Ships Ships for Mat Farming in HazRES? (not 'Vette)

tl;dr: raw DPS value is first of all a theoretical figure and gets influenced by so many factors that the number alone is often misleading.

Indeed, that is very well put.
Especially since not even the best pvp-er reach a 100% hit ratio with their plasma volleys

So, this argument is working in the favor of the MC and not so much in the favor or PA since well... there is no secret that pve-ers are not the sharpest shooters around this corner of the galaxy. And if you miss half of your plasma volleys - especially against the small and agile targets, the pve exercise turns into frustration rather fast.
And this aspect was mentioned by @Homerzilla

On the other side of the fence, it's so rewarding when you explode an Eagle with a single PA volley from 3 large PA :)


Well good for you,I keep my Plasma ;) oh by the way a Focused Plasma projectile has a speed of 1750 m/s,just to keep you updated.

It sure has, but then its heat skyrockets, its dpe plummets and the mc wins again. And it's better to stop the PA at G4 focused - it makes a nice match for MC projectile speed :D
So much easier to aim using matched leading reticles and the PA/MC combo is pretty nice.

Think i still have a Chally with 4 PA and 3 Rails... And i still think it's a pain to PVE with it especially vs eagles and diamond backs.

My favorite setup for pve is lasers with a single mc with corrosive (my vette runs this setup) - or if using a krait mk2, 3 large efficient beams and 2 medium long range rails with plasma slug - or my Colonia Vulture using only a pair of large efficient beams.
Not having to worry about ammo means that i can chain CZ all day long.
And Res are even easier.
 
I sided with the Krait 2 gang for this exact purpose long ago. It is just perfect for the task. Much internal space for cargo and collectors and still remains an excellent fighter! OC autoloader multicannons are pure love, by the way. 😊
Behold Roamer II, which has earned me almost all of the mats that are not planetside.

One MRP can be switched out for another collector, to have 4 active limpets. I have it set up this way, because I feel like collecting mats in HazRes is not really worthwile to me anymore, but still want to quickly collect every HGE I come across.
 
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True ... but with a C6 and 2x C3 slots gone, both your shields and hull will be sub-optimal whereas a Krait MkII will have a much higher base shield so will be less impacted in terms of defence when carrying those.
I run a build with some 1550-1600 shields on mine, and I found that more than enough to take on a wing of big NPC.s without losing the last ring....
I tend to be more conservator with shields, and before to get "naked" usually I boost my way out of danger, so "hull damage" is never a real concern.
In a side note, is really rewarding to ram shieldless NPC Condas :p
 
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Indeed, that is very well put.
Especially since not even the best pvp-er reach a 100% hit ratio with their plasma volleys

So, this argument is working in the favor of the MC and not so much in the favor or PA since well... there is no secret that pve-ers are not the sharpest shooters around this corner of the galaxy. And if you miss half of your plasma volleys - especially against the small and agile targets, the pve exercise turns into frustration rather fast.
And this aspect was mentioned by @Homerzilla

On the other side of the fence, it's so rewarding when you explode an Eagle with a single PA volley from 3 large PA :)




It sure has, but then its heat skyrockets, its dpe plummets and the mc wins again. And it's better to stop the PA at G4 focused - it makes a nice match for MC projectile speed :D
So much easier to aim using matched leading reticles and the PA/MC combo is pretty nice.

Think i still have a Chally with 4 PA and 3 Rails... And i still think it's a pain to PVE with it especially vs eagles and diamond backs.

My favorite setup for pve is lasers with a single mc with corrosive (my vette runs this setup) - or if using a krait mk2, 3 large efficient beams and 2 medium long range rails with plasma slug - or my Colonia Vulture using only a pair of large efficient beams.
Not having to worry about ammo means that i can chain CZ all day long.
And Res are even easier.

Indeed, that is very well put.
Especially since not even the best pvp-er reach a 100% hit ratio with their plasma volleys

So, this argument is working in the favor of the MC and not so much in the favor or PA since well... there is no secret that pve-ers are not the sharpest shooters around this corner of the galaxy. And if you miss half of your plasma volleys - especially against the small and agile targets, the pve exercise turns into frustration rather fast.
And this aspect was mentioned by @Homerzilla

On the other side of the fence, it's so rewarding when you explode an Eagle with a single PA volley from 3 large PA :)




It sure has, but then its heat skyrockets, its dpe plummets and the mc wins again. And it's better to stop the PA at G4 focused - it makes a nice match for MC projectile speed :D
So much easier to aim using matched leading reticles and the PA/MC combo is pretty nice.

Think i still have a Chally with 4 PA and 3 Rails... And i still think it's a pain to PVE with it especially vs eagles and diamond backs.

My favorite setup for pve is lasers with a single mc with corrosive (my vette runs this setup) - or if using a krait mk2, 3 large efficient beams and 2 medium long range rails with plasma slug - or my Colonia Vulture using only a pair of large efficient beams.
Not having to worry about ammo means that i can chain CZ all day long.
And Res are even easier.

How do you manage the heat on Chally ? I overheat just with burst lasers - and I only have 3 of them ! I was forced to put LR beams with TV on the small HPoints in order to control the heat, so I wonder what will be in a build like yours.... 4 PA .... I suppose you are forced to be very conservator with the PA trigger.... or maybe you use heatsinks ?....
 
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According to Coriolis, an Efficient PA actually generates less heat per second than an OC Burst laser, so I guess there's your answer.

And a little note on the side, the Challenger actually has one (class 2) slot more than the Krait II. That could be used for instance to balance out your hull resistances, or add an MRP, or an AFMU just to have a backup plan when things turn sour.

Drawing up one build for each ship type, the Krait sure does have more shields than the Challenger... but not hugely so. With a similar setup of Bi-Weaves, boosters (1 HD, 3 RA) and 3 GSRPs, the Krait gets to approx 1250 raw and the Challenger to 1080. That's a 15% difference.

Be that as it may, I have decided that I will just also build that Krait to have a direct comparison, and to be able to try out more combinations in weapon loadout. ^^ Fortunately the thrusters are transferable (Pharma Isolators are in short supply in my bins rn), and I still have a 7A PD lying around.
What might ultimately call the race in favour of the Krait is that I finally get my Pacifiers on thursday... so if I like these weapons, I guess I'm gonna like having three of them more than one. 😁

As for the Challenger, I may be repeating myself but I find the hardpoint distribution less than ideal, and admittedly that's a chestnut I'm yet trying to solve. Independent from the intended role as mat-gatherer, it could be a decent Railboat (3 smalls, 3 meds, add a large Beam or sth), if you're good with rails. Or run those 4 PAs plus 3 small lasers. Either way you'll have to be good with Fixed, but don't need to worry about armour hardness. Or make it a fragboat. You see the problem. xD

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Oh and another word about PAs vs MCs or other ammo weapons... in the Chieftain thread I already talked about damage potential, i.e. how much dmg your ammo is good for. There it turned out that Rails (without slug) have a very bad total. So now I went ahead and had a look at the MC potential, compared to PAs and taking resistance and hardness into account. It's actually pretty easy:

A: class 2 OC Multi -> Prc 37, dps 21.4 (kin)
B: class 2 Eff PA -> Prc 100, dps +12 (abs) +4 (kin) +4 (thm)

Pit this against, say an FDL with Shields +25% thm, +50% kin, and Armor hrd 70, +50% thm, +25% kin (so rather moderately engineered)

MC: 10.7 vs shield, 9 vs hull
PA: 17 vs shield, 17 vs hull

So a single Plasma hit will effectively do 52 dmg against shield or hull regardless. For the same net damage, the MC has to lie on target for 5-6 seconds.

A class 2 MC fires its 2100 rounds at 7,7/s, so the entire ammo cap is enough for 50 of those 5.5 second bursts.
Potential effective damage (50/50 shield/hull) in this particular matchup ca 2600, provided you hit 100%.
The class 2 PA of our example has a potential effective damage of 5200, so anything higher than 50% hit rate and you come out on top. (In practice I'm pretty sure I don't get 50% hit rate, esp not against small targets.)
 
Wow, you really like to crunch those numbers, do you? Here, have an A for effort! 😄
Couldn't be bothered, I just put stuff together I get recommended, or want to try out, and what feels like it works, stays like that. ;)
 
i tend to agree with this




A large overcharged gimbaled multicannon with autoloader has better dps and much better time on target than a large efficient PA, not too mention lower power and pd requirements - and it's really cheap to synth ammo. Higher projectile speed makes landing shots at 1500m achievable, not so much with a PA.

A fixed MC is even better... (at least in terms of dps...)
You rely too much on figures "on paper" but as long as it suits you it's ok,I go the other way ;)
 
Wow, you really like to crunch those numbers, do you? Here, have an A for effort! 😄

Guilty, your honour. xD Well I guess that's my years of D&D (and other RPGs) indoctrination. I love finding good combos and hidden synergies in those games, and there it's often the case that what is seemingly the dominant pick gets beaten by less obvious choices. So I'm kinda used to looking for those in other games as well.
As for ED, ofc the PA is not a "hidden" gem bc it's PVP meta after all, but I feel the effect of Hardness gets underestimated a bit.

For instance, rn I'm theorycrafting a Krait weapon layout, juggling between Pacifiers. Beams and Multis. We'll see what comes of it. ^^
 
Tried out a somewhat refined outfit on the Chally, with maximum ammo-independence in mind, revolving around fixed Inertial Impacts as main damagedealers. Ofc the jitter still sucks but with some practice and better range control it might get more bearable.The Chally certainly has the agility to pull it off, if only I manage to utilize it.
As main mod on these I actually went for Focused G2 - combined with the Corrosive effect from the MC this pushes the Piercing value high enough to apply full damage to any human ship, while also extending the Dropoff range to 800m. (If I wanted to drop the MC, I'd just need to improve Focused to G4 for maximum Pierce)
According to Coriolis damage calculations, this is the most effective combo of all energy weapons against Hull (if you hit ofc) overall -- only at <500m OC and SRB are marginally better, but lose out drastically at any greater range.
Enemy shields shall be stripped by OC TV Beams.

Currently my setup is still a bit of a hodgepodge bc I am using some leftover weapons, but the final layout might look as follows:
L: G5 OC gim TV Beam (or G3 Foc fix II Burst which I still have from a previous experiment)
MMM: G2 Foc fix II Burst
SS: G4 OC gim TV Beam
S: G4 HiCap gim Corr.MC

If I can make this work, I am practically ammo-independent, with the exception of the single MC which I can easily synth.

An entirely different outfit would revolve around PAs or Rails with Plasma Slug, but I'm afraid my skills just aren't up to that setup yet. Then I'd just need to watch the fuel.

As for the Krait project, I'm gonna try out a Pacifier setup first; it's not ammo-free but I guess it'll be fun. xD Then I'll see how that goes (I've never flown a Krait II) and think about more endurant setups afterwards.
 
Tried out a somewhat refined outfit on the Chally, with maximum ammo-independence in mind, revolving around fixed Inertial Impacts as main damagedealers. Ofc the jitter still sucks but with some practice and better range control it might get more bearable.The Chally certainly has the agility to pull it off, if only I manage to utilize it.
As main mod on these I actually went for Focused G2 - combined with the Corrosive effect from the MC this pushes the Piercing value high enough to apply full damage to any human ship, while also extending the Dropoff range to 800m. (If I wanted to drop the MC, I'd just need to improve Focused to G4 for maximum Pierce)
According to Coriolis damage calculations, this is the most effective combo of all energy weapons against Hull (if you hit ofc) overall -- only at <500m OC and SRB are marginally better, but lose out drastically at any greater range.
Enemy shields shall be stripped by OC TV Beams.

Currently my setup is still a bit of a hodgepodge bc I am using some leftover weapons, but the final layout might look as follows:
L: G5 OC gim TV Beam (or G3 Foc fix II Burst which I still have from a previous experiment)
MMM: G2 Foc fix II Burst
SS: G4 OC gim TV Beam
S: G4 HiCap gim Corr.MC

If I can make this work, I am practically ammo-independent, with the exception of the single MC which I can easily synth.

An entirely different outfit would revolve around PAs or Rails with Plasma Slug, but I'm afraid my skills just aren't up to that setup yet. Then I'd just need to watch the fuel.

As for the Krait project, I'm gonna try out a Pacifier setup first; it's not ammo-free but I guess it'll be fun. xD Then I'll see how that goes (I've never flown a Krait II) and think about more endurant setups afterwards.

Nice build, indeed :p
I found the Chaffy to be one of the best platforms for medium ships - stable, exceptional maneuverability, great convergence, and tough enough to take on full NPC wings at once.
I have a build like you for one of my 3 Chaffy.s (!) - yup, I have 3 of them, so much I lover the Chaffy ! - and in another one I did a PA build, not with Efficient but yes with Focused paired with l "all everything except the 2 x class 3 PA - only LR + TV beams " ;

Chaffy can run 2 PA class III at will, and I went for focused instead of efficient because of the speed - I pushed all to grade 5 so I have the max speed . Higher than MC.s ! - for the plasma bolts and I can say make a HUGE difference when it comes to my ability to hit, constantly, the target even at 2-3 km !

Since the RoF is reduced will take time until you OH ( overheat) and with dazzle shell in one, and target lock breaker in other, - I feel I struck a good balance ;

The beams helps a lot to cool the ship, and to take on small, agile & fast ones - and the PA are incredibly strong against big/medium ships - watching a NPC Conda loosing more than 20% hull after just one volley of 2 x class 3 PA is refreshing.... internal module damage is probably high, also, because now I get a lot less "running away" targets - and I love that, since most NPCs will low-wake even with an FSD broken at 4-10% .... when a human player with the FSD at 40-50% cannot jump away....
Ammo wise I opted for NO plasma slugs ( you lose a significant percentage of dam AND you cannot apply other effect....) - in top of that, 100 rounds are enough for 40-50 kills easily, since I only use the PA against medium/big ships - the small ones I just melt them with the beams !

To synth a full ammo load is also relatively cheap, using only common grade I raw....

To conclude, I own a Burst Chaffy, a Frag Chaffy and now a PA one .- each with his load of fun !
 
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Ah, well so I'm a bit more economical than that, if mostly because fully engineering a ship is a bit of a pain. xD The Chieftain is also my favourite, but I have only one, and a pile of weapons to swap the loadout depending on what I feel like. But when my storage space runs out I may be forced to buy and outfit more ships. :p

On my Chieftain (the Valkyrie) my latest loadout is as follows; gimballed except where otherwise noted:

LL: OC SS Pacifiers (fixed)
M: Eff TV Beam (leftover)
SS: OC TV Beams
S: HiCap Corr MC

The Med Beam still has room for improvement; I realized that Efficient and TV don't synergize well, so I'll probably either switch the Experimental, or swap out the whole thing for an OC TV Beam. Or a LR one maybe? So many possibilities. ;) I guess that's what I love most about this game. :)

Anyway first results are very promising. The Pacs are a bit more range-tolerant than regular Frags. The Small OC Beams are pretty good for eating shields and really freeze my ship, as opposed to the Eff one where the TV seemed to do nothing. With the small MC I trade one small slot for a 25% damage boost against hulls, or wait, with the Piercing bonus it's actually more like +44%; it doesn't get much better than that.

The two OC Pacs deliver 3-round bursts in 0.44s for a total of 480 damage; with Corr bonus that's close to 700. If all pellets land on target ofc; but with the much lower spread and higher shot speed than regular Frags that's a lot more doable. ^^

As for Plasma Accelerators -- good catch that G5 Focused (or LR) PAs have higher shot speed than Multis -- so if you use both on one build, it may be smart to only upgrade the PAs to G4 so they have the same projectile speed as the Multis, and therefore (nearly) the same aiming reticule. I bet these got me confused more than once in the past. :p

And I have more plans for the ship in the future... the Chieftain is a gift that keeps on giving. ^^ Too bad only that it doesn't have the internals for mat farming.
 
Ah, well so I'm a bit more economical than that, if mostly because fully engineering a ship is a bit of a pain. xD The Chieftain is also my favourite, but I have only one, and a pile of weapons to swap the loadout depending on what I feel like. But when my storage space runs out I may be forced to buy and outfit more ships. :p

On my Chieftain (the Valkyrie) my latest loadout is as follows; gimballed except where otherwise noted:

LL: OC SS Pacifiers (fixed)
M: Eff TV Beam (leftover)
SS: OC TV Beams
S: HiCap Corr MC

The Med Beam still has room for improvement; I realized that Efficient and TV don't synergize well, so I'll probably either switch the Experimental, or swap out the whole thing for an OC TV Beam. Or a LR one maybe? So many possibilities. ;) I guess that's what I love most about this game. :)

Anyway first results are very promising. The Pacs are a bit more range-tolerant than regular Frags. The Small OC Beams are pretty good for eating shields and really freeze my ship, as opposed to the Eff one where the TV seemed to do nothing. With the small MC I trade one small slot for a 25% damage boost against hulls, or wait, with the Piercing bonus it's actually more like +44%; it doesn't get much better than that.

The two OC Pacs deliver 3-round bursts in 0.44s for a total of 480 damage; with Corr bonus that's close to 700. If all pellets land on target ofc; but with the much lower spread and higher shot speed than regular Frags that's a lot more doable. ^^

As for Plasma Accelerators -- good catch that G5 Focused (or LR) PAs have higher shot speed than Multis -- so if you use both on one build, it may be smart to only upgrade the PAs to G4 so they have the same projectile speed as the Multis, and therefore (nearly) the same aiming reticule. I bet these got me confused more than once in the past. :p

And I have more plans for the ship in the future... the Chieftain is a gift that keeps on giving. ^^ Too bad only that it doesn't have the internals for mat farming.
Go all the way with PA to G5, that extra speed you gain will help A LOT to land shots ! I was temped to stop at G4, but after I get G5 on them I rarely miss now a volley with them, even at 2-2500m.... and oh boy, when they hit, is hilarious, 20-30% of small /medium ships is gone, and with that sweet speed I am not afraid to aim at Vultures and Eagles, if they come under 1500m ....
Try to put all other hard points beams LR with TV, will help freezing the ship after PA volleys, AND, most important, you can tag the targets from 6km easily, so most of them will come to you with no shields.... when you meet them with a volley of PA !
Also, in such a build you will have only one synth - the PA. Since the PA slugs eat the hulls like butter, you do not need to bother with corrosive MCs, tough....
 
RN I'm trying to figure out a PA-based setup for the Challenger, bc the one I posted before - with the Inertial lasers - seems rather slow and unreliable. I haven't fully optimized it yet though so I might do that first.

Actually I'm not sure what Experimental to put on PAs other than PS. Thermal Conduit doesn't synergize well with TV beams and isn't good for prolonged engagements anyway, so more of a PVP weapon. TLB is useless against NPCs altogether. So maybe plain old Oversized or, conversely, Flow Control.
BTW, Long Range might be even a tad better than Focused? It gives the same velocity boost, but increases range even further and negates falloff entirely, while not giving a Piercing boost that is useless anyway. Power draw can be mitigated with Flow Control while no experimental improves Thermal Load.

Well, more experiments I guess. ^^
 
RN I'm trying to figure out a PA-based setup for the Challenger, bc the one I posted before - with the Inertial lasers - seems rather slow and unreliable. I haven't fully optimized it yet though so I might do that first.

Actually I'm not sure what Experimental to put on PAs other than PS. Thermal Conduit doesn't synergize well with TV beams and isn't good for prolonged engagements anyway, so more of a PVP weapon. TLB is useless against NPCs altogether. So maybe plain old Oversized or, conversely, Flow Control.
BTW, Long Range might be even a tad better than Focused? It gives the same velocity boost, but increases range even further and negates falloff entirely, while not giving a Piercing boost that is useless anyway. Power draw can be mitigated with Flow Control while no experimental improves Thermal Load.

Well, more experiments I guess. ^^
I skipped LR because I will not shoot at targets of more than 2-2,,5 km with PA - so is a useless gain for me; but they add ( LR ) a significant increase in mass, a thing who will penalize Chaffy agility, tough... PD increase sure can be mitigated, but the mass, not so much...
On the other hand focused come with no mass / power penalty, and the range is still 100% extra. The 5% thermal extra is nothing when you run in all the other slots only beams with TV.
 
Meh... tried a quick testrun with 3 Med Plasmas on the Chally last night, only quickly tuned to G1 Eff due to power constraints. Remaining hardpoints all LR lasers. It did not work well. Basically I was forced to Reverski most of the time against tougher opponents, and taking on a Wing resulted in heavy damage. And what's worse, three hard opponents in a row (not winged) managed to escape with sth like 15-20% Hull so those were many minutes of combat for absolutely nothing. -.-

The power supply of my fully upgraded OC PP was barely enough to feed the combat-relevant systems, even with the Efficiant PAs, so I don't see how I can make it work with Focused PAs. The main problem besides power seems to be delivering the damage quickly enough so stricken enemies can't run away.
But hey, at least I didn't come close to running out of ammo! 😂

So I guess I'm gonna try out the Krait II next and see if it has better fortune.
 
Meh... tried a quick testrun with 3 Med Plasmas on the Chally last night, only quickly tuned to G1 Eff due to power constraints. Remaining hardpoints all LR lasers. It did not work well. Basically I was forced to Reverski most of the time against tougher opponents, and taking on a Wing resulted in heavy damage. And what's worse, three hard opponents in a row (not winged) managed to escape with sth like 15-20% Hull so those were many minutes of combat for absolutely nothing. -.-

The power supply of my fully upgraded OC PP was barely enough to feed the combat-relevant systems, even with the Efficiant PAs, so I don't see how I can make it work with Focused PAs. The main problem besides power seems to be delivering the damage quickly enough so stricken enemies can't run away.
But hey, at least I didn't come close to running out of ammo! 😂

So I guess I'm gonna try out the Krait II next and see if it has better fortune.
I suggest to use only 2 PA, the PP and PD will take the load with no sweat.... I usually stay with 3 pips in sys and 3 on weapons, and I can fire the beams almost non-stop, and the PA never run out of juice - the fire rate & slow reload will allow the PD to recover at will.... also, my PD is modded for weapons fast recharge, tough... also, what shields do you have ?
I found , in my experience, at 1500 and + , you are almost invincible... no need to reverse, you are so fraking agile you can stay at will in the tail of your targets, in that sweet spot under 500m...
 
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