Ship Builds & Load Outs Imperial Courier Build advice (combat)

[Laphtiya]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice on an Imperial courier build aimed towards combat. Here is what I was thinking:

Imperial courier Build

I realise I could ditch the cargo space but I'd like to keep something for BB missions, however I am looking for pure combat. Any recommendations?

Thanks.

 

[goemon]

do you have horizons?

because if, saving weight and buying enhanced performance thrusters in the way to go.

if not - i personally always preferred the courier flown below 90T - and a bi-weave shield will recharge between engagements.

 

[Laphtiya]

do you have horizons?

because if, saving weight and buying enhanced performance thrusters in the way to go.

if not - i personally always preferred the courier flown below 90T - and a bi-weave shield will recharge between engagements.

I should have mentioned that I have horizons installed also.

 

[Hooplah]

The Imperial Courier is probably the best medium fighter after you have trained on the Viper, Vulture and FAS. With great skills it can take on pretty much any adversary. But with all Imperial ships there is mass and inertia to deal with. Thus Flight Assist off and thruster skills are very important. The good news is that most Imperial ships have great thrusters.

Looking at your load out I have never had to install SCBs as it is so darn fast one can get out of harms way in moments. But that is all about flying skills. I personally like beam lasers and setup right they can fire indefinitely but that is just me...and that was before the Engineers showed up!

The bottom line is if you have the advanced combat skills to fly the Courier then there isn't an NPC who can take you out. PvP is another story but taking on an opponent with a similar ship build and skill will always win. The Courier can enhance your combat skills and improve them plus it is a total blast to fly in combat! My opinion is that it is the F-16 in the ED world. But that's just me.

Regards

 

[goemon]

I should have mentioned that I have horizons installed also.

go to the engineers martuk, farseer and palin, and BUY enhanced performance thrusters in outfitting. you can buy those only at the three engineer bases. bsically "racing thrusters".

engineer there when you are there - if you like. keep your weight below 90T, better below 80T - and it totally changes what you can do with a courier. basically they can get 50% more speed and 10% turn-rate increase above a-class thrusters at 50% optimal weight.

mine does 711 m/s boost speed and and 523 m/s straight line speed now... it is really a gamechanger: https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...yPKj9v/1ncaTZ+0C+/ALNQEvL/wEAAA==&bn=Sam Yoko

 

[Ceekay]

Great small fighter with excellent shields, speed and firepower, my build is significantly heavier (17 T!) than goemons crazy light loadout and at that mass level a grade 3 DDT mod on a 3A thruster begins to work better than an enhanced performance thruster but it's still fast and agile.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...SaItvqWP9+gcRh2NGegEAAA==&bn=Courier H (EDMC)

 

[goemon]

Great small fighter with excellent shields, speed and firepower, my build is significantly heavier (17 T!) than goemons crazy light loadout and at that mass level a grade 3 DDT mod on a 3A thruster begins to work better than an enhanced performance thruster but it's still fast and agile.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...SaItvqWP9+gcRh2NGegEAAA==&bn=Courier H (EDMC)

you could run that build with a class 3 powerplant ;-)

 

[Ceekay]

I know that's why I bought two couriers the "lighter" one has a class 3 plant and a cannon in place of the PA, I fitted the class 4 in the heavy for the additional power headroom for different builds (rail guns, heavier shields etc), I might just buy another and try your hyperlight build, after all you can't have too many ships!

Courier L

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...wksFUb4wm/gBK2N2OpwEAAA==&bn=Courier L (EDMC)

 

[Laphtiya]

Thanks for all the advice. This build is what I am currently looking at now, the cargo racks can go but as they don't seem to effect the build (unless laden with cargo). Obviously I'll go to the engineers you suggested and have them customise the parts. But as a base build would you say this is something worth perusing? Just as a comparison here is my current Viper MkIV build

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for all the advice. This build is what I am currently looking at now, the cargo racks can go but as they don't seem to effect the build (unless laden with cargo). Obviously I'll go to the engineers you suggested and have them customise the parts. But as a base build would you say this is something worth perusing? Just as a comparison here is my current Viper MkIV build

Not sure why, but the link to my viper is not showing the multi canon hardpoints. So here is a new link

 

[Gavin Burke]

Thanks for all the advice. This build is what I am currently looking at now, the cargo racks can go but as they don't seem to effect the build (unless laden with cargo). Obviously I'll go to the engineers you suggested and have them customise the parts. But as a base build would you say this is something worth perusing? Just as a comparison here is my current Viper MkIV build

- - - Updated - - -



Not sure why, but the link to my viper is not showing the multi canon hardpoints. So here is a new link

You should definitely start using https://coriolis.edcd.io/ instead as the older site has not been updated for newer ship stats!!

 

[noldunar]

This would be my suggestion for an unengineered iCourier. It has enhanced thrusters but these can be bought without having to gather materials or unlock something, therefore I consider this build unengineered. It should be fast enough for PVE combat.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...UA==.CwBhCYy6wZhoA===.&bn=combat unengineered

It boosts 519 with 295 MJ shields and is toughened up a little. The cargo rack is there to accept missions with cargo reward. It has a smaller fuel tank but it can fill it up real quick by scooping.

I prefer pulse lasers to beam lasers because you can fire them longer together with multi-cannons (less power drain). I usually fire my guns together to avoid splitting or reducing the DPS. If your shields are low just quickly boost away out of range, which is no problem, especially not when fighting AI condas or pythons or Asp or similar and let them recharge real quick (bi-weaves).

For assassinations a quick drop at the Nav Beacon is required however, because the discovery scanner is missing.

 

[Laphtiya]

Thanks for the advice, I like the idea of a fast build as a fighter should be. The DPS always seems to come out lower (35DPS) than my current viper mk4 (41.5DPS), however I'm assuming this won't be an issue for when taking into account the speed advantage. While I'm here I'm assuming HPS is how much % added to your ship, so for example 10HPS is actually 10% ???

 

[X-Terminator]

2 Beams (one a turret) and Missiles is what I use on this just to have fun. It still over heats quite easy but I control that by Switching firegroups.

 

[Ceekay]

Thanks for the advice, I like the idea of a fast build as a fighter should be. The DPS always seems to come out lower (35DPS) than my current viper mk4 (41.5DPS), however I'm assuming this won't be an issue for when taking into account the speed advantage. While I'm here I'm assuming HPS is how much % added to your ship, so for example 10HPS is actually 10% ???

I would assume it's % heat per second but the initial heat level will determine how much heat increase you can sustain, that's why I usually have an oversized power plant and G1 low emissions mod as sustained weapon fire and boosting will add a lot of heat.

 

[Laphtiya]

So now that I am using the new Coriolis editor I've come up with this unmodified Combat build for the courier. The cargo slots are just there to run faction missions I'll mostly be keeping them empty. My main concern however is that I exceed the optimum mass for the 2C bi-weave shield generator and the 3C BWSG drops my max speed by over 10m/s. I fully intend on engineering this as best I can, but for a starting point do you guys have any pointers on this build?

 

[goemon]

So now that I am using the new Coriolis editor I've come up with this unmodified Combat build for the courier. The cargo slots are just there to run faction missions I'll mostly be keeping them empty. My main concern however is that I exceed the optimum mass for the 2C bi-weave shield generator and the 3C BWSG drops my max speed by over 10m/s. I fully intend on engineering this as best I can, but for a starting point do you guys have any pointers on this build?

shieldstrength is only affected by hull mass, which is fixed per ship, not by actual mass - differently to speed and jumprange.

 

[Ceekay]

You're power requirements are very close to a 3A plants output so unless you're going to fit power hungry weapons I'd try and fit a 3A, try a 1D interdictor to reduce mass and power and perhaps 2 x 0D boosters + chaff + PD rather than booster, chaff, ECM and PD essentially you're using 3 slots for missile defence seems a bit of overkill TBH.

At your build current mass you'd be better off with a G5 DDT 3A thruster to get the most out of enhanced you really need to drop mass (as in goemons build earlier in the thread), I've tried burst lasers several times but I always go back to pulse with lower power draw and firing when I want as opposed to finishing the burst cycle and probably wasting power and PD capacity but you pays yer money .......

How about this

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...SEm4FBAsRVtuFnYPj/HwB99UO2JgAAAA==&bn=IMPC 1

 

[Laphtiya]

You're power requirements are very close to a 3A plants output so unless you're going to fit power hungry weapons I'd try and fit a 3A, try a 1D interdictor to reduce mass and power and perhaps 2 x 0D boosters + chaff + PD rather than booster, chaff, ECM and PD essentially you're using 3 slots for missile defence seems a bit of overkill TBH.

At your build current mass you'd be better off with a G5 DDT 3A thruster to get the most out of enhanced you really need to drop mass (as in goemons build earlier in the thread), I've tried burst lasers several times but I always go back to pulse with lower power draw and firing when I want as opposed to finishing the burst cycle and probably wasting power and PD capacity but you pays yer money .......

How about this

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...SEm4FBAsRVtuFnYPj/HwB99UO2JgAAAA==&bn=IMPC 1

Thanks for the advice! I'm currently toying with burst lasers at the moment myself, I'm still 50:50 on them and I think I'll drop back down to pulse as you did. Your point about the Power plant was spot on, I didn't realise that until you mentioned it so I've dropped that down to a 3A. Here's my current build I managed to have an engineer tweak the engines a bit. I'm unsure about the canon at the moment, its difficult to hit smaller ships but the pulse lasers do the job. Ideally I think I would like to drop another 4tons, I'm thinking an engineer might be able to lighten my hardpoints.

 

[Laphtiya]

Thanks for the advice. I didn't realise I was close to the 3A power plant output, I've made that switch. I'm toying around with burst lasers right now, not sure if I'm going to keep them however. Also I'm not entirely in love with the canon so that might have to go too. Here is my current build Ideally I want to lose another 4tons just to get my boost speed over 600m/s

 

[Ceekay]

Try some lightweight weapon mods DPS has little or no reduction but integrity has dropped by over 50% but three lightweight G5 modded weapons will drop over 10 T off the build, try a PA instead of a cannon I build two Couriers one with a cannon and one with a PA, I much prefer the PA build I think it's because you can see the plasma round travel to the target that makes lining up the target easier.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...fn6gw4UuAyX+/wcAO8ZlTdAAAAA=&bn=IC Engineered