Fighting with the controls- worth getting a joystick?

[JensAyton]

@Ahruman - is the mouse control a new option? I don't remember having the option to use the mouse in 1.65

It was there when I first got Oolite. The fine manual told me about it. :-)

[DaddyHoggy]

Clealry not been paying attention then - apologies and thank-you.

I like the joy pad because I've assigned lots of functions to my 11 buttons but I like mouse control (which I used to have in something like Freelancer)

[flimflam_machine]

flimflam_machine wrote:

Combat advice: if you're up against multiple pirates, take out the easy targets first. It's all about the number of guns you're up against, so use your missiles as equalisers at long range if need be.

Interesting, I find the "mongal" tactic useful against swarms. If your getting womped by 5-8 pirates who just happened to be floating round the jump point, witchfuel inject away until only 2 or so are showing on your IFF. (usually) The others will stay out of range whilst the other 2 will speed hell for leather for you. Giving to plenty of time to stop, turn round and flip a coin for which one you turn into scoopable items first.

If they do decide to leave follow at a distance, firing the odd shot to get their attention. If they happen to meet up again with the main group, just repeat the tactic from the top.

Interesting ClymAngus. That sounds like it might work, but I'm not sure how satisfying it would be. Is the fact that only the 2 left on your IFF will follow you just a glitch of the AI? It certainly doesn't seem like decent tactics. If it is a glitch then it doesn't seem very sporting/satisfying to exploit it so that you're dealing with the pirates 2 at a time. To be fair, I'm talking about groups of up to 6, if I was facing 8 or so ships I might think differently.

My tactic is definitely to take out the easy ones first. There's no prize for taking out the Tigers and Mussarana's first, so knock down the Kraits and Sidewinders early, use your missiles if you like, these ships seem less likely to have ECM's. Then take out the ships that you can kill in one heating/cooling cycle of your lasers e.g., Cobra Mk 1s, and then go onto the harder stuff like Asp Mk IIs, Tigers etc. My only other advice is not to try to take the entire swarm head-to-head. If you encounter them at a distance and they're closely packed, then you're going to be taking a whole load of laser fire to your front shield, which will probably give up quite quickly. Use your fuel injectors to go past them and then come around behind to break them up. If you do start taking aft fire while following one of them you'll often find that when you switch to an aft view that the culprit is bang in the middle of your cross-hairs.[/quote]

[LittleBear]

They'll probabley all try to follow you, but only those pirates who happen to have injectors fitted will be able to, so most times you'll split up the group. Each ship has a different chance of having an injector (or any other item of equipment fitted).

[ClymAngus]

Interesting ClymAngus. That sounds like it might work, but I'm not sure how satisfying it would be. Is the fact that only the 2 left on your IFF will follow you just a glitch of the AI? It certainly doesn't seem like decent tactics. If it is a glitch then it doesn't seem very sporting/satisfying to exploit it so that you're dealing with the pirates 2 at a time. To be fair, I'm talking about groups of up to 6, if I was facing 8 or so ships I might think differently.

My tactic is definitely to take out the easy ones first. There's no prize for taking out the Tigers and Mussarana's first, so knock down the Kraits and Sidewinders early, use your missiles if you like, these ships seem less likely to have ECM's. Then take out the ships that you can kill in one heating/cooling cycle of your lasers e.g., Cobra Mk 1s, and then go onto the harder stuff like Asp Mk IIs, Tigers etc. My only other advice is not to try to take the entire swarm head-to-head. If you encounter them at a distance and they're closely packed, then you're going to be taking a whole load of laser fire to your front shield, which will probably give up quite quickly. Use your fuel injectors to go past them and then come around behind to break them up. If you do start taking aft fire while following one of them you'll often find that when you switch to an aft view that the culprit is bang in the middle of your cross-hairs.

I don't know, I find it very satisfying after being shot to heck in a 9 ship game of chicken. It's what you prefer at the end of the day; you kill like a rapier (all honorable and above board), I kill like cancer (slow and sneaky). Net result: the hold is full of contraband and peg legs litter deep space. Harrah! Score 1 for the traders.

Hang on a second, since when was "divide and conquer" religated from "decent tactics". OK not sporting I'll give you, but I would argue that 8 against 1 is fairly unsporting in the first place.

As a side not I don't consider this a glitch in the AI, it's an accurate simulation of terminal confidence. Artificial Stupidity if you will.

[Thargoid]

Greetings,

The old Thargoid tactic of approaching, flipping 180 degrees and then having a "slow" chase (speed depending on what's behind you that you're trying to vape) whilst you shot via the rear laser used to work nicely in Elite (where you had the option to mirror controls) but sadly doesn't work in Oolite as that option's lacking. Not so nice to use the rear view when you're trying to untie your finger-units after getting the controls mixed up again.

But if the control reverse could be coded up by some bright human, that would be nice...

[Disembodied]

Ah, the Monty Python tactic, as it's also known ("Run away! Run away!") does work a treat, with a bit of practice. Or if you have a reversible brain.

[Commander McLane]

Greetings,

The old Thargoid tactic of approaching, flipping 180 degrees and then having a "slow" chase (speed depending on what's behind you that you're trying to vape) whilst you shot via the rear laser used to work nicely in Elite (where you had the option to mirror controls) but sadly doesn't work in Oolite as that option's lacking. Not so nice to use the rear view when you're trying to untie your finger-units after getting the controls mixed up again.

But if the control reverse could be coded up by some bright human, that would be nice...

What's that "doesn't work in Oolite"-stuff? The only thing you have to do is to properly learn manoeuvering with any of the views engaged. Don't they teach that anymore in the Flight Academy at Lave? (Oh, considering where you're coming from, you probably never underwent the proper academy training? (But then, what are you complaining about? Thargoids use turreted lasers. No reason to aim at all! ))

Anyway, I never ever have used "mirror controls" in any version of Elite. Therefore I can kill my enemies from all angles, in all views.

Just try it. It's really not that hard.

[JohnnyBoy]

Faced with 6 or 7 marauders, I turn and face them and ease off the throttle - there's no point in rushing in. I firstly destroy/disable those ships that are easiest to hit at 15-20 km: Pythons, PCCs, Cobra NjXs. Once my forward laser has cooled, the pack will be much closer, so then I try to hit those that are hitting me hardest (Sidewinders, usually). Then I fly through the pack, switch to the rear-mounted laser and kill any that are dumb enough to follow me. That method usually knocks out another 1 or 2, so I then spin around and tidy up with my forward laser.

[ClymAngus]

I've got to adjust my screen contrast, by the time I'm seeing them they're already shooting back! Damn those dark textures.

[TGHC]

Try the clearskies oxp, that will help.

[flimflam_machine]

Hang on a second, since when was "divide and conquer" religated from "decent tactics". OK not sporting I'll give you, but I would argue that 8 against 1 is fairly unsporting in the first place.

Nothing wrong with divide and conquer. Like I said, I just wouldn't find it that satisfying to do if the only reason that the rest of the swarm didn't follow you was that they happened to be off your IFF (i.e., and AI glitch). I actually meant that it wasn't "decent tactics" on the pirates' part to break up their swarm and let 2 of them run after you on their own, hence my worry that it was an unintended AI glitch, rather than written-in Darwin Award-level stupidity.

One reason I was suspicious is that I found a similar situation playing mechwarrior once: in one particular mission I could beat a specific opponent very easily because his (glitchy) AI was set up to guard a location from attackers coming across a plain. If you came at him from a completely unexpected angle (above) he would just sit there while you slowly blew him to bits. Effective, but ultimately unsatisfying. Anyway, it's a moot point, since LittleBear confirms that it's not a glitch, but that only a subset of the swarm will have fuel injectors and so be able to keep up with you.

Interesting that JohnnyBoy uses basically the opposite tactics to me. How do you stay alive taking an entire swarm's laser fire on your front shield while you slooooooooowly close with them? Although you can certainly hit a python more easily than a Cobra Mk I at long range I find it a bit pointless to do so since they can take an entire cold->overheated blast of military laser right on the nose and still be alive. Then, if you don't want all of that fire to be wasted, you have to chase them at their speed to finish them off while the rest of the swarm turns your rear shield to mincemeat.

[DaddyHoggy]

Ah, the Monty Python tactic, as it's also known ("Run away! Run away!")

Ah yes, Neil Innes as the Bard... <clippty-clap-of-coconut-halves>"And brave Sir Robin, he ran away, ran away"</clippty-clap-of-coconut-halves>

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Just eat the bard alredy!

Back to the controls: is it possible to OXP a keys' remapping triggered by swapping views? Call it an automatic brain reverter or something?

[LittleBear]

Exploiting Laser Range is also a handy tactic. Beam Lasers only reach about 10 Km wheras Military Lasers can reach 25km. Naturally some pirates can have Military Lasers, but your typical pirate in an average ship will only have splashed out on a Beam (more than enough to slice open a typical Jameson Trader!). If you have Military Lasers, comming to a dead stop and facing the squad can let you pick off a few before they can hit you with their Beam Lasers. If one or more have Military you have to be prepared to get moving again or you're a sitting duck and you need to move once they come in range with their Beams of course!