This webpage aims to introduce the reader to certain flight strategies and maneuvers. This resource does not intend to be an exhaustive list but to highlight critical components of flight strategy to help.
The Following short section contains named maneuvers. Each has an insight to share that any pilot can use to their advantage.
(Not actually a Cancel) Deploying Cargo Scoop or Landing Gear for the duration of a Boost will limit forward thrust while maximizing other thrust inputs.
(Not actually a flip) Flight Assist OFF, Boost, Hold Cargo Scoop, and any combination of pitch, roll, and/or yaw to turn rapidly with a small turn radius.
(RACBM for short, or maybe not) This is cold-orbiting advice for efficiently reestablishing an orbit when the interceptor disengages to “rearm” (actually just ignore the player for a short duration of time). From Mechan:
The moment an interceptor “turns away” to rearm, boost. The boost has four phases;
From Mechan, “Probably the most famous “named maneuver”, it involves chasing the swarm and flakking it while it’s flying away from you (after flying over you.) It is one of the few ways that slow ships (notably the ‘Vette, but also the ‘Conda and FGS) can effectively deal with the swarm. Named after CMDR Painbeaver.”
Demo: The Painbeaverhttps://youtu.be/nJFdd9AEjNI
From Mechan, “The ultimate “power ram”. Using a heavy ship (likely 500t+, although it’s possible to pull it off with 400t ships), and most commonly demonstrated in an Imperial Cutter, when the goid is lightning-chasing you, ram it head-on so that the momentum of the bonk pushes it outside of 800m, thus cutting the lightning zap short (and speeding up the fight.) Named after CMDR MuQuuu.”
Demo: The Muquuu same as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_DPowS53hQ
Note: Flight Assist OFF is an exceptional flight mode and it is recommended that every commander practice it by using it in some of, or all of, their normally Flight Assist ON activities. There are plenty of online resources, detailing Flight Assist OFF and this resource presumes the reader is already familiar with them. This section does not introduce Flight Assist OFF.
The following section details critical survival strategies:
Cold Orbiting is the practiced combination of;
Ship movement perpendicular to the Thargoid axis of fire,
Maintaining relatively low heat %, And,
Maintaining an effective distance away from the Thargoid
The goal is to be positioned outside the Thargoids target-lock lead range, the effect of which is the evasion of Thargoid projectiles and the simultaneous opportunity to be within effective range of equipped anti-xeno weaponry.
Visit Cold Orbiting for more information and video demonstrations of this flight strategy.
Whether in a small, medium, or large ship, flight strategies should be considered to get into and out of combat with thargoids. Understanding when to run and how, can save the pilot precious rebuy funds and cargo. If things start to go sour in an encounter, you can and should disengage, seek repair, and try again.
Scavengers are sluggish and have limited combat abilities. Recall your ship and just keep running. It would be surprising if Scavengers somehow surround you and even then, they don’t present much threat.
Revenenants have strong lasers and significant range. If you find yourself on-foot and running from Revenants, with each stride you need to run to the next obstacle that can provide any cover. Their laser will quickly deplete suit shields. Stealth is your best friend when in Revenant territory.
When recalling your ship, the ship can choose to land anywhere within a 1km radius of your position when you recall it. The Revenant’s range being itself 1km, a rule of thumb for getting the ship and yourself out of the area safely is to run 2 km away from the Revenants area of operation, before recalling the ship. Alternatively, a strong enough shield and hull could possibly tank the damage for long enough to make a getaway.
Thargoids have the potential to lose their target-lock. When Thargoids don’t have a target-lock, after a short duration of searching, they will begin an animation where they prepare to and eventually wake-out of the instance. After maneuvering outside of firing range and depending on ship-signature, with sufficient distance away from the Thargoid, a maneuver away from its alignment axis can cause the Thargoid to lose target-lock. This will be obvious, as the Thargoid continues on a straight path no longer tracking the player.
In CZs, Thargoids generally have the behavior of target-locking the center of the combat zone after losing a target-lock and beginning a search for a new target. Their scripts are not perfect, and they do sometimes still wake-out even when they’re only a few kilometers from the combat zone.
One method to disengage a Thargoid is to kite the Thargoid toward NPCs, have them engage the Thargoid, while staying cold. This would be making use of Thargoid aggro mechanics and AX Pilots, Rescue ships, or whatever NPCs there are in your instance.
In a solo instance, when the Thargoid is faster than you, there is no chance for disengagement
from the Thargoid without using the FSD to wake-out.
When planning operations in or near Thargoid statused systems, hyperdictions and interdictions are inevitable. While there are special cases; the efficient method is to do the following steps as soon as possible:
In addition to boosting away from the radar contacts, a large diameter barrel roll should be practiced. Scouts engage their victims and begin firing almost immediately. The addition of a barrel roll with the boost will continuously move the vessel out of the way of incoming scout fire. Successive interdictions by scouts would normally aggregate to significant hull damage, wherein a pilot utilizing a barrel roll can minimize the damage taken, possibly to zero.
A Barrel Roll is NOT simply a roll. But, it is easy enough to perform using the simple combination of lats/verts and gentle roll inputs.
Straight line speed is a great advantage but not necessary to evade Thargoid aggressors. This is another case where understanding the fundamentals of cold-orbiting can be quite helpful. Maintaining a cold orbit until the FSD cooldown completes, will minimize damage. During FSD charging:
Glaives are bullies. There are a few tricks to dealing with them in unwanted hyper/inter-dictions.
Upon entering the instance, just like any other Thargoid, there is an element of RNG whether the Glaive will be targeted to you. If it is facing askew or the wrong way, then there’s more time to get a head start running. If your ship passes into alignment with the Glaive, it will gain an immediate target lock. The Glaive will maneuver into engagement distance to begin combat. If it gets within combat engagement range, it will fire its containment missile.
If your ship boosts over 520 m/s and can boost every 7 seconds; then, with good RNG and repeated boosts, the ship should be capable of keeping the Glaive just out of combat engagement range in order to safely wake-out.
If your ship is not capable of an average speed () while boosting, then a contingency plan should be adopted. If hardpoints are a flexible option, choose the pre-engineered overcharged AX enhanced multicannons with autoloader and destroy the Glaive, for an easy bundle of credits and materials. Be aware that the Glaive has other special attacks that can be devastating to the unprepared. The ECM module can affect the FSD reboot missile, making running an option for the average speed ships. Slow ships have no chance of outrunning the Glaive, which leaves only three options; fight, die, or combat log.
A planetary instance is any normal space instance at or under orbital cruise for the nearest astral body. A pilot needs to be aware that maneuvers with the body’s gravity, like boosting nose toward the planet center, can cause the pilot’s ship to experience gravity assisted speed bleed. Instead of the ship losing speed, the ship gains speed due to gravitational acceleration and can quickly produce speeds that exceed the max engine pips speed that governs the pilot’s effective inputs. What this means is that beyond the ship’s safe speed limit, the ship loses the ability to slow down.
The corrective action required to regain complete control is to thrust to redirect the ship’s current vector away from the planet. If at low enough radar-altitude, the point at which the ship regains control loses this overspeed condition is when the vertical speed indicator (VSI) indicates neutral or increasing.
As a side, the Elite community has, in the past, organized several competitions built around this flight mechanic, abusing it to spectacular effect which we call speedball, speed bowling and gravity bowling.
CMDR Exigeous What is Speedbowling? same as: https://youtu.be/vhbUZS3wiwY
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