From Piece of Cake to Instant Death (warning: spoilers)

[Phileosophos]

So I finished the first line of IMG quests and collected my rewards. Feeling pretty pleased with myself I farmed the containers for a brief while, upgraded my ship, and headed off to the Olympus sector. I landed at the station and got the quest to go on what I figured would be a relatively simple patrol. It said there would be about four fighters, but I figured those would probably be spread out across a few patrol waypoints. I readied myself and jumped.

The alarm klaxons were blaring before the HUD even cleared from the jump. Of the three inbound missiles from the four fighters right there waiting for me, I managed to shoot two of them out of the air but countermeasures failed to prevent the third from impacting with a very loud BOOM. I set a perpendicular course and used the burner to boost up to a speed around 1,000, switched to inertial, and reinforced the shield that had been decimated while turning to bring my weapons to bear. Of the next volley of three enemy missiles, I could only shoot down one before the other two blew me to bits.

I tried again. And again. And again. And again. The one time I got lucky and had only three ships to deal with, I managed to kill two of them only to have the last guy fly up close and pummel me to death. I can't seem to find any better frames/gear than I already possess, and from what I've seen there's no way I can take four of these guys. It seems like somebody threw the game difficulty switch from the "Piece of Cake" setting to "Instant Death".

Am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

[Spartan268]

Just a tip. When fighting multiple enemies try to match there speed in reverse.(ergo. inertial) but keep it close enough that you can engage them as well. try using your Manuvering thrusters to coast left and right to stay out of their fire.(default A and D) Btw countermeasures don't work too well when IDS is on or when you afterburners are on. when missles are inbound try to use manuvering thrusters only.

P.S. just a tip. when engaging a ship it always helped me to target their weapons sub-system. (default = U) keeps their rate of fire to a minimum.

Hope it helps:):):)

[Whytephyre]

If jumping directly into contact is getting you Shot up, jump a distance away then fly there. Also hire goons, a fleet helps for combat missions (unless this is the olympus warzone). If you are having trouble with 4 fighters you are in for a tough ride, try fighting vonari. Also, you might want to go faster than 1,000 k in a dogfight.

Wait till you do the final IMG quest, i think it was ten patrol points, & 60 bogeys. Also, the waypoints are in a planet's atmosphere.

[Marvin]

If you jump directly to the waypoint, you'll meet the enemy head on ... making it harder to avoid a missle volley. I usually use my down thruster to drop below the enemy after warping, then target one and strafe it as it passes above me. His (and any other) missiles almost always pass harmlessly overhead.

[BraveHart]

"Open your nav map after clicking on the contract/mission and set a new nav marker a little ways away from the original nav point....10 or 20 give or take, then fly manually to the original nav point....this will give you more time to prepare for combat. Never head directly towards the enemy...offset your approach just off to one side of the enemy and build up your speed turn IDS off and target the lead hostile....Fire off a missile close to your target followed up with guns and laser's and keep in mind the missile's they fire at you....I usually have my speed set at 1200 to 1400 while flying to one side of the hostile. use your guns to shoot them down and deploy cm's when the missile's indicator is red....5 cm's will do it.....Most times the missiles will speed past you and all you have to do is turn around and fly backwards shooting the missiles down or use your cm's....once you shoot down most of the hostiles then try dog fighting one on one "

[Ravenfeeder]

Aside from Braveharts' excellent tactics you have equipment to help you survive; there's the auto CM dispenser, which is brilliant, and the anti-missile thingy, which I've just installed, and yet to try out. There's also a sheild re-generator. 4 AIs should be no problem, all you need is a bit more practice - we've all been at the stage when we were overwhelmed by that number of AIs.

Enjoy.

[Maarschalk]

The anti-missile thingy(lol) works to slow in a missile spam and imho is not worth it. The automatic dispencer might waste more cm's then you need to waste. Have not tried the dispencer yet thou....

[Ravenfeeder]

The CM dispenser is brilliant. I can dive into the middle of a crowd of Vons, say 7 of them, completely ignore their missiles, take the lot out with gunfire and not have a scratch on my ship at the end of it. Usually have about 35CMs, out of 100, left. It's like shooting ducks in a barrel.

[Maarschalk]

That could come in handy. so you could concentrate more on dogfighting then evading missiles or shooting them down. But when your surrouded by 30 enemies ship all missile spaming you.....Ooooops out of cms...:P:P:P:P

[Ravenfeeder]

You're daft if you let yourself be surrounded by 30 red AIs. That's why God, sri Vice, gave you an afterburner

[Blackthorne]

Originally posted by Phileosophos
So I finished the first line of IMG quests and collected my rewards. Feeling pretty pleased with myself I farmed the containers for a brief while, upgraded my ship, and headed off to the Olympus sector. I landed at the station and got the quest to go on what I figured would be a relatively simple patrol. It said there would be about four fighters, but I figured those would probably be spread out across a few patrol waypoints. I readied myself and jumped.

The alarm klaxons were blaring before the HUD even cleared from the jump. Of the three inbound missiles from the four fighters right there waiting for me, I managed to shoot two of them out of the air but countermeasures failed to prevent the third from impacting with a very loud BOOM. I set a perpendicular course and used the burner to boost up to a speed around 1,000, switched to inertial, and reinforced the shield that had been decimated while turning to bring my weapons to bear. Of the next volley of three enemy missiles, I could only shoot down one before the other two blew me to bits.

I tried again. And again. And again. And again. The one time I got lucky and had only three ships to deal with, I managed to kill two of them only to have the last guy fly up close and pummel me to death. I can't seem to find any better frames/gear than I already possess, and from what I've seen there's no way I can take four of these guys. It seems like somebody threw the game difficulty switch from the "Piece of Cake" setting to "Instant Death".

Am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

Well, without trying to sound arrogant...the combat missions in Olympus are amongst the easiest in Evochron. It only gets worse from there.

Maybe we should review a couple of things here...

1. What type of setup are you using exactly? Which Frame components, which equipment options, which guns, which missiles?

2. Did you use lateral thrust? The AI is still pretty bad at handling sideways movement, a fact which'll be the only thing to keep you alive in the warzones.

3. Have you considered using missiles yourself? A Rockeye or Starfire at point blank can take out most of what Olympus has to offer. Just make sure to fire it below 800 clicks, else the AI will shoot it down or use CMs.

-Blackthorne

[Phileosophos]

First, thanks for all the tips, folks. And for the record, I figured this was probably considered easy; I'm just surprised at the jump in difficulty from the cake missions of the first IMG quest line to instant death in the first mission in the second. That seems like questionable pacing to me.

Second, let me respond to Blackthorne's questions, since the answers seem most relevant to what others have helpfully asked as well. My setup is a Mirage frame, which is the best I've found at the stations I've located thus far, with a 4 shield, 2 cargo bays, and 3 or 4 engine (can't remember right now and am posting from a work computer). I'm carrying a full load of missiles (four of them on this frame), a L2 beam weapon (laser), and the most potent cannon I've found (it was in my goodie boxes from the first IMG line and does 140 damage if I'm reading the stats right). The missiles are all the same kind I started the game with because I've yet to find anything much better (or maybe I don't understand the stats correctly).

As to lateral thrust, yes, I see I wasn't clear from what I originally wrote. What I've been trying is jumping right to the nav point, immediately turning roughly perpendicular to the enemy's intercept course, letting IDS get me going that way at its maximum speed (591 I think), then switching to inertial and ramping up to about 1k with the afterburner. I then turn my guns toward the enemy and if I'm lucky I can usually shoot down 2 or sometimes 3 of the 3 - 4 missiles already on my tail at that point.

As to using missiles, absolutely I use them. But I find it takes no less than three solid hits to kill any of these things coming after me, which leaves me only one left. I can pickle that one off at a last target while I'm struggling to shoot down the constant volleys of enemy missiles (seems like the AI never runs out, as I think I've shot down at least 20 of them on some attempts), then set a different course to get into gun range. I can often take down the target I've softened, but the other two always get me.

I did try some more last night after posting and almost made it. I actually beat the three guys at the nav point, then headed off to the next station to complete the mission and got ambushed by one more of them right out of the gate. Since my hull was down to basically nothing he popped me with two missiles and a cannon before I even knew he was there. If only I'd quick-saved...

At any rate, I don't think I'm being completely stupid, and I am doing what seem to me like reasonably advanced things for a newbie (e.g., rebalancing my shields in the middle of combat to offset the hits I'm taking). I just can't keep up with all four guys constantly launching missiles at me. And I haven't seen any of the auto-CM devices people are talking about.

And so far CMs seem completely useless anyway. I don't even have my engines on most of the time, and when I pop CMs the missiles all just ignore them and go straight for my hull every time. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, though. I'm just pressing the button on my joystick to release them, and I see the counter going down, so I thought I was using them right, but maybe not.

[Edited on 9-24-2010 by Phileosophos]

[BraveHart]

"Perhaps you should concentrate on making a lot of credit's and invest in a different rig before venturing into more combat...Nothing wrong with being forearmed before heading into battle"

"The better equipment are found in the outer reaches of space but be prepared to pay docking fees in less then fair systems and not to fear the hostiles just out run them".....You will get better in time with practice

[Blackthorne]

Yeah, I see the issues now.

Your CM don't work properly since your IDS is on most of the time - I don't know how the code actually works, but your chances to get the missile to chase a CM go down when your thrusters or worse, your afterburners, are firing. With IDS active, you're nearly constantly thrusting, which is like a big homing beacon for any incoming missile.

Launch CM only when the missile is getting close (the missile indicators turn red, and the warning klaxon's pitch changes), then release 2-3. If successful, the indicator should disappear, along with the warning sound.

My usual approach is this:

I enter the jumppoint on intertial, and immediately built up lateral speed (700-1200 m/s) by using the starbord or portside thrusters (A and D respectively), moving me away from the enemy pack. Then I fire the afterburners until I approach the enemy at about 1400-1600 m/s. At that point, I drift towards the pack. Any incoming missiles can be shot down or deflected with CM, since my thrusters are cold, and changing my heading no longer changes my approach vector or fires any thrusters.

Once the pack enters weapon range, I pick a target at random (I usually go for the weak frames first, since they die quickly and then no longer pose a threat), using beams and particle guns in unison to quickly dispatch of it. Any missiles at that point are deflected with CMs, since I can't spare any energy from the main guns. With a bit of experience, you can actually judge from the proximity alert how close a missile is, and then trigger the CM accordingly. Should the target break away, I'll fire the afterburners and give chase, liberally using the lateral thrusters to maintain a sideward vector.

If you find yourself running short on energy, switch to particle only mode - that way you'll get more shots out of your gun.

At this point, it becomes a series of jousts - optimally, you'll get rid of one bogey each pass, and if you toss a few missiles at point blank, you can easily decimate the pack by 2 or even three ships. Of course, you ought to pick the right missiles for the job.

Missiles have 3 stats, (Y)ield, (S)peed and R(ange). Yield is the destructive power, the higher the better. Speed is the top speed of the missile as it approaches it's target, and Range is the maximum range you can lock a target at. The higher yield missiles are usually slower and have less range, but in the field, you'll launch them at very close ranges, anyways, to prevent the enemy from shooting them down.

My usual go-to missile is the Exodus, it's beefy enough to kill anything smaller than a Vonari-Bomber in one hit. They're available at a variety of places. A Starfire missile will perform adequately in the easier systems, and can be found nearly everywhere.

As for the combat loadout, you'll want the following setup:

- A hull you're comfortable with. Everyone has a slightly different preference as far as this is concerned, but a medium-sized hull should do nicely.
- A cannon relay system. This one doubles your energy banks, and improves the rate of fire. It's a no-brainer choice when it comes to killing things.

- A repair unit (Class 3, preferrably), as it slowly repairs damage you have suffered, and quite rapidly fixes subsystem damage.
- A shield booster (Class 5, preferrably). Think of it as a battery you can draw from while you restore your shield facings.
Both of these can be built at an constructor station - you'll need 25 mechanical parts and 25 hydrogen units.

As far as the hull setup is concerned, optimize for combat:

1. Get rid of superfluous crew positions. A science officer or navigator don't improve your fighting ability, but they take away 2 slots which could be used for more equipment or more missiles. A weapons officer is nice, but not absolutely necessary, and the same goes for the engineer.

2. Keep fuel to a necessary minimum. 800 units are usually plenty for a single combat, especially on the smaller frames.

3. Cargo bays are nice, but they don't improve combat prowess. Even worse, they slow you down when you're full. Ideally, you'll have no cargo bays on a combat-optimized craft.

4. Wings make you maneuverable. Try the different sizes and pick the smallest set that still feels responsive enough. Too much wing system and your craft becomes temperamental and hard to control.

5. Invest the assembly points you have freed up into shields (Class 7 is a good starting point) and engines, as speed is life. You'll have a much easier time manoeuvering, and the stronger shields mean you can make an extra mistake or two.

Make sure your ship has enough countermeasures. 100 is nice, 50 will do in a pinch, 25 will only last you for the shortest of engagements. 0 is suicidal. Also, stock up on missiles. The warzone stations usually offer a nice selection, and are relatively safe to reach.

-Blackthorne

[Tzimisces]

Something really has to be said for the Maxim-R cannon. It is far from the most powerful, but when you can fire lasers (always accurate) at a range of 700+ it can be quite helpful, particularly because you can stay out of firing range of most enemies while out of IDS.

Also, pretty much all the fancy maneuvers everyone said already.

[TGS]

As others have pointed out I'll hint on a few things.

First off when you jump always pick a direction and burn hard towards it. If they launch volley's of missiles as soon as they get into the red range stop burning and go into or BE into inertial mode. The reasoning behind this is the simulator factor. This game being a simulation means that as it would in real life most missile systems work off the highest "grab" factor possible. In most cases in this game (And in real life) the biggest thing for a missile to lock onto is heat. The biggest heat generator in the game will be your afterburners. Next to that your IDS. Next to that any of your weapon systems. However don't let that fool you into thinking if you go a drift and have nothing firing that missiles won't lock onto you cause they most certainly will. They'll simply switch to the next "grab" which could be your movement based off common radar.

Now I say all that because that's why in combat if you have IDS on and/or you are burning your afterburners you can launch as many CM's as you want chances are it will do very little to deter missiles because your secondary bullseye that you're throwing out (aka CM) is nowhere near as bright as the nice red hot engines from your ship.

Now that being said you've picked up on one aspect that it amazing in this game and that is shooting down missiles. Use it... love it. But don't rely on it and it alone. Especially not if and when the enemy is within 1000 clicks of you because you'll get within gun range and if they start pounding you with their guns you will have a really hard time shooting down missiles as your ship will be getting knocked around.

Now onto better equipment. Auto-CM's great if you aren't good at or comfortable with your CM usage but generally it works against you in every way. I'll explain. If you aren't good at your CM usage your auto-CM will function fine but you won't be paying attention therefore you'll end up doing what I previously stated in burning your engines thus negating the entire concept. Now on the flip side if you don't fall into that category there are other issues. If you don't have a high amount of CM's your auto-CM can waste a lot of them and you can end up relying on it only to find out it's used all your CM's and sadly it doesn't have a "Sorry jim but I can't use what I don't have" notification to tell you to high tail it back to the nearest station instead you will die because you'll be expecting it to do something it can't do. It's a great device but its entirely up to preference as to whether or not you use it. It has its positives and its negatives. Sadly I think it has more negatives than positives. That's me personally though. I would recommend learning to do without and when you're comfortable then try it and see how you like it.

The Anti-Missile system is awesome BUT heavily reliant on two factors that you may not always have great control of in the heat of battle. Positioning... and speed. Positioning in that it appears certain angles of your ship have a higher coverage/shooting arc and Speed in that it takes time to shoot down the missiles so if you aren't going fast enough to give it time the missiles will impact. Again a matter of preference but this one is more or less a bonus that you shouldn't so much rely on but it can't hurt at all to have.

Shield Recharger... someone is gonna thwap me but this thing just plain sucks. Nothing against Vice but the way it has been implemented is just plain terrible. This is a device that you should only have if you aren't actually intending to fight. IE if your goal is to survive and nothing more. As before I'll explain. This device detects when your shield is being compromised and uses energy to recharge your shields. Basically giving you the ability to focus full energy and not have to bounce between +s and +w when taking hits. In that respect it's cool and IF you are really good at dodging shots it would be a very nice piece of hardware. Where it fails however is that it uses a considerable amount of energy and more often than not you can and probably will find yourself out of energy. What this essentially means is that your shields are beefier but you won't have energy to fire weapons with if you're taking hits. Not a very good trade off in a fight. Now the reason I said this is so poorly implemented is because of how it works there NEEDS to be an off button. Without an off button this weapon is more likely to get you killed than save you from getting killed. Because you won't be able to fight back. Not with guns anyway. Unfortunately I tested it and that exact thing happened to me. I wasn't expecting anything too special but I certainly wasn't expecting it to use up all of my energy. Also you cannot have this equipped if you intend to use a stealth generator. I tried it and due to the fact that it couldn't work out the difference between my shields going offline and my shields being damaged it burned through all of my energy to get my shields back up when they were offline for the stealth field. Again an on/off button would be really handy.

Now in closing I'll say I'm not bashing the new equipment or devices but trying to inform as to the pro's and con's. They're certainly interesting new devices but they are really devices to make your life easier not do your job for you. For some people having to constantly launch CM's during combat might detract from the experience so they'd want an auto-cm. Some people like the idea of knowing they have a device working for them to knock out missiles before they hit. Incase those CM's don't work. Some people might want to augment their shields above all else. I suggest try them all out and see what you like and don't like. But at the end of the day keep in mind that none of these devices are going to save your neck against 30 vonari who want to rip your ship apart and wear it on their ship as decal's.

[Phileosophos]

Well, I'm starting to think I can't cope with this game. I finally beat the mission, but only because I got lucky. I took your advice, Blackthorne, and ditched some equipment slots and crew so I could pack a total of 7 rockeye missiles. After a few more attempts I got lucky and had only two enemies to deal with; maybe the game noticed I sucked and decided to cut me some slack? Whatever the case, two rockeyes on one and three on the other took them down and I completed the quest. This time I made sure to quick-save.

But then I made the mistake of trying the next mission: defending a transport for some period of time. I jump to the nav point only to find five enemies pounding it to hell. Every time they blow it to smithereens before I can even get in missile range. I have no idea how I can cope with that; I can't even get there before the transport is atomized. Maybe this game isn't for me. That makes me sad because it's so much fun otherwise.

[Marvin]

Protecting a transport has always been one of the toughest contracts, even in Legends. Big piece of advice: don't try to do it alone ... go into MP and get some help. Likely as not, even Oasis will give you a hand if you ask nicely.

[Maarschalk]

LOL....upgrading your ship and weapons might help....do some exploring and once you have a decent ship Centurion or above with the highest class equipment do some easy combat practice in olympus till you get the hang of it and then try completing the quest again using some of the tactics given by other players. And if you can not get a hand on combat then just do exploring and trading and easy contracts. You can also join more experienced players in coop missions and stay out of enemies firing range and just watch and observe how they do the combat missions and you will get credit any way when contract completes for just observing and learning....:P:P:P:P

[Edited on 9-25-2010 by Maarschalk]

[Marvin]

He's doing the quest, I think. And his next I.M.G. contract is to protect a cargo ship. I vote he gets help in MP.

[Maarschalk]

Yes, I agree that is a good quick solution, but I do not think it is the best in the long run....LOL.....:P:P:P:P

[Marvin]

It's been working for me for almost a year.

[Maarschalk]

LOL....but you still have not learned to do it on your own did you?........:P:P:P:P

I can do it by myself most of the time.....:P:P:P:P

[Phileosophos]

Man, I don't know what game you guys are playing. You say "upgrade your ship", but I've already got the best money can buy at any of the stations I visit. And when I try to go somewhere new, like I just tried to jump to the Onyx system to see if I could find something better there, there are five hostile ships right there outside the gate who blow me to bits before I can even turn tail and run. This is really quite frustrating.

Anywhere I go in the Olympus system there's nothing better than what I have. And when I try to go anywhere but Olympus or Sapphire, I get killed so close to instantly it's not worth recounting the things that happen. I have no idea what game you're playing, but it bears little resemblance to what I'm playing. :/

[Whytephyre]

Hire a fleet, help is help, or go online. Try going to rucker & buyIng a guardian class frame & some exodus missiles. Then you can pack some serious engines, wings, & shields.

My best advice for transport defense missions, distract the enemy. If you constantly harry them they will chase you around instead of attacking the transport.