Couple destroyer questions.

[notazita]

I've been having a bit of trouble controlling the destroyers. I cant seem to make my ship cant left or right. Is it just user error or could it be that destroyers cannot be purposely canted? I bound the "roll left" and "roll right" keys to the < and > keys and the ship doesnt seem to want to roll when i press them.

Also does anyone have any tips or suggestions as to how to effectively attack targets?

So far my tactics have been just crossing their T and let my port or starboard point defense take on their torpedoes and keep my distance until they either run out of torpedoes or are within my main weapon's range. It hasn't been working out to well for me since that all my main guns are oriented towards the front and i have to reorient myself towards them which leaves my point defenses unable to defend me and gives them a few nasty shots in before i could fire.

Also on the navigation screen is there an option at setting the height for the way points? Only thing that i can get so far is just a linear line on the x and y axis. I haven't been able to find any way to set it so that i can dive like say 40km below the area and attack the target from below.

[Dragonlead]

By and large, the capital ships do not roll independent from a heading change (like the fighters do). I believe there is a way to do this, but you have to disable helm control (the normal flight method) to do this. Will have to check on that. Also, the bigger the cap ship, the slower the roll will be.

Currently, there is no Z axis in the nav screen for waypoints. If you want to add the vertical element, you have to do it by flying the ship manually.

As for attacking targets, there are a couple of tricks. First, target subsystems. A lot of people tell you to go for the fusion reactor or engines, I won't. Target the point defense systems. This tends to take advantage of a design flaw. The shields have gone from bubbles around the ship to a "second skin" effect. This means that the point defense weapons (as seperate, movable pieces) are OUTSIDE the shield. It usually only takes 2 or 3 shots to cripple it. Once all the facing PD batteries are neutralized, unload with every missile/torp you can. The missile/torp is SO much more destructive than the beams, that even a cruiser can only take about 5 missiles/torps.
If the other ship starts to turn out of its head-on charge, unload with missiles, even if you haven't gotten all the PD batteries. The lack of ventral PD on almost every ship works to your advantage. Just be careful because if they are turning out of their "suicide run", it also means you are WAAAY close to the blast radius when they go up.

Good hunting.

V/R

[yngvef]

That's right Dragonlead, to roll a capital ship, you have to switch off the "Helm" flight control system. You can cycle between the different flight control systems with the "M" button. The options are "Helm", "Auto" and "Manual". This is true, at least for standard flight model (newtonian). I've never played on arcade.
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Judging from your post notazita, you are commanding an Asher class destroyer that doesn't have forward facing PDBs. This makes solo attacks on hostile destroyers quite difficult. My advice, as always, is to try to get backup. Use the radio and ask other destroyers in the sector to cover you. It can be done&nbsp;even if you're not the leader of the destroyer squadron... You&nbsp;can even ask the carrier to cover you... even though that's not very smart. Anyway, this will force the enemy to fire his torpedoes on one of your ships, and the rest are able to close in with Xray-lasers and their own torpedoes. Be careful not to pull all destroyers away from their own important tasks in the sector. Generally, you should never ask the escort ships to your carrier to support you because the carrier becomes a sitting duck if you do.
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Attacking from below is a good advice, and this is also easier done if you have some wingmen. They can draw the enemy's fire while you position your own ship beneath the enemy and fire your torpedoes.
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Good luck out there notazita
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y

[Wylann]

I played the cap ship combat training a few times to get the hang of it.&nbsp; The first time, I barely won, just by closing and hammering away with lasers. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The second time, I lost horribly, not sure what happened.&nbsp;

The third time, I figured out how to target subsystems....I had about 90% hull when the other ship Blew.

I found a good strategy (with the Asher) is to set course to one side, and slightly below or above the target.&nbsp; Switch to manual control and let your ship drift past as you 'strafe' with your main guns.&nbsp; I managed to take out one or two PDBs and most of the other destroyer's main guns the first pass.&nbsp; He was practically a sitting duck at that point.&nbsp; I thrust in reverse to put some range between us and finished off the past PDB then unleashed the torps.&nbsp;

Practice this a few times and I think it might help.

Cheers.

[Psycho0124]

Yeah I swear by the "slide and strafe" technique. Depending on the ship, a few carefully aimed beam blasts can cripple an enemy capitol ship in a few seconds. In a medium range, head on, 1 on 1 attack, yes it is often best to hit the PDS sysems to open the way for your torpedoes but if the enemy ship is otherwise engaged, you can spare your allied forces a lot of damage by taking out the fusion reactor asap.

Head on attacks are a worst case scenarieo when I go out on a mission. I either try and get an enemy battlegroup occupied with friendly forces or try and take advantage of a little fireing range trick I have noticed. If you approach an enemy ship slow enough, they will of course turn and thrust towards you. If your quick, you can reverse course and match speed with the enemy capitol ship. From there, you can make use of the narrow beam range advantage (1 or 2 km at max) you have over enemy ships and pummel them with beams. Its slow but it insures victory if you take your time and do it right (and your PDS dont take a nap on you and let enemy torps in).

For some of the very tough enemies (broadsword *cough* *cough*), theres a dirty little trick you can use. You can set waypoints in the navigation window and "autonav" to them instantly. Interestingly enough, you can also set the speed to be at when you exit autonav. If you plot a few nav points to bring you in behind an enemy cap ship and then set a nav point very near the enemy ship (and set speed at 1000 or 750), you can perform a high speed fly-by of the exposed side of the ship as it turns to face you. Because you appeared behind the ship and are now traveling toward it at high speed, the enemy rarely gets a chance to bring its beams to bear on your ship. If the attack is unsucessful and you dont manage to get a critical hit (this is when reactor hits do the most good), you can simply thrust and slide on past out of weapons range to try again. Just be sure, if you decide to do this, to offet the nav point from the enemy to avoid colisions.. .

I wrote an after-action report detailing this strategy and its risks. Might be a useful read:
tm.asp?m=1371773

[notazita]

Ya i'm using the asher class and i figured out the auto nav trick thing. Thanks for the instructions on how to roll the ship. I just successfully taken on an enemy broadsword with an asher and 2 frigate escorts. It seems like once i get 2 or more point defenses oriented towards it they seem to be a real easy target.

I tried the setting way points like almost on the enemy ship and i faired pretty well. I think taking out a broadsword in exchange for like 25% damage is pretty decent. The rolling really helped me a lot. I was able to more effectively protect my important systems by rolling in different angles(man i bet my crew was puking their guts out though hahaha).