Yeah, that’s honestly what bugs me most about using FAOFF. Ohh lookit, I turned to face 'em real quick, but now they’re 4 clicks away. UGH.
Ohhh, that’s pretty simple. Once I need a break from bounty hunting, I might give mining another go.
That’s not always a bad thing though. If you’re flying a Viper you probably don’t want to be getting into small, slow turning battles with an Eagle for example. Instead you should be putting the Viper’s big speed advantage to good use. Also note that with high end power distributors you can boost a lot, like all the time.
But that’s when you can have the advantage (with a bit of boost) if you have long range weapons and time it right, because they’re inevitably going to have to turn (pitch), and as they do so, their top or bottom will be facing you, and because you have some distance, they’ll be travelling fast, but only moving a short distance of arc relative to you, so you will have a long period when your guns are just hammering the big, fat, more or less stationary (relative to you) juicy target of the top/bottom of their ship (if they were closer, that same speed would be too fast for your pitch to track, they’d be travelling a bigger arc relative to you).
At least, that’s how it is with NPCs, people are going to be more clever than that (though I haven’t tried PvP yet).
And I guess if you have shorter range guns, the tactic is different - you want to stick to their tail, stick behind them pretty close constantly, and hammer their arse, so it doesn’t matter quite so much if you’re not tracking them as you turn, just so long as you can get into position behind them.
No, just some dexterity with the keyboard from being raised on keyboard only controls. It’s not as efficient as having this stuff on a joystick, but it works.
Ah yes, that seems like an obvious thing to try! For years I had a mouse with a dodgy mouse wheel, so I never used the damn thing and it feels a bit odd to use it these days, but I’ll try that.
Mining in rings is breathtaking beautiful. Well worth doing at least once, just for the vibe.
schurem
2846
No idea really, late 2015 is what i heard. Yes you want a rift with this. It is the cat’s fine furry ass.
Range shmange, I wanna be right up in their bumpers when I shoot 'em. ;) Well, except Anacondas, because fuck.
Just stay underneath them and shoot them in their nice, soft belly. Trouble is, they have a tendency to roll over and expose their topside weapons!
KevinC
2849
So how does this game handle different level of challenges, if at all? What I mean is, I’m in System A, which has some extraction sites. I’ve been blowing up pirates there, which are mostly flying anything from Sidewinders to Cobras. If I’m ready to step up my game and head to more dangerous waters, how do I go about doing so? Are certain systems/regions more dangerous than others? Do I need to start relying on assassination missions that send me after Anacondas?
That’s what I try to do, oh yessir.
Sharmers post is great, it also reminded me that keeping an eye on the news for potential hot spots is likely a way to find more challenges, if you don’t mind flying to 'em.
I had one of my most awesome times with the game last night. Started on the obligatory pilgrimage to Sol from the Tatil/Maujinagoto area, mostly fuel scooping and exploring on the way. Ran into a system with 4 suns and no planets, which was weird. Found an inhabited system where the planet that the outpost was anchored to hadn’t even been “inception-sound” pinged, which I found strange. I wonder if that means I’m literally the first player to run into it, although it seems unlikely. I stopped at a USS and found some prototype tech, which I want to unload at a black market, but of course since I’m flying into areas that are new to me, I’ve no idea where they’d be, so I’m just landing at every outpost I see while staying away from full-on stations with security till I ditch the contraband.
Finding un-pinged planets (ones which don’t even appear as “unexplored” in your system map) is the coolest thing. You fly perpendicular to the plane described by most of the existing orbits till you’re a good 1000 LS “up” or more, then fly parallel “upside down” fast and look to see if anything’s moving against the background. When you spot something then you fly toward it spamming the D-scanner till you’ve marked it.
Clay
2854
Man - I’ve flown to 15+ stations/outposts and I’ve only found 1 mission I was able to complete. Argh! I’ve made the most $ by selling nav data, but even then it’s measly. I suppose I’ll keep moving and hope to find a station with some newbie missions.
I recommend just doing a bit of trading in low-cost items first (say, food cartridges from Industrial stations to refineries), then the factions should start offering more newb-friendly missions.
I started the evening off by going all in on the mining operation. I sold my shields to get a 4 bay Cargo bay. Then I went back to Mining. An hour and a half later, I flew out with 5 platinum, 3 palladium. Pretty nice haul. I upgraded my Sidewinder, got rid of the refinery and mining laser and took a break.
When I came back, I was all set for some combat. So I took a pirate kill mission, and what the heck, took a scrap mission to a neighboring system as well. When I was delivering the scrap, I got interdicted by a Viper. A wanted pirate rated as competent. She took out my shields right away. As I scrambled to get away long enough to get my shields back (reverting power to Systems, using lateral thrusters to dodge, and try to get behind her), it was beginning to look dire for a while. I did get my shields back, but couldn’t quite get her shields down despite several hits.
And then… Feds to the rescue! Two Federation Vipers dropped in and helped me out. Not only getting her shields down, but also being polite enough to back away so that I could get the kill. Thanks guys! 23k bounty on that Megan character.
I did finally get to the pirate killing mission, but as mentioned by someone above, the person I found offered a greater amount for me to go back to the other system and kill Authority figures instead. What was weird was that transaction replaced the other one in my list. And the ship who gave it to me was showing up clean. So I looked for pirates in that system for a while, but then didn’t want to risk any further complications with that mission, so I abandoned it.
A great first foray into bounty hunting for me though. I still think I’d have lost that battle if the Feds hadn’t come in for the rescue. I think I might need more than 2 type E beam lasers to take down enemy shields quickly.
I got confused by this at first, but it actually adds to the mission description - the original objectives and bounty are still there, but now you have another option.
Today I shot down a Cobra with the name Huggy Bear.
Had a better run last night, did a few successful courier missions in my Cobra (18 cargo FTW!) and then decided to experiment. So I upgraded my thrusters and power distributor, added a gimballed burst laser, a mining laser and a refinery (replaced a 2 cargo hold with it, so I’m down to 16 now… I’ll live), and set off with two overlapping pirate kill missions to the designated anarchy system. Hey, if I’m going to work, I may as well get paid twice!
Took a while to find all the pirates I needed, but I had no problem taking them down. I do like the gimballed laser. I really want to get a wake detector now as well, after several of my potential kills jumped away moments before their own destruction. First, though, I wanted to try my hand at mining. It’s actually quite relaxing isn’t it, sitting amidst tumbling rocks with a giant ringed planet backdrop. An Adder appeared and started scooping up chunks, and for a moment I thought it was stealing mine, but it had just decided to mine the asteroid one over. I mean, there are a billion rocks out here, and you have to camp next door? Sheesh.
So after 20 minutes of picking up chunks of rock and refining them, I had 2 bits of Cobalt, 1 Uraninum, and 2 Bauxite… which I sold for about 2,000 CR. Hmmm, ok, so this is why you guys are all talking about platinum and gold! I think I could do this for a bit, but then I’m going to want to upgrade my weaponry further, fit a wake scanner, and go blast some fools.
Papageno
2860
@krayz, it helps to explore till you find a Metallic cluster or belt with Major Reserves. Those are the ones that’ll have some roids with gold, platinum, palladium, silver, bertrandite and gallite, in my experience.
