PvP Current PVP meta...

[Aashenfox]

Thanks truesilver.

Let's talk about utility slots now.

With mines and torps in the current meta, as well as the EH that chaff provides against gimbals, I was thinking I'd have 2 chaff and 2 PD. What are the good guys running, and of course, more importantly...why?

P.S. I don't plan on overheating, I don't see why I need heatsinks in the build I am planning. I don't forget to let off the fire button when I get hot, and I won't be spending long periods in SR for reasons already stated.

 

[CMDR Greg Wayne]

Thanks truesilver.

Let's talk about utility slots now.

With mines and torps in the current meta, as well as the EH that chaff provides against gimbals, I was thinking I'd have 2 chaff and 2 PD. What are the good guys running, and of course, more importantly...why?

P.S. I don't plan on overheating, I don't see why I need heatsinks in the build I am planning. I don't forget to let off the fire button when I get hot, and I won't be spending long periods in SR for reasons already stated.

This one is interesting! PeLuch (one of the most prominent FAS pilots out there currently) in his hulltank uses dual PD and dual chaff. On my hybrid I use one HD booster and have shield strength of 300 paired with one PD and dual chaff. Those I know that fly FAS tend to use two RA boosters with one chaff and one heatsink/pd. Personally I think dual chaff is invaluable due to the high frequency of gimballed weapones being used out there.

Why HD booster though? That is simply because PAs and rails are frequent too. Plasma's got their 60% true damage which resistances won't help with. So I simply went with what adds me the most padding there. No right or wrongs there. It works even though I've received "hate" because I set it up this way.

Heatsink can however be helpful. Jamenator uses it when his shields pop to go invisible for a bit. Once he shows up again shields are pretty much up (takes roughly 30ish seconds for a FAS shield to reform).

On a final note. Engineer for ammo capacity.

 

[Aashenfox]

Yeh, I noted as much in the OP, absolute health is the only counter to absolute damage.

Interesting heatsink use, I know that heatsink popping has a SR like effect, but I've never played with it. So I suppose his shield goes down, he boosts,, FA off, zero throttle, pop heatsink, full pips to shields and get behind an asteroid or other wise try to stay out of sight until shield almost back? lol

 

[PeLucheuh]

Pure hull tank doesnt work, your plant will be sniped and you will die with 60% hull.
SR doesnt work unless you use frags. When you open fire while SR you are seen automatically.

PeLucheah is going to disagree with you. With dual MRPs and armoured power plant there is going to be an 84% damage reduction for interals paired with roughly 300 hitpoints for the power plant. Trust me. It won't be sniped anytime soon. Yes, you will be targetable if you open fire in SR but tracking will remain inconsistent unless you use emissive (doesn't matter if using fixed though, the lead will show up as usual). And that goes with all weaponry. However kinetics do not produce much heat so they can be fired a bit in SRon before becoming an issue.

Yup i disagree

Pure Hulltank is working (and i use a low emission PP )

 

[Sundae]

Hulltank works just fine when flown correctly, and slower ships than the FAS can get away with it when equipped with bi-weave buffer. I flew a FDS for several months with a couple hundred MJ bi-weave and never lost my plant a single time, even when attacked by multiple opponents. 2xcl4 MRP and an armored plant make internal module sniping relatively impractical compared to weapon sniping, which is the real danger for a hulltank ship.

 

[Aashenfox]

Hulltank works just fine when flown correctly, and slower ships than the FAS can get away with it just fine when equipped with biweave buffer. I flew a FDS for several months with a couple hundred MJ biweave and never lost my plant a single time, even when attacked by multiple opponents. 2xcl4 MRP and an armored plant make internal module sniping relatively impractical compared to weapon sniping, which is the real danger for a hulltank ship.

When I was building my ship in coriolis and focused on EH and resistances, I noticed how relatively unprotected the hardpoints are, and actually started thinking about a build to wreck people's weapons. You reckon high yield cannon shells would be effective for that?

 

[ALGOMATIC]

Yup i disagree

Pure Hulltank is working (and i use a low emission PP )

If you say its working, its working

Majority of FASs currently out there are biweave with 4 PAs.

 

[Sundae]

When I was building my ship in coriolis and focused on EH and resistances, I noticed how relatively unprotected the hardpoints are, and actually started thinking about a build to wreck people's weapons. You reckon high yield cannon shells would be effective for that?

Missiles are essentially the bane of hull tanked ships, as MRPs don't provide additional protection to hardpoints and missiles are both auto-tracking as well as do surface area of effect damage, wrecking multiple hardpoints with a single explosion. It becomes important to toggle SR and sinks with a pure hulltank build in order to drop missile locks, or only absorb forward missile damage if you are using a buffer shield. Hardpoints are your most vulnerable external as a hulltank, but it can be mitigated through jousting and SR toggling. If you cant drop a missile lock, make sure to flip your ship around and absorb the explosion with the side or rear of your ship.

 

[Aashenfox]

I already use SR in solo to drop NPC missile locks (in any ship, not just hull ships), liek you say it only takes a quick toggle every few seconds while they are facing you. Are point defence effective against this type of 'missile to hardpoint' attack?

Also, do you think high yield shells would be effective if my express purpose was getting shields down with focused PAs, then hammering the enemy hardpoints with the high yield cannons? I ask because the flavour text says they also can damage multiple modules, and I find them pretty OP in PvE. Also have good chance at taking out canopy...any thoughts?

 

[Sundae]

I already use SR in solo to drop NPC missile locks (in any ship, not just hull ships), liek you say it only takes a quick toggle every few seconds while they are facing you. Are point defence effective against this type of 'missile to hardpoint' attack?Also, do you think high yield shells would be effective if my express purpose was getting shields down with focused PAs, then hammering the enemy hardpoints with the high yield cannons? I ask because the flavour text says they also can damage multiple modules, and I find them pretty OP in PvE. Also have good chance at taking out canopy...any thoughts?

PD does work--we even used these in the PvP league with stock ships. You need to make sure they are pointing in the correct direction and there is enough daylight available for them to shoot down the missile in time. HY cannons are decent but not really for external module attacks, and they can be hard to land hits against experienced evasive pilots who know your game. If you want to attack modules I would use exclusively some sort of missiles or rails if you have the aim. Rails are great for taking out canopies too if you know where to aim--usually an internal module like a shield generator or distributor will be placed in such a position that if you attack it head on, you have a good chance of popping a canopy too with super pen rails. Also, there is no defense against perfect rail aim--the effectiveness of rail guns is completely on the user.

 

[CMDR Greg Wayne]

Yeh, I noted as much in the OP, absolute health is the only counter to absolute damage.

Interesting heatsink use, I know that heatsink popping has a SR like effect, but I've never played with it. So I suppose his shield goes down, he boosts,, FA off, zero throttle, pop heatsink, full pips to shields and get behind an asteroid or other wise try to stay out of sight until shield almost back? lol

Something like that. I do believe he pops it when shields go down just straight off. Takes a few seconds before you go cold namely. In regards to FAoff me and Jamenator both fly full FAoff (which imo doesn't play to the strengths of FAS handling but it works).

 

[besieger]

If you say its working, its working

Majority of FASs currently out there are biweave with 4 PAs.

Did you get the video uploaded? what Sunade talks about its pretty much what happened in our fight.

 

[Aashenfox]

PD does work--we even used these in the PvP league with stock ships. You need to make sure they are pointing in the correct direction and there is enough daylight available for them to shoot down the missile in time. HY cannons are decent but not really for external module attacks, and they can be hard to land hits against experienced evasive pilots who know your game. If you want to attack modules I would use exclusively some sort of missiles or rails if you have the aim. Rails are great for taking out canopies too if you know where to aim--usually an internal module like a shield generator or distributor will be placed in such a position that if you attack it head on, you have a good chance of popping a canopy too with super pen rails. Also, there is no defense against perfect rail aim--the effectiveness of rail guns is completely on the user.

That's encouraging, as I believe I have decent aim and timing with rails, I used to make a very good living camping 5k out of the CZ sniping large ships power plants. Now I have the python I just roll over everything in the melee, but it used to be fun doing that in a dbx and it I will enjoy the style again. Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated. Focused or efficient PAs and god rolled G1 Super pen long range rails it is then.

 

[Sundae]

That's encouraging, as I believe I have decent aim and timing with rails, I used to make a very good living camping 5k out of the CZ sniping large ships power plants. Now I have the python I just roll over everything in the melee, but it used to be fun doing that in a dbx and it I will enjoy the style again. Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated. Focused or efficient PAs and god rolled G1 Super pen long range rails it is then.

No problem. Last tip is that if you do go the SR toggle route, make sure to let your SR status fully clear before firing your weapons. The heat gen on rails and PA is way too much to even a slight overlap. Good luck, it's a solid build!

 

[Truesilver]

Missiles are essentially the bane of hull tanked ships, as MRPs don't provide additional protection to hardpoints and missiles are both auto-tracking as well as do surface area of effect damage, wrecking multiple hardpoints with a single explosion.

To be strictly accurate, MRP's do protect hardpoints (as does Hull Hardness, albeit barely relevant in this iteration of the game) and they also protect utilities ... but the protection (for MRP's, not HH) is halved.

So a D-rank MRP provides 30% protection to hardpoints and utilities as opposed to 60% protection to all other modules (including Drives).

But because of the way the game stacks multiple MRP's, this becomes a bigger difference the more there are.

2 x D-rank MRP will reduce hardpoint damage to 49% (0.7 x 0.7) of full, but other module damage to 16% (0.4 x 0.4), so three times worse.

Furthermore, the area of effect Cmdr Sundae describes is so damaging because the game applies all module damage against the modules and MRP's caused by one strike, by simple addition. In other words, if four guns get hit by one missile, that's four times the residual (51%) damage to the MRP, as well as the hardpoint damage. The effect then snowballs as the MRP's sequentially fail.

Hence multiple missile strikes will rapidly bleed out all MRP's and destroy all hardpoints as Mr S describes and as demonstrated in the second of the two vids in my previous post.

 

[Aashenfox]

I'll make sure I don't get hit by missiles then.

Although, if I remember rightly, utility placement on the FAS is tragic. I'd have to show the missiles my belly (is there anything else of importance under there?) for the PD to get its hits in. Must try to remember to do that.

 

[ALGOMATIC]

Did you get the video uploaded? what Sunade talks about its pretty much what happened in our fight.

YT was slow, I think it died while uploaded only 75%, will try again.

But you are right, PD would help. I dont carry it because you are the first that used seakers in weeks of fights that I had... so its just waistfull IMO because 9/10 pvp builds dont have seakers/hounds. At least thats from my point of view.

 

[besieger]

YT was slow, I think it died while uploaded only 75%, will try again.

But you are right, PD would help. I dont carry it because you are the first that used seakers in weeks of fights that I had... so its just waistfull IMO because 9/10 pvp builds dont have seakers/hounds. At least thats from my point of view.

Yes you are right it might be a waste, though as others have pointed out and as I will be able to show you from your side of the video if you turn to the side as a missile is coming in, you can mitigate most of the damage. I am really interested to see how my FA off flying looks from your POV.

 

[Ozram]

I'll make sure I don't get hit by missiles then.

Although, if I remember rightly, utility placement on the FAS is tragic. I'd have to show the missiles my belly (is there anything else of importance under there?) for the PD to get its hits in. Must try to remember to do that.

While I'm nowhere near the level of some of the players commenting here (Sundae/Truesilver/Harry Potter) I have a semi old vid that might be relevant to the discussion:
[video=youtube_share;uwNfRQB4VyA]https://youtu.be/uwNfRQB4VyA[/video]

 

[Ozram]

Also, here's an example of the things some of us get up to. Turns out there are a few groups now coming together to play with the player killers so if you're interested Ashenfox, Discord is where the action is. It's where people group up, make plans and talk. It's free and you can set up your own channel there if you like.
[video=youtube_share;o3vVWHakQ5A]https://youtu.be/o3vVWHakQ5A[/video]

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;c02nNghb77w]https://youtu.be/c02nNghb77w[/video]