Critique my Vulture loadout?
- Thread starter UOcUKAkira
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Yes, improved sensors are undoutably better, just not as powerful as they would be if they affected aim. (especially for their price point)
You don't need 5A thrusters on a vulture. 5D should suffice. Get a 5A shield generator instead.
I must have OCD I just couldn't cope with weapons not in pairs!
A single gimballed C3 beam stays on almost fully with 4 pips in weapons, takes shields down quite quickly, then I also have the gimballed C3 cannon for hull of the bigger stuff. But it really isn't needed on anything Asp or below, it's too expensive to shoot and miss when the beam chews them to bits for free - Clippers and Pythons don't even get the first layer of my A5 shield down, running with just a single booster cell (think it's a B0, can't run the A. not enough juice) - plus I like the comforts of fuel scoop and cocking computer 
With a little bit of module tweaking I'm running 15.68 theoretical power required from the 15.60 plant. Turned the cargo hatch off, I don't have any cargo hold anyway, and the FSD/scoop/life support all set to priority 5 - if I need life support my weapons are going away anyway, and I'm running away!
Took down an Elite NPC Anaconda with accompanying sidewinders in an assassination mission with a little bit of discretionary running away to get some shields back, but I still had 80% hull left when he went pop Love it. The Viper doesn't even come close.
Unfortunately the A4 power plant simply can't run all the things I'd like for my little tank so I make do with compromise frame shift jump (fuel scoop makes that largely irrelevant anyway) but I have decent thrusters.
Interesting how the layouts differ. I just want to blast stuff in RES and war zones, and my setup suits my flying "style" I only have to run away when I'm trigger happy and get a "wanted" tag.
With a little bit of module tweaking I'm running 15.68 theoretical power required from the 15.60 plant. Turned the cargo hatch off, I don't have any cargo hold anyway, and the FSD/scoop/life support all set to priority 5 - if I need life support my weapons are going away anyway, and I'm running away! Took down an Elite NPC Anaconda with accompanying sidewinders in an assassination mission with a little bit of discretionary running away to get some shields back, but I still had 80% hull left when he went pop
Love it. The Viper doesn't even come close. Unfortunately the A4 power plant simply can't run all the things I'd like for my little tank
so I make do with compromise frame shift jump (fuel scoop makes that largely irrelevant anyway) but I have decent thrusters. Interesting how the layouts differ. I just want to blast stuff in RES and war zones, and my setup suits my flying "style"
I only have to run away when I'm trigger happy and get a "wanted" tag.
PA's a terrible for PvP, barring some very specific situations.
Here's a loadout that's good and meets your requirements (including cost): http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=60N,4zh7Px3wo0_g0_g0_g,2-6Q8S6Q5K7_6k5A,7TCmpT9qS
Cargo hatch, FSD and FSDI all to lower priority. As you earn money you can upgrade your thrusters to a B class, at which point you'll pretty much be done. Feel free to add hull reinforcements and bulkheads if you think you might lose your shields, but that's a tough bird.
Cargo hatch, FSD and FSDI all to lower priority. As you earn money you can upgrade your thrusters to a B class, at which point you'll pretty much be done. Feel free to add hull reinforcements and bulkheads if you think you might lose your shields, but that's a tough bird.
Keep your Viper (stripped out minimum mass) for RES hunting I found the Vulture too good when the RES area's full of police ships, the Viper adds a bit of risk to RES combat, on the Vulture build I'd add a point defense turret simply because it's light and power draw is fairly low (it's worth it just for the one time you see it shooting a missile )
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It looks like you've got enough headroom in the power plant for a couple of shield boosters, especially if you disengage the FSD and cargo hatch when hard points are deployed. I'd put a fuel scoop in the class 4 slot to make getting around easier, i don't use SCB in the Vulture due to the power issues, you'd have to disengage them from teh PP most of the time which would mean you'd not have time to use them if needed. My philosophy with the Vulture is if the shield goes it's time to bail.
Not surprised. What are the specific situations? (or conversely, what is the exact reason they terrible in general?).
Slow projectile, low ammo count and very high energy requirements would be my guess. I've not really used them but i've seen an impressive video of what a C4 PA does to an NPC Anaconda.
Yeah, but he mentioned there are cases when they aren't bad; was wondering when that is. Obviously, slow is countered by being close, ammo is not a concern for PvP (at least not 1v1), while the thermal load is always there. So maybe he just meant 1v1 when you can get close, maybe against medium sized ships (where that alpha damage is very much a concern) that aren't that maneuverable (so you don't miss)?
I personally like the (gimballed) dual beam and beam+cannon loadouts I posted before; the dual beam melts anything medium size or smaller (generally, anything that doesn't last long enough for the beams to overheat) and is still not terrible against large ships, while the beam+cannon is highly effective vs pretty much everything (but doesn't take out small ships as fast as the dual beam if you don't want to waste cannon ammo).
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Specific situation they are useful in is fighting large, slow ships. You either need to be a pirate/commerce raider, or you need a wing to strip the shields off CMDR Anaconda so you can drop some plasma into subsystems without having to expend the bulk of your ammo on shields.
This is some PvP I did with the loadout mentioned during the Lugh conflict:
[video=youtube;SMUXStK05so]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMUXStK05so[/video]
Had those things equipped for hours, never killed anybody. Rarely hit anyone in a fighter class vessel, except by chance. Two out of two of my wingmates agree that I am much more useful with almost anything else.
Basically, CMDRs tend to not fly in straight lines while being shot at by slow projectile weapons, and to accurately land hits against anything smaller than an Imperial Star Destroyer that is trying not to get hit means you need to be about 10m away, or extremely lucky.
Actually one way to deal with the support system power consumption is to equip an A (25 minutes of O²) and put it down the power management list. Deploy your weapons and just remember to retract them in 15 minutes for a few seconds to reset the oxygen cycle before you have less than 10 minutes spare (you don't want your canopy to break at the end of your "i am totally a tie pilot" cycle with only have a few minutes left believe me)
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This just proves to me that small powerplant encourages great loadout diversity.
After some experimentation i settled with this: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=60N,4zh7Px01Q3wo,316Q7_6Q5U7_725A,7Sk7gy7dg4wE9ok
Shild boosters are not that usefull IMO, they do not improve recharge, they just give some additional shield to start with, and shield cell bank does it better.
Life support reactivation will not reset timer. You have to dock to reset it.
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Second shield bank is for additional charges. When you run out of charges in first one you manually turn it off and turn on second one. Most likely out of combat.
Usefull when you want to do few "elite anaconda" quests without docking. Also usefull when you do not want to leave those nice RES with big ships.
Usefull when you want to do few "elite anaconda" quests without docking. Also usefull when you do not want to leave those nice RES with big ships.
No. If I'm going to actually put myself in danger, I want to bring weapons that will actually be useful.
If a Python or Anaconda CMDR is vulnerable enough for me to leverage PAs against them effectively, then they are either poorly armed traders, completely incompetent, or hopelessly outnumbered. I frequently fight incompetent CMDRs, but I rarely fight traders and I rarely outnumber my foes. When I do, I rarely bother recording the turkey shoot. The idea of a Clipper sticking around to get shot at by a Vulture with PA is fairly laughable; ship is more than 40m/s faster than the Vulture.