Best loadout for combat imperial courier?

witcher

Banned
W
I got this little awesome ship in addition to my python and wanna spec it for pure combat, any suggestions for weapon and loadouts?
 

askavir

askavir
Well, for weapons, 3 medium pulse lasers will do the trick, regarding you have A grade powerplant and distribution. Forget beams, you will drain all the power in seconds.

The Courier is actually a very good dogfighter, very small target for your enemies to hit, and quite fast and very manouverable.

I actually vaporised an NPC elite Python today with my pet Courier, and it barely touched my shield.

With a little bit of skill, you just have to take advantage of this little ship's manouverability and grab the Python's behind and stay there, the poor Python will never be able to turn to face you and shoot, you can even use the Python's smoke trail as guiding lines to keeping on its rear.
 
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witcher

Banned
W
askavir said:
Well, for weapons, 3 medium pulse lasers will do the trick, regarding you have A grade powerplant and distribution. Forget beams, you will drain all the power in seconds.

The Courier is actually a very good dogfighter, very small target for your enemies to hit, and quite fast and very manouverable.

I actually vaporised an NPC elite Python today with my pet Courier, and it barely touched my shield.

With a little bit of skill, you just have to take advantage of this little ship's manouverability and grab the Python's behind and stay there, the poor Python will never be able to turn to face you and shoot, you can even use the Python's smoke trail as guiding lines to keeping on its rear.
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gimaballed?
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
I use two gimballed pulse lasers, and at the moment a gimbaled multi-cannon, but will probably go back to a single gimballed beam laser instead of the MC, as that can actually be fired for quite a bit on its own without depleting the capacitor. (For some reason, the position of the central hard point seems to make aiming the MC troublesome for me.)

As others have said, it's a nice agile ship, lots of fun to fly, but it's shields can be a bit weak, so I put in two shield boosters, which toughen them up pretty well, and it doesn't give e a problem with power management.

I tend to use it for 'lighter' combat, as the medium size weapons take quite a bit longer to take out the larger ships, and in that time even the stronger shields can take a bit of a beating, so if I know I'm going up against something like an Anaconda in an assassination mission, I fall back on my Vulture with the large hard points. (I clearly don't have askavir's piloting skills. :) )
 
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Chaodiurn

Chaodiurn
I dunno, the cockpit of the Courier makes handling fixed lasers rather awesome. Feels like true pew pew. Why wouldn't you get a toy and then let it play itself?
 

askavir

askavir
The Courier might be a little too fragile to take on Anacondas in assassination missions. The Python is doable if you manage to stay very close to its rear at all times and mimic all his turns with a slight delay, what I call the "bite them in the @ss and don't let go" dogfighting style that I practiced to exhaustion when flying the Vulture. If you can hang on to its rear, the sluggish Python will never be able to turn and face you. The only time you will be vulnerable is when trying to grab his tail for the first time. Following the smoke trail helps in this step.

The Anaconda presents much of a bigger challenge, because although it is way more sluggish than the Python, it is usually covered in turrets and so having a very large, very powerful firing arc, and although the annie will have an even bigger difficulty to turn and face you, it doesn't really need to turn that much, all those turrets guarantee that you will have very little margin to stay out of the firing arcs behind its thrusters. And if the courier shields drop, the courier is a flying coffin. And then, the Couriers weapons would take a very long time to drop the anacondas shields, and bring down all that massive armor. For assassination missions, better take the Vulture.
 
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Cmdr Ultra

Cmdr Ultra
I also had a Python main ship and bought a Courier for some fun. I just couldn't handle how long it took in comparison to the Python to kill anything. Python has spoiled me don't think i can down size ever again. Courier looks awesome though and seems to fly great.
 

askavir

askavir
Cmdr Ultra said:
I also had a Python main ship and bought a Courier for some fun. I just couldn't handle how long it took in comparison to the Python to kill anything. Python has spoiled me don't think i can down size ever again. Courier looks awesome though and seems to fly great.
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That's the "problem" with the Python... Flying it does not inspire much "passion", I myself was devastated the first time I left the station with one and realized just how slow it turned compared to the Clipper... But it just performs so many duties so well, has great firepower, lots of fuel, lots of cargo, is very resilient, lands on outposts... The Python is the king of usefulness, you need something done the Python can do it.

I ended up selling it, but after having one it seems all my other ships are lacking something. Went back to the Clipper as my main ship, I like flying the Clipper much more, but i really miss the extra large hardpoint, the extra cargo space, the extra fuel, and emost specially the capability to land on outposts.
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
askavir said:
The Courier might be a little too fragile to take on Anacondas in assassination missions. The Python is doable if you manage to stay very close to its rear at all times and mimic all his turns with a slight delay, what I call the "bite them in the @ss and don't let go" dogfighting style that I practiced to exhaustion when flying the Vulture. If you can hang on to its rear, the sluggish Python will never be able to turn and face you. The only time you will be vulnerable is when trying to grab his tail for the first time. Following the smoke trail helps in this step.

The Anaconda presents much of a bigger challenge, because although it is way more sluggish than the Python, it is usually covered in turrets and so having a very large, very powerful firing arc, and although the annie will have an even bigger difficulty to turn and face you, it doesn't really need to turn that much, all those turrets guarantee that you will have very little margin to stay out of the firing arcs behind its thrusters. And if the courier shields drop, the courier is a flying coffin. And then, the Couriers weapons would take a very long time to drop the anacondas shields, and bring down all that massive armor. For assassination missions, better take the Vulture.
Click to expand...

I shall try your tactics. :) Thanks for sharing, and yes, that is exactly the problem with the Anaconda, all those turrets, doesn't seem to matter where you are in relation to it, you are getting pounded all the time, and as you correctly say, once the shields go, you have very little chance of surviving.
 

Yomamas Fett

Yomamas Fett
My Courier is in my sig.

I usually run SYS/ENG/WEP 2/0/4 and switch between that and 2/2/2 when I need boost.

Chaff helps with the Condas turrets a lot, but you have to get in good positioning first before even attempting it. Actually have had trickier fights vs Elite Clippers as it's not so easy to hit their PPs. Pythons are a lot easier and the tactics have already been explained above.

You could use gimballed beams, but I'm not sure it'd be better against the bigger targets, would certainly help with Eagles and Sideys as you can often get close enough to have convergence issues. on 2/0/4 you're going to have to watch your heat as that is a greater problem than running the capacitor dry with the beams. I've tried both builds and find fixed to be superior TBH.

The Autocannon is under the nose, which some have found tricky, but 2nd nature if you flew a Viper previously.

I did lose 300 Merits, 500K insurance and over a million bounties in my Courier when I rammed an Orca I got down to 1% hull...I only had 1.5 shield rings left and thought it might be enough :( So although the shields are strong they have limits.

Love that little fighter great fun and barely gets hit (but sometimes gets focused in CZs and has to bug out...but then again, that happens to my Python sometimes too).
 

GammaZ

G
askavir said:
The Courier might be a little too fragile to take on Anacondas in assassination missions. The Python is doable if you manage to stay very close to its rear at all times and mimic all his turns with a slight delay, what I call the "bite them in the @ss and don't let go" dogfighting style that I practiced to exhaustion when flying the Vulture. If you can hang on to its rear, the sluggish Python will never be able to turn and face you. The only time you will be vulnerable is when trying to grab his tail for the first time. Following the smoke trail helps in this step.

The Anaconda presents much of a bigger challenge, because although it is way more sluggish than the Python, it is usually covered in turrets and so having a very large, very powerful firing arc, and although the annie will have an even bigger difficulty to turn and face you, it doesn't really need to turn that much, all those turrets guarantee that you will have very little margin to stay out of the firing arcs behind its thrusters. And if the courier shields drop, the courier is a flying coffin. And then, the Couriers weapons would take a very long time to drop the anacondas shields, and bring down all that massive armor. For assassination missions, better take the Vulture.
Click to expand...
Are you serious? Corier has huge shields, something between vulture and python, it is tiny and maneuverable. Against turrets there is chaff, it gives almost 100% protection with such small ship. You can easily take on multiple NPC anacondas in courier, and single anaconda is very easy target.
Also fixed beam + pair of cannons will kill anaconda relatively fast. Just stay behind, drop chaff and strip shield with beam, then 4 pips to sys and kill powerplant with cannons. Second part is really fast...
 
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CorvusDove

C
Pulses are for raving weaklings on the Courier. If you want to rock faces, NPC or PC, that spinal gun should be a fixed beam. One C2 Beam firing from there will not overheat the ship, but it will tear down shields on quite a lot of targets. It may seem strange, but throw either multicannons or cannons in the wings, then A-out the shields and toss on shield boosters. That ship is a brick house of shield awesome considering how fast it moves.

The wings *should* be gimballed just to triangulate the spread. The ship is way too maneuverable to need anything but a fixed beam cannon on the spine. FYI, you get enough fire to take down an NPC Python's shields (usually) if you toss your pips into weapons while firing the beam.
 

Krezan

Krezan
Just tried a Imp Eagle with an Imperial Hammer. Took out a Python. Can only imagine (had to sell my courier) it would be awesome with this (if you can aim that is :))
 

tiger61378

tiger61378
Yeah, I've been w/ Arissa long enough now that I really should do some PP stuff and grind up to level 3 for the Hammer. I'm thinking it would be epic on my Courier as well (and yeah, putting one on the iEagle is a great idea).
 
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