Best weapons for the Fer-de-Lance?

Hi,

Just bought myself a Fer-de-Lance in anticipation of Powerplay and wondered what you consider to be the best weapons to use on this ship? Thanks!
 
A somehow boring but probably most efficient proposal: 4 gimballed class 2 pulses and one huge gimballed class 4 cannon. Works very well on all npc. There are several threads already about FDL setup, you might find more inspiration there.
 
Hi,

Just bought myself a Fer-de-Lance in anticipation of Powerplay and wondered what you consider to be the best weapons to use on this ship? Thanks!


Huge Cannon on the bottom mount.

Your choice on the mediums really. You can run full beams with max power plant and still run shield boosters and a 5A Shield generator but burn power extremely quick - most people use Burst or Pulse for longer firing potential for that reason.

Edit: beaten by Alex!
 
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As Alex J suggested, four Class 2 giballed pulse lasers - long lasting ammo-free fire power!

The HUGE slot gets either a gimballed B4 cannon (Anaconda killer) or a Plasma Accelerator (A4 if you're minted or B3 if you're not!) this has a bigger kick, but is not gimballed, so have a good aim or get in close for the final punch.
 
Despite really liking the cannons on just about every other ship, I hated them on the FDL and dumped a class 3 fixed pulse on it to go with the 4 class 2 fixed pulses up top.
 
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Depends what you want to use it for.

For PvE you can stick pretty much anything on it and farm SSS all day long.

For PvP you have 3 options. Defensive, Offensive, Balanced.

Defensive biases the loadout in favour of low power draw weapons to enable stronger shield solutions. Lots of pulses and boosters. Good if you are alone.

Offensive biases the loadout in favour of high alpha high power draw weapons at the cost of weaker shields but more brute force. Rail/Beam Boat. Good if you are in a wing taking on big ships.

Balanced sits nicely in the middle and is generally the sensible play as it covers all scenarios. A mix of lasers and kinetics and a good shield solution.
 
I have tried many variations, but found the '4 pulses/1 huge cannon' to lack the necessary punch for such a ship as the FDL.

So I find that having a class 3 gimballed beam laser on the huge hardpoint, coupled with two class 2 gimballed beam lasers on the outer hardpoints, to be ideal for stripping shields; while having either gimballed or fixed class 2 cannons on the central hardpoints ideal for targeting subsystems and destroying the hull. This setup also allows you to manage the heat build-up too by alternating between lasers and cannons.

Alternatively, use the class 2 hardpoints as above and add in a class 4 weapon to the huge hardpoint, such as a fixed or gimballed cannon or a fixed plasma accelerator (class 4 is expensive but worth it, IMHO). The cannon will obviously be better against the hull, whereas the PA will be devastating to shields - assuming you can hit anything with it! I recommend getting up close and using it as your opening salvo... ;)
 
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I've fitted 4xC2 Gimbal Beams and the C4 Gimbal Cannon.

It's okay'ish for melting shields (the Power is there but the heat buildup is very pronounced, a bunch of heat sinks aren't a bad idea to keep the 4 Beams running).
The Gimbal Cannon works as expected and with the known limitations. Either you hit the Subsystem or not, the Target hull will take the appropriate damage anyway.

Not exactly spectacular but it does the job.
With the 4 Beams being able to work the Target as well, it's a fairly nice combination.

Tried this setup, but found that internal module damage (from constant heat build-up using the 4 beams) was too annoying; but that's just me.
 
For PvE, try using 3 pulses, one beam (you will kill those pesky eagles and vipers much faster than with 4 pulses) and huge cannon. And learn to do this:

[video=youtube;dBGplNaIXK4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBGplNaIXK4[/video]

For PvP 4 pulses and plasma acc.
 
I haven't got an FdL yet, but wouldn't five lasers be an effective solution (mixing beams, burst and pulse to get powerful sustained fire)? To be honest I'm lazy and I like having only one firegroup with kws on one fire button and all my weapons on the other, and this wouldn't work well by mixing a cannon with lasers.
 
I've been melting the shields away with the gimballed C3 Beam Laser, and finishing them off with 4 C2 Multi-cannons. I was teamed up with a Vulture last night and we annihilated an Anaconda in less then 10 seconds, I believe shield was down at around 4 seconds, and the rest was targeted at power plant. The Vulture had 2 gimballed C3 pulse lasers.
 
A somehow boring but probably most efficient proposal: 4 gimballed class 2 pulses and one huge gimballed class 4 cannon. Works very well on all npc. There are several threads already about FDL setup, you might find more inspiration there.


They need to implement some kind of ammo replenishment without flying to stations to reload ammo.......wastes lot of time doing that when you trying to farm in combat. All weapons that don't use ammo is probably the best choice lol. FDL will be amazing when huge pulses and beams will be added in engineers patch.
 
It depends what you mean by Powerplay. If you mean going to a strike zone in solo, an all pulse laser setup is best so that you can stay there for a long time. If you're doing it in open, you need weapons that can do as much damage as possible quickly, as I doubt that you'll be hanging around too long.
 
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