"The chieftain can not do that, its boost cycle feels painfully slow in comparison." - why you say that, a Chieffy build with engine focus in PD can boost non-stop with 3 pips only...I never felt Cheffy boost "painfully slow" - a boost each 5-6 sec is "slow", in your opinion ? ...with a speed around 520-530 ?....
But hey, maybe you talk about PvP here.... and that is out of my consideration or arguments.
Yes, objectively spoken it IS very slow, if you compare it to a boost cycle of 2 (!) seconds for 530 ms on my Krait 2 (585 in my Phantom) with just 1 pip in engines. And by the way, my Chieftain boosts every 3 seconds according to coriolis.... And that is with charge enhanced, super conduits on ALL of them.
So there is no valid argument to be made for using ENG focused at all, especially considering its drawbacks regarding the other just as important capacitors.
Yes, objectively spoken it IS very slow, if you compare it to a boost cycle of 2 (!) seconds for 530 ms on my Krait 2 (585 in my Phantom). And by the way, my Chieftain boosts every 3 seconds according to coriolis.... And that is with charge enhanced, super conduits on ALL of them.
So there is no valid argument to be made for using ENG focused at all, especially considering its drawbacks regarding the other just as important capacitors.
I use in my Phantom ENG focused, and the argument is I NEED that, since my build is for jump - 4A thrusters with a 2A PD - was the only way to boost out of danger AND to get near 70 yl jump. Valid arguments, you see, can be made ...
But back on topic - I feel you are focused in your arguments more to a PVP approach, for PvE your arguments are a kind of overkill, by a long shot. I am more than satisfied with boosts for each 3-5 sec - IF I need that much, when I make an escape - because, when you run away, a boost every 2 seconds give you little in terms of gains, if your main purpose is to maintain a high speed for escape.
And please, in a side note, answer me a simple question - do you EVER meet an Krait NPC - attention, NPC ! - able to shake your fully engineered combat Chieftain ? !
Well unsurprisingly, a class 7 PD is better than a class 6. So yeah that's true, a Krait can permaboost with 2 pips to Engines (according to EDSY) where a Chieftain needs 4 pips for the minimum interval -- but otoh the Chief doesn't really need to permaboost. (On the Chally it's a bit more of a drawback)
And the minimum boost cycle is 5 seconds anyway, it doesn't really matter by how much you undercut that.
Well unsurprisingly, a class 7 PD is better than a class 6. So yeah that's true, a Krait can permaboost with 2 pips to Engines (according to EDSY) where a Chieftain needs 4 pips for the minimum interval -- but otoh the Chief doesn't really need to permaboost. (On the Chally it's a bit more of a drawback)
And the minimum boost cycle is 5 seconds anyway, it doesn't really matter by how much you undercut that.
I use in my Phantom ENG focused, and the argument is I NEED that, since my build is for jump - 4A thrusters with a 2A PD - was the only way to boost out of danger AND to get near 70 yl jump. Valid arguments, you see, can be made ...
But back on topic - I feel you are focused in your arguments more to a PVP approach, for PvE your arguments are a kind of overkill, by a long shot. I am more than satisfied with boosts for each 3-5 sec - IF I need that much, when I make an escape - because, when you run away, a boost every 2 seconds give you little in terms of gains, if your main purpose is to maintain a high speed for escape.
And please, in a side note, answer me a simple question - do you EVER meet an Krait NPC - attention, NPC ! - able to shake your fully engineered combat Chieftain ? !
Yeah that is basically the only case that justifies using an engine focused PD. (And maybe some racer builds) But that is not what the argument was about, we are talking combat ships here.
Sure, optimization is not that crucial in a PVE context, but knowing @Kayvan and his drive for perfection, I can't just let something that is objectively suboptimal sit there uncommented, no offence.
And no, the fast boost cycle is not for escaping, but for positioning and range control. Even in my Vulture, which is arguably one of the most agile combat ships out there, I boost whenever I can. Sure you can just sit and facetank and still kill the NPC, but I like to be evasive and take every measure to minimize my exposure to enemy fire.
I think you are misreading the point I am trying to make.
NPC Kraits are sluggish and easy to kill, I agree on that, but again, that is not the topic. I would argue that a well engineered player Krait is nearly as capable at maneuvering and range control as a chieftain, just by other means. I.e. leveraging its amazing boost cycle and PD capacity.
Lets not forget that the original question was for a material gathering combat ship, and that is where the Krait excels by a mile over the Chieftain.
Yeah that is basically the only case that justifies using an engine focused PD. (And maybe some racer builds) But that is not what the argument was about, we are talking combat ships here.
Sure, optimization is not that crucial in a PVE context, but knowing @Kayvan and his drive for perfection, I can't just let something that is objectively suboptimal sit there uncommented, no offence.
And no, the fast boost cycle is not for escaping, but for positioning and range control. Even in my Vulture, which is arguably one of the most agile combat ships out there, I boost whenever I can. Sure you can just sit and facetank and still kill the NPC, but I like to be evasive and take every measure to minimize my exposure to enemy fire.
I think you are misreading the point I am trying to make.
NPC Kraits are sluggish and easy to kill, I agree on that, but again, that is not the topic. I would argue that a well engineered player Krait is nearly as capable at maneuvering and range control as a chieftain, just by other means. I.e. leveraging its amazing boost cycle and PD capacity.
Lets not forget that the original question was for a material gathering combat ship, and that is where the Krait excels by a mile over the Chieftain.
All right about what you said, with just one mention - in PvE the Cheffy do not need boosting at all to easily kill any Krait NPC. I never ever meet a Krait NPC "agile", on the contrary, the only NPCs ships who can "dance" decent are.... other Cheftains. !
Hardly I can remember when I needed to boost when chasing a NPC ( except when he makes a run for escape) and by no means I "face tank" but yes I try to maneuver to get in his tail and to STAY there.
What is the point to have a very agile ship if you do not use that agility to reduce or totally avoid the damage ?...
Many confusions and "hot" arguments fail in this Forum because peoples mix PvE with PvP or do not care // remember to specify the distinction.
Something who can excel in PVE can be a bad choice in PvP and vice versa.
But back at the topic - I own both of them, and I still prefer the Cheffy for combat & mat gathering .... in PvE ( like I said before, no Open Mode for me)
I found a lot easier to avoid damage in Chaffi than in Krait ... but maybe this is just me and my way to have fun - everyone is entitled to his choice and preference, tough.
So, next couple of iterations... the pile of discarded weapons grows higher and higher.
I want to like the Challenger, I really do, but somehow I can't make it work. The ship has great handling and is nice to fly, but that hardpoint setup is driving me nuts.
So I tried with Frags -- total failure. Big opponents were manageable but small ones were way more trouble than it's worth. (And you know how sometimes you have to clear out the current spawns to make room for new ones, so you can't just say "I'm not attacking small ships ever")
One Elite ImpEagle btw was entirely un-killable and I ended up restarting the instance.
Then I thought okay, let's go back to basics and try a beginner-friendly combo - lasers and MCs. And yeah it kinda works but it's not great. Those Medium MCs take too long to chew down a hull even with the Corrosive buff applied. In the end my ammo ran dry on all guns after 15 kills, and in the meantime I had taken severe hull damage and returned to base with sth like 26% hull.
On the other hand, the Krait works as a trash collector, but it's kind of a pain to fly. :/ I mean having to boost all the time or it won't budge at all... and when you're boosting and trying to align the sights on a target and the boost runs out just a split-second too soon... tough luck. :6
So ... two very different ships, and each does one aspect well and is bad at another (at least for me)... tough beans. The quest continues.
So, next couple of iterations... the pile of discarded weapons grows higher and higher.
I want to like the Challenger, I really do, but somehow I can't make it work. The ship has great handling and is nice to fly, but that hardpoint setup is driving me nuts.
So I tried with Frags -- total failure. Big opponents were manageable but small ones were way more trouble than it's worth. (And you know how sometimes you have to clear out the current spawns to make room for new ones, so you can't just say "I'm not attacking small ships ever")
One Elite ImpEagle btw was entirely un-killable and I ended up restarting the instance.
Then I thought okay, let's go back to basics and try a beginner-friendly combo - lasers and MCs. And yeah it kinda works but it's not great. Those Medium MCs take too long to chew down a hull even with the Corrosive buff applied. In the end my ammo ran dry on all guns after 15 kills, and in the meantime I had taken severe hull damage and returned to base with sth like 26% hull.
On the other hand, the Krait works as a trash collector, but it's kind of a pain to fly. :/ I mean having to boost all the time or it won't budge at all... and when you're boosting and trying to align the sights on a target and the boost runs out just a split-second too soon... tough luck. :6
So ... two very different ships, and each does one aspect well and is bad at another (at least for me)... tough beans. The quest continues.
I know what you say, man.... I do my massacre mission in a ResH - and usually I land there with some 8-10 of them, stacked, for a general number of 80-100 kills max.
And yeah, some 60 % or more are SMALL ships, 30% medium and 10 % big. Funny enough, bigger ones are the easier 2 kill, medium you need some focus, and small ones.... well, there is the pain ! BUT....
My formula ( and is working great ! ) was to put, ALWAYS 60% of fire-power in LR beams ! The big points - I run PA or Frags ( no more rails, rails are pathetic against Eagles and that kind ! ) .
Imagine you have a wing of a small NPCs - usually a Cobra // Eagle and / or a Diamond. But you need, as you said, to "clean the room" so big boys or targets 4 your mission show-up. So you MUST delete that wing.
Step 1 - sneak behind the tough one ( I hate the DBX, those things are made from chaff boxes ! ) - blast him at short range, from behind, so he will drop shields that second.
Step 2 - stay in his six, and cook him with beams - I use 4 Beams Gimballed LR with TV ( 3 x small points + 1 medium) - In large I use 2 PA or 2 Frags - it will take some 20-30 sec do get through his hull with beams only, or 5-10 sec only if you are good enough to blast him twice with big weapons.
Now sure , you have his mates - 2 of them - taking shot pots at you on mid-time - you cannot follow both - choose one, and when he starts boost-zooming, just slap him with big weapons and keep him lighted all the time with the beams.- when he rush you in order to get behind you, reverse at full speed & pitch in order to maintain him always in your cross - I found-out is a "magic distance" - between 900-1100m where you can slide ( ahead / reverse - I use the mouse wheel for that) and the NPC will stay there IF you can keep that distance constantly - get closer or further, he will boost rush - pass you.
Step 3 - if you take in a NPC wing of 3 medium, and things get ugly, boost away 2.-3 times - only one of them will follow you at 15-20 km - and you can kill that one in a fair fight of 1 vs 1. I do this when I took too long to kill the first one, and I get to fight the other 2 with shields at 20-30% only. When / IF I hit the last ring, I make a run out, some 15 -20 km ; One of them will follow me, but I have time to make a reboot and get some better shield - so killing that one is not hard. Then I return and I just pick another target ...
You do need beams LR against small ones, to conclude - the fact you keep hitting them hard not just at 1km but also at 5-6 km make all the difference. The fact you can reverse with such speed make almost impossible for them to escape your fire. If your PD is molded for Weapons focus, like mine, you can shoot the beams NON_STOP and STILL have enough juice to slap them hard, once, in the same time, if they go under 500m, with the frags or PA. Having the beams with TV will freeze you nice, so they will have a hard time to hit you, also.
So, next couple of iterations... the pile of discarded weapons grows higher and higher.
I want to like the Challenger, I really do, but somehow I can't make it work. The ship has great handling and is nice to fly, but that hardpoint setup is driving me nuts.
Wanna see my storage?
I see the challenger also has those three awkward small hardpoints I just couldn't get to work on my Chieftain. The only thing they seem to be kinda useful for is with 3 auxilliary feedback cascade Rail Guns. But that sort of defeats the purpose of a mats collector that can stay for a while. I have even tried putting 3 small LR themal vent beams in there, they cool down the ship quite decently, but are too weak to strip bigger shields in a meaningful time. SCB spaming NPC where the ultimate bane for this experiment.
What 'traditional' loadout did you use on the Krait? I run it with 3 large OC Multicannons (2 Autoloaders, 1 Corrosive) and 2 medium LR thermal vent beams. This works quite well for me and feels way stronger than a similar setup on the Chieftain. (again, the three smalls kill it for me)
Of course this is also of limited effectiveness against SCB spamming big ships.
@Homerzilla I was only speaking PvE, don't know how you got the idea that I relating to PvP. And yes you are right in the end it comes down to personal preference, no right or wrong there. Peace?
Wanna see my storage?
I see the challenger also has those three awkward small hardpoints I just couldn't get to work on my Chieftain. The only thing they seem to be kinda useful for is with 3 auxilliary feedback cascade Rail Guns. But that sort of defeats the purpose of a mats collector that can stay for a while. I have even tried putting 3 small LR themal vent beams in there, they cool down the ship quite decently, but are too weak to strip bigger shields in a meaningful time. SCB spaming NPC where the ultimate bane for this experiment.
The smalls are nice for two plasma slug rails and a high cap corrosive turret. a high cap turret takes a long time to run out of ammo, especially if you apply the corrosive
only when the shields are down.
I actually find the 3 smalls great to have for utility as well as lasers for shield stripping. For quite a while I've used that one small corr hicap MC that the hamburger recommends (gimballed however, not turret), plus 2 lasers (recently 2 OC TV beams, which work best for me). Plus one med laser of the same config.
Yesterday I swapped out one laser for a LR FC Rail, to finally have a countermeasure when the enemy spams SCBs. Have to practice more but a first test run had promising results. Ofc that means I have only 1M,1S laser left for shield stripping and to hunt down small fast ships.
On the Chief this goes with 2 OC SS Pacs.
Fire groups are A: Beams + Rail; B: Pacs + MC.
So the problem with the Chally is that there are no Medium Pacs, and it's not quite as easy to bring fixed guns to bear as with the Chief.
--
As for the Krait, idk about "traditional" but very straightforward: 3 OC Pacifiers, 2 gimb med OC TV Beams. And the Pacs don't even have an Exp yet but I'm gonna go for 2 Screening, 1 Corrosive. It works pretty well already, though. I only need one fire group and can use the Pacs also vs shields as weapons of opportunity.
L: OC Auto MC
MM: Rapid Fire Slug PAs
M: OC TV Beam
SS: Beams (mixed)
S: HC Corr MC
And now finally I feel we're getting somewhere! It probably looks like a weird mix, but keep in mind it's still the trial stage. I wanted to give the Plasmas another go, because they offer pretty much the best possible effective damage on Medium slots due to their Absolute Damage portion and 100 Piercing.
Initially I planned to go Focused or LR for the velocity boost and facilitated aiming. But then I thought, I'm going for close-quarter fighting anyway, so let's try and maximize DPS first.
SRBs ofc offer the best alpha but the thermal load is prohibitive imho. OCs are somewhat better, but I wanted to explore other options as well. And then I realized that Rapid Fire actually offers the best sustained DPS of all the PA mods. And bc we can expect to fire a lot more often, I fitted Plasma Slugs to be ammo independent.
I was actually in the middle of fighting in a Haz when my PC preferred to crash, and I decided to call it a day -- but up until then the results have been quite promising. I set up two fire groups, one for Anti-Shield and the other for Anti-Hull, and included the PAs in both. I think it's a pretty good mix of auto-tracking and dumbfire weaponry, so I always have something on hand against small and large opponents, with chaff or without.
Now I might yet add a Railgun with Feedback Cascade, as I have on my Chief. Lose one of the small Beams for that.
--
One more question: is there a way to launch limpets without assigning them to a firegroup? Like you can do with heatsinks? That's really the one annoying thing, that I have to set up either a third firegroup for limpets (which then always gets in the way when switching) or including them in another FG which means an enormous waste of limpets.
One more question: is there a way to launch limpets without assigning them to a firegroup? Like you can do with heatsinks? That's really the one annoying thing, that I have to set up either a third firegroup for limpets (which then always gets in the way when switching) or including them in another FG which means an enormous waste of limpets.
PA's are great, have also grown quite fond of them lately, specially the focused variant. Feels VERY rewarding.
You could just assign the limpet controller to one of your fire groups. Whenever a limpet dies, it gets replaced. Not much goes to waste, because there will be no more summoned then you can have active simultaneously.
I use a 2nd firegroup for the limpet controllers , because A-Grade limpets have quite a long duration, so doesn't hurt much switching every once in a while and summon a new set.
Afaik they can only be used via fire group btw.
You are right about PA.s, those "surprise" hits, who can take away the shields in one second, at first salvo, are damn refreshing.... I use efficient ones because of heat & power & extra dam in my Challenger, a class III one and 2 class II, and all the rest beams LR with TV. When I deal with those pesky NPC wings of "24/7 chaff DBX" I use to sneak on the six of one of them and with the 3 PA usually I only need 2 hits to kill one of them in less than 10 sec - this allow me to deal with other 2 a lot more relaxed...
Probably nothing compare to the feeling when you watch an intact ship loosing shields at first hit
Yeah the problem with limpets and the Chally is that they die all the time when you release them in a dogfight. I guess the ship turns so quickly that it rams its own limpets to death, or you boost out of range in no time. In direct comparison, the Krait's limpets live much longer. But I have come to the conclusion the Krait's a pain to fly. Guess I'll turn it into a storage ship.
Still juggling numbers and fine-tuning the Challenger. Tried a Large Eff PA on top and it's not bad but the distro draw is enormous and heat buildup considerable.
Also tried a med FBC Rail and Large TV Beam and it would be useful but it messed with my fire groups, so I decided to drop it again. Really too bad that at some point in the next 1300 years we lose the ability to assign more than 2 buttons. :6
So basically I think I'm pretty close to the optimum. The core setup works and is fun to play. ^^
But still not as much fun as the Chieftain. That one's just a charm. <3
Yeah the problem with limpets and the Chally is that they die all the time when you release them in a dogfight. I guess the ship turns so quickly that it rams its own limpets to death, or you boost out of range in no time. In direct comparison, the Krait's limpets live much longer. But I have come to the conclusion the Krait's a pain to fly. Guess I'll turn it into a storage ship.
The boost turning of Krait is great, but the problem I found, is the fact you get away too much, from boosting, so your short-medium range weapons are useless - you need to boost again to get close, and so on...
On the other hand, Cheffy turn almost in place, is so sweet to follow an Eagle without touching the boost.... probably the turning radius of the Cheffy is like 10 x SMALLER than the Krait boosting ... reason why Cheffy feels so much better.
The boost turning of Krait is great, but the problem I found, is the fact you get away too much, from boosting, so your short-medium range weapons are useless - you need to boost again to get close, and so on...
On the other hand, Cheffy turn almost in place, is so sweet to follow an Eagle without touching the boost.... probably the turning radius of the Cheffy is like 10 x SMALLER than the Krait boosting ... reason why Cheffy feels so much better.
Have you tried boost turning in with full downward thrust while pitching upwards? In my experience the Krait flips 180° virtually on the spot when you do that.
I use lateral thusters while boosting all the time to translate the boost thrust into lateral movement. This way you won't overshoot and create too much distance to your target. Works with all ships of course, but especially well on the Krait because of its fast boost cycle.
Yeah, that's how I fly since I switched to dual joysticks. Before, I had stick and kb and I just hammered the thrusters more or less randomly mostly to evade incoming fire
But as said before, all that works on the Chief (and a bit worse, the Chally) even without boost. XD And on the Krait my problem is that the first boost often runs out of steam just a bit too soon, but a second boost would be too much and cause me to overshoot. It just kinda feels like a truck with nitro injection.
Have you tried boost turning in with full downward thrust while pitching upwards? In my experience the Krait flips 180° virtually on the spot when you do that.
I use lateral thusters while boosting all the time to translate the boost thrust into lateral movement. This way you won't overshoot and create too much distance to your target. Works with all ships of course, but especially well on the Krait because of its fast boost cycle.
That is too much for me, thanks, I am a humble mouse user
But like Kayvan here says, Cheffy is so easy and nimble to turn, without any boost - and you can control the range much better.... Usually in Krait I come or too close, and I overshoot...or I need a second boost, and I get again too close... sure may be a thing of practice, but Cheffy is so much friendly to fly....
...
So yeah that's true, a Krait can permaboost with 2 pips to Engines (according to EDSY) where a Chieftain needs 4 pips for the minimum interval -- but otoh the Chief doesn't really need to permaboost. (On the Chally it's a bit more of a drawback)
