Dogfighting with a small fighter ?

[Stakhanov]

I have just tried handling most avaible ships (reloading my games just to test) , some have obvious weight issues (the mule has a frightening inertia) , others can be steered just like the llama but some are much more manoeuverable. I tried to pick on 2 pirate hyenas with an aeon (4 disruptor beams , 2 photonswarms) with no autotracking.

How foolish of me. No game so far has given me that much dizzyness...

I was used to reacting to the fast hyena's manoeuvers , but not with a fast ship. The aeon's fast acceleration reduced the interaction time much , barely enough to shoot at them. With such increased relative speeds , the hyenas seemed to zoom around twice faster than usual. And with the fast turning response of the aeon , it was quite hard to keep them under the firing crosshair... still , I could defeat them because of dumb AI flying straight towards me sometimes.

I suppose such things happen with rlaan and confed light/medium ships as well. Any advice to tame those wild war steeds ?

Now I understand why heavy fighters such as the aevant are appreciated - they steer mostly like the llama , with less inertia. Enemy llamas seem very slow when chasing them.

[El Bobbo]

Have you tried flying at less than your max combat speed during combat? I generally try to fly at about the same speed as my target. Although they are maneuverable, hyenas actually have a relatively low top speed (I think 1080 kph). An aeon is almost twice as fast, so at top speed you will quickly zoom past a hyena even if you are on its tail.

If you still think your ship is turning too fast, you could try adjusting the mouse sensitivity in vegastrike.config. Search for "mouse_sensitivity" and change the value under glide_mouse or warp_mouse depending on which you are using (I like glide mouse).

[To Megatherion]

You should try the Shizu... never flew anything more agile.

[Cockroach]

Get auto-tracking on your beams. Engage cruise engines. Match speed with target. Close, and fire at will. Go flatout with your afterburner if they try to run.

Should work provided they can't regenerate shields faster than you can take them down and that you can stay out of their fire if they have bigger guns.

[Stakhanov]

For some reason , the match speed key doesn't work with hostile targets. Quite annoying when finishing off mules and oxen with beams.

I tried the Shizu/Idun , but its steering is not that great (at least in 0.4.3) and the specifications are lame - barely better than a Schrödinger. My favorite fun ship is the Taizong/Vidar , very swift and agile , with torpedo capacity and allowing a reactor level 7 (for twin razor guns + ion beams) , its only weak point being the limited shields. Of course , it requires full autotracking to properly fight small ships. This ship highlights how useless and lame the Pacifier is (it only costs 700k more credits)

[Cockroach]

I generally set to max combat speed then tweak slightly up or down from there. With cruise engaged I can jump between 1000 and 3000 on afterburners where needed. For Mules, I tend to set it to 0 and kick it up to 200-300 and use afterburners to manuever around the top/rear and spray at it if my torp misses.

[Kangaroo]

The "match speeds" function works, only your speed "matches" when your cruise speed is 0.

That is, when match speeds function is on, the speed calculation point is the other ship.

[jackS]

Actually, no, last I checked, set reference velocity vector does only work on non-hostile objects.

[Kangaroo]

Is that in SVN?

I can match speeds with everybody in 0.4.3