Shields and Ballistic vs Laser

[Bruttle]

So there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while now. It's the issue with ballistic weapons and laser weapons. Several times now, I have run into a situation while running a laser loadout on my ships. Out in the PU, I usually run an all energy loadout so I don't have to jump back and forth to reload my ammo. For example, a recent dogfight with a vanguard.

Now, let me preface this by saying I am no ace. I would classify myself as average, maybe slightly above, with my dogfighting skills. I can hit a ship fairly regularly. The only aspect where I do pretty good, is making myself hard to hit. This is particularly applicable in this dogfight where I was in my Super Hornet and flying against a Vanguard.

So we engaged in the fight and overall, it lasted about 10 minutes. I was pretty proud of myself. He never hit me with a missile and he just couldn't seem to get me in his sights. Meanwhile, I was tagging him over and over with my energy weapons. We continued that dance for the entire fight.

I could hit him 2-6 times in a row before I would have to readjust to stay out of his sights. This happened over and over and over, each time his shields recharged to full and I had to start from scratch before I could get my guns back on him. He actually flew that space slug quite well. He almost hit me quite a few times.

Despite the quantity of hits that I landed on his ship, it just was never enough. So I started trying to keep him in my sights for longer. This didn't do much good because either my lasers would overheat, or he would finally be able to hit me. I eventually pushed it too far and he tagged me. Boom. Despite having hit him well over 100 times, I was the one shot down. Meanwhile, he flew away in a fully intact ship.

This pretty much outlines my issues. If you run ballistics, its incredibly easy to shoot down your opponent. However, if you don't want to mess around with ammo, you are pretty much screwed if your opponent is fairly close in skill. If they are nice and dodgy, you just can't land enough hits to get through a good shield.

All in all, that fight was amazing. I had a blast. However, hitting him that many times only to end up being the one waking up at Olisar, was brutal.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Short answer: Alpha.

Longer answer: ships may need a balanced load-out once balancing is done, energy to strip shields and kinetics to tap out on the hulls...

It depends on how they manage that mechanic, might stay as bullets pass the shields but need to take on the armour but have limited rounds and non-regen armour, and lasers need to strip shields but then melt armour instantly but have unlimited shots and unlimited shield respawn.

I hope they don't need shield stripping AND armour piercing and vice-verca, it would be too complicated for my tiny mind and i'd have to just haul Rubbertree products from A to B instead.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

lt's also worth noting the Vanguard has a super high shield refresh, so you can't plink it a little and run a lot. You have to hit it hard all at once.

 

[Printimus]

Balancing is something they are working on along with flight models, soon....soooon

 

[Cherokeedog]

Meanwhile, he flew away in a fully intact ship.

I strongly doubt that. I noticed the damage of your target doesn't update on your hud unless you deselect it and then select it again.

Also, I had my arse glued in a Vanguard's seat for the last two weeks and I can definitely state it ain't that tough. It's wings and engines come off even if you fart too loud inside the cockpit, and once you lose one engine on it, you're a sitting duck. But the shields do regenerate fast.

But I do agree with the problem you bring up about the energy weapons. In PVP, unless you get on the tail of an opponent who's fighting someone else (thus not paying attention to you) or is running, your firing window is very small and rarely enough to take down shields AND do serious damage. If you pay attention to the ships who take first places in Battle Royale, you'll notice most of them use ballistic weapons.

I'm a much better shot with energy weapons, on account of the high projectile speed, but if I want a real chance of winning a fight in the game's current state, I use ballistics.

So yes, all weapons need balancing, in various ways. However, it's good at least that the devs are aware of this.

 

[Bruttle]

I strongly doubt that. I noticed the damage of your target doesn't update on your hud unless you deselect it and then select it again.

Also, I had my arse glued in a Vanguard's seat for the last two weeks and I can definitely state it ain't that tough. It's wings and engines come off even if you fart too loud inside the cockpit, and once you lose one engine on it, you're a sitting duck. But the shields do regenerate fast.

I wish that were the case, but their wings and engines were all present and accounted for. At least they were shortly before I got popped. I did a tight little corkscrew that ended up in a close fly-by right near the end. Seeing that Vanguard fully intact after ~9 minutes of wearing him down really pissed me off. It is what prompted the loss of my patience and a change in strategy to a bolder, more head on approach. It's also what led me to finally getting caught.

I guess that's the thing. I was expecting the ability to "wear them down". After all, it is a tactic that is used as a selling point for some of the ships. When it all comes down to it though, it just doesn't exist. Not really. It may with ballistics but definitely not with energy weapons. You work your ass off to drop the shields and if you don't, the shields just charge right back up. Once they're down though it's almost insta-kill.

I don't know. It just irritates me that any PVP almost requires ballistics. I know that they are almost out with the newest AC balances, but I just needed to bitch about it for a bit...

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I was expecting the ability to "wear them down". After all, it is a tactic that is used as a selling point for some of the ships. When it all comes down to it though, it just doesn't exist. Not really. It may with ballistics but definitely not with energy weapons. You work your ass off to drop the shields and if you don't, the shields just charge right back up. Once they're down though it's almost insta-kill.

I don't know. It just irritates me that any PVP almost requires ballistics.

Or you can wear down the shields with energy and use missiles on the hull. Either way, you cannot plink Vanguards to death given the huge refresh rate their shields have. They come stock with the best shields one can put in that class and the class above. They also come with three times the hull of the smaller fighters. The best way to kill them is the way Vanduul do--lots of heavy firepower all at once.

 

[Radegast74]

So there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while now.
<snip> For example, a recent dogfight with a vanguard.
<snip> I was in my Super Hornet and flying against a Vanguard.

I had a very similar problem with Sabres, so with the understanding that everything in the game is subject to change & with the understanding that I won't bore you with every step/idea/action I took...

In "game lore" the Vanguard and Sabres are actual military ships that came up for sale. This means they have full mil-spec gear (power plants, shields, guns, etc) and are really, really tough.

Similarly in game lore, the Hornet we have is the *civilian* version, with all the top mil-spec gear taken out and replaced by civilian grade stuff, which while good, ain't military grade.

With that in mind, something to try is to at least upgrade your guns, and (I haven't tried this yet) shields, etc. When I started doing this, I realized how ridiculously wimpy the stock weapons on my Hornet were. One of my conclusions was the opposite of yours, that ballistics suck and that laser are the way to go! LOL! I guess it has to do with play & dogfight style. Ballistics run out of ammo *and* can overheat, so right now I'm a fan of lasers.

(BTW - my solution to my Super Hornet losing to Sabres? Spoiler alert -- highlight the text to the right: I bought a Sabre!

 

[DarthMatter]

Am I the only one that is ok with the situation?
The Vanguard is a bigger ship and you shouldn't go after bigger ships alone in a smaller ship.
Just to show my point of view, lets take it to the extreme: should you be able to take out a Javelin with a Hornet?

 

[Sintha]

Am I the only one that is ok with the situation?
The Vanguard is a bigger ship and you shouldn't go after bigger ships alone in a smaller ship.
Just to show my point of view, lets take it to the extreme: should you be able to take out a Javelin with a Hornet?

I was thinking the same thing and agree totally.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Am I the only one that is ok with the situation?
The Vanguard is a bigger ship and you shouldn't go after bigger ships alone in a smaller ship.

I think several of the smaller fighters ought to be able to take out the Vanguard if they are flown to their best advantage. Especially when the Vanguard has hard mounted guns and does not rotate like the real dogfighters, you ought to be able to get in close and avoid getting hit, and take advantage that it can't rotate well.

In Mechwarrior, the corollary was you can take any light or medium mech against a heavy mech, so long as you continually move fast enough to stay out of his targeting "horizon" or range of fire. For most mech pilots, the solution was to "orbit" the slower mech at a distance where you could cross his targetable area at a rate so fast he never had time to get his weapons on you. To do this with a Hornet, you would need to get very, very close, face your subject and then orbit using strafe. If you are at the right distance, you will be able to take advantage of his inability to rotate, but since he can move in another dimension than in MW, this is going to be much harder to do in space, because he will be able to escape your death grip simply by sprinting out in the proper direction.

There is a second option. In the SuperHornet you can target orthogonal to your flight direction with the turret, so you can actually orbit dorsal to the target, facing tangential at greater range, and have your turret gunner blast him. Trouble with this is the Vanguard also has a turret, and if it is manned, even though it is much lower power than the SH's turret, the Vanguard has the faster refreshing shields and 3X the hull. So this is just as difficult and maybe more so, given it requires a second player.

The third option if you're flying ballistic is to get out far enough that he is in range and you are not. This is probably the simplest, and pretty easy to do with the Sledges given the Vanguard is not an acrobat and forms a big target. If you're flying Sledges and he notes you're killing him with range, he will charge you, so have a plan what direction to run away in and return to firing from afar.

In any event, it should be the only way to beat a Vanguard is to take advantage of its lesser maneuverability, since it does have the strongest shields and hull of all the fighters, and VERY powerful guns.

 

[DeepDrum]

I like a ballistic on top of my Hornet. I bind it to the second half of my trigger and group it alone as secondary.
That way I can pick off targets at twice the distance the other 3 panthers can touch them by using the other secondary binding only.
Then as I they get within 1500 m I use the first half of the trigger to save ammo on the ballistic and hit them with 3 panthers only until they get within 1000 m and even 500 m is better.
Then I blast them with both. One ballistic onboard is pretty handy.
When doing missions, I hit cry-astro after every tough fight to rearm the ballistic so it's always on tap.
Rearming countermeasures is also super important.
I got into a stable instance yesterday and went about 3 hours doing missions using that method in my Hornet without a death.
I found this to be a better more accurate ballistic with some range for the Hornet. One needs the proper mount as well.
I think it is a better choice on the SH as well if it fits (I forget). That's just me.
SH still has Missles. They took them off my tracker ;(
Changing groupings is actually easier on the standard Hornets now.
HOLD Z+W and then select or deselect groupings in standard Hornets on the bottom left MFD with the mouse. Too easy. Very nice.
F3 for HUD and then F6 for weapons in the SH like all Hornets used to be.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/electronic-access/Weapon-Roms/Hornet-Flashfire-Specialty-Mount
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/electronic-access/Weapon-Roms/Apocalypse-Arms-Revenant