So I went over to the dark side tonight

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Hey there. Story time; sorry, my posts tend to get very long. TL;DR: AX combat is tough and I'm old and slow.

I wrote it in another thread about the war, but I don't want to derail that, so I am opening a new topic.

I don't really do RP, just very very lightly, but in the past, my CMDR has been in the camp of those who say humanity is on the wrong side of the conflict and has always been the aggressor. Consequently, I have never attacked the Thargoids, the only exception being a handful of Scouts at the beginning of my pilot's career. Out-of-game AX combat didn't interest me very much. For one I obviously got the wrong infos - rumors of material grind, premium ammo synth being mandatory, fighting Interceptors only something for wings, and so on. Over time I learned a bit more about it, but it still was too methodical for me, almost like working from a recipe - do this, then this, then this, in that order. I found that off putting. My combat style with NPCs is more the punk rock style of jumping into the crowd and see who bleeds first.

My perspective has changed a bit over time though, first by watching a few good AX videos and streams, and now by the shift in the narrative. Again, my CMDR's light RP approach is: We were in the wrong, but now the excrement has hit the fan badly and it might time to arm up. Out-of-game I kind of got the itch to try it out.

So I built me a sort of AX vessel. I had no intention to do the guardian weapon unlock grind and I don't really like the Chieftain anymore, but I had a boatload of spare parts and a spare Krait hull along with a set of four medium Salvation Plasma Chargers I had unlocked because I had heard they are hilarious against NPCs (they are). So I built this Krait Mk.II this morning. It is shieldless and sports the four PCs, a long range TV beam and three Sirius heatsink launchers. Here it is in all it's glory:

So about two hours ago I hauled my behind to the Pleiades, jumped to Asterope and went looking for Threat 5 signal sources. First reality check: Forgot the limpets . Second reality check: Always check docking permissions and available services BEFORE you jump to a carrier and try to dock .

So then it was time, I jumped into my first T5 signal and attacked my first Cyclops. I say attack, because that was all I managed to do. First thing I goofed was to forget to deploy the hardpoints, so of course I messed up the Xeno scan. Then I fumbled with the controls, and somehow a shot got fired. So okay, we're doing this.

The good news is, I survived and got away without a rebuy on both attempts I made. Bad news: Both times I was pretty much overwhelmed and out of my element. On the first Cyclops (where I messed up the scan and couldn't target the hearts) things went astonishingly well for a while. I kind or managed to orbit it and keep cold with the beam and/or the sinks while pelting the Cyclops with the PCs while avoiding the swarm to the best of my abilities. I even managed to toast the first heart (more luck than good aim), but I messed up the retreat and got caught in the lightning attack. I got away with 86% hull and some minor module damage, but I was okay. Repairing seemed to take an eternity and was very annoying.

On the second attack run I got the second heart to open, but again got too close and suddenly was barraged with damage - less than 50% hull, MRPs gone, two PCs destroyed - time to get out. I managed that, docked and tried again.

The second attempt went even worse. I tried to be calm and cool, but I realized I was very much out of my element. I didn't botch the scan on the second Cyclops, so I could target the heart, but being in the middle of orbiting it I suddenly couldn't remember my button binding for subtargeting and forgot I could do it via the left hand panel. At some point I got it targeted, but that didn't really help. I couldn't hit it for the life of me. I got it to 58% and then got too close again and got wrecked. I got away with 11% hull and a host of destroyed modules (all MRPs were dead and I had a badly damaged AFMU and repair controller), so I decided to bail and call it a night.

It was kind of exciting, but very stressful. I know I made my life unnecessarily difficult with choosing the Salvation PCs with their very short falloff, but hey. That's what I got in storage. Getting too close at the wrong moment seems to be my main problem apart from being overwhelmed and at 100% brain CPU capacity. Also, me being useless with FA off doesn't help, so I tried a mix of mostly FA on and occasional FA off. But aiming a gun in FA off? Forget it.

So yeah, that's my little story for tonight. Seems AX is very demanding for my old little brain. But I'm kind of proud that at least I didn't die and had to pay the rebuy (which is just shy of 6 million).

 

[rootsrat]

Maybe try a different ship? Sometimes it makes all of the difference

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

nah. Try a different brain would be my guess .

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Also I think the ship was what got me out alive. I am very familiar with the Krait Mk.II, it is probably the one I fly most.

 

[BDelacroix]

Sounds like the normal learning curve. You'll get there and find your groove.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

nice tale before i hit the sack, good try cmdr at least youre honest lol, pleasant dreams.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

You got a heart. That's definitely better than most people on their very first attempt.
There's a saying among AX pilots that sounds a bit dumb but I can assure you it's very true: "It's difficult until it isn't." If you keep doing it, learn from mistakes and pick up on how the interceptor and swarm move around, eventually you know what they're going to do and it gets a lot easier.

 

[Chaparral]

Go join the war effort, they are much easier to tackle in a group of like minded Commanders...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll keep trying.

nice tale before i hit the sack, good try cmdr at least youre honest lol, pleasant dreams.

Well what's there not to be honest about it? I'm good with being a crap pilot <Insert "it's a game" cliché>.

You got a heart. That's definitely better than most people on their very first attempt.
There's a saying among AX pilots that sounds a bit dumb but I can assure you it's very true: "It's difficult until it isn't." If you keep doing it, learn from mistakes and pick up on how the interceptor and swarm move around, eventually you know what they're going to do and it gets a lot easier.

I've read that sentence a lot. At this point, it's still fascinating how casual it can look for experienced pilots. But of course like everything, it's alot of muscle memory and routine.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Tried a couple in the last incursion.
Built a Chieftain that turned out to be surprisingly close to the meta but it takes a while to get the technique.
I had my canopy smashed every time and had to retreat to the station.

 

[St0rmFury]

I had my canopy smashed every time and had to retreat to the station.

For a ship designed specifically to combat thargoids, the alliance ships sure have an extremely vulnerable canopy.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Canopy breaking is typically a result of one or two things:

• Less than three module reinforcements (three is the sweet spot that means only ~6% of the damage will reach your modules)
• Not staying cold enough, so you take a lot of fire (facetanking) from the interceptor's cannon.

Canopy is also a little bit unique with how it can be repaired, you can use an AFMU but also a repair limpet will fix it (as long as it isn't breached).

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Yeah, so I ate my first rebuy today, on my fifth attempt on a Cyclops. I have kind of identified my problems. First one is staying cold. I am still kind of overwhelmed with everything, so I either pop heatsinks too often or not often enough. Also, with being at 100% brain CPU load, the beam does help me getting cold, but I forget to release the beam when losing aim so I gain heat again . I will need to get the hang of balancing cooling with the beam and popping heatsinks only when needed.

Second problem is I take too long, so the Flower gets enraged, and that was what basically wrecked me on my first four attempts because I failed to avoid the suicide swarm. My repair and rearm cycles took way too long, so the runs on the second heart were doomed right away.

Third problem is I don't really hit the hearts when they are open, so they close again and again. My aim is just too bad.

Still, this fifth attempt went pretty well all things considered (until I got nuked of course), I stayed just a tad too long. For this one I brought a flak instead of one of the PCs, but I ended up not using it alot. In the end I think I will manage to just avoid the swarm.

I also botched the initial scan, so I couldn't subtarget the hearts, and for that I did pretty well by my own standards . I took down three hearts with minimal damage on the first two, third heart took a bit too long and I sustained a bit too much module damage. Repairing that would have taken longer than the enrage timer, so I went back for the fourth with the largest MRP at 50% and a few other suboptimal modules as well as only 80-something percent hull (or was it 70-something? Don't remember). I got the fourth heart exerted but didn't manage to hit it reliably, and I also ran out of heat sinks during the attack on the fourth heart. Also also, I got too close twice and got caught in the lightning attack.

In general, not hitting reliably got better when I switched to trailing gun mode between hearts two and three, but I still missed the hearts more than I hit them, or often I was just too far away (damage fall off). Using a hitscan weapon would probably make things easier, but I am not going to do the gauss cannon unlock grind. I am determinded to make it work with the Salvation PCs.

This was all in FA on, it would have been orders of magnitude worse in FA off.

So yeah. Got to keep practising.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

To semi-necro my own thread: I killed my first interceptor more or less by myself today . In fact, I killed 6 cyclops'. Well, when I say by myself, I mean NPCs were present. But no other players who, in contrast to myself, know what they are doing. At least Inara counted them for me, so I take the credit.

Last sunday I had already taken part in a ground CZ with loads of other players, but I did not manage to kill an Interceptor myself (Inara only counted a dozen or so scouts for me); I think I didn't do much more than tickle them anyway, especially the non-Cyclopses - I had my Krait equipped with the gimballed AX MCs.

Anyway, after my first excursion into AX combat after christmas, a lot has changed, so I decided to give it a go again. I decided to try ground port AX CZs as practice ground, mainly because of the lack of swarms. I had modified my Krait towards doing CZs where you can land and rearm/repair/and restock, so it does not carry any repair facilities anymore. I also had unlocked the caustic sink last week and had the new scanner equipped, so I thought I was good to go.

I went to a ground port of my choice and gave it a go, the Krait still equipped with the MCs. I have to say, against scouts as well as against Cyclopses, those are savage. I took out my first two Cyclopses with surprisingly little effort and damage to my ship, so of course I got cocky. I targeted the approaching Basilisk, lowered its shield and unloaded the full magazines of four MCs into the Basilisk with zero result, not even exerting the first heart.

So I guess that's it, the MCs really are only good for scouts and Cyclopses. I pondered if I should fetch my set of Salvation Plasmas, but instead I took a detour to the nearest Guardian Structure to fetch a few blueprints and finally unlocked the Gauss and the Shards. I put the Gauss in place of the four MCs and returned to a ground port. Things went a bit less smooth there, mistakes were made and I identified a few issues I still have.

First of all I still cannot do the cold orbit thing - emphasis on the orbit part. I still fly FA on most of the time, because I just cannot be bothered to put the time into learning FA off, and I decided not to worry about it anymore . I can do the reverski thing and somewhat steady the ship, but aiming a hitscan weapon? No way. And I am far too lazy to put the hours into learning it.

As a result, I end up too near to the Interceptor too often, or get right into the line of fire, or both. Second, my aim is manure. I miss too many shots, which leads nice to the third issue. I cannot keep cold enough because I have to take too many shots, the Gauss cannons are damn hot and I run out of heatsinks. Fourth issue is I am still overwhelmed getting all button presses right, and as a result I got caught in the EMP and / or special attacks a few times.

On the bright side, I didn't die, so that is something. Part of that is the very tanky ship I am flying, it does its job to keep me alive. I need to keep practising, and maybe I need to modify my loadout a bit. For one, I am thinking about running a mixed setup of two Gauss and two MCs, the Gauss for the flowers and the MCs to get rid of the Scouts. Maybe not. I don't know.

I am also contemplating if I should ditch the scanner for a second heatsink. It is nice and all, but I really only need it to be able to subtarget hearts, which I don't need to do for the Gauss, and heatsinks seem more useful. On the other hand, I mostly suffer from user error, and even with the mistakes I make, I can tank alot of abuse at the ground CZs. My worst run to the station my ship was just below 50% hull when I docked and a little module damage after having finished off the Cyclops, so that does not feel too bad for a rookie, if I may say so . But tanking the damage might also teach me bad habits, on the other hand that ship has sailed anyway with my decision to not bother with FA off, and the only thing that counts is who is alive at the end of the battle .

Bottom line, I learned I can hold my own at least at a ground CZ without other player around, which is something. I will keep practising, and hopefully manage to take out a Basilisk too. When I got that down, I will probably move to a spaceport CZ with the added danger of swarms. And maybe, once I got more comfortable, I might not run from a hyperdiction of a lonely Interceptor .

So yeah. My CMDR is now officially at war with the Goids. He has learned that he can actually fight back instead of running all the time. Who knows what the future will bring for my poor east german taxi driver .

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Today I killed my first CMDR. Let me explain.
(Allow me to continue my journey towards being an AX ace [hah! Funny!] semi-blog style here )

I had logged out last night in the hangar of the ground port I was fighting in. When I logged in today, I decided to do it in open, just to see. I logged into an instance with four or so other CMDRs, and got to work. Things went okay for a while, and then two not so okay things happened.

The first not okay thing was that I seem to have stolen a Basilisk kill from another player. I joined in on a wounded Interceptor, and I didn't realize it was a Basilisk until I got the 20 MCr. message... I looked at my Inara stats and sure enough, I have one notch for a Basilisk kill on my belt now. I apologized and went back to the port to rearm and restock.

A few minutes later, the second not so okay thing happened; while having my beam trained on an interceptor, I suddenly got the message that I got a bounty for killing so-and-so. Uh oh... sure enough, I looked at my contacts panel and saw "you killed". Damn. Not only did I kill another CMDR, I also got a bounty and a point of notoriety, which meant I couldn't repair and restock anymore.

I sent the player a friend request to be able to send a direct message and apologized (again) profusely and asked them to disable their crime reporting; I am actually a bit miffed that I didn't get a reply to my sincere apology, just "I thought I had my crimes off, got to check". I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they might be busy, but three hours later still nothing. So yeah. I felt awful for a bit and also had to deal with my bounty. Great .

After dealing with my bounty I returned to the port and continued in Solo, not only to avoid future accidents, but also to be a bit more in control of what happened in the instance. With the other CMDRs present I had the feeling they were pelting the Interceptors with so much damage they were constantly panic shielding.

Anyway, I continued in solo more or less with success. All in all things went well in the sense that I didn't die. For the rest of the evening I only encountered Cyclopses though, but that was fine by me. I had a few very clean runs where I managed to orbit them quite well (despite FA on) and got into a good rhythm of heatsink - fire the gauss cannons - exert - fire the gauss - heart distroyed - disengage, hitting all shots and getting the Cyclops heart with one heatsink. My best run was with only a few percent hull damage.

Most of my runs were very messy though . In the end I always lost the race to dying, as they say, but I messed up evading the EMP too many times. One time I was sure I was dead, because I dropped dead towards the ground very fast. I didn't die though, damage wasn't too bad, and limped back to the pad to repair.

After three hours my concentration was probably fading, because my Gauss aim got worse and worse and I kept messing up the range control, and I wasted too many heatsinks - good thing the synths are so cheap, I didn't want to go back to the station over and over just to resupply heatsinks. I still won against the Cyclopes, but the diversion by the NPC pilots probably helped alot.

So my tally for tonight is 15 Cyclops,1 (stolen) Basilisk and one or two dozen Scouts, against zero deaths, so I count that as a win. Together with what I made last night and the weekend before I am now sitting on almost half a billion bonds, which is a nice bonus to the fun I had. Far in some hidden corner of my brain I fear I will have to get a hang of cold orbiting in FA off though, even though I hate the idea. Maybe I will postpone that terrible thought for a while until all the other mechanics of Interceptor combat are firmly engraved into my muscle memory. At the moment I still have to think too much.

I still debate with myself if I should ditch the scanner for a second Sirius heatsink; but at the moment, the scanner gives me some... let's call it emotional safety by showing me what I am fighting and how I am progressing. I am almost tempted to ditch the SFN for a heatsink launcher, as I keep messing that up constantly anyway. I am still far away from being able to solo an Interceptor with a swarm, I think, but the ground port CZs are really a lot of fun.

Time to collect a heart and get the bobblehead.

 

[Kayvan]

Gratz on your first successful Ceptor kills! And yes, AX combat is hard and has a steep learning curve. I also only started with the war going on, but by now I can complete a station/ground base CZ by myself if need be, and can solo a Basilisk out in the wild (got the AXI rank and all). I'm complete rubbish with Gauss though, sticking to Shards for the time being.

I've also experienced that trouble with the fines/bounties, but afaik only bc I brushed some NPCs who later got killed. Well, it is what it is. On one such occasion, I still managed to complete the CZ, using only my own limpets for repairs. ^^

As for your loadout... I would say ditch the caustic sinks, pack more heatsinks. You can always burn off the caustic and repair at the station if need be. Ofc you can also restock or synth heatsinks, but sometimes you just need to fire a second sink before the first has reloaded.

Again, good job on the kills! o7

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Gratz on your first successful Ceptor kills! And yes, AX combat is hard and has a steep learning curve. I also only started with the war going on, but by now I can complete a station/ground base CZ by myself if need be, and can solo a Basilisk out in the wild (got the AXI rank and all). I'm complete rubbish with Gauss though, sticking to Shards for the time being.

I have not tried shards yet. I unlocked the standard gauss cannons in both sizes and the standard shards in all three sizes, and I have a set of modified plasma chargers, but I skipped the modified gauss because everyone says they suck. For now I am sticking with the gauss, because my aim with the Salvation plasmas is even worse .

I am pretty sure I am a long way from completing a ground/station CZ, and another prohibiting factor could be the time it takes. I don't have the patience for that. The CZ I solo'ed after my return from prison was running for two hours and I got it to about 60 or 70 percent. Also, there is no chance in hell I can solo a Medusa or a Hydra. But then again tonight was only the third time I did that, so I guess I have to be patient. For now I am happy I can play around with Cyclopes without dying.

I've also experienced that trouble with the fines/bounties, but afaik only bc I brushed some NPCs who later got killed. Well, it is what it is. On one such occasion, I still managed to complete the CZ, using only my own limpets for repairs. ^^

My build is a no repair build, so that isn't an option . I was a bit annoyed I had to sneak to another station and hand myself in to get rid of the bounty, and a bit more that I now have a CMDR kill on my stats.

As for your loadout... I would say ditch the caustic sinks, pack more heatsinks. You can always burn off the caustic and repair at the station if need be. Ofc you can also restock or synth heatsinks, but sometimes you just need to fire a second sink before the first has reloaded.

Also a possibility. At the moment, the caustic sink is another safety net that takes a bit of load off my brain. I tried without them first, but I was so busy I kept not noticing the caustic damage and letting it eat away loads of my armor. It doesn't help that the COVAS is garbled and cannot warn you anymore in CZs.

 

[Kayvan]

Yeah, I also heard that the Modgauss are rubbish. But the Modshards are really great. ^^ They are the most effective weapons against hearts, and while they are shot for shot less efficient against interceptor hulls, they make up for that with their extremely high burst damage. And they are much easier to use than regular shards due to the high shot speed. Conversely, the Modplasmas have somewhat fallen out of favour in Open instances, because they create so much fog that other CMDRs have trouble seeing the target through it.

Also, instead of turning yourself in when you get a bounty on your head; just find a station with an Interstellar Factor (listed in the Contacts - it basically means "space lawyers") and just pay off your bounty without being sent to prison. Both Inara and EDDB can help you find the nearest interstellar factor.
The one issue with this practice is that you typically get a point of Notoriety when you cause another pilot's death, which takes 2 hours ingame time to wear off (so logging off won't help). But I find this still preferable to the shame of being sent to prison. In that one case where I completed the instance while being Wanted, that did take the better part of 2 hours so I didn't have to wait long after that to clear my name. ^^

After experimenting with various ships and setups, my favourite AX build currently is a FAS with 3 modshards and a vent beam. No repair limpets here, just armour. It's super fast and very agile, sturdy and with good firepower. Just right up my alley. ^^

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Also, instead of turning yourself in when you get a bounty on your head; just find a station with an Interstellar Factor (listed in the Contacts - it basically means "space lawyers") and just pay off your bounty without being sent to prison.

Not with notoriety. And one point of notoriety gained in-ship lasts for two hours.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

One other issue I have that I forgot to mention is my orbiting technique. Apart from doing it in FA on, I have this natural tendency to do it dominantly sideways - I don't know why. Which is bad because yaw is, as we all know, the worst performing rotational degree of freedom. For some reason I always botch the orbit when I try to do it through mainly pitch rather than mainly yaw. I have no clue why.

I have considered to move over to a Chieftain because it yaws much, much better than the Krait; I would not have to reengineer any modules, as I can move most of the modules over from the Krait and have in storage what is missing.

But I don't really want to do that. I don't really enjoy the Chieftain cockpit and hate the boost sound (yes I am stubborn that way ) and generally don't really like the Chieftain. Also it is probably better to retrain my brain and muscle memory for a dominantly pitching orbit than trying to fix it with different gear. I also watched an AX introduction tutorial by Kate (yes, the old man that keeps ranting against video guides watched a tutorial video - oh the irony) where they said you can do cold orbit just fine in FA on. And as that is the confirmation bias I needed, I will continue to do so (or try to) for now .

(Edited to make it more clear what I meant with pitching and yawing. Not sure if it worked.)