Any tips for space combat? Other questions too!

[Scyris]

Any tips for space combat? As it seems the enemies can literally do a 180 on a dime to no scope snipe me most space fights basically boil down to me tanking the hits and using sodium to restore my shield. I play on survival so getting hit period kinda sucks, as even with shields up your componnents/modules can still get damaged and shut down. Which IMO is kinda stupid the whole point to a shield is to protect the componnents.

Should I lower enemy difficulty back to standard (default survival setting), I been playing on challenging lately, and I mostly dislike how it nerfs the mining beam even on Plants/rocks. Seems to lower damage delt by the player by around 30-40% on average, meanwhile, the enemies themselves seem to do the exact same damage (I've tested this quite a bit, didn't notice a diff between the 2 in terms of damage taken). I mean give me a boltcaster and a super charge slot and I can wipe out all 5 waves of sentinels even with no other upgrades. I'm torn on this one on one hand it makes combat last longer (especially space), but on the other the enemies all do the same damage so its a hard choice. May just continue with challenging though I really wish they'd make it not nerf the mining beam so hard. Its weird after playing with it on challenging and getting used to it, going back to standard almost feels like cheating.

What difficulty setting for enemy strength do you use?

Ever die so fast you have no idea how? I was messing around with the paralysis mortar as my multitool I bought happened to come with it preinstalled. Was kicking ass, then all of a sudden in wave 4, I went from full shields/health to dead in less than 1-2 seconds. any idea what may have caused that? I've never died so fast in my life playing NMS.

Anyone else feel the paralysis mortar needs some kinda of nerf/adjustment? maybe a cooldown of 10-15s between shots? Its kinda silly how you can spam it and basically permalock a pack of sentinels down.

I also like purchases set to expensive, helps the early game and such last longer. on normal survival settings by 4-5 hours in I can usually be so overpowered that the game is a joke, You can hit that on Expensive as well, just takes a fair amount longer. What about you?

Anyone else notice that along with the buried tech modules, you can also loot ancient bones/buried caches without needing to dig them up usually? Starting to think this might be a bug and not a intended feature. Only does it in first person it seems. I mean I guess its not a huge deal, it just helps with getting some initial Units before you got the matter manipulator. Though it does save time later not having to dig them up usually.

[Darth Cervantes]

My advise is to use the infra knife as it chops them down fast.
As far as them turning on a dime, I don't think you can do that no matter how many super powered slots you use for pulse engine, its just something NPCs do and we can't.

[Grimmslayer73]

Space combat is definitely weird. There is no fancy flying or evasive manouvers to avoid their hits. They are scripted to hit you. Period. I have seen ships fire and hit me with the front of their ship pointing away from me.... their laser bolts literally came out of the engine... They don't seem to be bound by the same janky flight mechanics as the rest of us and they don't seem to be effected by the slow zones (the area around stations and freighters that cut your top speed drastically). So the only tip I can offer is to kill them as fast as possible. Load out your ship to do as much damage as possible and use the auto tracking. It really doesn't get much better.

[Scyris]

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

Space combat is definitely weird. There is no fancy flying or evasive manouvers to avoid their hits. They are scripted to hit you. Period. I have seen ships fire and hit me with the front of their ship pointing away from me.... their laser bolts literally came out of the engine... They don't seem to be bound by the same janky flight mechanics as the rest of us and they don't seem to be effected by the slow zones (the area around stations and freighters that cut your top speed drastically). So the only tip I can offer is to kill them as fast as possible. Load out your ship to do as much damage as possible and use the auto tracking. It really doesn't get much better.

Sounds like I am right then basically tank the hits and try to kill things fast. On challenging the freighter battle is an actual challenge if you do it early, especially if you use a ship with no supercharge slot for a weapon.

[Geldric™]

Originally posted by Darth Cervantes:

My advise is to use the infra knife as it chops them down fast.
As far as them turning on a dime, I don't think you can do that no matter how many super powered slots you use for pulse engine, its just something NPCs do and we can't.

Solid advice... I use that along with the Phase Beam to auto-recharge my shields.

It takes some getting used to but the "Starship Combat Auto-Follow" setting works quite well and sadly much better than my ship with only me controlling it.

I have mine set to toggle and remapped the key to use to Q
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2903967738
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2903968339

[Darth Cervantes]

Originally posted by Geldric:

Originally posted by Darth Cervantes:

My advise is to use the infra knife as it chops them down fast.
As far as them turning on a dime, I don't think you can do that no matter how many super powered slots you use for pulse engine, its just something NPCs do and we can't.

Solid advice... I use that along with the Phase Beam to auto-recharge my shields.

It takes some getting used to but the "Starship Combat Auto-Follow" setting works quite well and sadly much better than my ship with only me controlling it.

I have mine set to toggle and remapped the key to use to Q
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2903967738
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2903968339

Heh. I've never even seen that option. Its funny, I have phase beam on all my ships but only use it to shoot space rocks. I always forget about the shield recharge stuff. Thanks for the reminder.

[Jaggid Edje]

My preference for space combat is Cyclotron (for shields) and then Infra-knife or Positron to toast them once their shields are down. Infra-knife shreds, but the Positron does more damage per shot (just slower, by far, fire rate and range).
Either is very effective even with enemy strength set as high as it goes plus a mod that I use which increases their shields and hull strength by another 30 - 75% (depending on enemy).

I personally prefer enemy strength set as high as it goes because anything lower than that, once you have all your stuff upgraded....things die so fast you may as well not have combat in the game at all. You will never get hurt, even a little bit, assuming you can aim.

[Geldric™]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

<snip>
assuming you can aim.

Just 4 innocent words, yet they carry the difference between having fun while shooting down (up? at?) pirates and being an excruciatingly painful experience...

Guess that's why I let the Korvax aim..

[kyew]

Only tip I have... let the autopilot fly your ship. Being a flight sim fan, I absolutely hate flying with m+kb. I've done it, and got pretty good at it in Freelancer (another game sticks won't work with) and Star Citizen once when I broke my stick. I guess if I had a mousepad a mile square I might reconsider...

[BlackWater]

Originally posted by Darth Cervantes:

My advise is to use the infra knife as it chops them down fast.
As far as them turning on a dime, I don't think you can do that no matter how many super powered slots you use for pulse engine, its just something NPCs do and we can't.

Agreed, pared with cyclotron ballsitas for shield removal i can shred a ship in 2 seconds with the knives.

[DrVenkman]

I always go for completely maxed out Positron Ejectors + S-Class upgrades. And remember, RNGeezus is NOT fair - not all S-class are alike and some are MUCH better than others. Put the most powerful one you can into a supercharged slot - with three of them arranged right, you’ll get 10s of thousands of DPS. A couple hits is enough to take down anything, shielded or not.

Do the same for your Maneuver Drive upgrades. One thing I’ve found that helps is to mix up your speed boosts turn/rotate at once - it skews the targeting and you don’t take as many hits. You can also move BACKWARDS and turn inside or at least as fast as most enemies. That makes it easier to land the 2-3 hits it take to wipe out any enemy you face.

[PeaceMaker]

I just play it like I'm in a WW2 fighter with the odd missile. Works for me!

[kissakias]

buy the 1st A class u find equip it with infra knife and misiles, and shield, use the auto follow to kill and have some batteries for rechargethe shields.....

use pulse engine to avoid

if not on both, just uit the game to choose menu and reload, they gone and loose a bit of time.

[kyew]

Interestingly enough, in all I've seen looking up meta weapons for this game, I believe there is no meta. One place says Pulse Beam, another Infraknife, and yet another Cyclotron. But one thing they've all agreed on is that the Paralysis thing is way OP. I haven't even tried that one out yet.

For me? Photon Cannon and Rocket Launcher for the kill. No need to find a shinier wrench to loosen the same bolt. Combat autopilot, hit boost when you need to close and brakes when you need to turn. Knock the shields down, hit them with the rockets, and maybe a little more with the cannons if they didn't get smoked with the rockets.

[NZ.Zero]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

assuming you can aim.

... in a wobbly boat on a rough sea, which is what its like trying to get a lock on.

[taniwhat]

On PC hitting 'S' (provided it hasn't been remapped) allows you to turn faster.

Another vote for the Infra-knife and also for maxing out shields. Relax, take them one at a time and having a squadron as meat shields makes it easier (and a tad more annoying as they will cut in front of you now and then).

I'm having no problems and I'm lousy at twitch games, I THINK the trick is to just stay focused on one target at a time and stay calm.

It can get quite tense, I've had Elite pirates turn up mid fight and managed to stir up the Sentinels but mostly its a duck shoot.