IIRC, these levels are still current and yes, 150 unlocks all military ships:
Trainee: 0-4 mil pts - Ferret frame unlocked.
Ensign: 5-24 mil pts - Ferret frame unlocked.
LTJG: 25-49 mil pts. - Aries, Ferret, and Shadow frames unlocked.
LT: 50 - 99 mil. pts. - Aries, Ferret, Shadow, and Wraith frames unlocked.
LCDR: 100 - 149 mil. pts. - Aries, Evoch-C, Ferret, Shadow, and Wraith frames unlocked.
CDR: 150-249 mil pts. - All mil frames unlocked, Ferret thru Chimera.
CAPT: 250-499 mil pts. - All mil frames.
COMO: 500-749 mil pts. - All mil. frames.
ADM: 750-998 mil. pts. - All mil. frames.
FADM: 999-infinity - All mil. frames.
That's certainly a viable combat strategy to fly at a distance for a while to analyze the situations and enjoy the view... also gives time for weapons to recharge, shields to recharge, and any damage to repair.
The problem is its so much fun to experience the immersion of looking at the ships, planets, stars, external views even during battle so I sometimes get blasted.
That sounds good, I need to be a patient p-38 kind of pilot rather than a japanese zero.
Am working on improving my offset angle approach, strafing as passing, pulling back the throttle while doing so then as passing slamming on afterburners on full. Wide gentle arcs with a Leviathan are difficult because I find if I increase the turn the speed drops so I cannot shake the Vonari on my tail.
I was using a wraith. on second thoughts I might go back to it this Leviathan gets hit a lot!
The big ships can take hits well and can carry a lot, but can be challenging in certain combat situations where the smaller ships and especially military fighters can have significant advantages. Arc maneuvers being one example. With the larger frames, I tend to do the offset approaches, then take some time to circle around to try and maintain sufficient sideways drift (keeping the AVL around maybe 1200-1500) as the target moves in to attack again... relying on the big ship's shields and energy reserves to help me last long enough to destroy each target. But it is tricky and challenging
Then there's always the "backward inertial" maneuver. Get the bad guys to chase you and determine how fast they can go. Engage inertial and turn around to face them. Adjust your speed such that their closure is very, very slow. Take note that their missiles never reach you because you're moving away but your missiles reach them, no sweat. Keep it up and pick them off one at a time.
If you can't break them up with flybys to try and split the up to pick them off one at a time, then it may be best to break away and escape for repairing/reloading. However, the reverse technique Marvin describes above can be used against multiple hostiles, but it takes some careful planning and velocity setting to maintain sufficient distance long enough to inflict enough damage to destroy them all (be ready to trim your forward/reverse thrusters to align your escape velocity with their forward velocity and slowly bring them in range). For me, I often fire at targets before an MDTS lock to maximize that timeframe. If your cannon has a range of say, 1500, then you can probably begin firing at 1700-1800 or more and still hit. Depending on target damage levels and decisions, you may see them split up a bit or even turn away and avoid such an attack, but much of the time you can perform this maneuver successfully. The biggest risk and drawback with this approach is the fuel expense, so that's something to consider also and escaping (even if just briefly to recharge and repair) might actually be a better decision from a financial standpoint.
If your ship is badly damaged or you need to reload, then there's certainly no problem escaping to repair and reload. Just be aware of the added expense relative to your contract pay and be sure not to leave the sector or it will be counted as abandoned and failed. Also, leaving the area for too long may cause the enemy ships to fly away out of range, so there may be some hunting involved when you return to the waypoint.
Ah the penny just dropped - I had not thought about the long range scanner module!
The hunting sometimes takes ages or I have been giving up more often than not.
I am doing better now at the 4 waypoint missions finally and even hardly using missiles so racking up credits and military points - got the 2 steam achievements for military operations
Excals make hunting and killing the bad guys easier. Especially when there's a gaggle of them ... 'cause you never run out of missiles. But, no matter which missile you use, save them for the coup when using the "backward" technique. Reason being the bad guys will break off their attack once they get somewhere below 50% ... at that point they will drop back. Which is when you want to use a missile (with its longer range) to get the kill.
