Hello! I've recently just picked up the game again and really loving it this time. I've been hanging out in grey space fighting some people just for the fun of it. But I'm not terribly sure of like the "meta" or what's best as far as pvp and dogfighting. It seems like my flying skills are meh and really practice makes perfect with this but still I'm sure there are some essentials to this I might be missing as you can fly the best ship in game but it's useless if you can't pilot it. It just feels all over the place as there are times when I'm flying my vulture and it feels like I crush my enemy but then other times I get destroyed for just being too close. I'm not also sure if this is a rock paper scissors type situation where I'm just being countered with people using different weapons and different ships.

It takes a while to get anywhere near reasonable TBH. I know which players I can beat and which I can't so I steer clear of them or just scare them off with a swarm and run.

Here's some tips though :-

1. Make sure that you can beat all the bot types, if you can't you're not really prepared,
2. Always make sure that Flight Assist is switched off when in combat - you need to be able to spin around,
3. Turn off auto-fire too, otherwise you'll start shooting too far out and it will give your opponent too long to dodge the fire or worse you'll have a flat battery when you actually have a good shot.
4. For ships, the ideal is something small (so hard to hit) that turns quickly. So check out the stats on the various Vults, Cents, and Valks,
5. For weapons, generally the faster the better but different opponents will be skilled with different things. A skilled flare user for instance is very deadly indeed.

Missiles are a nuisance but not very effective because you can just turbo away from them until they give up. They're more of a defensive weapon because of that.

Other than that, practice, practice, practice. Practice dodging, practice keeping the opponent in the reticule etc., etc. Luckily the basic vults and neut 2's are cheap and effective so there's little cost to dying.

Thank you! This is some generally helpful advise I'll make sure to put it to good use.

at some point you may want to look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwlMFXgQ2ew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bN3WkjXDM

Why does everyone hate flight assist? It is best off in most combat situations unless fighting someone not up to your level, yes. But there are a few little tricks with toggling it for a few seconds at the right times to, for instance get behind an aggressive opponent and pound their rear.

Flight assist is good for docking, because it tends to cause you to move in a forward direction. Face the dock, and you will go that direction.

In combat, strait forward, is typically strait into incoming projectiles. You can offset that by constantly holding a strafe key. Any maneuver you can do with flight assist, you can do without it. Flight assist will not allow you to strafe rearward, and sometimes you do wish to back up in combat. Either leave flight assist off, or at least be able to toggle it in combat.

I almost never use flight assist, even for docking.

The vult3 and hog2 are economical, combat effective, and good chasers. The neutron blaster mk1/2, axia accelerated positron, and the megapositron, are good energy weapons.

It can be paper, scissors, rock. A simple light fighter ship with all energy is a good all around performer, but you have to learn to use it correctly in a variety of situations. Heavier ships and other weapon types tend to be better at some things, but with corresponding weaknesses. If I know I am going to face a quadrail, I may arm chaos missiles or rockets, and an energy weapon, on a reasonably fast ship, like a hog2. A quad rail is too heavy to barrel roll around chaos missiles, or to dodge rockets from close range, and too heavy to run away from a fast ship, and if it tries to run from chaos missiles, I insert energy into their tailpipe. A quadrail is a heaver hitter, with serious weaknesses. A hog2 with megapositron, n2, fc, is a middle ground, high speed, high endurance, cost effective performer. You have to know how to use it well, but it has few glaring weaknesses.

Autoaim will help sometimes, it will hurt at other times. Be able to toggle autoaim in combat.

You can go backwards with Flight Assist on these days Roda, been like that for a while. But otherwise I only ever use it when throwing rockets forwards, as it's a good quick way of going fully-forwards all of a sudden. Contrary to belief FA also cancels out any inertia instantly (remember these spaceships are not real), so not everything that can be done with it on can be achieved with it off.

Play about and find what works for you is my advice. But I do agree with Roda on most bits. Everything can be used well when you know how it all works. One bit of advice would be to get a lot of practice against various players.What works on one won't work for everyone.

You should mention your platform, as combat styles vary between a mobile and a PC user.

Check out the following though : http://vo-wiki.com/wiki/Player_VS._Player

A few videos on some combat techniques : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/w24jjayq7g9ec69/AABevv6_Bo84XYx9nruY9cPOa?dl=0

A lot of these are still applicable in combat. Flight mechanics haven't changed much over the years.

As others have mentioned above, it's mostly a lot of practicing and finding a method that suits you.