Oolite Bulletins

Jamlev wrote:

where do I find this Quirium fuel and can I carry more than one trips worth?

At the station (it's the normal witchspace fuel), or skim it at the sun (if you have scoops and heat shields installed).
You can only carry a max of 7lys worth. Tip: short jumps wherever possible leave fuel to use!

Ahh, got it, its the regular leaded stuff - I thought it was another type of fuel that I'd missed!

Jamlev wrote:

Ahh, got it, its the regular leaded stuff

No, it's completely lead-free (although there may be other  health hazards).

Ok, back to combat and survival ...

I'm finding it quite difficult to increase my rating, I'll go to more dangerous systems to get some more combat experience and kills but invariably end up getting attacked by 5-6 ships at once, all of which have pulse lasers and can hit me with every shot regardless of any maneuvering I attempt.

Groups of 2-3 I can handle but 6 is impossible! I even jumped to a safer system mid battle and they all followed me through the wormhole and kicked my @ss so I lost the past hours worth of kills, cargo and bounty!

I have a Cobra III, front military laser and the regular fittings such as ECM, Scoops, Injectors, Scanner Targeting ...

An aft laser would help, and use the injectors in short bursts to evade.

Jamlev wrote:

Ok, back to combat and survival ...

I'm finding it quite difficult to increase my rating, I'll go to more dangerous systems to get some more combat experience and kills but invariably end up getting attacked by 5-6 ships at once, all of which have pulse lasers and can hit me with every shot regardless of any maneuvering I attempt.

Groups of 2-3 I can handle but 6 is impossible! I even jumped to a safer system mid battle and they all followed me through the wormhole and kicked my @ss so I lost the past hours worth of kills, cargo and bounty!

I have a Cobra III, front military laser and the regular fittings such as ECM, Scoops, Injectors, Scanner Targeting ...

One of the first things that one learns when playing Oolite is that there is no disgrace in running away from combat ala Brave Sir Robin when odds are bad. Sometimes, of all the options present, not picking the fight is the only viable one.

Jamlev wrote:

Ok, back to combat and survival ...

I'm finding it quite difficult to increase my rating, I'll go to more dangerous systems to get some more combat experience and kills but invariably end up getting attacked by 5-6 ships at once, all of which have pulse lasers and can hit me with every shot regardless of any maneuvering I attempt.

Groups of 2-3 I can handle but 6 is impossible! I even jumped to a safer system mid battle and they all followed me through the wormhole and kicked my @ss so I lost the past hours worth of kills, cargo and bounty!

I have a Cobra III, front military laser and the regular fittings such as ECM, Scoops, Injectors, Scanner Targeting ...

Hmm ... have you got any OXPs installed which might make things rough for you? Tough Guys, Renegades, things like that? Or even just ship sets with nasty multiple-laser enemies like Cats, Iguanas and Wolf IIs? Still though, the best technique to learn is how to shoot a rear-mounted, and ideally military, laser. Keep your distance: most pirates have beam lasers, so if you've got a military one, you can kill them before they can kill you. And if you're flying away from them, then it's going to take them much, much longer to get in range. Rear gunnery is the key to taking out the big packs.

Edit: ninja'd!

Ok rear gunnery seems to be the consensus then.

No tough guy OXPs, these battles are usually over in seconds, its a case of .... whoop whoop whoop, 5 orange blips, I go into evasive manoeuvres and try to lock a target, blam blam blam blam, ... "you have died". The standard shields are totally feeble!

Jamlev wrote:

No tough guy OXPs, these battles are usually over in seconds, its a case of .... whoop whoop whoop, 5 orange blips, I go into evasive manoeuvres and try to lock a target, blam blam blam blam, ... "you have died".

Note that the main difference between lasers is their range. A pulse laser has only a limited firing range, while a military laser hits in distances up to 30km (yes, even outside your scanner range). Therefore your first step should be to get some distance between your enemies and yourself. Then you can easily take out one ship after the other through well-aimed shots of your military laser, while they cannot fire at all. Just keep your distance. That's where of course also a rear laser comes in handy, because it allows you to do both things at the same time: get out of harm's way and shoot.

There are other tactics for dealing with pirate packs. One such is to injector straight through the pack, zero your speed and land a few solid hits... then repeat.

Jamlev wrote:

Ok rear gunnery seems to be the consensus then.

No tough guy OXPs, these battles are usually over in seconds, its a case of .... whoop whoop whoop, 5 orange blips, I go into evasive manoeuvres and try to lock a target, blam blam blam blam, ... "you have died". The standard shields are totally feeble!

It's definitely worth investing in an [wiki]Extra Energy Unit[/wiki] and – when you can afford it – [wiki]Shield Boosters[/wiki] too ... but the other thing worth doing is, as soon as you're masslocked, slow right down. Stop, even. Stop and see what you've got in front of you (the [wiki]Scanner Targeting Enhancement[/wiki] is a huge help here). Then decide on priority targets, on tactics, on whether to stand and fight at all. Often it's possible to destroy a pirate escort or two before the bad guys have even woken up ... Then it's time to flip over, accelerate away, and give some of the others a dose of tail-gun.

Make the shots count, too: a military laser heats up very quickly, so fire in short bursts, particularly at long range. No sense in ramping up the heat unless you're hitting the target.

Jamlev wrote:

whoop whoop whoop, 5 orange blips, I go into evasive manoeuvres and try to lock a target

If you're waiting until they're in weapons range and potentially firing at you before trying to get a lock and fire back, you're giving them a big advantage, and losing most of the benefits of that military laser. Start by locking on a target while they're still well outside of beam laser range. If you have a Target System Memory Expansion, lock on a few more so that you can cycle through them with '+' and '-' quickly if you need to.

Look at their flight formation and their heading relative to you, and you'll be able to tell if they're hostile long before they actually get a target lock on you and your scanner goes red.

Jamlev wrote:

The standard shields are totally feeble!

They're not designed to take sustained fire. Even military shields aren't really designed to take sustained fire, though they'll last much better than normal shields. But most pirates only have pulse lasers - not even beam lasers except on the bigger ships - so you shouldn't be taking sustained fire in the first place most of the time.

Jamlev wrote:

Groups of 2-3 I can handle but 6 is impossible! I even jumped to a safer system mid battle and they all followed me through the wormhole and kicked my @ss so I lost the past hours worth of kills, cargo and bounty!

From the early INFOCOM manuals: "Save early, save often".

Jamlev wrote:

Groups of 2-3 I can handle but 6 is impossible! I even jumped to a safer system mid battle and they all followed me through the wormhole and kicked my @ss so I lost the past hours worth of kills, cargo and bounty!

hehe, Oolite can be so cool !

but else this sounds exactly like me when I am ill-equipped.

No need to hasten in upping your kill-count; it will do so anyway, just a bit more slowly.