Hunting The NightHawk

2KM club [2KM] - dead if youre within 2KM of them

What about "The Round Table"? In another post (Ship Nicknames), I suggested calling the Nighthawk 'Joust', because of the beams.
Well, in medieval times, jousting was a popular sport.
King Arthur was also from medieval times, so it makes sense...

No, with jousting you had to get close to the enemy. Nighthawk is more like a crossbow - fast alpha damage from a safe distance.

what about 1S1K - one shoot, one kill I know a lot of ships can stand a NH attack, but anyways... most of my kills are one shot only

to the topic - I really hate A80 most of all... you can outfly the missiles, but their shielding makes them the hardest enemy in the field. my fly skills are not so good, because someone else in another topic wrote that the X99 is a piece of cake for NH, but I hate them as much as A80. G5 is 50/50, depends who gets to the crosshair earlier. against any other ship NH has advantage, but you can kill anything in B7 if you know what to do

Agree on the A80, its funny when FH-250 try to ram you in one. Like a honda civic ramming a tank.

Its funnier still when A80 pilots try to ram a FH90 - I often picture the looks on their faces as the Stingray doesn't die & instead their own shields drop alarmingly

The only reason I started to fly the Boomer was as an answer to the A80 scourge ... and fortunately its fairly decent one on one against a Nighthawk (depending who's flying the Nighthawk of course).

longshot wrote:No, with jousting you had to get close to the enemy. Nighthawk is more like a crossbow - fast alpha damage from a safe distance.

hmm... to me it seems more like a meteor hammer than a crossbow - powerful to overbearing up close, with the option of infrequent long ranged attacks.

i feel i need to point out this tactic - far too many people dont seem to even realize that this is possible despite starting with a mamba...

what you already ought to know:
mamba drifts like a champ. drifting is useful for strafing runs at a target.

what i see people not doing (anywhere near enough of):
turning 180 degrees mid-drift for tactical advantage. flying backwards at an opponent (or letting them drift in front of you) to avoid chasing them around your screen.

surely others do this besides me lol... it works so well on beam ships, yet i can't recall many times ever seeing someone do this at all besides myself...

the-anger wrote:i feel i need to point out this tactic - far too many people dont seem to even realize that this is possible despite starting with a mamba...

what you already ought to know:
mamba drifts like a champ. drifting is useful for strafing runs at a target.

what i see people not doing (anywhere near enough of):
turning 180 degrees mid-drift for tactical advantage. flying backwards at an opponent (or letting them drift in front of you) to avoid chasing them around your screen.

surely others do this besides me lol... it works so well on beam ships, yet i can't recall many times ever seeing someone do this at all besides myself...

And to counter your point I will point out that drifting past a beam ship is a BAD idea, I've killed so many mamba's as the drift towards the edge of my screen and close range.

ordinarily i would agree, but there are circumstances that allow this to work even against me.

were they drifting with the intent to target you?
were they drifting with the intent to get behind you?
did you see them before they saw you?

if no then sure, they are an easy target. however, my personal tactic vs beam ships is doing this exactly - get close to them, preferably without charging them in the open, stay out of their sight once close, pew pew while out of sight and repeat until victorious.

edit - for clarity, out of sight and 'in an awkward area on their screen to hit' i see as the same notion for argument's sake.

yeah there's a small area if you're right next to the NH that allows you to kinda sit just outside the NH's beams and rockets arc of fire that allows for an "easy" kill. (hard part is getting to the spot and hoping the NH doesn't dart away or not being spotted by his teammates)

the-anger wrote:edit - for clarity, out of sight and 'in an awkward area on their screen to hit' i see as the same notion for argument's sake.

This is where your wrong, awkward parts of the screen is the place where I get all of my close range kills.

if you're getting kills, then it isn't all that awkward then is it lol... what is awkward for you may not be awkward for others too... point being there is no one who can hit a target everywhere on their screen, at any given moment. there are and will be gaps & holes that can be exploited.

granted to find these gaps you have to understand how your target likes to fly, but that is a whole different can of worms unrelated specifically to the nighthawk. from experience though i can say that everyone has these gaps in their aiming and spacial awareness; i've yet to find someone who is perfectly aware of everything and everyone around them let alone keeping up with what comes in and out of their FOV.

the biggest weaknesses are the ones we are not aware of... anywhere you are not paying enough attention to on screen is awkward not just out of the way of where your mouse is. so forgive me if i find it arrogant for someone to claim they can hit the awkward areas of their screen as a majority by any criterion.

Interestingly enough, my F-3 on Steam can take one shot from a Nighthawk and still survive, though with 1-3 circles of shield, because it has a full shield upgrade.

FM duals means instant end to all light ships, no matter how their shields are upgraded... if you survived, it means that FM does not hit you directly

The FM25 can hit with 1 or 2 of it's beams;
One beam will destroy a Sidewinder or put any light fighter in the red. Two beams destroys all light fighters and medium fighters with base shields (no upgrades).

i think there are some hitbox area or something like that... I experienced many times that i scratch someone with my beam and decreased shields just a bit... so it seems to me that there are beam hits count as % based on the direction of the beam against vessel

nope, its a flat 400 dmg per beam or about 15% of max shield, whichever is larger (check stats). if you're only scratching something with beams, it is a heavy fighter (FH90 & A80 esp), bomber, or a turret, where it can take anywhere from 3 to 8 beam hits.

Loki wrote: Two beams destroys all light fighters and medium fighters with base shields (no upgrades).

this is always a pleasant surprise in head-to-head runs from 2km out...

the skinnier craft can avoid a shot from 2k by being perpendicular to the nighthawk's beams. The reason for this is the beams cross at some point and at 2k meters something like an M3 and squeeze between the beams. Although, if the NH follows up with a rocket, that might hurt a bit.

Strays wrote:the skinnier craft can avoid a shot from 2k by being perpendicular to the nighthawk's beams. The reason for this is the beams cross at some point and at 2k meters something like an M3 and squeeze between the beams. Although, if the NH follows up with a rocket, that might hurt a bit.

willing to contest this from experience... possibly right at the 1960m limit, perhaps, though head to head i still have both beams hit even light ships. hitting a vertical (from NH's perspective) light/skinny fighter on the move at that range is pretty much the hardest scenario imaginable, though a good NH pilot will simply re-orient themselves to match

yea the scenario i proposed was an extremely rare occasion.

Suicide strike is the best way to take down any ship. Never fails

Starbuck wrote:Suicide strike is the best way to take down any ship. Never fails

after some crazy crazy flying in a nighthawk, i have found this to not be the case 100% of the time
while helping nite train in anti-nh tactics for sidewinder, i found charging a nighthawk (or any burst damage ship) can actually be one of the worst strategies to use. an aware NH pilot will simply ignore you, dodge by a few meters without breaking pace, let you overshoot and pulverize you as you're trying to now fly out of the NH's face.

at least when im in the cockpit of one of these beam beasts (and in the mood to put my all into it), the only sure way to down a NH is to overwhelm it with firepower by surprise attack, or failing that, stay very close and on its 6, and keep 2 steps ahead of where and how it might turn/swivel to get a shot at you. bear in mind this goes for when the nighthawk is in the open. it is a whole different ball (beam?) game when the nighthawk decides to use cover, reducing the directions from which it can be reliably attacked.

if anyone wants to, happy to train anyone in-game on how to fight nighthawks (and good practice/advise on space dogfighting in general). reading is one thing, trying these things out really helps them stick.

I'd also be willing to help teach new beam jockeys.
It's no fun when it's just 2-3 people running the 'Hawk at any one time...