What choice do I got?

[MacThule]

There has to be more then this? Maybe its not about in the moment decisions then? Or is stealth even a play right now outside of a prearranged fight?

Stealth is totally an option... a gamble though. Most seasoned players will not be phased much by stealth, and the sacrifices required to achieve stealth will leave you weak against an enemy with good scanning habits. I feel like going stealth is mostly about expecting to encounter greener players. The vets... once they've scanned you out, their lock-on turrets will usually keep you pegged and keep pounding you.

There are other decisions that get made at the engineering level; armor vs shields, fast shield regen vs high capacity, etc. Range isn't really an option - choosing not to have at least one high-range weapon (ie missile-beam or at least cannon-beam) is more of a fail than a decision except in very specific circumstances.

Operational range is a fairly important decision (short-range with standard engines or overdrive, versus long-range with jump). Jump systems are expensive, bulky, and consume lots of power; they can seriously weigh your ship down and make it too expensive to lose. Overdrive is more easily accommodated, and still lets you access the nearby star systems in decent time (and without either humping the mouse button or splitting up your jumps into a chain drive that make you far more vulnerable to interdiction). The considerations extend to combat, because in combat overdrive can be an asset used to outmaneuver ships and even outrun missiles, while jump is only useful for a quick getaway, and that only if the opponent has no jump inhibitor (and this is compounded by longer-range ships using chaindrives to cross distances that would be ugly even for a standard jump, because inhibitors affect all jumps at once, so longest range becomes most mobility vulnerable in combat). Operational range is an area where defensive vs offensive strategy can actually yield a slight combat edge for a more defensive (short-range) strategy.

There are dozens of relatively meaningful decisions to be made at every step of design, deployment, and combat. I'm not sure what the "what choice do I have" is specifically referring to, honestly.

 

[KiloZulu]

There has to be more then this? Maybe its not about in the moment decisions then? Or is stealth even a play right now outside of a prearranged fight?

I think someone else said it previously in this thread - but most of your decisions are baked into the ship that you design. It determines what options are available to you, making that first decision, fight or flight, fairly easy. Stealth is an option, and I think it's foolish not to have a radar jammer on every ship.

 

[Ithirahad]

• Who do I target?
• What do I target? Main turrets? AMS? Try and get at their aux reactors?
• What range do I engage at (I don't want a face full of cannon, so I can't come in too close, but I have to actually hit things as well... how much flight time am I willing to risk for my missiles? How much AMS do they have?)
• When it comes to long-cooldown weapons, when do I fire? Do I wait for a strategic opportunity or just target and fire whenever it comes out of cooldown?
• Um, where do I even fly? Do I just match their velocity and lob projectiles, or try and circle around them? Do I make strafing runs, letting me accurately hit strategic targets but creating a window of vulnerability to precision strikes, or keep a consistent distance and just dodge? (This is especially relevant when flying my missile frigate... Strafing lets me dumbfire my lockon missiles and destroy specific things quite quickly but flying close is always dangerous.)
• When do I use my scanner/jammer? Very careful use of scanning/jamming, and anticipating your enemy's use of them, is an art in itself. If you can fool people into using their scanner when your jammer isn't up, then you get to stay jammed without consequence until their scanner recharges, potentially reducing their DPS significantly if they are primarily using missiles or if you're fast enough to get out of their arc of vision. Or, you can just put up your jam every time it comes off of cooldown and hope for the best...

 

[Winterhome]

Alright, here're my usual fight thoughts when I'm using the Magnolia (major armor tank). It's a lot.

Does the enemy ship have problematic shielding? Is it worth the shot delay of getting my different cannons on target to switch from Punch MGs to Partial Ion MGs? Do they have a lot of regen but low capacity? If so, if they don't have too much PD, I might want to fire off a few backup missiles, just to get a tiny bit of extra damage at the start of the fight.

Shields down - do I want to continue using the single-output partial ion machinegun, or switch to the 8-output punch machinegun, or fire even more missiles? If their armor HP is very high and they're not doing too much damage per second, spending the extra few moments to pop off a few missiles might be worth it, but then, firing machineguns is just as worth it if I can hit.

Am I being outmaneuvered? If so, how? If I can get myself into a better position by flying away from the target and turning, maybe I should. Or perhaps I should turn towards the enemy. Sometimes, if the enemy is just slightly more maneuverable, it may be worth more to me to turn in the direction they're moving instead of turning towards them. There's also the choice of flying my ship directly toward the enemy to force them to move out of the way, thus giving me a good shot.

Which turrets do I want the target to be peppered by? The top turret with the armor piercing and stop guns, or the bottom turrets with the chainfiring missiles? Both? I can either roll my ship, or lose a few seconds on target with my main guns to adjust the angle my ship is at in relation to theirs (ie: nose down so top turret can fire, or nose up so bottom can fire, etc.).

My hull is probably being shredded, too, so unless I'm at a really good firing angle, I have the choice to roll my ship or otherwise reposition and change what part is getting hit. In fact, this is probably the thing that I think of the most often: How can I spread the damage out more? I'm always fidgeting my cursor around and losing effective DPS because I deem it more valuable to try to survive longer or get my guns out of the enemy's line of fire and thus save my power efficiency.

Does the target have turrets that are causing problems? Are my missiles not getting through? Perhaps I want to shoot a few holes through their stop turret, or shred a few of their PD turrets. Are there any other docked entities that cause problems, like docked hulls or docked shield plates? Perhaps I should consider trying to shoot them off their docking point to make the whole fight easier. Never underestimate the power of disabling someone's turrets or protection - going directly for SHP damage is only a good idea if you can safely ignore everything else on their ship. But the longer the fight goes on, the more damage I take, so it's sometimes also a better choice to just dump shots into the main body of the target.

Can I maneuver my ship so I can continue firing into a spot I've already severely damaged? And can I maneuver my ship to force the enemy to maneuver and thus expose that spot for me? Which way should I go? Do I want to protect myself more, or damage them more?

And finally: If I can outrun the enemy with overdrive, and there are multiple enemies, I have the choice of running screaming at one of them to kill it quickly, or trying to keep them at an arm's length while flying backwards and firing. Usually I take the first option, of course.