Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

This is just an observation, had my drop ship TRASHED by two vultures in a high intensity res earlier, like, dropped my A rated shield in 4 shots, and then did 40% damage per hit to my hull afterwords. I didn't stand a CHANCE. Did 1.4 change some damage scaling? I feel like my old dropship is irrelevant now.

I was just thinking the same thing. Seems to destroy any sense of progression when you go from being confident to take out NPC large ships, and a day later are reduced to running away once your shields drop

Darwin wrote:I was just thinking the same thing. Seems to destroy any sense of progression when you go from being confident to take out NPC large ships, and a day later are reduced to running away once your shields drop

loaded up my vulture and parked the dropship, seems the dropship isn't a very good bounty hunter anymore. or good for combat at all it seems.

Pembroke wrote:loaded up my vulture and parked the dropship, seems the dropship isn't a very good bounty hunter anymore. or good for combat at all it seems.

Cool looking ship, lots of armor...the shields are just so weak :/

I've been prowling around the hazardous RES sites, and some of the NPC's do indeed seem to hit a bit harder.

Have had a couple pretty flashy dogfights, fillin' space with cannon fire, beams, and multi-cannon rounds...

As to the two vultures, did you manage to get a glance at what weapons they were using? A large cannon can do a lot of damage if it hits you from the right angle...plasma accelerators, too, and I've seen more than my share of NPC's with those weapons on them, today.

they were DEFINITELY cannons, however, used to my armor had little problem with them. For some reason these guys just ripped me apart. Drop ships are kinda dodgy to fly, what with relying on armor to put damage down, but that was just insane

Yes, they have become harder indeed. Got into trouble when attacking a Wing of an ImpEagle and a Sidey (!) in my ImpEagle, had even to hide behind rocks with 40ish% hull, and that almost solely due to the Sideys fire (while I was chasing the ImpEagle).

Cannons are now quite common among medium-sized ships, and Frags seem to do much more harm than before. Had even a hard time to 1:1 take out some Federal Something in my Python due to being constantly showered in Frags.
Oh, and a Cobra interdicting me featured Beam turrets and got down one of my Vultures shield rings. That's with 2-3 class A Shield Boosters. And the Cobras do not have become more maneuverable ...

On the other hand, had no problems at all i a Hazardous RES with the Vulture, both due to it's maneuverability and due to the fact that enemies tend to focus on their current targets, so when they have engaged some NPC. Oh and ASPs attacked from the rear seem to tend to rotate on the spot.

Lost powerplants don't always destroy ships immediately, that was interesting as well.

On interdictions, they seem to have become unavoidable indeed.

Just got my Imp Eagle *SQUEEEEEEE* A-rated everything I could outfitted with so Class 2 G Gimbled Beam, and 2 Class 1 Gimbled Multi's Heading to Bcat territory. Got jumped by DB Scout and an Adder. Got the DB scout's shields down and half hull.. they book it before I can finish him off. They managed to get my shields down.. minor hull damage.

Jumped by another PP power DB Scout.. Deadly.. manage to get him.. 360 credits. Again.. managed to get my shields down and some hull damage.

Then as I got near to home.. I get jumped by a Utopian whatever they are called.. Elite in a Dback Explorer...

Bastard had Sheild Cells and Chaff out the wazoo. His main weakness was I was able to keep out of his firing arc most of the time.

I lost count at how many times he recharged his shields and scrambled my gimbles.. Security forces showed up.. and LEFT! which irked me slightly. After 12 minutes I finally ran him out of SCB's and Chaff.. Burned his shields down with the Beam and began to hammer his hull with the Multis' .. was very surprised he didn't FSD out as a DB scout and Adder did earlier. Total gain from hard won victory over him.. 160 credits.. not even enough to replace ammo >.<

Combat certainly has got more difficult, which in my books is a GOOD thing. I had a one-hour, 3 encounter joust with a pirate 'conda (Master) on Wed night which was EPIC!

My one issue with it was, I'd got him to 45% hull when he lowballed out, (The cops showed up) I was on 75% with no scabs left so went to the local (only) station for R&R. When I found (interdicted) him a few minutes later he was full hull & full shields. He certainly didn't go to the local station & didn't have time to get to another system & back. It didn't save him though;)

I may have to rethink my combat loadouts now.. 1 Beam 2 Multi's used to be a good combo but doesn't seem to be anymore.