Fighters and (New) Flight Model?

Texelis · Feb 7, 2021

They're still great, I cut my teeth in the SH. Lots of Arrows, Sentinals, and Hawks out there nowadays.

Graptor · Feb 7, 2021

I almost flew out there with my Cutty last night, but the new version stripped away my upgrades so I figured I would spend some time getting my upgrades back first.

Lorddarthvik · Feb 7, 2021

Blind Owl said:
TESTies,

How have fighters aged with the new(ish) flight model? When last I played, you flew a Sabre/SH or nothing. Are all options viable now? Thinking of trying out this Xenothreat, and honestly, I have no idea where to start with ship selection, as I've touched none for any substantial time in years. It's been too long, haha.

Cheers,

Owl

For the event, both firepower and longevity are necessary. In my experience those who weren't ferrying stuff with their cutty or conny, were in vanguards mostly. Some sabers, hawks were used, as well as banu defenders! Lots.of those alien ships around, seems to work well in the role it's name suggests.

I for one were flying my mighty Aurora MR, with 4 laser repeaters! It's absolutely useless against anything other than arrows and gladi... gladiuseseses? Whatever. So yeah, those small ships.
Problem is that with the current flight model, the Ai will match every single move you make, and stay in front of you, facing you, and shred you to pieces. Other times, it will stumble around, going real slow, that boost away a bit, then go slow again, seemingly aimlessly.
It will alternate between God pilot and useless drunk Testie mode randomly.

Cugino83 · Feb 7, 2021

Blind Owl said:
TESTies,

How have fighters aged with the new(ish) flight model? When last I played, you flew a Sabre/SH or nothing. Are all options viable now? Thinking of trying out this Xenothreat, and honestly, I have no idea where to start with ship selection, as I've touched none for any substantial time in years. It's been too long, haha.

Cheers,

Owl

Generally speaking Sabre is stil a best of a fighter, SH or Hornet in general are a bit of of radar right now due to some issue in shield holes that make them a bit fragile. Also, the front turret is prone to be put out of order preatty easily from basically any hit in the front, so you'll better ditch it in favor of a S2/S3 single weapon.
Otther go-ti figher right now are the Arrow (it sport the same loadout of the Gladius but is far more agile and fragile) and the Talon, for heavy firepower the Vanguard is a go to ship in most case.

Specifically for the event on the pure fighter compartment since most of the enemy targets are Arrow and Valkyrie (and the Idris ofc...) I'll suggest and Arrow or a Vanguard Harbringer: the first will be a cherry for the dogfight especially if equipped with 3x S3 weapon (fixed loadout) while the Harbringer is a durable ship, with heavy weapons and the 3x S6 torpedo could lend na hand in taking down the Idris.
Other then those the Gladiator could be a good alternative to the Vanguard being more agile for the dogfights, while the Sabre is an evergreen in every dogfight scenario (you still can't go wrong with it).

Other good choices for an all-round solution to use in the event are the Avenger Titan and the Nomads: both can do some fight AND have a good cargo ability, so you can either take part in the fight when they arise AND help with the cargo moving.

Mastersan · Feb 7, 2021

Blind Owl said:
TESTies,

How have fighters aged with the new(ish) flight model? When last I played, you flew a Sabre/SH or nothing. Are all options viable now? Thinking of trying out this Xenothreat, and honestly, I have no idea where to start with ship selection, as I've touched none for any substantial time in years. It's been too long, haha.

Cheers,

Owl

On the subject of the new flight model and how fighters are if compared to the old flight model. Things have changes slightly. You now have some aerodynamics, and more aerodynamic ships fly better on planets with dense enough atmosphere, e.g. MicroTech, Hurston. Also, high winds impact your flight. So ships like Super Hornet, Sabre, Arrow, etc., fly a bit better than ships with aerodynamics of a brick (the best aerodynamics by the way) e.g. Aurora, Carrack, etc. But the changes are not dramatic. You still can hover above the ground with the ship's nose down, or fly without a wing, no problem. Nothing like, for example, DCS world flight model.

Gotin · Feb 7, 2021

It's silly

There's no "flight" to it. You simply move the ship around like it's a character in a FPS game. Fly a medium to large size ship? It just moves around like a fat man. Fly a tiny fighter? It darts around like a 5yr old on a sugar high......and hits about as hard.

You can still fly an aerodynamic ship around at the speed of sound while flat spinning it 360° in either x or y. Instead of snapping parts off the airframe it simply slows down a bit.

So....don't sweat it :) If you can play a FPS game you can "fly" in SC. It's why I laugh at all the pvp pilots and their 1337 skillza bruh....go play DCS or IL2 chumps, then talk to me of "dogfighting" :P

NaffNaffBobFace · Feb 7, 2021

Owl - Something you may not be aware of: Auto-gimbals. Press "G" until a dotted circle shows, and any gimbal weapons you have will automatically track your targeted enemy if their aim pip is inside that circle. Have at 'em!

Fixed weapons also get a few degrees of aim assist too, perhaps jump into a solo session of AC and have a try with it.

Vavrik · Feb 7, 2021

NaffNaffBobFace said:
Owl - Something you may not be aware of: Auto-gimbals. Press "G" until a dotted circle shows, and any gimbal weapons you have will automatically track your targeted enemy if their aim pip is inside that circle. Have at 'em!

Fixed weapons also get a few degrees of aim assist too, perhaps jump into a solo session of AC and have a try with it.

I can't aim worth beans, but the auto gimble fixes some of that for me. Good advice.

NaffNaffBobFace · Feb 7, 2021

Vavrik said:
I can't aim worth beans, but the auto gimble fixes some of that for me. Good advice.

Same here, it has changed my loadouts a great deal.

I'd rather have a size lower and actually get hits whereas before I'd go all fixed because I was missing as many shots with manual gimbals as I was with manual fixed so the few shots I did land needed to hit harder to make them count as much as possible.

marcsand2 · Feb 8, 2021

Blind Owl said:
TESTies,

How have fighters aged with the new(ish) flight model? When last I played, you flew a Sabre/SH or nothing. Are all options viable now? Thinking of trying out this Xenothreat, and honestly, I have no idea where to start with ship selection, as I've touched none for any substantial time in years. It's been too long, haha.

Cheers,

Owl

Best fighter still is the Gladius... or the Arrow..... or the Sabre..... or the... whatever, the fighter you can wield the best

Aramsolari · Feb 8, 2021

Yeah. Unfortunately the Super Hornet is kinda meh these day.

I'll say the Gladius/Arrow or Sabre for fast fast pew pew. Alien ships like the Banu Defender and the Flying Parrots are decent too.

The Vanguard variants are pretty popular as well since they hit hard and are pretty tough. The NPC Xenothreat ships are kinda dumb so you should do well in Vanguards despite their lack of agility.

marcsand2 · Feb 8, 2021

Aramsolari said:
Unfortunately the Super Hornet is kinda meh these day

I most of the time fly the Hornet in Xeno. PvP it is a flying coffin, but PvE it can go up to Valkyries without too much problems

Cugino83 · Feb 8, 2021

Blind Owl said:
Holy shit lads, great advice. Thank you. I played that event until 3 am this morning (last night?). What a riot. Looking to dive back in as soon as time affords it. Think I'll use the 200g's to upgrade the Sentinel to battle worthy (need to figure out optimal loadout) or use the Nomad perhaps. Maybe even upgrade the MSR. So many choices.

If you have any doubt about what to do try to take a looks here:
Subliminal

subliminalschannel.tv

This domain may be for sale!

subliminalschannel.tv

this guys spen a LOT of time figuring out how every system works in ship, from weapons to shields passing by coolers, and develope some interesting loadout.
I'm not saying to follow his setting at 100% but they are a good strating point for tune it to YOUR needing and playstyle.

Erkul DPS calculator:

subliminalschannel.tv

This domain may be for sale!

subliminalschannel.tv

This is THE tool to figure out a ship loadout, component prices and performance, just be aware that some weapons feature even if they are actually present in the SC database (the surce of the DPS datas) are not active, so for examplpe, the Atrition sersies DO NOT increase the damage based on the weapons temprature.
Please note that different location can sell tthe same item at different prices.

BUTUZ · Feb 8, 2021

TBH it's the best ship to ship combat weapon and missile balance has been since 2.3 but the desync is real nasty which is a real shame,.

Shadow Reaper · Feb 9, 2021

Cugino83 said:
If you have any doubt about what to do try to take a looks here:
Subliminal

subliminalschannel.tv

This domain may be for sale!

subliminalschannel.tv

this guys spen a LOT of time figuring out how every system works in ship, from weapons to shields passing by coolers, and develop some interesting loadout.
I'm not saying to follow his setting at 100% but they are a good starting point for tune it to YOUR needing and playstyle.

I almost always agree with Subliminal, but I disagree completely about the main guns. First, he didn't note the problem with very different pips for almost all combinations of S2 and S5 weapons. That's a problem. Second, he wants to kill shields before hull and I'll never think that's a good idea. Especially with components that can go out from a single structural hit, you want to hit the target first thing, not kill shields.

I suggest go 4 BVRS in the nose for high speed to target, and real damage from first hit, and the M7A on the chin since it has the same pip. Two stage trigger fires unlimited ammo out to 5km with the laser, and squeeze a little more when your target gets near 2 km. Using the same pip for both weapons should result in more hits and faster kills.

marcsand2 · Feb 9, 2021

Shadow Reaper said:
I almost always agree with Subliminal, but I disagree completely about the main guns. First, he didn't note the problem with very different pips for almost all combinations of S2 and S5 weapons. That's a problem. Second, he wants to kill shields before hull and I'll never think that's a good idea. Especially with components that can go out from a single structural hit, you want to hit the target first thing, not kill shields.

I suggest go 4 BVRS in the nose for high speed to target, and real damage from first hit, and the M7A on the chin since it has the same pip. Two stage trigger fires unlimited ammo out to 5km with the laser, and squeeze a little more when your target gets near 2 km. Using the same pip for both weapons should result in more hits and faster kills.

Try 5 overclocked GT215s on a Hornet. Unfortunately the wing guns still don't shoot correct when they are fixed, so 3 GT220s and 1 Revenant is not an option, OK, then 5 GT215s. 85% of the DPS, double the ammo.

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