This Saturday, I will be getting online around GMT 18:00 / EST 13:00 / PST 10:00 onwards. Hoping to get a good 6 hour stretch though it's so late that if I die of sleep deprivation in the middle of it please tow my ship somewhere safe and inform next of kin. Will be my first online flight, I've only got a couple of hours of experience from single player combat 'simulator'. I still can't beat the wave where there's more than one enemy around 8th or so. Not the unshielded ones but the others. I don't ever seem to have actual time to read any of the displays and using DK2 the resolution is too low to properly make out text fast. It's readable but you have to look at it more than a split second. In combat I never find the time. Btw, do you have recommendations for setting pre-sets for energy management profiles? I would like something like 4-5 profiles for different situations rather than trying to hit the arrows, especially since my arm is busy with the control thruster I'd need to stop using it and move it across keyboard and try to remember what the current setting was exactly and hit the proper number of presses quickly. Not very intuitive. I much would prefer just having pre-sets.
Generally depends on the situation. Dogfighting is really where management gets complicated, but most Long distance Travelling is best done with 2 system, 4 Engine, 0 weapons. Key combination for that is " Up Up Left Up ". Combat is a little trickier, since many weapons get real power hungry. Beam Lasers are the worst for this. 1.5 Systems, 1.5 Engines, 3 Weapons, or 0 system, 2 engines, 4 weapons are solid basic sets. Energy Management gets super finicky because it depends on the ship you're flying, your playstyle, and the enemy you're facing. Fighting an Anaconda, which tend to use flak cannons and laser turrets, is a lot different from the scrum of fighting an eagle or cobra. I'm sure you'll do fine though. Look forward to piloting with you.
It sure is. This game was what I chose for 30th birthday gift, it's been almost 3 months now. Dying to get to it.
power management setups are really nice to have... i think i have 12 or maybe 14 different setups. some for specific ships.. some ships i have 4-5 different setups depending on my current load out. BUT as nice as it is to have the different setups... its more important to know when to switch between them... if i need to blow pass a ship and rotate quickly... i'll switch to my "Fast" mode which depending on ship/loadout, will be 4 pips to engines as i boost and either 2 pips in systems or in weapons depending on ship/loadout. as soon as i get into position i'll immediately switch back to my "Combat" mode ( which again is dependant on what ship/loadout i have) ( 4 pips weapons 2 pips engines(Energy weapon heavy), 1 pip weapons 4 pips engines 1 pip systems(ammo weapon heavy)) if i'm in travel mode i'll have the setup 4 pips to engines and 2 in systems. if i have someone in a faster ship trying a head on pass i'll flip over to my "Tank" mode by dropping 4 pips to systems 1 pip in engines and 1 in weapons.( by this time i'll have a full boost already stored so i can immediately boost pitch and get behind/follow them as they pass. I also have my "Forest Gump" mode for when i need to bug out... 4 pips to engines and 2 pips to systems and i make sure i have a shield booster loaded to buffer my shields. also knowing when to flip Flight assist off (FAoff) and use large amounts of vertical/lateral strafe in addition to pitch/roll/yaw (yes i use yaw quite a bit and anyone who is good will as well) and when to flip FAon for quick stability are just as important as your power management . also never neglect your throttle management , going 100% thrust at all times is a sure way to face an insurance buy back screen often. now you're probably wondering "HOW THE HELL DO I DO ALL THAT AT THE SAME TIME!!!!".... lol it is a lot to do at once... i have a easier time than most as i use a dedicated 6DoF control scheme along with Track Ir5 and Voice attack. Elite can have a simple scheme for controls... but can be tailored with enough micro-management to be more sim than most others outside true "Study" sims.
I didn't really notice any difference with the flight assist turned off. Directional thrusters and main thruster are imho very easy to control in battle and head tracking really, really helps since you can visually see the enemy apply boosters etc. and you can immediately do the same. I'll make a couple of macro keys for energy profiles, that should work fine. Is there an advantage to turn rate if you apply both pitch and yaw at maximum rate simulatenously? As in, if one axis is 1 and another is 1, diagonal with both would be ~1.41..., giving you 40% increase to turn rate! Does it work? And yea I put Yaw to XZ axis, the one where you twist the joystick itself. Is there even more to it, you referred to study sims, what's more? -control thrusters, check -main thruster, check -pitch, yaw, roll, check -energy profile macros/pre-sets, check -FAon/off: need to test how it's different and get used to toggling it -?
In flight trying to make a sharp turn with FAon and counter use of directional thrusters (Ie, pitch up + thrust down) you will turn much sharper than a simple pitch up... but even so you are still bound by FAon rules... you will have other thrusters firing trying to stabilize your ship causing you to slide out further in a smoother more rounded turn. performing the same maneuver with FAoff (just for the maneuver itself, flipping FAon again as soon as the maneuver is finished to stabilize flight) removes those additional thrusters firing making the maneuver much tighter and closer to a "D" shaped turn. ( it is kinda hard to notice it as Elite has so much open space. but is easier to see if those maneuvers are performed in an area where there is stationary objects to measure against(ie around a station or inside an asteroid field)) the use of yaw while pitching and/or rolling will increase the speed of a turn.. up to a point... as long as your forward velocity is below the hard coded ship maximum the effects are cumulative... however once you hit that hard coded maximum speed limit ( yeah i know limits like that suck ass but are a necessary evil due to the flight engine limitations) then the velocity becomes absolute. i also find the time saved by adding in the third axis into a dogfight brings me on target faster allowing me to keep guns on an enemy is a significant reduction in overall time needed to complete the same maneuver with 2 separate 2 axis moves... that allows me to eliminate a target quicker and reduces the damage i would receive from a more protracted engagement. in the past... the need to shave 1/10 of a second off your turns against NPC wasnt really needed... however the AI have received a recent difficulty tweak, with the higher tiered AI opponents becoming much more difficult and many levels higher in their abilities to use flight mechanics. (you'll see AI in larger heavier ships boosting while in FAoff using Pitch+yaw/roll + directional thrusters and bringing their guns back onto you at incredible speeds(thank goodness they dont have cheats and are bound by the same rules we are.. they are just faster and more efficient in their decisions to use them than we are)) when your talking about PvP... that 1/10 of a second by itself can easily mean the difference between a win and a buy back screen. i cant count the number of times i finished a balanced PvP fight with less than 10% of my hull left and often with my cockpit screen blown out.
Yup, it would be insanity to fly without using yaw. And talking of insanity, using a monitor + mouse & keyboard combo. Ouch. That would be difficult. I will try to go through one more round of flight tests before this evening. Shit, it's tonight!
So I'm running a little late, like 1,5h later than I was meaning but I'm online naow and will be for some time. Be practicing the stuff.
I managed to run the Incursion tutorial scenario all the way to Big Mama (Anaconda). It appears other people have had varying outfits in Incursion, in my version I have Beam Laser and a cone tracking cannon with ~1200 rounds. I could not really fight Big Mama since I don't know how to fight big ships that have laser and cannon turrets apparently in every direction. Guys gave me a great advice at TS - "RAMMING SPEED!"
I don't want to stop... but 3am and I'm with kids tomorrow. Helmet off, ship landed and to bed. I didn't even remember to eat my mudcake because
sorry i missed it... my brother requested my assistance today and i spent the last 14 hours out of the house driving and pulling trailers for him and his job.
Don't worry, I couldn't start as early as I wanted and I couldn't stay up very long either. Basically I flew the tutorial incursion mission a bit and then joined the game and our group, exited the start station and flew to adjacent system and landed on one of the stations there.
i am downloading the update now... i have been unable to play for the last few days due to 4 days of pain induced insomnia.... now my sleep pattern is completely screwed and will take another few days to sort out.
Had a rough week. Son not sleeping well and lots of technical bs. at work. Quick glance over the listed additions looked very nice
Well, the whole thing stopped working as of this patch so fuck it then. New - it loads some shader stuff, takes like 5 seconds. Then the music starts and I'm left with blank black screen with mouse cursor. Only way to exit is to kill the program. It even makes sounds when I press enter or esc or F12 (realign view) but it's just black. Looking around I can almost make up a different shade of black square in front. Gah. So much for trying it out. ;Edit; Yea, get the initial logo, then it loads the shaders in really fast and then it almost looks like some popup is going to show and then the screen goes black and music is left playing. Guess I'm up for a couple of months wait for them to fix this game.
One thing FDev does very well is fix bugs quickly... they dont allow game breaking bugs to lounge around for months/weeks.. most of the time they are gone in a couple days at most and many times in a few hours they will have a patch up fixing the issue. right now i am dealing with the jump/crash bug and its frustrating resetting the route planners every couple jumps... so i'll take a break for a few hours and check to see if a patch has materialized... this is all after i have filed a bug report.
