My Hayabusa pilots and their Keris Drone Obsession

[Flybye]

My Hayabusa pilots are always trying to get drones at the Keris factory in Mars and are always trying to resupply it. I even blacklisted Asteroid Belt. Then they started flying in through Uranus. I then added Uranus to the blacklist, and now they just keep trying to plow through Asteroid belt.


If I setup a Keris Drone Factory in a safe sector, you guys think they will just try to access that one and finally pay attention to the black listed sectors?

[Timsup2nothin]

My Hayabusa pilots are always trying to get drones at the Keris factory in Mars and are always trying to resupply it. I even blacklisted Asteroid Belt. Then they started flying in through Uranus. I then added Uranus to the blacklist, and now they just keep trying to plow through Asteroid belt.


If I setup a Keris Drone Factory in a safe sector, you guys think they will just try to access that one and finally pay attention to the black listed sectors?

Assumption: These pilots are CLS or CAG pilots.

CLS pilots are always trying to pick up drones if they have fight command on board. Solution, don't give them fight command. They run away from trouble just as effectively without it.

[Flybye]

Thanks! Will try it out.

[Diche Bach]

My Hayabusa pilots are always trying to get drones at the Keris factory in Mars and are always trying to resupply it. I even blacklisted Asteroid Belt. Then they started flying in through Uranus. I then added Uranus to the blacklist, and now they just keep trying to plow through Asteroid belt.


If I setup a Keris Drone Factory in a safe sector, you guys think they will just try to access that one and finally pay attention to the black listed sectors?

Assumption: These pilots are CLS or CAG pilots.

CLS pilots are always trying to pick up drones if they have fight command on board. Solution, don't give them fight command. They run away from trouble just as effectively without it.

Will they make use of a PAC without at least Fight Command Mk1?

[Timsup2nothin]

Will they make use of a PAC without at least Fight Command Mk1?

I don't put guns on them either. A freighter has no chance in combat, OOS or in sector. CLS gives them the ability to go on idle when there are hostiles reported, which is the best thing for keeping freighters alive. Failing that they will jump out if they live long enough for a jump drive to spool up, or duck back through the gate they just came out of. Otherwise they are dead and that's that. Putting guns on them just increases the financial loss when they die.

[pref]

Its best to rasie them to high level in safe sectors, then they will avoid enemies quite well. At that time drones will come handy, they can buy some time for the TS while the jump sequence finishes.
Weapons won't help much.

[Timsup2nothin]

If they are high level and skilled at avoiding trouble basically the only way they die is getting one shotted, and nothing helps. The OOS combat changes in AP may make a difference, but in TC drones don't do anything to help in that case.

[Diche Bach]

Well that is a bit of a bummer! What is the point of having a gun turret mount if the dang thing can't actually do anything with it.

I'm guessing that: against 1 or only 2 M5, maybe even 1 M4 and an M5 a well shielded (say 5x25MJ) PAC armed Merc SF could put up a pretty good fight?

However, if it gets attacked, it is likely to be by 4 or 5 M3s!

Is that why it is useless to put the gun on them, or is the NPC pilot just useless at using the gun altogether?

[Timsup2nothin]

It's mostly the mechanics of OOS combat.

First off, the faster ship is more likely to 'go first', and a much faster ship is a lot more likely to go first...so a freighter is almost certainly not going first against an M5 and isn't likely to go first against anything.

Secondly, the thing most likely to stop me if I'm flying the M5 is that it will run out of juice before the freighter runs out of shields...but that doesn't apply OOS. So even an M5 is a pretty heavy handful for a freighter in OOS combat.

And third, have you ever seen any enemy ship by itself? Pirates, Xenon, Ka'ahk, whatever...there's gonna be a gang of 'em.

Bottom line, my freighters have a turret so I can go on the occasional 'mad pirate in a freighter' adventure. Try it sometime. Other than that save the credits and the cargo space.

[GCU Grey Area]

Hyabusas are one of the few TSs I bother to arm - they have strong shielding (4x200MJ) & reasonable guns (5xEMPC), backed up by fighter drones if CAGs or CLS. Having guns doesn't prevent them from jumping out but might mean they can take a few enemies out while the jumpdrive is charging.

Quite often when I respond to an attack alert from one of my Hyabusas I jump into the sector & find there are no hostiles left in the sector (& no NPC forces which could have killed them either).

Obviously the guns aren't going to help if the ship encounters a Q, however for lesser threats, such as a handful of pirates, they do seem to make a difference in culling the pirate population of the universe. 5xEMPC does 26k shield damage per second (& 10k hull damage), easily enough to obliterate pirate M5s & M4s in a single round of OOS combat, sometimes enough for M3s as well.

[Diche Bach]

Ah thanks for clarifying guys! It had occurred to me that whatever is happening in the sectors not loaded with the player must be more abstracted so that makes perfect sense.

This actually leads me to a slightly unrelated question: is there a good way to avoid getting one-shotted by a large enemy if you are in a fairly weak ship?

[BurningMan]

This actually leads me to a slightly unrelated question: is there a good way to avoid getting one-shotted by a large enemy if you are in a fairly weak ship?

Avoid large enemys is propably the best tip there is
Other than that having the best possible Shields, max Engine Tuing and a Jump Drive with enough spare E-Cells is the best way to avoid getting killed. Fight Drones can be a good distraction for enemies and can buy you enough time to make an emergency jump or curb stomp your opponent depending on how much you release, especially the MK 2 Drones can be incredibly potent and if used in large numbers can even destroy capital ships (i think 100 could easily take out an M7).

[pref]

If you mean to survive getting close to a big ship (in your personal ship) - then look for its weapon layout, and only approach from sides that dont have insta fighter killers, like FAA or SSC. Capital weaponry is relatively easy to avoid in a fast fighter.

If you mean OOS - there is no chance. The quicker ship will fire all its turres once (so maybe your TS is quicker and can shot with its PACs, hurray) then the slow ship fires all turrets, and that is the end of the story.

[Diche Bach]

Ah thanks guys! I was wondering if approaching from their blank spots was a viable strategy. I tried that on a TS I was trying to pirate in a Disco H the other day. Didn't exactly work. Seems to me M5s are pretty pathetic as far as fighting goes. With a wingman in a captured M5 I can easily take on one or two Kea and win, but by myself I'm toast. Often times I seen to struggle with just taking on a lone Harrier in a disco.

[Timsup2nothin]

The only virtue of a Discoverer in a fight is agility. With a little practice there is literally nothing in the universe that you can't get behind and stay behind. With that as an only virtue they are pretty much useless against anything with a rear turret, but one on one I will take any M5 or M4 with only forward guns. M3s without turrets are possible, but following them around popping away with IREs tends to take forever if they have a full compliment of shielding.

[Diche Bach]

Egosoft has really done an excellent job of balancing the different vessels so that they all have unique strengths and weaknesses. It seems there are a few ships that perhaps that somewhat approach the 'win button' model, but nothing that is either completely useless or on the other end perfect.

That is saying a lot because many games fail to accomplish this, and every game largely turns out to play the same as a mad dash to get to the "Win Ship" variant.

I'm guessing they must be some pretty heavy duty air and naval history buffs.

BTW, if any of you guys are more broadly into naval strategy wargames, one you ought to check out is War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition by Matrix Games. It is so complicated it almost makes this game seem like checkers. Total hex-map grand strategy type deal, no tactical interface at all. Graphics are pretty low budget (lots of spreadsheet windows, lists and sorting tools, fleet composition puzzles, waypoint circuits, special rules about which fighter can fight well at low vs high altitude, etc.