Best weapons for a Sidewinder

d8veh

d8veh
I want to practice killing NPC Anacondas in a Sidewinder. I've got a couple so far with long-range beam lasers. It's sort of funny because they can't shoot back. I have grade 5 dirty enhanced thrusters, so I can fly backwards faster than the Anacondas can go forwards. I can always stay out of range while still being able to shoot them. This method is extremely boring though because it takes forever to kill them.

What weapons would kill one the fastest, bearing in mind that it'll always be a long battle and I don't want to run out of ammo without reaching the kill?
 

Threeofseven

Threeofseven
The absolute best weapon Iv found for a sidey is OC cannons. Fixed or gimbled both do ok. No large ship penalty and no loss of damage at long ranges. I regularly take mine in pvp encounters and in CZ zone where I shread npc vetts and condas.
Many people use rails but in my experience they do less damage than cannons and will cook your ship. You also only need half a pip for cannons.
 
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Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Threeofseven said:
The absolute best weapon Iv found for a sidey is OC cannons. Fixed or gimbled both do ok. No large ship penalty and no loss of damage at long ranges. I regularly take mine in pvp encounters and in CZ zone where I shread npc vetts and condas.
Many people use rails but in my experience they do less damage than cannons and will cook your ship. You also only need half a pip for cannons.
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But do you get through decent shields with two tiny cannons?
 

Threeofseven

Threeofseven
sidereal6 said:
I think I'm going to give that a try to just play something different for a while. Do you have a secondary effect preference? I suppose it would be between high yield and auto loader.
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I use dispersal field and high yield (for pvp) and dispersal field and thermal (for PvE). Dispersal scrambles turrets and gimbled weapons the same as chaff.
 

Bunkerkind Anni

Bunkerkind Anni
Threeofseven said:
The absolute best weapon Iv found for a sidey is OC cannons. Fixed or gimbled both do ok. No large ship penalty and no loss of damage at long ranges. I regularly take mine in pvp encounters and in CZ zone where I shread npc vetts and condas.
Many people use rails but in my experience they do less damage than cannons and will cook your ship. You also only need half a pip for cannons.
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i dont think two small cannons will have no penalty against large ships.
we are talking about 35 pierce (fixed small cannon) vs. 65 hardness (conda) (=47% damage reduction)

compared to small rails with 100 pierce.
you can craft them with a low grade long-range mod and hope for a thermal reduction secondary roll -> and then have plasma slugs for lots of ammo
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Threeofseven said:
I use dispersal field and high yield (for pvp) and dispersal field and thermal (for PvE). Dispersal scrambles turrets and gimbled weapons the same as chaff.
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Hmm, sounds interesting! Might put it on mine, currently use it for planetaru stuff so it only has a humble fixed multi and a dumbseeker. :p
 

Maxmilian Czhilli

Maxmilian Czhilli
My Sidewinder is my favourite ship.

Currently, I use efficient gimballed multi-cannons with incendiary rounds on my Sidewinder. It burns through shields and can fire continuously with really low distributor draw.

Never PvP'd in it but it does great for bounty hunting.
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
Ok I've been keeping to myself, but the best I've found so far is OC Incendiary enforcer cannons. It's like flying an independent SLF but with nicer boost and two utility mounts. The only downside is ammo limit of 800 each, but they fire slower so ammo will last a decent period unless you try to take it to a CZ or any place with heavy armored ships.
 

Threeofseven

Threeofseven
Bunkerkind Anni said:
i dont think two small cannons will have no penalty against large ships.
we are talking about 35 pierce (fixed small cannon) vs. 65 hardness (conda) (=47% damage reduction)

compared to small rails with 100 pierce.
you can craft them with a low grade long-range mod and hope for a thermal reduction secondary roll -> and then have plasma slugs for lots of ammo
Click to expand...

Iv tried rails with a 20% heat reduction and they still cook my ship. They have better stats on paper but in testing I kill things much faster with cannons. Target a condas PPs with cannons and 3-5 shots later he's dead in the water.
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
Threeofseven said:
Iv tried rails with a 20% heat reduction and they still cook my ship. They have better stats on paper but in testing I kill things much faster with cannons. Target a condas PPs with cannons and 3-5 shots later he's dead in the water.
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You can only use one at a time in any sustained DPS. And if you get lucky on a long range roll, you can get up to 50% heat reduction. The best I've gotten is -35% though I haven't tried that hard.
 

Threeofseven

Threeofseven
For extra pvp fun OP, build a hull tank silent sidey with clean drives and low emission PP. Put one OC dispersal cannon and one rapid fire mine launcher with reverberating cascade. 12 or so mines will drop the shields of even a prismatic Cutter (much less for smaller/weaker shields).

Go to a CG and interdict fed vetts, cutters and condas. Fire a few cannon rounds and bait them into chasing you, go FA off and fly in reverse firing you cannon. Once they get about 2km start kicking out mines and watch as they fly into them.

It's always fun watching a fed vett jump away while calling you a hacker over comms after you destroy his shield gen.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Newbie question - what is "OC"? Surely not "overclocked", LOL. I'm guessing it has something to do with engineering.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Gully_Foyle said:
Over charged I believe.
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That's done via engineers, yes? The special ammo for things like multicannons, does that also require engineers, or can I just make that myself if I collect the proper elements? I've not played the game yet (except tutorials), that's how newbie I am :)
 

sidereal6

S
Threeofseven said:
dispersal field and thermal (for PvE)
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I'll try dispersal field, thanks. I've tried the various thermal secondaries with beams in PvE and didn't notice it doing anything. The NPC has the little "heat" icon, but their behavior seemed unchanged. Am I missing something or was that a bug that has been fixed now?

Threeofseven said:
Iv tried rails with a 20% heat reduction and they still cook my ship.
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Give them a try on a DBS with clean drives and a low emissions PP. You can fire them all day.
 

Truesilver

Truesilver
OP, the best two c1 weapons have already been mentioned in the thread: the Enforcer Cannon and the Small Rail Gun (latter with long range mod and thermal load reduction secondary both being obligatory).

If you want the fastest possible 'no cheese' TTK by Sidey on a high-rank Anaconda, you need to cut into the SCB pool. 2 x feedback cascade rails would be most efficient (only firing both at once during the SCB spool up) but 1 x feedback cascade and 1 x super pen would be more fun.

However, if cheese is on the menu, reverberating cascade mines for the shield followed by a Powerplant kill using a super pen rail or a cannon or a penetrator dumbfire would be the fastest possible theoretical TTK.

Whatever you choose you'll need basic synthesis. But Barnie will give you 500 basic mats in 30 mins.
 
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