well, as far as the cruse disrupters, thay are annoying. countermeasures are your best bet. as for the techniques, find a good trade route in a 'safe place' (use spoiler forum to find one). when you target a trade lane dont hit dock (f3) untill the last minute, that way you won't be stuck for too long. you can also target somthing in the distance and 'go to' (F2) it, shooting everything behind you with yout turrets. but other then that... your on your own.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea of building a giant robotic parrot out of melted down coins was a bad idea, I would have one kick a$$ giant robotic parrot.

Thanks for the reply. I've managed to try the "fly in one direction and use the turrets" tactic before in the Magellan system. That worked pretty well against the pirates out of Mactan, but the clowns in Rhineland are a whole order of magnitude different.

I noticed that I changed my guns on the freighter, upgrading them substantially. Does the gam throw harder fighters at you when you have better guns, or was it a coincidence that I met harder enemies with bigger guns once I had better guns (furies, I think).

Do the countermeasures really work? I seem to drop loads of them (I have improved countermeasures) and they don't stop the cruise disruptors.

Are improved shields worth the $30k they cost? My freighter just has the standard shields. Could this be why I get minced?

Thanks,

.\\arakith

this may be a spoiler..

try hitting engine cutoff, default is Z, make sure you are in freeflight mode. Afterburn, and then turn the ship around 180 degrees, the bad guys will fly away for no particular reason what so ever...(a bug..)

..and I just wonder, where do I buy one of those?...

countermeasures work aganst cruse disrupters, you just have to be quick, those things are fast. I don't think that the fighters get harder if you have better wepons. and for the shields if you click on the shield it should show the stats. diffrent shields are better against diffrens wepons. It should also show you the HP of the shields (if thats what you want to call it). more HP = better shield, so yes upgrade.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea of building a giant robotic parrot out of melted down coins was a bad idea, I would have one kick a$$ giant robotic parrot.

Nice one!

I'll give that a try tonight.

.\\arakith

unpro I don't concider that a spoiler at all. it is covered (vaugly) in the manual and it is a good trick. it works well against the toughest opponents.....

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea of building a giant robotic parrot out of melted down coins was a bad idea, I would have one kick a$$ giant robotic parrot.

oh, and the enemys arent flying away from you, you are flying away from them... backwards at a speed of 300. it seems that thay are moving away becaues as long as they want to use there distrupters thay cant engage their cruse engines. and if they shoot your engines it won't do anything sence your engines are cut. but yes that also works.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea of building a giant robotic parrot out of melted down coins was a bad idea, I would have one kick a$$ giant robotic parrot.

Guys

When you say that by doing this:

> try hitting engine cutoff, default is Z, make sure you are in freeflight mode. Afterburn, and then turn the ship around 180 > degrees, the bad guys will fly away for no particular reason what so ever...(a bug..)


Just to confirm, is this the procedure:

1 Fall out of the trade lane
2 Cut engines (Key: Z)
3 Hit Afterburners (Key: TA [Note: Afterburners NOT Cruise engines
4 Turn 180 to face the enemy.
5 They run away.


Hairfarmer, you were saying that:

"you are flying away from them... backwards at a speed of 300."

I'm not with you - is this inertia keeping you going at 300? What is going on?

Thanks,

.\\arakith

o.k. hit your cruise engines. wait untill you are going 300, then cut your engines(defult z). at that time you will be 'costing' at 300. If you turn around 180 deg., you will be flying at 300 backwards facing the enemy (you will also be able to fire at them too). your speed will decrease eventualy but you will be flying for some time at high speeds. of corse this only works if you can get up your cruse activated before getting pummled by disrupters, but if you are just flying around and someone lanches a disrupter at you, instead of hitting your CM, just cut your engines and when the distrupter hits it wont do anything because you cut off your engines... make sence???

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea of building a giant robotic parrot out of melted down coins was a bad idea, I would have one kick a$$ giant robotic parrot.

Yeah, that makes sense.


Thanks!

.\\arakith

I find that trick good to reinitiate jousts, say I have a wing of Sabres flying at me, I hit one, burn cut turn coast, reactivate, burn, joust, torpedo. Goodbye 2-3 Sabres on the first 2 jousts.

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

hairfarmer:
Rotating 180 degrees in freeflight mode very often DO scare off the enemies.

Try going freeflight and afterburn. You are now travelling 200 m/s, but the enemies keep up with you at a distance of a few hundred meters.

Now try rotating 180 degrees. Often, the enemies will instantly slow down for a while and increase the distance to approx. 1000 meters to get out of your firing range.

Marakith:
1. Always use the best shields available. Otherwise you end up spending the same amount of money on hull repair - if you survive.

2. Get one shield of each type: graviton, positron and molecular. In battle, scan your opponent's weapons with the O key to see which type of shield they do least damage to. (And scan their shields too, so you can choose the best weapon type for your ship).

3. Avoid slowing down to 80 in crowdy places. It may be better to hit Esc to break out of a trade lane 5K before the end, cruise the rest of the way straight into the next lane or jump gate and hit the dock key just before it is too late. Practise last minute docking in friendly places to find out what "just before it is too late" means.

4. Always fly straight onto stations, jumpgates and trade lanes so you don't have to spend time maneuvering at low speed to get in the right position for docking.

5. If you are queued at a jump gate or station, break the docking procedure with Esc and cruise around until it is cleared. (Some people have luck flying in front of the blocking ships and joining formation with them.)

6. Use countermeasures to avoid cruise disruptors. Use a lot of them. If I try to outrun the enemy, I drop the first countermeasure before entering cruise, and then I drop one every second until out of range. "Adv. countermeasures" are the best type.

7. Enter cruise manually with Shift-W. If you use F2/F3, you will waste time selecting the target, and your ship will slow down when it get close to the target.

8. If you are hit by a cruise disruptor, press Esc+Z to get into freeflight mode and then afterburn to reach 200 m/s. The ship will now keep a high speed for a long time without draining the afterburner. If you are in a Dromedary, you can now rotate 180 degrees and perhaps scare the enemy or at least fire at them while flying backwards with almost 200 m/s. In a Humpback, rotating will take too long, so you will have to use turrets instead.

9. You will often be hit less while fighting than while running away. And fighting is more fun, at least in a Dromedary.

weres it mentioned in the manual???????????????

CannonFodder:
I don't think it is mentioned anywhere in the manual that fighting is more fun. It is just an opinion.