Need help with dogfights

[masona2]

I have just started trying to dogfight pirates in anarchy systems.

But whilst my targets are still very tiny/far away, they open fire on me causing terminal damage.

How do they manage to do this?

[Cody]

Try using the roll/pitch precision toggle... it makes long range sniping easier.
(If you're using a stick, that is).

[masona2]

I am not using a stick, just my keyboard. But I can hardly see the targets firing on me, so how do they manage it?

[Cody]

so how do they manage it?

One of the minds will know the answer to that... I don't.

[masona2]

Whats a 'mind'? (sorry).

[Cody]

Whats a 'mind'? (sorry).

That's how I sometimes refer to the members who know what they're talking about, unlike me.

[masona2]

Sounds like you do know what you're talking about! In regard to what you do/don't know about the game.

Thanks for trying though.

[Lestradae]

... whilst my targets are still very tiny/far away, they open fire on me causing terminal damage.

How do they manage to do this?

They have military lasers.

You can buy that too, if you have 6000Cr apiece. Their range is I think about twice that of pulse lasers and better than beam lasers.

[masona2]

I have military lasers AND enhanced targeting system/expansion.

My question is,

how do they manage to accuratly hit me from such a hugh distance away???

[snork]

They have practice.

It took me time to learn to do like them, too.

So you have a military laser (25 km range), most (vanilla Oolite) NPC ships don't - this means most times you can stay outside their laser range (15 km I think) and practice sniping them from far away.

The very small ships are indeed hardly visible from that distance, but if you manage to target them, then your scanner targeting enhancement thingy will tell you in which direction you need to correct your aiming. (targeting is a lot easier if your ship is at full stop.)

Targeting is also very framerate-dependant : at a framerate of ~15 fps or lower I can not really target anymore, because even the smallest correction jumps too far to the other side.
Check your framerate with Shift+F and if it is too low, take countermeasures :
- update / tweak graphics driver,
- kill unnecessary background processes - JazHaz provided a link to some tool that will do this for you everytime you play Oolite, I am sure he will post it again if needed.
- remove some too demanding OXPs.

Playing without shaders, some (OXP) ships for me were invisible at distances >~10km. Not much I could do about it, so I uninstalled them.
Almost all ships are hardly visible to me when I try to play with the room bright from sunshine - no use playing Oolite then.

I have just started trying to dogfight pirates in anarchy systems.

I hope you have shield boosters AND military shield enhancement before you attempt this ?
And a witchdrive fuel injector AND enough fuel, so you can speed-close-in on them offenders ?
Doing a 6.8 lightyears jump into an anarchy system is calling for trouble.

My tactics :
With big bunches of pirates, I try to come to a full stop before they start closing in on me.
Then I try to snipe those ships I can easily target from this far away - with my aft laser.
When that one overheats, I switch to front view again, (try to) target someone and witchdrive-speed up to that target extinguishing it from close. Then (if necessary) I witchdrive-flee and while doing that, try to target (+ kill) the next one with the rear laser once again.
And so on, it can take quite a while until everything is taken care of.

If necessary I use a missile (ECM hardened) against one or two of the opponents, that keeps them busy / out of the fight for a while.

uh, late, good night.

[Sydney2K]

My question is, how do they manage to accuratly hit me from such a hugh distance away???

Evil AI. I reckon the enemy AI utilise a mythical OXP, a combat crosshair HUD which includes a zoom function for better and easier aiming.

Like I said, that OXP is mythical, it doesn't exist (for us human players), so we need another tip. Get yourself the Witchspace fuel injectors. When you swing around to face them use the fuel injectors to rapidly close the distance between you and the bad guys. That reduces their advantage in targeting and hitting you, and levels the playing fields. You can then take them out in a furball.

My suggestion is to get in real close that you're in an arm wrestle, rather than closing to a distance where you can see them to shoot at them. Close quarter dogfighting negates their long distance sniping, and your superior dogfighting will be an advantage.

[JazHaz]

- kill unnecessary background processes - JazHaz provided a link to some tool that will do this for you everytime you play Oolite, I am sure he will post it again if needed.

Actually it was Dizzy who provided it, I was looking for v1.3.1.0 of it:

Here you are JazHaz...

GameBooster 1.3.1.0 http://www.box.net/shared/atskgcps6f

[Diziet Sma]

Whats a 'mind'? (sorry).

That's how I sometimes refer to the members who know what they're talking about, unlike me.

To get the background on 'Minds' (yes, they should be capitalised) try reading some of the 'Culture' novels by Iain M. Banks. I recommend taking them in order, starting with Consider Phlebas.

[Eric Walch]

They have practice.

It took me time to learn to do like them, too.

So you have a military laser (25 km range), most (vanilla Oolite) NPC ships don't - this means most times you can stay outside their laser range (15 km I think) and practice sniping them from far away.

The range of military lasers is even 30 km (not 25 km). With a bit of practice you can even hit targets outside your scanner range. Big ships like behemoths are easy targets that way. And they have no clue who hit them as long as you stay from their scanner.

You can hear by the sound if you have hit your target or not.

[Commander McLane]

@ masona2: Perhaps you may consider staying out of Anarchies for the time being and practising your target skills with pirates (or non-pirates, for that matter) who don't have military lasers, until you can hit them while they are only two or three pixels wide. Your sound will tell you whether you scored a hit.

Alternatively, get rid of hardpirates.oxp and military.oxp. Those are where the pirate ships with military lasers come from.

But the important part is indeed to get the required aiming skills.

And, as also mentioned before, this is not possible with a frame rate below 33. You should strive for a rate of at least 50. And that may mean removing graphics-intensive OXPs, like YAH.oxp or the beautiful Griff ships.