The game needs no presentation. A bit old, but bold, and the graphics still hold.

I happen to have a problem with missiles.
In the early stages of Act 1 I'm supposed to do piracy at my discretion. But the targets have escorts. And the escorts unleash all their missiles on me without thinking twice.

Believe that I *am* comfortable with newtonian flight models, and weren't for missiles I would dispatch my attackers with method. But with all those missiles buzzing around it's impossible.

If you know the game, you know what I speak of.
I use that mod for the manual CounterMeasures, but the CM remain largely ineffective.
I use the thrusters to dodge the missiles, but as they start circling back I'm at the center of a death sphere, and since the HUD doesn't tell me *where* they come from I can't dodge a second time like I did the first.
Soon I fly into a missile while evading another. Repeat 5 or so times and it's game over fast.
On the other hand if I accelerate to outrun the missiles I get so far away that the cargo pods -my piracy loot- disappear!

Anybody who played this game can help me?

IIRC, I had some kind of EMP missiles that temporarily disabled ships. I'd fire at each of the escorts from a distance since they didn't react until hit. As they got hit and disabled, I'd rush in and take them out, then chase down the tug ship.

As I recall, you can shoot them down. Accelerate away, flip, shoot.

If it's early in the 1st act I'd suggest to choose a more suitable enemy.

Can you add some details about where you are and what mission you're doing? (unless you're just free pirating between a mission and another!)

Sure thing.
Shortly after beginning Act 1 you are an upstart pirate with no fame, no background, and no connections. As one of your comrades say, even if you get hold of some cargo no fence will deal with you because you are nobody. So the plan is to raid transports and steal goods to build a name for yourself and be *noticed* by the other organizations, such as the 'Stepsons'.

So at this point in the game there's no defined objective to follow. It's free-form piracy until the Stepsons decide to contact me. But I only have a Tug outfitted with stock hardware to rely on.

Also, my targets ought to be corporate transports, because otherwise I risk to hit common folks ships (which is bad) or worse, the very Stepsons' transports in disguise using a fake IFF transponder.
Not many corporations availabke in Hoffer's Wake, and the MAAS are out of the question of course. So that leaves the SOLAN corp, with its 3 locations conveniently packed and no police HQ anywhere near.

Yet all SOLAN transports I see have 2, 3 or 6 escorting ships! Often Interceptors.
Maybe what, 4 times I raided the lone transport which had just loaded (and no escort in sight), but then I was attacked by *other* ships that were minding their business only a minute earlier.

I must be doing things wrong -- the game can't be this difficult this early.
But what are the alternatives?

Been a long time but IIRC the light PCB rate of fire is good at taking down missiles. A simple trick is to use your yaw thrusters and main engine to maintain a high speed orbit of the target which makes it harder for the missiles to hit you while you shoot at them.

*EDIT* Just remembered how I beat this part;
First, pick a path around 30 degrees from the forward bow of the target and use your forward thrust key to override the speed limit set by your throttle.
Second, boom and zoom any targets of oppertunity and keep up the speed.
Third, this is the tricky part:
You must have a practiced hand with keeping a stable orbit with your lateral and forward thrusters and keeping your nose towards the target and the missiles. Too fast and you'll go too far, too slow and the missiles will hit before you shoot them down.

Ok, good. I thought so. I've some sort of fresh memory as I bought this off GOG.COM some time ago to ease the pain for the upcoming Elite Dangerous...

As of now you have to do exactly that. My suggestion is to pick up a specific Lagrange point (L-Point) that's supposed to have low intensity escorts. I think it's something along Black-something.
I have lots of notes taken on paper at home (I do a lot of that, metagame is the best game;) ) so I don't have to remember all that.

As soon as I reach home I'll post further info.
You best bet is to avoid transports big escorts. This require, unfortunately, patience...

I'll be back.

http://www.i-war2.com/acts.htm

This helps a bit

EDIT:
I know this is Act Zero, but I didn't want to spoil anything, should your eyes fall in the wrong spot...

Pick targets with few if any escorts. Forget the corps in the beginning. I don't remember if the light pcb is good for this, but what I do is get behind a freighter move energy to weapons, hit it it until it drops cargo, energy to engines, go very fast (like 3,000) and with the the flight assist off face my attackers and energy to shields.

Once there are no more missiles in the "air" flip energy to engines and go the other way (don't get to far away from the cargo).

If you're willing to do a little cheat, activate the LDS drive and de-activate it quickly and you'll be going in the direction you're facing at something like 500. If you're willing to do that then dodging missiles is relatively easy - point to the side of your path shortly before a missile hits and it'll fly past.

Another fun trick is to sit at a Lagrange point and the moment a freighter comes through hit it with an LDSI missile. It'll stop and often it's a escorts run into it causing it to release cargo.

Oh, and and you'll want to get the Jaffs mod unless you like waiting a long time for your cargo to be picked up.

Read through that site komemiute posted - it's extremely helpful.

Wait, are you still a kid where you are? I think you're supposed to run a mission for the guy that buys stolen goods at some station. He says he'll help you out with some better weapons if you do it.
Basically this is still tutorial.
The story will pick up again after that. After that you're doing choice missions etc.

Act 0, or the 'Prelude', is when you are a kid.
I'm in Act 1, which opens with the prison break, when Cal is an adult.



I've found that L-Point (Black-something) where *hostile* transports with corvette escorts pass through frequently. Since they're hostile to everyone (not just me) and the place is never deserted I naturally find lot of support to fight them. And so while the others fight the corvettes valiantly throwing their lives away, I take upon myself the lowly task of focusing on the mundane and nail the transports hard & fast. It's a nasty job. But somebody's gotta do it.

I also take the opportunities to test missile evasion maneuvers. I tried to shoot down the missiles but I couldn't see them coming within useful time. So for now I prefer to accelerate and maintain an average speed of 1500 m/s (give or take a hundred), while drawing a wide arc. This keeps the foes at my six-or-so, and once a missile gets too close, I release a Flare and change plane of motion, but always continuing to draw a wide arc. So far so good. This maneuver allows me to stay on the move at decent speed while comfortably circling around the hot zone. I can also fly by the cargos to tag them for later when I can call Jafs, all done at high speed.

I even managed to force a Cruiser to flee :-)
Jafs had proposed me this mission to go raid some fuel-pellets loaded transport (in exchange for Seeker missiles). But a Cruiser was on patrol and went hostile on me as I harassed the transport. I couldn't haul the cargo away myself (dock ports incompatibility), so I had to take on the cruiser to pacify the place for Jafs.
We jousted a few times, with poor results on my part. So I adjusted distance and speed, and gun strafed the thing, stern to bow, from up close. Very effective, and very cinematic. With the hull bar on a thin red the Cruiser displaced-away before I could finish it.

I think this game is starting to click me the right way

Another interesting place is Samarkand L-Point...
You can attack Lomax Corp. without police to show up.

But that's a full complement of fighters too...

Alexander and Cleitus L-Points are pretty covered... But there's the hated Maas sipping.

Griffon yielded me some juicy cargoes.
Black-eye is still hands down my favourite, but it takes patience.

I reinstalled recently but couldn't get joystick to work. Couldn't remember if it always used to work ok with one or not?

If you have it from GOG.COM it should.
It does for me.

If you installed from original disks then you should first apply the patches. There are two IIRC.

Yeah this is the GOG version, I'm thinking now that its same issue SC had with it seeing my Razer Tartarus as the main peripheral. Unplugging sorts it.

And finally the Stepsons ask to meet me. I do a small initiation mission, and hey presto I'm one of 'em and can use their fences We're in business.
My first upgrade is an "Autorepair 2" System. The encyclopedia doesn't tell, but I imagine it's faster than the "Autorepair 1" I've been outfitted with all this time.
Can't wait to get access to nuclear warheads, death stars, and tactical Marylin Mansons to unleash on unsuspecting enemies before a surprise attack.

Whoa whoa whoa, Josè- I told you. Tactical Marylin Mansons are WAY above Illegal. Just... Don't ok?
Think about the space children!

Oh, okay then... but have you seen the fragmentation version? It totally rocks! Was looking at this depliant with pictures and the technical card and... -ehhhh- which I could deploy it. Just once


More on topic now, missiles continue to be a problem. I have improved my piloting skills beyond the wildest expectations. They just can't gun me down unless they pop in en-mass and I'm too close by.
I, on the other hand, have become a death sentence. My new PatCom sports quite a slew of M.C.A. upgrades. You may call me the 'Scourge of Blackeye' >D
I easily stea borrow 40+ cargo pods per session. Yet some merchandise is damn hard to come by. Need to find new farm spots.

The PatCom is very agile. It's also way smaller than a Tug. These two traits combined make missiles evading a whole lot easier. But there are still too many missiles in flight at any given time, and my ECM Decoy countermeasures appear to be as ineffective as the lowly Flares. Might as well carry more Seekers...

One more thing, I have a Point Defense turret mounted on the PatCom. But I'm _sure_ it's not opening fire on any missile. What's up with it?!? In the Engineering screen the system is Enabled by default.

I also got the Dockable Turret (no) Docking Auto Turret upgrade, and that one correctly fires on its own at targets of opportunity.
So why is the PD turret not working?

What weapon is in it? Does it have line of sight to a target?

I still prefer my run & LDSI mini-jump method of avoiding missiles. I do still get nailed from time to time and escorts are chasing me to whole time so when I turn they catch up and shoot me up a lot of the time.

Weapon?
The turret is mounted or is not. There is no sub-choice available from there.
I believe it has LOS. The turret is on the upper side. With all the missiles homing on me from *everywhere* I can't possibly face the wrong direction always.

Come to think of it, though, the Docking Auto Turret *is* visible on the belly of the PatCom.
The PD would be on the upside... but nothing is there.

The game is the gog.com release, patched to F14.6
Could I be missing some update?