Best weapon/defense combo for a Vulture

Hi fellow commanders,

I recently upgraded from a Cobra Mk III to a Vulture, & I confess that I am really missing that lovely combination of hard-points that would allow for lasers & multi-cannons together. I was wondering, though, if people out there could suggest the best combination of weapons & defensive systems for a Vulture-especially if I was wanting to go into a Conflict Zone?

At the moment I have 2 gimballed beam lasers, a chaff dispenser & 2 shield boosters. Should I swap out a laser for a multi-cannon? Should I switch to Rail Guns, fragment cannons or cannons? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Be advised though that I am currently operating on a budget of around 450.000 Credits, & am located in the Neche system (close to Rhea).

Yours,

CMDR Marcus Hicks.
 
Well by no means am i someone who could be called great in this game. However i use Lasers x 2 and stack the rest with Shield boosters. Works brilliant for me personally
 
Use the weapons that you want to use or that you have the most fun using. However, I would argue that the most efficient/effective weapons for the Vulture in PvE are 2 gimballed Pulse Lasers - with this weapon loadout, you can stay in Conflict Zones indefinitely (or at least until you need to refuel). Class 3 lasers are surprisingly effective at damaging hulls!

I used the following loadout when I used a Vulture. With this loadout, you need to permanently disable the Cargo Hatch in the Module power management section of your cockpit's interface. If you want a loadout exclusively for Conflict Zones, then I would replace the Kill Warrant Scanner with another Shield Booster. I found that loadout to be extremely effective and convenient in PvE because I didn't need to muck around with power management in order to use any of my Vulture's modules, but I'm sure that I could replace some of the Shield Boosters with slightly more powerful Shield Boosters if I set other modules to Priority 2 in the module power management interface.

I hope that this helps.

P.S. I'm currently flying a Python and I miss flying the Vulture SO MUCH! The bigger ships have horrendous insurance rebuy costs, expensive hull repair costs, generally have slower top speeds, have to sometimes wait for a landing pad to become free at outposts (assuming that they are even capable of landing at outposts!), and have poor manoeuvrability compared to the awesome Vulture!

gazra's Vulture loadout (hardpoints).jpggazra's Vulture loadout (internal).jpg
 
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I did manage to get twin C3/G beams for mine, and even those cost 3.2 million each, drained the A dist with 4 pips in WEP in seconds, it could cut ships up like a knife through water.
 
I have a similar load out to Gazra and it works a treat. As I play solo I swapped out the defense systems for cargo space this way I can take cargo delivery missions but when I do I make a point of entering the Nav point and getting some bounties for as long as possible before having to run due to damage.

It seems to be a good way of making money and raising reputation :)
 
I find its best to use a Gimballed lazer beam (C3) on one point, with a pulse C3 gimble on the other. the lazer cuts through armour very quick, but also burns your energy down in about 5 seconds. the C3 pulse, with 4 pips, can fire indefinetly , and my energy slowly recovers whilst holding down shoot, then i let my lazers rip once it charges.
 
A D-spec'd Vulture, with the only A grade equipment being the pwr distributor, will do very well with just 2 gimbaled pulse lasers...

Because they are LARGE pulse lasers.

As your money grows, there is plenty of room to upgrade that vulture to a-spec for even more zip and agility, and beefier shields, but the D-spec is fearsome enough to get you started.

The vulture is much, much more agile than a cobra: and by agile I mean "does NOT drift along old vectors". and when you stop, its one of the few ships that actually stops more or less right there.
 
i have just fitted Mirrored armour on the Vulture, as it seems most NPC's use lasers and they just bounce off the mirrors. That allows me to lessen the shield boosters and carry a FSD interdictor, KWS, 2 pulse's, bit of cargo space and not have to mess too much with the power settings. Yes the FSD is on power 2 as you can't use that with weapons deployed anyway, it just takes a few secs for it to swap over to the FSD once the weapons go in, but a4 thrusters only the cobra is faster, and i NEVER run from a cobra.
Have not tried the mirrors in PVP yet and the more experienced Cmdrs don't all use lasers.

Mirrors not much good against Kinetic weapons
 
I mostly use my Vulture for CZ farming and PowerPlay combat, and have it mostly A-specced, with twin 3E large gimballed pulse lasers, 5A shield gen, and 2 A0 Boosters. At some point (i.e. when I have enough credits) I'll be upgrading the hull to military, and will probably upgrade the Interdictor at some point as well, but so far it's been a good little ship with loads of staying power.

Full spec can be found here.
 
The best way to find out what best suits your needs is to trial & error that, besides, is more funny and effective than copying other people's loadout patterns.
 
Yeah it does get boring after a while. I've tried some weird setups as well. For example dual class 3 PA's, but the power management became a bit of a problem :D.
 
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As with every fit, depends on PvE or PvP, though with improved AI there might not be such a huge difference going forward.

I go with the A4 thrusters rather than the slightly faster and slightly more agile A5 because the power cost is too high for the effect >1 MW. The Vulture is already plenty agile.

Then I set power so that FSD and interdictor are on low priority and therefore auto power off when hardpoints are deployed. That gives me power for 1xC3 gimbal beam, 1xC3 gimbal cannon and 1 Shield Cell Bank. I also run a powered down auto field maintenance unit although a fuel tank is not such a bad idea (when you hit it lucky in a hi-res (ie python/clipper/dropship spawn), you can stay an extra hour).
 
Thanks for the excellent tips, guys. Just an additional question, which are the best kinds of systems to get the greatest range of high quality load-outs?
 
Yeah it does get boring after a while. I've tried some weird setups as well. For example dual class 3 PA's, but the power management became a bit of a problem :D.

Yeah, I tried two medium PAs on a Cobra earlier. It's pointless, the rate of fire is so abysmal due to energy issues, plain fixed pulse lasers would have resulted in more damage output.
 
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