recently bought the Hawk ship after saving up, and I’ve been getting my arse kicked with it. I tried the assault plasma cannon and the Long range laser cannon, but I can’t get up close or deal enough damage to do anything. I usually die in a direct dogfight. any tips?
Personally, I found the long range laser to be pretty awful for an interceptor, I’d say stick with the assault plasma. Use the booster (faster projectiles) mod if you are having trouble hitting. What’s the synergy level on your Hawk? I remember feeling kinda useless in the beginning of the tier, but things smoothed out. Don’t approach people in the open, sneak up behind them from cover. Hit the afterburner and don’t let go (unless you need a very sharp turn), don’t toggle it on and off frequently, it will drain your energy faster. Also keep in mind that if you are dogfighting with someone and a third party is free aiming at you, you’ll probably die.
Don’t move straight forward. Use strafes, barrel rolls, combine maneuveres. Learn how to aim while evading enemy fire.
Interceptors I take are not dog fighters because they can’t survive sustained fire. Your strength is your speed so you’re more suppose to land a critical strike vs sticking around.
y no delete
Interceptors should pick and choose their fights accordingly. If you feel you are not going to win, leave. If you see someone who is vulnerable, take them out. A really important thing is to learn how to fly properly as well. You should be rolling and changing your direction in a sporatic and random way to avoid fire. Learn to avoid missiles without using IR flares.
alright, It seemed I jumped outof the kiddy pool and into the shark tank for learning this game. The synergy level is nothing atm, so I guess it will be a little sucky atm.
and I don’t think the ship goes that fast
The first ships inside of a new Tier are always a bit slower/not as good as the ones later in the same tier.
For Example the difference between an original Hawk say, a Hawk-M(i think thats the name) are signifcant enough.
Also you can equip several boosts onto your ship that make you go a lot faster than normal. I think there is a shield module that increases speed as well as a hull module so you can gain about 15% max speed. There is also a level 4 or 5 skill in Federation that boosts max speed by 5% I think. If you take all this into account then you can gain quite a bit of speed up to about maybe 450m/s with afterburner. You start noticing a difference around that speed as you outrun most everything.
I currently run a Federation Fighter(Fox-M I think) and I hit about 420m/s with my modules and max synergy. I can really see the difference when I am chasing a wounded bird and they -cannot- escape me. One of the key things about Interceptors as well is they can turn and move quicker to different directions better than the rest of the ship classes. This is really key when avoiding an incoming missile. If you hear “incoming missile” you can often count to 1 then make a 180 turn and watch it fly past you. Make sure you go upwards or downwards enough so that the missile doesn’t just keep going straight into you.
thanks! i’ll keep that in mind and try to comprehend it all X-o what is the modules that increase speed? and once I have that should I run with the rapid fire plasma cannon?
equip light hull and overdrive truster and see your ship more fast
I prefer the rapid fire plasma cannon to just about everything else, yeah. Remember to get the Kinetic Module for your weapon so you can change to EMP to take out the shields then do Kinetic damage to their hull, its a big difference.
you can do that? holy crud. I know what I’m getting next!
Yes, beside the weapon module are to modifiers for your weapon. You can pick the “Needles” version and it changes your plasma from EM-> Kinetic damage and you can then switch back again.
that is awesome! Thanks for that info!
alright, installed both mods… but for some reason the buttons don’t work. I can’t press F1 or F2
If you are Vanguard stay with rapid plasma, if you are Armada consider assault. They have the same projectile speed and assault has a bit more DPS and more range.
alright, installed both mods… but for some reason the buttons don’t work. I can’t press F1 or F2
Which mods? Booster and Needles? Yup that should do it. As to why F keys are not working there are 2 things that come to mind: 1) you were holding down shift at the time, I think it won’t switch mods if you do that or 2) there is a F lock button on your keyboard that changes what the F keys do (I think it needs to be on for them to function properly).
I switched the key bindings anyways, so now it works and I think I’m the regular plasma web. Also, I love that thing!
Interceptors I take are not dog fighters because they can’t survive sustained fire.
Firm disagree. I actually signed up just because of this post.
Interceptors are, especially the Hawks in T2, the most dangerous ships to pick. Lemme run over my loadout here real quick.
Hawk-M , fully synergized.
Boost: Speed Boost
Skills: +Hull Resist, +Sensor/Weapon Range, +Shield Resist, +Missile Damage, +Speed, +Main Weapon Damage
Special: Plasma Web (w Repair/Recharge Inhibitor (Armada))
Actives: Hull Repair, Achilles Targetter, Phase Modulator
Passives: Collision Compensator
Ship Mods: Lightweight Hull, Extended Shield Capacitor, Extended Energy Pool Capacitor
Weapon: Rapidfire Plasma
Weapon Mods: Enhanced Plasma, Needle System
Missiles: Thermal Unguided, Minefield
General Playstyle: Swirl around, let missiles hit cover, break off when opposition becomes to strong. Harass and deterr enemies. If locked on without cover or being focussed, pop Phase, use Web on Fed Fighters/Inties preferably to counter cloak (Except for Vanguards) and dive in with Achilles up for a hard pounding. Switch to Needle when target shields are down. Never slow down, never fly straight, sharp turns, full power. Engage frigates by coming in from bottom or back, drop minefield right in their faces, always stay behind/below them to evade fire, break off when they trigger Pulsar, and get into cover when they use Prop Inhibitor. Stay your distance on those guys.
How to play, depending on game modes:
Domination: Of the break, go to closest Beacon, cap, then go to middle beacon. Mine beacon if enemies present, then engage in dog fights. Feel free to harass thid beacon if the going is good, or initiate takeovers. Fight at beacons, you cap faster than others.
Detonation: Run the bomb, wait for the second bomb, intercept bomb carriers - no one can match your speed. Just never fight meaningless fights. When I fly with my corp, we end some Detonation matches in two minutes and a few seconds, without a ship lost.
Captain: Use your speed to stay out of combat, and use your arsenal to quickly dispatch any one coming to close to you. When defending the Captain, rather intercept enemies and bind them in combat away from your Cap. If they are focussed on your Cap, you can usually kill them really fast. When hunting their Cap, dive or rise below/above the spacial zero-plane and come up/dive down on him with a buddy in concert, alpha-striking even frigates to death.
Bottom line: Who needs hull7shield if you don’t get hit or decide when/where the fight happens? Interceptors can turn and pivot faster than anyone else, so staying in someone’s blind spot (behind/below) is usually a death sentence for the other guy. Stay fast, agile, and replace your hull/shields with no being hit and using cover.
Interceptors are brutal killing machines.
Thanks so much for sharing all of that! This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see when I signed onto this forum.
recently bought the Hawk ship after saving up, and I’ve been getting my arse kicked with it. I tried the assault plasma cannon and the Long range laser cannon, but I can’t get up close or deal enough damage to do anything. I usually die in a direct dogfight. any tips?
Collision compensator, give you better turning and maneuverability. Light weight armor mods for more speed. The faster and more maneuverable you are, the less you get hit. Hug asteroids when your trying to get away from people. Learn to know when to use your after burners (as they don’t help you turn super fast). Utilize your brakes and reverse afterburners. Also in dog fights, make sure you are constantly moving (fly around people in a figure 8 if you can, or make something up, don’t be consistent though…hard to explain). Do some damage, break off for a second, re-engage, do more dmg, rinse repeat. Works for me all the time and im using the Hawk-Eye