From boy to man in a weekend

[WingNuts]

Might try something like this for a Krait MKII https://s.orbis.zone/2jvz

I use standard synth reloads in the multi's. So far my favorite combat ship

 

[DeletedUser191218]

Well cmdrs,
I entered into this weekend with one thing on my mind ... combat ... it was time for the coward of the county to dust down his six shooters and give those NPCs what for.
Now before all of that excitement, I needed to do some engineering, so my trusty phantom which has served me well for exploration, mining, trading and missions was combat ready.
I had all the mats and engineers I needed, and after a very long session I had all the combat mods I had been researching.
So, I headed off to a low res extraction site to break myself in. On my very first attempt to engage, the heat of the battle got to me and in the fog I fired on the local security, got a bounty, everyone turned red and turned on me, so I legged it thanks to my phantom's boost and escaped to another system. After a bit more research, and a visit to an IFS in another faction's system, I was good to go again.
So back to same low res and was starting to get into a groove. I have all efficient beams with thermal vent and they were a joy in the low res, it was fairly easy to pop these NPCs plus I was even kill warrant scanning them and getting some good practice switching into FA off, and in no time I had enough bounties to unlock Todd and even rank him to L3 to get a few more engineer invites.
So today I decided to move onto a low intensity conflict zone to start collecting combat bonds for another engineer, well, I have to say, as a virgin elite combat pilot ... that was intense!
I dropped in and chose a faction, and boom ... all hell broke loose. I cannot believe it but I picked up a combat bond and we won that war, and at the end it was all calm with green NPCs circling around whilst my collector limpet gathered mats. As it had gone quiet, I went back to a station to get a bigger cargo rack for limpets and refuel/repair.
Second time in I thought I was doing well but I was finding that my beams were great at droppig shields but were taking an age to finish them off as the NPCs were in much bigger ships, and I stayed too long on one of them thinking he was gonna pop at any moment whilst his mate was pounding me. Well, I lost my shields and eventually my canopy, but managed to escape and limped back to the station for repairs, thank heavens for A-rated life support.
Third time I repeated my same stupidity, stayed on a target too long with my shields down ... hello rebuy screen.
Last time before my playtime was over, I did a liitle better and we won that war ... but no mats at the end :-(
So all in all I massively enjoyed it, but think I need to change weapons. I am planning on a split setup keeping my efficient beams on one side and MCs on the other for when their shields are down.
Thinking of making both MCs efficient with the large having auto-loader and the medium having corrosive shell.
Any advise cmdrs on those MCs or any other suggestions?

Playing video games isn't very manly like. But whatever.

 

[Stealthie]

Default is in the smaller slots.
If you flip that you should have a good reason.

Krait's PD can push 2 medium long range gimballed beams easily.

Personally, I always fit lasers to the biggest slots because I figure it's important to break an opponent's shields as quickly as possible so you can start doing real, permanent, damage as quickly as possible.
It's no good having the tools to wreck a ship's hull if you can't take down their shields faster than they can restore them using SCBs.

Course, I'm definitly rather "conservative" (boring) with my weapon choices.
I understand the way lasers and M/Cs work and I'm happy with the way they perform so I don't often monkey around with things like Cannons or F/Cs - or the more exotic XFX for them - because I don't really understand them.

Seen quite a few effective F/C builds recently so I should really look into that.
A few days ago I got exploded by somebody using Pacifiers at a range of around 2.5km, which I thought was very impressive.
I had no idea they had that sort of effective range.

 

[zipline]

Small/med MCs take a damage penalty vs large.
Large MCs have a really long spin up time.
It's longer than the reload time for frags so it's something to consider.
DPS and damage per battery is higher for frags, w/ no spin up time.

Wrt engineering, you'd be seriously hamstringing yourself doing it that way.
Eg a single G5 OC gimballed frag cannon, DPS = 366.

Quantities are easy to calculate.
But mats can be pretty tedious to obtain.
I suggest doing the meta engineering and wait til you're more experienced to experiment.

I know you're getting a lot of information, so I suggest to try to use the objective bits to steer you.

Does it do more damage?
How much?
What about reloads/spin up?
That sort of thing.

Eg OC > HICap, since you want to kill faster, not over a longer duration.
(Exception being perhaps small util weapon w/corrosive due to ammo cap hit)

That said, you do want corrosive which can also be put on frags.
Drag and screening shell are also useful.

Thanks cmdr,with so many options it's easy to get analysis-paralysis! I fully get the hamstringing bit, but the engineering takes time and mats, and I am loathed to waste either of those on weapons I can't work with. But all the suggestions on here are starting to crystallise an approach in my mind. I am going to head back into a res site and try out PAs, frags, rails and MCs alongside my efficient beams without worrying to much about time to kill, but focusing on which one I like using, and then, and only then, go for the engineering.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Personally, I always fit lasers to the biggest slots because I figure it's important to break an opponent's shields as quickly as possible so you can start doing real, permanent, damage as quickly as possible.
It's no good having the tools to wreck a ship's hull if you can't take down their shields faster than they can restore them using SCBs.

Course, I'm definitly rather "conservative" (boring) with my weapon choices.
I understand the way lasers and M/Cs work and I'm happy with the way they perform so I don't often monkey around with things like Cannons or F/Cs - or the more exotic XFX for them - because I don't really understand them.

Seen quite a few effective F/C builds recently so I should really look into that.
A few days ago I got exploded by somebody using Pacifiers at a range of around 2.5km, which I thought was very impressive.
I had no idea they had that sort of effective range.

Pacifiers are amazing.
They go out to 3k.
The damage per reload on frags in general, is much better than it appears, since they do so much damage.

In PVP, you will often see high thermal resistance shields so the lasers -> shields equation doesn't always work like in PVE.

In PVE, the damage from kinetics can often outweigh the resistance benefit of lasers by brute force.
Ie, it doesn't matter if you have a small resistance advantage when the raw damage is just a tickle by comparison.
Nothing in PVE withstands OC frags/Pacifiers for very long.

Kinetics also have very low PD draw.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Thanks cmdr,with so many options it's easy to get analysis-paralysis! I fully get the hamstringing bit, but the engineering takes time and mats, and I am loathed to waste either of those on weapons I can't work with. But all the suggestions on here are starting to crystallise an approach in my mind. I am going to head back into a res site and try out PAs, frags, rails and MCs alongside my efficient beams without worrying to much about time to kill, but focusing on which one I like using, and then, and only then, go for the engineering.

Consider g1/2/3 long range beams in the mediums, and putting all your time/mats into the large weapons of your choosing.

That will eliminate the damage falloff and still give decent damage.

 

[zipline]

Might try something like this for a Krait MKII https://s.orbis.zone/2jvz

I use standard synth reloads in the multi's. So far my favorite combat ship

Thanks cmdr. Wow, the DPS on those overcharged frags is way better than double shot ... if I choose frags I will deffo be going OC on them ... brutal.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Thanks cmdr. Wow, the DPS on those overcharged frags is way better than double shot ... if I choose frags I will deffo be going OC on them ... brutal.

Double shot just means you run out of ammo way faster, same with rapid fire.
OC actually means each pellet does more damage, a lot more.

 

[Stealthie]

In PVP, you will often see high thermal resistance shields so the lasers -> shields equation doesn't always work like in PVE.

In PVE, the damage from kinetics can often outweigh the resistance benefit of lasers by brute force.
Ie, it doesn't matter if you have a small resistance advantage when the raw damage is just a tickle by comparison.
Nothing in PVE withstands OC frags/Pacifiers for very long.

Kinetics also have very low PD draw.

Uhuh.

PvP is always a bit "rock/paper/scissors", where the idea is to try and 2nd-guess your opponents.

Course, the other issue is ammo' capacity.
For PvE you probably don't want to be relying on projectile weapons, especially if you're doing massacre missions, CZs or some other "combat grind".
A pair of beams on a 'vette, for example, can melt almost anything by themselves.

On a related note, if I scan a CMDR and their ship has a lot of M/Cs or F/Cs, it's time for me to be somewhere else.
99% of the time, that sort of loadout means there's "non-meaningful" PvP in your future.

 

[zipline]

Double shot just means you run out of ammo way faster, same with rapid fire.
OC actually means each pellet does more damage, a lot more.

To be honest, when I first started looking at weapons I was liking the frags more than any other weapon, but then I read various posts about having to be right on top of your target and even then, most of the shot would splay out and miss the target ... time to find out for myself.

 

[Stealthie]

Consider g1/2/3 long range beams in the mediums, and putting all your time/mats into the large weapons of your choosing.

Have to disagree with this, I'm afraid - especially in regard to shooting at NPCs.

I've done a lot of testing with beams and nothing comes close to the practical usefulness of the Efficient mod'.
In theory, Long-Range is a great idea but in practice Long-Range beams will drain your capacitor before you can bring down an opponent's shield... and then they pop an SCB while you're waiting for your weapons to cool down/recharge.
Far better to go for Efficient so you can just keep plugging away until you break an opponent's shield.

Course, if NPCs actually flew with a sense of self-preservation, things would be different.
If an NPC decided to, say, maintain a distance of 2km and harass you with suitable weapons then Efficient beams would be a waste of time.
They don't, though.
They always fly toward you, which means they'll always end up within range of your Efficient beams.

My 'vette has a pair of C1 pulse-turrets with the Long-Range mod' on them, set to fire at target.
I just pick a target (out to 7km or whatever), pull the trigger and the pulse-turrets will fire at them, they'll turn to attack me and then I melt 'em with my C4 beams.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Uhuh.

PvP is always a bit "rock/paper/scissors", where the idea is to try and 2nd-guess your opponents.

Course, the other issue is ammo' capacity.
For PvE you probably don't want to be relying on projectile weapons, especially if you're doing massacre missions, CZs or some other "combat grind".
A pair of beams on a 'vette, for example, can melt almost anything by themselves.

On a related note, if I scan a CMDR and their ship has a lot of M/Cs or F/Cs, it's time for me to be somewhere else.
99% of the time, that sort of loadout means there's "non-meaningful" PvP in your future.

Frags actually have superior damage/battery to MCs.
What you really want is to kill fast, not to kill over longer periods.
That holds true even in PVE, especially when damage/battery is similar or less.

That is to say if the total damage you can deliver per reload is similar, the rate at which you can deliver it is key.
Dragging it out is counter productive.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Have to disagree with this, I'm afraid - especially in regard to shooting at NPCs.

I've done a lot of testing with beams and nothing comes close to the practical usefulness of the Efficient mod'.
In theory, Long-Range is a great idea but in practice Long-Range beams will drain your capacitor before you can bring down an opponent's shield... and then they pop an SCB while you're waiting for your weapons to cool down/recharge.
Far better to go for Efficient so you can just keep plugging away until you break an opponent's shield.

Course, if NPCs actually flew with a sense of self-preservation, things would be different.
If an NPC decided to, say, maintain a distance of 2km and harass you with suitable weapons then Efficient beams would be a waste of time.
They don't, though.
They always fly toward you, which means they'll always end up within range of your Efficient beams.

My 'vette has a pair of C1 pulse-turrets with the Long-Range mod' on them, set to fire at target.
I just pick a target (out to 7km or whatever), pull the trigger and the pulse-turrets will fire at them, they'll turn to attack me and then I melt 'em with my C4 beams.

The LR is just to get them to fly towards your frags.

 

[Stealthie]

The LR is just to get them to fly towards your frags.

Fair enough, I guess.

If that's all you're using a laser for, though, you might as well go the whole way and use a pulse-laser instead, so you don't have to set pips to weapons just to power the beams.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Fair enough, I guess.

If that's all you're using a laser for, though, you might as well go the whole way and use a pulse-laser instead, so you don't have to set pips to weapons just to power the beams.

No, because I don't want to waste frag ammo on Eagles etc and pulses are too weak.
Why go weaker?
You're not PD constrained so LR beams work great.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Even a (G5 charge enhanced/SC) 6A PD can push 2 G5 LR gimballed beams on 2 pips, forever.

 

[Stealthie]

No, because I don't want to waste frag ammo on Eagles etc and pulses are too weak.
Why go weaker?
You're not PD constrained so LR beams work great.

I thought you said it was counter-productive to draw out combat using suboptimal weapons?

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I thought you said it was counter-productive to draw out combat using suboptimal weapons?

I am not doing so.
Beams > pulse.
That was your suggestion.
Beams are the strongest lasers.

Rails are superior of course, but I was running with the general theme here ftr.

 

[Northpin]

If you find yourself constantly fighting at 1400+ range, then LongRange is better than Efficient.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

LR on lasers is one of the few mods I'd suggest at G1/2, that's the main point.

More like the only mod...