I dunno, backing away slowly while firing barrage after barrage still seems to work pretty well for me. ;-p
Also, Aft guns, finally tried them tonight.
Kind of weak. Since I can get potentially two shots off by focusing on keeping enemies in my forward gun arc, aft guns seem less than useful in combat unless planning to run away. I mean, you have to completely turn around to BEGIN getting a target lock with them.
They’d be much more useable if their arc extended the same distance as the deck guns, but in reverse. Because the Deck guns go past 180 degrees and go a little bit into you “backward” arc. If the Aft guns did the same, then there would be a sweet spot on your port and starboard sides where you could fire both your aft and deck guns on an enemy. It would make them much more useable much more often, and would greatly encourage more strafing and more maneuver in combat.
For those not observing OP’s results, I’m guessing it’s because you aren’t using OP’s fighting style.
Prior to this patch there were two viable fighting styles. One being described by many here is to maintain standoff distance. This usually begins with a stealth volley of forward guns and scintilack followed by full reverse or a quick turn around and continuing the fight with aft weapons.
The other method was a close in tactic. You’re probably more familiar with this one fighting pirates. You simply rush in using stealth or full power to the rear of the target. For pirates this is a blind spot and fairly easy to stay in as you juggle speed and turning radius. Prior to the update, zee beasts worked similarly. They would try to run away so that they could turn around and charge you. However, now they no longer have a blind spot. On top of this, their charge is no longer limited to normal turning radius. Instead as OP describes, a monster has the ability to loop around doing a 180 in charge mode which you cannot dodge.
Thus standoff is the only valid tactic for hunting zee beasts.
Why is this important? Close in was actually more efficient than standoff. It meant that you could engage immediately. You didn’t need to change your course either by slowing down, re positioning or changing into reverse. One could effectively ram the enemy and push it in which ever direction you wanted to keep going while keeping it in your lamp. This change in direction is what makes hunting zee beasts using standoff unprofitable. All the time you spend waiting to charge up, re positioning or reversing consumes and food or fuel that you would otherwise get from the drop. Meanwhile you’re accumulating terror and risk damage. The one exception to this are lifebergs which thanks to their artefacts have a decent ROI.
I must say, I was quite dependent on the close in tactic. It was almost too easy. Being able to hunt eels, crabs and sharks for food saved me many times and cost me very little. Now I’m limited to hunting the pirates around Gaider’s Mourn for that extra bit of supply/fuel. This means trips in the corvette and steamer are significantly shorter (frigates and merchant’s don’t benefit as much since they consume much more food than a beast drops). Since the patch I’ve died 4 times where previously I was on a one week streak.
oh why not lets edit this more while I’m ranting?
Overall I think this is a detriment. Sunless Sea is known for combat being it’s weakest element. That’s fine because this isn’t a combat game. But given that this change reduces the spectrum of viable combat, combat is basically looking like a tax. Oh I need a strange catch for my quest. I guess I’ll fight this jelly fish… if I must. If this is the case, one might as well remove combat completely. My suggestion, have each monster type have it’s own unique attack pattern. Perhaps sharks have an extra long but narrow charge. Crabs might have frequent small bursts. Jellyfish might have no blind spot but reduced mobility. Unfinished pirates might only shoot broadside while rat barges might be unaffected by the lamp. I understand that close in was entirely unrealistic and perhaps immersion breaking (if you’ve never pushed an elder angler crab around in your steamer believe me it was funny). But, I challenge Failbetter to find a way to bring character to the zee. edited by mavericknm on 2/28/2015 edited by mavericknm on 2/28/2015
[quote=mavericknm]For those not observing OP’s results, I’m guessing it’s because you aren’t using OP’s fighting style.
Prior to this patch there were two viable fighting styles. One being described by many here is to maintain standoff distance. This usually begins with a stealth volley of forward guns and scintilack followed by full reverse or a quick turn around and continuing the fight with aft weapons.
The other method was a close in tactic. You’re probably more familiar with this one fighting pirates. You simply rush in using stealth or full power to the rear of the target. For pirates this is a blind spot and fairly easy to stay in as you juggle speed and turning radius. Prior to the update, zee beasts worked similarly. They would try to run away so that they could turn around and charge you. However, now they no longer have a blind spot. On top of this, their charge is no longer limited to normal turning radius. Instead as OP describes, a monster has the ability to loop around doing a 180 in charge mode which you cannot dodge.
Thus standoff is the only valid tactic for hunting zee beasts.
Why is this important? Close in was actually more efficient than standoff. It meant that you could engage immediately. You didn’t need to change your course either by slowing down, re positioning or changing into reverse. One could effectively ram the enemy and push it in which ever direction you wanted to keep going while keeping it in your lamp.
I must say, I was quite dependent on the close in tactic. Being able to hunt eels, crabs and sharks for food saved me many times. Since the patch I’ve died 4 times where previously I was on a one week streak.[/quote]
Ahh. That explains much, thanks.
See, the "close in" style just sort of sounds like "abusing weak AI’s turning capacity" in my mind.
I’m all for there being different engagement strategies for different zee beasts and enemy ships, but hugging a monster’s butt and constantly ramming my hot loads of lead down it while it can’t react seems abusive.
That said, a potentially better solution might not be to make such a strategy impossible by triggering a main attack frenzy that homes in for all monsters, it would be to give the monsters a "push-away" attack or an escape whenever player proximity got too close. Something big like a lifeberg or with power like a Lorn fluke might cause a big wave of force to knock your boat back and temporarily stagger you. An eel or a Jillyfish should just auto dive, and move at 2x speed behind the player (not that moving behind the player matter as much anymore since the turning radius is now super fast). The attack frenzy makes sense for sharks/Behemoustaches though. There, I buy it because I expect those kinds of beasts to be stupid "ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK" sluggers.
Zee beasts have always had good rotation cause unlike enemy ships, they can stop and rotate pretty fast while stationary. I knows this as a fact even before Aestival. This means fighting them in close range is a bad idea since they will be able to rotate way faster than your ship can chase their blind spots, unless you’re butt hugging of course. Otherwise, it’s best to fight at range since their charge will take longer to hit with distance, giving you time to move away. Best to fight zee beasts when you have the Blue scintillack since all that moving around will make attacking slower.
I’m also unsure if this still works now.But the Zee beast AI have a particular behavior that can be exploited: They can’t attack at 0 range for some reason. The zee beast will always try to make some space between you and it before attacking. It will turn around then swim away, slowly, very slowly before rotating again to charge at you. But if you chase it, it will keep trying to make that distance before attacking, in vain cause it’s moving so slow, slower than how it swims passively. This leaves an impression that your ship is hugging/poking it’s butt, hence why I call it butt hugging.. edited by Mica on 3/1/2015
Just some quick notes. I don’t want to reply to everyone individually cause there have been a lot of posts here since I last posted but:
*Before the patch, I used the “hug the butt” method for fighting monsters. After my first battle with a monster after the patch, I realized that tactic was 100% ineffective now. The reason it used to be effective is because monsters needed X amount of distance between you and them (I use a variable because I don’t know the exact amount). X was actually a good bit of room before the patch. Monsters still need a bit of room between you and them before they can charge after the patch, but the “bit of room” is not basically “half a millipixel.” In other words, if there is ever even the tiniest amount of room between you two for even the tiniest amount of time, they can now initiate a charge. “Butt hugging” might still work, but only if you hug that butt perfectly.
So with this change, I stopped using “butt hugging” and started using the “Engage at max range and reverse away” method. This method is also ineffective because all of the monsters listed can cover the distance of my deck gun range + the extra distance from reversing in a single charge. They start their charge at max deck gun range, I move further back from that position, their charge attack is still long enough to cover that distance, every time. And now I am in “butt hugging range” and I can never ever get away (because they turn faster and, once they start charging, move faster than me with a Serpentine). So “Butt Hugging” went from being super effective to terribly ineffective and “Engage at range and reverse away” becomes butt hugging before my second (or third if I am using Scintillack) volley of shots. In other words, if I can’t kill something in 4 hits (deck gun and forward gun x 2 cause of Scintillack), I am forced into “Butt hug” combat, or I am forced to flee (and take a ton of damage while fleeing, because I cannot flee fast enough without Full Power to Engines).
As for the combat in general, maverickmn is right. Monster hunting is just not profitable anymore. Before it was questionable if it was profitable for most monsters. Now it is certainly unprofitable for most monsters. Lorn Flukes my still be the exception cause 3 secrets and a Fluke Core is still pretty good, but everything else is no longer worth the time, effort, and expenditure needed to kill it. It is ALWAYS more profitable to avoid the monster. EVERYTHING you can get from monsters (with the exception of some items from rare monsters and the Fluke Core) can be picked up somewhere else for far less hassle and far less cost. And that was really the point my first post was trying to make.
Basically, my point was that monsters went from being too easy (not good game design) and profitable (good game design) to being not fun to fight (not good game design) AND super unprofitable (not good game design). In other words, combat went from being unfun but useful to being unfun AND not useful. Or, to put it one last way, combat needed an overhaul before the patch. Now that combat has received it’s overhaul, it needs an even bigger overhaul than it needed before. Combat got “fixed” by becoming more broken.
Seriously, I think that, as much as I love Sunless Sea (and am in no way dissatisfied with my purchase), this game, like basically every game released in the last couple of years, could have used another 6-8 months of development/polish before release. I don’t think that any of the issues I or anyone else has with Sunless Sea aren’t fixable. And I don’t think that Failbetter is gana drop the ball when it comes to after release support and fixing stuff that is a problem (like the combat). I just know that I would have enjoyed the game more if it had been delayed another 6 months and released with all the content ready to go, all the kinks worked out, and a combat system that wasn’t awful.
I am finding it very hard to replicate these stories of being battered by beasts.
Unless you’re in the starter ship, I don’t understand this “not profitable” business…
How is it costing you a lot when you can repair your hull at London for a mere 100 echoes? That’s 100 echoes in exchange for at least 10 kills (in the Frigate) and the rewards. When there’s a chance of finding Mutersalt for officers in a pirate ship or beasts belly instead of having to travel across the map to the only place that sells it, in exchange for stories, it’s a no brainer for me. Not to mention that when you’ve revealed the whole map, every fragment counts a lot more.
The only time I can remember not engaging an enemy is when I’m very close to death because I decided to go off the edge of the map. I can’t say I’ve ever gone and actively hunted any monsters, except maybe for a Fluke Core, but if I run into anything, it’s dead.
I’m also doubting my previous opinions. I have gotten hit a few times already.
[spoiler] Zee beasts can charge at you with small distances now, but remember that you also have to be in front of them before they can attack you. If you 0 distance against them by following them from behind as they try to swim away, they will keep swimming away unable to attack.
The situations where zee beasts are able to attack you while butt hugging them is similar when I try to butt hug Blue Prophets. Unlike other zee beasts, you can’t really tell where Blue Prophets are flying towards, making it harder to maintain 0 distance and giving them opportunities to attack. But in regards to other zee beasts, you can tell where they are heading, and as long as you follow where it looks like you’re hugging their butts, they wont be able to create that distance to attack.[/spoiler] Again, I’m not confident with this opinion anymore and is also doubting it now.
But as most posts before me have said, there are still other ways to fight zee beasts. But of course it will be harder and will require such things as alternating between attacking and evading, and maybe a powerful engine so you have enough speed to move away from charges.
Each of us have their own method, but your mentioned method of "putting engines on reverse while firing volleys" will only work against zee beasts with low health. What I’d recommend is using forward speed of your ship instead. Can’t aim the frontal guns easily, making a prolonged fight, but it’s a legit way and that’s where the blue scintillack becomes useful, and maybe an aft gun if you’re focused on hunting.
Take note of the the trails of both my ship and the zee beast. This will need speed of course. In my case it’s a 1500 engine power and a light ship, the Cutter. Only fight dangerous zee beasts when you’re adequately equipped.
As for profits, it’s just about knowing which zee beasts are worth it, and what you want. If it’s echoes, Lifebergs are my favorite target.
/wall of text. hope that helps :P edited by Mica on 3/1/2015 edited by Mica on 3/1/2015
Are you sure/slash is there a trick to it now? Because I tried butt hugging an auroral megalops for practice earlier and it triggered ramming damage after about a second of that without turning around.
(Obvs sidestepping the charges like you’re doing with that lifeberg still works if you’re fast enough.) edited by WormApotheote on 3/1/2015 edited by WormApotheote on 3/1/2015
[quote=WormApotheote]Are you sure/slash is there a trick to it now? Because I tried butt hugging an auroral megalops for practice earlier and it triggered ramming damage after about a second of that without turning around.
(Obvs sidestepping the charges like you’re doing with that lifeberg still works if you’re fast enough.) edited by WormApotheote on 3/1/2015 edited by WormApotheote on 3/1/2015[/quote]
I have never seen this happen.
Edit:
Ok, I’ve seen this happen now, but i’m still not sure of the right distance.
Mica I’m very skeptical but I’ll give it a shot. I just got rammed 12 times by an auroral megalops (baby crab) when two of them came up infront of me. I one shotted the first one but the second kept running circles around me every time it rammed.
I’m running a default steamer with maybe’s daughter and a clay man. I’ll try a +2000 engine soon but im fairly certain that monsters I butthug will just turn around faster than I can and then charge me while in my blind spot.
You also have to factor in the time spent killing a zee beast. Before, with the "butt hugging" method, I could drop down to speed 1, hug the butt, and blast them to bits. They were always in my light (so I acquired a targeting solution quicker) and always inside both my front and deck gun’s firing arcs. Now they are rarely, if ever, in my front gun’s arc, and sometimes aren’t even in my deck guns arc. And since the light has about the same arc as a front gun, they are rarely in that as well. On top of this, you have to maneuver more and I often found myself need to speed up to 2 (either in reverse or normal) to get a good firing solution. So the cost in both fuel and food is much higher. The extra 100 Echos in repairs is just added annoyance.
And yeah, in a Frigate or Destroyer you’re likely going to be able to turn a profit on killing zee beasts, as long as you factor in fragments (which you should). But even then, I think the profit margins on the Frigate are gana be pretty low. And, remember, while I think you’re estimate of 10 beasts in a Frigate is a bit much, I said 2 beasts in base ship, plus 2-3 (likely 3) per upgrade, so that’d be like 7-8 in the Frigate. So we’re pretty close in agreement there.
I tried the butt hugging method with all the monsters listed in my first post under the Frigate section. I did not try to kill Lifebergs or Mt. Nomad, but I "butt hugged" sharks and morays and got rammed by them while "butt hugging" (the nose of my ship against the tip of their tail) if my ships nose ever stopped touching their tail for even the briefest moments. Crabs were way way worse, often I was sure I hadn’t stopped touching them but was rammed anyway.
The point being, all of these monsters seem to be able to turn on a dime mid-charge (and only mid-charge). They can start facing 180 degrees away from me (aka traveling in the exact same direction I am headed), and turn and charge me with a single charge, hitting the back half to 1/4th of my ship in the charge (meaning they are always out of front gun firing arc and sometimes even out of deck gun firing arc).
Our mismatching accounts lead me to believe the is not intended behavior, but it’s frustrating none the less.
The big thing here is that if fights take significantly longer (and they do) AND I am taking significantly more damage (and I am) than fighting isn’t profitable. Getting 30 fragments and 2 hunting trophies doesn’t make up for 50-100 hull damage and a wasted fuel and food. Not even close. Now fighting monsters is always a bad idea. Sometimes you have to do it anyway (because you need a Fluke Core or something), but if it can be avoided, and you don’t absolutely positively need the drops right then, you’re almost always better served picking up the item you want from a port instead of fighting for it.
Something important to point out is that this only applies to zee beasts. Ships are as profitable (or not profitable) as they ever where. Nothing seems to have changed for ships, and if you get behind one that doesn’t have an aft attack, you win, easy, with little fuel investment (cause you can turn your engines to 1 or even off completely a lot of the time) and minimal supply investment (since the good ships have 90 hp or less). A good example is compare the rewards for killing a 90hp Pirate Frigate to a 75 hp Jillyfleur.
The Jillyfleur will either give you 1 supply (20 Echoes), 1 strange catch (25 echos), or 1 Zee Story and 15 fragments (cost variable, but you can just go from London to Light Boat for a Zee Story, so not much). It is VERY likely to do hull damage (at 8 damage per hit), and is somewhat likely to hit you at least twice (more if you don’t have a front mounted gun).
On the other hand, the Pirate Frigate is unlikely to get any hits in. It MIGHT get 1 hit off, but only if you screw up your approach. I believe the hit does about 12 damage (can’t remember off the top of my head and the wiki doesn’t have stats for many of the ships). But again, you only get hit if you mess up the approach. That’s on you. As a reward, you get a guaranteed 1 fuel and 1 supply (30 Echos), but possibly as much as 2 of each (60 echos) AND a Cache of Curiosities. To top it off, you probably used less fuel and supplies to kill the Pirate Frigate than you did the Jillyfleur, even though it has more hps.
But what is even more telling is comparing a more powerful zee beast to a more powerful ship. And to do this, all one has to do is answer a simple question. Do you fight any of the ships with > 200 hps? I know I sure don’t I have never killed anything tougher than a rat barge or an Unfinished Pirate. Well, not more than once anyway. Why? The cost far outweighs the rewards. And they don’t drop anything I can’t get somewhere else for far less money and time cost. The same didn’t used to be true of buffer zee beasts, but now, it is.
As it stands, I’ll only kill zee beasts for Fluke Cores or Monstrous Trophies anymore unless I can kill it with a single volley. And since I always seem to have TONS of Trophies lying around even without killing zee beasts, Flukes, Bats, and Auroral Megalops are the only things worth killing anymore. edited by DragonDai on 3/1/2015
Mica I just don’t know how you do it. I just got my +2000 engine and followed a baby crab right on it’s butt never leaving it. It would go through it’s charge cycles and every !!! results in it rolling to one side at charge speed and hitting my rear.
Also just tried it with an eel. It’s definitely harder to stay on butt with an eel but either way it doesn’t matter. Just when you think you’re behind it, it lights up red !!! and does a 180 loop ram. Actually your positioning doesn’t seem to matter. If you are at the side of it’s head, it just does a head slap.
Edit: can people capable of butthugging confirm their version? I’m running 1.0.1.2004
[i]edited by mavericknm on 3/1/2015
Edit: also tested with shark and lifeberg. The lifeberg is hilarious. It just spins on the spot and slaps you.[/i] edited by mavericknm on 3/1/2015
[quote=mavericknm]Mica I’m very skeptical but I’ll give it a shot. I just got rammed 12 times by an auroral megalops (baby crab) when two of them came up infront of me. I one shotted the first one but the second kept running circles around me every time it rammed.
I’m running a default steamer with maybe’s daughter and a clay man. I’ll try a +2000 engine soon but im fairly certain that monsters I butthug will just turn around faster than I can and then charge me while in my blind spot.[/quote]
I’d avoid fighting multiple enemies at the same time, in most cases it doesn’t turn out well.
[spoiler]Basically, there’s 2 conditions before enemies can charge attack you. First is at least a small distance between your ship and the zee beast. Second is that they should be looking towards you / you’re in front of them.
First one can be dealt with by literally bumping the zee beast which makes it try to make distance by swimming away, which in turn deals with the second one since they have to turn around away from before swimming cause they can only move forward…
I just tried butt hugging one of those crabs. It still running away like all the others. It does look faster though, but maybe it only looks that way cause it’s small.[/spoiler] I’m not sure this holds true anymore. edited by Mica on 3/1/2015
I’m very sorry that this sounds accusing but I’m not trying to be personal. It’s just that this butt hugging thing was a big part of my game play and I have a knack of obsessing over things. Totally unrelated, I’ve gone crazy over the last day because I can no longer see the white/gold dress.
So the behaviours your just described sounds exactly how I was able to butt hug prior to the patch. Honestly I used to fight monsters just by full powering into them with no lights on. Once I made contact I’d just push them around in circles and they’d never be able to charge. This is no longer the case. Again could you post your version number? Perhaps steam or your client have decided not to update.
It’s ok. And it just might be me. Though I’m updated same as yours, this is making me second guess. I’ll do some reinstall.
In either case, best to keep up with legit ones. Earlier posts have mentioned a couple of ways already. My method is what they called strafing. I use forward speed to my advantage and only use forward guns with a blue scintillack. A tip would be to try keeping enemies at the edge of your deck gun’s range while you circle around.
I think my earlier suggestion would fix both butthugging being cheap when it works and monsters being cheap when it doesn’t. Here and there I see something like some Unfinished Revolutionaries suddenly stopping so I end up in front of him, or being able to predict an enemies charge and dodge just right so I end up in a more advantageous position, and feels a lot more engaging.
I don’t think anyone is doing this or talking about doing this. I am certainly not.
[quote=Mica]Basically, there’s 2 conditions before enemies can charge attack you. First is at least a small distance between your ship and the zee beast. Second is that they should be looking towards you / you’re in front of them.
First one can be dealt with by literally bumping the zee beast which makes it try to make distance by swimming away, which in turn deals with the second one since they have to turn around away from before swimming cause they can only move forward…
I just tried butt hugging one of those crabs. It still running away like all the others. It does look faster though, but maybe it only looks that way cause it’s small.[/quote]
You’re "2 conditions" are not proving to actually be conditions in my game or in mavericknm’s game. In my game (and, from what I’m reading, in mavericknm’s game) zee beasts are able to begin your charge when looking 180 degrees away from you (aka, you are touching the front of their shit to their butt, their head is the farthest thing away from you, and you are both traveling in the same direction). They can and do charge me when they are not looking at me. They can and do charge me when they are looking directly away from me. And this charge can and will hit me, every time, in the back half or back 1/4th of my ship (depending on the critter and luck).
As for the "small distance," this distance seems to be a barely perceptible distance on most creatures and a literally imperceptible distance on the rest (specifically all forms of crab and bats/bird/moths). I barely notice my ship is no longer touching the zee creatures butt before it starts it’s charge, unless the creature is a bat, bird, moth, or crab, in which case I do not ever notice my ship not touching it’s butt.
So yeah. I think, in theory, the two conditions you list are supposed to be required before a monster can charge. I think before this patch they were required. I know, for a 100% fact, that after this patch, they are no longer required (or are only required for the briefest nanosecond) in my game. This may be a bug in my game. Or it could be a bug in your game, since your game and my game don’t seem to match up. Either way, in my game (and also in mavericknm’s game, unless I am reading their posts incorrectly), the 2 conditions you listed are not at all requirements for the monster to charge. Hope that makes things clear, I think we were just talking past each other. :)
TBH, the only methods of fighting zee beasts I’ve seen in here (and understood, I’ll get to this in a moment) are the "butt hugging" (which no longer works) and the "max range + full power reversing" (which, as I’ve mentioned, I have found to not work on either the Merchant Cruiser or the Frigate with the Serpentine engine installed, because the monsters very first charge closes the gap completely). So I am at a bit of a loss as to how to fight them.
I know you, specifically, mentioned a third way, right here in the post I’m quoting, but I don’t understand what you mean at all. I am very confused.
If you mean that you fire, sail past the monster, and turn and shoot them again, sail past, rinse repeat, I have tried this and found it not to work. Once the monster charges initially (which happens almost immediately after my first volley connects) they will be nose to nose with me if I started at max range, or to my side or behind me if I did not. if I keep sailing past, they will charge again very shortly (2-3 seconds) after the initial charge and this will keep the monster on my butt the whole way. I will never be able to turn fast enough to get them back into my guns without taking several attacks from them in the process (usually 1-2 extra attacks while I get them back into the my gun’s firing arc). And, as I said before, ALL monsters move MUCH faster than me while charging (using the Merchant Cruiser or Frigate and the Serpentine) if I am just running directly away from them, unless I go Full Power to Engines, so putting distance between me and zee beasts before I turn in basically impossible.
But I think that I am misunderstanding your method and I would love to hear of something that works. :)
I find that all enemy ships, not zee beasts, do this. The little ships often don’t get a chance to do this, especially once you get your guns upgraded/get blue Scintillack, but I do remember them doing it occasionally on my very first playthru with the super newb gun. But yeah, all the ships exhibit this behavior, and it makes fighting them fun. It’s still very easy to avoid taking any damage once you get the hang of the combat, and I don’t think giving monsters this ability is the best solution, but it’d certainly be an improvement over both the old method and the new. edited by DragonDai on 3/1/2015 edited by DragonDai on 3/1/2015
Interesting, I’ve never played the “Get Close” tactic of the game, because it seemed so against the tactics you’d actually use against these creatures if you encountered them on the sea. Anything that can damage you in close quarters but not at range, you’d surely engage at range…?
Pirate ships, absolutely, sneak up behind and volley the buggers till they roll over, anything the size of an Island try and avoid and if you can’t avoid, keep it at range where hellfire and harpoons might let you fight another day…
I’ll be editing my previous posts to avoid misinformation that butt hugging is still working since I’m doubting it now too. Very sorry for the confusion.
[quote=DragonDai]TBH, the only methods of fighting zee beasts I’ve seen in here (and understood, I’ll get to this in a moment) are the "butt hugging" (which no longer works) and the "max range + full power reversing" (which, as I’ve mentioned, I have found to not work on either the Merchant Cruiser or the Frigate with the Serpentine engine installed, because the monsters very first charge closes the gap completely). So I am at a bit of a loss as to how to fight them.
I know you, specifically, mentioned a third way, right here in the post I’m quoting, but I don’t understand what you mean at all. I am very confused.
If you mean that you fire, sail past the monster, and turn and shoot them again, sail past, rinse repeat, I have tried this and found it not to work. Once the monster charges initially (which happens almost immediately after my first volley connects) they will be nose to nose with me if I started at max range, or to my side or behind me if I did not. if I keep sailing past, they will charge again very shortly (2-3 seconds) after the initial charge and this will keep the monster on my butt the whole way. I will never be able to turn fast enough to get them back into my guns without taking several attacks from them in the process (usually 1-2 extra attacks while I get them back into the my gun’s firing arc). And, as I said before, ALL monsters move MUCH faster than me while charging (using the Merchant Cruiser or Frigate and the Serpentine) if I am just running directly away from them, unless I go Full Power to Engines, so putting distance between me and zee beasts before I turn in basically impossible.
But I think that I am misunderstanding your method and I would love to hear of something that works. :)
[/quote]
Mmm, it’s more like i’m circling around it rather than trying to move past it. When the zee beast charges, It will miss and will pass by behind the ship, assuming the ship is fast enough. Imagine it like how something falling will miss someone that’s moving fast enough on the ground. Keep the enemy just inside the very edge of the deck gun’s range so you can attack with it then use the Blue scintillack to reload the forward gun if you have it. edited by Mica on 3/1/2015
