Ships Alliance Crusader "Muhammad Ali"

[AEBRAM]

07 Commanders,

I am here to share a ship build that I simply nicknamed the “Muhammad Ali.” To quote the great boxer, “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. You can't hit what your eyes don't see.”

Muhammad Ali was designed with the intent and purpose to have sophisticated technology i.e., cold running with superior thermal load handling. This presiding ideal was the motivation on the blueprint choices for the three core modules – power plant, thrusters, and FSD – and other blueprints that have thermal load reduction benefits. The optional internals were geared towards Hull tanking (~52-53% balanced resistances) and the hardpoints are c3/c2 Plasma and c1x3 Shock cannons. On the lower c2 hardpoint, I am still testing whether to have c3/c2x2 Plasma or c1x3/c2 Shock cannons since the lower c2 hardpoint gets swapped for the Remote Flechette Launcher for Odessey missions. The c6 Fighter Bay optimizes the uptime on the launched fighter, which translates into more damage potential gained from the fighter.

For those CMDRS that wanted to try the Alliance Crusader but never dared. Here is my Corollis ship build link for Muhammad Ali.

Here is some combat footage using the ship. I play the Elite Dangerous on the PC with keyboard/mouse. This video has me running c1x3xc2 Shock cannons. I could sit in dead space and rapid fire all four shock cannons to the last ammunition shot and never overheat the ship.

Last comments,

Even though the thrusters were engineered with Clean r5 and Drive Distributors versus the Dirty Drag + Drag Drives, I thought the ship handled nimble enough to engage and dog fight the two FDL. There is only a 3% pitch difference between the two, and the 3% on keyboard and mouse can make the ship a little squirrelly - You may notice me trying to get a smoother line up on volleys periodically.

 

[Three Stars]

Honestly, you're far better off going with Dirty/Drag on the thrusters, and then just take pips out of ENG to blunt its responsiveness. Pip management becomes pretty important in combat, especially if you end up making your weapons something other than efficient. Anyway, Clean Drives is basically fool's gold. Any thermal benefit you get is minimal since thrusters only generate heat when you're accelerating/decelerating. The Crusader moves like it has a full diaper at the best of times, so some extra oomph is welcome. Clean Drives also uses more power than Dirty Drives, and a lot of your baseline heat comes from power usage.

Hull Reinforcement Packages should be Heavy Duty with Deep Plating, except for the single Thermal Resist one that balances your resistances. You'll get more effective HP for each damage type. You will also very much want at least two Module Reinforcement Packages available (for 84% module protection), as this ship will tend to lose its shields. All of the Alliance C-ships have vulnerable modules in general.

Shield boosters should use the Super Capacitors experimental unless you truly need the extra power from Flow Control...which you don't.

Having Supercruise Assist or a Docking Computer is a personal preference, but for a combat ship I'd rather use the slots for additional hull, module protection, or shields.

A grade life support is a another personal preference, but if you're fighting in the bubble and have convenient stations or carriers around, you probably don't need 25 minutes of auxiliary life support.

For example: https://s.orbis.zone/kx67

 

[AEBRAM]

Honestly, you're far better off going with Dirty/Drag on the thrusters, and then just take pips out of ENG to blunt its responsiveness. Pip management becomes pretty important in combat, especially if you end up making your weapons something other than efficient. Anyway, Clean Drives is basically fool's gold. Any thermal benefit you get is minimal since thrusters only generate heat when you're accelerating/decelerating. The Crusader moves like it has a full diaper at the best of times, so some extra oomph is welcome. Clean Drives also uses more power than Dirty Drives, and a lot of your baseline heat comes from power usage.

Hull Reinforcement Packages should be Heavy Duty with Deep Plating, except for the single Thermal Resist one that balances your resistances. You'll get more effective HP for each damage type. You will also very much want at least two Module Reinforcement Packages available (for 84% module protection), as this ship will tend to lose its shields. All of the Alliance C-ships have vulnerable modules in general.

Shield boosters should use the Super Capacitors experimental unless you truly need the extra power from Flow Control...which you don't.

Having Supercruise Assist or a Docking Computer is a personal preference, but for a combat ship I'd rather use the slots for additional hull, module protection, or shields.

A grade life support is a another personal preference, but if you're fighting in the bubble and have convenient stations or carriers around, you probably don't need 25 minutes of auxiliary life support.

For example: https://s.orbis.zone/kx67

I have a spare 6A thruster module engineered for Drag/Drag. I understand that you generate heat while accelerating/decelerating but unless you're in FA off mode using vectors then the thruster yo-yo of up-down happens very often with boosts. I know that it is well documented drag/drag give you the most speed and boost; however, for this ship, I wanted to try something new, outside the thruster's meta blueprints. The level of self-cooling cannot be compared to drag/drag while persistently firing high heat generating weapons.

I agree that super cruise and docking assistants are optional. I would disagree with the hull reinforcement being HD/deep plating + one thermal/deep plating as the best loadout because you're only getting ~60 more hull integrity with ~2-3% less balanced resistances with more # of modules. Carrying forward with c2/c1 hull reinforcements from my original hull reinforcement config. (Using the same # modules as your example), I would achieve 56-56.9% resistance with +600 hull integrity by filling in those two optional lots - and achieving a better overall result than strictly using HD/deep plating.

For example, https://s.orbis.zone/kx9i

 

[Three Stars]

I agree that super cruise and docking assistants are optional. I would disagree with the hull reinforcement being HD/deep plating + one thermal/deep plating as the best loadout because you're only getting ~60 more hull integrity with ~2-3% less balanced resistances with more # of modules. Carrying forward with c2/c1 hull reinforcements from my original hull reinforcement config. (Using the same # modules as your example), I would achieve 56-56.9% resistance with +600 hull integrity by filling in those two optional lots - and achieving a better overall result than strictly using HD/deep plating.

For example, https://s.orbis.zone/kx9i

Here's your build with my HRP engineering. Same number of HRPs. Apples to apples. https://s.orbis.zone/kxb7

Here's a comparison of effective HP. Yours is on the top. Mine is on the bottom.

The point here is that "balance" in resistance percentages means very little. Those percentages are simply multiplied by the absolute strength of your hull. If you skimp on integrity then you're hurting your HP. Deep Plating is better in the vast majority of cases because Fdev has made it that way mathematically. Whether that's a good idea for game balance is another conversation entirely...but it's still the better way to do things with your hull.

Now, you're always going to have more HP doing it your way because you insist on skipping Module Reinforcement Packages. That is, for all intents and purposes, like skipping seat belts for your passengers because your car's seats are so cushioned. It's all good until someone takes a bad enough jolt.

 

[AEBRAM]

Now, you're always going to have more HP doing it your way because you insist on skipping Module Reinforcement Packages. That is, for all intents and purposes, like skipping seat belts for your passengers because your car's seats are so cushioned. It's all good until someone takes a bad enough jolt.

Excellent comparison. I may be revisiting the experiments. I was skipping the module reinforcement packages because I was founding that even when the hull integrity is beaten down to 48% that the module damage has been fairly light and not close to disabling the ship combat effectiveness. I admit that I have often built ships around shields with less focus on hull other than the minimum, so jumping the hoops here has been a learning experience since the iterations of ship building (whatever ship model) gets better, stronger and more capable. Veteran combat pilots, such as yourself, helps since often experiencing and learning is different than textbook learning when ships have different in nuances to the changes.

I took the ship out with 6A drag/drag and the ship was more maneuverable, naturally and it did not have a significant impact on the objective goal to ride the critical heat line. Thank you for the tip.

I could switch the weapons out for fire friendliness, but I have been stubborn to learn fixed fire shooting on keyboard and mouse piloting. IF, I ever get a handle on FA off without the wobbles then I will pilot more with FA off.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Crusader is an interesting ship. As an owner of the whole C ship line up, I can admit to using the Crusader the most of the 3 simply for the SLF. Honestly I fly the SLF more than the mothership though. I find it lacking in the firepower department for my tastes but it is sufficient for casually cherry picking material piñatas in a haz res. If you decide to take your damage output to the next level, gunship is a formidable alternative although it does require FA off to really shine. Fly dangerous 07

 

[Three Stars]

C-ships are great fixed weapon learning platforms. You get a large hardpoint that’s right above the aiming dot, and some small ones that surround that point. You can also outturn most ships and get free shots at important modules like the power plant.

The secret sauce for the C ships is that there are several weapon options that make small hardpoints punch way stronger than their weight. I’m quite fond of both cytoscramblers (fixed small anti-shield only burst laser with jitter) and advanced dumbfire missile launchers (much higher ammo reserve). I’ve dabbled with Enforcers (fixed small multicannons with unusually high damage and shot speed) as well.

A couple of efficient cytoscramblers all but take care of your anti-shield needs by themselves, which means you can save your biggest boomers for hull or module killing.

 

[sinisalo]

Clean drives are a trap, but blaze your own.

Clean drives will run slightly cooler, but only a point or two in most builds, and then, only in normal flight, with clean drives having no advantage in supercruise. Part of the issue that may not be obvious at first, is that clean drives pull more power, in essence handing back some of the gains you might assume they are granting.

And also, clean drives only run cooler when maneuvering. Once the ship's attitude and speed are constant there is no benefit. Actually, where clean drives have a distinct advantage is when chain boosting, where the additional heat from dirty drives stacks.

So it comes down to a decision about whether running a point or two cooler in certain modes of flight outweighs the much faster speeds and lower power requirements of dirty drives.

I was once a clean drive proponent, then I tested it. Cool running is a core fundamental of my builds, and speed is too. Clean drives fail to pay off in the ways I assumed they would. It's an engineering trap and every ship in my fleet now sports dirty drives, even the Dolphin which idles at 9%. And the DBX at 11%. The advantage that clean drives offer is too fleeting to be worth the trade-off in speed. Speed is life.

 

[AEBRAM]

Clean drives are a trap but blaze your own.

Clean drives will run slightly cooler, but only a point or two in most builds, and then, only in normal flight, with clean drives having no advantage in supercruise. Part of the issue that may not be obvious at first, is that clean drives pull more power, in essence handing back some of the gains you might assume they are granting.

And also, clean drives only run cooler when maneuvering. Once the ship's attitude and speed are constant there is no benefit. Actually, where clean drives have a distinct advantage is when chain boosting, where the additional heat from dirty drives stacks.

So it comes down to a decision about whether running a point or two cooler in certain modes of flight outweighs the much faster speeds and lower power requirements of dirty drives.

I was once a clean drive proponent, then I tested it. Cool running is a core fundamental of my builds, and speed is too. Clean drives fail to pay off in the ways I assumed they would. It's an engineering trap and every ship in my fleet now sports dirty drives, even the Dolphin which idles at 9%. And the DBX at 11%. The advantage that clean drives offer is too fleeting to be worth the trade-off in speed. Speed is life.

Clean drives are an excellent choice for non-combat ships combined with thermal spread on both Power Plant and FSD, in my opinion.

After flying the Crusader and will still be flying some more.

These are three points that could elevate the ship viability status:

• The Crusader should gain +c5 (if generous an additional +c1) optional internal slot for the extra 50t over the Challenger mass.
• The Crusader top (or bottom) mounted med/c2 hardpoint should be upgraded to large/c3 hardpoint to close the DPS gap between the Krait mk2 and Gunship; being one of the three Medium-size ship classes that are fighter bay compatible.
• The Crusader should increase the top speed (196-204 m/s speed) to be comparable to the Challenger (204 m/s speed / 310 m/s boost) base attributes.

When you compare all three of the Medium-size fighter bay compatible ships, you quickly learn the Krait mk2 is fast and DPS greater than Crusader but less than Gunship. Whereas the Gunship is slower than the Krait mk2 but same with Crusader and the highest DPS potential of the three. Should FDev read this thread, the above changes would improve the hull tanking design of the Crusader with the extra c5 optional modules, gain some extra DPS from the hardpoint upgrade (while still being less than either Krait mk2 or Gunship), and the improved m/s speed increase would place the ship between the Gunship and Krait mk2.

 

[AEBRAM]

07 Commanders.

This is an update on the Crusader ship build to address some previous cons:

1. Changed the hardpoints to be more responsive to increase the outgoing damage rate: damage taken to destroy the target. I am a fan of the PA weapons, a solid hitting choice but the alpha hits were lack lusting to get "fast" kills.

2. Changed the shield generator modules by upgrading to a 5A Prismatic Shield (reinforced/hi cap) and the traditional OA Shield Boosters (resistance/super cap, thermal resist, thermal block, 2x heavy duty/super cap) for raw shield MJ to absorb incoming damage and provide a better buffer zone to the hull integrity.

3. Dropped two hull reinforcements for 2x 2D module reinforcements to absorb module damage. More particularly, the canopy from easily being blown out.

Here are some hazardous res zone combat clips. I still stand that the Crusader could use an additional optional internal slot and +m/s speed increase.

Source: https://youtu.be/eT-_-V_3xuw


and another short clip v. an Anaconda

Source: https://youtu.be/EE75xJ45yKA


Overall, I was satisfied with the hardpoints and engineered blueprints. I was using 2x adv. 1B/D missile racks in both clips. For CZ, I would switch them out for 2x railguns with cascading feedback. These were casual PVE bounty hunting clips.

This was the ship build used in the video: https://s.orbis.zone/l1as

...still piloting the Crusader which is a decent ship but could use some FDev love on the ship stats.

Edited: 07 Commanders and anyone interested in the Crusader. The final build of the Crusader uses a 6c Bi Shield (reinforced/hi cap) with same R/SC, TR/SC, HD/SC, HD/SC shield boosters (843 MJ shield) and dropped the Adv 1B/D missiles for a pair of Rails (LR/FC). A quick comment note: The Crusader FB DPS efficiency relies heavily on the NPC pilot rating more so than the other medium class fighter compatible ships due to the lower hardpoint DPS difference.

Final ship build: https://s.orbis.zone/l574

 

[AEBRAM]

07 Commanders,

I am posting here to stay under the Alliance Crusader thread and continue sharing the ship build.

The Alliance Crusader is an 'advanced' ship that requires engineering and the SF to have worthy damage output time on target DPS. Allow me to elaborate on my experience piloting the ship in combat and other activities e.g., exploration here about some pros and cons of the ship.

The ship combat build is reliant on having a SF Bay to achieve the damage output potential necessary to efficiently splash targets. This nixes out your class 5 optional internal by default, and by association, incurs the NPC percentage fee on anything done while the crew member is active. During the many different combat engagements, single target or fighting a wing of medium ships with Master+ ratings, the absence of the NPC SF is remarkably noticed on how much damage you sustain up to how effective your damage output is to splash single targets or opponents in wings. To the extent, it negatively impacts the survival of the ship - Even with the NPC SF being less than competent rating hurts.

However, being reliant on having a SF Bay to achieve the damage output potential does confer a strength at the cost of the internal module. Once the NPC SF pilot does reach Elite+ rating than the Alliance Crusader combat capabilities begins to be pulled up by the bootstraps, and the overall damage potential of the ship is noticed.

Also, A nice to know is the Alliance Crusader does have an Armor Rating of 65. This is a pretty cool pro with the potential damage mitigation due to the penetration vs. armor rating differences. Although, to get the best tank-ey returns from the armor rating does mean the ship build will need at least the hull reinforcement in ALL the military slots and one class 3 hull reinforcement minimum. All of them should be engineered with HD + Deep Plating. In addition to those hull reinforcement modules, you should install at least one class 2 module reinforcement package to protect the canopy.

Having so many modules dedicated to hull reinforcement and module reinforcement packages needs to have a solid, high MJ shield that recharges faster than class A or prismatic shields since SCB are too inefficient. After several bouts of ship combat, I have determined the ship needs a minimum of 750 MJ bi-weave shield backed by OA SB (1x Thermal, 1x Resistance, 2x HD + Super Capacitors on each one). The slow nature of the ship is one reason for the requirement and the other part is the fact that you will be hit and hit often for the first reason, so you need some stay power on your side.

These are some observations from testing and piloting the Crusader into combat. Oh, I did take another Commander's suggestion to use Guardian Overcharged Plasma Chargers instead of the 2x small Railguns. This weapon switch has proven to be awesome. Otherwise, the ship being used is the same as before but here is an updated EDSY link: https://s.orbis.zone/leo9. A quick note, the Power Plant has to be Armored, which plays into the overall performance of the ship to avoid perpetual overheating while constantly firing weapons.

Anyways, for those who wanted to try the Alliance Crusader but discouraged should try it out. I have teamed with other players and each one has made unsolicited compliments on the ship build and how effective it is, as it can splash a target before they tagged it.

Here is a video clip using the suggested modules e.g. armor and with the SF with the Crusader in a mini-game event defending a megaship. This is a solid performing build for a marathon run chasing targets and the ship held up despite the hull damage.

Source: https://youtu.be/41HQuo7F5yo