The Advanced Combat Tutorial

[Henry Hatsworth]

Some Tips:

1. I know it might be obvious, but still feel it needs to be said, just in case it is some help to someone. You only need to kill warrant scan the very first target. When the other two fighters jump in, only focus on survival.

2. Be sure to manage your power with your arrow keys, full power to systems will not only charge your shields faster, but they will last longer too. I reccomend putting all power to shields for your first opponent so that you'll have as much shields as possible before the other two join the fray. Then, you'll want all power to weapons to shoot down at least one of them as quickly as possible. Having powers to weapons will provide you some additional damage. Ignore the advice of only shooting missles when their shields are down, just get one of them out of the sky immediately. When back to 1 on 1, put power back to shields.

3. Keep chaff active at all times, especially when fighting two of them.

4. The enemy has dumb-fire missles which are unaffected by chaff, seeing as they fire in a straight line. They also hit very hard, much harder than lock on missles. Even something as simple as descending with the "F" key when engaging in a joust with one can save your life. Just by lowering yourself while heading at them instead of coming at them in a straight line, you can avoid many of their missles.

5. As stated from the first combat tutorial, keeping your throttle in the blue will give you the greatest turning capacity, but you can also pull your throttle in reverse and into the blue for even tighter turns, though it will leave you more open. Best used against single targets.

Now, this isn't the end-all-be-all to combat guides by any means, and for some, this advice might in fact work against them. But, these are things that helped me overcome it.

[Henry Hatsworth]

So, I guess I'll post the question now: Who else has managed to overcome the advanced tutorial? And more importantly, would you be willing to share some tips of your own to help some new players out?

For example, I completely forgot about bringing up turning off flight assist, but that might be too advanced a maneuver for a pilot just starting to earn their wings.

[Veritas]

There are players with 2k hours that can't beat it. The reality is that fighting 3 eagles in a row with competent pilots in them in an unoptimized, unengineered sidewinder is nearly impossible without the AI bugging out or something. You don't get anything for completing the tutorial so I'd say don't bother. Unless you're the devs, then update your damn tutorials. The game has changed a lot.

[Chibbity]

New players should avoid that tutorial like the plague, it's harder than just about everything on offer in the "challenges" section; where it belongs.

The real issue I think is A. You're in a Sidewinder, and it's crap. B. The enemy AI is set on one of the harder difficulty levels judging by how it flies.

The tutorial really needs clearer explanation that it's very difficult, or it needs to be moved to the challenges section. This was a REALLY poor way to be introduced to the game, and it wasn't till I had beaten most of the challenges and played the core game a bit that I realized how unfair it was for an inexperienced player.

[Kit]

Full power on shields and focus the one with dumbfire missiles first.

[Forrest Gimp]

First thing I did when I got into this game was going through tutorials. Advanced Combat was the hardest, but it took me 5-6 tries to beat it.

I think this little scenario is very well designed and gives a player pretty good idea of what to expect in case he gets himself into combat in open galaxy at the beggining.

General advices are good. What I would personally add, is to go through controls after first tutorial mission or at least after first combat one, to rebind keys for ship control, weapons and targetting. WIthout comfortable keybinds there's no chance to beat it at all.

If I knew about Assists Off, I bet fight would've been a lot easier, as Eagles are very manueverable. All in all, after couple of tries, I think anyone would be able to beat first target with no damage and very soon. Good idea is to stick around 1-2 km, 4 power to WEP, 1 to SYS and rest to ENG for better speed, turning and to be able to fire non stop. Dump all 6 missiles on first target without worry.

Once two other guys spawn, it is critical to be in good postion to see both of them and have one them targeted ASAP. Don't pop Chaff right away, wait a bit before at least one of them get into position and start hitting at you. You absolutely must bring down shields of first target as soon as possible and 3 missiles will take him out very quickly, it would be good idea to keep at least 2 missiles for the last guy. Then 1 on 1 would be quite easy with another 2-3 missiles and spread Power according to your needs.

Few other tricks I picked up you might definitely find useful even in open combat:
- In fight, always keep your speed in "blue zone" for best default turn rate. For actual speed control, use thrusters and boost, don't use throttle.
- While jousting, when you both past each other, use boost to maximize distance, when speed falls to natural blue zone, hit (hold) Assists off, turn around and hold reverse thrusters plus roll. This way you will avoid more hits, and have longer track on your target either for missile/gimball lock or just to dump more fire into him.

Hope it helps.

[PlutonArioch]

I would rather advise to put power into engines. Most people seem to struggle with getting/staying behind those eagles. Power to shields (systems) makes them last longer, but takes away from engines and weapons. While you don't need much power in weapons in this scenario, at default power (2-2-2) those eagles are faster and more agile than you - so they can outrun, or outmaneuver you, and stick to your six. At 3 power in engines you are just a bit faster and roughly equal in agility, so you can outmaneuver them. Afterburner or FA off turning can also help with that.
- Not getting hit beats having a slightly longer lasting shield -

Yes I have done this training when a lot of new players said it was impossible about a year ago. When I was new to the game, the Advanced combat training was similar to one of the incursion scenarios which are now in the challenge section. This new one is quite easy in comparison, and you are even told what to do.

Originally posted by Snazzy Dragon:

There are players with 2k hours that can't beat it.

Those are players with 2k hours of no combat. If you just go "spacetrucking" or exploring and run from every fight, you can rack up that many hours without any combat experience.
No one who at least occasionally does combat in this game should struggle with this.
Also note that not having beaten it is not the same as not being able to. Some people just skipped the tutorials and never tried it. If someone says "you dont need to beat it, just skip it. I skipped it and I have XXXX hours" does not mean they cant beat it.

Originally posted by Snazzy Dragon:

The reality is that fighting 3 eagles in a row with competent pilots in them in an unoptimized, unengineered sidewinder is nearly impossible without the AI bugging out or something.

No, the reality is that you first fight one eagle, and it waits for you to initiate combat. That means you can position yourself right at his backside before the fight even begins - if you can control your ship, you should not take any damage from this eagle, so you might as well not count it. The AI at this level is not competent enough to properly maneuver, and they cant shoot backwards.
Only after you killed that poor helpless sod, the challenge begins. The next two eagles might hit you a bit, because they are immediately hostile, and because there are two of them, so you cant stay behind both. You can use chaff to disable their lasers though, and then they have only dumbfire missiles to hit you with... so your job now is to not stay still while you kill the second Eagle... think you can manage that? Then its back to one on one. Rinse repeat.
You have a gimballed laser, and seeker missiles, so its easy to hit them - they have gimballed lasers and dumbfire missiles - you have chaff to make their lasers useless, a three dimensional radar, and six directional thrusters... so its not hard to avoid getting hit.
Engineering is not part of the basic game, so you should not expect it in the tutorials, the Eagles are not engineered either.

I am so tired of reading this training mission is impossible... or "nearly" impossible. No its not. Its really easy. You just need to know the controls the game has taught you up to this point, and a little bit of practice - it is an advanced training after all.
Dont get me wrong, I dont expect every new player to be able to beat this training immediately. but after a few hours of playing, and getting used to (and tweaking) the controls, it should be no problem.

Originally posted by Chibbity:

The real issue I think is A. You're in a Sidewinder, and it's crap. B. The enemy AI is set on one of the harder difficulty levels judging by how it flies.

A. Just because you are not good with it, does not mean the ship is crap. B. The AI is on "Expert", which is right in the middle. Good enough to not just sit there waiting to be killed, but not good enough to make proper use of the ship.
No the real issue is that people seem to think they are experts as soon as they start playing. So when they fail an advanced training they think its because the scenario is unfair.

Originally posted by Chibbity:

The tutorial really needs clearer explanation that it's very difficult, or it needs to be moved to the challenges section.

Thats what happened, and then a new ADVANCED combat training was added, to replace it. This one was easier, and was still called ADVANCED, so that anyone capable of reading would know this one is ADVANCED, so if I am crap at flying or combat (or both), I should maybe not expect to beat this. This training is obviously titled as one to take on once you have mastered basic combat.

[Chibbity]

Guys, lol.

If you have to discuss how to beat a tutorial, it's obviously not a good tutorial. If you need to explain to players that they shouldn't play a tutorial when they are new; it's not a good tutorial. The general nature of a tutorial is something you should do before you play the real game, not the other way around.

The advanced combat tutorial is a test of your combat skills, not a carefully guided lesson on how to improve them. It belongs in the challenge section; and yes, I've beaten it.

[MacKaris]

"I am so tired of reading this training mission is impossible... or "nearly" impossible. No its not. Its really easy."

ROFLMAO.

I've watched all the official tutorial videos. I've completed all the other tutorials in the game, some of them twice, but after some 12 times of trying the advanced combat tutorial I've never been even close to completing it. The best I've managed was 2 out of the 3 enemies, but at that stage all my shields are gone and I have like 20% hull integrity left so that's that. Most of the time I seem to end up dead in about 8 seconds once the two ships arrive and start shooting. Yes I have 4 bips on the shields, yes I shoot them with the laser to take down their shields, yes I use chaff and yes I know about the blue thingy with the throttle. So no, no it's not really easy. It shouldn't be in anywhere NEAR the tutorials section. It doesn't TEACH you anything, all it does is discourage new players, like me, especially since the tooltip on the tutorials specifically says that "we recommend new players play these missions" or something like that. What the hell, devs?! At least move the damn thing to the challenges section or something so the 'git gud' fanboys can still touch themselves once they manage to complete it after 300 tries, but don't bully the normal people with it, please. It's probably not like you have TOO many players in the game so you need to sort out all but the most dedicated like it was some kind of special forces boot camp. I was damn close to asking for a refund simply because that so called 'tutorial' is such anal bullcrap, but I couldn't because I had already spent like 3 hours just setting up the key bindings on my joystick.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by MacKaris:

So no, no it's not really easy. It shouldn't be in anywhere NEAR the tutorials section. It doesn't TEACH you anything,

I agree that it's not easy.

But it still teaches you something. It teaches you that sometime the odds are heavily against you, and that you may die if you decide to fight it.

Maybe the Devs just have to write a note there, something like "Don't be discouraged if you can't complete the advanced combat tutorial. You can still begin your game journey, and try it again later." That's, basically, what we usually advice new players here to do.

[Forrest Gimp]

Originally posted by MacKaris:

"I am so tired of reading this training mission is impossible... or "nearly" impossible. No its not. Its really easy."

ROFLMAO.

I've watched all the official tutorial videos. I've completed all the other tutorials in the game, some of them twice, but after some 12 times of trying the advanced combat tutorial I've never been even close to completing it. The best I've managed was 2 out of the 3 enemies, but at that stage all my shields are gone and I have like 20% hull integrity left so that's that. Most of the time I seem to end up dead in about 8 seconds once the two ships arrive and start shooting. Yes I have 4 bips on the shields, yes I shoot them with the laser to take down their shields, yes I use chaff and yes I know about the blue thingy with the throttle. So no, no it's not really easy. It shouldn't be in anywhere NEAR the tutorials section. It doesn't TEACH you anything, all it does is discourage new players, like me, especially since the tooltip on the tutorials specifically says that "we recommend new players play these missions" or something like that. What the hell, devs?! At least move the damn thing to the challenges section or something so the 'git gud' fanboys can still touch themselves once they manage to complete it after 300 tries, but don't bully the normal people with it, please. It's probably not like you have TOO many players in the game so you need to sort out all but the most dedicated like it was some kind of special forces boot camp. I was damn close to asking for a refund simply because that so called 'tutorial' is such anal bullcrap, but I couldn't because I had already spent like 3 hours just setting up the key bindings on my joystick.

You give up after 12 tries? Bah, have you never played Dark Souls?...

On more serious note, it's not like game doesn't let you play unless you complete all these missions. If you feel it's a bit off, you're just free to ignore it. In any case, game is hardly about combat, and as many other games of this type, combat is mostly about power creep, so you literally can let yourself get carried with best loadout and chassis but little skill applied on your part, at least in PvE that is.

But on the other hand, when I just started this game after doing tutorials, I picked some mission where I had to find Black Box iirc in mission threat zone 1, and got jumped by 3 Eagles on my starter unupgraded Sidey. I barely escaped, and it didn't feel completely out of place, since tutorial literally put me in similar situation before. So there's actual profit in it. I think it should give player a hint that world outside is dangerous, to tread with care. Thanks to these tips I died only twice so far, during about two weeks of active play.

[ClusterError]

oof

[Turih]

I am going to correct one factual statement you have wrong there:

ALL missiles are unaffected by chaff. You are mistaking chaff for ECM which causes guided missiles to lose ordnance.

[_mitchlel]

Originally posted by Henry Hatsworth:

So, I guess I'll post the question now: Who else has managed to overcome the advanced tutorial? And more importantly, would you be willing to share some tips of your own to help some new players out?

Lol, sometimes the tutorial just comes down to luck. On my first try, I was just messing around and not taking it seriously, but I won without even losing much hull at all.

Tips? I just constantly put my speed in the blue zone and placed 4 pips into weapons and 2 into engines. Didn't even know about the chaff, lol. Didn't place any pips into systems (no idea what I was thinking), didn't use chaff, didn't use vertical thrusters, didn't turn off Flight Assist, blah blah blah. I was literally a noob just turning my ship until the enemy lined up and pressing the fire button.

Skills? Nope. If you looked at me play, you would probably laugh. I cannot combat well at all, but still managed to beat the Advanced Combat Tutorial. I dunno, but either way I couldn't see what the fuss was about.

Just keep trying, lol.

[Henry Hatsworth]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by MacKaris:

So no, no it's not really easy. It shouldn't be in anywhere NEAR the tutorials section. It doesn't TEACH you anything,

I agree that it's not easy.

But it still teaches you something. It teaches you that sometime the odds are heavily against you, and that you may die if you decide to fight it.

kobayashi maru