FDL, needing a little advice from seasoned Cmdr's

Yea sorry i should have been more clear....

I have a type9 for when i want to make some credits running basic meds...

Ive got a dbx for if im needing to travel which i can then order a ship taxi and get my girls transported to me...

My vulture is taking the back seat at the moment.

My fdl is for combat alone... for hazres, bounty hunting, assassination missions (i mean err im just a normal pilot on a business mission, this is not a gun in my pocket... well hello there mish moneypenny). im just dipping my toes into cz's...

I've not been playing a month yet so im still learning... ive not even looked into superpowers yet lol...
.
I won't bother you with a complete build here. About shields and utilities the posting of tolm is a good basis. I also very much appreciate bi-weaves on most of my combat ships. What i dislike there is the lack of a chaff launcher depending on what you do, the lack of a KWS. I'd surrender both heavy duty boosters in favour of these two items.
.
Once you learned to use chaff, it's one of the most amazing damage-mitigation tool of maneuverable ships. And while the FDL doesn't have the best turning speed, it has very good lateral thrusters. Learning to use chaff in combination with the thrusters, gives much more defence than yet another shield booster.
.
On the KWS: for RES hunting it's basically a must-have. (Oki, not if you are already swimming in money. ) For CZs it's utterly worthless and a shield booster is the better choice.

.
On internals, i personally consider a class 4 fuel scoop to really help with this ship. It doesn't jump far, but if you can refuel quickly, trips still are not that cumbersome. (I don't have an extra fuel tank, though. Within the bubble there's usually enough scoopable stars and there's no reason to take a FLD far outside of the bubble. )
.
Where i personally have my doubts is the weapon configuration. I mean, yes. Four efficient beams with thermal vent and an overcharged huge multicannon with corrosive ammo does the job. But with corrosion on the weapon, this MC will be seriously starved on ammo. If synthesizing it is fine for you, then this setup is fine, else i'd twist things around a bit.
.
The first thing to consider: i personally often include a medium size MC, engineered for high capacity and modded for corrision on my setups. That would allow you to have the huge MC as overcharged and with auto-loader. As others already have said, overcharged is more ammo efficient than rapid fire. The experimental effect is a bit harder to choose here. Your setup basically says that the huge MC is the hull killer, for shields you have more than enough firepower. So incendiary ammo would be contraproductive. This means that the auto-loader probably is the best choice.
.
If you are one of the people who love symmetrical setups (at least in terms of looks), you might in this case add a second medium MC (but overcharged and with auto-loader) opposite to the corrosive MC. In this case, overcharged also has the advantage of keeping the firing rate of both weapons the same, so another tiny optical advantage.
.
If you don't feel the need to keep things symmetrical, you can also ponder a railgun with Feedback Cascade. Though this is an aspect i am not certain about. I think that three efficient beams should also be enough to break an NPCs shields without having to rely on Feedback Cascade, but i don't have any ship with three efficient beams in use, so i can't say for sure. Having Feedback Cascade at hand to offset SCBs would be my personal preference.
.
Last not least on the topic or armour and HRPs: I personally also fly my FDL without HRPs. (Or: have flown. Since i have the Chieftain, it never has left the hangar. ) Instead i have a SCB on board. As NPCs by now also have railguns with Feedback Cascade, it now can require a little bit of skill and timing to make the best out of it, but it's still not that hard. It effectively adds more to the ships survivability than a HRP. And with such insane shields, the FDL can also be flown without armour. Mind you, if you have the money, put some armour on the ship and engineer it. If your thrusters are engineered, the extra mass won't affect you too much in combat. The real "price" for armour is a bit of jump range. But no matter what you do, the FLD won't ever make huge leaps. But within the bubble a good fuel scoop allows you to get to your destination in reasonable time, even if you have to do a few extra jumps, so i find it not to be that bad.
.
All in all, with four to six shield boosters, chaff and a SCB, your shields -should- never drop. If they do, you know that you did something wrong. And that's the one time when you will be grateful for heavier armour: it can buy you the time to get out alive.
.
 
FDL, needing a little advice from seasoned Cmdr's

From seasoned Cmdr's what?

Seasoned Cmdr's friends?
Seasoned Cmdr's younger sisters?
Seasoned Cmdr's wife's cousin's nephew's friend?

There's a word missing from your title.
 
Anyone can post a fine tuned and maxed FDL build link (coriolis or edshipyard) that includes all modules (e.g with reactive surface plus thermal resistance but with what exp-mod on top?)
if possible one for PVE and one for PVP

Here is my PvE RES and CZ build...

http://www.edshipyard.com/new/#/L=CO0H4C0S0,ElxG3I4AxhXCthXIxCpMypDHf5GBH4CzcQGvcQKqpDcqdrHf5GBK4CzcQGvcQKqpDcqdrHf5GBK4CzcQGvcQKqpDcqdrHf5GBK4CzcQGvcQKqpDcqdr,DBwG5Ia16004qpD8u00Cw58DBwG5Ia16004qpD8u00Cw58DBwG5Ia16004qpD8u00Cw58DBwG9Ib6phX8u00IrSAMrSAQrSADBwG9Ib6phX8u00IrSAMrSAQrSADBwG9Ib6phX8u00IrSAMrSAQrSA,9p3G5H44v7iAkPcEkPcIkPcAAAG7H36u008wPcCu00AOEG5H56qpD8phXEq00GwPcKypDAcIG5Ha0upD6qpD8qpDGyPcAsO0B8gG3IcIkPcKxCpQkPcSxCpYkPcaxCpBLAG5G32_Pc6y00Iu00BZY0,,7T4G9K34wPcasPcgy0007204_w05PU02UI0,KATE_0FOSTER,STR_D21

This pretty much melts everything and I rarely lose the outer ring of shields. Never had the shields drop, never had the hull even scratched other than during the occasional rapid lithobreaking incident.

I have a very similar build for assassination missions that is identical other than the 5C bi-weave is swapped out for a 5A Prismatic with same engineering. I can take wing assassination missions in that ship without even seeing the outer ring fade. It is also helpful against those damned shield cell spamming Corvettes, because I can boost ram their shields down with my shields barely noticing.
 
Yes it's quite a dapper build, for PVE.

It's a dapper build for any combat related activity.

Edit: also, you're steering the OP in the wrong direction by trashing Falter's expert advice and going with risg. Falter was spot on. I get why risg advised the way she did, but what I don't get is why you go out of your way to give bad advice? Aren't we experienced players supposed to be helping the new guys?
 
Last edited:
It's a dapper build for any combat related activity.

Edit: also, you're steering the OP in the wrong direction by trashing Falter's expert advice and going with risg. Falter was spot on. I get why risg advised the way she did, but what I don't get is why you go out of your way to give bad advice? Aren't we experienced players supposed to be helping the new guys?

The OP can probably spot a joke when he see's one. I "sided" with rlsg because he was catching flack just for posting a PVE build.

The important take away fact from the thread is that there are as many options as there are players, following someone else's build to the letter stops you learning from your own mistakes and developing your own style I think. Jumping straight into a fixed weapon PVP build isn't my idea of fun or good advice (for someone new).

As for giving bad advice the OP has probably already noticed that the PVE/PVP friction tends to seep into things, which is a useful thing to know for the forum in itself.

Good advice would be good PVP builds like Lateralus's can't complete with PVE builds for PVE (which is the OP's plan IIRC), and vice versa. Outfit for the intended role, jack of all trades master of none.
 
Last edited:
The OP can probably spot a joke when he see's one. I "sided" with rlsg because he was catching flack just for posting a PVE build.

The important take away fact from the thread is that there are as many options as there are players, following someone else's build to the letter stops you learning from your own mistakes and developing your own style I think. Jumping straight into a fixed weapon PVP build isn't my idea of fun or good advice (for someone new).

As for giving bad advice the OP has probably already noticed that the PVE/PVP friction tends to seep into things, which is a useful thing to know for the forum in itself.

Good advice would be good PVP builds like Lateralus's can't complete with PVE builds for PVE (which is the OP's plan IIRC), and vice versa. Outfit for the intended role, jack of all trades master of none.

Why can't it compete? I've flown it in plenty of conflict zones, shields never go down because of the recharge, ammo can be synthed... PA's make short work of NPC shields. Rails are just on it for practice really... feel free to put multis on it or whatever.
 
FWIW, here's my FdL (minus engineering): https://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_l...Aw18aQ==..EweloBhAOEoUwIYHMA28QgIwV0A=&bn=FdL

I certainly don't consider it anything "special" but it's fine for it's intended purpose.
It's a PvE BHing ship and the "philosophy of use" is that the lasers and MCs can take care of anything other than the big 3 and they are big/slow enough that I can hit 'em with the rails.

If you're not happy with fixed weapons, the laser and MCs can be swapped for gimbals and it still gets the job done.
 
Why can't it compete? I've flown it in plenty of conflict zones, shields never go down because of the recharge, ammo can be synthed... PA's make short work of NPC shields. Rails are just on it for practice really... feel free to put multis on it or whatever.

For PVE it's kill time is less efficient, due to the skill required for fixed weps . The build you posted is almost exactly my current FDL build except I have an extra tank and a scoop so I don't need to synth ammo I just scoop it instead.

It's loads of fun, which is why I fly it. But it's not something I'd recommend starting out on the FDL with.

Start with gimbals so you can learn to handle the FDL without having to aim closely or watch heat, then add some fixed, then graduate onto all fixed (if you want, I switch between or mix them up on a whim).
 
The OP can probably spot a joke when he see's one. I "sided" with rlsg because he was catching flack just for posting a PVE build.

The important take away fact from the thread is that there are as many options as there are players, following someone else's build to the letter stops you learning from your own mistakes and developing your own style I think. Jumping straight into a fixed weapon PVP build isn't my idea of fun or good advice (for someone new).

As for giving bad advice the OP has probably already noticed that the PVE/PVP friction tends to seep into things, which is a useful thing to know for the forum in itself.

Good advice would be good PVP builds like Lateralus's can't complete with PVE builds for PVE (which is the OP's plan IIRC), and vice versa. Outfit for the intended role, jack of all trades master of none.



Huh, some guy on the internet told me that PVPers were the most PVE playin' players of them all!

I should introduce you two.

:D
 
Huh, some guy on the internet told me that PVPers were the most PVE playin' players of them all!

I should introduce you two.

:D

Whoever said that was spot on probably has a lovely singing voice, is kind to animals and has great taste in 1950's sci fi.

PVP'ers are very quick to complain about all the PVE they have to do to get to do any PVP, and we all know reliable they are so it must be true :p.
 
I run all MCs on mine, including a HUGE version in the Belly Mount position.

G5 engineer all of them up to your upgrade of choice and then equip all of them with the Corrosive Shell EXP.

Pretty hard loadout to beat on this ship.
 
Here is the nominal build for my FDL.

I personally tend to favour focused/long range engineering combined with shield/hull penetration specials or specials that mix-up the damage types dealt. I only use efficient weapons in the rare circumstances where to do otherwise would be ill-advised.

However, on your rapid fire multi-cannon I would probably go with Corrosive Shells or Autoloader for the special given your build.

Not trashing you personally but I have to agree with other posters this is not a good FDL build to recommend to a player asking for advice.
4A sensors and life support to begin with - for what? You need 25minutes to get to a station if your canopy pops? Extra weight for no reason at all. 4A sensors will come in handy almost never. D class on those 2 are a no brainer. Half the weight of E and enough usefulness.
An extra fuel tank? FDL is an air superiority fighter. Why do you need more fuel/weight? Same with the fuel scoop, planetary vehicle hanger and ADS. Those belong on ships that jump a lot. Wasted use of a space you could fit hull or module reinforcements or SCBs.
And maybe I'm just lucky but on a medium ship I see no point to dual point defense either. One in my experience covers me well vs. missiles on a ship that size.

This build is some sort of multi-purpose build I'd expect to see on an ASPx or Python maybe. To fit this stuff on an FDL is like putting a luxury cabin on an F-16.
 
I run all MCs on mine, including a HUGE version in the Belly Mount position.

G5 engineer all of them up to your upgrade of choice and then equip all of them with the Corrosive Shell EXP.

Pretty hard loadout to beat on this ship.

Corrosive Shell doesn't stack. You've literally wasted 4 out of 5 specials by doing that. Swap the other 4x to auto loader and you're going to see your kill counter go way up.
 
Last edited:
Corrosive Shell doesn't stack. You've literally wasted 4 out of 5 specials by doing that. Swap the other 4x to auto loader and you're going to see your kill counter go way up.

So with one Corrosive all other weapons hitting the target get the benefit? Where is this tested or stated? I'm not saying it's not true but this is the first time I'm reading it.
 
So with one Corrosive all other weapons hitting the target get the benefit? Where is this tested or stated? I'm not saying it's not true but this is the first time I'm reading it.

I'm not sure where the documentation is, but yes, one Corrosive grants the max de-buff, regardless of what gun it's on. For that reason people usually put it on their smallest gun. For my part, for the FdL, I always liked to put it on the c4 multi cannon because I liked the synergy of the timing with the other multis.
 
I'm not sure where the documentation is, but yes, one Corrosive grants the max de-buff, regardless of what gun it's on. For that reason people usually put it on their smallest gun. For my part, for the FdL, I always liked to put it on the c4 multi cannon because I liked the synergy of the timing with the other multis.

Thank you for this! With the cost of mats on specials (5x, 3x, 1x) I really hate to waste them on an effect that I don't need vs. another one I wish I had.
+1 rep
 
Back
Top Bottom