Need to rotate my ship so the other shields are facing fire. A hole in your shields is not good!
Not much progress to report this week, and no fancy videos because...well...space combat is feature complete. That doesn't mean it's bug free and balanced right now. Nope, not yet. Play testing has shown that space combat may be really difficult - really. So, I need to get that fixed. That and a list of bugs. Meanwhile, I thought I would share my TL~DR Space Combat Survival Guide. Here you go:
TL~DR Space Combat Survival Guide
In the immortal words of Admiral Harnsteaad - "Dammit man! Their shields, destroy their shields or we all die!"
Power is everything. If you find that your capacitor is getting below 1/3 in combat, then you likely have a power problem. If this is the case, you will never break through enemy shields because your turrets will misfire reducing your DPS to the point where enemy shields are recharging at a higher rate than you can tear them down. What can you do?
1) Try adjusting your speed down first and see if that brings your capacitor back up.
2) If you shields are doing well, try lowering the power to your shields
3) If neither of these work, you likely have a bad power ratio meaning your power plant cannot keep up with your weapons.
4) If #3 - run!
What can you do about your power?
1) Find a better warp drive
2) Buy turrets that draw less power or, use light turrets and projectile weapons instead of beam weapons. A heavy beam turret is worthless if you don't have enough power to keep it firing.
3) Find more efficient shields
Ok - let's assume you have enough power to power your turrets now. This is a survival checklist for entering combat:
1) Turn your combat shields on and power them up
2) Set your directional shields forward
3) Approach the enemy with micro-warp (you will be kicked out of micro-warp when close enough for combat)
4) Once engaged - hit the pause key [P]
5) Scan your enemies and find the most powerful - usually the one with the most missiles or Ion weapons - and target them.
6) Un-pause and keep an eye on your capacitor - it should never get far below 1/3 - if it does adjust your power to speed and shields so your capacitor recharges at a higher rate.
7) Never let a depleted shield face the majority of fire. Keep rotating your ship to bring charged shields in line with the majority of the fire.
8) If you have a burnt shield, rotate another shield in the direction of fire and set your directional shields to the depleted shield to quickly recharge it - once it's far enough along, rotate that shield in the direction of fire.
9) Never use afterburners unless you are above 3/4 capacitor
Cargo carriers, Merchant ships and some Explorers are not really combat fighters. They need to "turtle" - that means speed is not important - reduce power to thrust to almost zero, center power to your shields and make sure you have enough power to your capacitor to maintain it. If your capacitor is maintaining, raise power to your shields a bit until you are balanced. Never use afterburners unless you have enough power.
One last word of advice - if your capacitor is guttering out, you will not win a fight, ever. You could sit there in a shield standoff forever!
