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Advice please combat questions
Hi new player here have a few combat questions firstly im on quest VR as a Vulture pilot VS bots using 2x plasma hx i can tear through droids no issues at all.
When i go for chain combat missions like protect the convoy from 5 vultures and 1 heavy ship they tear me apart , cant seem to land hits on the vultures
is there a faster firing weapon?
If i switch to a revenant i can easily tank or take out lead ship with homing missiles but id rather be a fighter not missile spammer.
2nd question- on the defeat the centaur which also has 2x vultures following it even in a heavy fighter the centaur turned round dumped 5 or so homing missiles in my face taking me straight down to 50% managed to defeat it but then didnt have enough health to tank the 2 vultures.
Are there any anti missile defences ? theres a few times on a mission the NPC has jsut dumped loads rockets into me and there is no counter to it
thankyou
When i go for chain combat missions like protect the convoy from 5 vultures and 1 heavy ship they tear me apart , cant seem to land hits on the vultures
is there a faster firing weapon?
If i switch to a revenant i can easily tank or take out lead ship with homing missiles but id rather be a fighter not missile spammer.
2nd question- on the defeat the centaur which also has 2x vultures following it even in a heavy fighter the centaur turned round dumped 5 or so homing missiles in my face taking me straight down to 50% managed to defeat it but then didnt have enough health to tank the 2 vultures.
Are there any anti missile defences ? theres a few times on a mission the NPC has jsut dumped loads rockets into me and there is no counter to it
thankyou
Combat is basically all about distance and timing..
Getting on turbo is basically the way to avoid homing missiles, which is one reason why a fast-accelerating ship can be helpful. A heavier ship might have more armor, but a lighter ship may not get "hit" in the first place.
The turn radius of homing missiles varies by type. Some of them can turn reasonably well, and others are pretty bad at it. In either case, taking a vector 90-degrees off of the incoming missile trajectory pushes their turning rate to the maximum and (assuming they cannot close the distance to the "fuze" limit and detonate) allows you to escape them.. at least temporarily.
Pilots usually keep an eye on the blinking dots in their "rear radar", along with the beep frequency, to maintain a working distance from incoming homing missiles. It depends on the environment and situation, but homing missiles are far from a death sentence, and it's almost impossible to hit a good fighter pilot with the things. They're more useful as a distraction mechanism, or a tactic against slower ships (capships, etc).
Lastly, if your environment has non-moving objects (asteroids, stations) or non-moving enemy capships, or even your own capship (a shielded ship won't be harmed by a single batch of swarms), then getting the homing missiles on the other side of the object and letting the missiles slam into it is a solution for getting them off your tail.
I will also note that the tactics for avoiding homing missiles are basically the same as avoiding large groups of aggressive NPCs. In the "Unknown System" there are situations where three hundred NPCs may aggro at the same time, on a single player, and some of them are pretty fast; basically the only thing one can do is hammer on turbo and carefully manage powercell charge, while winnowing down the closest aggressors over time, and using the environment to partially shield you from the motions of the pursuing swarm.
is there a faster firing weapon?
It depends on what you mean. There are both weapons that fire a lot more frequently (Advanced Gatling Turret) and weapons that fire projectiles that are literally moving at a faster speed (Neutron Blaster MkII, for instance).
Generally speaking, for most fighter engagements (and I'm making a big generalization here), you want a low-mass ship with good powercell recharge capabilities, and weapons with very good projectile speed. For instance, comparing the following:
Plasma Cannon HX - 160m/s
Neutron Blaster MkI - 190m/s
That difference in projectile speed tends to make for a big change in hit-rate (usually more important than firing repeat-rate).
Hit-rate then eliminates enemies more quickly, which reduces the amount of incoming fire you have to avoid and enemies to track.
I am not suggesting to go overboard into Railguns, which have the fastest projectile rate, but are infeasibly slow in repeat-rate for generalized combat like this.
There's a big difference in capabilities between lower-level Hive Drones and enemy Vulture NPCs, and the more maneuverable the adversary, the more important projectile-speed becomes.
(Also, none of this means that the Plasma Cannon HX or other weapons aren't "Good" in their own way; there are a lot of different configurations and possibilities in the game to serve different goals. Powercell drain or mass or grid-requirements or other factors are sometimes important. The solo pilot in fighter taking on multiple NPCs is just one use-case).
(edited addendum):
Niki just posted this on Discord, and it's something that's.. so ingrained in VO combat that sometimes I forget that people from outside may not immediately realize it:
"try flying your ship less like a plane and more like you're in a fistfight. if the bots overwhelm you, go backwards"
If you aren't using turbo, your ship is not any faster in forward than it is in reverse, or strafing side-to-side or vertically. So, a very common VO combat posture is to be "backing up" while facing the adversary, and then "peeling off" 90-degrees to turbo and get a little distance if they come on too fast. That's part of the "maintaining distance" that I reference at a couple of points.
Getting on turbo is basically the way to avoid homing missiles, which is one reason why a fast-accelerating ship can be helpful. A heavier ship might have more armor, but a lighter ship may not get "hit" in the first place.
The turn radius of homing missiles varies by type. Some of them can turn reasonably well, and others are pretty bad at it. In either case, taking a vector 90-degrees off of the incoming missile trajectory pushes their turning rate to the maximum and (assuming they cannot close the distance to the "fuze" limit and detonate) allows you to escape them.. at least temporarily.
Pilots usually keep an eye on the blinking dots in their "rear radar", along with the beep frequency, to maintain a working distance from incoming homing missiles. It depends on the environment and situation, but homing missiles are far from a death sentence, and it's almost impossible to hit a good fighter pilot with the things. They're more useful as a distraction mechanism, or a tactic against slower ships (capships, etc).
Lastly, if your environment has non-moving objects (asteroids, stations) or non-moving enemy capships, or even your own capship (a shielded ship won't be harmed by a single batch of swarms), then getting the homing missiles on the other side of the object and letting the missiles slam into it is a solution for getting them off your tail.
I will also note that the tactics for avoiding homing missiles are basically the same as avoiding large groups of aggressive NPCs. In the "Unknown System" there are situations where three hundred NPCs may aggro at the same time, on a single player, and some of them are pretty fast; basically the only thing one can do is hammer on turbo and carefully manage powercell charge, while winnowing down the closest aggressors over time, and using the environment to partially shield you from the motions of the pursuing swarm.
is there a faster firing weapon?
It depends on what you mean. There are both weapons that fire a lot more frequently (Advanced Gatling Turret) and weapons that fire projectiles that are literally moving at a faster speed (Neutron Blaster MkII, for instance).
Generally speaking, for most fighter engagements (and I'm making a big generalization here), you want a low-mass ship with good powercell recharge capabilities, and weapons with very good projectile speed. For instance, comparing the following:
Plasma Cannon HX - 160m/s
Neutron Blaster MkI - 190m/s
That difference in projectile speed tends to make for a big change in hit-rate (usually more important than firing repeat-rate).
Hit-rate then eliminates enemies more quickly, which reduces the amount of incoming fire you have to avoid and enemies to track.
I am not suggesting to go overboard into Railguns, which have the fastest projectile rate, but are infeasibly slow in repeat-rate for generalized combat like this.
There's a big difference in capabilities between lower-level Hive Drones and enemy Vulture NPCs, and the more maneuverable the adversary, the more important projectile-speed becomes.
(Also, none of this means that the Plasma Cannon HX or other weapons aren't "Good" in their own way; there are a lot of different configurations and possibilities in the game to serve different goals. Powercell drain or mass or grid-requirements or other factors are sometimes important. The solo pilot in fighter taking on multiple NPCs is just one use-case).
(edited addendum):
Niki just posted this on Discord, and it's something that's.. so ingrained in VO combat that sometimes I forget that people from outside may not immediately realize it:
"try flying your ship less like a plane and more like you're in a fistfight. if the bots overwhelm you, go backwards"
If you aren't using turbo, your ship is not any faster in forward than it is in reverse, or strafing side-to-side or vertically. So, a very common VO combat posture is to be "backing up" while facing the adversary, and then "peeling off" 90-degrees to turbo and get a little distance if they come on too fast. That's part of the "maintaining distance" that I reference at a couple of points.