Combat is broken, unpleasant mess

[mahu]

Ok, so after few weeks of exploring, trading and otherwise earning cash, i got myself a Python and decided to test it out in combat. I'm a dirty casual so I have no idea what I'm doing, so I watched a bunch of videos and red some tutorials. With beams, multicannons and one cannon (each with a handful of engineered upgrades) i went into nearest fight in some random signal source.
And then I decided it's ultimate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t and middle-finger to all new players.

Where to begin?

1 - AI just turns around on the spot as if laws of physics don't apply to them. I saw Python just like mine doing full 180 in about 1 second. I tried doing the same with flight assist off (which makes your ship impossible to steer and ♥♥♥♥s up your throttle, but whatever) but no matter what, turning like that is just not doable. Needless to say, it makes aiming front-facing weapons impossible and I'm reasonably sure players who use them are not people but machines. Or have aimbots or something. Or just reflexes of cobras on crack that my old brain simply can't achieve. Fortunately gimballs help with that, marginally. Tried turrets, but they just don't do any damage. Which brings me to...

2 - Weapons do miniscule amounts of damage. Yay, I took down someone's shields after wailing on them for 3 minutes! Now it's time to rip this bastard apart with my miniguns and big-♥♥♥ cannon. Fire! And fire. And fire. And fire. I was shooting at ASP Explorer and almost ran out of cannon ammo before it went down. Meanwhile the same ASP Explorer just shoots at me for 3 seconds and overloads my shields, then does another run and drops me to 40% health. Ah, but I had a plan! I deviously designed dirty tactics of disabling his power plant, so...

3 - Module targeting is broken. Tried it 3 times to ensure it wasn't just a random bug. 3 times I disabled power plant on enemy ship (dropped it to 0%) and it had exaclty no effect. They kept firing, turning like crazy, recharging shields and one of them jumped away. How? Just ♥♥♥♥ing how? What even is the point of shooting at their modules if they just straight up ignore that?

4 - Final thought - is combat just completely walled off from people who have not spent 100+ hours on grinding engineers? Because if yes, then significant portion of new or inexperienced players like myself will simply not bother with it. You can say it's 'git gud' thing - and it probably is, but here's the problem. If you just bought the game and decided to embark on your first "harmless" mission, you will probably get your ♥♥♥ handed to you in 10 seconds or less. I understand that engineering is crucial part of this game, but it should not make some of the content unplayable/unfun for people who don't have time to put hundreds of hours into minmaxing their ships. Some of us have jobs. And after a long day the last thing I want to see is game that outrights prevents me from having fun unless I put untold amount of time on it.

It's just so unbelieveably jarring to grind money for a new, big ship (compared to my previous Type-6) and find that it's just as useless as previous one, only now repairing it costs overwhelming amounts of money. And when you realize you have to basically treat this game as another job if you want to one day reach point where you can have fun with it...? No. Just no. People will probably bounce off it because of this poor balance - I know two of my mates from work did - and it's never good for any game. Let us sunday players have fun from time to time, even if it's solely in small, isolated zones. That's it.

[Bannor]

TL:DR: I suck at combat ('cos I'm new and haven't put in the time & effort to practice) - and it's the game's fault!

[mahu]

Originally posted by Bannor:

TL:DR: I suck at combat ('cos I'm new and haven't put in the time & effort to practice) - and it's the game's fault!

not entirely. i suck at combat and it's my fault. what i mean is that it's not fun to grind for hours just for a potential promise of maybe being able to have fun in combat sometime in the future.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Where were you doing your combat?

1. Your flying a python. Unless you engineer the drives to make it turn better its a bit of a brute. Its main advantage in combat is how much of a beating it can take to its shields. Its not a manuverable fighter but a big lumbering shield tank ship.

2. Some shields offer better kinetic resistance, some better energy weapon resistance.... same goes for hull renforcement stuff. So its not as black and white as energy weapons for shields then kinetic for hull. Sometimes kinetic will drop a shield quicker. I gave up on splitting my weapons and just use the fire everythin all the time approach to cover all bases

3. Cant really comment on that i dont use it often at all.

4. Play to your ships strengths, and pick a combat area at your skill/engineering level.

Res sites go up from low to high to hazardous. Above them would be vonflict zones. So if your struggling step it down a bit untill you get more engineering.

Hope some of this helps :)

[Elitewrecker PT]

The easier it is to aim, the less damage you do, as you can see.
You could try nav beacon camping and scanning people, looking for bounties. To get a better handle on maneuvering.
Also, engineer (or simply upgrade if you can) your thrusters for better maneuvering.

[mahu]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

The easier it is to aim, the less damage you do, as you can see.
You could try nav beacon camping and scanning people, looking for bounties. To get a better handle on maneuvering.
Also, engineer your thrusters for better maneuvering.

will try that, thanks. my main gripe is with issues 3 and 4. no effect from destroying enemy modules just baffles me, but more importantly i'm concerned with the fact that large bits of game are basically walled off until you put hundreds of hours into it. i can still get my fun from exploring, but that's just poor design

[Qrazy]

In conflict zones NPCs have highly engineered ships. I'm not sure of the level of engineering on NPCs in things like a res site or even a CNB. I know I've been hit with some engineered weapons there. Shields/hulls seem pretty flimsy. So stick to res sites.

I do find it hilarious that new players grind mining to get new shiny ships, have no idea how to use them, or engineer them, and complain combat is difficult.

[mahu]

Originally posted by Qrazy:

In conflict zones NPCs have highly engineered ships. I'm not sure of the level of engineering on NPCs in things like a res site or even a CNB. I know I've been hit with some engineered weapons there. Shields/hulls seem pretty flimsy. So stick to res sites.

I do find it hilarious that new players grind mining to get new shiny ships, have no idea how to use them, or engineer them, and complain combat is difficult.

actually i never mined before getting to python. went on a trip to colonia in diamondback and used profits from that to get it. and i obviously stay away from actual combat zones - they seem to be full of professionals.

most importantly, i don' have issues with combat being difficult, but i'd like it to be difficult in a way that noobs could still interact with it. it's a simple matter of not having time to grind everything to be perfectly optimized for PVE

[Vahnkiljoy]

Not only are CZ ships engineered for combat the WILL have combat oriented boosts, so those shields that took YOU forever to down was because they probably had the max amount of shield boosters and or cell banks as well.

Module targetting works perfectly, you have to SHOOT the module, just because you TARGET it does NOT mean just shooting willy nilly at the 'location' means you are hitting it, as well, you are still having to deal with any reinforcements they have onboard, both hull AND module reinforcement.

Newbs can interact with combat just fine, don't go into this game or any of its activities with the mindset of 'you win everything', that's a sure fire way to ruin your day as it seems to be doing. As others have said, if you are wanting to BH, just play around in some of the RES sites, though, until you get better at combat and find the weapon loadout that suits you, stay away from Hazardous sites, no cops show up there.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Noobs just go to res site low where its all unengineered sidewinders cobras, vipers, haullers etc.

You can go have fun there with you starter ship if you like. Or if you go there in your python you will feel like a god lol

[mahu]

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

Not only are CZ ships engineered for combat the WILL have combat oriented boosts, so those shields that took YOU forever to down was because they probably had the max amount of shield boosters and or cell banks as well.

Module targetting works perfectly, you have to SHOOT the module, just because you TARGET it does NOT mean just shooting willy nilly at the 'location' means you are hitting it, as well, you are still having to deal with any reinforcements they have onboard, both hull AND module reinforcement.

Newbs can interact with combat just fine, don't go into this game or any of its activities with the mindset of 'you win everything', that's a sure fire way to ruin your day as it seems to be doing. As others have said, if you are wanting to BH, just play around in some of the RES sites, though, until you get better at combat and find the weapon loadout that suits you, stay away from Hazardous sites, no cops show up there.

right, this is actually helpful info, thanks.
but regarding that module targeting - when you target it, new healthbar appears for that specific module. on 3 separate occasions i dropped that bar to 0% on enemy powerplant and they kept flying around and fighting as if nothing happened.

[Mu77ley]

Originally posted by mahu:

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

Not only are CZ ships engineered for combat the WILL have combat oriented boosts, so those shields that took YOU forever to down was because they probably had the max amount of shield boosters and or cell banks as well.

Module targetting works perfectly, you have to SHOOT the module, just because you TARGET it does NOT mean just shooting willy nilly at the 'location' means you are hitting it, as well, you are still having to deal with any reinforcements they have onboard, both hull AND module reinforcement.

Newbs can interact with combat just fine, don't go into this game or any of its activities with the mindset of 'you win everything', that's a sure fire way to ruin your day as it seems to be doing. As others have said, if you are wanting to BH, just play around in some of the RES sites, though, until you get better at combat and find the weapon loadout that suits you, stay away from Hazardous sites, no cops show up there.

right, this is actually helpful info, thanks.
but regarding that module targeting - when you target it, new healthbar appears for that specific module. on 3 separate occasions i dropped that bar to 0% on enemy powerplant and they kept flying around and fighting as if nothing happened.

0% powerplant reduces power output, with a tiny chance to explode on the spot. It doesn't stop power generation completely and this rule also applies to your ship.

[mahu]

Originally posted by Mu77ley:

Originally posted by mahu:

right, this is actually helpful info, thanks.
but regarding that module targeting - when you target it, new healthbar appears for that specific module. on 3 separate occasions i dropped that bar to 0% on enemy powerplant and they kept flying around and fighting as if nothing happened.

0% powerplant reduces power output, with a tiny chance to explode on the spot. It doesn't stop power generation completely and this rule also applies to your ship.

wait, what? this is unbelieveably nonsensical. what's the point of targeting modules then?

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Mu77ley:

0% powerplant reduces power output, with a tiny chance to explode on the spot. It doesn't stop power generation completely and this rule also applies to your ship.

Yes. When the power plant is at 0% health, it generates 40% of its power output. If you had a strong power plant to begin with, and you set your modules' power priorities the way that they are still powered with the 40% of the power plant output - those modules will keep working.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by mahu:

what's the point of targeting modules then?

For the power plant - to limit your enemy ship to 40% of its power, which means that at least some modules will go offline. But more importantly - for the chance that the next several hits will put it into an overload, and the ship will explode, even if its hull is still half-intact.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

To answer your "2" - the damage output of your laser weapons drops beyond 500-600m from the target. There is some engineering (long-range or focused) that can help with that.

But in general you should keep it in mind. If you shoot lasers from 2km away - your lasers will barely tickle your enemy's shields. The shields can go offline after a few minutes, but mostly by dying from laughing.