Ships Weapon suggestions for this MkII for bounty hunting NPCs?

[Piratescribe]

So here's what I have so far: https://s.orbis.zone/di62
(yes, only just begun the engineering course... tis why I'm carrying a wave scanner as well, so I can keep collecting all the various wake echoes I need!)
I want to use this for bounty hunting (NPCs only, no PvP!) and maybe assassination missions. What weapons would you recommend?
I know beam is good for getting rid of shielding ... but then what? And fixed or gimbaled? From what I'm reading, all my weapons should probably be gimballed?
Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Kayvan]

The typical beginner-friendly combo is a mix of lasers and multicannons, all gimballed. Due to the way armour works, the biggest slots should be anti-hull, i.e. MCs. But keep in mind large MCs have a significant spin up time.

Either way for a Crate MkII try:
2 medium Beam lasers
3 large Multicannons, Overcharged, 1 with Corrosive experimental, the other two with Auto-loader, or Incendiary

If you find your dmg vs shields lacking, Incendiary will help with that, but it reduces the performance against most hulls.

Edit: those optional internals won't do at all. ^^ Upgrade the shield to a 6C Bi-Weave. In general, always fit the biggest shield possible in any ship that is supposed to see combat. Except for very niche cases that use no shield at all.

Add a few Hull and Module reinforcements bc you will lose your shields often as long as they are unengineered.
Swap the armour (bulkheads) for Military Alloy for now, but don't engineer them too much, you'll want to switch to Reactive later.

More later, gtg

 

[VR Roxydog]

For a start It's worth having maybe 2 long range plasma slug rails as they are fixed and gets you practicing early also you won't run out of ammo.
For the others for the time being until you get gud gimballed is OK - either beam or burst is stronger than pulse. Also multicannon are great.
I have a full G5 Krait Mk2 and tried gimballed in place of fixed lasers(same experimental ect.) It took 3 times as long to kill similar ships so well worth practising with part fixed and eventually going all fixed. I'm very good with fixed after lots of practising .

Your ship needs alot of work - get a bigger power plant - armoured is good - you'll need it to power your weapons.

 

[Kayvan]

Yeah in the long run you'll want Fixed, bc the best weapons don't come in gimballed, but don't pressure yourself ^^

 

[Ceekay]

Here's a general purpose Krait mk 2 BH build https://s.orbis.zone/diet it does have a lot of engineering and Guardian tech but it's capable of destroying Anacondas in pirate threat zones (probably the toughest single NPC threat apart from Thargoids).

In a HazRES it's a little OP unless you take on a "heavy" wing (conda + 2 x mediums) with that kind of threat you can run out of shielding kinda fast so perhaps add some SCB's to prop up the shields or employ shoot and scoot tactics (do some damage then run away and let your shields regen a bit)

 

[Piratescribe]

The typical beginner-friendly combo is a mix of lasers and multicannons, all gimballed. Due to the way armour works, the biggest slots should be anti-hull, i.e. MCs. But keep in mind large MCs have a significant spin up time.

Either way for a Crate MkII try:
2 medium Beam lasers
3 large Multicannons, Overcharged, 1 with Corrosive experimental, the other two with Auto-loader, or Incendiary

If you find your dmg vs shields lacking, Incendiary will help with that, but it reduces the performance against most hulls.

Edit: those optional internals won't do at all. ^^ Upgrade the shield to a 6C Bi-Weave. In general, always fit the biggest shield possible in any ship that is supposed to see combat. Except for very niche cases that use no shield at all.

Add a few Hull and Module reinforcements bc you will lose your shields often as long as they are unengineered.
Swap the armour (bulkheads) for Military Alloy for now, but don't engineer them too much, you'll want to switch to Reactive later.

More later, gtg

Good advice, thank you!
Yeah, the shields I totally dropped the ball on... I'd been doing just exploring for days now and still had that purpose in mind

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Depending where you are with Engineering, you might want to use burst lasers instead of beams. Beams suck a ton of distributor juice without Engineering. If you feel like a rewarding challenge, try some plasma or cannons too. At this stage of the game, i think the best thing you can do is try out a bunch of different options and then start Engineering the setup that feels more your style. A well meaning colleague here on the forum may suggest beams but after trying them, you decide pulses are more your style because of the greater efficiency. Anyhow, get ready to collect every material so you can afford to experiment.

 

[Maelstrom5K]

Soo, here's my take at a vanilla beginners Krait II, based on what you posted.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Nothing fancy, fixed beams and gimballed MCs.
Beams are the easiest fixed weapons to hit, so you can practice that. Two fixed medium beams should work with the big 7A distributor. Just point the right end at the enemy.
I dropped the wake scanner, because vanila shields are weak, so you'll want every MJ you can get.
No reactive armor for less cost and rebuy, HRPs for enough survivability.
I left the stuff on the small internal slots, but if you throw that out you could get a more capable combat ship.

A few entry level hints:

• NEVER NEVER NEVER skip out on the PD, it is the most vital part of a combat ship.
• NPCs will spam you with missiles once your shield drop. Missiles wreck external modules, like your weapons.
• A combat ship should have almost all internals filled with HRPs. Then a few MRPs for hull tanks, or SCBs for shield tanks.
• Practice docking so you can drop the docking computer ASAP. (You could carry one more HRP.)
• Practice pip management, it will make your ship perform a lot better (e.g. 2.6 times the shield strength if always with 4 pips in shields when under fire).
• You could put the KWS on a fire button together with weapons, so you scan the enemies while firing at them. Without at least Fast Scan G4 engineering (3.5s scan duration) you won't have enough time on target though against most ships. You can still scan, but you'll pepper the void (or system authority ships) during that time.

 

[Faded Glory]

To your weapons questions, lasers for getting rid of shields and multi-canons for destroying the hull. I tend to use pulse lasers a lot as I can fire them indefinitely without draining my capacitor. Beams are Ok of course, and can be very effective with the thermal vent engineering special effect.

Start with gimballed but aim for fixed. When I started playing the game couldn't use fixed weapons to hit a planet, but with a better joystick (and practice) I now have some fixed weapons on pretty much all my ships. As mentioned, lasers are the easiest fixed weapons to use, so I will usually use those and gimballed multi-canons.

For what it's worth, here are my two Krait Mk II's.

This one for bounty hunting at RES (which I do very rarely)

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

And this one kitted out very specifically for doing wing assassination missions.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Piratescribe]

Soo, here's my take at a vanilla beginners Krait II, based on what you posted.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Nothing fancy, fixed beams and gimballed MCs.
Beams are the easiest fixed weapons to hit, so you can practice that. Two fixed medium beams should work with the big 7A distributor. Just point the right end at the enemy.
I dropped the wake scanner, because vanila shields are weak, so you'll want every MJ you can get.
No reactive armor for less cost and rebuy, HRPs for enough survivability.
I left the stuff on the small internal slots, but if you throw that out you could get a more capable combat ship.

A few entry level hints:

• NEVER NEVER NEVER skip out on the PD, it is the most vital part of a combat ship.
• NPCs will spam you with missiles once your shield drop. Missiles wreck external modules, like your weapons.
• A combat ship should have almost all internals filled with HRPs. Then a few MRPs for hull tanks, or SCBs for shield tanks.
• Practice docking so you can drop the docking computer ASAP. (You could carry one more HRP.)
• Practice pip management, it will make your ship perform a lot better (e.g. 2.6 times the shield strength if always with 4 pips in shields when under fire).
• You could put the KWS on a fire button together with weapons, so you scan the enemies while firing at them. Without at least Fast Scan G4 engineering (3.5s scan duration) you won't have enough time on target though against most ships. You can still scan, but you'll pepper the void (or system authority ships) during that time.

Some good advice to think about... couple questions...
You mention NEVER skip out on the PD ("point defense" I assume?) but your example didn't include one. Am I missing something?

You suggest the KWS on the same firing button... but, if you shoot at something without knowing if it's wanted, doesn't that put warrants/bounties out on YOU? I just want to get the baddies, not shoot at innocents. And isn't hitting an Authority ship a surefire way to get a bounty on you, or more likely outright killed?

 

[Faded Glory]

PD - In this case Power Distributor.

The KWS just gives you bounties that a ship may have outside the jurisdiction that you are currently in. Put simply, if you are in a Federation system and the ship you are targeting has a bounty with the Federation and also one in the Empire, if you do scan with the KWS then you will get both bounties. If you don't scan with the KWS you only get the Federation bounty. (Bear in mind that many if not most bounties are given by local minor factions.)

In theory, if you scan a ship with a KWS and it's not wanted in the current jurisdiction, but is wanted in another (I believe it has to be an aligned jurisdiction, i.e. both Federation aligned for example - but stand to be corrected on that) then you won't get wanted for shooting it. Don't hold me to that though, I haven't used a KWS in years, there's plenty of credits to be had without those additional bounties.

Best advice, keep it simple, make sure the ship is wanted where you are before you shoot it, by doing the basic ship scan. If you then have the KWS bound to your trigger it will scan for additional bounties while you are shooting, but you are good to go anyway because the ship is wanted where you are.

 

[Piratescribe]

PD - In this case Power Distributor.

The KWS just gives you bounties that a ship may have outside the jurisdiction that you are currently in. Put simply, if you are in a Federation system and the ship you are targeting has a bounty with the Federation and also one in the Empire, if you do scan with the KWS then you will get both bounties. If you don't scan with the KWS you only get the Federation bounty. (Bear in mind that many if not most bounties are given by local minor factions.)

In theory, if you scan a ship with a KWS and it's not wanted in the current jurisdiction, but is wanted in another (I believe it has to be an aligned jurisdiction, i.e. both Federation aligned for example - but stand to be corrected on that) then you won't get wanted for shooting it. Don't hold me to that though, I haven't used a KWS in years, there's plenty of credits to be had without those additional bounties.

Best advice, keep it simple, make sure the ship is wanted where you are before you shoot it, by doing the basic ship scan. If you then have the KWS bound to your trigger it will scan for additional bounties while you are shooting, but you are good to go anyway because the ship is wanted where you are.

AH! OK, I maxed out my Power DIst so I think I'm OK. Just need to engineer it when I can.

Scanning... OK, I was still confused so I had to do some searching for combat basics... OHHH OK when you target a ship and point at it and do NOTHING else you scan the ship and it will tell you if it's wanted! Which is why it NOW makes sense to put the KWS on the fire group. I had thought you needed the KWS to even see if a ship is wanted in the first place -- so it just wasn't making sense why I'd shoot first and see if it's a good or bad guy after the bullets are already flying I gotchya now! Good tip ^_^

 

[Dragsham]

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She's a bounty hunter (pve pacifiers fitted but l do have pvp versions) with a good fsd for long pursuits. Again I have a shielded fsd for pvp.
The rails "peck" and the frags do the rest once l close in.
A great ship deserves good weps.

o7

 

[Oytis57]

Whatever you feel confortable with, in PvE you don't even need to go beyond G3 for weapons.

 

[Ashnak]

That's what I use:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

More or less a general loadout - depending on what you want to do, the cargo/SRV/surface scanner slots can take whatever you want/need. Like cargo/collector controllers (for mat collecting or Black Box missions), Guardian Shields Boosters,... - or swap in a larger fighter hangar if your NPC pilot tends to treat them as expendables.

Just one thing: Don't ever take her into a Combat Zone, and otherwise be very careful whenever non-hostiles may be in the area. There's no such thing as a tolerated friendly fire when we're talking about triple Pacifiers.

Oh, and she tends to go through a lot of ammo.

 

[Kayvan]

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

She's a bounty hunter (pve pacifiers fitted but l do have pvp versions)

FWIW, I have come to the verdict that OC is the "Golden" mod for Pacs/Frags. Hi-Cap only offers some 18% more endurance (potential damage) than OC, but OC has better Burst and SDPS.
It's more than enough for Assassination missions and when bounty hunting in Wing, I usually have ammo left when my wingmates run dry (or get tired). ^^

 

[Ashnak]

FWIW, I have come to the verdict that OC is the "Golden" mod for Pacs/Frags.

Should we start this discussion again ?
OC/SS gives more overall damage potential, but you have to live with the reload time reducing your SDPS. Rapid Fire/SS gives the same burst DPS, but better SDPS due to dramatically reduced reload time (0.88 vs. 2.5 seconds), at the price of roughly halved total damage potential (i.e. double ammo consumption).

But the decision between OC, RF and possibly Double Shot is a matter of personal taste, depending on where your priorities are.

 

[Kayvan]

Yes that's correct ^^ ofc that's my personal assessment. I did the theoretical analysis and first went for HiCap/SS, and yes it was okay, but then after trying out OC as well I decided that I prefer the latter. ^^

TBH I haven't tried RF on Pacs yet; the theoretical SDPS is ginormous (sth like 120 per gun) but I'm a bit worried the jitter stacking to 2.2° might yank it out of my comfort zone.
I plan to build a pair of them anyway and check them out. ^^

 

[Ism]

For those like me that don't wish to put in the time and effort to get good with rails and PA's, you might try the following.

This goes against conventional advice for loadouts but it will allow you to farm HazRes and CZ's without worrying about running out of ammo.
Gimballed burst lasers engineered to grade 5 efficient weapon and "oversized" special effect.
With a properly engineered ship, you can shoot all day on 3 pips to weapons without overheating or running out of weapon energy.

I tested burst lasers with kinetic special effect.
They are great for bringing down a hull if you do close in fighting, but I found them mostly ineffective on targets more than 500 meters distance because of the jitter.
And terrible for targeting modules. Enemy ship might as well be running continuous chaff if you are using kinetic.

When you have plenty of mats and wish to experiment, do some comparison tests in HasRes between engineered burst lasers and engineered MC's firing standard ammo. I didn't find a huge difference in the speed of target destruction over engineered burst lasers except on ships with mirrored hulls.
And when it comes to sustained farming, I chose to ditch the MC's.

 

[CMDR D Noize]

This goes against conventional advice for loadouts but it will allow you to farm HazRes and CZ's without worrying about running out of ammo.
Gimballed burst lasers engineered to grade 5 efficient weapon and "oversized" special effect.
With a properly engineered ship, you can shoot all day on 3 pips to weapons without overheating or running out of weapon energy.

I love Burst Lasers! Combined with a Corrosive MC they can be devastating to internal modules.
Who cares about convention, I find weapons are much more of a personal preference.

And on that note this is my Massacre/HazRes/Mat Farming Krait II...

Kiryu Mk II

I built & designed this one around the theme of Kiryu (the Japanese name for Mecha Godzilla) so it features Lasers, an MC, Pack Hounds and plenty of Armour to reflect this.
It also has a Double Fighter Bay with a Laser Condor & Plasma Taipan for extra fun and rapid redeployment in the event an SLF goes boom.
And there's enough room for some Collector Limpets to scoop the remains while still being robust & quick enough to handle itself in a fight.

The Krait II is a great ship, I have 3 of them now. This one for PvE and 2 for AX stuff (one for Scouts and one for Interceptors).