Back to Elite and … a Federal Gunship?

[tolm]

Been back playing ED a bit in the last few days after a good few months away. Had been chasing the “ultimate AX build” (for me - at least!) and got a bit burned out by the whole experience.

So … sold off a bunch of ships (including my Cutter and Chieftain) with a view to stripping back to some basic ships and just having fun:

• FAS - AX fun
• Krait Phantom - Long range / exploration
• Mamba - Single-target assassin
• Corvette - for sitting in a HazRES / CZ

And I needed one more … a general purpose “mission runner” for data, salvage, scanning and light-combat missions that would be my “daily driver”.

In the past this has been a Krait Mk II or a Chieftain but I’ve kinda gone off those cockpits. I considered a FAS but the hardpoint positions don’t really work - for me - for general PvE combat.

I configured a Dropship at first - which was great from an internals and adequate for weapons with a couple of Guardian Mod Plasma Chargers in the underside C2s and then c2 Beams and a C3 MC. But the handling was atrocious.

Then, on somewhat of a whim, I decided to try the Fed Gunship - almost certain that the low speed would do my head in …

Against all the odds, I LOVE IT! Handling seems far more predictable than the Dropship and whilst the lower number but larger internals isn’t as flexible, it’s enough to be workable.

A C6 rack gives 64T of cargo for limpets or small delivery missions and it’s got a 5A Fuel Scoop and 2H Guardian FSD Booster for circa 30LY jump range and decent scooping speed to get around the bubble.

Yeh, it’s a bit slow, but it’s got enough combat capability that I don’t need to outrun any NPC foolish enough to interdict me: with a C6 Reinforced Bi-Weave plus Guardian and standard Boosters it’s up to 1100MJ shields and the weapons are great: the same as the FAS plus a couple of C1 MCs with Corrosive for some additional hull damage!

I’ve even hung about in some HazRESs just to see how it fared and it’s absolutely sorted.

Anyone else enjoying the Gunship?!

o7

 

[Riverside]

I use Pythons as mission runners but if I'm not doing cargo I use a Chieftain or a Vulture.

I have a Gunship, it's nice to fly & sounds great but slow as molasses

 

[aRJay]

Not me I am afraid.

Years ago one of the Christmas treats was the ability to get all the Federal ships except the Corvette without the rank requirement, as I was finding ranking slow growing I jumped at the chance.

The FAS was quite enjoyable but not quite the ship for me, the Gunship and the Dropship
l found really didn’t work well with how I flew. Since then I have tried to find a build and role that would let me enjoy them but with no luck so far.

I think the only reason I still have them is because at first I didn’t want to let them go and not be able to replace them because of the rank. Now of course that isn a factor and I keep them because I don’t like to dispose of my stuff.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yep, it's a fun ship but too slow. I wish there was more ground attack options in the game.

 

[tolm]

I use Pythons as mission runners but if I'm not doing cargo I use a Chieftain or a Vulture.

I have a Gunship, it's nice to fly & sounds great but slow as molasses

Yeh … top speed with 4-pips is about 250 … boosts at 442 … FAS has 100m/s on both of those but just not as practical: the C6 slots make a huge difference.

Also … I would often find the FAS would overheat when scooping whereas the FGS seems to stay nice and cool?

I need to revisit the Vulture - complete my collection of Core Dynamics ships!! Efficient Beam + Corrosive MC?

 

[William J Smith]

Strangely I also have a gunship, its pretty much exclusively used for PvP

A gunship? in PvP?? is the commander crazy? (more than likely)

But let me finish
Its used as part of a wolf pack to take down pests infesting federal systems, someone interdicts the troublemaker, we all pile in, and my job is to let loose 7 cascade torpedos at the enemy (at the right time and placing of course), then swap to seekers and packhounds and take out the drives.... after that.... its game over

worked quite well on a 13th legion member who got in our way at a recent CG

Bill

Was quite funny watching him make a run for it after his prismatics went pop!

 

[Riverside]

Yeh … top speed with 4-pips is about 250 … boosts at 442 … FAS has 100m/s on both of those but just not as practical: the C6 slots make a huge difference.

Also … I would often find the FAS would overheat when scooping whereas the FGS seems to stay nice and cool?

I need to revisit the Vulture - complete my collection of Core Dynamics ships!! Efficient Beam + Corrosive MC?

Yeah I revisited the Vulture recently (well about a year ago but I hadn't flown it for years) & with a pair of fully engineered efficient beams it's a great PvE small & medium ship killer. It can kill bigger ships but in a CZ I find I need to ram stuff a lot to get the TTK down. Efficient beam & a gimballed frag or corrosive MC has a much quicker TTK but I wanted an ammo-less CZ build. I use it more than my Chieftain now but the Chieftain makes a better PvP ship in my hands (survivability, I don't kill other Cmdrs).

I enjoy using a ship while I'm going through the engineering of the modules, mitigating the more irritating weaknesses (like your overheating FAS) and finding a compromise that suits me rather than just following the meta.

 

[St0rmFury]

I need to revisit the Vulture - complete my collection of Core Dynamics ships!! Efficient Beam + Corrosive MC?

Can't really go wrong with the beam + MC meta. But if you want to take full advantage of the vulture's agility, plasma should be the ideal hardpoints.

Due to the limited amount of hardpoints, you want to strike fast and hard.

I built my vulture to be a close combat PvE ship since it has the speed and shields to handle the occasional collision from being too close to large ships.

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I stopped building and flying ships for their efficiency for the task at hand quite a while ago (this is in a pure PvE context - I don't PvP. Ever.) and just fly ships I enjoy flying and have fun in. The only "meta" ship I fly is an AX Krait, which isn't even "the" meta, because everyone says the Chief is better. Hate the Chief.

So I fly whatever is fun to fly or makes me giggle like a schoolgirl in the very moment. The FGS is (or better was) one of them. A brick-like, near indestructable FGS with a full dakka layout is just hilarious. Hearing all seven MCs fire and seeing the barrage of bullets flying is just too hilarious to not do it at least once. My problem was indeed the glacial movement of the FGS and the poor jump range. I think the build was something like this, but I'm not sure if I had the MCs on auto loader or just oversized. Also can't remember what I had in the slots I left blank, might have been a booster and a scoop to be able to travel.

I moved most of the modules over to a FAS hull, which is my current giggle provider. It's much more agile (I actually black out on boost turns, which surprised me) and more fun to fly, but the dakka of only the four hardpoints isn't nearly as impressive. What is much more impressive is boosting its mass of 900 tons with its 3.5k armor at almost 550 m/s right through an unsuspecting poor (and doomed) eagle. I call it "Brick Astley". I try to vary the weapon layout (as I do with all my ships, I constantly swap them), currently it has one large larser for small stuff and shields, and the rest is MCs. It's also a lot of fun with all plasmas.

I, too, had a lot of fun in the Vulture, with both the MC plus laser layout as well as two large plasmas. I retired the Vulture for one reason or another, mostly because it traveled so badly, I think. I get my long time small fun ship fix from a Viper 4. It's so fun to fly and a pretty tough boat for the compromised layout - it is my main Odyssey mission runner, so I carry a hangar bay and a large fuel scoop in favor of more armor. It is my current favorite ship to fly, and each time I sit in it after a longer time in another ship, it just makes me smile.

 

[tolm]

Can't really go wrong with the beam + MC meta. But if you want to take full advantage of the vulture's agility, plasma should be the ideal hardpoints.

Due to the limited amount of hardpoints, you want to strike fast and hard.

I built my vulture to be a close combat PvE ship since it has the speed and shields to handle the occasional collision from being too close to large ships.

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

What would you engineer the PAs with, given the Vulture’s notorious power supply problem?

(detailing my own thread here … )

 

[tolm]

I stopped building and flying ships for their efficiency for the task at hand quite a while ago (this is in a pure PvE context - I don't PvP. Ever.) and just fly ships I enjoy flying and have fun in. The only "meta" ship I fly is an AX Krait, which isn't even "the" meta, because everyone says the Chief is better. Hate the Chief.

So I fly whatever is fun to fly or makes me giggle like a schoolgirl in the very moment. The FGS is (or better was) one of them. A brick-like, near indestructable FGS with a full dakka layout is just hilarious. Hearing all seven MCs fire and seeing the barrage of bullets flying is just too hilarious to not do it at least once. My problem was indeed the glacial movement of the FGS and the poor jump range. I think the build was something like this, but I'm not sure if I had the MCs on auto loader or just oversized. Also can't remember what I had in the slots I left blank, might have been a booster and a scoop to be able to travel.

I moved most of the modules over to a FAS hull, which is my current giggle provider. It's much more agile (I actually black out on boost turns, which surprised me) and more fun to fly, but the dakka of only the four hardpoints isn't nearly as impressive. What is much more impressive is boosting its mass of 900 tons with its 3.5k armor at almost 550 m/s right through an unsuspecting poor (and doomed) eagle. I call it "Brick Astley". I try to vary the weapon layout (as I do with all my ships, I constantly swap them), currently it has one large larser for small stuff and shields, and the rest is MCs. It's also a lot of fun with all plasmas.

I, too, had a lot of fun in the Vulture, with both the MC plus laser layout as well as two large plasmas. I retired the Vulture for one reason or another, mostly because it traveled so badly, I think. I get my long time small fun ship fix from a Viper 4. It's so fun to fly and a pretty tough boat for the compromised layout - it is my main Odyssey mission runner, so I carry a hangar bay and a large fuel scoop in favor of more armor. It is my current favorite ship to fly, and each time I sit in it after a longer time in another ship, it just makes me smile.

I’ve struggled with the Chief as well. On paper it’s darned near perfect but I hate the look, hate the cockpit bars in my view and hate the boost noise. If I could get the hardpoint layout from the Cheiftain on the FAS I’d never need another ship again!!

Interesting what you say about having all MCs on the FAS … that implies even the C2s that are in the most stupid place possible … is that gimballed? I’ve gone fixed (plasma chargers) on those but the last time I tried gimballed weapons there was before I had things like G5 engineering for the drives to maybe I’d be able to keep ‘em on target now … that’d open up some possibilities …

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

What would you engineer the PAs with, given the Vulture’s notorious power supply problem?

(detailing my own thread here … )

If you don't have a specific goal or task, efficient is almost always the way to go. Efficient has litteraly no drawbacks. Other blueprints might be better, like focused for higher shot speed and range (e.g. if you want to speed match other weapons). I hear thermal conduit is very popular in PvP, as is target lock breaker. Both probably useless in PvP.

On the experminentals, I'd probably go oversized on one and throw dispersal on the other. You could also go plasma slug, but you'd probably need an extra fuel tank.

I think a Vulture should be able to handle efficient PAs without going overcharged, depending how heavy you go on shield boosters. Might check on EDSY for that first though.

Take a look here, Exegious had pretty good tables of the blueprints and experimentals in his video.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I'd probably build a PA Vulture like this for RES combat and bounty hunting. It just about works with the armoured/monstered plant if you keep the cargo scoop off, otherwise you'd need to go for overcharde G2 on the power. As for the shields, I like to go with medium strong bi-weaves on my builds with a heavy MRP/HRP undercoat, so I usually go reinforced with fast charge and two to three boosters. You still get the recharge benefit of bi-weaves without taking too long (if I lose shields or they get too low I usually reboot between engagements), and without an overcharged power plant it couldn't run A-rated shields anyway, and personally I don't have access to prismatics.

20 ly is okayish, but the range is pathetic, so it'd probably need carrier support for traveling. Otherwise I'd probably equip a 2A fuel scoop and some patience. Or skimp a bit on the MRP and put on a 4A scoop - if I can power it.

This is all strictly PvE though. A PvP Vulture - no clue.

 

[St0rmFury]

What would you engineer the PAs with, given the Vulture’s notorious power supply problem?

(detailing my own thread here … )

My vulture build only has 1 PA so I have to make every shot count, it needs to hit like a sledgehammer so I engineered it with short range + oversized. I could go with overcharged, but the distro draw increase is too much for me, increased thermals is more manageable. Besides, I'm going to be sticking close to my opponents anyway so the reduced range isn't a problem for me.

Plasma slug can help me stay in battle longer but it reduces my damage significantly so that's a no go. I work around that by synthesizing ammo, I did my material grind long ago so I have enough for hundreds of reloads before running dry. It might seem lazy or sacrilegious to some purists, but I see it as trading my mats for gameplay time, as I can skip flying to the nearest FC or station to rearm.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

My vulture build only has 1 PA so I have to make every shot count, it needs to hit like a sledgehammer so I engineered it with short range + oversized. I could go with overcharged, but the distro draw increase is too much for me, increased thermals is more manageable. Besides, I'm going to be sticking close to my opponents anyway so the reduced range isn't a problem for me.

Ouch, the increased distributor draw of overcharged is harsh.

Plasma slug can help me stay in battle longer but it reduces my damage significantly so that's a no go. I work around that by synthesizing ammo, I did my material grind long ago so I have enough for hundreds of reloads before running dry. It might seem lazy or sacrilegious to some purists, but I see it as trading my mats for gameplay time, as I can skip flying to the nearest FC or station to rearm.

I ran plasma slug PAs for quite a while on an all PA Krait, that was fun, and with an extra fuel tank I could stay in a RES site forever. Put the PAs on the Vulture a few times and forgot to put on an extra tank - oops. Good thing I had the carrier parked above the RES site. But plasma slug is fun, if a little boring.

 

[HRDiagram]

The three Federal Steam Irons are the only ships that I haven't tried yet, and I would like to give them a go.

Normally, I find myself wondering what I should do with them, and then posts like these pop up, which I find inspiring!

As a non meta chaser, I welcome these posts, as I tend to lack creativity, at times.

 

[Reggit]

Then, on somewhat of a whim, I decided to try the Fed Gunship - almost certain that the low speed would do my head in…

...Anyone else enjoying the Gunship?!

I built an AX-Gunship back in 2017...
It's been a while since I've flown one, but at the time, I got totally annihilated by the Thargoids.
I sold it and switched to a T-10 - and did much better! (Admittedly this is perhaps my failing rather then the ship lol)
These days, for general AX combat, I'll use Kraits, Cheiftans, FASs and (of course) Vultures.
(I also keep a Cutter on standby just in case I'm expecting to take alot of damage)
The G̶u̶n̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ Funship was fun...but I usually lost

What would you engineer the PAs with, given the Vulture’s notorious power supply problem?

The Vulture is love. The Vulture is life.
Personally - when I'm engineering a Vulture for combat - I always armour the powerplant and I use as few shield boosters as I can get away with (Sometimes I'll also undersize the Bi-weaves or use Enhanced Low Power) - everything else is HRP & MRP's...

Something like this....

CMDR Reggit - ship details | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

The companion site for Elite:Dangerous with the game database, market data, trade routes, outfitting, engineers, blueprints, crafting, Thargoid war, squadrons, logbooks, galleries, galaxy information and much more...

inara.cz

o7
This should leave you plenty of power for weapons and engines

 

[Darrack]

And I needed one more … a general purpose

Stop there! There is only one, its the Python, nothing beats it if you still want access to all stations and if your doing ground missions its fast on foot as the steps are at the front (i know but little things!!).

O7

 

[metatheurgist]

Would love the FAS having 4 large. The 2 large 2 medium layout is too common. Then it'd be a proper assault ship (and the Vulture's big brother).

 

[Northpin]

And I needed one more … a general purpose “mission runner” for data, salvage, scanning and light-combat missions that would be my “daily driver”.

Why the Gunship?
The Dropship offers better versatility in its internals and makes for an excellent generic mission runner. The poor-mans-Python
It has 8+2 internals compared to 6+3 for the Gunship

Edit: also its a really fun ship to fly, a true jester.
No other medium can drift as much and no other medium can put the same amount of dents in the panels above or below the mailslot while attempting to auto-launch