Doc Iridium
Amarr
Viziam
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Posted - 2008.10.11 12:05:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Doc Iridium on 11/10/2008 12:08:40
Just like with anything else in EVE, there is more to this than meets the eye, and different ways of using the game mechanics than what were described.
There are enemy NPC's that are long ranged. Minmatar NPC stabbers come to mind as a fine example of something a young player might encounter. They will try to maintain roughly a 35km orbit, if I recall correctly. If you are a bit slower than they are, it doesn't matter what you do, you will have little or no transverse velocity to them unless you manually adjust your flight path. If you are faster then them, you will be chasing them, and you will also have zero transverse velocity if you set yourself to keep at <x> distance. If you are a lot slower than them, well, no matter what you do, you aren't going to do much about transverse speeds.
If you set to orbit, and are faster then the enemy, you will have some transverse velocity to each other, making each of you a little harder to hit, especially at ranges extreme to NPC's but comfortably inside your range. Long range NPC ships generally have nothing like the range of a long range fitted player ship of the same class, provided you fit appropriately and have a few skills at a mediocre level.
Now here's where we use this information for something not discussed originally. Turret weapon fit Battleships. Many a new battleship pilot has rings run around him by frigates and cruisers before they figure out how to fight small ships and what skills they need to bone up on.
If you are fighting an npc ship faster than you by a large degree, you can reduce their transverse speed either by flying directly at them, or directly away from them. It elongates their orbit, making them alternately easier and then harder to hit depending on where they are in their orbit.
A player battleship with an afterburner is roughly as fast as most teir 1 npc ships cruising speeds, even a lot of frigates. Most T1 NCP's won't use their afterburners or MWD except when they are initially closing into range. Click on that afterburner, start chasing something, and blow it out of space in short order. Frigates and cruisers are going to hit you pretty much every time anyway, so the fact that you make yourself an easier target is no big deal.
Well, I've said my piece - wait, is that Veldspar over there? Woot! |