Taking weapons n exploration
- Thread starter Biggbudd
- Start date
Only for "role playing" reasons. There is nothing to shoot at out there in the black.
If you are going about 600 ly out of the Bubble there is no point of weapons. But if you are scared idk, pirates, just avoid them. If you afraid of other players, well... it may happend but you also have solo or private.
Anyway for long jurney EVERY ly jump range is gold! So I wouldn't bring any.
Anyway for long jurney EVERY ly jump range is gold! So I wouldn't bring any.
I equipped MC turrets on my T9 just for the sake of having them. I've only used them once when returning to the bubble because I got interdicted and didn't having any cargo to give up to make the pirate go away. Could have been awful if I had been popped and lost a few thousand lys worth of exploration data.
Fighters on the other hand have a more practical use. If I am going solo I park my T9 above a POI then launch the fighter. While my T9 is holding in place, I look along the surface with the fighter until I locate whatever triggered my scanners. I then bring then mark the coordinates and switch over to the mothership again.
When I am going about things with a friend, we usually do this in tandem, with one of us investigating POIs as the T9 passes them, and the other flying a specific pattern designed to find POIs from an altitude of 3k. If the SLF finds something of interest, my friend will log off so I can collect it with the SRV and then he rejoins once the task is complete. It's annoying that we can't do this without logging off, but we still make it work.
Fighters on the other hand have a more practical use. If I am going solo I park my T9 above a POI then launch the fighter. While my T9 is holding in place, I look along the surface with the fighter until I locate whatever triggered my scanners. I then bring then mark the coordinates and switch over to the mothership again.
When I am going about things with a friend, we usually do this in tandem, with one of us investigating POIs as the T9 passes them, and the other flying a specific pattern designed to find POIs from an altitude of 3k. If the SLF finds something of interest, my friend will log off so I can collect it with the SRV and then he rejoins once the task is complete. It's annoying that we can't do this without logging off, but we still make it work.
What he said.
Deleted member 110222
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I would take a mining laser, for emergency use. You can get synthesis materials from asteroids. My Cobra will be mounting one. They only weigh 2t.
I've rarely taken weapons with me on my exploration builds, but I've done it before. A set of multi-cannons with grade-5 lightweight mods isn't too bad, since you can get up to 80% mass reduction, and MCs have a low power requirement compared to lasers. They use ammo, sure, but are you really going to empty them during your expedition? And if you do, you can always synthesize reloads.
No, absolutely not, though there is technically no 'wrong' builds in Elite so it's ultimately subjective. If it suits an RP, for example, then it's justified.
Role specificity is always good, though (if a trade ship can't genuinely hold its ground, for example, then any weapons are a waste), and so an exploration ship should excel in its own field as opposed to compromise needlessly. A mining laser is potentially useful if you plan on harvesting some materials for drive overcharges along the way, but that's about it.
I'd say 'light' weapons are even more useless than genuinely effective hardpoints, given they'll do little more than plink against enemy shields for no consequential effect. If something on your ship doesn't serve the role (or isn't required) - get rid of it.
I take them, but only for organised expeditions. I generally act as a security detail for the expedition, trying to keep some of the more 'unruly' explorers under control. I've never had to use them in anger against another player, and only once on an NPC when a pirate NPC Anaconda dropped in on the launch party for Distant Stars. Outside of that, I've never needed them.
An interesting question.
Take a mining laser just for safety.
Back when i started i had no idea what to expect. So i went fully armed. And even now, while i know there might be nothing out there threatening you, I have them.
My "small" ships like the ASPX have at least shock-mines with ion-disruption. Just in case i need to run.
My Anaconda is actually fully armed. I loose a few Ly in range, yes. But i feel better that way.
Who knows what is out there.
o7
Take a mining laser just for safety.
Back when i started i had no idea what to expect. So i went fully armed. And even now, while i know there might be nothing out there threatening you, I have them.
My "small" ships like the ASPX have at least shock-mines with ion-disruption. Just in case i need to run.
My Anaconda is actually fully armed. I loose a few Ly in range, yes. But i feel better that way.
Who knows what is out there.
o7
That's just it. There aren't any truly defensive weapons. There are no weapons that will effectively buy time for escape. A better argument could be made for having top tier thrusters on an exploration vessel than any kind of weapon since the best, pretty much only strategy is to get the hell away from the attacker as fast and far as possible.
Presumably, the ultimate goal of an explorer is to stay alive to turn in the data. Since there is no defensive weaponry that can effectively buy time, the only use for weapons is to actively engage an attacker with the intent of destroying them. If the goal is still to survive, the ship will need more than just a few light weapons. It will need increased hull, it will need good shields, it will need good thrusters, all things that increase mass, increase power draw, increase heat...things that are not conducive to an exploration build.
I only put weapons on my dedicated combat builds. Even my mission running Python is unarmed. If I want to do wet-work I'll use a combat ship.
The only time I broke that rule was running, well "working" out of Robigo and I used a weak pulse turret simply to break the scan lock from "interested" parties.
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I think it is worth pointing out that the mining laser is simply last chance stuff.
You may need it if:
By the time I got to Sag A* en route to Semotus Beacon I'd got about 60 Basic & roughly 40 each of Standard and Premium Jumponium boosts. To get to and back from Semotus I probably used about 3 of each in my 43 ly Dolphin. So what I guess I am saying is that IMO you need a pretty specific and unlikely set of circumstances to need a mining laser.
But Macedonia did! https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308075-End-of-the-Road?highlight=macedonia
The only time I broke that rule was running, well "working" out of Robigo and I used a weak pulse turret simply to break the scan lock from "interested" parties.
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I think it is worth pointing out that the mining laser is simply last chance stuff.
You may need it if:
- You've got yourself stuck somewhere and have run out of jumponium to get back to the "route".
- You can't use (or don't have) a SRV to mine jumponium in the systems you can reach without using jumponium.
- You have access to a system with rings that can be mined and with the caveat that in fact they produce the required jumponium mats.
By the time I got to Sag A* en route to Semotus Beacon I'd got about 60 Basic & roughly 40 each of Standard and Premium Jumponium boosts. To get to and back from Semotus I probably used about 3 of each in my 43 ly Dolphin. So what I guess I am saying is that IMO you need a pretty specific and unlikely set of circumstances to need a mining laser.
But Macedonia did! https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308075-End-of-the-Road?highlight=macedonia
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If you aren't minmaxing your jump range, then you should take better defences before any weapons. So far, we've yet to encounter anything hostile in deep space. If, however, you were somehow the first to be attacked by Thargoids outside the Pleiades, you'd still have to run away - unless you were lugging specialized Anti-Xeno weaponry around.
Meanwhile, better shields and armour can actually be useful if you make some mistakes planetside, or if you should somehow get attacked.
Yeah, everybody wants to pack the mining laser now after Macedonica's rescue.
The truth is though, that its much more wiser to collect decent amounts of jumponium than carry one mining laser around the galaxy in case you happen to get stranded in a system with planets with rings.
Forget the mining laser and collect the jumponium.
Yeah, everybody wants to pack the mining laser now after Macedonica's rescue.
The truth is though, that its much more wiser to collect decent amounts of jumponium than carry one mining laser around the galaxy in case you happen to get stranded in a system with planets with rings.
Forget the mining laser and collect the jumponium.
The pretty purple is really nice to see in a dark canyon on the dark side of a planet though!
Weapons? No way. If your out on an exploration trip and get into a combat situation for whatever reason the smart commander will run.
Why risk all your data on an unknown outcome.
I will be taking a mining laser this time though.
I wish we could engineer low weight mining lasers.
Why risk all your data on an unknown outcome.
I will be taking a mining laser this time though.
I wish we could engineer low weight mining lasers.
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