Vulture hardpoints question

I have a Vulture for combat (ASP for everything else) and am curious what might people suggest for upgrades to my hardpoints. I currently use a gimballed 3a Pulse laser and a 3a fixed multi-cannon. I fair pretty well, though have been taken out a couple times with ships ramming into me. I'm sitting on a out 8 million credits. Any thoughts on things I could experiment with. Mostly kill missions and bounty hunting.
 
Mine has a long range fixed beam & a frag cannon I think, it's been a while since I used it. At the point in my game where I had that sweet combo of Vulture & AspX I used a pair of C3 gimbaled Pulses, one firegroup with both, one with only one to conserve energy while still firing.
 
Well, the Vulture is a great ship for combat as it's small yet packs a decent punch against ships much bigger than itself due to its large hardpoints, especially the kinetic weapons.

I just returned to one that I hadn't used for a long time (hadn't used the Vulture at all) and this build is what I came up with.


I actually find it a little twitchy for only fixed weapons, and with this build I can pretty much either use the laser or the multicanon, but that said it's a potent ship that can take out a pirate lord in a Corvette that otherwise would require a medium ship.

Edit: With that build and the engineering I can fire the weapons indefinitely and not overheat or run out of WEP capacitor.
 
I use a VULTURE for most everything else but hauling, so I'm afraid I'm not much help. Beam lasers look nice with some Engineering. If you're hanging around the bubble, just use whatever strikes your fancy. You can always change it when you like.

You can switch them to fixed for another 14 DPS or so, assuming you stay on target, of course.


...

These are not beam lasers, but they do look nice...

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I can't remember quite how I did it (this was pre-engineers) but I had two class-3 beam lasers. One gimballed, one turreted.

I vaguely remember having to fiddle about a bit to make them work without overheating the ship, but eventually they were perfectly usable. The turret would track my target when it passed out of my line of sight, and when I got both beams on target, the Vulture was a little murder machine.

I love that ship! I really should fly it again.

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The Vulture is great fun to pilot, and has decent firepower for its size, but I actually see it more as an agile defensive ship than an offensive one in the grand scheme of things. It's like a nimble little brick. It'll get lapped and outgunned by something like the FdL and up though.

PVE shouldn't be much of an issue either way though, of course.

It does have a nicely wicked grin, even if its bark is a bit worse than its bite.

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More a long term thing since it requires some powerplay module shopping, but I've heard good things about Pacifiers. Overcharge them both and add an incendiary secondary to one and drag munitions to the other. If you can keep your target with a kilometre and you'll do a heap of damage.
 
yes, pacifiers work nicely
regular frags too, including gimbaled.

the vulture is nimble enough that it can keep close to basically any other ship.
 
I put a pair of short range inertia impact burst lasers on mine to use in combat zones. The only ammunition you have is heat sinks, which you will only need if you absolutely must maintain fire on a target and can't wait a moment to cool down. Working pretty well.
Vulture CZ
 
More a long term thing since it requires some powerplay module shopping, but I've heard good things about Pacifiers. Overcharge them both and add an incendiary secondary to one and drag munitions to the other. If you can keep your target with a kilometre and you'll do a heap of damage.
Honestly I don't even bother with the fancy experimentals and just put screening shell on them for the reload boost, stuff dies before drag becomes relevant and the raw damage is enough that you don't really need the incendiaries to wreck shields.
 
I spent ages building and revising my Vulture but then I just stuck a beam laser and an MC on it because it was giving me a headache trying to think of clever/fancy combo's of weapons to put on it.

Thing is, that single beam laser and single MC seem to do way more damage than I ever expect them to.
I get attacked by things like Annie's and I just think "Ah, whatever. I'll give it a try" and it always seems to get the job done.

It's actually got to the point where I'm a little bit superstitious about it - I don't want to touch any of the ship's weapons/modules in case I "break" whatever makes it so good.
 
The only thing I would say about your current setup is that I always had mine the other way round; gimbal the MC, fix the laser. Leading your shots is always more fiddly than pointing that hitscan beast of a beam, but also it's during the early stages of a skirmish (when they've still got some shields) that enemies are more likely to be burning through any chaff they have than the optimal time for thumping lumps of lead into their hull.
 
Honestly I don't even bother with the fancy experimentals and just put screening shell on them for the reload boost, stuff dies before drag becomes relevant and the raw damage is enough that you don't really need the incendiaries to wreck shields.
That's true. In something as manoeuvrable as a Vulture, the time on target you're going to have would make screening shell the better choice.
 
I remember my first Vulture runs. Got it before engineering was available. Completely A-rated it, but had to resort to using 2 Pulse lasers because 2 Beams would put it way over its power curve at the time, plus the overheating and all that. Used it extensively in a CZ CG, (back when they had them), fought Cutters constantly in that CZ, (They used to fight in them til now you may see the odd T9). Made it to the top of the Leader Board with 110 mil in combat bonds (They weren't paying as good back then which meant I had to kill a lot more). Went from Master combat rank to 90% Deadly in that week. Made enough from the bonds to purchase and fully A-rate an FDL. Aw, the glorious days with the Vulture. After engineering became available, was able to get the heat down and the power up enough to put whatever weapon system I desired, which was Beams with Thermal Vent, and it does rather well, but with only the 2 hardpoints, takes a lot longer to work the larger ships down. If I split the weapons, using a Beam and MC, seemed to take just as long to kill, and would use up a lot of the MC ammo for each kill. Which is fine if you don't mind just flying around and not being very effective. But now, there are many ships that do that and better, the Chieftan is as maneuverable with 5 hardpoints. The FDL also has 5, just never like the placement of the huge. The FAS was also more superior. So, even though I still have a Vulture in the garage, its nothing more then just a memory of its glory days. Haven't been in it for a long time. Might have to take it for a spin soon in a Haz Rez or something, don't think its capable of handling CZs anymore.
 
Frags, rapid fire, incendiary & corrosive for up close and personal

Dual multicannons, overcharged incendiary can be fun for longer range engagements

There are so many options, but engineering will make it shine
 
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