Ships Agility vs Armor for beginner Bounty Hunting

Troopi

Troopi
Maybe change to a better ship?
My second ship after making missions with the sidewinder was a cobra mkII. I did my bounties with that.
 

CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
Armor it up, man. It’ll still outmaneuver just about anything, even with a sturdy hull.

Actually, any ship with crappy shields, like the eagle, needs armor to survive combat.

Since the shielding is gonna be awful no matter what, mine usually looks like this.
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
Eagle's mighty frail. Great fun to fly, superb view. Cannot take much of a beating.

As to the question, yes? I mean, this is a question that has stood as long as people have built combat ships. How to incorporate enough firepower, speed and protection. The mighty Hood went up in a flash nearly 80 years ago because in order to pack the punch and return good speed trials, armor was sacrificed. And so it goes.

The Eagle cannot take much reinforcement without significantly reducing both it's speed and agility. What to do?

For me it makes sense to retain that speed and agility, but at the cost of survivability. It's just the trade-off required when you fly an Eagle innit? That's the reason you buy an Eagle in the first place, and to load it down with armor means you lose it's unique appeal. And probably the Eagle itself from time to time :) For me, speed and agility are just a different form of protection, if used to their advantage.

So if you love the Eagle, maximize it's strengths and accept it's limitations. If protection is important (and it almost always is) then I'd recommend a different ship.

If a different ship, which one? The iCourier is an excellent alternative. Nearly as fast and agile as the Eagle, but with much better protection potential. The Vulture is also a great choice, more of a medium fighter, but highly agile. There is advice above by skilled, experienced players to armor it up. I feel a little differently. It's the speed and agility that make the ship fun.

I wanted a fun small fighter for combat, and had a competition between the Eagle and Courier. In the end I went with the Courier since it's still very fast and has black-out inducing agility. But it won the face-off due to better protection potential. So the best of both worlds for me. If you are engineering, you can make any ship whatever you want. But in the small fighter business the Courier stands out for me.

This is my small fighter. Most fun I've had flying combat in Elite.

Velocity

Coriolis doesn't display agility (does it?). The pitch/roll/yaw numbers for this build

64.94/ 153.81/ 27.34
 
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Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Cknarf said:
Armor it up, man. It’ll still outmaneuver just about anything, even with a sturdy hull.

Actually, any ship with crappy shields, like the eagle, needs armor to survive combat.

Since the shielding is gonna be awful no matter what, mine usually looks like this.
Click to expand...

You sure about that? My Eagle has more shielding (by only 2MJ, admittedly) than an FDL with 5A prismatics...

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
Interesting Eagle! ^

So I ran some numbers on the OPs question.

The OP states 'beginner' so I assume no engineering yet. I built a basic A-rated Eagle with D sensors and life support.

With all optionals empty aside from a shield generator, the A-rated Eagle gets speeds of...

262/382 with 3A thrusters

335/489 with 3A Enhanced Performance thrusters

If I then load every empty optional with a HRP the numbers become

256/373 with 3A thrusters (minor change)

306/446 with 3A EP (significant change)

This ignores agility considerations and focuses on just speed. With the 120 optimal mass of the 3A's. the additional armor makes little difference. But if you opt for the EP's, it makes quite a big difference due to the lower OM, though it's still faster than a lightweight 3A build. So in a stock A-rated Eagle armor isn't going to be too much of a drawback. And it takes the integrity from 72 to over 400.

The surprise was how slow a stock Eagle is. I remembered them as a little faster. That's way too slow for such a squishy ship! :)
 
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CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
I’m assuming OP is new, so no fancy gadgets or extensive engineering.

I’d still advise against having no armor like that.

If you insist on a shield tank, with the ability to have armor, you might as well go with a Courier as mentioned above.
 

firemane

firemane
I am being schooled. :D

[/QUOTE]
sinisalo said:
This is my small fighter. Most fun I've had flying combat in Elite.

Velocity
Click to expand...

Impressive. I will try it.

Ian Skippy said:
You sure about that? My Eagle has more shielding (by only 2MJ, admittedly) than an FDL with 5A prismatics...

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
Click to expand...

This is hilariously wicked. I'd never come up with something like it. How does it hold up in combat?
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
sinisalo said:
Interesting Eagle! ^

So I ran some numbers on the OPs question.

The OP states 'beginner' so I assume no engineering yet. I built a basic A-rated Eagle with D sensors and life support.

With all optionals empty aside from a shield generator, the A-rated Eagle gets speeds of...

262/382 with 3A thrusters

335/489 with 3A Enhanced Performance thrusters

If I then load every empty optional with a HRP the numbers become

256/373 with 3A thrusters (minor change)

306/446 with #A EP (significant change)

This ignores agility considerations and focuses on just speed. With the 120 optimal mass of the 3A's. the additional armor makes little difference. But if you opt for the EP's, it makes quite a big difference due to the lower OM, though it's still faster than a lightweight 3A build. So in a stock A-rated Eagle armor isn't going to be too much of a drawback. And it takes the integrity from 74 to over 400.

The surprise was how slow a stock Eagle is. I remembered them as a little faster. That's way too slow for such a squishy ship! :)
Click to expand...

It is the 'eagle/vulture' vs 'viper/fdl' balance. The hyper-agile combat ships tend to be surprisingly slow, and the ultra fast ships tend to be surprisingly non-agile. :p The ratio speed/agility isn't equal btw, which is interesting. Stripping all guardian shield boosters from my Eagles drops it from 562MJ to 26MJ (+-95% reduction!). The base speed goes up from 406 m/s to 463m/s, and the pitch goes from 76 d/s to 83 d/s. In other words, adding the guardian shield modules increases your shielding 2000% (!) while dropping your base speed by a mere 15% and pitch by just 10%.

I think it is worth it. ;)
 
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Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
firemane said:
This is hilariously wicked. I'd never come up with something like it. How does it hold up in combat?
Click to expand...

Very well in PvE, although the damage output is questionable. Frags can be tons of fun here too, but with the Enforcers you really feel like you are flying a 50s era jet. :D If the shields drop you are dead, so for a more practical approach you could consider changing one C1 slot to a HRP module. For PvP it depends, the biggest drawback is that you only have one chaff, so no perma-chaff is possible. If the opponent runs gimballed it is very difficult. However, against a rail/PA PvP ship you can often have a lot of fun because it is excruciatingly hard to hit a tiny Eagle (pitching 76 d/s) with those weapons on ships like a cutter/corvette.
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
firemane said:
Impressive. I will try it.
Click to expand...

If you do I'd be very interested to know what you think. It is wicked fast and highly maneuverable. So much fun to fight in. Not very effective 1 v 1 in my opinion. Not a Haz RES ship. But in CZs and cop-populated RES sites it's awesome (in my view). I just zip around the furball, getting my tags in and letting the speed be my defense. The speed with which you can close or evade is phenomenal. Just what I had in mind when I began the build project. I have died in it once. A friend and I were prowling a RES bounty hunting, he had just built a Courier after listening to me rave about it. I lost two rings in a collision and extended to recover them. But I then turned back in to help my friend (I'll just be careful I said). Came face to face with a FGS, and boosted like I always do to sail past him and out of his field of fire. But he boosted too, and we collided. Re-buy. Rebuy in a 10m ship is 500k. Nuthin'. But it's the principle of the thing. My fifth re-buy in almost 3 years. But I asked for it with my impetuousness :)

Ian Skippy said:
you really feel like you are flying a 50s era jet.
Click to expand...

That's the same analogy I like to make. Like flying a Sabre, Shooting Star or Thunderjet. The canopy framing evokes that feel and the performance too!
 
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Maymo

Maymo
Beginner bounty hunting...?

I’d spend a little more credits and go with a Viper3, it’s much more forgiving when you make a mistake (can run away fast) and it’s hardpoints are better than the Eagles.
 

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
CooterCrickets87 said:
Like the Title says.

Since the Eagle is the most agile ship in the game is it worth using upgraded armor vs keeping it light and agile.
Click to expand...

IMO...

No.

Up to a point agility rules. If you're good at taking advantage of it you won't get hit very often if at all - the idea being you strive for, not, at all. But in order for that to work you must be familiar with your enemies' weaknesses and strengths which means know his hardpoints and where they point mostly so you can stay away from his fire arcs. And patient. If you're gonna take on a 'vette with an Eagle or Cobra or Asp (you get the idea) even with engineered weapons it is gonna take a while to kill it. And even one mistake can result in you waking up in the hospital of the last port you left cause no amount of armor is gonna keep an Eagle from blending with the black if it gets hit by an engineered size 4 PA (is there even such a thing???).

That's not to say that an Eagle can kill a 'conda even an engineered Eagle - at least not now (though in the very early times of ED - like a month after it released - I killed a 'conda with a sidewinder - took 1/2 hour or so to do it and it was piloted by an NPC rated real low - stayed close behind it - close enough to reach out and touch him - well - not really but real close - I doubt if that could be done today though).
 
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Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
CMDR Maymo said:
Beginner bounty hunting...?

I’d spend a little more credits and go with a Viper3, it’s much more forgiving when you make a mistake (can run away fast) and it’s hardpoints are better than the Eagles.
Click to expand...

In a way I feel the Eagle is pretty much for experienced players. It can do wicked things when engineered (my Eagle is almost twice as agile as some SLF) and in the hands of at least a decent pilot it is tons of fun. With a cheap loadout, without engineers and flown by a pilot new to combat it is just begging for the rebuy screen.

Maybe people should start with a Corvette and slowly earn the permits for the smaller ships, eventually ending with a Sidey (which also is insane when engineered to the max)? :p
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
EUS said:
Switch the experimental to drive distributors, and you get an increase in speed.
Click to expand...

True, just on my way to add the experimental (was flying with legacy drives). :)

FWIW, the Eagle is also a pretty nifty looking ship...
O372JlB.png


SkjFTnZ.png
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
Yeah DDDDs are the ticket with EP thrusters. (Dirty Drive Distributor Drives :) )

When you're near, at or over OM it makes a significant difference. Not many ships improve with DDs, but these small fighters sure do.
 

EUS

EUS
Yeah that's what I like about the enhanced, you have to watch the mass, and compare experimentals when you do your loadout.
 
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