Conflict zone farming

[HarryWraith]

Hi all. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all fellow Commanders.

I've not done masses of combat yet. Mostly one-on-one nav point camp and scan. But I've decided it's time to get that combat rank up and I'd like to try my hand at conflict zones too.

My first question I guess is, when putting a ship build together, should you take a different approach to a more 'general' combat build? Should I go medium or large? Shield regen, resists or max shield strength? What about weapon loadouts? What would be (disregarding play style etc) a good starting build?

Conversely, what should I definitely avoid buying/fitting?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Try a Haz RES before you do conflict zones. More and tougher enemies than the nav point, though less than a CZ, but you still get to control who you fight.

As far as a CZ ship goes:
- I'd recommend medium rather than large. The extra speed can be very useful for being elsewhere if it all goes wrong, and the bigger mediums still have plenty of firepower and shields. Lots of people take large ships in, dish out a tonne of damage, go to the top of the enemy's threat list, and then die very quickly because they can't escape being focused.
- CZ enemies have decent shields and a lot of hull. Weapons which do lots of damage quickly (rails, frags, plasma) are generally more effective than long-term ones like lasers and multicannons - though tougher to use, which is why practicising your aim in the Haz RES first is good. You'll need to return to base to reload between zones, but that's okay.
- CZs don't have that much plasma incoming, so resist+regen is pretty good for shields. But strength+SCBs can work well too. Depends on your ship - a Fed or Alliance hull can't really do max shield strength so a decent resist/regen shield with lots of hull underneath is better. A FDL, Mamba or Large has enough utilities and enough base shield to have high shield strength and a couple of resistance boosters too.
- For weapon special effects: feedback cascade rails, corrosive multicannon/frag cannon are good. Incendiary is best avoided as most of the NPCs defence is hull, so you want to do primarly kinetic or absolute damage.

 

[HarryWraith]

Try a Haz RES before you do conflict zones. More and tougher enemies than the nav point, though less than a CZ, but you still get to control who you fight.

As far as a CZ ship goes:

• I'd recommend medium rather than large. The extra speed can be very useful for being elsewhere if it all goes wrong, and the bigger mediums still have plenty of firepower and shields. Lots of people take large ships in, dish out a tonne of damage, go to the top of the enemy's threat list, and then die very quickly because they can't escape being focused.
• CZ enemies have decent shields and a lot of hull. Weapons which do lots of damage quickly (rails, frags, plasma) are generally more effective than long-term ones like lasers and multicannons - though tougher to use, which is why practicising your aim in the Haz RES first is good. You'll need to return to base to reload between zones, but that's okay.
• CZs don't have that much plasma incoming, so resist+regen is pretty good for shields. But strength+SCBs can work well too. Depends on your ship - a Fed or Alliance hull can't really do max shield strength so a decent resist/regen shield with lots of hull underneath is better. A FDL, Mamba or Large has enough utilities and enough base shield to have high shield strength and a couple of resistance boosters too.
• For weapon special effects: feedback cascade rails, corrosive multicannon/frag cannon are good. Incendiary is best avoided as most of the NPCs defence is hull, so you want to do primarly kinetic or absolute damage.

Thanks for the reply. How is this for a start point? https://s.orbis.zone/5hqa

 

[Noobilite]

I use this corvette.
*Alternatively this and swap out the interdictor for an amfu.

It can survive for a long time and get out as needed. But it's tends to overheat and I need to change is to it has an afmu so I don't have to go back after 3 or so instances. it's also annoying to aim manually at long range and I wish I know ho to make a more profound auto aim setup. Which unforutnately tends to get out done by the endless chaff.

This is what I may turn it into: Corvette AFMU

Although I think the shielded version might be better overall.

Not sure what is ideal for CZ though. Mine could kill a bit better for my taste.

This ship devestates in anything lower than CZ. It's also good in CZ but manual aim gets annoying. Although it's useful for getting through the endless chaff.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Thanks for the reply. How is this for a start point? https://s.orbis.zone/5hqa

A few general thoughts:

• You've got a lot of spare power, so you don't need to overcharge the power plant. Armoured G5 + Monstered still has plenty of power for this ship, runs much cooler, and is less vulnerable to suddenly exploding if you do lose shields.
• No need to strip down the power distributor - it's not that heavy to start with. Use Super Conduits experimental to get even more recharge.
• It's expensive, but I'd go for at least Military alloy on the hull if you can afford it. (Reactive + thermal resist is even better for resistances, but hideously expensive)
• Shield boosters: with a thermal resistant shield generator, two resistance augmented boosters gets you well into the diminishing returns zone on resistances. Switch the other four to heavy duty and you get a really substantial shield with high resistances and decent recharge if they let you ... or three heavy duty and a high capacity chaff launcher.
• You've got two optional internals empty, and if you drop the docking computer and land manually, you can have a third. Stick HRPs, heavy duty engineered, in those. This will let you survive long enough to run out that MRP if your shields drop. (I'd also engineer up a 4D HRP the same, and you can transfer that cheaply and swap it out with the Guardian booster once you're in the system with the CZ: you don't need that extra range once you're in place, and the HRP is really cheap to transfer around after you)

Now the big one: weapons.

Beam lasers are extremely distributor hungry, and overcharged makes this worse. You've got four of them, so if you look at your TTD figure it's 0:03 - you'll completely empty your distributor, even with 4 pips to weapons [1], in just three seconds. Your firepower after that will be minimal.

What I'd recommend - to stick with lasers for now - is either:
- four efficient pulse lasers. (Experimentals: one emissive, one scramble, two oversized). You can fire those almost all day, and shouldn't have any heat issues.
- four long range pulse lasers (same experimentals)
(Which is better depends on your fighting style: efficient is great if you spend a lot of time up close, whereas if your typical combat range is over a kilometre long range is better - even better than overcharged, and considerably less energy intensive - because default lasers have terrible damage falloff with range, and long range gets rid of that entirely)

So, something like this: https://s.orbis.zone/5hvx - twice the shield, five times the hull, better overall resistances, and much more sustained firepower.

(Gimballed weapons for now, definitely, but as you get more practice it's worth experimenting with fixed lasers: if you can hit with them reliably they do more damage for less power and it'll mean that the Viper IV with Chaff ... of which there are a lot in a CZ ... is a bit less annoying)

[1] You'll be under fire a lot in a CZ, so you'll need 4 pips to systems quite a lot to keep your shield up.

 

[HarryWraith]

A few general thoughts:

• You've got a lot of spare power, so you don't need to overcharge the power plant. Armoured G5 + Monstered still has plenty of power for this ship, runs much cooler, and is less vulnerable to suddenly exploding if you do lose shields.
• No need to strip down the power distributor - it's not that heavy to start with. Use Super Conduits experimental to get even more recharge.
• It's expensive, but I'd go for at least Military alloy on the hull if you can afford it. (Reactive + thermal resist is even better for resistances, but hideously expensive)
• Shield boosters: with a thermal resistant shield generator, two resistance augmented boosters gets you well into the diminishing returns zone on resistances. Switch the other four to heavy duty and you get a really substantial shield with high resistances and decent recharge if they let you ... or three heavy duty and a high capacity chaff launcher.
• You've got two optional internals empty, and if you drop the docking computer and land manually, you can have a third. Stick HRPs, heavy duty engineered, in those. This will let you survive long enough to run out that MRP if your shields drop. (I'd also engineer up a 4D HRP the same, and you can transfer that cheaply and swap it out with the Guardian booster once you're in the system with the CZ: you don't need that extra range once you're in place, and the HRP is really cheap to transfer around after you)

Now the big one: weapons.

Beam lasers are extremely distributor hungry, and overcharged makes this worse. You've got four of them, so if you look at your TTD figure it's 0:03 - you'll completely empty your distributor, even with 4 pips to weapons [1], in just three seconds. Your firepower after that will be minimal.

What I'd recommend - to stick with lasers for now - is either:

• four efficient pulse lasers. (Experimentals: one emissive, one scramble, two oversized). You can fire those almost all day, and shouldn't have any heat issues.
• four long range pulse lasers (same experimentals)

(Which is better depends on your fighting style: efficient is great if you spend a lot of time up close, whereas if your typical combat range is over a kilometre long range is better - even better than overcharged, and considerably less energy intensive - because default lasers have terrible damage falloff with range, and long range gets rid of that entirely)

So, something like this: https://s.orbis.zone/5hvx - twice the shield, five times the hull, better overall resistances, and much more sustained firepower.

(Gimballed weapons for now, definitely, but as you get more practice it's worth experimenting with fixed lasers: if you can hit with them reliably they do more damage for less power and it'll mean that the Viper IV with Chaff ... of which there are a lot in a CZ ... is a bit less annoying)

[1] You'll be under fire a lot in a CZ, so you'll need 4 pips to systems quite a lot to keep your shield up.

That you for this. I'll certainly give it a good look. Question re the weapons: you've commented that I'm already under power, so what is your logic with going efficient on the pulse? Is it mainly capacitor draw? Secondly, what are your thoughts on thermal shock?

 

[Screemonster]

If you stick to something small, you can avoid pulling aggro. CZ oppponents are a lot tankier than they used to be when I cut my teeth in them, but my courier can still handle a low-zone. Just gotta get some good drives in it and learn when to bug out when you start tanking fire. The courier is actually great for this thanks to the ridiculously huge shield it can pack compared to other ships its size, great little learner ship. It'll also help you practice some fundamentals before you go getting a big ship and a big shield and picking up bad habits like some people do.
Don't bother with too many missiles, there's too much point defence flying around to make them useful even if the ship you're directly targeting doesn't have any. I personally run a single packhound rack on my cutter when I take it out, and it's mainly used for trashing drives on eagles and vipers and the like (I've got a superpen hammer for taking out modules on less agile targets)
I've also had success with a frag vulture. Same principle as the courier, just don't pull too much aggro and be prepared to disengage if things get hairy. Ignore the small targets like eagles, let your allies take care of them and concentrate on making life difficult for the bigger ships on the opposing side.

Above all else though: unless you're doing massacre missions, killing things personally is not necessarily the best way to win. In medium zones and upwards, I've actually won them with very few kills of my own by taking a fast ship and pulling aggro from the spec ops ships, freeing up my side's spec ops ships to score the actual kills. Same principle can even apply in a low zone - you see an enemy corvette/cutter/conda, even if you can't kill the thing, if you can tie it up and prevent it from doing damage then that's still helping, and may well be more productive than chasing after eagles while it rampages through your allies' small fighters.

Absolutely kill capships though. Do it. Seriously. Get them. Their turrets are useless if you have chaff and half the time they're distracted uselessly pewing at NPCs.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

That you for this. I'll certainly give it a good look. Question re the weapons: you've commented that I'm already under power, so what is your logic with going efficient on the pulse? Is it mainly capacitor draw? Secondly, what are your thoughts on thermal shock?

Yes, Capacitor draw.

Overcharged+Oversized you get 16.8 DPS, but use 2.6 MW of distributor for each laser - more than the 1.7 MW your overcharged huge corrosive multicannon takes, for considerably less damage.
Efficient+Oversized you get 12.2 DPS, for only 1.1 MW of distributor.

Your capacitor - with full recharge engineering - will give you 7.8 MW with 4 pips to weapons, or 3.9 MW with two pips. So you can fire all the efficient lasers and the multicannon indefinitely with four pips, and for quite a while with two pips. Whereas if you used overcharged, you'd get slightly more damage for the first few seconds, and then your capacitor would be empty and with two pips only providing enough recharge for the multicannon and one laser ... and even with four pips, only covering the multicannon and two lasers. That effectively halves your laser firepower, which brings the DPS below that of the efficient lasers.

(If you're fighting something really evasive, so your capacitor has a long time to recharge between short bursts of intense fire, then overcharged could be better. But there are very few targets like that and things like rails, plasma and frags make much better burst-damage weapons for them anyway)


Thermal shock: not worth it. You can't heat a ship up past 100% with it directly, and so you're relying on heating them up to 100% and then them doing something hot like firing or boosting. But that still won't get them much above 100%, they'll cool down fast once the guns aren't on them, and the few percent of distributed module damage that causes is going to be irrelevant to the fight. And many of them have a heat sink launcher too, which means you do even less module damage. (Plus NPCs don't panic like a player might when the heat alarms go off)