Okay, so I am learning quite a lot by taking navy contracts in the Cerulean
war zone and I am now an ENSIGN (woo hoo!) and have 3 Vonari capital ships to my credit (again, woo hoo!). However, I have noticed that the NPC navy guys either go down like old ladies with broken hips or they mysteriously disappear, leaving me to do all the heavy lifting. Do they get better as I rise up in rank or will I need to join multiplayer to get better assistance? I refuse to hire any of them since they seem to mostly hang around drinking beer and watching reruns of Sex in the City. Besides, I'm too cheap.
From post: 178489, Topic: tid=11976, author=sythsillis wrote:Okay, so I am learning quite a lot by taking navy contracts in the Cerulean
war zone and I am now an ENSIGN (woo hoo!) and have 3 Vonari capital ships to my credit (again, woo hoo!). However, I have noticed that the NPC navy guys either go down like old ladies with broken hips or they mysteriously disappear, leaving me to do all the heavy lifting. Do they get better as I rise up in rank or will I need to join multiplayer to get better assistance? I refuse to hire any of them since they seem to mostly hang around drinking beer and watching reruns of Sex in the City. Besides, I'm too cheap.
If you mean hiring wingmen - my opinion is they do best if you order them to Protect you rather than ordering them to Attach the enemy. That latter and they take off chasing the enemy. The former they are going to stick more around you and attack the ones attacking you.
Besides that I found that sometimes they did better than other times. I don't know if I just hired a better lot for those particular contracts or just circumstances or what. Of course it depends on whether they and you are up against Vonari I's, F's, or B's - and some are just darn right meaner than others - I guess depanding on the randonmness of the game logistics.
I've had some contracts I wish I had never taken and others that were easy as pie.
I had one last nght that the Navy AI took out all the Vonari at one waypoint before I could even get close enough to fire anything. Kinda pissed me off - but I guess I shouldn't complain - but there were not wingmen but the Navy AI in Talison Conflict that are just part of the contracts.
You're right, Paul. It seems that the combats are randomly generated and can be easy or difficult depending on the luck of the draw. I've learned to go into a combat way point on IDS so that I can maneuver quickly, then go inertial and accelerate as soon as possible while dropping cm's before setting up a target. "Oh! There's the human guy, let's all fire missiles at him!"
From post: 178499, Topic: tid=11976, author=sythsillis wrote:You're right, Paul. It seems that the combats are randomly generated and can be easy or difficult depending on the luck of the draw. I've learned to go into a combat way point on IDS so that I can maneuver quickly, then go inertial and accelerate as soon as possible while dropping cm's before setting up a target. "Oh! There's the human guy, let's all fire missiles at him!"
Generally you shouldn't need to fire CM's unless there are a lot coming on from different directions and I don't usually go in on IDS unless it's an Excort contract.
Any missiles coming from the front I just shoot them down with the particle cannon - it's pretty easy. IDS is a missile attracter.
If you think you need more time then before you jump you can go into Nav Map and click a teeny bit ahead of where the waypoint is (check both views) but don't get too far away - I'm talking almost on top of the set waypoint - overlapping - just a bit offset. Then jump. You will be out of missile range or have more time to shoot them or make choices.
Of course if they some of those 7 - 10 enemy per waypoint then you need more time and they are tougher. I try to avoid those unless there is some help available. I'm not an Ace - I'm more of a 10 or Jack perhaps.
I guess the Vonari hate humans far more than they hate robots (Marvin being the honourable exception of course!)
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From post: 178517, Topic: tid=11976, author=DaveK wrote:I guess the Vonari hate humans far more than they hate robots (Marvin being the honourable exception of course!)
Yeah, the definitely hate me. I don't know why. Without the rest of IM, I couldn't take down a Vonari Battleship even if my transistors depended on it.
As one of your past bosses said . . . . The buck stops here!
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Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
From what I've observed Navy AI gets beat up pretty bad by the Vons because (as far as I can tell) -
(a) The Vons have higher spec ships.
Even the murderous Evoch-E is composed of retro-engineered Von tech, and has (once again, as far as I can tell) slightly less performance than a Von-F or I. The carrier shipyard description for the Evoch-E supports this claim.
(b) AI don't have full control authority over Inertial flight.
They might be able to pull off some IDS maneuvers that no player can copy, but that's because they would be too vulnerable if they couldn't.
It also means that they -the Human faction AI- have a tendency to merge with the enemy group the same way cars merge in the start of a demolition derby. Mind you, not the kind on a circle track - the kind where they 'face off' across a rectangular patch of mud, and charge at each other like medieval infantry when the 'go' signal is given.
This kind of gives them the tendency to be nose-to-nose with the Vons who have very powerful short-range gunnery setups.
Given that the Vons also have superior spec ships and seem to know how to use the advantages/limits of the maneuvering parameters/tactics they've been coded to work with better than most Human military AI ships, the chances of losing your AI wingmen is greater than them defeating the Vons whilst knife-fighting in the phone booth.
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You can only trust a hired hand as far as you can fling his ship. You can usually find more reliable help in MP. Not always ... but usually. 
Yeah, the definitely hate me. I don't know why. Without the rest of IM, I couldn't take down a Vonari Battleship even if my transistors depended on it.