Exploration Shields and Weapons

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

Hello Fellow Explorers

I am planning for the next great adventure of the exploration community (August Exodus to Jacques) and was wondering, what are the most basic shields/weapons explorers are taking out into the black these days? I am pretty useless in combat so not sure taking super-duper weapons would help me...

Let me know your thoughts.

Frawd

 

[Arnoldo]

Presume you're staying in the lovely 'winder?

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

Presume you're staying in the lovely 'winder?

<cough> <cough> um...

I actually want to be useful for this expedition so was thinking of um, errr... not taking a sidewinder

Shhh...don't tell anyone (especially my fellow Cmdrs in the Sidewinder Appreciation Society)

Frawd

 

[Arnoldo]

don't worry, we'll keep your secret between the two of us....

 

[Koolwehrstukkas]

Bi-weave or normal mid-class shields. And seeker missile rack/torpedo pylons. In some case this will be "one use" armament, but at least the punch will be significant.

 

[Noogillim]

Hull reinforcement may help in addition to shields whatever you add will hit jump range.

Don't get shot at it's lighter!

 

[CMDR Eryn Liamson]

If you've got access to the engineers I'd recommend D rated shields with reinforced shields mod, and E rated boosters with resistance augmented mods. They won't bring your shield rating up by much, but they will increase damage resistance significantly against weapons fire.

As for weapons, mines. Lots and lots of mines.

 

[newman1702]

If you're not well versed in combat, don't take guns. When you're coming back with loads of data and you get interdicted, there are two ways you can handle this; fight and destroy the interdictor, or run. If you're not confident of your combat abilities you don't want to stay and fight with all that data aboard so your safest option is to submit, boost and wake out. For this scenario guns are dead weight; what you need is good shields, a power distributor that lets you boost, and chaff / point defense. A purely defensive weapon you could consider, though, are shock mine launchers. These mines don't cause much damage but they knock the target around, preventing them from shooting at you thus buying you time to high wake out.

Which ship were you considering taking, btw?

 

[goemon]

If you're not well versed in combat, don't take guns. When you're coming back with loads of data and you get interdicted, there are two ways you can handle this; fight and destroy the interdictor, or run. If you're not confident of your combat abilities you don't want to stay and fight with all that data aboard so your safest option is to submit, boost and wake out. For this scenario guns are dead weight; what you need is good shields, a power distributor that lets you boost, and chaff / point defense. A purely defensive weapon you could consider, though, are shock mine launchers. These mines don't cause much damage but they knock the target around, preventing them from shooting at you thus buying you time to high wake out.

Which ship were you considering taking, btw?

i'm very much with newman here.

weapons besides shockmines, and maybe a small turret burst that can shoot backwards have no defensive value in ED.

that said, i have to say I'll take weapons with me into the black this time, not because i find them usefull, but because i have L5 modded weapons on my DBE and don't want to risk loosing them. they have lightweight mods, so don't weigh a lot (large multicannon less then 1T).

but i don't think i'd fight back after a week in the black, more so after a month.

if i would outfit a pvp "combat-explorer", i would probably bring some torpedos with reverberating cascade... and a lot of missiles with thermal cascade ... and hope that FD doesn't balance those effects while i'm out in the black. for pve i would go a similar missile way. and yes added resistances ... a thermal mod d-class shield and some augmented boosters...

P.S.: I'm really interested about your shipchioce

 

[Jaiotu]

I'm asking a similar question.

"Winter is Coming" has us explorers really questioning what the basic necessities are going to be if life outside the bubble gets a little less Friendly.

I'm still flying the Ouroboros, my trusty Asp Explorer, but I've got nothing in the way of guns and just a "D" rated shield to keep the weight down.

My assumption is that an Engineered FSD is going to be the basic foundation for any combat-ready explorer. All the extra combat gear is going to reduce your jump range and the best way to counter this is through the Engineers.

So ... how do I go about outfitting my ship for combat while maintaining at 30+ light-year jump range?

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If you're not well versed in combat, don't take guns. When you're coming back with loads of data and you get interdicted, there are two ways you can handle this; fight and destroy the interdictor, or run. If you're not confident of your combat abilities you don't want to stay and fight with all that data aboard so your safest option is to submit, boost and wake out. For this scenario guns are dead weight; what you need is good shields, a power distributor that lets you boost, and chaff / point defense. A purely defensive weapon you could consider, though, are shock mine launchers. These mines don't cause much damage but they knock the target around, preventing them from shooting at you thus buying you time to high wake out.

Which ship were you considering taking, btw?

Both Drew Wagar and Michael Brooks have made statements that would indicate that, at some point in the future, exploration outside the bubble without weapons and shields will be non-viable. Winter is coming.

 

[goemon]

So ... how do I go about outfitting my ship for combat while maintaining at 30+ light-year jump range?

i guess you'd go the following way:

- heavy duty armour on lightweight bulkheads = added resistance without penalty
- lightweight weapons. see above=large multicanonn less than 1T
- d-class shield with thermal mod and augmented boosters = a lightweight, highly resistant shield against any kind of attacks
- pointdefence. my reasoning here is: pointdefence is "physical" damage ---- who knows whether ecm will work against alien technology?
- weapons with a lot of alpha-damage. torpedos. frags. etc. remember the original elite. torpedos, missiles, torpedos.
- trusters with either dirty or clean drive tuning for speed. depending on ship type, you could even mod d-class thrusters, and still gain a significant speed.

... but i personally believe, that simple speed with some basic shield will still be safety, even in winter...

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I have weapons on my DBx, they have light weight mount mods, and with them I get 43ly range, without about 44.3ly so I'm not going to leave them at home considering I'm 40plus Ly anyway.

I wont stop and fight in exploration though 9/10 times I can be out of there before they even realise I'm charging the fsd, the other time that's what A rated shields are for again the difference in Ly range is way ofset with fsd mod so ill take a rated thanks and still jump over 40ly.
if your a sole explorerer you wont need traditional hardpoints, I pop back to the bubble every so often, but if you don't fight full stop take some shock mines they're awesome backup

 

[Jaiotu]

... but i personally believe, that simple speed with some basic shield will still be safety, even in winter...

That is my usual tactic: turn toward the attacker, boost past them so they have to turn and then High Wake out.

... but, lets assume Thargoids. Escaping via High Wake may not be viable. In the original Elite you were most vulnerable to Thargoids during a 'witchspace' jump.

 

[newman1702]

and[/I] Michael Brooks have made statements that would indicate that, at some point in the future, exploration outside the bubble without weapons and shields will be non-viable. Winter is coming.

What they say will happen and what eventually does happen have always been two different things. I very much doubt just having a good running away build will ever become non-viable. People have been arming their explorers "because Thargoids" since the game came out. I have no doubt we'll eventually get aliens, some of them dangerous, but that doesn't necessarily mean that running away with good shields suddenly won't work anymore. It's much safer for people not experienced in fighting as it exposes your worn, 0% integrity, relatively thin exploration ship to enemy fire for a shorter amount of time.

"Winter is coming" is a platitude much like it was in GoT. It's been coming for years now

So ... how do I go about outfitting my ship for combat while maintaining at 30+ light-year jump range?

Assuming your ship is either an Asp E or an Anaconda, easy; get a good roll on a grade 5 FSD upgrade and you'll have way more than 30 ly. My exploration Anaconda has 3 large pulse turrets, 2 mine launchers, over 900mj of shields and does 45.17ly on a full tank. I imagine you can get a similarly good range on a well armed and shielded Asp.

 

[goemon]

That is my usual tactic: turn toward the attacker, boost past them so they have to turn and then High Wake out.

... but, lets assume Thargoids. Escaping via High Wake may not be viable.

uhm, yes. you want a ship fast enough to escape thargoids in straight line speed ;-) ... we will see. i wouldn't mind been blown up in first contact, while fiddling with my recording and doing screenshots like crazy. and then i'll tweak my build after rebuy accordingly

___

more seriously, assuming FDEV doesn't throw all kind of pve "balance" out of the window, and will want players to have a chance to survive an encounter beside pure luck, i believe okayish shields and speed will be enough, as it is in the bubble.

 

[Henkka77]

I just made an engineer mod to my T-9's D rated shields. It was only G3 at Martuuk as i dont have Lei Cheung yet, but RNG gods smiled upon me and got the best roll possible. I do have still some time to try and unlock Cheung, but we'll see if i can make it.
Actually im not so sure how much my shields improved after all, but i recon they cant be worse than stock ones.

And no, im not taking guns with my T-9 except mining laser which kills only asteroids.

 

[Duckfat]

What they say will happen and what eventually does happen have always been two different things. I very much doubt just having a good running away build will ever become non-viable. People have been arming their explorers "because Thargoids" since the game came out. I have no doubt we'll eventually get aliens, some of them dangerous, but that doesn't necessarily mean that running away with good shields suddenly won't work anymore. It's much safer for people not experienced in fighting as it exposes your worn, 0% integrity, relatively thin exploration ship to enemy fire for a shorter amount of time.

"Winter is coming" is a platitude much like it was in GoT. It's been coming for years now




Assuming your ship is either an Asp E or an Anaconda, easy; get a good roll on a grade 5 FSD upgrade and you'll have way more than 30 ly. My exploration Anaconda has 3 large pulse turrets, 2 mine launchers, over 900mj of shields and does 45.17ly on a full tank. I imagine you can get a similarly good range on a well armed and shielded Asp.

I agree with the above. I see absolutely no sense in carrying guns around whilst exploring. Unless you're built for combat you have little chance of fighting off anyone, so yeah, just carrying dead weight. I think moderate shields and a decent enough distributor is all you need.

Coming back to the bubble is a risk you take. Go solo during the last leg to eliminate player threats, target a high security system close to the edge and slip in quietly. Very little chance of interdiction with no cargo or bounty on your head. Escorts are always available from plenty of helpful players if you want to be extra safe.

 

[Varrag]

Both Drew Wagar and Michael Brooks have made statements that would indicate that, at some point in the future, exploration outside the bubble without weapons and shields will be non-viable. Winter is coming.

Surely, they aren't planning to populate whole galaxy with trigger happy NPCs (again)?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

My solution was to be really crap at combat, so the choice of weapons becomes irrelevant.

Shields on the other hand are A-rated.

 

[Ozram]

Not sure it was mentioned, but lightweight mods from engineers are among the easiest to find mats for and if you are lucky, you may end up with a useful side effect.