Elite : Dangerous

[GreenPiggy]

Good thread on the subject:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...hlight=ramming

[Lowe]

I spend most of my Elite time farming money at the Distress signals by mopping up the fighters. Yes, they will attempt to ram you - it's a bit of a bug, but one I can overlook, after all these are the Dreadnought's protection ships and a suicidal ram from one of those to protect a 6% hull dreadnought isn't out of the ordinary if you ask me.

So, always be expecting a ram, as mentioned above lock your target and keep a keen eye on their vector. As soon as you see the >--< symbol then they are coming directly at you. This is your cue to hit vertical or horizontal thrusters. Using the strafing technique doesn't always avoid the collision but it means that rather than outright dying when hit you'll simply lose your shields. A quick FA off and hit of the boost into open space, pips to shields to recover then get back into the fight.

[Ttaskmaster]

Then it's solo mode only for me from now on until they fix it. Ganking is seriously lame and I don't want to lose many hours of gameplay just because someone has to stomp on kittens to get their jollies off.

Online games are full of both these '1337' players and "Whining crybabies" like you... and also me, apparently.

I fully accept that I will never be the best pilot in the galaxy for any game... But in order for me to play, I have to stand *some* chance of winning.
Star Citizen will have a PvP slider, so I can cut out up to 90% of these possible gankers, but both that and Elite seem to require online connection to a persistent universe (if I understand this correctly?), so what hope will us lesser players have for Elite, do y'all think?

[KeyboardDemon]

I spend most of my Elite time farming money at the Distress signals by mopping up the fighters. Yes, they will attempt to ram you - it's a bit of a bug, but one I can overlook, after all these are the Dreadnought's protection ships and a suicidal ram from one of those to protect a 6% hull dreadnought isn't out of the ordinary if you ask me.

So, always be expecting a ram, as mentioned above lock your target and keep a keen eye on their vector. As soon as you see the >--< symbol then they are coming directly at you. This is your cue to hit vertical or horizontal thrusters. Using the strafing technique doesn't always avoid the collision but it means that rather than outright dying when hit you'll simply lose your shields. A quick FA off and hit of the boost into open space, pips to shields to recover then get back into the fight.

I don't think I have experience ramming myself, but I didn't go to the Federal Distress signal until I already had C1 Pulse (G) lasers and found the gimballed weapons were making short work of the federal fighters, so maybe I've just been destroying them before they've had the chance to ram me.

Online games are full of both these '1337' players and "Whining crybabies" like you... and also me, apparently.

I fully accept that I will never be the best pilot in the galaxy for any game... But in order for me to play, I have to stand *some* chance of winning.
Star Citizen will have a PvP slider, so I can cut out up to 90% of these possible gankers, but both that and Elite seem to require online connection to a persistent universe (if I understand this correctly?), so what hope will us lesser players have for Elite, do y'all think?

There are a few threads about this on the frontiers forums and I've seen some suggestions of a police force that will hunt down gankers with swat style squads, but not sure if this is what the actual solution will be.

[Lowe]

I don't think I have experience ramming myself, but I didn't go to the Federal Distress signal until I already had C1 Pulse (G) lasers and found the gimballed weapons were making short work of the federal fighters, so maybe I've just been destroying them before they've had the chance to ram me.


There are a few threads about this on the frontiers forums and I've seen some suggestions of a police force that will hunt down gankers with swat style squads, but not sure if this is what the actual solution will be.

Depends if the fighters are actively targeting you. Sometimes you get them taking a few fleeting pot shots here and there and other times they aggressively target and pursue you. No idea what triggers the difference in AI behaviour.

[GreenPiggy]

There are suggestions that they will avoid ramming you when you have higher shield pips - what configuration are you generally dogfighting with?
And they've rammed me to death in less than 3 seconds from me starting to target them before now

[KeyboardDemon]

I usually run 4 pips to weapons and 2 to engines, which leaves no pips for shields unless I need to regenerate my shields.

[Lowe]

I'm fairly aggressive so generally go full pips to weapons with one shared between engines and shields. Whilst escaping I'll probably balance everything up and boost away with FA off whilst pointing backwards taking pot shots at anyone daft enough to follow. This was always good fun with the railgun, they soon break off!

[MaddAussie]

I finally had a good spell at the distress signal and have now upgraded both my lasers. I found that rolling and yawing (you end up doing a corkscrew) was the best was for me to avoid ramming.

[Ttaskmaster]

Is this AI fighters doing the ramming?
Strange, as there's mention on other threads where a lot of live players are purposely ramming others in the Star Citizen alpha...

[Lowe]

It's the AI yes - once pointing their weapons toward you they have a tendency to then play chicken with you. If you don't break off a full on 'head on' is possible which more often than not kills both participants...

[Ttaskmaster]

If you don't break off a full on 'head on' is possible which more often than not kills both participants...

Would one not normally just strafe, or disengage engines and slide past them with guns blazing, Freelancer style anyway... or do they alter course to purposely ram, whatever one does?

[Lowe]

Strafing works to a certain extent, especially if you land some good hits on the way in - the AI will panic and boost away. They do strafe a little as well once close, usually vertically which can throw off your shots.

I think people that suffer from excessive ramming (and I don't mean this disrespectfully guys) are getting overly kill focused and it's as much fault theirs as the AI really; high head on closing speeds are difficult to bleed off quickly and possibly getting 'locked' into having that last final shot rather than playing safe and turning away. There's no ramming in that video I posted above is there? (can't remember haha!)

[GreenPiggy]

I think people that suffer from excessive ramming (and I don't mean this disrespectfully guys) are getting overly kill focused and it's as much fault theirs as the AI really; high head on closing speeds are difficult to bleed off quickly and possibly getting 'locked' into having that last final shot rather than playing safe and turning away. There's no ramming in that video I posted above is there? (can't remember haha!)

While generally true, the one time I died last night was when I turned to acquire a new target, only to find that he was 300m away mid-boost towards me.
Not entirely sure what I could have done to avoid that.

[Lowe]

While generally true, the one time I died last night was when I turned to acquire a new target, only to find that he was 300m away mid-boost towards me.
Not entirely sure what I could have done to avoid that.

Agreed but brings me on to another point. Don't get mixed up in the main furball that's going on next to the Dreadnought too much, especially not at first. Stay on the edges of the battle and pick off the stragglers gradually working your way in. This way you're only dealing with one or perhaps two at a time and considerably less likely to get caught out.

[cptwhite_uk]

So my friend has the projector, the sound set-up, the dual sofa chairs, the HOTAS set-up, and now has his Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2.....going to check it out tonight, he's had a quick play yesterday and says it's amazing. Will take some photos this time!