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As I've said before, and I'll say again: I hate Terran weapons, I just can't use them because, as you say Kirlack, they can't hit for crap! Too low ROF, all of them (apart from the M/AM launchers, they're fun because they're a CIG+). Admitted, with my X-shuttle I gave it 4 EMPC, because I like that they hit hard but don't use much energy, great for pounding away at larger targets like M3/M6s, but it was compulsory that I put a pair of PBEs on it just so I can hit anything that goes over 200m/s... I'm sooo glad that NPCs don't strafe, or EMPCs would never hit them!
I don't need to strafe that much, because I'm so used to playing X2 where you had to buy the ability to do it, and then you had press 'ALT' to strafe, but you couldn't turn while you were doing it, meaning that it could only really be used for out-of-combat manoeuvres. I think it was pretty balanced in that respect, because it was still really easy to avoid fire by rolling and such, but the NPCs could pull off the same evasive manoeuvres! Unless you were facing Khaak... I don't know how many times I died to Khaak M3s just because you couldn't stop them hitting you until you could get behind them...
Strafing = Broke, any other maneuvering tips?
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Strafing = Broke, any other maneuvering tips?
RandomTank
Assoguey (17)
Assoguey (17)
Posted 10 years ago.
I will be the one to take you down!
Kirlack
Specoguey (14)
Specoguey (14)
Posted 10 years ago.
Christ, I'd forgotten that you needed the strafe drive extension in X2! And that you couldn't strafe and turn at the same time!
Yeah, EMPCs kinda suck don't they? I can rinse most combat missions in a matter of minutes when I'm flying a Commonwealth ship, but ask me to do it in a Terran fighter and I'll be at it for at least half an hour, probably longer
Still, that's the challenge of my Terran game start, not being able to fight like I'm used to (or make money like I'm used to, grrr).
Yeah, EMPCs kinda suck don't they? I can rinse most combat missions in a matter of minutes when I'm flying a Commonwealth ship, but ask me to do it in a Terran fighter and I'll be at it for at least half an hour, probably longer
Still, that's the challenge of my Terran game start, not being able to fight like I'm used to (or make money like I'm used to, grrr).
Madder than a Bastard on fathers day.
My DiDs: Peace(s) of Eight - Way of the Gun - Status: Online, A Xenon DiD
My DiDs: Peace(s) of Eight - Way of the Gun - Status: Online, A Xenon DiD
jjhawk
Markoguey (10)
Markoguey (10)
Posted 10 years ago.
X3 and it's expansions have made dogfighting a joke In my opinion.. The 3rd person view I have to zoom my field of view as close as possible so I'm not chasing a dot on the screen for a start. Constant missile spam and stupidly overpowered weapons such as pulsed beam emitters and flame throwers means you have to approach each fight cautiously or die very fast.
The main tactic is to creep up on an enemy from as close as possible and unload everything you got into it before they can react or do what what XTC and Albion Prelude were designed for and just sit on the other side of the sector and roll your face on the keyboard as your missile barrages fly across the sector and wipe everything out..
Now my epic rant is over
I map strafe to the arrow keys, alot easier for my while using a joystick although strafe will not save you from flame throwers or missile spam 8/10.. And don't count on shields saving you because the recharge time is an utter joke... Grr I'm ranting again.. 
The main tactic is to creep up on an enemy from as close as possible and unload everything you got into it before they can react or do what what XTC and Albion Prelude were designed for and just sit on the other side of the sector and roll your face on the keyboard as your missile barrages fly across the sector and wipe everything out..
Now my epic rant is over
I map strafe to the arrow keys, alot easier for my while using a joystick although strafe will not save you from flame throwers or missile spam 8/10.. And don't count on shields saving you because the recharge time is an utter joke... Grr I'm ranting again..
RandomTank
Assoguey (17)
Assoguey (17)
Posted 10 years ago.
I have to agree though, PBG's and PBE's are stupidly powerful weapons, it makes it extremely challenging or just plain aggravating to fight Pirates or Xenon, and to top it all off, not only are they much more powerful than a HEPT/EBC, but they are damn near impossible to avoid! I can't really play AP now, just because of Xenon. The increased hulls on their fighters means that weapons like the PRG or PAC really struggle to kill anything above an M5 unless you are extremely close so ALL your shots hit, but then you will be inside PBE range, meaning that most M5, M4 and some M3 are pretty well dead; HEPTs seem to be so inaccurate at range so that you'll be half way through an L's hull, but because half your shots missed, and its hull is harder to break, you have to fire for longer, so your generator runs out. I think Reunion had it right, because all of the lasers were pretty balanced apart from the PBE, but they were very rare on NPC ships and you had the option not to take it.
AFAIK, ships don't really spam missiles in TC; the only thing I found that does is maybe an OWP with Banshee's, but other wise its relaxed in the missile deparment, making MDM very effective. I have to agree about AP though, its retarded how many missile are being fired about; I go into a furball dogfight and instantly my mossies are gone because the amount of missiles being fired, your MDM just gets spammed until you run out, then you die to a constant Silkworm barrage or a sneaky Spectre...
AFAIK, ships don't really spam missiles in TC; the only thing I found that does is maybe an OWP with Banshee's, but other wise its relaxed in the missile deparment, making MDM very effective. I have to agree about AP though, its retarded how many missile are being fired about; I go into a furball dogfight and instantly my mossies are gone because the amount of missiles being fired, your MDM just gets spammed until you run out, then you die to a constant Silkworm barrage or a sneaky Spectre...
I will be the one to take you down!
jjhawk
Markoguey (10)
Markoguey (10)
Posted 10 years ago.
Missile spam could get pretty bad even In x2 at times, but you could guess what was coming for you and how to avoid it from the ship class firing it...
M5's had wasps (seeking, but low damage)
M4's had dragonfly (dumbfire, easy to avoid)
M3's had hornets (you could outrun them and turn to fire as they were slow or any turret would take care of them)
Now you got swarm class missiles, even wasps run your mosquito's dry and they do quite a bit of damage to even an M6 because you cannot conserve your shields by using scenery such as stations or outrunning your opponent as the recharge time is horrific and they spam missiles if you get out of laser range, even x3 Reunion felt like a first person shooter to me and that was far better for for dogfighting and strafing than the latter expansions, Xenon invasions In an M3 was a blast.
In X2 you can dogfight and even feel fairly safe In an M4, In Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude it is suicide with anything with less than an M6.. A Xenon mission In any M3 Is a matter of try dodging the PBE's while being chased by missiles and die very fast.. X3 Reunion was much better balanced for dogfighting than the latter two episodes, but even then It was a pain without mods to balance gameplay.
Anyhow I don't want to derail the thread, strafing is still viable against larger ships with slower shot speed and is quite effective In M7 or bigger ship encounters and really the game does not seem to shine until late game which is a shame... I miss patrolling pirate sectors In a Bayamon Yarrr!!
M5's had wasps (seeking, but low damage)
M4's had dragonfly (dumbfire, easy to avoid)
M3's had hornets (you could outrun them and turn to fire as they were slow or any turret would take care of them)
Now you got swarm class missiles, even wasps run your mosquito's dry and they do quite a bit of damage to even an M6 because you cannot conserve your shields by using scenery such as stations or outrunning your opponent as the recharge time is horrific and they spam missiles if you get out of laser range, even x3 Reunion felt like a first person shooter to me and that was far better for for dogfighting and strafing than the latter expansions, Xenon invasions In an M3 was a blast.
In X2 you can dogfight and even feel fairly safe In an M4, In Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude it is suicide with anything with less than an M6.. A Xenon mission In any M3 Is a matter of try dodging the PBE's while being chased by missiles and die very fast.. X3 Reunion was much better balanced for dogfighting than the latter two episodes, but even then It was a pain without mods to balance gameplay.
Anyhow I don't want to derail the thread, strafing is still viable against larger ships with slower shot speed and is quite effective In M7 or bigger ship encounters and really the game does not seem to shine until late game which is a shame... I miss patrolling pirate sectors In a Bayamon Yarrr!!
Kirlack
Specoguey (14)
Specoguey (14)
Posted 10 years ago.
I must respectfully disagree with you jjhawk. I find dogfighting quite possible in TC (not sure about AP, haven't played it yet), even in just an M4. Swarm missiles can be dodged, or fooled into hitting other targets (like a passing M6), and you can always shoot them down if you're flying an M3/M3+ with turrets.
I do rather miss the Bayamon though, and the Orinoco!
I do rather miss the Bayamon though, and the Orinoco!
Madder than a Bastard on fathers day.
My DiDs: Peace(s) of Eight - Way of the Gun - Status: Online, A Xenon DiD
My DiDs: Peace(s) of Eight - Way of the Gun - Status: Online, A Xenon DiD
RandomTank
Assoguey (17)
Assoguey (17)
Posted 10 years ago.
I generally agree with you jj, though I do think that decent dogfights are possible in TC, just spammie, insta-hit, insta-kill weapons kinda put me off a bit... but I love the dog-fighting X3:R, missile spam was not a problem at all, but you were still wary of what was fired, just in case it was a sneaky Thunderbolt (my favourite missile) that would snipe your M4! but going round in an M4 in Reunion was perfectly viable, if not advised, I remember going around in the basic Pirate Buster with its AMAZING generator that could fire 2 APSG's infinitely! (OUCH!) It wasn't too slow either, and had average shielding and a good cargo bay; doing all the fancy maneuvers (strafing, rolling, looping, tailing) that little M4 could go toe-to-toe with a bloody Osprey!
Now I have to be honest, I didn't like the Bayamon, too much of a glass cannon and was way to easy to hit with its MASSIVE frontal profile; no matter what fancy evasive you where doing, you were still going to get pounded by those HEPT's! My favourite M4 was the Buzz-Buzz, with dual GPAC's (the best one, it's stats weren't far off an AHEPT but with much less NRG usage) made it killy, but could still fire for a loooong time. The thing about X2 though, as there basically wasn't any strafing, speed and turning was everything, making the Scorp retardedly funny to use, just out-turning and out-accelerating any combat ship, then proceeding to kill it pretty damn quickly with its dual AHEPT's! (excluding Khaak), but I just loved going around in a harrier with APAC's, because it could fire for years and was soooo fast (even though it was the slowest M5), I felt invincible! Until I met a Khaak scout that is....
Now I have to be honest, I didn't like the Bayamon, too much of a glass cannon and was way to easy to hit with its MASSIVE frontal profile; no matter what fancy evasive you where doing, you were still going to get pounded by those HEPT's! My favourite M4 was the Buzz-Buzz, with dual GPAC's (the best one, it's stats weren't far off an AHEPT but with much less NRG usage) made it killy, but could still fire for a loooong time. The thing about X2 though, as there basically wasn't any strafing, speed and turning was everything, making the Scorp retardedly funny to use, just out-turning and out-accelerating any combat ship, then proceeding to kill it pretty damn quickly with its dual AHEPT's! (excluding Khaak), but I just loved going around in a harrier with APAC's, because it could fire for years and was soooo fast (even though it was the slowest M5), I felt invincible! Until I met a Khaak scout that is....
I will be the one to take you down!
jjhawk
Markoguey (10)
Markoguey (10)
Posted 10 years ago.
My point being is that it is alot harder to dogfight and the facts back me up. Lets just look at an Argon Nova from x2 vs an Argon Nova from x3 not counting rear firing weapons.. The x2 Nova has 2 beta hept and 75 mjs of shields. The nova In x3 has 8 hept or more and the same shields and what you don't see is that those shields recharge alot faster In x2. X3 had become a third person shooter.
Well I could do top level xenon invasions In an m3+ In x3, but I just aint good enough to survive very long In an m4 In TC so I must be a pretty bad player.. And trying to evading pbm's and flame throwers and lasting more than 5 seconds In an M4 as no amount of strafing would save me while at the same time praying that the enemy shot down their own missiles.
And yeah I got Albion Prelude recently, you get given a centaur very early, but it's slow and not well shielded.. I left the centaur defending a dolphin at one of my factories and have to go fix it up after fighting 3 pirate m4's (out of sight). The next pirate attack killed the dolphin and left my centaur with less than 30% health. The attacking pirates were 2 m5's an m4 and an m3.. This is with 10 fighter drones helping also. I have had my freighters kill all the pirates with the fighter drones or escape quite often so I have now started loading all defence craft full of fighter drones with missile probability set to 80% and this seems to work better.
I must say I did complete the main Albion missions In the centaur, I even killed the pirate m7 In the final part of the campaign with it, infact I killed everything before the defence forces got there, but the pirates were not like your normal ones and act pretty passive till you attack them. To be honest AP is not that special and the sector you get given is quite honestly stupid.... It is In a terrible place with terrible yield asteroids and not worth the effort, I wish I had left my PHQ were it was In the first place and not bothered with the home-ground missions at all.
Well I could do top level xenon invasions In an m3+ In x3, but I just aint good enough to survive very long In an m4 In TC so I must be a pretty bad player.. And trying to evading pbm's and flame throwers and lasting more than 5 seconds In an M4 as no amount of strafing would save me while at the same time praying that the enemy shot down their own missiles.
And yeah I got Albion Prelude recently, you get given a centaur very early, but it's slow and not well shielded.. I left the centaur defending a dolphin at one of my factories and have to go fix it up after fighting 3 pirate m4's (out of sight). The next pirate attack killed the dolphin and left my centaur with less than 30% health. The attacking pirates were 2 m5's an m4 and an m3.. This is with 10 fighter drones helping also. I have had my freighters kill all the pirates with the fighter drones or escape quite often so I have now started loading all defence craft full of fighter drones with missile probability set to 80% and this seems to work better.
I must say I did complete the main Albion missions In the centaur, I even killed the pirate m7 In the final part of the campaign with it, infact I killed everything before the defence forces got there, but the pirates were not like your normal ones and act pretty passive till you attack them. To be honest AP is not that special and the sector you get given is quite honestly stupid.... It is In a terrible place with terrible yield asteroids and not worth the effort, I wish I had left my PHQ were it was In the first place and not bothered with the home-ground missions at all.
RandomTank
Assoguey (17)
Assoguey (17)
Posted 10 years ago.
I kinda agree, but also kinda disagree; this is because I found X2 way too easy, whereas X3:R is average, X3TC is a challenge, and X3AP is damn near impossible! This is because in X2, the Nova and Perseus were power houses, they had stupidly high DPS weapons that the NPCs would never take, could fire for what seemed like ages, and the player could just out-maneuver everything because the AI couldn't react fast enough, making it sooo easy to wipe a sector in an M6, or a M3 at a push. It was just sooo easy...
In X3R, they changed it all, for what I think was the better. They increased the amount of weapons on ships, improved the dogfighting AI, (as you say) made shields recharge slower, made it so NPC's would (albeit rarely) mount the super damage weapons, increased the range of nearly every weapon, but most importantly, they made every weapon slower and much more inaccurate. All of this meant that NPC's would be better at killing you, and you could be worse at killing the NPC's; but then they turned it around by letting you strafe in-combat to avoid the NPC's better damage output. This meant that speed helped much more in combat, and also that you had to actually avoid their fire rather than just wade through it and kill everything before they killed you; your ships became a lot more killy, and much more fragile, but so did theirs!
But then in TC they started to ruin it... By adding too many stupidly high DPS weapons, and letting too many NPC's have them, and that I strongly agree with you. It was possible in TC, but was a lot harder with those extra weapons. In AP, they went a step too far, by increasing hulls of fighters so the TTK was much higher, and made them missile spam as well, killing the player waaaaay to often... I like the challenge of TC though, but I will always love X2 and Reunion even more...
In X3R, they changed it all, for what I think was the better. They increased the amount of weapons on ships, improved the dogfighting AI, (as you say) made shields recharge slower, made it so NPC's would (albeit rarely) mount the super damage weapons, increased the range of nearly every weapon, but most importantly, they made every weapon slower and much more inaccurate. All of this meant that NPC's would be better at killing you, and you could be worse at killing the NPC's; but then they turned it around by letting you strafe in-combat to avoid the NPC's better damage output. This meant that speed helped much more in combat, and also that you had to actually avoid their fire rather than just wade through it and kill everything before they killed you; your ships became a lot more killy, and much more fragile, but so did theirs!
But then in TC they started to ruin it... By adding too many stupidly high DPS weapons, and letting too many NPC's have them, and that I strongly agree with you. It was possible in TC, but was a lot harder with those extra weapons. In AP, they went a step too far, by increasing hulls of fighters so the TTK was much higher, and made them missile spam as well, killing the player waaaaay to often... I like the challenge of TC though, but I will always love X2 and Reunion even more...
I will be the one to take you down!
jjhawk
Markoguey (10)
Markoguey (10)
Posted 10 years ago.
They have never improved the AI, instead they give npc's more dps and missiles spam.. X2 countless number of times I died to shockwave generators or tazers.. (yeah X2 had stupid weapons too)
X2 Perseus with 3 of those shockwave generators was a little stupid, they should never been In the game, but your comment about X2 Nova being OP is a quite confusing to me as a Xenon L could turn on a sixpence and collide with you and the pirate Orinoco was just as good for turning. The Nova was slow compared to most other M3's infact.. All X2 M3's apart from Perseus could mount 2 BHEPT's as far as I remember, Perseus had 3 AHEPT's. I would say the Mamba was the best personal ship as it could outrun all the missiles with ease. The only reason for the Nova was the back turret. (All X2 M3's were supposed to have a turret btw I still have the manual
)
I know what you're getting at, but the game was far more balanced In X2 and I will not budge on that point. Egosoft should have spent more time on AI and the game would have been far better and that is were the fault is; As for me the balancing was almost perfect.
X2 Perseus with 3 of those shockwave generators was a little stupid, they should never been In the game, but your comment about X2 Nova being OP is a quite confusing to me as a Xenon L could turn on a sixpence and collide with you and the pirate Orinoco was just as good for turning. The Nova was slow compared to most other M3's infact.. All X2 M3's apart from Perseus could mount 2 BHEPT's as far as I remember, Perseus had 3 AHEPT's. I would say the Mamba was the best personal ship as it could outrun all the missiles with ease. The only reason for the Nova was the back turret. (All X2 M3's were supposed to have a turret btw I still have the manual
)
I know what you're getting at, but the game was far more balanced In X2 and I will not budge on that point. Egosoft should have spent more time on AI and the game would have been far better and that is were the fault is; As for me the balancing was almost perfect.
liddgege123
Rookiguey (4)
Rookiguey (4)
Posted 10 years ago.
I like the challenge of TC though, but I will always love X2 and Reunion even more...
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SpiritOfDeath
Skillguey (7)
Skillguey (7)
Posted 10 years ago.
Me i have my left hand nearly always on the wasd keys, and usually keep my right on my joystick. I usually like to take on bigger fleets than what my ship can usually handle to keep things interesting. I personally find it kinda OP, but then i remember, that the computer can spawn stations out of thin air, have a greater strategic mind, can multitask to make everything as efficient as possible, and owns an empire that spans 1/6th of the universe, and it can never run out of credits. So, i guess my cheating makes up for all of the computers cheating.
Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! *falls over*
don't look at me D:
don't look at me D:
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