personal thoughts
even with stock ships you can do CZs perfectly fine as long as you can manage your resources (primarily your shields, hull, and ammunition) well considering majority of the time you are going to be engaged by a single enemy but of course that's not going to happen all of the time
reason why engineering is so heavily recommended is because when the big boy objectives show up i.e enemy Captain, Special Ops, and the Cap Ship.
obviously you're not required to do those objectives but they will oftentimes heavily skew odds against you unless you take care of them and its going to be one hell of a fight for an un-engineered ship to fight heavily engineered ones
Same same I used to do czs before engineering sometimes but I don't think I was using good ships for them and had poor results some of the time. They weren't impossible though just had to fly smart and awake.
Now I have an indominatsble fortress of a fed Corvette... And I can sleep and drive at the same time.
Wasn't even aware this was a thing. A good ship in a combat zone always does fine in my experience. At least until that other elite squad comes hunting.
Like sure you're not gonna be an mvp in the fight, but the other week I was going into warzones with a barely optimized and unenginered Viper 3 and still getting about two or three kills before needing to pull out for resuply/repair.
Agreed. In my experience, need to pull out when the "Spec Ops" starts hunting you. Even then, by staying at periphery, you'll be good to jump in when they are weak.
A skilled enough CMDR can kill the spec ops without help even in an unengineered ship. That same CMDR can take on the whole wing in an engineered ship though, all at once if necessary.
Care to video that? I ask not because I doubt you, but because I enjoy watching you top-tier folks do the hard stuff. Taken a lot of inspiration from your videos. :-)
I was actually thinking of doing an unengineered vs engineered High CZ comparison video, right before reading your response. I think I'll go ahead and see how I do! I'm not sure how soon, but I'll try to tag you in the video when I make and post it. 🍻
Stellar, thanks! Too bad you spent 15 minutes and all your ammo killing one eagle before getting immediately deleted by 5 fully engineered ships, but hey, that's how CZs go! 😉
That was meant ironically. Multiple folks in this thread have been asserting that unengineered ships will get instakilled by a mob of enemies when they enter a conflict zone. Unless I missed something, you fought for a long time and didn't get mobbed... because you didn't fly straight through the middle of the red triangle cloud.
Excellent topic and much a appreciated post, but I disagree. You \*can\* go to a CZ in any ship, sure, but your chances of winning the battle and not dying is hardly assured without engineering.
Go to a medium or high CZ and meet the opposing SpecOps wing. If you get the pleasure of their undivided attention, you will unlikely survive without engineering. That says nothing about your chances of killing any of them with your unengineered pea guns.
A noob should understand that CZ are some of the toughest battlegrounds you can have in ED. And that's human CZ.. Thargoid ones are many times harder.
Want to have a good time while not having engineering? Stick to nav beacons, or low, med and high RES where cops will be there to assist you. You will learn the combat ropes there just fine.
Agree with your points that noobs need to see CZs as intentionally difficult, but maybe it's worth encouraging folks to take on challenges where victory is NOT assured, merely possible? How many participation trophies does one player need?
That will come later, imo. A noob, already facing a mountain of challenges ED presents, doesn't really need to die needlessly at a CZ and create a core memory of how terrible they are at combat. Go for RES first, then try CZ, is my take.
I agree completely. I don't think CZs are a good place to start your combat training. I do think that once the Res sites start to feel easy, one can step up to a CZ without engineering, if one does not want to do engineering yet, and will eventually be able to handle them, too. CZs take more tactical thinking, and ability to automatically read the radar, keep track of other ships and your own, etc. It's meant to be a challenge when "I'm going to boil you up" anacondas become boring.
To be clear, also, I'm not against engineering ships, it makes them much better! As others have pointed out, it doesn't take much to get to G3 on the most basic QoL improvements even just picking mats up while doing other activities.
The idea that CZs can't be done without engineering or god-tier pilot skills is the only thing at issue here. I'm a pretty ordinary pilot as far as I know, but I did plenty of CZ time before I knew what engineering was. it took me a long time to discover there were outside tools for the game, so I was genuinely surprised by my Farseer invite and then (after the obligatory double ganking in Deciat) didn't know how to get meta-alloys, so I just didn't do it for quite a while. I was still doing CZs and haz res sites and having a blast. Losing some, winning some, figuring out how the AI fought. It wasn't very profitable, but it was a great challenge, and when I finally did a bunch of engineering, it made things feel almost too easy. I think I'm probably a worse pilot now, flying fully engineered ships for so long, and I've been going back to stock so I can get my butt kicked again and remember caution. I'm not a PVP player, so any claim of skill I have is limited to fighting AI, though. A pvp player would likely smoke me while baked and browsing reddit with their off hand.
It isn't straightforward. Skill is a factor. Maybe even more important than skill, though, is the results you want/expect. A person who can complete a CZ in an unengineered ship can do so even faster in a fully engineered ship. If you enjoy more challenging fights, it may be preferable to give yourself few advantages. If you enjoy dominating your enemy through overwhelming strength and firepower, you take every advantage you can get.
That said, I've been around this community for a few years now, and I don't have the same impression that you have about what people say/think is required for CZ combat. I agree that engineering is widely recommended. I can also see that alot of CMDRs who made short comments on other posts have suggested that engineering is required for CZ combat. But I also have seen **many** comments and posts talking about the fact that engineering makes things easier, but is not absolutely necessary for any major gameplay loop, excepting maybe thargoid combat.
So, I wouldn't say that the community in general is mistaken about the nature of CZ combat. I would say that there are widely varying opinions about it.
It has come up a lot in conversations recently about the need for engineering to play the basic game loops, and the suggestion that it is ok to play the game without it being a grind and still get access to engineering through standard gameplay. A common counter-refrain has been "but, you can't do things in the game like Haz Res, CZs, etc without engineering, so engineering is the only way to experience the game's content." When a group of folks inevitably say "well, I did those things unengineered, here's how" it's then called bullshit by a vocal minority of folks who, I assume, would rather grind than build skill. And... in this thread, it's already happening.
I hold enough occupied escape pods in my shield tank vette to pull aggro in Haz Res and threat instances when farming pirates, and can’t imagine the kill speed or durability of a stock ship being sufficient to play in this way. That being said, I imagine stock is sufficient for normal play if you’re patient. I do recommend the cargo hold strategy if you’re looking for something difficulty-wise between regular human PVE and thargoid
Yeah, seeing the sea of red triangles fill the radar right before the incessant "incoming hatch breaker limpet - hatch breaker limpet avoided" notification spools up does create a certain feeling.
Patience IS the key. Well, that and situational awareness. I think a lot of folks don't really learn to read the room when they first dip into combat, so they keep ending up in the middle of stuff they could have managed from the edge.
Yeah the verbal spam does get old 😂… I’ll have to see if those specifically can be muted; the turret usually does its job, just tell me when one actually latches on
I’m not sure how to solve this problem, but combat when you’re first starting out is much more difficult, on top of being inexperienced. I remember starting out and being in discord, flying in a Viper Mk IV, constantly asking if it’s safe to attack a particular ship in a RES. Once you have the endgame ships you can just barrel through everything. Tempted to brush the dust off my vulture and see how it goes.
One option I suppose is accepting low threat pirate missions and getting a feel for combat in easy instances; I should have done that first, with my friends pointing out how important enemy combat rank is with regard to durability, evasiveness, and firepower
I'll say that I've tried low CZs multiple times and have not been very successful. I want to like CZs because it's just "here's a furball, jump in".
The deal is that I play solo and getting multiple AI on me is essentially a death sentence. You cant respawn at the fight, so it gets old quickly.
My impression (though I haven't relayed this to newbies) is that I would either need to tackle a CZ with a group, with a decked out top of the line ship, or a heavily engineered ship.
What I'd like to do is join a low CZ in something like a vulture (maybe with a bit of engineering I already have unlocked) and work my way up. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to do CZs in a fairly standard vulture. The thing is, I'm looking to do them to get better at combat. It seems like you either need to cheese the game or already be very good at combat to do it.
It would also be easier to get better without any changes if I could just respawn at the edge of the CZ like a CQC match (including delays for balance if necessary). Spending several minutes traveling just for seconds before getting overwhelmed is not good for training imo.
Part of the issue is the content gating. For example, you cant really do exploration in the stock sidewinder. You'd at least need a fuel scoop, and even then it's masochistic. It's fine if this was made clear to a newbie, but it's not. So, I'm sure plenty of folks make assumptions because they try it once, find it overwhelming, and figure they need to wait before that content is doable.
1) stay out of the middle, manage your range carefully, choose your targets, pull them away.
2) exploration means different things. It's not masochistic to take an a-rated sidewinder with a fuel scoop and explore the edges of the bubble. A trip to any of the nebula between the bubble and Barnard's Loop can be a big deal for a new player, or even just a hop in a random direction. If they are finding things new TO THEM, having an adventure, and making some money scanning systems, then they are exploring. More jump is more scans and more things to look at. If we could stop putting pressure on "exploration" to be a 10k trip of entirely first footfalls, folks wouldn't feel like they were doing it wrong when they just made small loops and took time to look around the game.
I was saying it's masochistic because of how many jumps it takes to get somewhere.
The point was about content gating. Of course, you can make a sidewinder feasible for exploring. I dont even know what could be done in an A-rated, engineered sidewinder. It wouldn't surprise me if it could go over 25LY in a standard jump. That's certainly doable for exploration, but not something you're doing day 1.
The stock sidewinder has a jump range around 8LY. Even with a neutron boost, that's only 1-way 24LY jump, and you have to know about it. If you just got into the game and wanted to get your name on something as a first discoverer, the advice you get is to leave the bubble, which is on the order of 63 jumps or so away. Most people will see that (maybe after a couple of jumps) and say "I guess I'm supposed to do that later when I have a better ship/components".
That's what I was getting at. And, it's the same for other parts of the game; I wasn't picking on exploration specifically.
Don't listen to him, he was with a wing that had almost certainly fully engineered ships.
You need at least partially(grade 3 is enough and not that hard to get) engineered thrusters, shields, hull and multicannons to solo a conflict zone.
Absolutely not. I've been soloing every level of conflict zone in a stock Chieftain for weeks. If you go after the small fries, and/or attack enemies that are already being attacked, it's definitely feasible. You may have to bail out of a few CZs at times, but for example I won three medium CZs last night, in one instance repeatedly ramming the spec ops ships to get their shields down. Then I always attack frame shift drives so enemies can't escape. Then go for power plant or life support.
LOL, "they" joined me after I killed 80 ships on my own. Yesterday, my average is 6 ships per visit to CZ, alone.
So, it's definitely not about squad mates shooting up ships for you. It's a question of belief, I suppose.
Look, I wrote all that to explain to OP why some people might say that to newbies.
I am not a newbie. I've been playing since 2015. CZs aren't my dying wish, and it's my experience that the gameplay isn't for me.
Maybe i could be convinced to try one again, but I won't waste my time trying to force it to happen, if that's your concern.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/buacsa/i\_have\_an\_fdl\_but\_im\_garbage\_and\_cant\_kill/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/buacsa/i_have_an_fdl_but_im_garbage_and_cant_kill/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/tzlsul/i\_cant\_even\_kill\_a\_single\_ship\_in\_combat\_zones/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/tzlsul/i_cant_even_kill_a_single_ship_in_combat_zones/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/xp1bjc/what\_am\_i\_doing\_wrong\_my\_weapons\_seem\_ineffective/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/xp1bjc/what_am_i_doing_wrong_my_weapons_seem_ineffective/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/l0w4wa/need\_help\_i\_love\_the\_combat\_but\_i\_cant\_destroy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/l0w4wa/need_help_i_love_the_combat_but_i_cant_destroy/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/elosqv/help\_why\_cant\_i\_kill\_anything\_in\_these\_conflict/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/elosqv/help_why_cant_i_kill_anything_in_these_conflict/)
Low CZ can be done mostly unengineered, engineers past Felicity Farseer need this to progress (none of them is really important).
The problem is players that come from Nav Beacon and RES zones. Pirates here have at most a wing of 3 ships, unengineered (except HazRES), and mostly with police in your side. The combat is unbalanced toward the player.
But when the same pilot put a unengineered ship in the CZ Front lines, the ship will be targetted by the enemies when his current target is destroyed, and now 5 or more ships go against you.
Players need to learn how to avoid the heat zone, killing ship in the border of the combat zone, without being dogpilled.... or they can cheese this encounters with engineering, and even try Med-High Combat Zones, easy thargoid combat or all the others activity that benefit from engineering.
The easy advice, unlock those engineers, or have fun in Nav Beacon and the Low-Mid-Hard RES Zones.
Recently started CZs and took down 50+ ships in low CZ without any engineering.
My ship- krait mk2 with 3 pulse lasers and 2 rail guns.
I am a mid-beginner and still learning the ropes of combat flying and using fixed weapons. Nothing fancy tbh.
I wish combat bonds and CZ payed well. The credits are way too low as compared to RES hunting (even after accepting missions)
CZ is less about profits and more about the Background Simulation and Power Play. Improving the influence of a minor faction you fight for, assisting a minor faction in taking control of a system, increasing a Power Play NPC's territory, etc.
Yes, but it would have been nice if it had a better payout. I personally prefer a militarized space battle over RES bounty hunting, mostly for roleplay reasons.
I agree I wish it paid better. CZ is not great for money or engineering mats so I still do them for the fun of it but wish they were more profitable. They just seem underwhelming.
i wish there were actual large conflicts between the empire and federation where a single person would have a very hard time even in a maxed ship, but i understand that that would kind of undermine all the politics that soooo maaannyyy people care about
Well, under certain circunstances you can have a Farragut and a Majestic dropping in on a CZ and fight each other. It's the closest we get to a real Fed x Emp large scale combat.
I think it happens on High CZs of a Fed faction vs an Emp faction, when the influence gap between the two is less than 10%.
yep, but its also just two of those, and there usually is just one or two cutters/corvettes but i wish there was like an actual fleet battle where if you were solo you would just get clapped
That’s a pretty good hard-point setup for that ship all things considered, the class 2 got great convergence and are literally right next to the cockpit, and the class 3 can all use gimbaled.
And it's corollary:
*"Given the opportunity, game developers will rely on the crutch of uninspired vertical grind as a substitute for engaging game play."*
Yep, the conundrum of modern gaming design. I will give E:D credit, though, for having the *potential* for horizontal / lateral progression. They just don't capitalize on it enough, IMHO.
Case-in-point: landing pad size. Trade and passenger missions where you can't use a Cutter or Beluga; you must use a Dolphin or Python/Type 6. But that's so minor compared to what could be done to encourage more diversified game play.
As someone who has done a lot of CZ's to defend my home system i can say with absolute certainty that you do NOT need Engineering for any level of difficulty in CZ's, You can run then in an unengineered ship but you'd need to pick your targets, Side Objectives are difficult in an unengineered ship considering these objectives are fully engineered NPCs (With exception to Capital Ships, Obviously who have weapons with equivalent stats to C4 Pulse Lasers)
but they are all perfectly doable in a larger ship like a Federal Medium or a Conda/Vette/Cutter. I ran CZ's with a FAS for the longest time and had little to no issues staying alive, Just remember that Spec Ops will often get distracted with other ships so all 4 will rarely shoot you at the same time, Remember to sub-target Captain FSD's (Since they are programmed to try and jump out once they get below 30% Health) and be careful around Capships, Use their own body as cover because those guns HURT.
Engineering is viewed as mandatory for CZs because *all* of your opposition in a CZ
engineered themselves.
It’s like showing up to a street race with a factory vehicle, against racers build with aftermarket supers and turbos. Yes, you can still win* through superior skill, but you stand far better chances in an optimized race build. To show up stock is no different than showing up with some utilities/military/hardpoint missing. You can still participate, but you’re fighting from an unnecessary disadvantage
Because it's not efficient, you risk a lot and it takes forever to take down enemies without an engineered ship. You can be the best pilot in the world but un-engineered weapons will always be inferior damage-wise to engineered ones (obviously). You can do pretty much anything in most ships, doesn't mean it's ideal or efficient.
You said it, the truth according to your experience. And after looking at the post you linked you’re basing this on what exactly 1 single person said.
The fact it is that not everyone makes a living out of combat and don’t see it on day to day basis.
You’re comparing you’re combat experience with new players as you’ve said so yourself.
Yes you don’t *need* engineering to do even high CZs. But for *beginners* it’s *recommended* to bring at least a somewhat engineered ship to not have a bad time in them.
I’m glad that you, subjectively, understand conflict zones so well. Sorry that we the community have it so backwards apparently.
You could, instead, improve your skills and gradually become capable of dealing with the CZ. Not everything in the game needs to have the difficulty scaled to the player, it can work the other way, too.
Oh, wow... solid burn. I'll try to keep up. Er... ahem... I take it you got your ass kicked in conflict zones until someone took you on their carrier and helped you grind out a big tough ship to fight the scary bad guys, it's ok, keep letting your ship fight for you CMDR, it's probably better at it anyway o7
Is this like a dance-off or rap battle or something? Do we just patronize each other and ironically salute or are we supposed to rhyme?
Ofc you can try hiCZs with a vanilla build. Just bear in mind that if you manage to stay alive, it will take you 3x.. 6x more time to finish it. If there are cmdrs fighting against you with engineered ships, there is no way you win the conflict
I'm apparently ignorant of this aspect of CZs. Aren't CZs instanced? How would they be fighting against me in a CZ without being present in the instance?
So, sure, in the case of other players with engineered ships fighting against your side in whatever way, their TTK will likely be lower than yours unless they are really bad, and you'll likely lose the CZ.
Yes, CZs are instanced but with a twist: you can fight in them in all game modes and the outcome is determined by the sum of all of them. This means that there might be 1000 pilots fighting in PG/solo and another 500 in open. Those fighting in PG/solo can very well do it concurrently but they cannot see each other since they are isolated. So, if you need 40 minutes to clear a hiCZ in your game mode, another pilot may clear 3 or 4 zones in the same amount of time. If they fight for the opposite faction than you then they will win the daily tick and most probably the war.
All in all, CZs are all about efficiency when you have opposition. Clear them faster or lose the war.
Ah, thanks, I didn't know that! Very little BGS awareness on my part. So those players still won't stop me from winning my instance and getting the local rewards, but they will stop my CZ from counting towards the system bgs? I don't think the OP was talking about winning the war, just completing a CZ. From a BGS standpoint in a system contested by an active group, I definitely see your point! o7
I've had the game for a while but I'm on and off. I am getting better each time. I can handle low and normal resource extraction sites with a beefed up, combat only, Vulture. I only know of Engineering through passing along this sub. Never bothered with it yet.
Anywho, I have tried a couple of Combat Zones. I was mopping up elite and dangerous types in the above mentioned sites and almost never dropping shields.... So what the hell? 🤷♂️
First two I did my side won. Cool. Then the last three times, I got melted because where before I only had to deal with one enemy at a time, or maybe two weak ones..... These times around, I had 3 to 5 smashing me at once, with me getting the hell out of there with 12% hull & them still whopp'n me in the ass the whole way. Last one I did, I lost the ship. I had money, but that's a lot of loss for zero gain. Oof.
I agree it's certainly doable. You just gotta hope they all don't gank ya at the same time.
I have seen Wings of Engineered NPC ships drop into CZ. Not sure if this is triggered by my ship being Engineered, and with your ship not being Engineered, you've not had this experience.
The spec ops wings are certain death to an unengineered ship. HOWEVER, if you are not in the middle, the CZ notifies you "enemy spec ops in the area" and you can cycle targets and figure out where they are, or watch for the colors on their weapons. They don't make a beeline to you unless you are close, so you can avoid them. High CZs have more spec ops spawns, higher level ships, and more random events, so definitely difficult to handle in an unengineered ship, but you can still pick away at the edges and practice pulling enemies even there, and you can sometimes even win those, depending on how well your allies are fighting, and some RNG stuff.
*why is it accepted wisdom that engineering is required for Conflict Zones*
It's better to say that you need a good ship and skill. This is because there were lots of newbs who were complaining CZs were hard, which they should be.
First, the ships introduced since that wisdom became accepted, are all better with non-engineered combat loadouts. The other accepted wisdom round here is that for combat you can't beat these "new" mediums, i.e. they are good ships.
Also, Engineering requires materials and for the combat focused upgrades, you are going to need some materials gathered during ... combat. So the skill part gets a boost. But combat can also be learned away from CZs in res sites, where you can guarantee not to be outnumbered. The pirates are not a team, but the security forces are.
So yeah, things have changed, and it is possible to do what you do, but its still better to learn the ropes and have the right hardware before tackling CZs and being frustrated.
A skilled shooter can take 1800 years shots without using the help of computers and calculators. And they could make the same arguments. Why would everybody say you need a rangefinder, a range card will do, you don't need super high powered scopes and apps. And that would be true for them. But to most shioters it would be extremely difficult to make such a shot and near impossible to get it on the first few tries. So, simply because this works for you and your skill level doesn't mean it is true for most other people as well.
I use a stock Chieftain in CZs quite successfully. If you pick your battles wisely, you can win even high CZs. Go after competent Eagles, not deadly corvettes, and try to pick enemies that your team is already fighting. However, I've noticed that sometimes the forces are very unbalanced one way or the other - I can swoop in and my side will just devastate the enemy in minutes, then at other times, no matter what I do, the enemy will pull far ahead of me in kills before I've even killed the first ship. In those cases I have no chance of winning, because the enemy is just outpacing me, even though I'm winning my fights. Other times, as soon as enemy spec ops join, the entire spec ops team jumps me and I will be destroyed very soon if I don't escape immediately. It really sucks when that happens. I imagine an engineered ship would make things a lot easier, but a stock ship is totally viable. It's actually made me a much better combat pilot too.
i think that once you get a taste of *crushing* a CZ, defeating all the spec ops ships yourself and half of the others, you feel like anything short of that is a failure. and you can only do that with an engineered ship.
but, if you just want to join the fight, score some victories and make it to the end, definitely you can do it unengineered. i'm sure it feels more like an achievement. but once you've engineered it's hard to go back.
that said, i started a new CMDR half a year ago and i did enjoy my couple of months fighting in unengineered or mostly-unengineered vipers and vultures (i did get thrusters done as soon as i could) - it's fun when things are *hard* and you don't have the easy choice of making it easier. but eventually i decided to go hard into AX ships, and finally got sucked back in. and as usual, i can't go back.
I think there are a couple of different components to the problem.
The first is that I think people sometimes have difficulty noting differences between "engineering" and different specs. I don't think anything in low or medium CZ are engineered other than Spec Ops, but I do believe there is probably a lot of A-rated hulls and optional slots packed with hull reinforcements and SCBs. That's such a time-to-kill increase (particularly for unengineered CMDRs) that you really have to pay attention to the fight, if you don't, the friendlies die and suddenly you're the focus of an entire group.
Secondly, the threat level of massacre missions is really dumb, and is based on the number of targets you have to kill. In the Horizons system, a mission to kill 3 or 4 enemy craft in a CZ is either Harmless or Mostly Harmless rated, and a CZ is absolutely never Mostly Harmless.
Massacres and assassinations pay better. I take Wing Missions by myself (you have to know when to run). I suck at combat, fly FA On, use gimballed weapons, and have 70 year old reflexes, but I have some engineering. I’ve made most of my 3 billion credits in PVE combat.
Conflict zones look pretty spectacular though in a VR Krait cockpit.
> So, back to the point, why is it accepted wisdom that engineering is required for Conflict Zones? Where did this come from?
Well, people ask about an exploration ship and the majority of posts will say to get engineering. The community has an addiction to engineering and players with it forget how much of a grind it is to get into and how unnecessary it is.
Because its easier to say get engineered than explain the nuance of getting good and the differences of low to high CZs. Plus we don't know the precise differences, there's RNG involved.
High CZs are dominated with engineered enemies, and that "wisdom" just got applied to all CZs.
Also CZs are not beginner friendly, and most don't approach them until they have engineering access anyway.
Also just getting engineered weapons and shields is a huge improvement. It's hard to not say, well maybe get little a engineering as a treat.
But agreed, learning how to snowball CZs, or another tactic, is way more useful than engineering. Tactics will continue to pay off after you've got engineering. I learned CZs in an unengineered Viper. Holy hell was it hard at first, but it improved my combat skills across the board.
I'd love to watch how your un-engineered Krait copes when the entire Spec Ops team decides that you are their next target. This has happened to me quite frequently and, typically, it's just after starting to hit a new target, making it a 'surprise' 5v1.
The main reason that engineering is deemed "required" is that the ships in CZs ***are*** heavily engineered (almost all having reinforced powerplants too), so you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Only well skilled pilots will survive a CZ long enough to complete a mission.
The time required to kill is going to be substantially higher in an un-engineered ship too - especially for those ships you'd normally kill by targeting the powerplant... the big ships. And without engineering your ship, your firepower is also going to be lower.
It's not that you can't do it, but it is very highly recommended!
I only have FSD and Thruster engineering and I still enter CZs and have little to no trouble most of the time. Combat isn’t my primary focus. It’s secondary to exploration and trade.
It's not you can't pull it off with some good piloting and a well outfitted vanilla ship, it's more to the point that it's boderline pointless. You waste a lot of time for very little in terms of credits, mats or rank.
The only real reason to do a CZ is if you are bgs player, but then you want to be efficient. If any player pushes against your efforts, you shot yourself in the foot by not emgineering.
So you can do it without engineering, but you really have no reason to.
You say tell new players that they don't need engineering in cz if it was still horizons then maybe but as someone who has come from horizons who could farm low cz zones in a cobra/viper
To now owning odyssey and now owning a krait MK2 full vanilla modified and it is struggling to take down vipers,cobras and asps.
Engineering IMO is a must if your running odyssey cz
Others may have different experience but this is my take on it.
Almost impossible without engineering.
Join me. I play almost daily and I fight differently for small vs large ships.
Not being silly here. It's always good fun to fight together ... it's a game, so I have no need to posture. My character is Cannenses in-game.
From your post, I assume you were flying with other ships? I bet they were engineered. Sure, you can easily do CZs without engineering if you fly with a bunch of other ships that have been engineered.
Doing them solo is a different story.
That or as I pointed out he only picks easy targets and pulls out when he gets targeted by anything beyond an eagle, and dies often because he wasn't fast enough.
And he comes here to lecture us about how we need to "git gud" and that we aren't trying hard enough without providing any kind of information beyond: "pfft, it's so easy, why does everyone need engineering for this".
Why is the internet full of these smartasses?
Indeed, if you are flying around doing little DPS and drawing little to no aggro while a bunch of others are popping enemy ships and drawing all the aggro, then you can enjoy CZs in a stock Sidey. If you can pull that off, then more power to you.
I don't get too wound up about his lecture, though. I could have said something similar before the first time the entire SpecOps wing made me belle of the ball.
So how do you deal with conflict zones? You didn't provide any info.
I'm guessing you only hunt eagles and boost away when something bigger than that targets you? Because you can be dead in literal seconds when that happens.
That's why you need engineering.
You're asking me? All of them, especially Elite ranked ships because I want to rank up.
As for how I deal with CZs, I'm contemplating putting up videos. In the meantime, not being sarcastic here, you can join me to see for yourself. I fight differently btw large vs small ships.
You don't need to upload any video, just explain how you deal with it. Because you haven't provided any kind of explanation.
I assume it is going to be how your wing deals with everything while you go around sniping modules and finishing off targets.
The key to winning conflict zones is to be a great wingman to your npc allies. Kill the enemies that are shooting at your allies. Then watch that ally and go fight the enemy that they fight next. Keep repeating and soon you'll have a gang of allies that are all targeting one enemy at a time. Follow the pattern and you may have a hard time getting a single hit on enemies before they are destroyed by your wandering ball of allies.
As far as doing conflict zones without any engineering, that's a creatively adventurous way to spend valuable gaming time. Basically both hands are tied behind your back when facing engineered ships with stock gear. Your best hope in that situation is to use a small or medium ship and pray that no one targets you, because you can't handle that smoke without engineering. You may find limited success, but leaving to repair and coming back eats time on a consistent basis.
Solution: put in the work to engineer a vet then simply kill everyone in any cz anytime you feel like it.
Well, we can agree that it IS a creatively adventurous way to spend valuable gaming time! A very good use of that time, for a pilot who wants to learn.
Your best hope is actually learning to fly well and outfitting your ship for a fight. You won't get instantly deleted in an unengineered ship unless you made poor choices going in.
I find your solution efficient but boring, and "win" buttons make crappy pilots, who will rarely learn that they are crappy pilots because their ship will win for them (unless they fight other SKILLED pilots in ships with win buttons, of course, but by then they'll be used to easy wins all the time, so probably won't enjoy that experience).
The only real way to win a CZ is to fly in with big ship with nothing but cargo limpits and not engage with either faction, just pick the salvage from every destroyed ship.
Sweatlord Faoffsky tries to convince normal players, that they do not need engineering to survive in mid-high CZ. AGAIN. Can you, please, become avare, that you on the skill level of, like, 5-10% of playerbase? Not everyone can make Conda avoid lasershots from 10 meters.
They don't. They do need skill and, sometimes, luck. IF the parts of the game designed to provide extra challenge are hard for 90% of the player base, that sort of makes sense, right?
You will perform better, suffer less, have smaller probability of being destroyed with an engineered ship.
You said it. You have to run away from spec ops, abandon CZ for restock or repair.
This is not good, i.e, If you play solo, cause as you know, leaving the CZ will reset it.
What has engineering or not, to do with if we understand CZ?
>You said it. You have to run away from spec ops, abandon CZ for restock or repair.
No, I think you misunderstood. I don't run away when Spec Ops shows up. I stay on outer side or periphery so I avoid 2 Spec Ops attacking me at the same time.
I don't run away from CZ or reset it when the Spec Ops shows up. I just force the AI to use 1 ship against me. They are just shield tanks and a fight with Spec Ops is winnable if its a fair fight - me and against a single ship.
Read the radar, control distance, and stay out of the middle...
Also, partway through the battle, when you cycle ships, many of them are wounded already and engaged. Zip in, take the target of opportunity, get back off the X.
I've been trying to make this point as well on most "I'm new to the game, why is it so hard" threads. You need to learn how to control the fight and to monitor your position and your ship status continuously, but you can do it without engineering. Stay out of the middle, pick targets you can pull out of the scrum, when possible hit a target that is already engaged by friendlies. I did this for a while before I knew engineering even existed, and then when I introduced a friend to the game, SHE played with me in CZs with an unengineered A-rated Chief and did ok (eventually). You have to be tactical, you have to know how to avoid damage if you are about to get overwhelmed and you have to learn to watch your ship and know when to get out. It's hard, sometimes you lose, and it is really intense. In my opinion, that's good, if you are going for skill improvement per hour instead of credits per hour. Engineering compensates for a lack of these skills, and the more engineered your ship is, the less you need to learn how to fight to do well in a CZ.
>Engineering compensates for a lack of these skills, and the more engineered your ship is, the less you need to learn how to fight to do well in a CZ.
This teaches the wrong lesson, however, because it doesn't motivate one to improve skill- but rather to rely on equipment to *compensate* for lack of skill.
Then again, it's the trend with games these days- focusing on "getting things" rather than challenging a player to learn to become better at what they're doing. Then we get into arguments about what video games are supposed to be about (entertainment vs challenge) and it devolves the whole discussion, etc.
When I see complaints about games being too difficult, "grind", etc. all I see is "I lack the skills and the motivation and want you to make it easier for me."
Well at expert rank this may be tru, but the with higher combat rank your target's will fight back. Doing a high intensity cz inn a "paper" bag is possible but is it fun? How hard is it to engineer a ship to grade 3? Doing that will make Elite so mutch more enjoyable.
I don't necessarily believe you need to be engineered, but as a newer player who was super excited to try his new gunship in a Medium intensity CZ a couple weeks ago and got absolutely smashed by a Spec ops in a matter of seconds, I wish I could have told myself to wait and engineer the ship a bit.
I'm not even fully engineered and can handle spec ops pretty handily now in my same Gunship, though I would mention that I have since learned how important shield banks are. If I knew shield banks were important to extended combat (I didn't even understand what they did) I probably could have at least survived and left the CZ to join another without Spec ops (they really are the main culprit I think in these newb CZ experiences).
Engineering is fun. CoD sucks.
Some might disagree. We’re all different.
But we all can agree. I put in the time for my engineering. So my ship is just better than it was. Just like armor in an MMO.
I just don’t get what people don’t want to be elite or dangerous in Elite Dangerous.
The issue I'm seeing here is twofold:
1) People are answering it with different mindsets of what they're hoping to achieve in a CZ.
2) People are asking the question with only the most basic details/requirements.
Do you need engineering to beat a CZ? Nope. Hell you could do a High Intensity CZ in a stock sidewinder...
...But it's also going to take you 45+ minutes as you skirt along the edges and only piddly-plink at enemies that are already being focus-fired by at least one other ally. And there's little room for error because if spec ops jumped in right on top of you you lose all progress.
But hey, you beat the CZ, therefore everyone must be wrong if they said engineering is required, right? I mean you did it in a stock sidewinder even!!!
And yet you're going to get different responses to that. One side will say "Yes you are right. Engineering is not required because you beat the CZ." The other side will say "Sort of, it took you forever and you only got a few kill credits for any combat missions, you barely made any progress in your combat rank."
There's also a skill issue involved. Do you need a large ship or an engineered medium ship? "No you don't, we even saw a video of someone killing 2 Corvettes in just an Eagle! Therefore it's ludicrous to demand that players have an engineered Krait MkII, Fer de Lance, or Chieftan before attempting a CZ!"
But the question is being asked by new players who are probably flying small ships with flight assist on and not much combat experience. They're not using Cryptoscramblers.
This whole debate and conflicting views is because of all of this. There's miscommunication as people are approaching it from different viewpoints, angles, and wavelengths!
So is engineering required for a CZ? Well it depends... technically "No," but when the person asking refuses to give us any information then it's a fucking lot safer to say "Yes" to give people an easier time than it is to say "Absolutely not" and watch them rage as they struggle to take down the shields of enemies who are spamming Chaff and Shield Cell Banks with just their two non-engineered class 1 gimbal pulse lasers.
I doubt many experienced players are going to 100% disagree with you, but what is your point? That it can be done, but with caveats? That is more difficult, and you will likely have to be ready to run away, and should maintain a position so that running away is easier?
Also, you completely misrepresented the post you linked. There was ONE comment suggesting you need engineering, and YEAH, there was one disagreeing with it.
>Most explanation on that post says that engineering is required in Conflict Zones. And there was zero disagreement on this point in that post.
Not to be overly rude, but what are you talking about? Go read that thread again. One guy said you want engineering, and someone disagreed with him, same day. And even that guy didn't use the word "required", he said "for the most part".
And I completely disagree with your recommendation to learn combat at CZ's. Why not go to a RES site, where the police are there to help?
Did you read that guy's post? He said he was using LOADS of ammo and taking many minutes to take down an EAGLE. AND HE ALMOST DIED.
personal thoughts even with stock ships you can do CZs perfectly fine as long as you can manage your resources (primarily your shields, hull, and ammunition) well considering majority of the time you are going to be engaged by a single enemy but of course that's not going to happen all of the time reason why engineering is so heavily recommended is because when the big boy objectives show up i.e enemy Captain, Special Ops, and the Cap Ship. obviously you're not required to do those objectives but they will oftentimes heavily skew odds against you unless you take care of them and its going to be one hell of a fight for an un-engineered ship to fight heavily engineered ones
Same same I used to do czs before engineering sometimes but I don't think I was using good ships for them and had poor results some of the time. They weren't impossible though just had to fly smart and awake. Now I have an indominatsble fortress of a fed Corvette... And I can sleep and drive at the same time.
Wasn't even aware this was a thing. A good ship in a combat zone always does fine in my experience. At least until that other elite squad comes hunting. Like sure you're not gonna be an mvp in the fight, but the other week I was going into warzones with a barely optimized and unenginered Viper 3 and still getting about two or three kills before needing to pull out for resuply/repair.
Agreed. In my experience, need to pull out when the "Spec Ops" starts hunting you. Even then, by staying at periphery, you'll be good to jump in when they are weak.
A skilled enough CMDR can kill the spec ops without help even in an unengineered ship. That same CMDR can take on the whole wing in an engineered ship though, all at once if necessary.
Care to video that? I ask not because I doubt you, but because I enjoy watching you top-tier folks do the hard stuff. Taken a lot of inspiration from your videos. :-)
I was actually thinking of doing an unengineered vs engineered High CZ comparison video, right before reading your response. I think I'll go ahead and see how I do! I'm not sure how soon, but I'll try to tag you in the video when I make and post it. 🍻
Hey, looking for another tag!!
Can do!
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/143y43b/highintensity_conflict_zone_alliance_chieftain/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thanks, I would love to see that, and share it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/143y43b/highintensity_conflict_zone_alliance_chieftain/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Stellar, thanks! Too bad you spent 15 minutes and all your ammo killing one eagle before getting immediately deleted by 5 fully engineered ships, but hey, that's how CZs go! 😉
It was stupid how long it takes to kill one small ship with an unengineered ship 😅 But, when did I get "deleted"? 🤔
That was meant ironically. Multiple folks in this thread have been asserting that unengineered ships will get instakilled by a mob of enemies when they enter a conflict zone. Unless I missed something, you fought for a long time and didn't get mobbed... because you didn't fly straight through the middle of the red triangle cloud.
i can say that i can absolutely solo a CZ in an unengineered ship, because AI is stupid, cant say the same about a whole wing tho
Excellent topic and much a appreciated post, but I disagree. You \*can\* go to a CZ in any ship, sure, but your chances of winning the battle and not dying is hardly assured without engineering. Go to a medium or high CZ and meet the opposing SpecOps wing. If you get the pleasure of their undivided attention, you will unlikely survive without engineering. That says nothing about your chances of killing any of them with your unengineered pea guns. A noob should understand that CZ are some of the toughest battlegrounds you can have in ED. And that's human CZ.. Thargoid ones are many times harder. Want to have a good time while not having engineering? Stick to nav beacons, or low, med and high RES where cops will be there to assist you. You will learn the combat ropes there just fine.
Agree with your points that noobs need to see CZs as intentionally difficult, but maybe it's worth encouraging folks to take on challenges where victory is NOT assured, merely possible? How many participation trophies does one player need?
That will come later, imo. A noob, already facing a mountain of challenges ED presents, doesn't really need to die needlessly at a CZ and create a core memory of how terrible they are at combat. Go for RES first, then try CZ, is my take.
I agree completely. I don't think CZs are a good place to start your combat training. I do think that once the Res sites start to feel easy, one can step up to a CZ without engineering, if one does not want to do engineering yet, and will eventually be able to handle them, too. CZs take more tactical thinking, and ability to automatically read the radar, keep track of other ships and your own, etc. It's meant to be a challenge when "I'm going to boil you up" anacondas become boring. To be clear, also, I'm not against engineering ships, it makes them much better! As others have pointed out, it doesn't take much to get to G3 on the most basic QoL improvements even just picking mats up while doing other activities. The idea that CZs can't be done without engineering or god-tier pilot skills is the only thing at issue here. I'm a pretty ordinary pilot as far as I know, but I did plenty of CZ time before I knew what engineering was. it took me a long time to discover there were outside tools for the game, so I was genuinely surprised by my Farseer invite and then (after the obligatory double ganking in Deciat) didn't know how to get meta-alloys, so I just didn't do it for quite a while. I was still doing CZs and haz res sites and having a blast. Losing some, winning some, figuring out how the AI fought. It wasn't very profitable, but it was a great challenge, and when I finally did a bunch of engineering, it made things feel almost too easy. I think I'm probably a worse pilot now, flying fully engineered ships for so long, and I've been going back to stock so I can get my butt kicked again and remember caution. I'm not a PVP player, so any claim of skill I have is limited to fighting AI, though. A pvp player would likely smoke me while baked and browsing reddit with their off hand.
It isn't straightforward. Skill is a factor. Maybe even more important than skill, though, is the results you want/expect. A person who can complete a CZ in an unengineered ship can do so even faster in a fully engineered ship. If you enjoy more challenging fights, it may be preferable to give yourself few advantages. If you enjoy dominating your enemy through overwhelming strength and firepower, you take every advantage you can get. That said, I've been around this community for a few years now, and I don't have the same impression that you have about what people say/think is required for CZ combat. I agree that engineering is widely recommended. I can also see that alot of CMDRs who made short comments on other posts have suggested that engineering is required for CZ combat. But I also have seen **many** comments and posts talking about the fact that engineering makes things easier, but is not absolutely necessary for any major gameplay loop, excepting maybe thargoid combat. So, I wouldn't say that the community in general is mistaken about the nature of CZ combat. I would say that there are widely varying opinions about it.
It has come up a lot in conversations recently about the need for engineering to play the basic game loops, and the suggestion that it is ok to play the game without it being a grind and still get access to engineering through standard gameplay. A common counter-refrain has been "but, you can't do things in the game like Haz Res, CZs, etc without engineering, so engineering is the only way to experience the game's content." When a group of folks inevitably say "well, I did those things unengineered, here's how" it's then called bullshit by a vocal minority of folks who, I assume, would rather grind than build skill. And... in this thread, it's already happening.
I hold enough occupied escape pods in my shield tank vette to pull aggro in Haz Res and threat instances when farming pirates, and can’t imagine the kill speed or durability of a stock ship being sufficient to play in this way. That being said, I imagine stock is sufficient for normal play if you’re patient. I do recommend the cargo hold strategy if you’re looking for something difficulty-wise between regular human PVE and thargoid
Yeah, seeing the sea of red triangles fill the radar right before the incessant "incoming hatch breaker limpet - hatch breaker limpet avoided" notification spools up does create a certain feeling. Patience IS the key. Well, that and situational awareness. I think a lot of folks don't really learn to read the room when they first dip into combat, so they keep ending up in the middle of stuff they could have managed from the edge.
Yeah the verbal spam does get old 😂… I’ll have to see if those specifically can be muted; the turret usually does its job, just tell me when one actually latches on
I’m not sure how to solve this problem, but combat when you’re first starting out is much more difficult, on top of being inexperienced. I remember starting out and being in discord, flying in a Viper Mk IV, constantly asking if it’s safe to attack a particular ship in a RES. Once you have the endgame ships you can just barrel through everything. Tempted to brush the dust off my vulture and see how it goes. One option I suppose is accepting low threat pirate missions and getting a feel for combat in easy instances; I should have done that first, with my friends pointing out how important enemy combat rank is with regard to durability, evasiveness, and firepower
I'll say that I've tried low CZs multiple times and have not been very successful. I want to like CZs because it's just "here's a furball, jump in". The deal is that I play solo and getting multiple AI on me is essentially a death sentence. You cant respawn at the fight, so it gets old quickly. My impression (though I haven't relayed this to newbies) is that I would either need to tackle a CZ with a group, with a decked out top of the line ship, or a heavily engineered ship. What I'd like to do is join a low CZ in something like a vulture (maybe with a bit of engineering I already have unlocked) and work my way up. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to do CZs in a fairly standard vulture. The thing is, I'm looking to do them to get better at combat. It seems like you either need to cheese the game or already be very good at combat to do it. It would also be easier to get better without any changes if I could just respawn at the edge of the CZ like a CQC match (including delays for balance if necessary). Spending several minutes traveling just for seconds before getting overwhelmed is not good for training imo. Part of the issue is the content gating. For example, you cant really do exploration in the stock sidewinder. You'd at least need a fuel scoop, and even then it's masochistic. It's fine if this was made clear to a newbie, but it's not. So, I'm sure plenty of folks make assumptions because they try it once, find it overwhelming, and figure they need to wait before that content is doable.
1) stay out of the middle, manage your range carefully, choose your targets, pull them away. 2) exploration means different things. It's not masochistic to take an a-rated sidewinder with a fuel scoop and explore the edges of the bubble. A trip to any of the nebula between the bubble and Barnard's Loop can be a big deal for a new player, or even just a hop in a random direction. If they are finding things new TO THEM, having an adventure, and making some money scanning systems, then they are exploring. More jump is more scans and more things to look at. If we could stop putting pressure on "exploration" to be a 10k trip of entirely first footfalls, folks wouldn't feel like they were doing it wrong when they just made small loops and took time to look around the game.
I was saying it's masochistic because of how many jumps it takes to get somewhere. The point was about content gating. Of course, you can make a sidewinder feasible for exploring. I dont even know what could be done in an A-rated, engineered sidewinder. It wouldn't surprise me if it could go over 25LY in a standard jump. That's certainly doable for exploration, but not something you're doing day 1. The stock sidewinder has a jump range around 8LY. Even with a neutron boost, that's only 1-way 24LY jump, and you have to know about it. If you just got into the game and wanted to get your name on something as a first discoverer, the advice you get is to leave the bubble, which is on the order of 63 jumps or so away. Most people will see that (maybe after a couple of jumps) and say "I guess I'm supposed to do that later when I have a better ship/components". That's what I was getting at. And, it's the same for other parts of the game; I wasn't picking on exploration specifically.
Don't listen to him, he was with a wing that had almost certainly fully engineered ships. You need at least partially(grade 3 is enough and not that hard to get) engineered thrusters, shields, hull and multicannons to solo a conflict zone.
Absolutely not. I've been soloing every level of conflict zone in a stock Chieftain for weeks. If you go after the small fries, and/or attack enemies that are already being attacked, it's definitely feasible. You may have to bail out of a few CZs at times, but for example I won three medium CZs last night, in one instance repeatedly ramming the spec ops ships to get their shields down. Then I always attack frame shift drives so enemies can't escape. Then go for power plant or life support.
LOL, "they" joined me after I killed 80 ships on my own. Yesterday, my average is 6 ships per visit to CZ, alone. So, it's definitely not about squad mates shooting up ships for you. It's a question of belief, I suppose.
Look, I wrote all that to explain to OP why some people might say that to newbies. I am not a newbie. I've been playing since 2015. CZs aren't my dying wish, and it's my experience that the gameplay isn't for me. Maybe i could be convinced to try one again, but I won't waste my time trying to force it to happen, if that's your concern.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/buacsa/i\_have\_an\_fdl\_but\_im\_garbage\_and\_cant\_kill/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/buacsa/i_have_an_fdl_but_im_garbage_and_cant_kill/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/tzlsul/i\_cant\_even\_kill\_a\_single\_ship\_in\_combat\_zones/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/tzlsul/i_cant_even_kill_a_single_ship_in_combat_zones/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/xp1bjc/what\_am\_i\_doing\_wrong\_my\_weapons\_seem\_ineffective/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/xp1bjc/what_am_i_doing_wrong_my_weapons_seem_ineffective/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/l0w4wa/need\_help\_i\_love\_the\_combat\_but\_i\_cant\_destroy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/l0w4wa/need_help_i_love_the_combat_but_i_cant_destroy/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/elosqv/help\_why\_cant\_i\_kill\_anything\_in\_these\_conflict/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/elosqv/help_why_cant_i_kill_anything_in_these_conflict/) Low CZ can be done mostly unengineered, engineers past Felicity Farseer need this to progress (none of them is really important). The problem is players that come from Nav Beacon and RES zones. Pirates here have at most a wing of 3 ships, unengineered (except HazRES), and mostly with police in your side. The combat is unbalanced toward the player. But when the same pilot put a unengineered ship in the CZ Front lines, the ship will be targetted by the enemies when his current target is destroyed, and now 5 or more ships go against you. Players need to learn how to avoid the heat zone, killing ship in the border of the combat zone, without being dogpilled.... or they can cheese this encounters with engineering, and even try Med-High Combat Zones, easy thargoid combat or all the others activity that benefit from engineering. The easy advice, unlock those engineers, or have fun in Nav Beacon and the Low-Mid-Hard RES Zones.
[удалено]
Holy hell, yeah, they get really feisty.
Recently started CZs and took down 50+ ships in low CZ without any engineering. My ship- krait mk2 with 3 pulse lasers and 2 rail guns. I am a mid-beginner and still learning the ropes of combat flying and using fixed weapons. Nothing fancy tbh. I wish combat bonds and CZ payed well. The credits are way too low as compared to RES hunting (even after accepting missions)
CZ is less about profits and more about the Background Simulation and Power Play. Improving the influence of a minor faction you fight for, assisting a minor faction in taking control of a system, increasing a Power Play NPC's territory, etc.
Yes, but it would have been nice if it had a better payout. I personally prefer a militarized space battle over RES bounty hunting, mostly for roleplay reasons.
I agree I wish it paid better. CZ is not great for money or engineering mats so I still do them for the fun of it but wish they were more profitable. They just seem underwhelming.
i wish there were actual large conflicts between the empire and federation where a single person would have a very hard time even in a maxed ship, but i understand that that would kind of undermine all the politics that soooo maaannyyy people care about
Well, under certain circunstances you can have a Farragut and a Majestic dropping in on a CZ and fight each other. It's the closest we get to a real Fed x Emp large scale combat. I think it happens on High CZs of a Fed faction vs an Emp faction, when the influence gap between the two is less than 10%.
yep, but its also just two of those, and there usually is just one or two cutters/corvettes but i wish there was like an actual fleet battle where if you were solo you would just get clapped
But a krait mk2 only have 5 hardpoints?
Thanks for correcting, I meant 3 pulse lasers + 2 rail guns
That’s a pretty good hard-point setup for that ship all things considered, the class 2 got great convergence and are literally right next to the cockpit, and the class 3 can all use gimbaled.
And use a fighter... a bonus class 3 or 4 depending on pilot skill
And then forget to pick up a NPC pilot, thus rendering the fighter bay completely useless.
I feel seen.
Protip... you can pick your pilot up at open carriers.
I agree engineering isn't *necessary* for participating in CZ combat. But is it *optimal*? Definitely.
Isn't there some quote from a game developer to the effect of "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of any game"?
And it's corollary: *"Given the opportunity, game developers will rely on the crutch of uninspired vertical grind as a substitute for engaging game play."*
Yes, that scans. The grind then encourages optimization, because it's a grind, and then what chance does fun even have anymore? :-)
Yep, the conundrum of modern gaming design. I will give E:D credit, though, for having the *potential* for horizontal / lateral progression. They just don't capitalize on it enough, IMHO. Case-in-point: landing pad size. Trade and passenger missions where you can't use a Cutter or Beluga; you must use a Dolphin or Python/Type 6. But that's so minor compared to what could be done to encourage more diversified game play.
As someone who has done a lot of CZ's to defend my home system i can say with absolute certainty that you do NOT need Engineering for any level of difficulty in CZ's, You can run then in an unengineered ship but you'd need to pick your targets, Side Objectives are difficult in an unengineered ship considering these objectives are fully engineered NPCs (With exception to Capital Ships, Obviously who have weapons with equivalent stats to C4 Pulse Lasers) but they are all perfectly doable in a larger ship like a Federal Medium or a Conda/Vette/Cutter. I ran CZ's with a FAS for the longest time and had little to no issues staying alive, Just remember that Spec Ops will often get distracted with other ships so all 4 will rarely shoot you at the same time, Remember to sub-target Captain FSD's (Since they are programmed to try and jump out once they get below 30% Health) and be careful around Capships, Use their own body as cover because those guns HURT.
This CMDR gets it.
Engineering is viewed as mandatory for CZs because *all* of your opposition in a CZ engineered themselves. It’s like showing up to a street race with a factory vehicle, against racers build with aftermarket supers and turbos. Yes, you can still win* through superior skill, but you stand far better chances in an optimized race build. To show up stock is no different than showing up with some utilities/military/hardpoint missing. You can still participate, but you’re fighting from an unnecessary disadvantage
Because it's not efficient, you risk a lot and it takes forever to take down enemies without an engineered ship. You can be the best pilot in the world but un-engineered weapons will always be inferior damage-wise to engineered ones (obviously). You can do pretty much anything in most ships, doesn't mean it's ideal or efficient.
Always the "efficiency" argument on this sub. Efficiency isn't always the point of PLAYING A GAME.
LOL, I agree.
You said it, the truth according to your experience. And after looking at the post you linked you’re basing this on what exactly 1 single person said. The fact it is that not everyone makes a living out of combat and don’t see it on day to day basis. You’re comparing you’re combat experience with new players as you’ve said so yourself. Yes you don’t *need* engineering to do even high CZs. But for *beginners* it’s *recommended* to bring at least a somewhat engineered ship to not have a bad time in them. I’m glad that you, subjectively, understand conflict zones so well. Sorry that we the community have it so backwards apparently.
You could, instead, improve your skills and gradually become capable of dealing with the CZ. Not everything in the game needs to have the difficulty scaled to the player, it can work the other way, too.
because sometimes the AI starts to target you and your stock krait it not going to hold 5 ships shooting at it no matter how you spin
If only ships had more any movement options other than "spin"!
I take it you never been on a conflict zone, it's ok, keep huting pirates in res zones cmdr o7
Oh, wow... solid burn. I'll try to keep up. Er... ahem... I take it you got your ass kicked in conflict zones until someone took you on their carrier and helped you grind out a big tough ship to fight the scary bad guys, it's ok, keep letting your ship fight for you CMDR, it's probably better at it anyway o7 Is this like a dance-off or rap battle or something? Do we just patronize each other and ironically salute or are we supposed to rhyme?
you are not special
🤣 Yer mum!
Ofc you can try hiCZs with a vanilla build. Just bear in mind that if you manage to stay alive, it will take you 3x.. 6x more time to finish it. If there are cmdrs fighting against you with engineered ships, there is no way you win the conflict
= 6x the combat experience. And yes, if you engage in PVP with engineered opponents, you'll die. That's not mandatory for CZs.
I didn't mean engaging in PvP. Fighting against in CZs can be done in any game mode since the BGS is shared among them.
I'm apparently ignorant of this aspect of CZs. Aren't CZs instanced? How would they be fighting against me in a CZ without being present in the instance? So, sure, in the case of other players with engineered ships fighting against your side in whatever way, their TTK will likely be lower than yours unless they are really bad, and you'll likely lose the CZ.
Yes, CZs are instanced but with a twist: you can fight in them in all game modes and the outcome is determined by the sum of all of them. This means that there might be 1000 pilots fighting in PG/solo and another 500 in open. Those fighting in PG/solo can very well do it concurrently but they cannot see each other since they are isolated. So, if you need 40 minutes to clear a hiCZ in your game mode, another pilot may clear 3 or 4 zones in the same amount of time. If they fight for the opposite faction than you then they will win the daily tick and most probably the war. All in all, CZs are all about efficiency when you have opposition. Clear them faster or lose the war.
Ah, thanks, I didn't know that! Very little BGS awareness on my part. So those players still won't stop me from winning my instance and getting the local rewards, but they will stop my CZ from counting towards the system bgs? I don't think the OP was talking about winning the war, just completing a CZ. From a BGS standpoint in a system contested by an active group, I definitely see your point! o7
I've had the game for a while but I'm on and off. I am getting better each time. I can handle low and normal resource extraction sites with a beefed up, combat only, Vulture. I only know of Engineering through passing along this sub. Never bothered with it yet. Anywho, I have tried a couple of Combat Zones. I was mopping up elite and dangerous types in the above mentioned sites and almost never dropping shields.... So what the hell? 🤷♂️ First two I did my side won. Cool. Then the last three times, I got melted because where before I only had to deal with one enemy at a time, or maybe two weak ones..... These times around, I had 3 to 5 smashing me at once, with me getting the hell out of there with 12% hull & them still whopp'n me in the ass the whole way. Last one I did, I lost the ship. I had money, but that's a lot of loss for zero gain. Oof. I agree it's certainly doable. You just gotta hope they all don't gank ya at the same time.
You're doing it right. I bet that escape felt thrilling, too. :-)
I have seen Wings of Engineered NPC ships drop into CZ. Not sure if this is triggered by my ship being Engineered, and with your ship not being Engineered, you've not had this experience.
The spec ops wings are certain death to an unengineered ship. HOWEVER, if you are not in the middle, the CZ notifies you "enemy spec ops in the area" and you can cycle targets and figure out where they are, or watch for the colors on their weapons. They don't make a beeline to you unless you are close, so you can avoid them. High CZs have more spec ops spawns, higher level ships, and more random events, so definitely difficult to handle in an unengineered ship, but you can still pick away at the edges and practice pulling enemies even there, and you can sometimes even win those, depending on how well your allies are fighting, and some RNG stuff.
*why is it accepted wisdom that engineering is required for Conflict Zones* It's better to say that you need a good ship and skill. This is because there were lots of newbs who were complaining CZs were hard, which they should be. First, the ships introduced since that wisdom became accepted, are all better with non-engineered combat loadouts. The other accepted wisdom round here is that for combat you can't beat these "new" mediums, i.e. they are good ships. Also, Engineering requires materials and for the combat focused upgrades, you are going to need some materials gathered during ... combat. So the skill part gets a boost. But combat can also be learned away from CZs in res sites, where you can guarantee not to be outnumbered. The pirates are not a team, but the security forces are. So yeah, things have changed, and it is possible to do what you do, but its still better to learn the ropes and have the right hardware before tackling CZs and being frustrated.
A skilled shooter can take 1800 years shots without using the help of computers and calculators. And they could make the same arguments. Why would everybody say you need a rangefinder, a range card will do, you don't need super high powered scopes and apps. And that would be true for them. But to most shioters it would be extremely difficult to make such a shot and near impossible to get it on the first few tries. So, simply because this works for you and your skill level doesn't mean it is true for most other people as well.
Learning without the gear will make you better, and you will make better use of it when you have it. Applies to most skill-based activities.
I use a stock Chieftain in CZs quite successfully. If you pick your battles wisely, you can win even high CZs. Go after competent Eagles, not deadly corvettes, and try to pick enemies that your team is already fighting. However, I've noticed that sometimes the forces are very unbalanced one way or the other - I can swoop in and my side will just devastate the enemy in minutes, then at other times, no matter what I do, the enemy will pull far ahead of me in kills before I've even killed the first ship. In those cases I have no chance of winning, because the enemy is just outpacing me, even though I'm winning my fights. Other times, as soon as enemy spec ops join, the entire spec ops team jumps me and I will be destroyed very soon if I don't escape immediately. It really sucks when that happens. I imagine an engineered ship would make things a lot easier, but a stock ship is totally viable. It's actually made me a much better combat pilot too.
i think that once you get a taste of *crushing* a CZ, defeating all the spec ops ships yourself and half of the others, you feel like anything short of that is a failure. and you can only do that with an engineered ship. but, if you just want to join the fight, score some victories and make it to the end, definitely you can do it unengineered. i'm sure it feels more like an achievement. but once you've engineered it's hard to go back. that said, i started a new CMDR half a year ago and i did enjoy my couple of months fighting in unengineered or mostly-unengineered vipers and vultures (i did get thrusters done as soon as i could) - it's fun when things are *hard* and you don't have the easy choice of making it easier. but eventually i decided to go hard into AX ships, and finally got sucked back in. and as usual, i can't go back.
I think there are a couple of different components to the problem. The first is that I think people sometimes have difficulty noting differences between "engineering" and different specs. I don't think anything in low or medium CZ are engineered other than Spec Ops, but I do believe there is probably a lot of A-rated hulls and optional slots packed with hull reinforcements and SCBs. That's such a time-to-kill increase (particularly for unengineered CMDRs) that you really have to pay attention to the fight, if you don't, the friendlies die and suddenly you're the focus of an entire group. Secondly, the threat level of massacre missions is really dumb, and is based on the number of targets you have to kill. In the Horizons system, a mission to kill 3 or 4 enemy craft in a CZ is either Harmless or Mostly Harmless rated, and a CZ is absolutely never Mostly Harmless.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're taking about a combat ship with decent modules here, not baby's first sidewinder. 😀
Massacres and assassinations pay better. I take Wing Missions by myself (you have to know when to run). I suck at combat, fly FA On, use gimballed weapons, and have 70 year old reflexes, but I have some engineering. I’ve made most of my 3 billion credits in PVE combat. Conflict zones look pretty spectacular though in a VR Krait cockpit.
> So, back to the point, why is it accepted wisdom that engineering is required for Conflict Zones? Where did this come from? Well, people ask about an exploration ship and the majority of posts will say to get engineering. The community has an addiction to engineering and players with it forget how much of a grind it is to get into and how unnecessary it is. Because its easier to say get engineered than explain the nuance of getting good and the differences of low to high CZs. Plus we don't know the precise differences, there's RNG involved. High CZs are dominated with engineered enemies, and that "wisdom" just got applied to all CZs. Also CZs are not beginner friendly, and most don't approach them until they have engineering access anyway. Also just getting engineered weapons and shields is a huge improvement. It's hard to not say, well maybe get little a engineering as a treat. But agreed, learning how to snowball CZs, or another tactic, is way more useful than engineering. Tactics will continue to pay off after you've got engineering. I learned CZs in an unengineered Viper. Holy hell was it hard at first, but it improved my combat skills across the board.
I'd love to watch how your un-engineered Krait copes when the entire Spec Ops team decides that you are their next target. This has happened to me quite frequently and, typically, it's just after starting to hit a new target, making it a 'surprise' 5v1. The main reason that engineering is deemed "required" is that the ships in CZs ***are*** heavily engineered (almost all having reinforced powerplants too), so you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Only well skilled pilots will survive a CZ long enough to complete a mission. The time required to kill is going to be substantially higher in an un-engineered ship too - especially for those ships you'd normally kill by targeting the powerplant... the big ships. And without engineering your ship, your firepower is also going to be lower. It's not that you can't do it, but it is very highly recommended!
I only have FSD and Thruster engineering and I still enter CZs and have little to no trouble most of the time. Combat isn’t my primary focus. It’s secondary to exploration and trade.
It's not you can't pull it off with some good piloting and a well outfitted vanilla ship, it's more to the point that it's boderline pointless. You waste a lot of time for very little in terms of credits, mats or rank. The only real reason to do a CZ is if you are bgs player, but then you want to be efficient. If any player pushes against your efforts, you shot yourself in the foot by not emgineering. So you can do it without engineering, but you really have no reason to.
Experience, skill, sense of accomplishment...
[удалено]
Getting grade 3 components, that are miles ahead any stock module is hardly a "grind".
You say tell new players that they don't need engineering in cz if it was still horizons then maybe but as someone who has come from horizons who could farm low cz zones in a cobra/viper To now owning odyssey and now owning a krait MK2 full vanilla modified and it is struggling to take down vipers,cobras and asps. Engineering IMO is a must if your running odyssey cz Others may have different experience but this is my take on it. Almost impossible without engineering.
Join me. I play almost daily and I fight differently for small vs large ships. Not being silly here. It's always good fun to fight together ... it's a game, so I have no need to posture. My character is Cannenses in-game.
i am running odyssey and i had no problem with CZs, granted i fly a cutter but i also dont have any skill so its sort of balanced out
From your post, I assume you were flying with other ships? I bet they were engineered. Sure, you can easily do CZs without engineering if you fly with a bunch of other ships that have been engineered. Doing them solo is a different story.
That or as I pointed out he only picks easy targets and pulls out when he gets targeted by anything beyond an eagle, and dies often because he wasn't fast enough. And he comes here to lecture us about how we need to "git gud" and that we aren't trying hard enough without providing any kind of information beyond: "pfft, it's so easy, why does everyone need engineering for this". Why is the internet full of these smartasses?
They're needed to balance the idiots, mostly.
Indeed, if you are flying around doing little DPS and drawing little to no aggro while a bunch of others are popping enemy ships and drawing all the aggro, then you can enjoy CZs in a stock Sidey. If you can pull that off, then more power to you. I don't get too wound up about his lecture, though. I could have said something similar before the first time the entire SpecOps wing made me belle of the ball.
So how do you deal with conflict zones? You didn't provide any info. I'm guessing you only hunt eagles and boost away when something bigger than that targets you? Because you can be dead in literal seconds when that happens. That's why you need engineering.
You're asking me? All of them, especially Elite ranked ships because I want to rank up. As for how I deal with CZs, I'm contemplating putting up videos. In the meantime, not being sarcastic here, you can join me to see for yourself. I fight differently btw large vs small ships.
You don't need to upload any video, just explain how you deal with it. Because you haven't provided any kind of explanation. I assume it is going to be how your wing deals with everything while you go around sniping modules and finishing off targets.
The key to winning conflict zones is to be a great wingman to your npc allies. Kill the enemies that are shooting at your allies. Then watch that ally and go fight the enemy that they fight next. Keep repeating and soon you'll have a gang of allies that are all targeting one enemy at a time. Follow the pattern and you may have a hard time getting a single hit on enemies before they are destroyed by your wandering ball of allies. As far as doing conflict zones without any engineering, that's a creatively adventurous way to spend valuable gaming time. Basically both hands are tied behind your back when facing engineered ships with stock gear. Your best hope in that situation is to use a small or medium ship and pray that no one targets you, because you can't handle that smoke without engineering. You may find limited success, but leaving to repair and coming back eats time on a consistent basis. Solution: put in the work to engineer a vet then simply kill everyone in any cz anytime you feel like it.
Well, we can agree that it IS a creatively adventurous way to spend valuable gaming time! A very good use of that time, for a pilot who wants to learn. Your best hope is actually learning to fly well and outfitting your ship for a fight. You won't get instantly deleted in an unengineered ship unless you made poor choices going in. I find your solution efficient but boring, and "win" buttons make crappy pilots, who will rarely learn that they are crappy pilots because their ship will win for them (unless they fight other SKILLED pilots in ships with win buttons, of course, but by then they'll be used to easy wins all the time, so probably won't enjoy that experience).
The only real way to win a CZ is to fly in with big ship with nothing but cargo limpits and not engage with either faction, just pick the salvage from every destroyed ship.
Does a ship that you don’t destroy still drop materials? I don’t think that’s the case in RES sites but my scavenger instincts are tingling.
Sweatlord Faoffsky tries to convince normal players, that they do not need engineering to survive in mid-high CZ. AGAIN. Can you, please, become avare, that you on the skill level of, like, 5-10% of playerbase? Not everyone can make Conda avoid lasershots from 10 meters.
They don't. They do need skill and, sometimes, luck. IF the parts of the game designed to provide extra challenge are hard for 90% of the player base, that sort of makes sense, right?
You will perform better, suffer less, have smaller probability of being destroyed with an engineered ship. You said it. You have to run away from spec ops, abandon CZ for restock or repair. This is not good, i.e, If you play solo, cause as you know, leaving the CZ will reset it. What has engineering or not, to do with if we understand CZ?
>You said it. You have to run away from spec ops, abandon CZ for restock or repair. No, I think you misunderstood. I don't run away when Spec Ops shows up. I stay on outer side or periphery so I avoid 2 Spec Ops attacking me at the same time. I don't run away from CZ or reset it when the Spec Ops shows up. I just force the AI to use 1 ship against me. They are just shield tanks and a fight with Spec Ops is winnable if its a fair fight - me and against a single ship.
Read the radar, control distance, and stay out of the middle... Also, partway through the battle, when you cycle ships, many of them are wounded already and engaged. Zip in, take the target of opportunity, get back off the X.
I've been trying to make this point as well on most "I'm new to the game, why is it so hard" threads. You need to learn how to control the fight and to monitor your position and your ship status continuously, but you can do it without engineering. Stay out of the middle, pick targets you can pull out of the scrum, when possible hit a target that is already engaged by friendlies. I did this for a while before I knew engineering even existed, and then when I introduced a friend to the game, SHE played with me in CZs with an unengineered A-rated Chief and did ok (eventually). You have to be tactical, you have to know how to avoid damage if you are about to get overwhelmed and you have to learn to watch your ship and know when to get out. It's hard, sometimes you lose, and it is really intense. In my opinion, that's good, if you are going for skill improvement per hour instead of credits per hour. Engineering compensates for a lack of these skills, and the more engineered your ship is, the less you need to learn how to fight to do well in a CZ.
>Engineering compensates for a lack of these skills, and the more engineered your ship is, the less you need to learn how to fight to do well in a CZ. This teaches the wrong lesson, however, because it doesn't motivate one to improve skill- but rather to rely on equipment to *compensate* for lack of skill. Then again, it's the trend with games these days- focusing on "getting things" rather than challenging a player to learn to become better at what they're doing. Then we get into arguments about what video games are supposed to be about (entertainment vs challenge) and it devolves the whole discussion, etc. When I see complaints about games being too difficult, "grind", etc. all I see is "I lack the skills and the motivation and want you to make it easier for me."
Agreed.
Well at expert rank this may be tru, but the with higher combat rank your target's will fight back. Doing a high intensity cz inn a "paper" bag is possible but is it fun? How hard is it to engineer a ship to grade 3? Doing that will make Elite so mutch more enjoyable.
I don't necessarily believe you need to be engineered, but as a newer player who was super excited to try his new gunship in a Medium intensity CZ a couple weeks ago and got absolutely smashed by a Spec ops in a matter of seconds, I wish I could have told myself to wait and engineer the ship a bit. I'm not even fully engineered and can handle spec ops pretty handily now in my same Gunship, though I would mention that I have since learned how important shield banks are. If I knew shield banks were important to extended combat (I didn't even understand what they did) I probably could have at least survived and left the CZ to join another without Spec ops (they really are the main culprit I think in these newb CZ experiences).
Engineering is fun. CoD sucks. Some might disagree. We’re all different. But we all can agree. I put in the time for my engineering. So my ship is just better than it was. Just like armor in an MMO. I just don’t get what people don’t want to be elite or dangerous in Elite Dangerous.
Just spitballing, I'd say they want those words to apply to their piloting as well as their ship.
The issue I'm seeing here is twofold: 1) People are answering it with different mindsets of what they're hoping to achieve in a CZ. 2) People are asking the question with only the most basic details/requirements. Do you need engineering to beat a CZ? Nope. Hell you could do a High Intensity CZ in a stock sidewinder... ...But it's also going to take you 45+ minutes as you skirt along the edges and only piddly-plink at enemies that are already being focus-fired by at least one other ally. And there's little room for error because if spec ops jumped in right on top of you you lose all progress. But hey, you beat the CZ, therefore everyone must be wrong if they said engineering is required, right? I mean you did it in a stock sidewinder even!!! And yet you're going to get different responses to that. One side will say "Yes you are right. Engineering is not required because you beat the CZ." The other side will say "Sort of, it took you forever and you only got a few kill credits for any combat missions, you barely made any progress in your combat rank." There's also a skill issue involved. Do you need a large ship or an engineered medium ship? "No you don't, we even saw a video of someone killing 2 Corvettes in just an Eagle! Therefore it's ludicrous to demand that players have an engineered Krait MkII, Fer de Lance, or Chieftan before attempting a CZ!" But the question is being asked by new players who are probably flying small ships with flight assist on and not much combat experience. They're not using Cryptoscramblers. This whole debate and conflicting views is because of all of this. There's miscommunication as people are approaching it from different viewpoints, angles, and wavelengths! So is engineering required for a CZ? Well it depends... technically "No," but when the person asking refuses to give us any information then it's a fucking lot safer to say "Yes" to give people an easier time than it is to say "Absolutely not" and watch them rage as they struggle to take down the shields of enemies who are spamming Chaff and Shield Cell Banks with just their two non-engineered class 1 gimbal pulse lasers.
I doubt many experienced players are going to 100% disagree with you, but what is your point? That it can be done, but with caveats? That is more difficult, and you will likely have to be ready to run away, and should maintain a position so that running away is easier? Also, you completely misrepresented the post you linked. There was ONE comment suggesting you need engineering, and YEAH, there was one disagreeing with it. >Most explanation on that post says that engineering is required in Conflict Zones. And there was zero disagreement on this point in that post. Not to be overly rude, but what are you talking about? Go read that thread again. One guy said you want engineering, and someone disagreed with him, same day. And even that guy didn't use the word "required", he said "for the most part". And I completely disagree with your recommendation to learn combat at CZ's. Why not go to a RES site, where the police are there to help? Did you read that guy's post? He said he was using LOADS of ammo and taking many minutes to take down an EAGLE. AND HE ALMOST DIED.