Maybe I'm just old and slow...

[demon59]

Thanks for all the tips, folks! Guess I'll have to actually start fighting a bit more intelligently. (Tacteecs? We don' need no steenkin' tacteecs!)

As much as I hate it, I'll have to start carrying Pirate Kibble, too. (Picture a bedraggled Daffy Duck leaving a cage full of soundly thrashed lions, while clutching a single dollar bill and muttering, "Sure I'm a coward...but, I'm a GRE-E-EEDY coward!")

As for ditching the "Corridor" and making injectors my first purchase, those are already S.O.P. for me, when starting a new commander.

I usually head for the Isinor-Ensoreus milk run to start. (I'll hi-jack my own thread to wonder about the fact that the Ensoreus shipyards are always empty at the start of my games. Seems odd for a Rich Industrial TL12 system.) It finances upgrades to a reasonably iron-assed ship with a couple or three passenger berths and the necessary equipment to sun-skim for faster financial growth.
It seems the new "experience" upgrades to the Passenger and Parcel boards might slow that a bit.

Thanks again for the quick and helpful responses!

[Switeck]

Granted a pulse laser has only a 15km range...

That would be a 5km range.. you're thinking of a beam laser.

This must be a change from v1.76 to v1.80! Before that, I recall the pulse laser being able to reach about 12km range. Reducing it to 10km would be acceptable, but knocking it down to 5km makes it even less useful than it was.

[Diziet Sma]

Granted a pulse laser has only a 15km range...

That would be a 5km range.. you're thinking of a beam laser.

This must be a change from v1.76 to v1.80! Before that, I recall the pulse laser being able to reach about 12km range. Reducing it to 10km would be acceptable, but knocking it down to 5km makes it even less useful than it was.

It was 5km for at least 2 full years before 1.76 was released..
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 14#p100714
(and I've found less certain references in the BB to 5km a good 6 months earlier than that..)

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Them having to be within 10km to score a hit isn't the result of gunnery practice, especially if they're shooting at a ship as big as a Cobra 3.

Well, it is quite a bit better than they would manage in 1.77 where most of them couldn't reliably hit a Cobra 3 moving in a straight line at 5km.

I noticed their aim definitely improved! They're still not sharpshooters, but they're getting more hits on me than they used to.

Granted a pulse laser has only a 15km range...

That would be a 5km range.. you're thinking of a beam laser.

As far back as I can remember - that being oolite 1.65 - pulse and beam lasers had the same range and firepower, the only difference that one is semi-auto fire and the other is full auto. The twin plasma gun, that was limited to 5km and was a peashooter to boot.

[Diziet Sma]

Ah well, somewhere between 1.65, and 1.76, that changed.. a wild-ass guess would put 2.5 years pre-1.76, somewhere around the 1.72 mark, near as I can recall..

[Norby]

Fresh data reported by js in 1.80:

[mossfoot]

I have to admit I really like the combat sim add-on for the game. If you're playing Hardcore it's a logical way to safely gauge your ship's abilities, practice, etc... without having to go into real danger.

[mossfoot]

Fresh data reported by js in 1.80:

What about the beam and military lasers? They have longer ranges, right?

[Cmdr Wyvern]

The mil laser has always been the premiere sniping weapon, all the way out to the edge of the scanner. With careful aim, reach out and melt someone.
...unless they changed that too.

[Norby]

What about the beam and military lasers? They have longer ranges, right?

Beam
Military

[mossfoot]

I had read the wiki on the ranges before, but I thought maybe it wasn't accurate to the game. Now I see the diff between pulse and beam isn't so great, which explains most of my misconceptions.

[Diziet Sma]

Fresh data reported by js in 1.80:

I stand corrected.. wiki entry for the pulse laser has now been fixed.

The mil laser has always been the premiere sniping weapon, all the way out to the edge of the scanner. With careful aim, reach out and melt someone.
...unless they changed that too.

No.. that hasn't changed.. in fact, given that the range is 30km, and that of the scanner only 25.6km, with good eyesight, you can sometimes kill ships before they even appear on the scanner.

[Switeck]

It was 5km for at least 2 full years before 1.76 was released..
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 14#p100714

Same thread just a couple posts down:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 18#p100718

Perhaps some confusion between Pulse Lasers and Plasma Cannons (which do have 5km range)?

[Diziet Sma]

Heh.. that'll teach me to read more carefully.. ah well, all fixed now, on the wiki as well.

[Malacandra]

I usually head for the Isinor-Ensoreus milk run to start.

On the basis of a weekend's acquaintance with 1.8, Ensoreus is no milk run any more - not with those two nasty neighbours constantly coming round to borrow a cup of sugar. On one trip I'd no sooner come out of witchspace than half a dozen ruffians were demanding nine barrels as pirate tax, and while the police showed up shortly after to teach those thieving b@ggers the error of their ways it didn't stop another bunch straight away demanding ten! Isinor to Tionisla (or Zaonce) is less fraught even though the profit margins are lower.