I embarrassed an M8 pilot to death (My Disco is a fighting machine!!!)

Khardur · Post by **Khardur** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 00:56

Okay, so no it's not. But I took out an M8 in no time... Okay, well - if around an hour is no time...

*sigh*

I took a "protect my station" mission - I don't know why.. I only have the discoverer and 4 IRE's. A Pirate Harrier showed up. Got him quick, that was easy I thought.

Then comes a single Pirate M8 through the gate. I didn't realize what kind of shields it had on it until well into the battle that ensued. I laid into it with all my furious - fury! And when I heard "energy low" I looked at his shields, which were at 95%.

*gasp* By the time I made another pass, his shields were back up to 100% already. Argh...! I need to time this better...
My second pass was much better, many more hits, and I fired off all my missiles. This will take him down to half... yeah! The missiles all struck their targets. His shields: 92% and rapidly climbing.

Then I got hit - one hit from his rear turret and I had lost my shields and was down to 85% hull. I'm doomed! I twist and turn and run out of range...

I fly away - far away, but he was following me now, intent on my destruction. I hop out and repair the ship - she's still in one piece, thank the maker. I hop back in the ship and fire up the IRE's. Here comes the Viper. I lay into it again, and realize it's not shooting at me - only missiles in the front, I need to stay out of its rear firing arc... I get its shields down a bit more - enough that I can make a second pass and whittle away... slowly...

I got it down to 60% shields. then back up to 85%, then down to 55%... I kept working... I would lay in at 100% energy with my IRE's, then at a distance of around 500m I would turn tail and run straight away, waiting until I was around 3km away and the IRE's were up to around 45%. Then I would turn and start in on him again... by the time I got back in range the IRE's would be in the mid 90% range - don't let them get up to 100% - then it's free shield recharge time for him...

Half an hour in, his shields are down around 10%. I screwed up and took too much time on the return trip... back to 20%. I'm going to kill that rat I swear if it takes me all damn night.

He's still coming after me, but with no missiles to fire and my ship's speed, he'll never get his rear turret on me again. I finally eat into his hull!!! he's at... 98%. I'm going to cry or put my fist through my cockpit window.

another 20 minutes go by - I'm making progress - I've prefected my runs and hit him with maybe 15-20% shields and at the end whittle his hull down another 2-4%, and figure with my firing pattern I even turn my ship to align the wing patterns to his ship to maximize the hit %.

I've now got him down to 5%... I take one last breath and go in guns blazing... Poor sucker must have said "oh crap" as the hull finally breached - I imagine his last thought was he simply must end it all, he'd rather kill himself than be embarrassed going back to his pirate base limping from taking on a piddly discoverer... *boom*

I take my lean, mean fighting machine back to a station and save for the night. All for a whopping 1100 credits. It's good to feel alive.

____________________________
Dan M.

silenced · Post by **silenced** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 01:02

m8 = a sitting duck ... i'm pretty sure you could make them bail while wielding your repairlaser

but gratz anyways :þ

MegaJohnny · Post by **MegaJohnny** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 01:13

And you bothered to complete that mission? I heard Discos can actually be used as fighters, at least.

I call them the rich man's fighter drone. They're buggers when there's a big swarm all focused on you alone, especially in an Elite where all I had was 2 PACs and a PRG in the rear.

Your story reminds me of killing M6s in an Elite. I'd empty my laser charge on him with a pair of PACs, then run away to near firing range limit, while the PRG in the rear comfortably negates his shield regeneration.

It's a lot more satisfying when after killing a few M6s in that slow fashion, you get up to a Nova Raider and can ram a hot steamy HEPT stream into the hull.

Prownilo · Post by **Prownilo** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 02:20

Bombers are supposed to have two sets of missiles, one set for taking out ships/stations big, slow, and go bang!) and a second set of Uber-Swarm missiles for taking out fighters.

AI either doesn't know how to swap sets, or isn't given the second set.

Main issue here is the AI is dumb enough to chase after a disco when it's primary target is completely defenceless.

shilhi · Post by **shilhi** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 02:35

MegaJohnny wrote: I call them the rich man's fighter drone.

Ive used them like that. XP
Jumped into a Paranid sector and got attacked by a swarm of ships, so I sent out about 60 (no kidding) discos.

It got a little bit laagy, but it was funny as hell to watch an entire attack force get chewed up by spammed Discos. Haha!

Userfaulty · Post by **Userfaulty** » Tue, 28. Oct 08, 00:10

Hah. Last night I killed an M7 with my M3 Nova Raider. All I had were 2 phased repeater guns and 2 PAC's and 1 Phased repeater in the back for missile defense.

It took me about an hour of strafing and speed control sitting at 666m

in his blind spot (which I happened upon by accident and pure luck). He had taken me down to 54% hull but I finally got him.

zibafu · Post by **zibafu** » Tue, 28. Oct 08, 00:19

yeah man congrats, m6's are easy to take out with an m3/4/5 just make heavy use of your strafe drive (w,s,a,d) and his laser will never hit you, avoid them front guns tho cause if he catches you with them its usually quite painful.

I normally just try to follow him by matching his speed, at about 1.4km away and just strafe around his laser whilst unloading mine onto him, as long as he has no wingmen defending him, hes toast.

handy388 · Post by **handy388** » Tue, 28. Oct 08, 04:38

started as a humble merchant, got a boron m5 with 2 IRE and 3mj of shield

made a hades M8 bail, 3.0M

46852 · Post by **46852** » Tue, 28. Oct 08, 10:33

Prownilo wrote:Bombers are supposed to have two sets of missiles, one set for taking out ships/stations big, slow, and go bang!) and a second set of Uber-Swarm missiles for taking out fighters.

AI either doesn't know how to swap sets, or isn't given the second set.

Main issue here is the AI is dumb enough to chase after a disco when it's primary target is completely defenceless.

Actually you're wrong, the M8s can only use Tomahawks (or Phantoms in Terran bomber). I agree that they *should* have antifighter/missile capability. I suggested in another thread that they should have access to some light missiles too, change the Tomahawk bay to be the "main" gun, and add a frontal light turret (IRE/PAC). That would remove the "sitting duck"-label from them and make them actually a force to reckoned, but not anything overpowering. Tomahawks are after all pretty easy to shoot down.

The "protect station" mission needs some fixing too, it should have the fighter wing protect the bomber, and when they're close enough, heavy fighter and bomber should engage the station, and light fighters would protect them. If the player starts shooting *any* of the ships, all the fighters, including the heavy fighter, should engage the player, while the bomber would concetrate on pummeling the station.

Also, the attacker setup could vary a bit more, and according to the difficulty too. Very Easy/Easy: M5s, M4, M3, occasional M8. Medium/Hard: M5-M3s, M8/M6. Very Hard/Extreme: M6/M8 or two with full fighter protection wings, maybe an M7 on Extreme.

PS. Also M8 bail rate needs to be fixed, it seems like it's too high.

egosoft.com

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I embarrassed an M8 pilot to death (My Disco is a fighting machine!!!)

I embarrassed an M8 pilot to death (My Disco is a fighting machine!!!)