Ships Imperial Courier Courier Shields

[Dop3fish]

Hi,

I have an Imperial Courier that I'd like to outfit as a PVE fighter. This week, I made my 750 merits and Prismatic Shields should unlock on Thursday. What engineering should I put on the Prismatics and 2 0A Shield Boosters to get maximum toughness? Also, what gimballed weapons (I'm not a great shot) would be best?

Thanks,
CMDR Dop3fish

 

[Northpin]

Hi,

I have an Imperial Courier that I'd like to outfit as a PVE fighter. This week, I made my 750 merits and Prismatic Shields should unlock on Thursday. What engineering should I put on the Prismatics and 2 0A Shield Boosters to get maximum toughness? Also, what gimballed weapons (I'm not a great shot) would be best?

Thanks,
CMDR Dop3fish

Two things:

1) For PVE is advisable to use Bi-Weaves because of their good recharge rate.
Prismatics and regular A-rated are not worth it in PVE.

2) Courier is usually used as a light zip-zapper, relying mostly on damage avoidance and not damage tanking

But if you insist for a heavy plane
a) Heavy Prismo Courier - not much power left for weaps, so frags and cannons as low power / low distro punching
b) same but with Bi-Weaves - this time there is power for other weapon choices and the shields have sort-of-decent recharge rate

 

[Madrax573]

I have a class 2 Bi-weave on mine and it has like 800+ shields which I find is way more than needed for the majority of PVE combat tbh… even HI CZ's

 

[Dop3fish]

Would you say this is preferable to this?

 

[F4fred]

Would you say this is preferable to this?

Both of those are mission runners not dedicated fighters. Nothing wrong with that, but you lose some effectiveness as a fighter if you go that route. In a dedicated fighter you lose the scoop, cargo and vehicle hanger. Add in Guardian shield booster, HRP or MRP’s. You either fly to where you are going to fight in something else and transfer the fighter or put in a scoop and Guardian FSD booster if you have one, fly there and then get the combat modules shipped over.
As for the two builds you linked. Both are ok, but I would use resistance boosters. Your thermal resistances are -20% on both builds. You will lose shields fast. They should be over 50%. If you have access to Guardian tech use the shield booster to give you extra raw MJ. Go thermal, force block on the biweave and thermal resistance, force block on the boosters.

 

[Northpin]

Would you say this is preferable to this?

IF you get fights one after another, recharge rate becomes important.
If you get 1 fight every 15 minutes, go for prismatics

 

[Dop3fish]

Both of those are mission runners not dedicated fighters. Nothing wrong with that, but you lose some effectiveness as a fighter if you go that route. In a dedicated fighter you lose the scoop, cargo and vehicle hanger. Add in Guardian shield booster, HRP or MRP’s. You either fly to where you are going to fight in something else and transfer the fighter or put in a scoop and Guardian FSD booster if you have one, fly there and then get the combat modules shipped over.
As for the two builds you linked. Both are ok, but I would use resistance boosters. Your thermal resistances are -20% on both builds. You will lose shields fast. They should be over 50%. If you have access to Guardian tech use the shield booster to give you extra raw MJ. Go thermal, force block on the biweave and thermal resistance, force block on the boosters.

More like this?

 

[Innocentius]

Northpin's ship looks nice. I would switch to OC PP though to get rid of that power constraint when using the prismatics. No need for PvE fighter to use armored and on a ship that size you will not be sniped anyhow, especially as the shield to hull ratio is so skewed. That opens up the possibility to use what ever weapons you want to have.

 

[sinisalo]

The Courier is one of Elite's best ships for build theory. Each and every change has a significant carry-on effect. It's a proper challenge to get a good blend of speed, protection and firepower.

My fast battle Courier is a compromise between all three.

Velocity

If I swap in thermal resist Prismatics there is an increase in raw mj, but the trade off is more heat, mass, power draw and recovery/recharge times. Prismatics are a great choice when you put shield protection at the top of the list. The power draw means a different power plant engineering or a larger class potentially, and more heat. Even more significant for me is they weigh twice as much, and for class 2 shields that means another 2.5 tons, and in a Courier there is no escaping the fact that adding any mass has a large effect on performance. My Courier uses a 2.5-ton 2A thermal resist / hi-cap shield generator, with 551 mj and recovery around 3 minutes (four E boosters for resists and mass reasons). For such a fast ship I find this is plenty in PvE. Prismatics are certainly viable, but not needed in my view. Just depends on what you want out of you Courier. In my case I feel I traded speed potential for more integrity and firepower. But at 780 boost it's still fast. If I simply swapped Prismatics and no other changes, it cuts boost speed by 25 m/s. And for my build at least, it would require either more overcharge on the PP (more heat) or a larger power plant (more mass)

But these are the opportunity cost choices that make Elite shipbuilding so compelling.

A few months ago we had a thread for battle Courier builds. Have a look through there for some great builds.

Imperial Courier - Fast Battle Courier

I love this ship, and for a long time now it's been half-done and now I want to get it closer to all done. It's a challenge. I am looking for the following... -- Fast. Around 800 boost -- Armed. Want to use it for bounty hunting -- Good shields, 600 mj as a minimum The challenge arises from...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Northpin]

Northpin's ship looks nice. I would switch to OC PP though to get rid of that power constraint when using the prismatics. No need for PvE fighter to use armored and on a ship that size you will not be sniped anyhow, especially as the shield to hull ratio is so skewed. That opens up the possibility to use what ever weapons you want to have.

If you replace armored with overcharged pp you need to take into consideration the thermal aspect of that courier.
Using a lot of power with a less than efficient PP might mean a rather hot Courier.

For Example: last night i was running this Courier all over the bubble to engineer it (god how i want the colonia engineers) and it was getting rather hot when scooping or when boosting alot
In the end it will look like this

 

[Faded Glory]

iCourier is a great ship. I do have one build that uses bi-weaves, but to get decent resistances with them requires a bunch of shield boosters that ends up making the recharge time slower than standard shields, kind of defeating the point IMO. My bi-weave build has pretty light shields (just over 400 MJ), but it's fast and can boost out of any trouble at 865 m/s.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

For a more traditional build I use standard 3A shields and that gives me strong enough resistances based on the fact that the iCourier is a small ship, so shouldn't be taking constant fire.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Dop3fish]

Better?

 

[Fish172]

I use Biweave plus g5 low power enhanced and one class E booster..this easily passes 500 shields and gives plenty of performance too.

 

[sinisalo]

If you're OK with a slow Courier yeah that looks good. That Courier weighs 35 tons more than mine. For me, the Courier is a ship that is meant to be very fast and agile. This ship is well outside of the optimal mass for Enhanced thrusters. It would be faster with 3A dirty drags.

But it's your ship, not mine, so blaze your own.

 

[Northpin]

Better?

Dont use Enhanced Drives on a heavy ship - you get worse performance.
In your case you get way better results with normal 3A Drives

 

[AlSki]

As suggested above the issue is what else do you compromise, and how do you cope with those compromises.

As much as I love my Couriers, I've recently begin to notice that for certain roles a Mamba or Krait Phantom can be an easier choice. For example I've got a 598m/s Mamba for CZs that is as quick and with much more firepower than most Couriers... but not all. For example Turn n Burn is much faster, has a reduced fuel tank, and an overcharged powerplant that is so hot that you need two beams on Thermal vent to keep it cool. But they do keep it very cool....

However to answer your original question, you have two choices with Prismatics, make them so strong that you can tank the incoming fire, or make them efficient to better fit the Courier. Your problem is likely to be how much you compromise the rest of your build.

For tanking, if you are struggling for extra power then Thermal Resist doesn't add to your power usage, but Reinforced will give you protection from everything that gets thrown at you, maybe something like this.
If you are really struggling for power and/or weight then you want to engineer with Enhanced Low power, which improves everything a little, don't bother with a Class 3, there is little difference to a Class 2 for a lot more weight. For example this has more firepower.

For shield boosters, I don't think you ever want a 0A on a courier, they are just too heavy. Engineer some 0E/0Ds. You want one as a Heavy duty to give you a massive boost, then up your resistances for the others, usually one as a Thermal resist, the others as Resistance augmented.

Finally, if you can afford it, I would buy at least 2x Class 2 and 2x Class 3 Prismatics on Thursday. That way you can try out all your options until you find what works for you.

 

[B.Roberts]

Two things:

1) For PVE is advisable to use Bi-Weaves because of their good recharge rate.
Prismatics and regular A-rated are not worth it in PVE.

2) Courier is usually used as a light zip-zapper, relying mostly on damage avoidance and not damage tanking

But if you insist for a heavy plane
a) Heavy Prismo Courier - not much power left for weaps, so frags and cannons as low power / low distro punching
b) same but with Bi-Weaves - this time there is power for other weapon choices and the shields have sort-of-decent recharge rate

That's the idea. Those heavy duty shields are good for big, slow ships. They can't run so they need massive shields and hulls to survive. On Courier (or any other fast ship) you want something with reasonable strength and fast recharge capability, bi-weave is the way to go. You can always fly away, recharge and re engage.

 

[SergMx]

That's the idea. Those heavy duty shields are good for big, slow ships. They can't run so they need massive shields and hulls to survive. On Courier (or any other fast ship) you want something with reasonable strength and fast recharge capability, bi-weave is the way to go. You can always fly away, recharge and re engage.

I'm sorry to interrupt, and maybe not quite the subject.

I don't think you're right that big shields are just for big ships. They're not. A big, clumsy ship is the easiest to hit with a torpedo and it doesn't care about the power of the shield. And the more the shield, the more offensive it will be.

 

[B.Roberts]

I'm sorry to interrupt, and maybe not quite the subject.

I don't think you're right that big shields are just for big ships. They're not. A big, clumsy ship is the easiest to hit with a torpedo and it doesn't care about the power of the shield. And the more the shield, the more offensive it will be.

You probably correct about torpedoes but to be honest with you I don't even remember when was the last time I was hit by one of these things so I can't comment on it. I usually have at least two point defense systems on my larger ships and one on the Courier and they taking pretty good care of torpedoes, missiles hatch breaker limpets and what else is out there. Now, besides all this I personally prefer higher regeneration and recharge rates rather than having bigger shield and hoping that it will not fail. I never bothered with prismatics for example. I assume that my shield will fail under heavy attack but I will be able to boost away and recharge it faster than my enemy. I'm trying to keep my shield recharge time within 3 minutes or so and it works OK for me so far. This kind of strategy is not universal though and just a matter of personal preference.

 

[SergMx]

You probably correct about torpedoes but to be honest with you I don't even remember when was the last time I was hit by one of these things so I can't comment on it. I usually have at least two point defense systems on my larger ships and one on the Courier and they taking pretty good care of torpedoes, missiles hatch breaker limpets and what else is out there. Now, besides all this I personally prefer higher regeneration and recharge rates rather than having bigger shield and hoping that it will not fail. I never bothered with prismatics for example. I assume that my shield will fail under heavy attack but I will be able to boost away and recharge it faster than my enemy. I'm trying to keep my shield recharge time within 3 minutes or so and it works OK for me so far. This kind of strategy is not universal though and just a matter of personal preference.

I've been told that not only do Point-Defense torpedoes not do well, but they're usually released (at least to me) still complete with pack-hound missiles to distract the Point-Defense.