Thanks!
I'm slowly getting better, but still find I'm going around in circles for a bit to get him/her in my sights, then he flashes across in front of me so I have to start all over again. The blue indicator on the throttle isn't visible when I'm turning hard, so I can't see if I'm at the right speed.
I have got the hang of diverting power to engines to help get on his tail quicker, then divert power to weapons while I'm shooting. Eventually he'll turn and shoot back, so divert power to shields, boost past so he doesn't have much time and maybe launch chaff if he has gimballed weapons.
So I can generally avoid being killed, but it takes me ages to get a kill. Last night I did swap one of the (basic level) pulse lasers for a gimballed cannon/multi-cannon, and took down a wanted Hauler in about 15-20 seconds. I don't know if that was a fluke or if the combination of laser & cannon, or the benefit of a gimballed weapon makes that much difference. But that's far more satisfying than a couple of minutes of circling and circling.
I'll have to try turning off Flight Assist as I'd imagine that should enable you to turn far, far faster, but I've just got the handle of the controls and systems now, don't want to jump off another ledge so soon. 🙂
Your welcome.
🙂 On your joystick you need to have up, down, left, right thrust programmed into a four way button and Flight Assist Off on a single press button. Experiment with varying your throttle while turning, these variations can increase the angular rate of change of your nose, pulling back to the target. Practise with an overshoot, when the target is above you out of visual, besides full back stick, try "up" thrust to help push the nose up. There are also situations where you are inside the targets turn where you can use "down" thrust to avoid/minimize overshoot which expands your radius of turn allowing you to slide out onto the targets flight path, but behind them, while pulling your nose back to it.
I've found that while long term use of FA Off leads to instability, brief uses of it can increase turn rate (that's pull rate
😉).
I'd like to clarify when you say turning you really mean pulling.
🙂 Any time the target is out of your view, you should turn to align the targets vector/line on your scanner until it is aligned with your nose and then pull to the target. As you get better at keeping one eye on the targets distance and closure rate, ideally in the 500-900 meter range you'll be able to spend more time on their tail more time, shooting them than not.
Gimbaled weapons make a huge amount of difference. although they are less powerful than fixed weapons, by virtue of their functionality, they spend more time on the target shooting it. Ideally you want to use burst lasers to take down shields, and then multi-cannons to rip them up!
😉 all of my weapons are gimballed, not because I'm a poor pilot, but because they are more effective, avoiding the convergence issue.
