Does the Vulture...

[Bob Lighthouse]

With all of this talk about the FAS, an excellent and one time favorite, someone should really bring up the aChief. The aChief is as, or more nimble than an FAS. It has more hard points, offering excellent flexibility. Hard point placement on the aChief just plain embarrasses the FAS. I can only split my weapons top-bottom on the FAS, I find it hard to line all weapons up at the same time. The aChief top loads most of it's weapons, and front loads what isn't on top. Making it much easier to have all six weapons available at the same time. I think it's because the bottom (all?) weapons on the FAS are so far aft.

I use a laser heavy load out with Frag(s) as spike damage. I do this to extend my time in combat. Up close, a full three round blast from a large Frag or two can tear pieces off. So I keep the pressure up with the lasers, and knock off hull points with the Frag(s). A Cannon can be effective as well, especially back when PP sniping was good, but Frags just shred hull points and, give your Capacitor a break.

Otherwise an FAS is a great combat choice. The Vulture is a specialty thing. I take mine out for that experience, but a medium ship just gets more done, with a ton more flexibility. As an extension to that line of thought, the aChief does the same thing comparing it to the FAS.

Agreed, the Chieftain is a great alternative.

 

[Aashenfox]

With all of this talk about the FAS, an excellent and one time favorite, someone should really bring up the aChief. The aChief is as, or more nimble than an FAS. It has more hard points, offering excellent flexibility. Hard point placement on the aChief just plain embarrasses the FAS. I can only split my weapons top-bottom on the FAS, I find it hard to line all weapons up at the same time. The aChief top loads most of it's weapons, and front loads what isn't on top. Making it much easier to have all six weapons available at the same time. I think it's because the bottom (all?) weapons on the FAS are so far aft.

I use a laser heavy load out with Frag(s) as spike damage. I do this to extend my time in combat. Up close, a full three round blast from a large Frag or two can tear pieces off. So I keep the pressure up with the lasers, and knock off hull points with the Frag(s). A Cannon can be effective as well, especially back when PP sniping was good, but Frags just shred hull points and, give your Capacitor a break.

Otherwise an FAS is a great combat choice. The Vulture is a specialty thing. I take mine out for that experience, but a medium ship just gets more done, with a ton more flexibility. As an extension to that line of thought, the aChief does the same thing comparing it to the FAS.

Agree. The Chieftain is more complicated to outfit and engineer optimally, though, as well as fly optimally. It feels great, but people don't realise they stalling all the time (that's why people find it drifty). It's a very stall-y ship and has to be flown by the scruff of the neck using lat and verts or it's just a sitting duck. The FAS tail follows its nose much more reliably and recovers faster from stalls, which is why I don't feel its been completely eclipsed. However, the loadout flexibilty of the Chieftain just tips the scales. 6 hardpoints is very nice.

 

[AlexAndTheDJ]

Canopy loss in a Vulture is usually a sign that you're losing the fight badly and ought to run away regardless.

The vulture's high shielding and limited internals make it a bad hull tank and sub-optimal hybrid. It's also one of the most agile ships in the game. If you're taking a whole load of canopy damage it means you're either outmatched, or using the wrong tool for the job.

Yes, you can configure a Vulture as an immobile hull-tank but it's as poorly-suited to that role as the T-9 is to racing. What you should really be thinking is:

1. Why I am I taking hull/canopy damage at all? This ship has the potential to evade and get behind pretty much everything in the game that's a threat to it.
2. What happened to my giant shields? and why am I hull-tanking in this low-armour thing when it's so fast I could easily get out of weapons range in a hurry.
3. I'm a n00b and failed to fit MRPs to my quirky, "screw conventional wisdom" hull-tank. Help!
4. Rebuy is imminent, why haven't I high-waked yet?
5. Where's the nearest shipyard that'll sell me an Alliance Challenger that I can turn into a hull tank with 13K eHP? That's how I wanna play and this Vulture ain't cutting it.

You see, the way I fight I would often lose shields but never lost my Vulture in combat. Even after the canopy breach. 25 mins is plenty of time to finish the battle and repair. Actually, the only time I lost it was when I had under a minute of air left, and as I was heading into the station the game crashed. Obviously I spawn 10km away and am now outta luck!

1. Missing digits and stone hands make flying an extra challenge.

2. I don't fight with any kind of tactic, I just go and shoot.

3. I don't know what MRP's are.

4. No rebuys.

5. I actually liked the Vulture, but I liked the FAS a little more.


Finally decided to try a Mamba instead. Might be a mistake but I like the sounds of its firepower. Shame about the completely deficient jump range and fuel tank size though.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

You see, the way I fight I would often lose shields but never lost my Vulture in combat. Even after the canopy breach. 25 mins is plenty of time to finish the battle and repair. Actually, the only time I lost it was when I had under a minute of air left, and as I was heading into the station the game crashed. Obviously I spawn 10km away and am now outta luck!

1. Missing digits and stone hands make flying an extra challenge.

2. I don't fight with any kind of tactic, I just go and shoot.

3. I don't know what MRP's are.

4. No rebuys.

5. I actually liked the Vulture, but I liked the FAS a little more.


Finally decided to try a Mamba instead. Might be a mistake but I like the sounds of its firepower. Shame about the completely deficient jump range and fuel tank size though.

MRP = module reinforcement package.
In the game, the canopy is sort of considered a module damage wise, soooo...

 

[AlexAndTheDJ]

MRP = module reinforcement package.
In the game, the canopy is sort of considered a module damage wise, soooo...

Ah, thanks. Yeah I've seen those. Never use them either way I wouldn't put them on my ship to prevent the canopy popping, I'd just go with a different ship.

 

[Mohrgan]

Without adequate Module protection, an FAS will lose it's canopy pretty quickly too. I used the FAS as a hybrid. Bi-Weave with Hull. I mod up the the Armor with HD, add 2 HRPs, and 3 MRP's. Without MRP's an FAS will lose it's externals and canopy frighteningly fast. Just remember; in any decent fight, your FAS will lose shields. Protect your external modules as you would your hull.

 

[Blightedmythos]

Honesty with guardians shield boosters you can turn anything into a shield tank pretty easy now. Id just shield tank it problem solved. Atleast for pve.

 

[AlexAndTheDJ]

Honesty with guardians shield boosters you can turn anything into a shield tank pretty easy now. Id just shield tank it problem solved. Atleast for pve.

It seems like a pain in the backside to get guardian tech. I don't get much play time, so guardian tech seems out of reach for now.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

To refer directly to OP question... there are two open bug reports on canopy behavior, as the numbers displayed in right hand panel don't always match those displayed in the station's advanced maintenance screen. No other module has this behavior, so the real question is not whether there's a bug, but whether it's a fundamental error making canopies weaker than intended, or if the advanced maintenance screen is simply incorrect.

The reports refer to the chief, which is notorious for a weak canopy, but it is possible vulture is affected as well.

In any case for now, the best advice is adding MRPs and try not to get shot in the face. I run a 2D+1D MRP pair in my biweave hybrid vulture, although still sometimes struggle with not getting shot i the face. I've seen other builds running even larger MRP pairs in a vulture.

Compared to a few other posters in this thread, I'm underqualified to comment if MRPs are worth it on a shield tank, as I usually fly hybrids.

Good luck.

references:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...have-very-different-numbers-for-Canopy-health
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...does-not-match-station-adv-maintenance-report

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

The aChief is as, or more nimble than an FAS.

Flat out more nimble. See: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UKvWx-Po1erSwAFomEpSJvB5vRbYn_A2t0T9lNhMst0

33% better lat/verts, 25% better reverse, at the expense of a few % worse fwd thrust and yaw and top speed.

IMO the FAS only beats chief as pure hulltank (chief/chally/crusader have too vulnerable thrusters and canopy for that). Otherwise my opinion is that chief is a better ship.

However, they are close enough that even a marginal difference in pilot ability will decide a 1v1. It's not a clear cut comparison.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

My poor Asp Explorer sympathizes with your canopy woes.

 

[Blightedmythos]

It seems like a pain in the backside to get guardian tech. I don't get much play time, so guardian tech seems out of reach for now.

Honestly its not that bad. Two hours tops. I found it pretty fun and i just did it a second time helping my wife with it.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

It seems like a pain in the backside to get guardian tech. I don't get much play time, so guardian tech seems out of reach for now.

I found it more stupid and irrational than some of the other grinds, but was able to get the FSD booster in one evening using a variant of the tactics in exigeous's guide, so not quite as long as other grinds. That is very nice to have. The others seem less useful so I haven't bothered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9C9a00-rkQ

The variant was to bring a PDT on my asp (blows up the guardian missile attacks for you) and that I think he is wrong, and the magic glowing pillars can be energized in any order, don't need to start with the two he claims. But it's a good video.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

The guardian FSD booster and shield booster are the two non-Thargoid PVE things worth unlocking.

I found the guardian tech grind more interesting than farming materials required for G5 engineering mods (that's not saying much!) but I think I had everything I needed in a few hours over the course of a relaxed weekend.

WRT the Vulture, its powerplant is too small (even overcharged) to support prismatics, or even a reinforced 5A alongide SCBs, so you're far better off going down the 5C bi-weave route with resistant/fast-charge and using the class-5 military slot for guardian shield boosters.

For what it's worth, my engineered vulture squeezes 2000+MJ effective shield strength using guardian boosters, which becomes 5000+MJ if I'm 4-0-2. The rebuild time if they drop is just over a minute, so I'm not out of the fight for long. Maximising shield-tanking in a vulture without compromising something else requires a compromise in the Vulture because of its piddly little class 4 powerplant, and swapping hull reinforcements or SCB's for relatively effecient guardian SCBs seems like a no-brainer for me, especially since fast-charge bi-weaves see a lot of in-combat regen in something as evasive as the Vulture.