Ships Could use some hints on loadouts

Sitheps · Oct 9, 2016

Hello!

I used to play about 6 months ago or so, before I took a break. I used to destroy anything that crossed my path with ease (Bounty Hunting PvE).
But since my return I find that I can barely bring an Anaconda down to 12% Hull before being forced to retreat myself (being at 2-10% Hull).
It would seem that NPC's have become much more proficient, or maybe I'm just that rusty. [cry]

Anyway, I find that my current setup might be somewhat outdated so I would warmly welcome some pointers!

I currently use:

Core Internals

1C Lightweight Alloys.
4A Power Plant
3A Enhanced Performance Thrusters (This darling I got yesterday) [praise]
3A Frame Shift Drive
1E Life Support
3A Power Distributor

Optional Internals

3A Shield Generator
3D Fuel Scoop (Cuz I sometimes suck at refueling properly) [where is it]

Utility Mounts

0E Shield Boosters x4 (bringing my total shield strength to 394.4)

Hardpoints

2F Multi-Cannon x2 (Gimballed)
2D Beam Laser (Gimballed)

Summary Ship Specs:

Integrity 144.0
Top Speed 373m/s
Boost Speed 506m/s
Total Mass 84.3/84.3/200.0 T
Total Power Deployd 13.15MW out of 15.60MW
Jump range 18.30LY

I have absolutely nothing Engineered so far, mainly because I don't really understand just how much they improve things or not. :S

Any advice would be awesome! Maybe even some piloting advice on how to stay on the enemies tail when they became good at back-paddling.

goemon · Oct 9, 2016

first of all: yes, AI got buffed a bit in the last month.

back-paddling can be nicely countered by constant PIP management and working with all lateral thrusters.

enhanced thrusters are much more sensible to weight, basically you want to keep your courier below 85 T including fuel to get the same manouverability (and more speed) as with "normal" a-class thrusters. see this graph: http://imgur.com/0SfMTVc

so:

- d-class your life support
- class 2 shield - less weight, only ~13% less shields
- undersized class 3 powerplant

... for engineering, you want to look into everything lightweight ... lightweight MC, lightweight beam ... enhanced, low power shield ...

modify 3 of your e-class boosters with augmented resistance.

maybe you change to a more "a-punch"-weapons loadout - throw a fragment cannon into your mix for exampel. you'll stay less time on target now.

goemon · Oct 9, 2016

here is a very good post and video on flying a high-speed courier: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...silver-s-Top-Tips-Beginner-s-Guide-VR-PvP-Vid

Sitheps · Oct 9, 2016

Thanks for the pointers! I'll look over my current build!

Ceekay · Oct 9, 2016

Something like this with standard 3A thrusters (enhanced will work but they need 2 MW more power) try and keep the all up mass below 90 T to maximise enhanced thruster performance.

https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_courier/0pat5F8l3das8f2270s2703060606--3r---.Iw18UA==.IwBj4zKA

Odan Brota · Oct 10, 2016

https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial...327272708080808B42t01010169.Iw18UA==.Aw18UA==

I use this. I prefer to use the standard thrusters, as it allows you to go ahead and engineer for heat efficiency in your power plant, and get your FSD range jacked up. Still try to run a little light so that you can break 500 m/s. Engineer mods are:

Reinforced hull armor (adds no weight on the lightweight armor)
thermal resistant shield
enhanced range FSD
efficient power plant
dirty drives on your thrusters
2x OC'd grade 5 Multis (thermic rounds)
1x OC'd grade 5 Multi (corrosive rounds)
3x Resistance Augmented Grade 5 Boosters
1x Heavy Duty Grade 5 Booster OR chaff launcher
Charge enhanced power distro

Works very well for me, goes fast enough, runs cool (the worst part about the courier was it's poor heat management imo), and hits like a truck.

EDIT: https://youtu.be/er2FZOXmZ9M

Here's a video of it in action, I'm not the greatest pilot in the universe. At this point, I was using 2x OC'd multis and a thermal vent beam laser for fun. Beam laser works alright, but thermal vent doesn't seem to really do a whole lot for the courier, and I've since swapped it for a G5 OC'd corrosive multi. Also am using a Grade 3 weapons focused power distro at the moment, because I'm waiting for RNG to give me an exquisite focus crystal or two.

noldunar · Oct 10, 2016

This would be my suggestion:

https://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial...010100.Iw18UA==.CwBj4yGYKA==?bn=light courier

Also works with enhanced performance thrusters, you just have to downgrade the shield boosters a little. The cargo racks are just placeholders since they weigh nothing while empty and you need some cargo space to be able to accept missions that offer commodities as a reward.

Mass with fuel is 83.3 tonnes. However, once the shields are gone you have to get the hell out. Also, on a small nimble ship like the courier chaffs are a good defensive measure, especially against turrets, so I recommend fitting them.

stramasher · Oct 10, 2016

Made mine into a stripped down canyon carver with the enhanced thrusters.

Feels wasted so going to transfer these thrusters into the ImpEagle for my high speed, wall-shaving jollies.

Back to DD3 normal thrusters for the courier as I want it back as a combat ship, so weaps/shield boosters/KWS etc

Is this wise?

goemon · Oct 10, 2016

stramasher said:
Is this wise?

no ;-)

to do the math.

the best gain of manouverability and speed with standard a-class thrusters you get a 50% optimal mass. in case of couriers class 3 thrusters, optimal mass is 120 T, and you would gain +16% at 60T total mass. at 80% optimal mass (~95T), you will gain ~5% speed and ~5% manouverability with standard a class thrusters. enhanced peformance thrusters will get ~5% gain in manouverability and ~13% in speed.

drive tuning will not change this, beside reducing optimal thruster mass - more severe on enhanced performance thrusters.

to get a courier above 95 T, you don't only need to fit the largest shield, largest powerplant and a full set of shieldboosters (resulting in ~14% more shield than a class 2 A shield, with 1 a-class booster and one c-class booster), you have to go for HRP, too.

so - as long as you don't go for a really heavy courier (bulkheads, HRP), which will have poor manouverability, there is no good reason to fit standard a-class thrusters instead of enhanced performances thrusters.

ForeverN00b · Oct 10, 2016

My combat Courier weighs in at 76 tons and has 3 overcharged G5 multicannons. Dirty Enhanced Drives push the speed to about 515/690. 3A shield.

stramasher · Oct 11, 2016

Thanks CMDRS! Food for thought. Only had one roll left for the enhanced thrusters so I can see an improvement in that department.

Dar|{cyde · Oct 13, 2016

ForeverN00b said:
My combat Courier weighs in at 76 tons and has 3 overcharged G5 multicannons. Dirty Enhanced Drives push the speed to about 515/690. 3A shield.

How do you run that light with full weight guns? Small FSD and fuel tank? I will drop my tank size if I'm going into combat for a while, but can't stand losing my Gr5 FSD.

goemon · Oct 14, 2016

Dar|{cyde said:
How do you run that light with full weight guns? Small FSD and fuel tank? I will drop my tank size if I'm going into combat for a while, but can't stand losing my Gr5 FSD.

- undersized fueltank
- class 2A shield
- class 3A powerplant
- 2 d-class augmented resistance boosters
- 1 lightweight modded weapon

~ 76 T

captainkapp · Oct 14, 2016

Sitheps said:
Hello!

I used to play about 6 months ago or so, before I took a break. I used to destroy anything that crossed my path with ease (Bounty Hunting PvE).
But since my return I find that I can barely bring an Anaconda down to 12% Hull before being forced to retreat myself (being at 2-10% Hull).
It would seem that NPC's have become much more proficient, or maybe I'm just that rusty. [cry]

Anyway, I find that my current setup might be somewhat outdated so I would warmly welcome some pointers!

I currently use:

Core Internals

1C Lightweight Alloys.

4A Power Plant

3A Enhanced Performance Thrusters (This darling I got yesterday) [praise]

3A Frame Shift Drive

1E Life Support

3A Power Distributor

Optional Internals

3A Shield Generator

3D Fuel Scoop (Cuz I sometimes suck at refueling properly) [where is it]

Utility Mounts

0E Shield Boosters x4 (bringing my total shield strength to 394.4)

Hardpoints

2F Multi-Cannon x2 (Gimballed)

2D Beam Laser (Gimballed)

Summary Ship Specs:

Integrity 144.0

Top Speed 373m/s

Boost Speed 506m/s

Total Mass 84.3/84.3/200.0 T

Total Power Deployd 13.15MW out of 15.60MW

Jump range 18.30LY

I have absolutely nothing Engineered so far, mainly because I don't really understand just how much they improve things or not. :S

Any advice would be awesome! Maybe even some piloting advice on how to stay on the enemies tail when they became good at back-paddling.

It may not be what you are looking for but I thought I'd share my load out on here if it'll help cmdrs. I have a cutter and vetted but I have come to own four of these I couriers just for different jobs and intense game play. Anyhow my ace ship is purl combat and lent to stay in a system for fighting. So not really for travel.

Military bulkheads with t5 armor upgrade
All correspondence internals are A
Powerplat is t1 overcharged (for now I'm at 101%)
Thrusters are t3 dirty drives.
T1 extended fsd
T1 weapons recharge distributor
The optionals:
3a prismatic t1 resistant upgrade
3d hull reinforcement t5 armor upgrade
2x: 2d hull reinforcements t1 heavy reinforced
2d hull reinforcement t4 heavy reinforcement
1d hull reinforcement t1 heavy
4x:Oa shield boosters t1 resistance
Three extented clip t1 multicannons
2 are incendiary
One is corrosive

My ship boosts at 430
Shields are at 813 with major resistance
Hull is at 1594 with high resistance
I drop shields fast and can snipe modules out of anaconda with ease.
Pip management is super important. Remember you are highly monuverable your speed is to get out of their range, to catch up, or to bail. Other wise keep four in sys for your shields and two in weapons to keep your multis going. Sorry for any spelling errors.

goemon · Oct 15, 2016

captainkapp said:
It may not be what you are looking for but I thought I'd share my load out on here if it'll help cmdrs.

this is the most tanky (and probably most heavy) courier i ever read of! impressive. i'd love to see it fly (to bad, we can't borrow ships of other cmdrs...).

Odan Brota · Oct 15, 2016

goemon said:
this is the most tanky (and probably most heavy) courier i ever read of! impressive. i'd love to see it fly (to bad, we can't borrow ships of other cmdrs...).

That's something I love about the Courier. Your build is super lightweight, mine is more of a middle-weight, and his is ultra-heavyweight. And yet, they all do their jobs very well, and look good doing it.

Courier best ship.

CATPAIN KIRK · Nov 9, 2016

I thought I'd put my questions here rather than opening a new thread if the OP doesn't mind.

I took an eight months break, so I'm still a bit new to engineers.

My idea was to engineer my Courier around being a lightweight passive regeneration tank.

The end result is supposed to look something like this.

The idea is to G5 mod the shields to slightly increase resistances whilst largely maintaining recharge rate (done, 1.7 recharge and 5-10% better resistances). It doesn't need a lot of buffer, so I went with class E shield boosters and G5 resistance augmented them in order to stack resistances (done, all between 14.5-18% resistances).

Questions:

1. I bet someone tried to do something similar already, so is it a viable idea?

2. I'm about to G4 lightweight the weapons (17 runs available), but I don't have experience with weapon effects. I used to run it with one fixed beam on the right and dual fixed MCs mid and left. Now I'm thinking about one incendiary MC to strip shields, one without any special effect and one with corrosive shells. Use the thermal and unmodified one in one firegroup to strip shields and have corrosives in group two, firing both groups simultaneously once shields are down. Yay or Nay?

3. I still have to upgrade thrusters and I think I'll have to use clean drives due to the overcharged PP having a really bad heat efficiency, so using DD will result in roast pork. Is that correct?

4. I know it's possible to apply the lightweight Hull effect to lightweight bulkheads. It doesn't seem to have any effect in Coriolis. Is that correct?
Any input is welcome.

goemon · Nov 9, 2016

CATPAIN KIRK said:
I thought I'd put my questions here rather than opening a new thread if the OP doesn't mind.

I took an eight months break, so I'm still a bit new to engineers.

My idea was to engineer my Courier around being a lightweight passive regeneration tank.

The end result is supposed to look something like this.

The idea is to G5 mod the shields to slightly increase resistances whilst largely maintaining recharge rate (done, 1.7 recharge and 5-10% better resistances). It doesn't need a lot of buffer, so I went with class E shield boosters and G5 resistance augmented them in order to stack resistances (done, all between 14.5-18% resistances).

Questions:

1. I bet someone tried to do something similar already, so is it a viable idea?

2. I'm about to G4 lightweight the weapons (17 runs available), but I don't have experience with weapon effects. I used to run it with one fixed beam on the right and dual fixed MCs mid and left. Now I'm thinking about one incendiary MC to strip shields, one without any special effect and one with corrosive shells. Use the thermal and unmodified one in one firegroup to strip shields and have corrosives in group two, firing both grpups simultaneously once shields are down. Yay or Nay?

3. I still have to upgrade thrusters and I think I'll have to use clean drives due to the overcharged PP having a really bad heat efficiency, so using DD will result in roast pork. Is that correct?

Any input is welcome.

1. it is

2. i'm running full MC loadout on my speedy eagle ... 1 incendiary, 1 corrosive and 1 thermal special effect - if you can live with the DPS loss, thermal is fantastic pve --- npc don't use shieldcellbanks or railguns against my eagle anymore...

3. yes - depending on your final rolls, you could try to overcharge your PP only on level 1, and aim for a secondary effect, which both increases heat efficiency and power output - this is what i have done on my courier (but i'm running a class 3 powerplant).

don#t forget to fit a smaller fueltank!

CATPAIN KIRK · Nov 9, 2016

goemon said:
1. it is

2. i'm running full MC loadout on my speedy eagle ... 1 incendiary, 1 corrosive and 1 thermal special effect - if you can live with the DPS loss, thermal is fantastic pve --- npc don't use shieldcellbanks or railguns against my eagle anymore...

Thanks for the feedback. I've thought about using a G4 lightweight thermal vent beam instead of the incendiary MC.

Thermal Vent
Experimental upgrade that increases heat dissipation when successfully striking a target, at the cost of increased heat generation when missing.

Thought it might be a good idea as I never miss using fixed beams, but I'll have to look into it.

3. yes - depending on your final rolls, you could try to overcharge your PP only on level 1, and aim for a secondary effect, which both increases heat efficiency and power output - this is what i have done on my courier (but i'm running a class 3 powerplant).

My PP is certainly overkill. I have another G4 modded 2A with better heat efficiency and less output, but I don't dare to swap as I didn't read any confirmation the bug relating to singular modded modules leading to corrupted user data has been fixed (?).

don't forget to fit a smaller fueltank!

I certainly won't

. The linked fit is the travel fit I use for upgrading it atm. The plan is to stow the tank and FSD away once in the system or to get rid of them alltogether and just using transfer (the fit is dirt-cheap to move).

goemon · Nov 10, 2016

CATPAIN KIRK said:
Thought it might be a good idea as I never miss using fixed beams, but I'll have to look into it.

...

My PP is certainly overkill. I have another G4 modded 2A with better heat efficiency and less output, but I don't dare to swap as I didn't read any confirmation the bug relating to singular modded modules leading to corrupted user data has been fixed (?).

if you are good with fixed beams, this sound like a plan! just have in mind using fixed weapons on a speed courier is much more difficult ... optimal mass multiplier makes it a highly responsive ship, and time on target gets down.

for the bug - i had it. it looks to me like there is a workaround: always have a modul and a second ships to transfer in place ... i have swapped core internals succesfully doing so. but sure - better to wait.