I have been thinking this question over for some time now and I can't seem to come to a clear conclusion. Who wins in a fight, a better pilot or better weapons? My origional thought was the skill of the pilot, since I have been able to beat most anything with even the simplest of weapons, but recently, after being destroyed by sheer firepower, I have started to reconsider. I could obviously see that my opponent was not very skilled (doing some very supid, n00bish things) but he had such an overwhelming amount of firepower that I was destroyed (note that I did get him down low enough so that one or two more hits would have killed him, I was kicking myself for it afterwards). I think that it was my fear of the missiles that got me, since I spent more time trying to doge them than shoot my opponent. Anyone else have any views?

It's both.

A skilled pilot can also have weaknesses in some areas. If the weaponry is something they have a weakness against they can die to it. In fact every fight has to be taken on the merits of that fight alone. It's not uncommon for a brilliant pilot to die due to surprise, lag, tiredness, etc.

As a different example though, not too many people die to the most powerful weapon in the game (swarms)

If you have bad guns but good skill you'll last better then a nOOb with bad skill and bad guns. It's like having a black belt get in a fight with a guy. Whos gonna win? the black belt. But now lets give our guy a gun and start the fight at 10 feet now whos gonna win? Even with all his years of training and all his skill the black belt will still get shot and lose the fight. Same is true in VO.

/givegun 1 "black belt"

there thatll even the odds :P

It depends. There are certain guns that require some measure of skill to use effectively ( Hello Sunflares and Gatling Turret ) And others that aren't quite as dangerous.

Then there are combinations that will feel utterly overpowering whenever you meet them ( bullprom ), but that require a pilot of decent skills to not make a debacle of.

Then there are guns that are good in almost any pilots hands ( Tachs ) but require a good pilot to make into that lethal sharpness ( Eldrad, Niki, Phoenix, Shape )

I think I agree with Spider the most. It does depend on the player's skill, however they also need good weapons. I do disagree though on one minor point. The Gatling turret. It is way to easy to use, and will shred a ship in seconds even in the hands of a baby. All you have to do is make sure your enemy isnt behind you and click. Bam. Thousands of bolts of laser fly at them at a million miles a second. Unless they have another Gatling turret/gun or missiles, they're screwed.

Not really gats, take skill to use and to beat. Mostly with gats it's knowing when to shoot, as the gat is an energy eater. Shoot to soon and you only get a few shoots, shoot to late and you again only get a few shots in (if any). Then to beat them you have to use skill again you must either stay far away or get up close.

i.e. Back when I was a newer player riding in my uber AGT hog (or so I thought) I got in a fight with this guy I knew little of, His name was Holden Caufeld :D. It blew my mind when he beat my hog in a rev C. (now this was back before the Rev C was all that great of a ship) How he beat it thought was what really blew my mind, he did not hang back but he ran right at me (i got a few hits on him then) and used his maneuverability to dodge all my shots, all this we did at about 50m. It's really changed the way I thought about what up to that point had been my uber AGT hog.

@73h_m4k0: "heh. hehehehe. hehehheheheee... stop it my tummy hurts"

okay, there is a difference in skill and -skill-. I know few people who can take an old AGT Hog and bring it up against eldrad, and tear him down.

I knew even fewer who would do so against a Valk or a Vulture, Lin is one of the ones I know.

I used to be decent with the AGT, however, I'm out of practice now, and find it hard to roll the ships properly, which means I'm doing far worse than optimum.

A good AGT player knows when and how to roll his ship in order to keep your target in track, when to stop shooting (because your opponent is rolling out of the future aim) and when to lead them on and off.

Just pointing and clicking might work against a beginner who doesn't know how the AGT works, but it sure doesn't work against a pilot.

It seems to work fairly well against me...
>.<

you fly a bus n00b

Does eldrad even play any more? I haven't seen or heard from him in a while...

I had a few fights with Yoda the other day, in his AGT (heck, even I've started calling it that)... now, sure, I never got him below 87% (or so), but I didn't really aim to _kill_ him (if I did, I'd pack something else than XGXs in my Rev C). I was doing it for one reason only, to learn to dodge and _hit_ my target.

on average, it took a good while (in my opinion at least) to kill me. so, I was fairly happy. one thing I learned is that the AGT is dodgeable, and I'm starting to learn not to fear weapons. that always takes a while in new games. seeing the shots fly toward you should make you look for a hole in the stream, not think "out of here, now!".

granted, I'm not good at PvP. I don't even have a big desire to become great at PvP -- but I like to learn. and playing against a few different pilots with a few different setups, there are huge differences. I quickly notice if someone has been around for a while, it takes maybe ten seconds of combat to feel just that.

if you're dead within those ten seconds, consider that a hint. ;-)

well, remember that an orion with dual XGX's is a bloody light little craft.

I've found that even though I have a level 6 combat, I can be killed in a duel by a player with a lower combat level. My vote is for 30% weapons, 65% skill and 5% lucky shots.

Shape, the weight (and the price!) was the reason I had the XGX, but I'd get Neut MkIIIs if I was going to actually fight Yoda and try hard to win. my biggest problem is actually hitting a player without getting hit myself. I guess that means more practice. :-)

sarahanne in my case it always was this:

30% weapons 5% noobskill 65% lucky shots :D

I think its more to do with this:

"time spent against players" / "time spent against bots"
And when this reaches above 10 or so, you can say that weapons start to even influence the outcome.

Before that, its marginal.

spider, I seriously oppose that, if you give me a neutron mk3 or a plasma gun, I'm sure I will have way more chance of hitting someone with the weapon then with the plasma, no matter any of the other conditions.

That is what I presumed the weaponinfluence meant, since your idea is in my idea more used for the ability to use the weapons more effectively if both have the same weapon.

cheers

No, my point was that for .most. cases, its experience first, then weapons, that influence the outcome.

Put an (experienced) player in a fighter of choice up ( depending on the ship of the opponent ) with his normal weaponry. Put his opponent on the other side.

Give the opponent a number < 0 in botting vs. player time, and you can throw almost any gun on him without it making much difference.

Give him a number > 5 or >10, and suddenly the weapon will start influencing rather much.

As for you, Rene, you have that, you've spent more time vs. players than bots from what I know. Therefore, your choice of weapon matters more to you, than it does to the beginner.

I spend most time chatting away and little time actually fighting stuff :D

if I hopped on for 8 hours, 2 hours wer ebotting, 1 hour was pvp and the rest was just chatting :D

Naturally this shifted depending on my mood and the circumstances...

But I still disagree since if you give me a rail and I hav ebeen using a gauss for all my pvp-time, then my ability to hit someone even a newbie who uses the gauss are probably closely interlinked with the weapon I hav eused during the pvp-time.

cheers