Ships Chieftain

Cohen the Worrior

Cohen the Worrior
Looking at the Alliance Chieftain as an upgrade from the Vulture.
Any suggestions on a PvE build? I only have access to basic Engineers: Felicity, Elvira, Tod & the Dweller.
Could add an extra engineer I guess. So Lei Cheung, Selena Jean or Hera Tani?
 
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nemolomen

nemolomen
I have unlocked Fartsqueezer and Dweller.

My PvE Chieftain has:

2x Size 3 Multicannons (Not Engineered)
1x Size 2 Beam Laser (Engineered)
3x Size 1 Burst Lasers (Engineered)

Largest Shield (I think), (Not Engineered)

Utility:
4x Shield Boosters (Engineered)

The rest is filled with Hull/Module Reinforcements.

This is also one of my few ships with docking comp. (no SCA though)

Also the PP is Engineered for protection and I think something else is engineered but I don't remember and I'm still at work at the moment.,oh, do I have it in Inara...

Here is a coriolis link...

I've used this ship successfully in HAZ RES against a single ship, bounty hunting in general up to Threat 4 or 5 and it got a lot of use in Low CZs during the recent AEGIS vs Salvation CG.

I'm having a lot of fun in it. Though yesterday I went up against a bounty and his wing mates (mission said Threat 8, Signal Source said Threat 6) I barely got out with about 10% hull left and never took down his shield. Really needed a wing mate on that mission.
 
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ubermick

ubermick
You probably want to work on unlocking the rest of them, to be fair. Lei Chung for sure, since tweaking shields helps a lot. I like fragment cannons over the multicannons, so had to do the Zachariah Nemo stuff. This is what I'm working on now:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
 

Esteban

E
My Chieftain build:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone

I'm still tweaking the build because I don't use it all that often and I'm experimenting with different kinetic weapons however it is very maneuverable and a lot of fun when I'm in the mood. I can stay on pretty much any PvE (NPC) ship without trouble and it routinely out-maneuvers its gimbals' abilities to track targets (almost too easily). I agree that shield engineering is very helpful - to the point of being essential, especially for longer, heavier combat sessions and CZs in particular.

I'm still undecided about the frag cannon. It just doesn't seem to have a lot of punch (yes, I mean up-close where you must be to have best effect). It's possible that this is due to my expectations, not because it's wimpy. Being fixed, it takes some skill to land the shot clusters. Maybe I'm still not good enough at snapping the Chief into position when maneuvering and landing the shot accurately / fully.

Credit where it is due:
My build is based on a 'CZ speed run champ' build mentioned here in post #7:

Ships - PVE CZ Ship

I am looking for ideas for an all round PVE ship for CZ's and would welcome some input. All of the engineers are unlocked and my material bank is full so what would you all recommend? I have access to all Federation and Alliance ships so any ship goes really. Thanks
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

In RES combat (which is easier than CZ combat, as you're likely aware), my build is merciless and just mows through targets.
Enjoy, CMDR...
 

HRDiagram

HRDiagram
Good choice, the Chieftain is a beast, and flies beautifully.
I have put cytoscramblers and pacifiers on it: it eats large ships in seconds!
 

HRDiagram

HRDiagram
ubermick said:
Haha, me either - I have a feeling that firing three of them overcharged will cause my power plant to scream at me. I plan on running Pacifiers on mine as well once they're unlocked, but that takes a month.

This is what I'm basically putting together:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs1iEuZ2Hjk
Click to expand...
The cytos engineered for short range are amazing, go for them: you use them as openers, so the short range is not a problem because they deplete the shields so quickly that the opponent can't run away in time. In addition, the distributor is not drained.
At that point you can focus on the other weapons (it makes sense to keep a gimballed weapon for the little ships).
 

Darrack

Darrack
All my Alliance ships main weapons are Cannons, utter crap unless up close but come on they are all named after Tanks!

Fly safe O7
 

Esteban

E
A couple more (hopefully) useful tidbits:

I was surprised how inexpensive such a capable ship is. (Coming from outfittting a couple of Pythons. Context matters). Everytime I'm out and about with my Chief, I just chuckle when I see repairs costs.

Esteban said:
I agree that shield engineering is very helpful - to the point of being essential, especially for longer, heavier combat sessions and CZs in particular.
Click to expand...

Don't let my comment deter you from this ship in case you can't or don't want to take time to engineer the shields. Have fun. I think you'll find that's inevitable with the Chieftain.
 

Three Stars

T
FYI, @Esteban : Target Lock Breaker doesn’t work on NPCs. Dispersal Field is nice because it’s basically chaff on demand/on hit.

I would also seriously consider changing your sensor engineering to long range. If you’re looking for distant targets in a res, long range will help you out a lot more.

Frags have low armor piercing values, so bigger ships are going to decrease damage done by those weapons. Fitting a weapon with the corrosive experimental will increase the armor piercing value of any weapon striking the hull by 20, and will also increase the damage done by any weapon by 25%. This game doesn’t hand out a lot of damage boosts, so I try to take them when I can get them. A high capacity multicannon on one of the smalls is a fairly standard way to get a corrosive weapon. Just save it until shields are down, since it has no effect on shielded targets.
 

SENA-

SENA-
I am a huge fan of the Cheffy .
Is the kind of ship who can stay "glued" on any other NPC six at will, but, like any medium/small ships, with decisive advantage over any NPC, no matter the kind ( you will kill easily anything from eagles to vette) BUT non-optimal builds will struggle against squads of other medium or mix of medium/small/big . That is, 1 vs 1 will dominate any NPC, 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 5-6 - you may run in troubles.
To counter this, you must be fast, have good shields, ( 1500-1600) and, most important, be able to kill fast - your shields are at the lower end, so you cannot take much punishment.
You have 3 class I points: put in one of these a Cyto with OC AND Inertial Impact and you get a small class I weapon with damage on pair with 2 class IV burst lasers ( almost 70/s ! )

This little thing will strip shields in seconds, and ignore the jitter - at 1000 or 500m distance, the jitter will not trouble you at all ! Put that in second group.
In the other class one hard point, add a turreted MC with high ammo and corrosive, and in the last, a turreted frag OC and fast reload.

In all the other hard points - MCs ! ALL MCs! OC and autoloader. You will strip the shields in seconds, and the MCs will cut the hulls very fast, assuming you manage to stay close, glued to your target. In this build, the Cheffy is a very fast and effective killer - and that means you will take minimal damage in return - a thing you wish.

I use mine in this combination and is very effective, with tons of fun.
Works equally great as an ALL burst only - with all OC and II burst lasers - but that build seems to cook from inside easily...
 

tolm

tolm
My Chief was set up with:

  • 2x C1 + 1x C2 Long Range / Thermal Vent Beams
  • 2x C3 Overcharged / AutoLoader MCs + 1x C1 High Capacity / Corrosive MC

Beams strip shields and keep you frozen, the MCs combined with the corrosive effect melt hull pretty darned fast.

I’ve now switched to a Chally but only because I specifically wanted a ship that I could put the two High Cap / LR rails from a CG on and already had lots of other combat ships with the beams / MC setup.
 

CardioTherapy

C
Chieftain is fast and nimble ship that can easily stay even on small targets. I fly mine with 2 class 3 efficient plasmas with plasma slug and all the rest overcharged gimballed multies.
 

Three Stars

T
My Chieftains (of which I have several) are built around a high damage module killing weapon (Short Range PA, High Yield fixed cannon, Advanced Missile launchers with penetrator munitions) paired with a shield dropping and general use weapon (fixed efficient beam, incendiary pacifier, incendiary multi respectively). They all have a cytoscrambler (either efficient or overcharged depending on need), plus a source of corrosive to multiply both general and breach damage.

The short range PA is my favorite. The closest this game will get to a Photon Torpedo. 124 breach damage (or 155 if corrosive is in effect) if you get a good breach roll. Even a corvette’s power plant can be one-shot if it’s not armored and there are no module reinforcements.
 

Cohen the Worrior

Cohen the Worrior
Thanks for your suggestions commanders, but I'm trying to limit the engineering grind so no arty farty weapons for me, I'll stick to lasers and multi-cannons for now, thank you very much.

This is my current basic engineering build. Any comments or suggestions?

Any suggestions on the next step in engineering? As stated before I have now access to
  • Felicity Farseer: FSD 5, thrusters 3, power plant 1 and shield booster 1 (what to get?)
  • Elvira Martuuk: shield generator 3 (what to get?)
  • The blaster: MC 5 (what to get?)
  • The Dweller: power distributor 5 and laser 3 (what to get?)
What would be the optimum engineering for the stuff I don't have engineered yet?
And the next step in engineering would probably be Lei Cheung right? This would get me shield generators grade 5 and shield booster grade 3.

As always, any suggestions are very welcome.
 

Esteban

E
Yes, I'm sure that there were almost too many suggestions to go thru without anyone's head spinning!

A couple of initial suggestions from a non-expert...
My Chief has one less laser weapon than yours. I have power to burn even though I have a power-hungry plasma accelerator. That said, your build will benefit from the Efficient or the Focused engineering mods (on mine, 2 are efficient and 1 is focused). If you can regain some power margin, you can benefit by perhaps choosing a different engineering mod for your power plant. The Thermal Vent experimental effect is a very nice one for lasers. Oversized is too because you shouldn't need thermal vent on all of them.

For my powerplant I was able to choose the Armored eng. mod with a Thermal Spread experimental effect because I was not short of power on my build. Advice 'out there' suggests that there's not much need to use the overcharged mod if you have enough power. That makes sense to me.

I use a multicannon on my build too. The Overcharged eng. mod is nice (at least one other is too). For one of your MCs, I certainly recommend the Corrosive Shell experimental effect. I believe that the common advice 'out there' is that corrosive shell isn't necessary on more than one of your MCs. Typically it is applied to the smallest one. This because there's an ammo-capacity hit associated with the mod.
I know that the rapid-fire eng. mod is tempting. I have it on one of my Pythons. In practice, I feel like the MCs fire plenty fast so a different mod could be more appealing. Increased ammo capacity comes to mind pretty readily!

To my shield generator I have applied the Reinforced eng. mod and the Fast Charge experimental effect.

You can also apply engineering mods to your HRPs, when you gain access to the engineers. Mine are a combination of Thermal Resistant and Heavy Duty with the Deep Plating exp. effect. I won't get ahead of your desires any further with other recommendations.

I'm not a PVx expert or hardcore PVx CMDR. There are more expert CMDRs out there than I when it comes to engineering for PVE. I hope the suggestions give you some room for thought. Enjoy!

EDIT:
I missed a couple.
To my power distributor. I have applied the Charge Enhanced eng. mod and the Flow Control exp. effect. I believe that I was simply mimicking the 'CZ Champ' build that I referenced in my first reply in this thread, thus relying on that expertise. Weapons-focused appears to be another popular eng. mod, as does the Super Conduits exp.effect. Deciding on which is a matter of poring over the numbers for pros and cons associated with each mod and deciding which benefits your style and ability-level more.

To my shield boosters I have applied a combination of the Resistance Augmented and Thermal Resistant eng. mods and the Double Braced exp. effect.
o7
 
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