Small ship combat sucks

Neutrino Sunset

N
I've only been playing a short while, but I've come to the conclusion that small ship combat in ED is not in a good place, and I think there are multiple issues.

The relative manouverability of small ships vs large ships and the way FA off works makes mitigating damage through positioning a somewhat marginal prospect, and from what I understand of Engineering I get the impression that it has the effect of being a non-optional grind that basically exludes anyone who doesn't want to perform that grind from being remotely competitive.

What is most galling to me at the moment though is just the sheer pants damage output. Let me describe something that just happened to me.

I'm in a Low Intensity Conflict Zone in an Imperial Eagle, I have two small Beam Lasers and a medium Multi-cannon (all gimballed). I'm doing my usual thing of trying to stay away from the middle of the fight while still getting dps on targets being attacked by other ships on my team. I notice an enemy Cobra MkIII that has been disabled and is drifting at high speed out of the fight. I close on it to finish it off. It has no drive so I'm able to pummel it at point blank range (<600m). My dual Beams can dissipate it's weakened shields in seconds so I'm expecting this to be pretty quick.

No word of a lie, it took my entire remaining Multi-cannon ammo (over half my entire loadout), delivered at point blank range to reduce its hull by about 40%, after which I had to grind through the remainder of his hull with my Beam lasers. The entire process took me nearly 15 minutes. This is one small class ship finishing off another (already crippled) small class ship. Is this a process that should really take over 10 minutes? what are these multi-cannons firing, confetti?

Earlier today I found a wanted npc in a Dolphin at the nav beacon, I was able to dispatch that in under a minute so the multi-cannon seems to work ok on civilian vessels, but on anything with some armour it seems like a waste of a weapon slot. This surprises me since I've looked up Eagle builds on the web and beams and mult-cannon seems fairly conventional, but in my experience against combat ships these weapons do almost nothing. The NPCs in the Conflict Zone don't seem to have any trouble ripping my ship to shreds though.

What am I doing wrong, anyone got any advice on this please?
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Conflict zones feature engineered NPCs. These are ships which have multiple Hull Reinforcements with heavy duty engineering on top. Even a heavily engineered ship with more dps will take a few seconds to deal with that. I can see why this scenario would cause you to come here and say this, but you've chosen what has now become rather specifically an endgame activity due to the health pools of the NPCs. For what its worth, the NPC health pools absolutely PALE compared to those of my chieftain and challenger which are engineered for pvp and maximum survivability. I only say that to illustrate that it's not unfair. There are two other zones you should probably avoid until you are in a high firepower ship, and that;s wing assassinations, and pirate activity detected instances, as both of those feature multiple hostile, highly geared NPCs. Try a Hazardous Resource Extraction site for a decent challenge while you get your engineering up.

Regarding small ships, they are not supposed to be able to compete with medium ships, and in fact they just got a buff to give them better defense in teh form of two extra size one slots that can be used for anything. Naturally, this hasn't done anything to improve their firepower unfortunately. They are in the best place they've ever been currently, but without engineering, you'll be restricted to fighting other examples of the ship you fly or smaller. Good luck! o7
 
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jnTracks

jnTracks
I’ve heard many say similar things about the engineering being mandatory... I think that’s kind of strongly misunderstanding the wide variety of things that can be done in the game; to suggest that CZ combat is the only combat, or something.
A better framing is that engineering is a way to upgrade further than the standard module class (still with me, I assume) and that obviously gameplay difficulty should range up to follow suit.
So yes, engineering is “mandatory” if you want to fly in the most intense combat in the game. But if you stick to low RES sites, or even high; you can have a lot of great fun there and not be outmatched.
Also, right at the top you mention that you’re fairly new. And I know your example specifically took the skill variable out of it, but still.

CZ tend to like a totally different loadout than RES combat, and so on. I wouldn’t want to do a CZ without rails or plasmas. It’s not the same things. Ships there are different. The npcs are engineered. This should be expected in a game where you can upgrade, they need to throw opponents that are worth that upgrade.
 

Kaocraft

Kaocraft
Aashenfox said:
Conflict zones feature engineered NPCs. These are ships which have multiple Hull Reinforcements with heavy duty engineering on top. Even a heavily engineered ship with more dps will take a few seconds to deal with that. I can see why this scenario would cause you to come here and say this, but you've chosen what has now become rather specifically an endgame activity due to the health pools of the NPCs. For what its worth, the NPC health pools absolutely PALE compared to those of my chieftain and challenger which are engineered for pvp and maximum survivability. I only say that to illustrate that it's not unfair. There are two other zones you should probably avoid until you are in a high firepower ship, and that;s wing assassinations, and pirate activity detected instances, as both of those feature multiple hostile, highly geared NPCs. Try a Hazardous Resource Extraction site for a decent challenge while you get your engineering up.

Regarding small ships, they are not supposed to be able to compete with medium ships, and in fact they just got a buff to give them better defense in teh form of two extra size one slots that can be used for anything. Naturally, this hasn't done anything to improve their firepower unfortunately. They are in the best place they've ever been currently, but without engineering, you'll be restricted to fighting other examples of the ship you fly or smaller. Good luck! o7
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Except the example OP gave was 15 minutes of sustained point blank fire to take down a Cobra. Something's wrong with that.
 

ADAMtheWELSHMANz

ADAMtheWELSHMANz
As mentioned in a CZ you're taking your un-engineered ship up against heavily armoured and engineered warships

As a new player in a small ship I agree with the other posters that rez sites will offer a better challenge and return on your time atm
 

Kaocraft

Kaocraft
Midian Cabal said:
Git gud.
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Quoted from the actual post you linked:

"It's a shame that it's so difficult to kill other ships with it [sidewinder]. Even a dangerous NPC Cobra seems to take forever on your own. back in 1.9, I was killing dangerous Anacondas with one, but I'd say that that's impossible now. You'd die of boredom before the Anaconda would blow up."
 
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thistle

T
I only take my heavily engineered combat ships into a CZ, it's giving people what the game was missing to a large extent in pve - hard battles against other engineered ships. A pve player going into a res site is unlikely to find a challenge, so CZ combat is the flip side of that.

That i'm sure is the reason for the OP experience. I really do think it's designed to be late (no such thing as end) game level.

Also I dont think low intensity CZs are easier, in terms of the ships being less difficult. They just have less - less ships, less 'scenarios' / stages involved etc. To some extent I think the more difficult ones are better, more going on, less focus on the player's ship by enemy npcs.
 

CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
I used to fight in CZs back in the day with the same loadout.

Now I use plasmas and rails on the iEagle, but it still isn’t really enough for any serious farming. Some ships are just too durable for it to be worth your time and ammo, beyond the fun of a challenge of course.

It does ok in the hazres though, for a little while.

Get some friends in smalls too, and go hunting. It’s a good time.
 

thistle

T
What to do is look up on coriolis.io the difference between an A-rated ship and a heavily engineered build. An A rated eagle could be pummelling a res site opponent and strip it's shields and hull quickly, but against an engineered hull and shields it could be a waste of time. I think that's what you're seeing.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Kaocraft said:
Except the example OP gave was 15 minutes of sustained point blank fire to take down a Cobra. Something's wrong with that.
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Sounds reasonable to me for a pair of small unengineered pulses or a small MC against a Cobra with HRPs, they have a lot of internals, over 2000 hull no problem at all in CZ.
 
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Hanerib

Hanerib
I suppose it is realistic to be in a tough situation when choosing a small fighter. I was grumpy too, taking a Viper out there and listening to some loud music while blowing up spaceships without interruptions is entertaining. But there is something thrilling about the challenge too.
 

Midian Cabal

Midian Cabal
Kaocraft said:
Quoted from the actual post you linked:
"It's a shame that it's so difficult to kill other ships with it [sidewinder]. Even a dangerous NPC Cobra seems to take forever on your own. back in 1.9, I was killing dangerous Anacondas with one, but I'd say that that's impossible now. You'd die of boredom before the Anaconda would blow up."
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I really hope that you, together with the OP, can't take any git gud post as serious, because none of them should be taken seriously. :)

OTOH where it says that I have to kill Condas in my Sidey?
 

Neutrino Sunset

N
From the replies so far the consensus seems to be that CZ are endgame so this is expected. This strikes me as a bit odd since the only kill missions offered in the system I'm in are Massacre missions for harmless and novice rank which specifically state that the CZ are where to find the targets. I've farmed high RES sites before, and it's easy to make plenty of money, but there you're mainly just ing kills off the feds, there's no objective and so I find it a bit boring.

If I were to fully engineer (overcharge) the medium multi-cannon on the Eagle I'd do another 45% damage max, plus a bit extra if I were to use corrosive ammo, but that would still leave me taking over 5 minutes to kill a single other small ship and the grind to get that equipment level is weeks off. Which suggests to me that the Eagle simply isn't capable of performing effectively in a CZ and if I want to fight in CZ I need a better ship, is this about right or am I off the mark?

In the system I'm in (BD-17 6172) Massacre are the only kill mission offered, so it seems as though if I'm going to keep flying the Eagle I need to find some other type of combat. I think I'll go to lowsec (or whatever the ED equivalent is) and try some freelance bounty hunting for a bit after which I suppose I'll have to upgrade to a more powerful ship and start the engineering grind.
 
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