AX (Scout) FAS - Thiughts?

tolm

tolm
I’ve been merrily moaning on various threads about all the new Xeno stuff looking too scary but folks have pointed out there are Low CZs which are mostly Scouts - which I’ve happily swatted before in a Krait - so maybe I should actually, y’know, give it a go? 🤷‍♂️

Been looking for a purpose for my FAS … so thinking about an anti-Scout build that would also give me a chance to try out the (not that!) new rapid fire Plasma Chargers that I’ve had sitting in storage for a while now. I’ll have to beg/borrow/steal some modules from some of my other ships and other stuff will need to be purchased and engineered up so may not initially hit the figures here but - in principle - what do folks think?

Coriolis EDCD Edition

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

  • Is it worth boosting the shields at all?
  • Will Point Defense do anything against Caustic Missiles?
  • Are Plasma Chargers actually any good or would I be better off with Gauss Cannon?
 

Treya

Treya
tolm said:
  • Is it worth boosting the shields at all?
Click to expand...
Your choice. Against Scouts both Shield and Hull tanking are viable. If you plan to synth ammo in the field a Shield tank would be preferable, but if you'll be heading back to station for rearming you could even throw out Shields entirely and focus on hull alone (D2EA did that for one of his build videos, going so far as to not even bother with removing that caustic goo). On a related note, MRPs are useless against Scouts.
However, if you want protection from accidental Interceptor fire more hull (and keeping the MRPs) is preferable because their main cannons bleed through damage, more severe caustic damage, as well as their lightning attack.
tolm said:
  • Will Point Defense do anything against Caustic Missiles?
Click to expand...
Unless U14 changed this no. Relevant for AX are only Xeno Scanner, Heatsinks, and Shutdown Neutralizer (though the latter is usually replaced with a FA/Off Boost). Your Plasmas can be used for goo removal (burning off by overheating) so bring the scanner and as many sinks as you can muster
tolm said:
  • Are Plasma Chargers actually any good or would I be better off with Gauss Cannon?
Click to expand...
Both Salvation Plasmas as well as his Shards are very capable and fun toys and both have gotten me through CZs dealing with everything except the Hydra. Standard Gauss, while more potent vs higher level Interceptors, can be tricky to connect on a Scout.
 

tolm

tolm
Awesome - thanks for the info!

Sounds like the PD can go in favour of some more heat sinks. I might slap a single HD Booster if I keep the shields just to absorb some of the Scout fire without losing hull?

Generally planning on running from anything larger at this point so I guess I could switch the MRPs for more HRPs - or Guardian SRMs which would leave more room for Heatsinks in the Utility slots?

I’ve tried Gauss against Scouts before and, yeh, found ‘em tricky to land so will see how the Plasmas work. Nice to have something more “engaging” to fire than mindless turrets … 😂
 

tolm

tolm
deleteduser said:
With payouts being as high as they are there's not much reason not to just go after the interceptors when they show up and start trying to figure them out while eating the rebuys.

On the build.... you'll get more damage, lower power usage and lower heat generation with fixed over turrets/gimbals and more damage, though more power usage and more heat, from Guardian/Modded weapons over 'standard' AX weapons. The power/heat penalties are probably worth for the DPS increase.
Click to expand...
Yeh, I find interceptor fights okay with a wing but very annoying on my own so I might “chip in” if there are other CMDRs around. 👍

I’ll never hit Scouts reliably with only fixed weapons so my DPS would tank - hence the combo of turreted AX MCs (would much prefer gimballed …) and fixed Guardian weapons. It also suits the hard point placements on the FAS, I think. I could go 3x fixed on the bottom with a single AX MC up top, I guess? Would need to grab a 3rd weapon though …
 

tolm

tolm
* UPDATE *
Okay - spent the afternoon borrowing a few bits from other ships but mainly hopping around the bubble visiting Outfitting, Material Traders and Engineers. This is what I've wound up with:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

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

4.2K hull seems decent ... not really sure if the 330MJ of Shields really adds much but I figure it can't do any harm.

Need to get out somewhere to try it out now which means flying out in something with a Fuel Scoop and hoping I don't get clobbered ...
 

tolm

tolm
Right, after a monumental amount of faff, I am now out in the Obassi Osaw system.

Got some recommendations to consider the Guardian Hull Reinforcements on some other threads so I went on a bit of a tangent unlocking those and then seeing how many I could actually equip given they require power. Final build is below ... the Plasma Charges I'm using are the Salvation engineered ones (6000m/s shot speed + increased damage) so they use a stupid amount of power which Coriolis doesn't show: PP is absolutely flat out despite what the following shows:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

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

Flew out here in my Krait as jump range on the above is pretty poor and it obviously doesn't have a Fuel Scoop! Already been hyperdicted a few times but easily boosted away - keeping out of range of the Cyclops - until my FSD cooled down. There's also ground settlement under attack, some Rogue Signal Sources (whatever the heck they are) and Xeno CZs ranging from Low to Very High not too far from the main station, Teller Horizons.

Evacuated a bunch of people in escape pods (so glad I equipped Passenger Cabins ...) to Altair whilst waiting for my AX ship to transfer over. Was pretty uneventful and paid for the transfer fee!

Actual AX combat will have to wait for another day but the ship is here and ready now.
 

tolm

tolm
Didn’t manage to get on today but did look at options for a shield-less build … if the above doesn’t pan out, I’m pretty sure I can swing this with just a little bit of shopping at the nearest tech broker:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

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

No shields at all definitely makes me nervous but that does hit 4600 hull against caustic, has some module protection and a larger repair limpet controller … plus an extra heat sink and a Xeno scanner which - IIRC - shows up the different Scout types as well as allowing you to target interceptor hearts? Could be useful?
 

Treya

Treya
tolm said:
No shields at all definitely makes me nervous but that does hit 4600 hull against caustic, has some module protection and a larger repair limpet controller … plus an extra heat sink and a Xeno scanner which - IIRC - shows up the different Scout types as well as allowing you to target interceptor hearts? Could be useful?
Click to expand...
Some CMDRs forgo the scanner in favor of another heat sink and rely on visual characteristics - color to distinguish Scout types and "shoot the glowy bit 'til it's dead" for Interceptors. Finishing the scan on Interceptors also gets quite tricky in CZs because these flowers lack manners and the decency to stay put. It's almost like they're not even British... :unsure:
Personally though I find the scanner to be useful enough that every AX combat ship of mine has it. Not so much to help with targeting but for prioritizing Scouts by threat and to see health percentages on Interceptors.

Side note: A size 3 repair limpet controller will repair up to 180 hull over 90s, so ~5% on your shieldless build. For a full cargo hold of 4 that's ~20% and 6-7 minutes downtime. When solo hunting Scouts it's likely quicker to RTB instead. If I was in your position though I'd leave that for another day, the build you posted second to last is decent enough to get out there and have some fun. :)
 

tolm

tolm
Treya said:
Some CMDRs forgo the scanner in favor of another heat sink and rely on visual characteristics - color to distinguish Scout types and "shoot the glowy bit 'til it's dead" for Interceptors. Finishing the scan on Interceptors also gets quite tricky in CZs because these flowers lack manners and the decency to stay put. It's almost like they're not even British... :unsure:
Personally though I find the scanner to be useful enough that every AX combat ship of mine has it. Not so much to help with targeting but for prioritizing Scouts by threat and to see health percentages on Interceptors.

Side note: A size 3 repair limpet controller will repair up to 180 hull over 90s, so ~5% on your shieldless build. For a full cargo hold of 4 that's ~20% and 6-7 minutes downtime. When solo hunting Scouts it's likely quicker to RTB instead. If I was in your position though I'd leave that for another day, the build you posted second to last is decent enough to get out there and have some fun. :)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the thoughts - very insightful much appreciated!

I hadn’t actually done the maths on how much hull I could actually repair in total … makes me think more hull rather than those modules and then, as you say, RTB if it all goes sideways!
 

tolm

tolm
deleteduser said:
On GHRPs, you only really want one of them in your smallest slot for the caustic resistance.

They offer about 50% less protection versus normal HRP and consume power you don't really want to be generating to start with on a shieldless build.

4D GHRP = 413 Armour
4D HRP - G5: Hvy Duty w/Deep Plating = 624 Armour

Even just 1 click of engineering will get a 4D HRP to 450 hp

On your build swapping all GHRPs except the Class 1 for a normal HRP increases hull by almost 1,000 and reduces power consumption enough to run G5: Low Emission w/Thermal Spread...

... if you set your power priorities correctly, you can even run a 6B PP, same engineering, for the extra integrity points.

fyi: EDSY has the Salvation weapons for accurate number crunching
fyii: the Xeno scanner is still useful for targets health... but Interceptors are hostile from the off and wont wait while you scan all their vulnerable spots.
Click to expand...
Thanks - good info!

I only have the mats for G3 on most my HRPs which is what I switched ‘em for the Guardian ones. The C5 ones I have are G4+ and are slightly better than the Guardian equivalent.
 

tolm

tolm
First run out to a Low AX CZ … mainly Scouts but a couple of Interceptors dropped in which I did my best to avoid. Initial thoughts are:

  • Plasma Chargers are FUN!
  • Shields were basically useless plus I had to drop ‘em every time I burned off the caustic so, yeh, they’ll be going
  • Didn’t use a single repair limpet … but NPCs sorted me out for a few % here and there
  • Don’t get hit by the swarm. Don’t get hit by the … dagnammit, I said DON’T …

Had to bail at 49% hull … wait … that seems plenty? Yeh, but three weapons were no longer working and my PP was at reduced capacity …

So, yeh, no shields and then some Moduke Reinforcements would seem like a good idea!!

Still, a million in combat bonds and officially “not dead” - could have been worse?!
 

Kissamies

Kissamies
For my alt account I use a triple Azimuth Plasma FAS as a general AX ship. The three hardpoints at the bottom are nicely clustered and it's pretty easy to hit Scouts with all of them, which is an one shot kill fully charged and inside 1.2km or so. They also do great job exerting interceptors and good at hitting hearts too when I use the trailing gunsights. To top if off, it's very fast and agile. The main downside is that the distributor struggles to keep up. Can't keep up sustained fire with plasmas, have to wait for a bit for the boost. If I was to rebuild it now, I would go shieldless like my main account's Chieftain.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom