Jim "Black Bones" Bundy
Captain
These guidelines might also interest you: http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries
(Definitely some good pieces of advice in there^^)
Piracy Privateer
- Thread starter Shadow Reaper
- Start date
(Definitely some good pieces of advice in there^^)
Here is some good stuff that shows the difference between "room clearing" and "hallway clearing", both of which are very important for taking ships. IMHO, hallway clearing is more important and less understood. If you plan to take ships these are things your team should practice with discipline. Use VOIP and do not joke or talk when in operations so that you can communicate well. You can't be heard when someone is cracking jokes so there is reason to really RP when taking ships.
Room clearing: http://www.cqb-team.com/tactical_trainer.php
And Hallway clearing, especially note the differences between the Serpentine and Rolling-T techniques. These differences exist because they save fraction of a second and that is all the time you have to put the bad guy down before he hits you.
http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/stevenfetterley/506/hallwayclearing2.html
I was just watching a fun commentator in a gun battle and when he died he complained that he was "0 for 4". Well yeah, because he did literally everything wrong he could have. He was blaming it on the weapon but he had a shotgun at very close range and failed to fire until his target was down, which is just wrong. Likewise, the idea of turning and running away from a fight when you are there to fight is just silly. If you understand the idea behind using speed to clear rooms, you know you do not turn around and run. You clear a path with your weapon, which means you keep firing until each target is down.
Room clearing: http://www.cqb-team.com/tactical_trainer.php
And Hallway clearing, especially note the differences between the Serpentine and Rolling-T techniques. These differences exist because they save fraction of a second and that is all the time you have to put the bad guy down before he hits you.
http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/stevenfetterley/506/hallwayclearing2.html
I was just watching a fun commentator in a gun battle and when he died he complained that he was "0 for 4". Well yeah, because he did literally everything wrong he could have. He was blaming it on the weapon but he had a shotgun at very close range and failed to fire until his target was down, which is just wrong. Likewise, the idea of turning and running away from a fight when you are there to fight is just silly. If you understand the idea behind using speed to clear rooms, you know you do not turn around and run. You clear a path with your weapon, which means you keep firing until each target is down.
Jim "Black Bones" Bundy
Captain
And never ever throw your weapon if you don't have another with you!^^
No srsly thx for your dedication!
Wow. Thanks gents. I'll add this to my list of things to explore.
Lots of good points on both of those, i have my fair share of experience with the military pertaining to breaching and clearing a building, and its hard to apply all of those techniques to games, but they do still apply, if somewhat differently, however, speed never changes.
You need to move fast, but also deliberately, you are useless if you cant keep your weapon on target or if you are tripping yourself because you are moving too fast. Best thing i ever heard was "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, fast is lethal." My unit ran room clearing drills constantly, anytime a new guy joined the unit, we retrained at a crawling pace to make sure he understood what we were doing and why. Plus, once everyone can do their job good at a slow pace you can start upping the speed. The key is the translation between the pace you move, and how smoothly and effectively you can do your job. If you can do your job smoothly and effectively, you become faster at it naturally. Thus making you more lethal.
And the breaching triangle applies to both Real Life, and videos games imo. Speed, Suprise, Violence of Action. All key elements, and you cant have one with out the others.
All in all, if anyone ever wants to work on room clearing techniques im happy to help, we can do it in star citizen sort of. of course there are a multitude of games that you can practice and apply these tactics to. the ARMA Series is prolly the best all around simulation with the ability to set up a custom MOUT Course and pop-up targets or even targets that return fire, along with the ability to modify your loadouts etc. another good game, that i still play is SWAT 4, its an insanely good game for room clearing and practicing these techniques. Only thing i dont like about it is the lack of iron sights/sight usage in general. Other good games include America's Army: Proving Grounds (Free), Insurgency, and even Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm series is decent. I try to avoid mainstream games like COD and CS:GO, because its rare to get a team that actually works good together. I almost forgot to mention, Rainbow Six: Siege. Its got its bad parts, but overall its a good game to play against other players and try to complete the objective, you not only learn good ways to breach, but also good ways to give you a decent advantage against breachers.
I had heard that too. Sounds right to me.
I will certainly look to your leadership and training for this. I think it's as much a key to success in privateering as combat piloting, and there is no replacement for good team work. I do suggest we find ways to practice in game not only so we have the rewards of running the harder missions, but because any time there is a significant difference between games, we don't want to practice the wrong things. For example, if a wall corner is soft and lets shots through, we want to learn and use that--don't hide behind a corner and shoot at the corner. If the corners are hard we don't want to practice shooting at them.
The biggest thing though seems to me is to be focused. This guy who complained he had just gone 0 for 4 shot a PC in the chest at point blank range with his shotgun, and then waited to get shot dead himself. The guy's target was wearing armor. Why would you stop shooting until he was down? And the turning your back to get all shot up from behind is so bush league we have to hope PC enemies will do that.
This thread must not die. @Shadow Reaper's Reavers must be a thing.
Okay so, what's a cheap Privateering rig?
I am still liking the Reliant Tana fit with 4 fixed Suckerpunch Distortion Cannon's (DC's) and another pair on each wingtip turret for a total of 8, if the "high output" S2 reactor can manage that and the shields too. If not then leave the DC's on the wingtips as primary and put something like Longswords as fixed. However I think the little S2 that could might be enough and that is what I am hoping for.
If I understand the intention behind the "power limited DPS" here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nU2Ten4SWLfPrB92PsuJ2xNEevBDc5Rkqr7jsusGUAE/edit#gid=278523881
it is that weapons have burst period where they are at full DPS, and that burst period for the DC's is their "burst time" with is only 2.8 seconds, but that is what you want. You want to be able to shoot and shoot with your primaries and when you know you have a a kill shot hit your secondaries. 8 DC's should do I,200 distortion damage per second, which looks like enough to take out most targets in a single salvo. This is not even considering fitting spike missiles. I am thinking it is the little ship that could. Many smaller weapons are more efficient than fewer larger ones, if you can keep them all trained on target.
So hopefully with a little Tana a good crew can immobilize opponents, Vanduul, pirates, Banu, Xi'an, Outsiders, even the Krell and of course The Corporation. What do you do with them once they're dead and drifting?
No matter how capable it seems to me you need both a hunter and a gatherer. Whether you fly an EMP Generator on a Warlock or 8 DC's, someone needs to come cut open the can. I still think the best solution here is the Reclaimer. If you can jump into a system with great precision, grab a disabled target and pull it in, I think you can keep a Reclaimer crew constantly busy. It is really the perfect pirate. . .I mean privateering home. If you can somehow rig it to refuel a Tana, so much the better. I think though, that is all you really need is a pair aboard a Tana to hunt, and a ghastly band of brigands to gather. One could grow wealthy very quickly.
The Reclaimer dwarfs the Star-G and could almost fit an entire fueling ship inside. Anything I00 meters or less ought to fit. One could swallow whole, entire pirate Caterpillars with all their Dragonflies, so why buy them? It is choosing just the right targets that is the challenge.
So let me ask, what sort of flexibility do you have with the quantum drive? Do you have to choose a waypoint or can you input specific coordinates?
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As a cheap rig, this sounds pretty bad ass. I'll probably use either my Bucky or my Sabre, outfitted with some distortion cannons for this purpose. Not quite cheap rigs, but rigs nonetheless.
If you're operating solo (not counting the Reclaimer, just attack ships), you'd most certainly need to pick your targets. You don't want to end up biting off more than you can chew.
This. I'd never thought of this. For the purpose of capturing ships whole, this is pretty brilliant. You have the capacity to carry shock troops, and to take the entire vessel. Pull the vessel in, jump out. While that's happening, send in the troops to secure the vessel.
Will the larger/largish ships whole into the Reclaimer? If so...
The possibilities are endless.
I'd always leaned towards disable, board, capture, jump out. Which could be done with much smaller ships. Cutlass, Caterpillar, etc.
But this plan, Haha. I love it.
For immersion purposes, being able to input manual waypoints to others in your party just makes sense. Who's to say if that mechanic will be allowed. Dropping in right on top of your target would be awesome. Mitigate that travel time from the quantum point to target.
You'd think for the purpose of pirating they'd ensure this mechanic is in place. Otherwise you'll face a mess of disabling, and disabling again until your boarding party/capture ship is on site.
That or you'd have to be really good as the pirates. At ambushing, disabling, and having your capture team close enough to close the distance to target fast.
Yes, but what may turn out to be the most important result is that NPC's are slated for some very advanced AI that includes things like morale checks. If a Vanduul pilot finds he can't get his gunship out of where he's gotten, he may well not go all explodey. We need to find out. Most players will not blow themselves up and in fact there will be pretty severe consequences for this. I think we only get nine lives per handle, so if you want to become a legend in your own mind, you need of stay alive, and when your whole ship has been captured past all contest, you are more likely to turn it over.
Especially if you're using a pulse generator to disable and the pulsing ship is also disabled, you want the recovery team on site in seconds, or reinforcements may arrive in time to thwart a boarding. In and out fast is key. The Reclaimer has advanced long jump engines so it can tractor in a target and jump to another system before anyone can say 'bob's your uncle".
We should plan on this. If you don't know you have a Reclaimer or other boarding vessel on standby, any other ship with DC's could serve to tag team an opponent and keep him down, but disabling over and over again will likely become a dicey at best art. Computer cores are only vulnerable while they're running, so they need to come back up to be knocked out again. I don't think you can just keep them down by regularly pulsing with a Joker. Also note most wise players will be using VOIP to connect with friends while playing, and the VOIP does not go down when the ship is knocked senseless. (BTW I keep forgetting to mention, this has vast repercussions for those using voice activated weapons systems. You are going to find that harder to use when working in large groups, where radio discipline is a must.)
One thing is for sure, CIG's intention is to make boarding actions possible, but extremely difficult. They're planning to make defending any given ship easier than taking it, so what one wants is to look for instances where the players aren't playing, but their ships are still vulnerable. Players who work in deep space who don't want to pay for the fuel to return to port, and so lay-over on an asteroid or planet are the ones who's ships will be most vulnerable. They will be hard to find, and will no doubt require extended periods of time to find, shadow, and wait for them to bed down. That is the only way I can think of to minimize casualties on the assault team--hit them while the players themselves are sleeping, working, going to school, etc.
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True fact. The perma-death aspect will make many players less likely to take stupid risks. Although your legacy does continue, just passed to a new avatar, with perhaps a new name. This will matter to some, and not at all to others.
Regardless, unless someone is a compete lunatic, they shouldn't be self-destructing at the first sign of being captured. One would hope so anyways. There's always the chance that the boarders will let you live.
Hmmmm. I have many CCUs between the large ships. Maybe the 'Claimer will be a better choice than the Carrack. I'd like to see if this becomes a viable option. If the mechanics allow for it, then I'll buy into it. With vigor. Just another ship battle in my mind. ;)
Again, it's going to depend on how they implement the mechanics. Until then, it's theorycrafting at best. However, we can still practice maneuvers such as team disabling, and testing lengths of time that ships are down etc. It would also behoove us to practice cruising onto certain positions. I'm thinking about one ship acting as the boarding/capture vessel, (we could use a Starfarer for practice, as they're flyable) waiting outside the fight, then cruising in and stopping on top of the disabled target. This will be a great contingency, especially of we end up unable to quantum to specific locations.
I've found that I'm capable of running discord on push to talk, and my Voice Attack the rest of the time. I also, however, have all my commands mapped to my HOTAS. So if shots getting heated. I just disable my voice attack (with a voice command) and maintain my VOIP for the duration of the fight/op.
Meta-gaming at it's best. From what I understand though, there will be mechanics in place to protect those vessels after logout. We may just have to fight. Which will make it highly rewarding when we do capture said vessel. It'll also be incentive for us to get really good at our ops.
DcTrojan72
Vice Admiral
Well shit, you called my bluff. Now im just gonna go explody so im not called a liar! As for using a claimer, i shall boldly volunteer myself snd claimer to pioneer the art of umm.. combat rescue.. yea thats what we'll call it when i use the jaws of life... must reacue all the shinies that have been taken hostage.
Someeone please get this guy a cigar, a large glass of tequila and a seat at the table.
Starfarers are a dime a dozen. Anyone can pluck one off a pad almost 24/7, and often without injuring anyone. No need to pay. . .and that would be bad practice. ;)
I'm not sure I want to call it "metagaming" but it is awfully close. There are certainly game dynamics and limitations to be considered in planning any strategy.
Another example is that since all instances will be limited to how many ships can be included, for large encounters we probably want to put as many ships into a conflict as possible and then as ships from either aside are destroyed, we rush to replace them with our own. In this way a Vanduul horde continually shrinks and our forces continually grow, and one hopes we remove the opportunity for Vanduul reinforcements to any major conflict. Though this does meet the general criteria for "metagaming" in some ways, it is also true that if we don't fill the skies with our ships, the AI for the server will. The Vanduul, pirates, Xi'an, Krell, Outsiders, etc., have unlimited reinforcements available, so the wise commander will seek to cut those off through judicious use of the game dynamics, whatever they are.
So with sleeping players. Ships without beds appear will always be fair game, and those with beds will have strict time limitations how long the crew can be away. This is why I think hunting is going to require great stealth and patience, and two-man stealth hunters like the Reliant could become the optimal choice. We'll see. And note, it doesn't matter who is aboard, when they sleep or whether their ship has a bed, if it is stuck inside a Reclaimer.
You'll fit right in here. Ha.
Done, done and done.
I'm liking the look of this endeavor. Enterprise. Conglomerate.
DcTrojan72
Vice Admiral
Oh hell yea, this has shenanigans written all over it.! Those cigars are cuban right?
Haha, no need to risk my Beerfarer for the sake of practice then. Just steal someone else's. That way if one overshoots the practice cruise runs and plows into the target, no-one is seriously out. Except the poor sot who left his farer on the pad.
Are instance caps filled with ships, or player characters?
Because if it's player characters, then enemy AI can spawn indefinitely. If it's ships, we can jump in our players to replace the destroyed AI ships.
In PvP it may work, if the player who's destroyed in the battle is removed from the instance. However, at the moment they are not. I'm basing this off of the game we have now, where there are multiple instances, but none overlap.
In the finished game, there will be multiple instances that do overlap.
For instance, large cap ships will be their own instance inside the larger area instance. Depending on the side of the fight, the battle itself could be multiple instances overlapping. Players jumping into the fight will be coming from another instance altogether. That's a lot of instancing.
So destroyed players should respawn outside of the battle instance, leaving room for our PCs to jump in.
Yes. They will need a base or a carrier to land or dock to be safe.
Really? Hmmmmm. Dunno what I think about this. If I settle my Carrack or Reclaimer somewhere, and leave for a month on RL exercise, I expect my ship to be right where I left her when I return.
Within reason I reckon. If I know I'm going to be gone, I'll try to leave her somewhere safe. But if I'm exploring the far reaches of space, and I log out, I expect my ship to be safe. Should something unexpected come up, and I can't log back on within a prescribed amount of time, I'll be some irate if my ship is gone.
I'm Canadian. Cuban cigars aren't hard to acquire. ;)
I believe it was BoredGamer (whom I trust for the latest intel) who said it is currently I6 ships and will hopefully be expanded to 32. It is definitely ships, as these are the primary drain on the instance resources.
They will connect, but they're still instances and will likely not exceed 32 ships in a single battle-space for the foreseeable future. Who knows what servers will be capable of years from now. . .
I believe that is correct. The devil is in the details. The protocols for entering an established instance are the real issue here, and no one has spoken about this at all yet, so far as I'm aware. ***With sufficient ships we could begin checking on this now.***
Only if no one finds it and decides to take it. Much better to leave it in a hangar where it will indeed be safe. This is why I have noted in the past, that the really big cap ships are a huge drain on personnel, because they can't be put into storage. My guess is though, that they form some sort of exception to the general rule and will be safe wherever they are, or every pirate crew would be looking to steal PC owned Bengals.
Count on it if you leave it in open space unattended. There was a note on this a few weeks ago that different ships will be "safe" for different periods of time, but none of them will be safe indefinitely unless they're hangared or form some sort of exception, like a Cap ship.
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