Need Combat N00b Help

[Guest colwyn]

Hi all, I've been trying a few free MMORPGs out there, but haven't gotten into space combat yet. Remembering the good ole X-Wing days I decided to give this a go. But it seems that the first mission of destroying 5 scrap bots is already too difficult for me :-p It's embarrassing, but I suspect that I must be doing something wrong here. I find that steering my ship without a joystick will take some getting used to because I can't seem to get to proper dogfighting using a keyboard and mouse. I already tried programming my Logitech Rumblepad, but this doesn't seem to be active in the game. Anyhoo... I found the button to follow my farget, but basically my combat comes down to hovering in front of my target and exchanging fire, but either their shields are stronger or my beam weapon is to weak to do much damage... errr Help??? :-p

[Tylis]

The first beam weapon you get is pretty bad.

Remember that this is not a flight simulator when in combat. This game came out back when games were being made so that your avatar was the sum of your statistics rather than the sum of your reaction time. As a Progen Warrior, you even get a skill that gives you combat bonuses by NOT moving at all.

As for you question. Open up your equipment screen and right click on your weapon. Make sure the auto-fire box is checked. When you jump into a nav point for a mission, look around your screen for the enemey that you came to destroy. Get with in firing range and hit your fire all weapoins button (think it's 'F' though I'm not sure since I re-mapped everything) and then hit your space bar so you will stay with in firing range. Combat should be fairly short.

Later in life, combat gets more complicated as you get more things to work with, but for early combat that really is all you have to do.

[garblesoup]

Normally I'd ask what chartype you are but since you appear to be describing the n00b area it doesn't matter as much as we all start out the same - with a crappy laser.

First - make sure you're weapon is set to Auto-Fire! It should be the default but isn't always. Right click on the weapon in your equipment slot and verify the Autofire checkbox is checked.

Now out there at the scrapyard or whatever n00b combat area it shouldn't be that hard, really as it's rather setup to let you kill the beginner mobs. Once you are at the mob area hit the "E" key to target the nearest mob to you. If it's in range the weapon icon should have lit up with a red cross-hair like effect and the system should have made a quick beeping noise - if not you need to move closer until this happens. Make sure you are pointed at it (lasers are, duh, directional) and then hit the "F" key to Fire all your weapons (which, of course, initially is only just the one but later on this will usually be your routine when you have many). If Autofire is on there's not much more you need to do at this point. Once hit that mob is going to turn and face you and stay at a constant distance (talking n00b zone here, not later on when mobs get a little smarter) shooting at you while you keep shooting at it, automagically.

Your shields will deplete but - in the n00b zone with the entry mobs (usually CL0 or CL1) - the mobs' should deplete faster leading it to die and you to proclaim Victory! Target the mob's corpse and then click on the thingie above the lower right window to open the contents and select each item to tractor it in. While you are tractoring your shields should be recharging so that by the time you've collected your loot you are at or near 100% and ready to repeat on the next mob.

If this isn't happening then I have to wonder if you are at the correct nav point. Early on you should be able to kill these guys while gaining Combat XP, sell the loot inside at a vendor to gain Trade XP, and quickly have enough XP points and Credits to bump basics like Shields & Reactor up to Lvl 2 - at which point you can dominate these little guys. Talking to the NPC's inside your starter base should be helping you build up your XP points AND skills as well.

So - what char type are you?

[bondct]

reverse kiting ftw and if ur shields start to run low then just turn tail you are faster than mobs at impulse speed for the most part... they will follow... let ur shileds charge up and start the reverse kite again (assuming beams or projectiles)... if you got missles (or when you get) no need to even face the mob... just tap tap tap forward and fire all missles...

[TooTall]

All of the above posters give really good advice that I agree with. However, I think Colwyn stated the problem he is having....

I find that steering my ship without a joystick will take some getting used to because I can't seem to get to proper dogfighting using a keyboard and mouse. I already tried programming my Logitech Rumblepad, but this doesn't seem to be active in the game.

I have always used the default hotkeys in the original game back in live and they can all be found in the game through Options > Control > and select one of the 6 types of hotkey groups. Targeting is the one addressed here. That being said, here is how I control my ship in combat or mining:

Right hand is always on the mouse to loot and cancel targets (you will find other things you want to do with the mouse as well).

The left hand on the home row, my Pinky is placed on A for forward thrust. It is also used to reverse thrust Z and Tab to open and close my local map. Used for Q to start/stop warp, when needed.

Left Ring Finger is placed on S, it mostly just rests there, but S will target the nearest friendly (green) mob. Also it goes up to W for nearest Nav, and down to X for nearest object (roid, hulk, floating loot, corpse and hidden navs you have found)

Left Middle Finger (don't get any funny ideas here, lol) rests on D that will select the next target (you need to have a object targeted) farther away from you in context (same kind), I use that a lot. I then drop down to C to cycle same target type, only closer. With those 2 keys you can rapidly go through all the targets you can see (and sometimes, some you can't ). Jump up to E to target the nearest neutral (yellow) or enemy (red) mob.

The Index Finger is on F to fire all weps, jumps over to H to target the nearest hostile (yellow/red and blinking) Baddie thumping on your shield. Also used for G to open your Galaxy Map and up to R to quickly open a reply chat prompt to talk back to the last received /tell you got.

That's my system, it really works well and quicky for me. I am sure there are others, hope it helps

Happy hunting,

TooTall

[Guest colwyn]

First of all thanks for all your replies, they are really helpful!

Second I would like to mention that indeed was a combination of not knowing whether dogfighting was necessary to be victorious

in combat and wondering if I was missing something to boost my damage output or shield recharge.

I made a Terran Enforcer I think and got a mission about killing rabid scrap bots at the shooting range. So I went to shooting range Alpha only to find out that the mobs use me for target practice instead of the other way around

I will ignore the mission for now and look for mobs around the scrapyard.

See you out there

[garblesoup]

First of all thanks for all your replies, they are really helpful!

Second I would like to mention that indeed was a combination of not knowing whether dogfighting was necessary to be victorious

in combat and wondering if I was missing something to boost my damage output or shield recharge.

I made a Terran Enforcer I think and got a mission about killing rabid scrap bots at the shooting range. So I went to shooting range Alpha only to find out that the mobs use me for target practice instead of the other way around

I will ignore the mission for now and look for mobs around the scrapyard.

See you out there

Glad to hear you have it a bit more figured out. If you see me in-game send me a message and if I'm close to Earth I can swing buy and build (give) you some better starter gear as you will probably be ready for Lvl 2 stuff already.

[nimr0dbbow[IS]]

Missiles if you have multiple ones, try not to fire them all together, stagger the firing and the mob don't get much chance of refershing shields and you have less chance to loose ammo to corpses. It also means there is more of a gradual use of your reactor instead of sudden spikes. Also useful for Projectiles.