Next combat ship after Cobra III?
- Thread starter Da9el
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Yeah, OP, do keep your Cobra. It’s a wonderful multipurpose ship. Get another ship as well, by all means, but don’t sell that beauty!
oh yeah, the Cobra stays! My plan is to make her a designated materials/data gatherer for engineering other ships!
He literally said no Vulture lol.
What about DBX? It checks all the boxes... budget, hardpoints and utilities. You can get pretty creative with the loadout. Have to engineer it before it really takes off, but it will do the job.
What about DBX? It checks all the boxes... budget, hardpoints and utilities. You can get pretty creative with the loadout. Have to engineer it before it really takes off, but it will do the job.
That doesn´t seem like a half-bad idea. May take this under consideration as well! Again, I suspect this may have the problem I experienced in my Vulture of presenting the canopy to oncoming enemies since it is a Lakon vessel. However, I am a better pilot now, so who knows? I do have one that I use for exploration, may store some modules and give it a whack in a RES someday soon.
I'm not specifically combat oriented, but my ship after the MkIII was the Asp. Not the strongest shields, but can hull tank very well. Has 6 weapon slots, 4 utils and is versatile so can do some decent jump range, some trade etc.
DBX is a terrible combat ship. It’s a wonderful ship for all sorts of roles, but not combat. I’ve read on these forums some people spouting otherwise. Ignore what it says on paper. It’s just not good for that. Diamondbacks Scout, on the other hand, is incredibly good for combat and can be fit out in a variety of ways. It’s one of the few combat ships you can take out sans engineering and still do well (pve).
Here’s one I have set up for small ship pvp (vanilla) being tested. [video=youtube_share;dosjwrkde1U]https://youtu.be/dosjwrkde1U[/video]
It is, but can mostly be only a racer, the e-thrusters become quite useless when you start adding luxuries like shields, weapons, boosters, internals... After a tiny bit of weight, you have to outfit reg size 3 thrusters w/DD, and it becomes quick again.
To fit your requirements, a courier.
As a wildcard you'll be surprised with, keelback. Shields aren't the best, but it has amazing hull. Same weapon slots as cobra too. Just remember to bring the fighter bay. SLFs have ridiculous DPS for their size, and add in the keelbacks own weapons, and ships die surprisingly fast.
But ultimately can't force you into something so I'm guessing you'll get a courier.
As a wildcard you'll be surprised with, keelback. Shields aren't the best, but it has amazing hull. Same weapon slots as cobra too. Just remember to bring the fighter bay. SLFs have ridiculous DPS for their size, and add in the keelbacks own weapons, and ships die surprisingly fast.
But ultimately can't force you into something so I'm guessing you'll get a courier.
I'm one of those people
I couldn't quite make the DBS work because it was getting killed too quickly (probably due to my piloting). It is also very limited by having only 4 optional slots with maximum size 3.DBX is much slower than a DBS or Cobra, but it makes up for it by being significantly tougher, having a bigger distributor and able to carry a large weapon. If you went for a full combat build with military / reactive bulkheads and stacked HRPs it would have way more hull HP and resistance. Big FSD and fuel tank are a great help as well.
It's a very different ship but definitely not to be underestimated when well fitted and flown by a good pilot.
Hmm. "next combat ship?", the Cobra Mk III is not really a combat ship, but a multipurpose ship.
You could step back to the Viper III - a real combat ship - but you won't be able to reuse your modules, you won't get better hardpoints, and you won't get more utilities. So why? Because as a combat ship it is a step up from a Cobra.
You could spend more on the Viper IV - better hull & shield, can reuse more modules, still no better utilities. And it is just a combat ship.
You could stick with the Cobra. You can win the game in a Cobra - with skill - it is that good. I certainly wouldn't sell it. But you do need to pilot well as it is never that strong in shields. Utilities are seriously over-rated for people who want insurance and basically cannot avoid getting shot...
But if you want something "like the Cobra", then the next step up is the Asp Explorer. It is better in many ways - but ultimately it steers as if slightly drunk, and has a hull far too easy to target. It's not really a pure combat ship - but then - neither is the Cobra!! Re-use modules? Yes. More utility? Yes. More hardpoints? Yes.
If you really want a combat ship: Imperial Courier has great shields, can fit an Enhanced Performance Drive, has more utilities, looks great. But it is not really multipurpose. A trivial amount of Imperial Grind is required to get one. Definitely fun.
But given you kitted out the Cobra Mk III for combat, and you don't want a Vulture - the one ship you might really consider is the Diamondback Explorer. You can reuse modules, you will get more utility and more shield + you can afford slots for shield boosters, you will get an amazing FSD jump range, and kitted out right, it'll do combat.
You could step back to the Viper III - a real combat ship - but you won't be able to reuse your modules, you won't get better hardpoints, and you won't get more utilities. So why? Because as a combat ship it is a step up from a Cobra.
You could spend more on the Viper IV - better hull & shield, can reuse more modules, still no better utilities. And it is just a combat ship.
You could stick with the Cobra. You can win the game in a Cobra - with skill - it is that good. I certainly wouldn't sell it. But you do need to pilot well as it is never that strong in shields. Utilities are seriously over-rated for people who want insurance and basically cannot avoid getting shot...
But if you want something "like the Cobra", then the next step up is the Asp Explorer. It is better in many ways - but ultimately it steers as if slightly drunk, and has a hull far too easy to target. It's not really a pure combat ship - but then - neither is the Cobra!! Re-use modules? Yes. More utility? Yes. More hardpoints? Yes.
If you really want a combat ship: Imperial Courier has great shields, can fit an Enhanced Performance Drive, has more utilities, looks great. But it is not really multipurpose. A trivial amount of Imperial Grind is required to get one. Definitely fun.
But given you kitted out the Cobra Mk III for combat, and you don't want a Vulture - the one ship you might really consider is the Diamondback Explorer. You can reuse modules, you will get more utility and more shield + you can afford slots for shield boosters, you will get an amazing FSD jump range, and kitted out right, it'll do combat.
Apropos to what OP wrote.
You want shields? iCourier. I've rammed Pythons at full speed and it didn't even take a ring off.
You want utility slots? iCourier has 4 to your Cobra's 2
3 hardpoints? iCourier. Though the placement takes getting used to.
Budget? With your 25 mil you can A rate an iCourier and have enough left for almost 50 rebuys.
https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/imp...KA.Aw18UA==..EweloBhAOEBYQFMCGBzANokICMF9A===
As for imperial rank grinding. Yeah that kinda sucks but luckily you can get the courier with just the 3rd rank, so it should not be too awful of a grind. A FAS is a strong choice too, but will take significantly more grind and will shatter that 25 mil budget.
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With a lot of lightweight modding and a good roll on thrusters, you can enjoy a fast Courier with a surprising amount of equipment. Mine tops out at 851ms with my regular PvE setup, but I can install an SRV and still do about somewhere around 770ms if need be. Biggest downside is the paper-thin hull and module integrity (not a huge issue with the shields being quite nice), but it has upsides too, such as good jump range (35-40ly), and can easily take on any human NPC without losing shields.
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All those other ships are good, but never sell the Cobra. Fully A-rated, G5 engineered and carrying an SRV it's the ship for data courier, surface scan and skimmer missions.
Give it a wake scanner and scan the wakes whenever leaving a station and you'll never run out of Datamined Wake Exceptions.
Give it a wake scanner and scan the wakes whenever leaving a station and you'll never run out of Datamined Wake Exceptions.
Yup, this is what she´ll end up doing in the short term. Once I unlock a few more engineers, I will probably set her up for something else, but until then my Python fills the multirole that I need.
Wow, so many awesome replies! This is why I love the ED community. As far as I can tell from the comments, the two most popular choices are the iCourier and the Vulture, so I´ll probably grind some rank this week and go for the iCourier in the spirit of trying something new. I think that some of the hardpoints I have stored away/mounted on my Cobra would do one hell of a job mounted on one of those.
It also seems the best choice given my goal to own a Cutter someday, so I´m happy with that! Although it sounds like I´ll have to give the FAS/FGS a look someday too. But for now, I´m headed out in the Python to grind some rank/credits with passenger missions!
o7o7o7, thanks for the amazing response!
It also seems the best choice given my goal to own a Cutter someday, so I´m happy with that! Although it sounds like I´ll have to give the FAS/FGS a look someday too. But for now, I´m headed out in the Python to grind some rank/credits with passenger missions!
o7o7o7, thanks for the amazing response!