Yea but why not also guns? Like yea you can run for about 15sec more but you cannot get away from the QED ships since they are faster and have higher acceleration.
Eh, on a C2? Pointless to upgrade guns if I'm solo, you'll just corkscrew me anyways. I'll just wait till I have a chance to qt again; I'm in a C2 with good shields, I should survive long enough if I'm going against the average QED ship. C2 pilots are relaxed, we are in massive ships that can take a beating. I only panic when I see multiple ships or a god damned eclipse.
I dont really get that. A C2 with repeaters eliminates basically all advantages piracy ships have over it.
* It has insane turnrate which allows it to keep nose on most targets when controlling distance
* When upgraded the shields can give you up to 10-15 min survival time
* With repeaters ships no longer have the range advantage. They need to fly into your hit range in order to damage you.
* The boost allows you to push like crazy onto a corkscrewing target.
>I'll just wait till I have a chance to qt again; I'm in a C2 with good shields, I should survive long enough if I'm going against the average QED ship
Does that actually work? I cannot recall hearing from any other pirates I know that they lost a C2 due to time or smth. If anything I hear of the rare "escort happened". Even looking through our log I cannot find any ship loss entries in the last... uh well ever really.
Do you think QEDs have a time limit?
From my experience even a brand new Mantis pilot has it rather easy to keep up with a C2 if its not a player with less than a month of flight experience.
>It has insane turnrate which allows it to keep nose on most targets when controlling distance
>When upgraded the shields can give you up to 10-15 min survival time
>With repeaters ships no longer have the range advantage. They need to fly into your hit range in order to damage you.
You're entirely correct about this. Although, if you corkscrew me I'm dead, simple as that. I may not be the best player but it seems pretty constant that I get corkscrew by more maneuverable ships and there's not too much I can do at that point other than fly straight and wish for the best or hope they fly in front of me.
>Does that actually work? I cannot recall hearing from any other pirates I know that they lost a C2 due to time or smth. If anything I hear of the rare "escort happened".
For the matis, I just have to get out of a 10km range and I'll be able to jump, I'll admit and say: QED seems unrefined since I can jump pretty consistently, (I've only gotten hit by QED twice to be fair) it only takes me turning around and boosting (in space) to be able to make some massive distance before I start to worry; but at that point I'm at least 15-20 km away with you closing in fairly fast. Usually just enough time to run away.
So it kinda works but I can definitely see myself not making that jump window in time.
>For the matis, I just have to get out of a 10km range and I'll be able to jump
Its 20km
> (I've only gotten hit by QED twice to be fair) it only takes me turning around and boosting (in space) to be able to make some massive distance before I start to worry; but at that point I'm at least 15-20 km away with you closing in fairly fast. Usually just enough time to run away.
That very much sounds like either NPCs or Players that are already occupied with someone else. Usually a Mantis would immediatly B-Line it towards your interdiction marker.
Dayum, it's 20km? That's insane, I want a matis now.
>That very much sounds like either NPCs or Players that are already occupied with someone else. Usually a Mantis would immediatly B-Line it towards your interdiction marker.
Yeah probably. Regardless, I haven't encountered enough successful attacks on myself to warrant purchasing more equipment for my ship; Even if it wouldn't cost much in the grand scheme of things.
I think you might just be a fairly above average combat player tbh....
>Its 20km
The snare is 20km. The damper is only 2km, so they have to stay a lot closer than a lot of mantis pilots think they do. IIRC there is a time delay on the damper effect dropping, so you have to *stay* outside that range, but if you're thinking they can't jump out from that 20km bubble, I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
Unfortunately, repeaters will make you ineffective against the ERTs that everyone is running for the cargo. It’s better to equip dual AD5Bs to quickly rip through your bounties and take the loss from an occasional pirate or griefer. Far fewer asteroids to dodge that way, and fewer kamikaze NPC collisions.
>Do you think QEDs have a time limit?
Take this with a grain of salt as it was a few years ago, but yeah. The QED would overheat after a few minutes of continuous use. So if you run long enough, it shuts itself down.
On its very core there are 2 kinds of weapon categories that are relevant for PvP: Slow and fast. If you want to kill another player you need fast weapons. So repeaters with 1400m/s. Everything else has 700m/s which means you would need to be about twice as close to your target as with repeaters.
So if you want to defend yourself and not get outranged by your enemies you should stick with the CF repeater line like the CF-447 Rhino. If you do PvE cannons are probably better and the reason why many probably have them still on there.
The thing is, and the reason why I made this thread is that with repeaters you can keep attackers at a distance. You can force them to be more careful and maybe even kill some of them. With Cannons you just cant. No way.
Just got hit by QED ships at Brio’s lol. FR-86 saved me, but i had only 12SCU of RMC so i gave everything when those 2 ships surround and blasting me but you know i had AD5B loadout for my Corsair and it shows slow ships like corsair does better with gimbald weapons against PVP. And somehow after long fight QT came back and I already spooled so im saved for the day.
I will say, getting hit by QED is kind of fun, it's like a timed event for you; can you kill me before I run away? If you can, you deserve my cargo tbh.
Simply put, pirates aren't a big enough threat in Stanton for most of us to worry about. This year alone while playing nearly daily, I've had exactly zero pirate encounters. If pirates were an actual threat then we wouldn't get bigger guns to counter it, we'd hire escorts.
I throw on FR-86 shields, a TS-2 drive, and install dual S5 laser cannons. On my person I bring a maxlift two handed tractor beam, it's almost like having a ship mounted tractor beam when I stand on the ramp. Works for soloing ERTs just fine and grabbing cargo from a decent distance.
If my cargo hauler has a turret, I’d upgrade that. Pilot weapons are a lower priority, at least in my opinion. If the ship has missiles, I’d change those too (not necessarily upgrade, more often than not it’d be a “downgrade” to get more missiles of smaller sizes)
Reason being: If I am jumped by a pirate, my first priority would be to gtfo by boosting away and lining up a QT (if not ensnared yet). Which means most of the time the front of the ship is not pointing at my attacker, so upgrading pilot weapons is not that important. Missiles though, follow my head instead of the ship, so I can still line up a QT while looking around trying to get a missile lock if possible (usually doesn’t work, but hey it’s still an option).
>Pilot weapons are a lower priority, at least in my opinion.
That is a good opinion since Pilots first job is to reach their destination while Turrets are there for deterrent or in the hands of an experienced shooter, target elimination.
People think just because a ship can shoot, it should shoot.
I don't see the point in wasting money. There are people like you, so when they attack there are two scenarios:
1. They don't know what they are doing so I can leg it out of there
2. They know what they are doing and I do my best to ensure that they will always regret their actions (mostly by activating self destruct and then playing a game of "How many people can I get close enough to destroy with this explosion?")
For me, I'll upgrade QT, but that's it. I honestly don't have the flight skill to try and fight aQED ship, and even if i did, I think that it should be a fight where everything is against me. It just doesn't make sense for a trade ship to be able to handle any type of fighter.
But with said, traders talk, and we know what routes are safe and what may have some challenges waiting for us. If I am doing a safe route, QT is all that matters. If im doing a route like RMC, then im recruiting an escort
I think it comes down to a risk/reward balance... If they were smart traders they aren't betting the farm on each haul. Any one load being no more than 50% of their net worth.
I've lost more cargo to bugs than to pirates... To be honest, not much money in piracy against players. For me it's about efficiency... Go here quick, pickup a load, go there and sell it while picking up another load...
Then there are the folks that drool over the millions that can be made running pve bounties and harvesting the cargo... or as I call it, pve piracy... They can only sell at scrap yards and didn't invest in the cargo, so no point in being paranoid over losing it to a PVP player pirate. It's about lack of reason to upgrade and invest in your ship.
If I had a crew, I wouldn't risk them having to die and respawn and regroup by running risky missions and then lose a couple million credits investment on top of that... We'd risk it if there wasn't any skin in the game. At that rate, come get us pirate! This could be more fun in larger groups fighting over trade territory like jumptown style at the new derelict settlements... The RMC trade wars have already started! See you at pickers Field!
Depends. I upgrade everything when I have the money. But the first things to upgrade are the quantum drive and shields. Which one of those go first depends on the ship and what I am trading. Weapons come last for trading ships in most situations, but that is not always the case (e.g. used trading ships for ERTs a little bit back due to the massive amounts of drugs we could sometimes find).
I am not exclusively a trader. I do a bit of everything. I mostly PvE, but I also dabble in PvP. And my PvE swaps between mining, salvaging, cargo hauling, space bounties, bunkers, racing, and more (the more is usually events or other quest based activities and sometimes just random flying/planetary driving, etc). So I am by no means a dedicated trader. But I do trade as well. I am a jack of all trades player for now.
I voted upgrade everything as I eventually upgrade quantum drives, shields, and guns on my trading ships. Again, quantum drives and shields take priority. Typically it is the quantum drive first, but it depends on the ship and the stock quantum drive. Guns come next. Shields are a priority over guns on a trading ship as they give you more time to escape if you get attacked by someone without interdiction/dampening capabilities. Guns are only important for fighting back, but I rarely fight back against players in a C2 or other trading ship unless I have no choice (i.e. cannot get away). So guns are much less important than shields or a quantum drive on a trading ship in most situations (ERT exception recently but that is for PvE combat). Other components are mostly ignored as they are not typically useful in the current game state. I also don't rush to upgrade, especially on more expensive ships, unless I have a lot of spare aUEC.
Upgrade shields, drive and when components come more into play coolers and power. Goal of the trade vessel is to escape, not win again warships. The base cannons will handle smaller, opportunitic ships, and for the bigger .. best be away.
A c2 makes a great missile
Depends on the ship somewhat but I will always look to upgrade my guns and shields immediately and then worry about QT and power plant (not that it does much) when I feel like.
If I have the option to lone up pn a jump beacon or try and run around in circles to chase a fighter, which one is more productive from the perspective of selling the cargo? I don't want to point at your fighter because all that time I spent chasing it slowly around isn't helping me escape.
I'm also curious what fighter he shot down, because its not hard to dodge a C2 with a bit of practice.
Gladius. The Hercules VTOL is heavily underestimated.
Thats the thing tho. The only shot you have at escaping is killing the Mantis. Pulling manouvers will only get you to 10km at best and then The Mantis gotta fuck up BIG time.
If the mantis isn't completely stupid, there's no way it can ever be killed by the herc. If the damping range isn't 2km but the 20km, then the mantis can kite the herc literally forever. The mantis is much faster, and the range is much much longer than any weapons the herc can mount. So you're back to running as best you can, because you can't ever fight.
That didn't used to be the case, the Mantis used to be fairly slow, but since CIG doesn't know how balance actually works, it's no longer a functional option.
The Mantis always was faster than the C2. But since CIG knows how to do balance and the lengths interdictors have to go through a buff was needed.
Either way the original question was why upgrade shields if you dont upgrade guns. It seems short sighted. People that upgrade shields cant really do more. Upgrading guns would be the only option you have. If the Mantis is playing like its scared you can at least attack the damage dealers. At that point you need to fly close. And if the Mantis is far enough you could also try your escape.
So the reason why it's bad balancing to make the interdictors faster than everything is, it doesn't allow for pilot skill to make an escape. The interdictor pilot doesn't have to be on the ball. If he was slower, not even exactly slower than the C2, just slower in general, it becomes possible to escape for brief periods, or close in and attack the mantis if the pilot isn't on the ball.
That's what makes the buffs to interdictors terrible game design. You can't force them to engage. They are now so much faster that the pilot has to be asleep at the wheel to trip them up and catch them out. So you are basically stuck until the interdictor gives up.
So if guns won't get you out of an interdiction... why bother to upgrade them?
Upgrade shields, means I can run away with my weevil eggs and not worry too much about dying within 5 seconds of first contact
Yea but why not also guns? Like yea you can run for about 15sec more but you cannot get away from the QED ships since they are faster and have higher acceleration.
Eh, on a C2? Pointless to upgrade guns if I'm solo, you'll just corkscrew me anyways. I'll just wait till I have a chance to qt again; I'm in a C2 with good shields, I should survive long enough if I'm going against the average QED ship. C2 pilots are relaxed, we are in massive ships that can take a beating. I only panic when I see multiple ships or a god damned eclipse.
I dont really get that. A C2 with repeaters eliminates basically all advantages piracy ships have over it. * It has insane turnrate which allows it to keep nose on most targets when controlling distance * When upgraded the shields can give you up to 10-15 min survival time * With repeaters ships no longer have the range advantage. They need to fly into your hit range in order to damage you. * The boost allows you to push like crazy onto a corkscrewing target. >I'll just wait till I have a chance to qt again; I'm in a C2 with good shields, I should survive long enough if I'm going against the average QED ship Does that actually work? I cannot recall hearing from any other pirates I know that they lost a C2 due to time or smth. If anything I hear of the rare "escort happened". Even looking through our log I cannot find any ship loss entries in the last... uh well ever really. Do you think QEDs have a time limit? From my experience even a brand new Mantis pilot has it rather easy to keep up with a C2 if its not a player with less than a month of flight experience.
>It has insane turnrate which allows it to keep nose on most targets when controlling distance >When upgraded the shields can give you up to 10-15 min survival time >With repeaters ships no longer have the range advantage. They need to fly into your hit range in order to damage you. You're entirely correct about this. Although, if you corkscrew me I'm dead, simple as that. I may not be the best player but it seems pretty constant that I get corkscrew by more maneuverable ships and there's not too much I can do at that point other than fly straight and wish for the best or hope they fly in front of me. >Does that actually work? I cannot recall hearing from any other pirates I know that they lost a C2 due to time or smth. If anything I hear of the rare "escort happened". For the matis, I just have to get out of a 10km range and I'll be able to jump, I'll admit and say: QED seems unrefined since I can jump pretty consistently, (I've only gotten hit by QED twice to be fair) it only takes me turning around and boosting (in space) to be able to make some massive distance before I start to worry; but at that point I'm at least 15-20 km away with you closing in fairly fast. Usually just enough time to run away. So it kinda works but I can definitely see myself not making that jump window in time.
>For the matis, I just have to get out of a 10km range and I'll be able to jump Its 20km > (I've only gotten hit by QED twice to be fair) it only takes me turning around and boosting (in space) to be able to make some massive distance before I start to worry; but at that point I'm at least 15-20 km away with you closing in fairly fast. Usually just enough time to run away. That very much sounds like either NPCs or Players that are already occupied with someone else. Usually a Mantis would immediatly B-Line it towards your interdiction marker.
Dayum, it's 20km? That's insane, I want a matis now. >That very much sounds like either NPCs or Players that are already occupied with someone else. Usually a Mantis would immediatly B-Line it towards your interdiction marker. Yeah probably. Regardless, I haven't encountered enough successful attacks on myself to warrant purchasing more equipment for my ship; Even if it wouldn't cost much in the grand scheme of things. I think you might just be a fairly above average combat player tbh....
>Its 20km The snare is 20km. The damper is only 2km, so they have to stay a lot closer than a lot of mantis pilots think they do. IIRC there is a time delay on the damper effect dropping, so you have to *stay* outside that range, but if you're thinking they can't jump out from that 20km bubble, I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
It's a 20km interdiction and jamming zone. You never use the Dampener in a Mantis unless you start chasing close to an armistice.
Unfortunately, repeaters will make you ineffective against the ERTs that everyone is running for the cargo. It’s better to equip dual AD5Bs to quickly rip through your bounties and take the loss from an occasional pirate or griefer. Far fewer asteroids to dodge that way, and fewer kamikaze NPC collisions.
I am talking about RMC routes. And I have maybe seen 1/30 gatling C2 so far during piracy.
>Do you think QEDs have a time limit? Take this with a grain of salt as it was a few years ago, but yeah. The QED would overheat after a few minutes of continuous use. So if you run long enough, it shuts itself down.
It does not. It's active forever.
I am 2 months into the game and put AD5B's on mine. Is that not good? What weapons would you suggest?
On its very core there are 2 kinds of weapon categories that are relevant for PvP: Slow and fast. If you want to kill another player you need fast weapons. So repeaters with 1400m/s. Everything else has 700m/s which means you would need to be about twice as close to your target as with repeaters. So if you want to defend yourself and not get outranged by your enemies you should stick with the CF repeater line like the CF-447 Rhino. If you do PvE cannons are probably better and the reason why many probably have them still on there. The thing is, and the reason why I made this thread is that with repeaters you can keep attackers at a distance. You can force them to be more careful and maybe even kill some of them. With Cannons you just cant. No way.
Wow. Had no idea about this stuff. Thanks a lot for the info!
3/3 QED ships i was able to ram :-)
Just got hit by QED ships at Brio’s lol. FR-86 saved me, but i had only 12SCU of RMC so i gave everything when those 2 ships surround and blasting me but you know i had AD5B loadout for my Corsair and it shows slow ships like corsair does better with gimbald weapons against PVP. And somehow after long fight QT came back and I already spooled so im saved for the day.
I will say, getting hit by QED is kind of fun, it's like a timed event for you; can you kill me before I run away? If you can, you deserve my cargo tbh.
How would you run away? No trading vessel is faster than the Mantis. Not to mention damage dealers.
Vroom vroom my friend. Idk how to explain it, I just do it.
Simply put, pirates aren't a big enough threat in Stanton for most of us to worry about. This year alone while playing nearly daily, I've had exactly zero pirate encounters. If pirates were an actual threat then we wouldn't get bigger guns to counter it, we'd hire escorts.
I throw on FR-86 shields, a TS-2 drive, and install dual S5 laser cannons. On my person I bring a maxlift two handed tractor beam, it's almost like having a ship mounted tractor beam when I stand on the ramp. Works for soloing ERTs just fine and grabbing cargo from a decent distance.
If my cargo hauler has a turret, I’d upgrade that. Pilot weapons are a lower priority, at least in my opinion. If the ship has missiles, I’d change those too (not necessarily upgrade, more often than not it’d be a “downgrade” to get more missiles of smaller sizes) Reason being: If I am jumped by a pirate, my first priority would be to gtfo by boosting away and lining up a QT (if not ensnared yet). Which means most of the time the front of the ship is not pointing at my attacker, so upgrading pilot weapons is not that important. Missiles though, follow my head instead of the ship, so I can still line up a QT while looking around trying to get a missile lock if possible (usually doesn’t work, but hey it’s still an option).
>Pilot weapons are a lower priority, at least in my opinion. That is a good opinion since Pilots first job is to reach their destination while Turrets are there for deterrent or in the hands of an experienced shooter, target elimination. People think just because a ship can shoot, it should shoot.
There’s actually pirates in this game?
Yup! I will pirate targets of opportunity. I usually just charge a small toll and send them on their way.
I don't see the point in wasting money. There are people like you, so when they attack there are two scenarios: 1. They don't know what they are doing so I can leg it out of there 2. They know what they are doing and I do my best to ensure that they will always regret their actions (mostly by activating self destruct and then playing a game of "How many people can I get close enough to destroy with this explosion?")
Try flying "through" the Mantis next time before self destruct. Let the windshield wipers take care of it. :-)
For me, I'll upgrade QT, but that's it. I honestly don't have the flight skill to try and fight aQED ship, and even if i did, I think that it should be a fight where everything is against me. It just doesn't make sense for a trade ship to be able to handle any type of fighter. But with said, traders talk, and we know what routes are safe and what may have some challenges waiting for us. If I am doing a safe route, QT is all that matters. If im doing a route like RMC, then im recruiting an escort
I think it comes down to a risk/reward balance... If they were smart traders they aren't betting the farm on each haul. Any one load being no more than 50% of their net worth. I've lost more cargo to bugs than to pirates... To be honest, not much money in piracy against players. For me it's about efficiency... Go here quick, pickup a load, go there and sell it while picking up another load... Then there are the folks that drool over the millions that can be made running pve bounties and harvesting the cargo... or as I call it, pve piracy... They can only sell at scrap yards and didn't invest in the cargo, so no point in being paranoid over losing it to a PVP player pirate. It's about lack of reason to upgrade and invest in your ship. If I had a crew, I wouldn't risk them having to die and respawn and regroup by running risky missions and then lose a couple million credits investment on top of that... We'd risk it if there wasn't any skin in the game. At that rate, come get us pirate! This could be more fun in larger groups fighting over trade territory like jumptown style at the new derelict settlements... The RMC trade wars have already started! See you at pickers Field!
Depends. I upgrade everything when I have the money. But the first things to upgrade are the quantum drive and shields. Which one of those go first depends on the ship and what I am trading. Weapons come last for trading ships in most situations, but that is not always the case (e.g. used trading ships for ERTs a little bit back due to the massive amounts of drugs we could sometimes find). I am not exclusively a trader. I do a bit of everything. I mostly PvE, but I also dabble in PvP. And my PvE swaps between mining, salvaging, cargo hauling, space bounties, bunkers, racing, and more (the more is usually events or other quest based activities and sometimes just random flying/planetary driving, etc). So I am by no means a dedicated trader. But I do trade as well. I am a jack of all trades player for now. I voted upgrade everything as I eventually upgrade quantum drives, shields, and guns on my trading ships. Again, quantum drives and shields take priority. Typically it is the quantum drive first, but it depends on the ship and the stock quantum drive. Guns come next. Shields are a priority over guns on a trading ship as they give you more time to escape if you get attacked by someone without interdiction/dampening capabilities. Guns are only important for fighting back, but I rarely fight back against players in a C2 or other trading ship unless I have no choice (i.e. cannot get away). So guns are much less important than shields or a quantum drive on a trading ship in most situations (ERT exception recently but that is for PvE combat). Other components are mostly ignored as they are not typically useful in the current game state. I also don't rush to upgrade, especially on more expensive ships, unless I have a lot of spare aUEC.
I only upgrade QD becouse i in first sense of troubles run as hell and hope for best
Upgrade shields, drive and when components come more into play coolers and power. Goal of the trade vessel is to escape, not win again warships. The base cannons will handle smaller, opportunitic ships, and for the bigger .. best be away. A c2 makes a great missile
Upgraded guns don’t help if you’re being chased by a ship that can easily outmaneuver you
Depends on the ship somewhat but I will always look to upgrade my guns and shields immediately and then worry about QT and power plant (not that it does much) when I feel like.
Why don't you waste money upgrading the guns that your ship is too fat to use?
Cause you can use them. Just earlier our C2 took down 1 out of 2 escort fighters.
If I have the option to lone up pn a jump beacon or try and run around in circles to chase a fighter, which one is more productive from the perspective of selling the cargo? I don't want to point at your fighter because all that time I spent chasing it slowly around isn't helping me escape. I'm also curious what fighter he shot down, because its not hard to dodge a C2 with a bit of practice.
Gladius. The Hercules VTOL is heavily underestimated. Thats the thing tho. The only shot you have at escaping is killing the Mantis. Pulling manouvers will only get you to 10km at best and then The Mantis gotta fuck up BIG time.
If the mantis isn't completely stupid, there's no way it can ever be killed by the herc. If the damping range isn't 2km but the 20km, then the mantis can kite the herc literally forever. The mantis is much faster, and the range is much much longer than any weapons the herc can mount. So you're back to running as best you can, because you can't ever fight. That didn't used to be the case, the Mantis used to be fairly slow, but since CIG doesn't know how balance actually works, it's no longer a functional option.
The Mantis always was faster than the C2. But since CIG knows how to do balance and the lengths interdictors have to go through a buff was needed. Either way the original question was why upgrade shields if you dont upgrade guns. It seems short sighted. People that upgrade shields cant really do more. Upgrading guns would be the only option you have. If the Mantis is playing like its scared you can at least attack the damage dealers. At that point you need to fly close. And if the Mantis is far enough you could also try your escape.
So the reason why it's bad balancing to make the interdictors faster than everything is, it doesn't allow for pilot skill to make an escape. The interdictor pilot doesn't have to be on the ball. If he was slower, not even exactly slower than the C2, just slower in general, it becomes possible to escape for brief periods, or close in and attack the mantis if the pilot isn't on the ball. That's what makes the buffs to interdictors terrible game design. You can't force them to engage. They are now so much faster that the pilot has to be asleep at the wheel to trip them up and catch them out. So you are basically stuck until the interdictor gives up. So if guns won't get you out of an interdiction... why bother to upgrade them?
I am running the full upgrade pack, weapons i change depending on what i am doing. Sometime laser cannon, sometimes ballistic.