reverse flying and how to beat it?

If they've figured this one out, they're better at PvP than the top pilots in the community

Thats what I mean by AI cheating. Their proposed solution was for Elite ranked NPCs so they probably won't completely break their own rules, but instead combine perfect maneuvering/aiming and power management to neutralize the vectors. For a human this is a highly complex dance of spatial temporal awareness and prediction that would baffle even the most brilliant pilot. For a AI bot it's just simple vector calculus.
 
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Take burst weapons (Plasma Accelerators, Frag cannons, etc.) and quickly burst him then fly out of his line of fire while you reload or just spin in circles, believe me, gimballed MCs HATE that! :D

The problem with frags is that they do less to almost no damage at long range.
The problem with PAs is that they are easy to dodge at long range.
Oh well, can we get seeker version for the PAs, please? ;)

There's no counter. With proper throttle control and FA-off an FDL can keep range and face-tank any ship. Then it's just down to DPS/HP

Short story: I agree with Alexander.

Long story:

It is about 2 months I have switched to full time PvP and, taking into account the amount of commanders (all sizes, all ranks) I have beaten, iI believe I'm good :)
I use an armored shieldless FAS with triple frag canons and a single large beam. Deadly but...I need to fight at close range for max efficiency. It has some drawbacks but boost+ram and frags at point blank do a ton of damage, allowing to take down commanders pretty quickly (AKA: before they high-wake or combat-log).

Fast reversing ships with strong shield keeping 4 pips to SYS is my nemesis...not that I feel threatened by them since they don't deal much damage if you don't face them + go into a straight line, and I can get away anytime, but I haven't found any proper method to beat them.

Yesterday I faced a very skilled FdL reversing commander and I lost 2 fights to the death (actually 3, but something really weird happened during the fight). Like people mentioned, boosting like crazy toward him while zigzagging / using vertical+lateral thrusters works to dodge fire and get closer, but these damn FdLs reverse pretty fast making it pretty inefficient. And remember, I am shieldless which means I can keep 4 pips to ENG and 2 to WEP...players with a shield would not be able to keep 4 pips to SYS and enough pips to ENG/WEP to boost and fire efficiently... The fights lasted pretty long and I still managed to deplete all his SCBs but by that time I had only 10% hull left.

Of course, after a so long fight once the SCBs are depleted and shield is down, a fast FdL would high-wake...so I guess the best method when I face this will be to simply not fight if I see after a minute that it is not going anywhere :)

So...Did you use Chaff?
Tried silent running?
If all he used was multis and gimballed at least that could have screwed up his aim and he would have to go manual aiming while FA-Off.
I use both Silent Running + heat sinks, and chaff.

Keep in mind that as soon as you open fire in SR, your opponent can use gimballs (though the firing cone is reduced) and see the reticule for fixed weapons (that FdL commander taught me that). So if you use it offensively like me, you must not fire until you get close enough (which is hard to achieve if he reverses at high speed), and disable SR. Chaff becomes then handy.
 
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I agree with this however what if they're in the faster/tougher ship? Won't they just engage forward thrust first and then the face tanking will continue again.

Maybe if you equip mines and drop them as you reverse? That way you'll at least be increasing the damage you do to them by making them chase you.

You would be better of throwing loafs of bread at them than mines. Just fly past them once they've learned where the forward throttle is.
 
I'm not much good at PvP, so take this with a grain of salt, but...

1. Chaff/heatsinks+lateral thrusters?

2. Boost+FA-off+turn?

3. Become a better pilot?*



* I'm still working on 3.
 
If he's in an FdL with gimbaled multis, let him fly backwards all he wants and stay at 2.5-3km, 6 fully loaded chaff launchers(on an FdL) should give you more than enough time to drop his shields with railguns and do some serious damage, put a C3 beam in the huge hardpoint underneath you and use that when you run out of ammo for the rails or to soften up his shields before you open up with the rails. If he's using fixed multis those aren't going to be too hard to dodge at 2.5-3km where he wants to stay, so just use your lateral/vert thrusters and roll to avoid his fire. This is a question of outfitting your ship to do the job, the tactic itself is very effective, but not perfect because it lets the enemy know exactly what you're doing and what to expect. A porcupine presents a real problem to anyone that doesn't have a pointy stick long enough to poke it, but as soon as someone comes along with a 5 foot spear, the porcupine is screwed. I suppose an ace pilot with all railguns in an FdL flying backwards perfectly with rock steady FAoff aim is going to be really tough to deal with, but I'm quite sure that kind of pilot is the exception, not the rule.
 
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No, it doesn't. If you are in a faster ship it only means you will get closer, which means more damage for you and as we previously established, there are only three ships in the game that can tank FdL and all of them are slower.
No one forces you to fly braindead after the FDL. If he's already 2 km or more away from you, get out of his weapon range and let him come. Also using lateral thrusters while closing in does wonders.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
Excellent thread :)

Playing devils advocate here, it's easy to say there's no counter to someone flying backwards like it's a bad thing. But what's the counter for a ship like the FDL to counter a smaller, faster and more maneuverable ship? If that is the only counter available, it's the only one to take and they could equally argue, maneuvering is the only thing an Eagle can do, etc etc?
 
Excellent thread :)

Playing devils advocate here, it's easy to say there's no counter to someone flying backwards like it's a bad thing. But what's the counter for a ship like the FDL to counter a smaller, faster and more maneuverable ship? If that is the only counter available, it's the only one to take and they could equally argue, maneuvering is the only thing an Eagle can do, etc etc?

The typical tank/fighter balance is that the fighter is trying to use their superior manoeuvrability to stick behind their target, negating their DPS/health advantage. The Tank will have to try their best to force direct confrontations, where their superior damage/HP wins the day.

However, this tactic means that fast tanks can completely negate their manoeuvrability deficit and constantly force facetanking
 
Excellent thread :)

Playing devils advocate here, it's easy to say there's no counter to someone flying backwards like it's a bad thing. But what's the counter for a ship like the FDL to counter a smaller, faster and more maneuverable ship? If that is the only counter available, it's the only one to take and they could equally argue, maneuvering is the only thing an Eagle can do, etc etc?

Maneuvering isn't an option for an Eagle though. Which is the point of this thread.

It seems to me that an easy fix would be to massively reduce turning speed while in reverse so that someone flying forward would have a maneuverability advantage and could possibly outflank someone who was reversing. This could balance out the distances required to turn.


Alternatively, they could increase the agility during boost while making boost a little faster or more efficient.
 
I was recently trying to kill an eravate noob killer in a fdl, I was in an imperial eagle... all he did was reverse and shoot me with gimbaled multis. I was corkscrewing woeard him to avoid the cannon as best I could but no matter what I did I just couldnt get behind him and trying to take him down walst in his rain of bullets was impossable.

I went and got my fdl...
he did the same and I still couldnt do anything but take it in the face and keep swallowing cell banks. If I dissengaged he was going to escape and no justice would be served.

does any one know how to counter this.. is there a way?

Sure, there is a way. And it happens to be very easy. Load a Python with two triple sets of SCB's and follow him, relaxed, in his backwards drift. FDL won't last long with mere 2x A4 SCB and will run with tail between the legs, eventually. Now, if you don't yet own a python.. then it's the problem, yes. :)
 
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Skill is important, but an imperial eagle is not going to be able to hang with an FDL with a minimally competent pilot. Just too big a difference in the ships.
 
No one forces you to fly braindead after the FDL. If he's already 2 km or more away from you, get out of his weapon range and let him come. Also using lateral thrusters while closing in does wonders.

That's not the point. OP raised this question, because we are fighting a seal-clubber in Eravate. And he only cares about murdering Sidewinders. He doesn't want to fight US.
So that's the OP's point. How to force the fight upon the FdL that only want to troll you and then leave and continue clubbing seals. And the answer is - there is no way.
We can interdict him over and over and hopefully annoy him enough that he leaves. That's all.

Sure, there is a way. And it happens to be very easy. Load a Python with two triple sets of SCB's and follow him, relaxed, in his backwards drift. FDL won't last long with mere 2x A4 SCB and will run with tail between the legs, eventually. Now, if you don't yet own a python.. then it's the problem, yes. :)


See above. We have no problems to make him run away.
 
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Jex =TE=

Banned
The typical tank/fighter balance is that the fighter is trying to use their superior manoeuvrability to stick behind their target, negating their DPS/health advantage. The Tank will have to try their best to force direct confrontations, where their superior damage/HP wins the day.

However, this tactic means that fast tanks can completely negate their manoeuvrability deficit and constantly force facetanking

OK and every good pilot is going to use that tactic as it is the best one to use in those circumstances as it stands now. There doesn't appear to be much a smaller ship can do so then FD need to make a decision and change it or leave it as it is.

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That's not the point. OP raised this question, because we are fighting a seal-clubber in Eravate. And he only cares about murdering Sidewinders. He doesn't want to fight US.
So that's the OP's point. How to force the fight upon the FdL that only want to troll you and then leave and continue clubbing seals. And the answer is - there is no way.
We can interdict him over and over and hopefully annoy him enough that he leaves. That's all.




See above. We have no problems to make him run away.

Sometimes there isn't an answer to a problem and you have to bring in help. Smaller ships against a larger ship should need to attack in packs imo.

Killing another ship in PVP is almost impossible isn't it? wait till your last SCB then boost boost boost until your FSD charges.
 
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