Small ship combat sucks

[Helleborus]

All high end combat sucks.

You have encountered defence inflation. To put this in perspective, for about 400k credits in combat bonds (~8 ships, including Eagles and Viper IIIs) it is not uncommon to be forced to synthesize ammo in a fully enginereed Overcharged Multicannon Corvette build and spend over 10 minutes at a combat zone. This is really, really bad gameplay, since it's not dangerous, is extremely repetitive and pays a pittance.

There's nothing you can do about it except stay away from combat zones.

 

[Helleborus]

You're working against a counter now and victory is not guaranteed. Plus, you now get secondary objectives like spec ops, correspondants or battleships that take additional effort and have to be weighed against simply increasing the kill count. I find that challenging. YMMV.

O7,

What is challenging in CZ combat? Seriously. Where's the challenge? When is the last time you actually felt threatened or a rush in a combat zone?

You take a well engineered ship, throw a SCB on it, maximize your DPS and then literally just hold down the trigger for 10 minutes. Tell me, where's the challenge? The enemies cannot damage you except in large numbers. Your only risk is if Spec Ops steamroll your team, in which case you have to spend majority of your ammunition on those 4 ships.

I can tell you the last time I felt good in CZ: I encountered an enemy CMDR in a corvette. Then I proceeded to hold down trigger and dumping heatsinks for a few minutes until he died. That was literally it.

 

[Drelthar]

The game has various levels of enemies.

Using a low power vessel against the high power stuff -should- be a bad plan, otherwise, what's the point in having more powerful things?

 

[Sylow]

Hmm. Can somebody enlighten me please. There was an admiral, i think an american one, who at some time stated that a cheap and flimsy plane will never be a threat to a big and expensive weapon like a battleship.

I can only paraphrase that here, it would be nice if somebody knows who that admiral was and what his exact words were.

 

[JoeyTCat]

When someone says small ships I usually think of SLF (Ship Launched Fighers). I recently managed to venture out and get enough technology for a guardian ship. I decided to get the one with the plasma repeater and was quite disapointed by the DPS. I know they're meant for Thargoid scouts but it did manage to take down a Hauler quite quickly. Though with the human fighters, with the fixed beam lasers they manage to tear through sheilds and hull and I hide my Anaconda away from the battle and make a good amount of money from bounty hunting in asteroid belts. So i say that the SLFs are better than most small fighter ships, such as the Eagles.
But it'd be nice if the Anaconda could actually hold an Eagle...

 

[Morbad]

Hmm. Can somebody enlighten me please. There was an admiral, i think an american one, who at some time stated that a cheap and flimsy plane will never be a threat to a big and expensive weapon like a battleship.

I can only paraphrase that here, it would be nice if somebody knows who that admiral was and what his exact words were.

At first I thought it was probably something William D. Leahy said in relation to Billy Mitchell's inter-war claims and experiments about being able to sink battleships in combat conditions, but looking further I found a pair of slightly earlier quotes from Admiral William S. Benson:

"I cannot conceive of any use that the fleet will ever have for aircraft" and "the Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of noise."

Said right before he tried to kill off US Naval Aviation in 1919.

A few years later, after Mitchell's tests, then captain Leahy said, "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." Which was incredibly biased, shortsighted, and soon to be proven completely mistaken, of course.

 

[JoeyTCat]

I used to do combat zones in small ships, then I took an arrow to the knee.

I used to be an explorer like you...

 

[Neutrino Sunset]

So finally I am here to make my point that I think it's perfectly ok that NPC's have the same possiblities in ship builds like players. What needs adressing is (engineered) defensive stacking.

I agree with this. As a concept I think Engineers are fine and add some nice narrative, but in any MMO i think it's pretty much gospel that any grind driven power buff has to be tuned to provide diminishing returns, especially in an MMO that has no level zoning, otherwise any kind of balance will be a total impossibility. I think it's pretty clear that engineering the way it is currently tuned is both detrimental to balance and arguably worse that it's also a non-optional gateway to a lot of the content.

 

[Sylow]

At first I thought it was probably something William D. Leahy said in relation to Billy Mitchell's inter-war claims and experiments about being able to sink battleships in combat conditions, but looking further I found a pair of slightly earlier quotes from Admiral William S. Benson:

"I cannot conceive of any use that the fleet will ever have for aircraft" and "the Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of noise."

Said right before he tried to kill off US Naval Aviation in 1919.

A few years later, after Mitchell's tests, then captain Leahy said, "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." Which was incredibly biased, shortsighted, and soon to be proven completely mistaken, of course.

Thanks a lot. Neither of what you quoted is exactly what i meant. But i guess it was something from William D. Leahy, which you refer to at the start. I might do a bit of digging there. So thanks a lot for the pointer.

It just so well expresses what I always get to think about when people go like "but small ships should never be able to harm an expensive ship"

 

[Midian Cabal]

Thanks a lot. Neither of what you quoted is exactly what i meant. But i guess it was something from William D. Leahy, which you refer to at the start. I might do a bit of digging there. So thanks a lot for the pointer.

It just so well expresses what I always get to think about when people go like "but small ships should never be able to harm an expensive ship"

Isoroku Yamamoto said: "The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."

 

[Sylow]

Isoroku Yamamoto said: "The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."

Not the quote i was looking for, but yes. He was right. His problem in the end was that the other side also started to have ants, and so many more than him.

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

At first I thought it was probably something William D. Leahy said in relation to Billy Mitchell's inter-war claims and experiments about being able to sink battleships in combat conditions, but looking further I found a pair of slightly earlier quotes from Admiral William S. Benson:

"I cannot conceive of any use that the fleet will ever have for aircraft" and "the Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of noise."

Said right before he tried to kill off US Naval Aviation in 1919.

A few years later, after Mitchell's tests, then captain Leahy said, "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." Which was incredibly biased, shortsighted, and soon to be proven completely mistaken, of course.

Hence the reason the U.S. ALWAYS strives to obtain Air Superiority first in any combative situation that may arise.

PS: It was General Billy Mitchell; In 1921; See the following link.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/air-supremacy

 

[Midian Cabal]

Not the quote i was looking for, but yes. He was right. His problem in the end was that the other side also started to have ants, and so many more than him.

I know, but it very aptly illustrates the problem here. I don't expect an Eagle to take down any of the big 3 in less than 15 minutes, but I do expect a wing of Eagles to take it down in less than 5 minutes. I don't know... For me it's just common sense.

 

[Sylow]

I know, but it very aptly illustrates the problem here. I don't expect an Eagle to take down any of the big 3 in less than 15 minutes, but I do expect a wing of Eagles to take it down in less than 5 minutes. I don't know... For me it's just common sense.

I know what you mean. I personally am more extreme even. See above. I believe that the player should matter more than the ship. But apparently plenty of people think differently.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

Ah the first few IRL comparisons are finally pouring into the thread, like usual.

Let me quote it first.

"A four year old child with a shotgun can kill a fully sized fat adult without engineering nor synthesis."

- Confucius.

 

[Old Duck]

My biggest complaint is that larger ships can out-maneuver my small ships. NPCs have (at least before April update) an unnerving knack to turn on a dime in most ships, and engineering give CMDRs in large ships a stupid amount of maneuverability. Being someone who prefers realism over arcade action, I actually avoid making my larger ships too zippy, which puts me at a disadvantage, but I can compensate with FA-off, turrets, seekers, etc. Other players and higher-level NPCs often don't share my desire for realism, however.

Anyway, I actually greatly enjoy flying and fighting in smaller ships if I can use my superior maneuverability to my advantage, which usually means fighting lower-ranking NPCs. I took out a Krait the other day flying my Sidewinder with fixed cannons, and it was immense fun. As someone else said, I do better against the larger, slower ships than I do against smaller, agile ships - a Cobra just about killed my Sidewinder because he was able to flip around and target me for a lot longer. So these days if I'm "fighting for fun" in a small ship, I pay more attention to rank more than size.

 

[Morbad]

I just spent some time in a medium CZ with my hybrid Viper III (well Engineered) and I definitely see how it can feel like a chore.

Started off with my PvP/duelist loadout, which was super ammo limited, and gradually worked toward more laser focused builds, which increased staying power, but also crippled damage output. In one notable case I got an FDL Spec Op target to myself and ended up fighting this NPC for twenty minutes before having to drag it back so other ships could wear it down.

Using the Viper also illustrates that higher teir ships actually benefit more from Engineering than most of the smallest ones. The synergistic effects of more utilities, more internals, and lower relative boosts costs make fights that much harder for Engineered small ships against Engineered opponents than if all ships were non-Engineered.

 

[sinisalo]

Small ship PvE combat is my thing lately. CZs and RES sites. I am having a blast. You need a different mindset, embrace the weaknesses, and exploit the advantages. Folks that say things like 'there is literally no reason to do x when y pays better' aren't going to enjoy fighting in small ships.

But make a gunnery pass at 730 m/s and tell me that's not exciting and fun. Don't make it your mission to kill ships. Just zip around, get your tags in, fly top cover, drag and bag, evade. Take advantage of the speed and agility. I flew in a high intensity CZ last night. Spent about an hour there, and claimed 8 bonds in all. But I had so much fun I was grinning ear to ear. It doesn't matter much to me that I only got a handful of claims when the gameplay is that much fun. And our side won the battle, I took no damage, never even lost a ring. I am fighting my ship to it's strengths, while accepting the limitations. If you're dueling, jousting and generally looking for one v one fights you're not fighting to your strengths. Many times in that CZ I would get in a battle, start to feel it's too hot as they gang up on me, then see a laser light show in the distance and hit boost and leave the ship I was just battling at 40% hull or whatever and go find another more suitable target. I didn't get THAT kill, but so what? Maybe I'll kill him in a few minutes. This is the mindset you gotta have. If you can free yourself of the need to finish off every ship you engage you can have a really good time fighting in small ships.

Reading the posts I think players put too much importance on the payout, and not enough on the experience. Small ships aren't for everyone. Just like large ships aren't for me. Being a semi-static fortress killing everything that comes in to view is far less appealing to me than blacking out every two minutes because my ship is too fast for human physiology, even if the payout is far less.

For what it's worth, this is the ship I am flying. It's a moderately engineered Courier with low DPS, decent protection and high speed. It's not even finished and has three unused slots!

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

It is so much fun to fly and fight in. This spring I hit Elite in both Exploration and Trade, leaving Combat as the last one. I want to hit triple Elite, it's been a goal since I learned it was a thing. But as someone who is only half-way through Dangerous I knew it would be a long road. In order to make it as enjoyable as possible, I wanted a small, fast, agile combat ship with reasonable survivability in PvE combat. So I built it (with the help of the folks around here). And it IS fun. Sure, I could be killing ships faster in my FDL, or a Vette (or plug any heavy hitter in here), but it wouldn't be as fun. Killing ships in a FDL or Vette feels like business. In the Courier it feels like art.

 

[Neutrino Sunset]

I am totally onboard with that mentality, that is exactly what I've been getting my fun doing and that's why I'm in the CZ chipping away at more powerful enemies instead of making millions in a high REZ with zero risk.

But nearly 15 minutes sustained fire at point blank range to kill another already disabled small ship like a Cobra MkIII still seems broken.

 

[The Replicated Man]

I am totally onboard with that mentality, that is exactly what I've been getting my fun doing and that's why I'm in the CZ chipping away at more powerful enemies instead of making millions in a high REZ with zero risk.

But nearly 15 minutes sustained fire at point blank range to kill another already disabled small ship like a Cobra MkIII still seems broken.

If you can't kill a Cobra 3 in a small ship in 2 mins let alone 15 you are doing something very wrong.