How To Build A PvE Combat Ship

ryan_m

Banned
R
Over the weekend, I put together a pretty detailed guide for the Galactic Academy discord server explaining how to build a combat ship for PvE, both with and without engineering. The server is meant for newbies to have a place to ask questions and learn the basics of the game, so the guide is targeted towards that crowd.
It's a little too long to post here, so I linked the Google Doc above and put a little rundown below.
What is in the guide?


  • Basic concepts around weapons, defenses, positioning in combat, utilities, pip management
  • Outfitting examples for a non-engineered Viper mk 3 and an FDL while explaining the choices behind every selected module
  • Very basic explanation about engineering
  • Outfitting example for a fully G5 rated FDL with explanations for every engineered module
  • Engineering "tier" list
  • Build links to multiple ships with and without engineering
  • Useful utilities section that makes building ships easier
I'm also working on a PvP guide as well, but that's still in process.
Hope this can help some of you with your ship builds!
 

lesscode

L
+1 rep. Good, concise advice.
The only thing I'd add is a tip on using the Thermal Vent experimental if you're going to go with (Efficient) Beam Lasers. My all-turret trading Python has these and there's no single PvE ship I've come across that can last more than a minute against it. ToT is enough to have the Python icing up with all the heat dissipated...
 

ryan_m

Banned
R
lesscode said:
+1 rep. Good, concise advice.
The only thing I'd add is a tip on using the Thermal Vent experimental if you're going to go with (Efficient) Beam Lasers. My all-turret trading Python has these and there's no single PvE ship I've come across that can last more than a minute against it. ToT is enough to have the Python icing up with all the heat dissipated...
Click to expand...

Surprisingly, lightweight is the best mod for thermal vent. The effect works off the base thermal load of the weapon, and efficient drops it by 60% which decreases the effectiveness by the same amount. Lightweight keeps base thermal load and a -20% distro hit which works PERFECTLY with thermal vent.
 

tolm

tolm
ryan_m said:
Surprisingly, lightweight is the best mod for thermal vent. The effect works off the base thermal load of the weapon, and efficient drops it by 60% which decreases the effectiveness by the same amount. Lightweight keeps base thermal load and a -20% distro hit which works PERFECTLY with thermal vent.
Click to expand...

I see your point but Efficient also drops Power and INCREASES damage.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
G1 long range is the best beam mod, as long as you have the distro to use it. Full thermal vent benefit, zero falloff, for 1 grade 1 material (plus special). At any engagement taking place at more than an average 1000m, long range represents more damage than efficient due to harsh beam falloff. Lightweight is decent, but terrible for any hybrid build, you'd lose your weapons first.
 

Krash

Krash
Thanks for posting this, well done! I can see a lot of work went into it. I'm finding some useful information here.

In your PvE section you mention 3 heat sinks w/o engineering. Why do I only get 2 sinks (edit - not charges)?
 
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Stabby_Dave

Stabby_Dave
Re corrosive multicannons. I was under the impression that corrosive weakens the hull for all weapons hits. Isn’t it therefore better to have it on a smaller weapon, so that the resulting reduction in ammo capacity doesn’t matter so much?

Also, I tend to go for thermal resist on shields/boosters, since IME, npcs tend to mount lasers rather than kinetics.
 

Krash

Krash
Stabby_Dave said:
Re corrosive multicannons. I was under the impression that corrosive weakens the hull for all weapons hits. Isn’t it therefore better to have it on a smaller weapon, so that the resulting reduction in ammo capacity doesn’t matter so much?

Also, I tend to go for thermal resist on shields/boosters, since IME, npcs tend to mount lasers rather than kinetics.
Click to expand...

The argument for corrosive on larger weapon class is the slower rate of fire will keep your ammo reserve in sync.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
Krash said:
The argument for corrosive on larger weapon class is the slower rate of fire will keep your ammo reserve in sync.
Click to expand...

At the cost of total damage output...
That's a poor argument imo, since the exact same thing apples to a smaller hardpoint* without giving up a significant portion of your most powerful ammo.

*Assuming that something like autoloader or screening is being used otherwise.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Stabby_Dave said:
Re corrosive multicannons. I was under the impression that corrosive weakens the hull for all weapons hits. Isn’t it therefore better to have it on a smaller weapon, so that the resulting reduction in ammo capacity doesn’t matter so much?

Also, I tend to go for thermal resist on shields/boosters, since IME, npcs tend to mount lasers rather than kinetics.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is. Corrosive has the same effect whichever hardpoint applies it, whereas direct dps increasing effects (eg autoloader) are increased with hardpoint size. If you're only using one Mc, it must be corrosive whatever size.


As for boosters, there are really only two combinations of two boosters, either both HD force block or one HD, one res aug (again force block), for pve you want fairly balanced resists, favoring thermal slightly as you say, hence this combo, a shield with thermal and force block, 2 boosters with HD or Res Aug and force block, gives you the sweet spot for mj vs resistance in pve, imo.
 
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ryan_m

Banned
R
Krash said:
Thanks for posting this, well done! I can see a lot of work went into it. I'm finding some useful information here.

In your PvE section you mention 3 heat sinks w/o engineering. Why do I only get 2 charges?
Click to expand...

Can't find the section you're talking about but I think I know what you're saying. So on a stock heat sink, you get 3 total. With A-rated SCBs, you get 4 charges. If you double bank properly, you can do this 3 times before you run out of sinks for your SCBs.

Aashenfox said:
a shield with thermal and force block, 2 boosters with HD or Res Aug and force block, gives you the sweet spot for mj vs resistance in pve, imo.
Click to expand...

Force block as the experimental on shields is suboptimal. You want either fast charge or lo-draw to benefit from the recharge rate of your bi-weaves. This more than covers the resist loss.
 

ryan_m

Banned
R
Bob Lighthouse said:
At the cost of total damage output...
That's a poor argument imo, since the exact same thing apples to a smaller hardpoint* without giving up a significant portion of your most powerful ammo.

*Assuming that something like autoloader or screening is being used otherwise.
Click to expand...

It's a little less damage overall, but by that point, your largest hardpoint will be the only one with ammo in the first place so you'll be needing to rearm anyways. I prefer to run out of ammo on all hardpoints around the same time with kinetics.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
ryan_m said:
Can't find the section you're talking about but I think I know what you're saying. So on a stock heat sink, you get 3 total. With A-rated SCBs, you get 4 charges. If you double bank properly, you can do this 3 times before you run out of sinks for your SCBs.



Force block as the experimental on shields is suboptimal. You want either fast charge or lo-draw to benefit from the recharge rate of your bi-weaves. This more than covers the resist loss.
Click to expand...

I think you're mixing your pvp and pve methodology here. I'd need to see your math to be convinced that fast charge results in more effective health than force block over the length of the average pve encounter (that would be the significant factor). It makes three second difference on most of my builds compared to almost 6% kinetic resist, it's not even a contest.
 
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Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
ryan_m said:
It's a little less damage overall, but by that point, your largest hardpoint will be the only one with ammo in the first place so you'll be needing to rearm anyways. I prefer to run out of ammo on all hardpoints around the same time with kinetics.
Click to expand...


Fair points, and I certainly defer to your experience.
Seems the only concrete advantage is OCD/symmetry then?
(Totally valid imo.)
:)


How is that offset with autoloader, it at all?
 

ryan_m

Banned
R
Bob Lighthouse said:
Fair points, and I certainly defer to your experience.
Seems the only concrete advantage is OCD/symmetry then?
(Totally valid imo.)
:)


How is that offset with autoloader, it at all?
Click to expand...

Autoloader weps will almost always run out first if you're utilizing it properly. Personally, I never really liked autoloader but thankfully once you've fully engineered, the secondaries don't really matter too much because of how much stronger your ship ends up being.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
ryan_m said:
Autoloader weps will almost always run out first if you're utilizing it properly. Personally, I never really liked autoloader but thankfully once you've fully engineered, the secondaries don't really matter too much because of how much stronger your ship ends up being.
Click to expand...


Thanks, I appreciate the thoughts.
That's a great, well written guide.
Looking forward to future installments!
 
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