How to Counter Player Pirates?

[JessyJams]

I'm spending more time in the "denser" p arts of the bubble and starting to get attacked and utterly annihilated by other players. I don't mind this, but the thing is, these encounters are so one sided that I don't see what I can do to counter it.

Every time:

1) Somehow they totally shut my thrusters down from just about any range. Ship says something like "thrusters operating at minimum level." What's this and how do you counter it? Surely pvp meta isn't just sitting still exchanging gun fire back and forth.

2) My shields? Big beautiful 8A shield generator. I get them knocked out in one hit. Can't remember what the ship says, but bye bye shields. It's as if the shield generator is just not even useful.

3) Can't seem to target them. Somehow they break my lock every time.

4) Can't high wake, my fsd gets shut down some how.


All of the above makes for a very lackluster pvp experience. I wouldn't mind it if I had some way to counter these things, but it's hard to imagine an actual back and forth fight when one side is incapable of using any of their ships functions.


Could someone explain what the pvp meta is that's doing this to me? What strategies can I use to counter these effects? What modules are they using or engineering needed to achieve this? It's so foreign to me what happens that I don't even know where to begin. Every time a player attacks me, my ship says things that I've never heard before and I have zero feedback on what's going on.

I understand that I could give in to the interdiction, but sometimes I can't tell if I'm being interdicted by a player or NPC. So I'm looking more for the exact tactis that are being used against me so that I can counter them, or atleast understand them.

I am NOT going to avoid playing in Open. I like open. I'm not whining about it. I want to understand it.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di ZombieHunter:

Hmm if I told you how to evade player pirates then you might evade me when I attempt to pirate you. Quite the dilemma. Pirates don't kill their targets b/c there isn't any credits in that. Pirates ask you for cargo or more likely just fire hatch breaker limpets to steal your cargo without your permission. You cannot counter hatch breaker limpets. Well, you can, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you to figure out.

Well, these pirates don't talk, only kill. No parley involved.

Really though, all I want to know is why it was over so quickly. I'd rather not need to "avoid" these situations, but it's clear that I can't actually fight back so what other option is there? It's either learn to adapt or just carebear it up in solo. Considering I can just play solo/ban people I can't say it really helps the pro pirate argument of keeping secrets. If this game's pvp scene is really this one sided, I am starting to see why solo mode exists.

Long term I'd love to do pvp and fight, but what I'm witnessing doesn't really give me much hope. Apparently speed and shields are two th ings that don't work as well as I thought. I'm just trying to avoid being a victim of some coward who has set things up so that I can't possibly scratch the paint on his ship.

Losing a fight is one thing. Losing 2 fights two days in a row the exact same way, in a situation where I don't have even enough time to form a counter attack is an entirely different problem. One I'd rather avoid at all costs. It's so one sided and uneventful, and quick, they couldn't even make a video out of it. I can't even kill npcs this fast if I had my nose up their thrusters and full pips into weapons. Never mind the fact I'm in what is supposed to be the tankiest ship in the game.

[ZombieHunter]

Well I'm hearing you say two things and they don't coincide well with one another.

First, you say you want to get better but second you say you might as well quit and go solo. I don't see how the two support one another.

Let me get this out of the way really fast before I try to help you. If you want to get better at PVP the only way to do so is to fight players and ships that are better than you and die. Just like sports except you don't die in sports you just get beat really bad. But in sports you never get better unless you play against opponents that are better than you. Same thing here.

Second you will never get better if you take the attitude of quitting and giving up. I had a high school basketball coach tell me something that has stuck with me throughout life. He said that he would rather have a player that might get a little out of hand on the court than one who didn't care if the team won or lost. The player that might get out of hand or go overboard to win has passion. Passion can be coached. But the player that doesn't care if they win or lose is lost and hopeless. You can't coach or teach passion and you can't instill competitiveness where there is no drive. You either have it or you don't. Some teams just don't want to lose and some just don't care. We see that played out everyday in sports. The same applies here. If you truly want to get better then nothing, not even dying a thousand times, will deter you from that goal. You cannot let dying or getting beat deter you from getting better. Once you take that attitude then you can begin to hone your skills.

Now as to why you die fast is quite simple. One, your in an inferior equipped ship. Two, they have more combat experience than you.

Most PVP battles in ED are pretty one-sided b/c of the breadth of the game world. You are usually up against someone who is either far superior or far inferior to you. In this case you were far inferior.

But let me address your points:

1) Somehow they totally shut my thrusters down from just about any range. Ship says something like "thrusters operating at minimum level." What's this and how do you counter it? Surely pvp meta isn't just sitting still exchanging gun fire back and forth.

The engine shut down 'missile' is a powerplay reward for Li Yong Rui. Once you pledge if you maintain level 3 rank for 4 weeks you can buy the reward and kit your ships with it. Every Powerplay leader has their own type of reward. I have Prismatics b/c I did the same for Aisling Duval.

The counter for the missile is the same as any other misisle. Equip Point Defenses.

2) My shields? Big beautiful 8A shield generator. I get them knocked out in one hit. Can't remember what the ship says, but bye bye shields. It's as if the shield generator is just not even useful.

One of two things can cause this. One, they hit you with dual or triple rail guns with reverberating cascade. This can knock your shields out in one hit. Two, they used torpedoes with reverberating cascade. This also knocks your shields out in one hit. Quite the pucker factor for Cutter and Corvette pilots who underestimate smaller ships equipped with these beasties. Look on YouTube for a guy flying a Viper Mk 3 against a Corvette and watch what his reverberating cascades do to the Corvette shields. Unbelievably devastating.

The counter for this is Point Defenses.

3) Can't seem to target them. Somehow they break my lock every time.

This happens when they deploy heatsinks. Targeting is based on heat signature. So when they deploy heatsinks you lose lock. They aren't actually doing it for this but rather this is a side effect of it. They are doing it likely b/c they are running rail guns and / or plasma which generate a ton of heat and cause heat damage to their ship. The entire time they are firing on you they are taking heat damage. When they deploy the heatsink you will lose target lock.

There is no counter to this. It is a game mechanic. Keep trying to target them and eventually you will regain lock. Keep in mind gimballed can still fire straight ahead without target lock. You can use them as fixed weapons in this case.

4) Can't high wake, my fsd gets shut down some how.

This is b/c of the special missile I described when I answered your first point.
The counter is Point Defenses.

Now the reason the pirates don't talk is ED's fault. By the time they chat to you, you can high wake or low wake out. The more time they spend yammering away the less time they have to get your goodies. My approach is to say nothing, fire limpets, and collect as they run. I would do more roleplay but they can just ignore me or think I'm stupid and run off and I get nothing. I don't have the special FSD disabling missiles and I don't plan on getting them so I'm left with my current strategy.

But when pirating I don't kill my prey. That defeats the point of piracy...at least in ED. But you know that there are no rules and no 'pirate codes' so every pirate is different.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di ZombieHunter:

Well I'm hearing you say two things and they don't coincide well with one another.

First, you say you want to get better but second you say you might as well quit and go solo. I don't see how the two support one another.

Let me get this out of the way really fast before I try to help you. If you want to get better at PVP the only way to do so is to fight players and ships that are better than you and die. Just like sports except you don't die in sports you just get beat really bad. But in sports you never get better unless you play against opponents that are better than you. Same thing here.

Second you will never get better if you take the attitude of quitting and giving up. I had a high school basketball coach tell me something that has stuck with me throughout life. He said that he would rather have a player that might get a little out of hand on the court than one who didn't care if the team won or lost. The player that might get out of hand or go overboard to win has passion. Passion can be coached. But the player that doesn't care if they win or lose is lost and hopeless. You can't coach or teach passion and you can't instill competitiveness where there is no drive. You either have it or you don't. Some teams just don't want to lose and some just don't care. We see that played out everyday in sports. The same applies here. If you truly want to get better then nothing, not even dying a thousand times, will deter you from that goal. You cannot let dying or getting beat deter you from getting better. Once you take that attitude then you can begin to hone your skills.

Now as to why you die fast is quite simple. One, your in an inferior equipped ship. Two, they have more combat experience than you.

Most PVP battles in ED are pretty one-sided b/c of the breadth of the game world. You are usually up against someone who is either far superior or far inferior to you. In this case you were far inferior.

But let me address your points:

Thanks for this.

Let me clarify one thing though. I'm not currently wanting to pvp. It's on my to do list, but I know that I need better stuff. Ironically, I was about to turn in a bunch of black box missions for Sirius rep to get to palin when he did this. I'm more upset about losing those than I am the rebuy.

I'm not Anti pvp, but I find it particularly hard to avoid when in the dense areas of the bubble. This game strikes me as very black and white. Either I'm in a ship that is decked out for pvp or I am dead. There's very little in between. I mean, my ship is A rated. Sure, it's not set up to fight, and it's not fully engineered, but even if I die in 30 seconds instead of 20 seconds, that's not really changing the dynamic much. It's hard for me to imagine any scenario or any upgrade to my ship that would have changed the tide so much.

I suppose an extra 10 seconds of shield would allow me to get out, but what's this I hear about uber tanking cutters? I'm not feeling it so far.

You are right though, and I don't intend to quit over it. It wasn't that big of a loss. It's not the loss that bothers me, it's the fact that 2 days in a row, the precise same strategy used against me by two separate players. It seems overwhelmingly cheesy and from this thread, there don't appear to be many counters to it..

One of my aspirations is pvp. I've watched videos, but quite frankly, those seem heavily choreographed in hind sight. I mean, How many stars have to align for me to even stand a chance? It seems like all 400 billion of them.

1) Somehow they totally shut my thrusters down from just about any range. Ship says something like "thrusters operating at minimum level." What's this and how do you counter it? Surely pvp meta isn't just sitting still exchanging gun fire back and forth.

The engine shut down 'missile' is a powerplay reward for Li Yong Rui. Once you pledge if you maintain level 3 rank for 4 weeks you can buy the reward and kit your ships with it. Every Powerplay leader has their own type of reward. I have Prismatics b/c I did the same for Aisling Duval.



The counter for the missile is the same as any other misisle. Equip Point Defenses.

2) My shields? Big beautiful 8A shield generator. I get them knocked out in one hit. Can't remember what the ship says, but bye bye shields. It's as if the shield generator is just not even useful.

One of two things can cause this. One, they hit you with dual or triple rail guns with reverberating cascade. This can knock your shields out in one hit. Two, they used torpedoes with reverberating cascade. This also knocks your shields out in one hit. Quite the pucker factor for Cutter and Corvette pilots who underestimate smaller ships equipped with these beasties. Look on YouTube for a guy flying a Viper Mk 3 against a Corvette and watch what his reverberating cascades do to the Corvette shields. Unbelievably devastating.

The counter for this is Point Defenses.

3) Can't seem to target them. Somehow they break my lock every time.

This happens when they deploy heatsinks. Targeting is based on heat signature. So when they deploy heatsinks you lose lock. They aren't actually doing it for this but rather this is a side effect of it. They are doing it likely b/c they are running rail guns and / or plasma which generate a ton of heat and cause heat damage to their ship. The entire time they are firing on you they are taking heat damage. When they deploy the heatsink you will lose target lock.

There is no counter to this. It is a game mechanic. Keep trying to target them and eventually you will regain lock. Keep in mind gimballed can still fire straight ahead without target lock. You can use them as fixed weapons in this case.

4) Can't high wake, my fsd gets shut down some how.

This is b/c of the special missile I described when I answered your first point.
The counter is Point Defenses.

I have 5 point defenses on my ship. 5!! How many do I need? I only have 8 utility slots. and two of the others are Shield boosters. The last one is a wake scanner.

Now, I have no idea if they were working or not. I died too quickly. Didn't check them. But I can say for sure they weren't effective if they're supposed to be the counter to all of my problems.

I don't know why I even have 5 on this ship. I normally do 2. I was excited when I bought it I guess. If 5 aren't enough, two are worthless no?

How do I use point defenses properly? ALso, how are point defenses useful against rails? Rails can just insta kill shields? Are shields not viable in pvp?

Now the reason the pirates don't talk is ED's fault. By the time they chat to you, you can high wake or low wake out. The more time they spend yammering away the less time they have to get your goodies. My approach is to say nothing, fire limpets, and collect as they run. I would do more roleplay but they can just ignore me or think I'm stupid and run off and I get nothing. I don't have the special FSD disabling missiles and I don't plan on getting them so I'm left with my current strategy.

But when pirating I don't kill my prey. That defeats the point of piracy...at least in ED. But you know that there are no rules and no 'pirate codes' so every pirate is different.

Well, I guess I've just been lucky. my pirates don't seem to care much at all about loot. The last one was atleast kind enough to dock and say Happy New Year!


I'm seeing a bit of an issue with things as they are. There's very little middle ground. Maybe G5 everything is THAT much better than where I'm at, but I'd think that spending 140 million on class 8 A shield generated should atleast do its job.

Is pvp in this game purely sport? Can I not survive or even engage with someone unless I'm totally maxed out? What will that buy me? Will I survive another 10 seconds or another 5 minutes?

See, I'd go play solo, not to give up, but just to avoid inevitability. If It's all or nothing, then atleast nothing allows me to get things done in a ship that isn't dedicated solely to not being raped to death by these tactics. I'd like to think that G5 engineering isn't end all be all, but rather an edge that works more than not. It seems that isn't the case though. It seems engineering is more valuable than the ship itself.

Let me ask you. What should I be aiming for defense wise? What is an acceptable armor/shield amount/resistances for a cutter worthy of its tanking reputation?


Also, why is it both of these guys dock right after killing me to chat, but odn't seem to have any wanted status or fines? How do they get away with this, but I get sent to prison for accidentally popping adders in rez sites?

[Kit]

Nothing you can do about it. Ship suited for PVP beats any other outfit with no chances, but is usable only for PVP. Drag munitions which block your thrusters are especially brain dead, as they have no counter. And if someone who is up to kill you expect resistance - they'll come in groups. PVP in ED is competitive only in fairplay set up matches, other than that you're hunter or hunted.

Yet another part of the game which fell victim to awful FD gamedesign.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di Eitelkeit:

Nothing you can do about it. Ship suited for PVP beats any other outfit with no chances, but is usable only for PVP. Drag munitions which block your thrusters are especially brain dead, as they have no counter. And if someone who is up to kill you expect resistance - they'll come in groups. PVP in ED is competitive only in fairplay set up matches, other than that you're hunter or hunted.

Yet another part of the game which fell victim to awful FD gamedesign.

Damn this really sucks. The Reddit people say the same thing..\


I can't believe that an A rated cutter, the tankiest ship in the game, can't last 30 seconds against a ship 1 third to half it's size. This is one thing Eve got right atleast. Big ships, while vulnerable, were atleast robust enough to hold their ground.

It's really disappointing. I want to keep playing open, but what's the point? I apparently can't have a multipurpose ship that is atleast not terrible at pvp survival. An armed, tanked hauler, engineered or not, should atleast be serviceable. This one sided domination is less than fun and offers zero emergent gameplay opportunities. This reeks of $$ decisions. Everything is prenerfed to force you to buy horizons. What garbage. Even then I can't see how much different it would be. I am more of a "tank" oriented player, but that seems to not even be a thing here.

I guess I'll just carebear it up until I'm done with the engineer stuff. Maybe then I'll give it aother go, but my entire opinion of pvp in this game is shattered now. I hate when games devolve into stat scale zerg fests like this.

[Kit]

Google for mobius or other private pve group. That way you'll be able to see other people ingame without being forced to pvp with 0 chance of winning or escaping.

[JessyJams]

Thank you Ace. Bear with me as I parse your statements.

: Drag munitions can go on any missiles, people just prefer pack hounds because they can get past point defences (Li Yong Rui reward).

I see. So this might explain why my 5 point defenses were useless.. I don't recall seeing an "incoming missile message" but maybe I was having tunnel vision.

What is the counter to this then? Or is this an I win button against ships that rely on speed?

2: Only torpedos have reverberating cascade, railguns do not. Railguns have Feedback cascade, which stops a portion of shield cell banks regeneration on each hit (assuming you have activated it).

Oh thank god. I was beginning to question my sanity here. I too looked it up but I confused them and assumed it was true.

3: They could be using heatsinks all the time, or more likely (as any actual pvp'er would know) they are using lock breaker experimentals on their plasmas which cause you to break lock. Pvp'ers use this so people can't blow up their powerplant or other sub modules.

I see. Someone mentioned this earlier. I didn't know that.

In both of my encounters, which are the only two pvp encounters I've had, my lock was broken some how but not sure how. ofcourse, I didn't take the time to retarget them because I was just boosting away.

4: FSD interrupting missiles don't come standard with drag munitions upgrade, it is 2 different things. Additionally, it actually can't be installed on pack hounds. They are installed on regular dumbfire missiles, so you can avoid them if you fly evasively.

I was definitely guilty of not being evasive. I was straight lining it, which I realize is a mistake. Noted.

So here's the solution.
Step 1: always have another system targeted, you can set a button to select next system in route in the keybinds.

Step 2: Engineer as many shield extenders as you can, get at least 50% resists across the board. The rest should be high capacity (if you can fit them). Engineer your hull to be heavy duty.

Step 3: ECM. Ecm is your friend for all things anti-piracy, it will fully disable torpedos, missiles and anything else floating around trying to explode you.

Submit to interdiction, press your hotkey to select the next system. Boost like crazy and spam that ECM when you hear missile incoming. 9/10 times you will get away, they will likely ram you, but your (assumption) majestic space cow cares not for ramming because of its excellent shields and hull. They will have a 20 second fsd cooldown, you will be ready to jump by the time their weapons deploy.

Good luck :)

Ok thanks

so now for step 2, by shield extender do you mean a booster? How many do I need? I have two already (only engineered to level 1). I'd prefer to have free utility slots for non pvp purposes. I know this means I won't be an uber tank or pvp viable, but all I'm looking for is to last more than 30 seconds. I dont think that's asking much out of a Cutter no?

Step 3. Right ok good to know. Is that an alternative to Point defense or in addition to it? I tried it out one time when I first started the game a couple months ago, but I was lost on how they worked.



Now, looking back, I can see where I made some mistakes. I think knowing what I've learned from this thread, I can probably avoiding being interdicted to begin with which is great.

What's bothering me still, though, is that I'm very disappointed with just how fragile I am. Even though I don't have much engineering, I can't believe the difference. It's striking to me that a fight between the best tank ship in the game and a python, can be over in 30 or so seconds from start to finish. Really, I folded in less time than that because he spent a good amount of time probably trying to get into range. I didn't notice attacks until about 10+ seconds into my escape attempt.

Realistically, how long can I expect to tank damage from such a ship if I were G5, with 2 shield boosters and a fairly pve multipurpose/cargo set up?

I don't expect to beat people like that mind you, just tank them enough to feel like I got my money's worth out of it. As it stands, I feel like paper, and my confidence is trash. It's as hopeless as could be, and I didn't expect that.

Let me post my shield / armor stats for you

Armor:

HP: 3089

Kin Res -6%

Therm Res 32%

Explosive Resist 22%


Shields

HP 1280


Kin: 40%

Therm: 30%

Exp: 55%


Where do I need to be to atleast not get run over? Not necessarily impervious, just not Oh I'm interdicted >> oh I'm being hit>> oh I'm dead. My idea of a cutter is that it can take some punches. Is that just not something this game even about?

I played Eve for years. haven't touched it in years, so I think in those terms. Big ships in Eve were not very good solo boats, but they were hard to take down. In this I feel like the big ships are almost nothing more than medium ships with more liability.

Thanks to you and everyone else for helping me out on this btw!

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di Eitelkeit:

Google for mobius or other private pve group. That way you'll be able to see other people ingame without being forced to pvp with 0 chance of winning or escaping.

See, I don't want to do this though. I like the idea of pvp. I just don't like totally one sided pvp. Even if I weren't running away from these guys, the fight would have ended before I even got to do stuff. It's too quick. There isn't enough time for me to make a difference, or so it seems.

I absolutely do not like playing in Solo/private group, but I like even less spending 40 M credits on a rebuy that I get no entertainment value out of . Even if I were able to fight for a bit, get some hits in, maybe knock their shields out, I'd be content, but that's not what I'm getting. I'm getting blue balled immediately and seeing a rebuy screen half a minute later in a flipp'n cutter!

So for now it's solo until I can actually unlock these engineers and figure out why my tank is an order of magnitude weaker than it should be.

[ZombieHunter]

2: Only torpedos have reverberating cascade, railguns do not. Railguns have Feedback cascade, which stops a portion of shield cell banks regeneration on each hit (assuming you have activated it).

3: They could be using heatsinks all the time, or more likely (as any actual pvp'er would know) they are using lock breaker experimentals on their plasmas which cause you to break lock. Pvp'ers use this so people can't blow up their powerplant or other sub modules.

Yes feedback cascade not reverberating cascade for rails.

By the sounds of it they were not using lock breaker plasmas. Most PVPers I've come across use plasmas with hull damage effect not lock breaker since the heatsink will break lock anyways.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di Ace:

Ah the cutter. This changes things (for the better).

You can have a mix of point defence and ECM, but I'd say an ECM and lots of shield boosters would do the trick (and yes the booster is what I meant :) As many boosters as you can comfortably fit.

Big ships definitely can be impenetrable tanks like in EVE, but obviously not trader fit. Trader cutter is like bringing a jump freighter to a capital fight, it only ends one way.

It's fairly basic, but I will throw it out there. 4 pips in shields will mitigate about 70% of all damage, then apply resists. So 4 pips to shields, 2 to engines.

Your defence is to run, get those engineer upgrades & you will be right. The thing about the cutter, get grade 5 dirty drives and 90% of enemies won't even be able to catch you if you boost, and those that can won't be able to mass lock you (save another cutter).

Also, with a speed advantage you can drop heat sinks that will break locks and give you valuable time to escape. Those dumbfire missiles are a pain to aim blind.

The fights are probably going a lot longer than you think, i'd imagine you are just panicking for now. Just remember, boost, lock the next system, charge ecm & jump.

You will get the hang of it, I get that you don't want to go solo or private, it feels cheaty to me too. Like EVE, elite does have a fairly high skill cap, if you are commited you will be able to outwit and outfly in nearly anything.

Thanks for the help here.

I'm happy to hear that tanking is a thing. It sure doesn't feel like it atm.

I definitely don't expect to beat an attacker at their game. At best, I just want to have fun! Losing a ship or not, if I get enough excitement and learn something from t he engagement, it would be worth it. So far, it just hasn't felt like that.

The fight may have lasted longer. I certainly did have a sense of tunnel vision once my shields just evaporated. That wasn't expected. Even so, whether 30 seconds, 45, 20 etc., it left me wanting more. Losing a 40 million ship should atleast buy me a minute or more of some excitement. Losing it in what feels like seconds without any feedback on what's going wrong is an experience I'd play solo to avoid.


In the mean time, I am going to play solo because it seems that there truly is no middle ground. One day, with all G5 engineered modules, things will be different. I'm pretty disappointed that Engineering is so absolutely supreme. It would be better balance, IMO, to make engineering be an enviable edge rather than an absolute requirement to even step foot into the game world. Toning engineering down a bit would go a long ways toward making the ship itself feel meaningful.


Things I learned

1) Location of point defense matters. Mine were randomly scattered around the ship. After some thought, it's clear that my point defense may not have covered the rear of my ship properly.

2) radar has a zoom feature. This helps keep things from bunching up. Helps see who is interdicting you instantly.

3) I can target my interdictor without having to use the contact panel (not possible during interdiction)

4) There exist methods to just bypass shields for some reason. Not sure I like that, but ok. Where's the insta hull killer? Not a fan of hard counters like this. I'm still a wee bit fuzzy on how to beat this other than never relying on shields in pvp. I would gladly give up damage or a hardpoint to instantly kill one of only two layers of protection in the game. Seems like a really easy trade off.

5) Drag munitions slow your ship, but dont' appear to affect boost.


6) Don't play Open without a maxed Engineeer ship unless you're begging to lose it! I learned this from both of my attackers. They said the same thing. Used the same tactics. A ton of people on Reddit also seem to have this opinion. Seems a bit jaded to me, but my experiences are making me warm up to it.

7) ECM does something! I'm goint to start playing around with it.

8) Giving in to interdictions is often better than trying to fight them- especially in large ships. I'm so used to beating NPC interdictions blindfolded that this went over my head for pvp purposes.

[Commander Fox]

You want a quick answer why you die so fast? Your Engineering is horrible, 2 shield boosters with g1 resistance augmented and Thermal resistance 8A shield are really bad on a big ship. Also don't listen to people about point defense. Point defenses are useless because they are only effective against normal missiles (normal seekers and dumbfire).
Point defenses need a lot of time to take down a torpedo and most people use Packhounds.

Drag munitions makes your thrusters run like you have 0 pips to ENG, it doesn't affect the ENG cap regeneration tho and it also has no effect on boosting. So the counter is simply to boost.

If you want to survive longer you should go for 6 boosters (4x heavy duty + super capacitators 2x Resistance augmented + super capacitators) and a Reinforced shield + Hi-cap. Everything Grade 5.

And to get out of an interdiction easily, you submit, try to face your enemy, select a high wake target and then you simply boost and high wake. If you are unable to highwake because your FSD gets rebooted you simply low-wake. Only the containment missile is able to shut down your FSD long enough to prevent a high wake, as the effect lasts longer than on the normal dumbfire missile with the FSD reboot effect.

If you get attacked by a torpedo or mine bomber you simply boost away and wake out.

Or if you got good engineered weapons you can fight back because that's how you git gud at PvP.

And just a little well-intentioned advice: Do not PvP in one of the big 3.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di F0X:

You want a quick answer why you die so fast? Your Engineering is horrible, 2 shield boosters with g1 resistance augmented and Thermal resistance 8A shield are really bad on a big ship.

The irony here being I can't actually improve my engineering without going to places where I get attacked by these people constantly.

Also don't listen to people about point defense. Point defenses are useless because they are only effective against normal missiles (normal seekers and dumbfire).
Point defenses need a lot of time to take down a torpedo and most people use Packhounds.

Ok noted. Is ECM the counter to torps then? What's so special about packhounds?

Drag munitions makes your thrusters run like you have 0 pips to ENG, it doesn't affect the ENG cap regeneration tho and it also has no effect on boosting. So the counter is simply to boost.

If you want to survive longer you should go for 6 boosters (4x heavy duty + super capacitators 2x Resistance augmented + super capacitators) and a Reinforced shield + Hi-cap. Everything Grade 5.

That's a whole lot of module slots to dedicate just to not dying in 30 seconds. Is that really what it takes? Also, how does that counter these weapon mods that just seem to kill shields regardless of how strong they are?

Granted, I'm not expecting to face tank him forever. I'm just miffed about losing my A rated, best tanking ship in the game, to some python in 30 seconds.

Damage seems bit out of control if I'm required to dedicate my entire ship to just lasting long enough to do something meaningful in an engagement.

And to get out of an interdiction easily, you submit, try to face your enemy, select a high wake target and then you simply boost and high wake. If you are unable to highwake because your FSD gets rebooted you simply low-wake. Only the containment missile is able to shut down your FSD long enough to prevent a high wake, as the effect lasts longer than on the normal dumbfire missile with the FSD reboot effect.

I will try that. Some day. I'm in a cutter though. Takes a while to turn - longer than it took him to wipe out my shields. Not sure I'd be able to face him. Maybe though. Thanks for the info however.

If you get attacked by a torpedo or mine bomber you simply boost away and wake out.

If I felt I had the time to figure out what they're packing, I would. I got about two boosts in before I started taking damage. My shields were gone by the third to fourth boost. I was blown up shortly after that. I might be unintentionally exaggerating. It might have been 5 or 6 boosts. What I can say without exaggeration is that I had no time to do anything meaningful other than run.


It really is a shame that it comes down to this. I wish there was more of a middle ground than "get your endgame gear" and dedicate your ship to nothing but tanking to survive just long enough to do something cool in a fight.

Is that just my opinion out of inexperience, or is there something actually screwy with things? I get a lot of

1) DOn't even bother. Play solo.

2) Max out your ships engineering before you do anything.

3) Dedicate your entire ship solely to tanking to have any sort of tank what so ever.

For 3, I'd like something inbetween dead in 30 seconds and perma tanking an armada. I use this ship for a lot of different things. Is there something between these two extremes? Would two shield boosters to G5 with 8A shields to G5 get me say.. 1 minute instead of 30 seconds or am I dreaming?

I guess what I'm saying is , can I make a ship that is multirole, not good at pvp, but good enough to get some shots in, have some laughs, and enjoy my slow but sure destruction if I wanted to? Or is it really G5 everything, full tank or don't undock like a lot of people are saying?

[Commander Fox]

1. Do your engineering in Solo or Private, to be honest that's what most PvPers and gankers, including myself do as well. It's just no use to fly in open in an un-engineered ship, you will never reach the engineer base in open when there are currently gankers in this specific system.

2. ECM does break the target lock of Torpedoes, so yes that is a way to counter them, but as someone else mentioned already, they are very slow and can simply be countered by boosting.
Packhounds fire a salvo of "drunk" seeker missiles to evade Point defense.

3. 6 boosters is pretty normal for big ships, you really can't evade or dodge much, that's why you have to tank. I suggest 6 boosters + heatsink + module of your choice. With that you can reach around 6000-7000 shield hitpoints with well balanced resistances, assuming you got Reinforced + Hi-Cap on your shield generator. A shield cell bank could also help, but railguns with feedback cascade, that prevent shield cell regeneration are pretty common. (They will reduce your SCB regeneration by 90% usually.)

4. You can boost and turn at the same time, your attacker will also need time to deploy hardpoints and get in position, during that you can already have your high wake charged by 25% or more.

Sure you can keep playing in open and try to get your stuff done there, it is a good training and teaches you how to evade interdictions and ganks.
I won't tell you what ship you should fly, I just suggest you to fly a medium sized and fast ship to practice how to evade interdictions.

Then one day check some PvP builds and apply them to your ship and fight back. But even then you should still expect to die a lot. There is a lot more to PvP than just the right build.

It's all about practice and everyone has gone through this, even the most skilled PvPers.

[JessyJams]

Messaggio originale di F0X:

1. Do your engineering in Solo or Private, to be honest that's what most PvPers and gankers, including myself do as well. It's just no use to fly in open in an un-engineered ship, you will never reach the engineer base in open when there are currently gankers in this specific system.

2. ECM does break the target lock of Torpedoes, so yes that is a way to counter them, but as someone else mentioned already, they are very slow and can simply be countered by boosting.
Packhounds fire a salvo of "drunk" seeker missiles to evade Point defense.

3. 6 boosters is pretty normal for big ships, you really can't evade or dodge much, that's why you have to tank. I suggest 6 boosters + heatsink + module of your choice. With that you can reach around 6000-7000 shield hitpoints with well balanced resistances, assuming you got Reinforced + Hi-Cap on your shield generator. A shield cell bank could also help, but railguns with feedback cascade, that prevent shield cell regeneration are pretty common. (They will reduce your SCB regeneration by 90% usually.)

4. You can boost and turn at the same time, your attacker will also need time to deploy hardpoints and get in position, during that you can already have your high wake charged by 25% or more.

Sure you can keep playing in open and try to get your stuff done there, it is a good training and teaches you how to evade interdictions and ganks.
I won't tell you what ship you should fly, I just suggest you to fly a medium sized and fast ship to practice how to evade interdictions.

Then one day check some PvP builds and apply them to your ship and fight back. But even then you should still expect to die a lot. There is a lot more to PvP than just the right build.

It's all about practice and everyone has gone through this, even the most skilled PvPers.

Cool thanks! Much appreciated.

I don't mind losing ships so long as it was a fun time. It's the fun time I'm not seeing, hence my concern. If I was somehow able to waste his time, or get some shots in, or otherwise learn something about the encounter, that would have been great. I don't have any grand illusions about winning these fights with a ship specifically not set up for direct combat. I just expected a bit more out of the box regarding the Cutter in defense terms. It felt like a wet paper bag. I wasn't expecting engineering to be this... extremely essential. My 140 M credit 8A shield generator felt inconsequential lol.

[Commander Fox]

A common mistake people make is to assume ship size matters. The Cutter is really fast and tanky, at the cost of turn speed and DPS compared to Vette and Anaconda. So you have to work on to enhance the strengths of your ship. But unfortunately even with G5 dirty drives + drag A-rated thrusters the Cutter won't be faster than the meta medium-sized ships, like Fer-de-Lance, Federal Assault Ship, Chieftain etc.

After you are done with engineering your shield, don't forget to engineer your hull too, equip a module reinforcement package to prevent your modules from getting sniped out quickly.

When you are finished your Shield raw strength should be above 6000 and Hull above 5000 with balanced resistances, means Thermal, Kinetic and Explosive should all be at least above 25%.

You will be able to tank for a very long time, but always check your attackers weapons, because big ships are very vulnerable to reverberating cascade (attacks your shield generator directly upon getting caught in the blast radius) torpedoes and mines.