I have only been playing for a few hours now, but I am wondering about this odd combat the bots do. Whenever I attack one and get within 200m(?) they just stop and turn towards me. Thats how the battle goes then, we stand toe to toe, or I bump into them (happened a few times at 1st, I didnt think they would stop!)

I found it very difficult to get and stay behind them (because they were stopped). Does this end later on? Or is this how combat goes?

RIFT

Combat is done face to face, the only time you'll see dynamic chases is when there are two flare-valks running after each other.

Watching an energy duel, however, is truly a thing of beauty.

Hmmmm, I dont think I like that. Dosent seem right. I am used to the space dogfights of Wing Commander and the like...

I guess I will have to play it more and see.

RIFT

No dogfights? Really!?

The bots tend not to dogfight, though some models are cleverer than others.

Players DO dogfight, though again some players are more sophisticated than others. Magus is right though, rockets and missiles tend to necessitate more zooming around. Try it out by challenging somebody to a duel in unmonitored space.

I know what you mean RIFT, I felt the same way when I first played, being more used to Wing Comander and X-Wing. The stand-off style of fighting is common when two ships are using energy weapons. When using rockets however, you usually need to make attack runs at the target, or get behind them... you'll find this type of combat probably suits you better. Also, I stick with Arcade Mode, I find Physics mode is distracting... Unfortunately, the only rockets of any worth are "Sunflares" which are only available at high levels, the "Iceflares" and "Starflares" are too weak and carry too few rockets to really kill anything...

RIFT, if you want to see what a PvP dogfight is like challenge me to a duel in game. I'll use a stock bus and be nice of course, but I think you'll see that PvP dogfights is where this game truly shines. It only gets more interesting when you start getting into 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 melee battles. I'm normally on as "Phaserlight"

And of course, keep in mind that once some of us n00bs get some decent ships and I get the Sercan Border Guard organized, 10v10 or HIGHER battles will become a reality. :D

Well being an old jumpgate circlefighter I find that if you use a engaugement angle in physics mode that you can pull the accel back and shoot strafing around the bot it doesnt really just stand there and shoot back. It kinda sits and rotates and tries to close but cant. Might be that the lower bots ive been fighting dont live very long even in my bus.

The second tatic ive found to be very efficient is boost to an angle behind the target from an off angle. It doesnt aggro on you till your around 300m from it so line up on a follow mode with same vector then boost to 150m and just lay the pup open by the time it gets turned it pops. I poped 25 orus collectors with outdocking my ec88 bus. The combat exp really goes up for each set of 5 you can do without getting podded, so its worth it. The final set of 25 nets you 350 combat. I think each set of 5 was 100 150 200 250 350, or somthing like that in combat exp.

So I think in conclussion if you just sit in front of it and fire away it will do the same.

I forget exactly when, but it got to the point where I was getting +1000 combat for every five bots (Den-Tek and Artemis only), along with +300 light and +300 heavy.. And that's on top of what the bots were giving, and the Artemis were giving +100 light each.

It made me stop when I qualified for L4 combat. :)

(I think that was 122 bots killed in a row, but that's after I'd done some random fighting and started the training combat mission a couple times)

You get into the Sweet Zone, the Nirvana of levelling, 1k xp bonus... after killing 50 bots in a row. :)

What breaks nirvana, docking or getting podded? Currently I'm very very frustrated at docking all the time and the silly 3k distance requirements.

If you dodge better you won't have to dock :P

All kidding aside, the only thing that makes you reset your bonus level is your death or the abortion of the mission.

And the 3k distance req. may seem silly now, but without it nobody will ever have anything to risk in a fight. Just plot your course, jump into a fight and warp when things get too hot. Without the distance req. PvP will cease to exist and the game will be entirely without any element of danger or risk.

[quote]And the 3k distance req. may seem silly now, but without it nobody will ever have anything to risk in a fight. Just plot your course, jump into a fight and warp when things get too hot. Without the distance req. PvP will cease to exist and the game will be entirely without any element of danger or risk.[/quote]
And that's when maybe I'll start liking it *LOL* :P