I destroyed him or he fled). If attacked by a wing of CMDRs, I flee.

Learn to fly with FAOFF (when in combat). You'll turn faster/live longer. Put your throttle to the middle of the band, you'll turn faster/live longer. "Only the dead fly straight and level." -- Baron von Richthofen.

Don't get into the habit of only doing a Kaufman Retrograde (flying backwards so your enemy chases you and in doing so, flies into your targeting reticule) - that works against NPCs, but not against experienced CMDRs.

Kalius · Jan 18, 2016

I'm a fairly decent shot with fixed weapons I just haven't used them much as they're a little limiting in PvE. I also use FA-off quite a bit; don't know how people turn in combat without it. I'm just interested in how my theories play out in Open as I've never really played there. So we have mixed messages: some people believe fixed all the way as they pack more of a punch and are unaffected by chaff; some people feel the overall advantages of gimballed outweigh fixed as you can hit more often (more dmg overall) and can just switch your gimballed to fixed during chaff. Interesting... I fly fighter type ships, does that narrow it down?

crushdepth · Jan 18, 2016

Kalius said:
I'm a fairly decent shot with fixed weapons I just haven't used them much as they're a little limiting in PvE. I also use FA-off quite a bit; don't know how people turn in combat without it. I'm just interested in how my theories play out in Open as I've never really played there. So we have mixed messages: some people believe fixed all the way as they pack more of a punch and are unaffected by chaff; some people feel the overall advantages of gimballed outweigh fixed as you can hit more often (more dmg overall) and can just switch your gimballed to fixed during chaff. Interesting... I fly fighter type ships, does that narrow it down?

Fixed are much easier to use on manoeuvrable ships like fighters, and are also good against large targets that are easy to hit. They can be horrible on big clunky space cows (although they have their place in a balanced loadout, eg. as long range weapons for use against other space cows) and much harder to use against small, fast targets.

Space Pigeon · Jan 18, 2016

If you're a decent shot with fixed, I would recommend to use fixed. It will improve your skill and you're prepared for anything.

I personally only use fixed weapons unless I'm running a multiacannon/laser build. When using fixed lasers, using gimballed multicannons can work quite well. If your opponent uses chaff, you just stop firing your multi's. Example: My Python has 3 large fixed pulse lasers and two gimballed multi's (and 2 x chaff + 2 x heatsinks).

Against a good PVP pilot, you will not have advantage with gimballed weapons. You will have to keep deselecting your target, meaning you can't target specific ship modules (powerplant, drives, FSD). As someone already mentioned, some players run with 2 or more chaff launchers, allowing them to keep chaff up continuously.

What kind of ships are you flying right now?

Muetdhiver · Jan 18, 2016

Since in ED chaff nulls all weapons but fixed, you got to use these. It's like with the SCB's before they got balanced with hull.
Missiles are useless, no one makes use of them, except dumfire for cleaning up sentries in PvE.

IMO, chaff is way too much of a "I Win" button vs non-fixed. A less binary interaction between weapons and their counter-measures
would make for richer/more interesting PvP setups. (but would be harder to balance). It's a shame that sensors have no role in this game,
and the silliness of a few kg of chaff messing up 160tons of sensors of an anaconda (class 8) is baffling.

stripealipe · Jan 18, 2016

First skill to learn is how to get away safely if needed. Learn that and you'll feel a lot better about flying in open and honing your combat skills.

Muetdhiver · Jan 18, 2016

True enough.

Though, ASP/X with D3 shields and D4 thrusters will be dead no matter what skills you have.

Kalius · Jan 18, 2016

I'm currently flying a Vulture. Actually I'm not, I'm flying a Diamondback Explorer since I'm trawling the Pleiades Nebula, but I usually fly a Vulture. I was considering downgrading to a Viper MkIV as I find the Vulture a bit clunky compared to my old Viper (it was the old Viper as I haven't played much since last summer). Obviously in PvP I'll probably need that shield strength and large hardpoints so I guess I can kiss my Viper dream goodbye

So if I run my Vulture with 2 fixed Pulse Lasers and double chaff I'm going in the right direction? Obv with 2 shield boosters too.

Side note: I have a button to deploy chaff; will that use my chaffs one at a time or is the 'Deploy chaff' menu bind set to a fire group? So I use one, switch fire group and use the other?

Space Pigeon · Jan 18, 2016

Currently the Vulture is doing quite alright in PVP with hull reinforcement packages instead of stronger shields. You can experiment with that. As far as PVP with a Viper goes.. I'll just leave this here..... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNunZJjg4BGLJq4C7jUr2vg

If you bind a dedicated button to deploy chaff, it will not deploy multiple chaffs at the same time so that's definitely the way to go. I would never use firegroups for chaff, heatsinks or SCB's as that would take precious time, especially in PVP.

GammaZ · Jan 18, 2016

Kalius said:
I'm currently flying a Vulture. Actually I'm not, I'm flying a Diamondback Explorer since I'm trawling the Pleiades Nebula, but I usually fly a Vulture. I was considering downgrading to a Viper MkIV as I find the Vulture a bit clunky compared to my old Viper (it was the old Viper as I haven't played much since last summer). Obviously in PvP I'll probably need that shield strength and large hardpoints so I guess I can kiss my Viper dream goodbye So if I run my Vulture with 2 fixed Pulse Lasers and double chaff I'm going in the right direction? Obv with 2 shield boosters too.

Side note: I have a button to deploy chaff; will that use my chaffs one at a time or is the 'Deploy chaff' menu bind set to a fire group? So I use one, switch fire group and use the other?

But why?
Just grab the ship you like, learn to fly it effectively, experiment with loadouts and you will be able fight other players good enough.
After recent armour changes even eagles and sideys can now be used somewhat effectively.

Kalius · Jan 18, 2016

GammaZ said:
But why?
Just grab the ship you like, learn to fly it effectively, experiment with loadouts and you will be able fight other players good enough.
After recent armour changes even eagles and sideys can now be used somewhat effectively.

Ah so the Viper does hold up in PvP? Excellent because I've spent A LOT of hours flying a Viper and I'm eager to try you the new version; it's such an amazing ship. I'm going to be in the Pleiades Nebula for the foreseeable future but when I get back I'm thinking of trying my quad-beam build with fixed weapons; I would have went my old build of 2 small beams and 2 large multi-cannons but ammo can be a little annoying, saying that if they've buffed armor I may need that extra kinetic dmg. I was going to try some big hitter weapons like railguns or PAs but I'm not sure yet...

Well thanks for all the help guys, and hopefully you'll see me in my Viper in Open. Good hunting!