Engineers might be a grind man but the increase in ship performance is totally worth it.
Also get a Viper. Only heathens don't like flying Vipers.
Also get a Viper. Only heathens don't like flying Vipers.
Advice please on PvE combat ship
- Thread starter mpfj
- Start date
As you no doubt realize, I'm an end game minmaxer, I can't think any other way, it's difficult to even remember what the unengineered base stats are on most of the ships. My favorite ship is the challenger, I just love the tanky ones. It's not quite as effective as a chieftain offensively (not far off though), but it is far stronger defensively. This does absolutely require shield, booster, bulkhead and hull engineering though, otherwise, as others have said, the initial shield values of the alliance ships are very low. Since you anyway have a challenger, I would urge you to persevere with it, bearing in mind that 90% of the modules are transferable to the slightly more offensive, more agile chieftain if you ever do want to make the switch. The main trick to not dying in pve is pip management, but focusing on unlocking Lei Cheung (laksak), didi vatermann (leesti) and Selene Jean (kuk), will certainly ensure that you are never ever killed by an npc again.
I'll pm you my challenger build.
TBH I'd say the Challenger has the edge in offensive combat too.. Sure its not as quick on it's feet but it drifts less as a result, has a more versatile loadout and is a lot tougher to bring down given that the drives are clustered behind the ship they are also a little harder to kill.
Underrated ship imo.
There is one ship I love more then others for PVE...
That is Alliance Chieftain.
Here is my build: https://s.orbis.zone/4qvb
Fast, Agile, Sexy and Dangerous.
That is Alliance Chieftain.
Here is my build: https://s.orbis.zone/4qvb
Fast, Agile, Sexy and Dangerous.
Challenger is my fave, but 1) The thrusters are actually more vulnerable (in pvp it's noticeable), don't ask me why. 2) Although technically capable of more dps than the Chief, its hardpoints are too small! Too much penalty against the hardened hulls of FDL/Mamba/Chief/Chally/Crusader, plus, 3 of its main damage dealers (the mediums) are under the belly which really hurts its usefulness for gimballed weapons (which are optimal in pve). It is a shield destroying beast though, well spotted that it has great space grip, but that isn't related to its speed, its an arbitrary metric, like tire grip in a driving game, and yep, tough as nails.
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I'm beginning to see that now ... RNGeers or bust !!
And my first exploration ship was a Viper ... back (waaaay back) when I first started I started heading out into the black and before I know it I'd gone ~2000LYs before I thought I'd better turn back. Great fun ... must try that again.
Whereas mine is a pure Scout-killing machine, it's not meant to go up against Interceptors. Naturally, I'd have to change the weapons loadout before taking on the bigger fishes.
Are the windscreens on the Chieftain and Challenger still soap bubble weak? I engineered each one as it came out and wanted so much to fall in love with them, but ultimately I put them aside because the weak screen was just too much of a liability. Hopefully they've been beefed up.Challenger is my fave, but 1) The thrusters are actually more vulnerable (in pvp it's noticeable), don't ask me why. 2) Although technically capable of more dps than the Chief, its hardpoints are too small! Too much penalty against the hardened hulls of FDL/Mamba/Chief/Chally/Crusader, plus, 3 of its main damage dealers (the mediums) are under the belly which really hurts its usefulness for gimballed weapons (which are optimal in pve). It is a shield destroying beast though, well spotted that it has great space grip, but that isn't related to its speed, its an arbitrary metric, like tire grip in a driving game, and yep, tough as nails.
If all you want is to rank up to Elite in combat and don't want to faff with engineers or guardian shinanngans then just get a medium combat ship with good base armour, Chieften or one of the Fed tanks (does need Fed rank) fly off to Shin Des whack on 4 AX MCs and fill up other well placed hardpoints with class 1 rails if u can. Also get a decon limpet controller (less faff than cooking yourelf0 and a small cargo rack for limpet, cram any other available space with hull platting. Make painful million or so tiny jumps to the Enclave in Witchhead space, or take an explorer hip and pay through the nose to have other ship tranferred. Then just vistit NHSS 4s over and over again killing scouts.
WARNING: It will get dull I went from 20 to 30% Deadly doing this and then thought 'what the hell am I doing' and went off to do other stuff instead!
WARNING: It will get dull I went from 20 to 30% Deadly doing this and then thought 'what the hell am I doing' and went off to do other stuff instead!
Those frag cannons are doing some damage. Are they all short range? What experimentals? Mixture of thermal and corrosive?
My main combat ship is a hull tank challenger with bi weave shields but I'm not a great pilot so I'm regularly losing my shields and relying on the hull which thankfully, in PvE at least, is indestructible. Just over 4k absolute, over 8k for both explosive and kinetic and around 6.5k thermal. Love a bi weave hull tank because it best suits my suspect piloting abilities.
The beluga is actually very effective in combat, i regualrly take down elite anacondas in it, plus its killed a pvp mamba or 2Many thanks for all the pointers.
I might buy all three (Krait, Phantom and Cheiftan) and take them out for a spin ... I did that with Vulture vs DFS vs FAS and decided the Vulture suited me better.
According to INARA, here's my current engineer info:-
Engineer access: Zacariah Nemo Discovered
Engineer access: Marco Qwent Discovered
Engineer access: Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn Invited
Engineer access: Marsha Hicks Invited
Engineer access: Lei Cheung Grade 5 access
Engineer access: Felicity Farseer Invited
Engineer access: Elvira Martuuk Grade 5 access
Engineer access: The Dweller Grade 4 access
Engineer access: Liz Ryder Discovered
Engineer access: Mel Brandon Discovered
That's certainly piqued my interest ,,, would be my kind of fun to get to Elite Combat using a cruise liner
Nope ... afraid I've no interest in any of the "bug hunting"
They haven't. 2 MRP is the best you can do.
Try overcharged 5 with Oversized, Incendiary and Corrosive. Frags are short range by definition, there is no such blueprint.
In the vid, they're combined with rails for distance fights & bringing down shields. For that, I use long range rails with Feedback Cascade and Super Penetrator and am content. Don't know what setup was actually used, though.
Could be overkill in PvE, though. For simple mass slaughtering of NPC effective beams + mcs might be a better choice.
O7,
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The only flaw is that the SLF Pilot takes 1/2 of your earned Combat ranking.
SLF is purely optional.
Meh. As far as PvP is concerned that's a real liability. I spent a LOT of time getting both of them dialed in before realizing they were excrement in that regard.They haven't. 2 MRP is the best you can do.
Nice hull. The Krait is a pvp build so one of the frags is drag, the other two are incendiary and corrosive. Railguns are feedback and super pen.
Only thing I would say is for PVE don't be afraid to pick the fighter-bearing versions over their better original counterparts. The hardpoint placement or increased agility isn't gonna be life-or-death because you're never gonna lose an exchange so bad it costs you the fight. Also, AI pilots, even the harder ones, will take the bait and off and on focus the fighter if you aren't doing any damage. It's helpful against large ships that you need to try to out-maneuvre because you can tell the fighter to attack while you have pips on engines and shields busy doing boost-turn-cut-counter boost to try and stay out of firing arcs. By the time the AI pilot starts focusing the fighter you have your weapons back or can dump 4 into them and then make another strafe. Anyway that's just against much larger ships and no matter what you do you can't outfly the AI pilots when they decide you can't esp Elite. It still helps regardless. The Elite ships destroy the fighter pretty fast though.
Anyway when talking PVE the point is it's worth looking at the fighter versions. Obviously this doesn't apply to the Krait.
but you have to level the pilot for a bit before it does anything.
Anyway when talking PVE the point is it's worth looking at the fighter versions. Obviously this doesn't apply to the Krait.
but you have to level the pilot for a bit before it does anything.
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Not for getting combat rank though.