Ship Builds & Load Outs Diamondback Scout Combat

[Kayvan]

In my Quest for finding something to do I figured I could set up a few more small ships, as in the past I have mostly skipped over these, except for a little bit of Vulture and Viper flying.
The Viper MkIII is a fast little ship that can pack quite a punch, especially with the pre-engineered power plant, but even with optimal drive tuning it's just never nimble. We're looking at just about 40°/s Pitch here, that's comparable to a Python.

So I was looking at other options and ended up at the DBS: same hardpoints as the Viper (but rather better convergence), more utilities, otherwise mostly the same internals, not quite as fast but a lot more agile. Here we're talking something around 59°/s, on paper. So I outfitted one and took it for a spin.
Weapons: 2x LR Cytoscramblers, 1x Efficient PA, 1x OC PA
Shields are mediocre, I'll have to export the build from Inara but it was jsut something around 300 even with several boosters.

By and large, it works. The firepower is nice, you punch well above your weight class especially against shields. And even with repeated PA fire you don't overheat thanks to the inherent coolness of the DBS.
The most difficult fight was against an Elite FAS, which managed to strip my shields several times (granted, I smashed into an asteroid once by pilot error, that was a windfall I didn't recover from the whole fight), and I was only saved from its missiles by my PDT. This one really kept me busy!
However, the power distributor is clearly overtaxed; this ship requires a lot of pip juggling. When you want to fire, this weapon layout needs at least 3 pips in WEP or you run dry too fast. But the engines really don't like being run on a lean mix; there's a huge agility difference between 0 and 2 pips even in the blue zone. (EDSY says something about a 5° drop, but it sure feels more like -20°). And yeah, when enemies are hitting you, the SYS reserve runs dry very quickly.

So, nice in theory, some quirks in practice. Overall I would say, better than the Viper.

Another thing I'd like to try is replacing the PAs with Pack Hounds. That might work better with the power requirements overall. Also, I have all these stacks of Pack Hounds that I never even used.


Edit: here's the current loadout:
Yellowjacket
--

Also, I hear / read that the DBS has a certain fame for stealth builds; I tried that one time in the past but couldn't get it to work. I basically copied a build I saw online, no idea where my mistake was and now I don't have it anymore. How do you get these to work?

 

[cheechoong]

the dbs is a very underrated ship. i once had a stealth build that worked quite alright in pvp and that was also viable in hazres. npcs seemed to hit the ship far less than a typical shielded ship. not sure if it was due to the smaller hitbox from being an unshielded ship or the cold running. the dbs i had had 2 efficient pa with dispersal field / target lock breaker and 2 small fragment cannons with drag munition / dazzle something.

then i converted said dbs to an ax ship. i wasn't a top ax ace so i never took down basilisks or above with it before. these days it's used mostly for titan harvesting

 

[Kayvan]

Took for another spin last night, this time in a wing with a pimped-out Vette and an (unengineered) FDL. I got used to the pip management a bit better and ofc we were able to manage aggro -- somewhat. Even when the Vette opened up to draw initial aggro, the enemies soon tried to turn towards me bc those Cytos just tear those shields to shreds. But it was never a problem, the DBS also proved nimble enough to evade the big guns.

It's really funny, I've checked youtube and basically all the DBS reviews by different creators all were "Meh, it's a worse explorer than the DBX, no real reason to fly it" (some more diplomatic at it than others), and apart from some Stealth-build mentions, there was virtually no mention of its combat performance. So yeah, as you say: underrated. I would say it's better than a Viper III in every way except at moving in a straight line.

Now, the one Small ship that I still haven't outfitted and tested is the Courier, which I will do sometime soon. As I've heard good things about the Courier, I expect it to perform in the top tier of Small ships as well, which might leave the DBS at a solid #3 spot.

 

[cheechoong]

yea in terms of utility and versatility, i rate the courier as highly as the cobra mk3. superb jump range, speed and shields make the ship useful in many situations. it lacks only cargo capacity but that's not an important consideration for a small ship when larger ships are so accessible

 

[Three Stars]

@Kayvan The DBS for me is basically the junior Chieftain. I’ve made a bunch of them on the principle that they’re exceptionally cold running and small, so I lean into the cold part to make myself as difficult to hit as possible. Using 0E shield boosters helps an awful lot with power savings. I recommend thermal shock on the cytoscramblers as it has a slowing/inhibiting effect on targets that works best with higher hits/second.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffj Drop shields, take shots at the power plant with the PA/missile combo.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffm Jazz hands! Short range inertial impact cytoscramblers. The cannon is there for module shots. The corrosive is essential to let the cytos damage hulls once shields are down.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffo These use the special phasing/high cap/rapid fire/short range CG multicannons from a year or so ago. They can help when shields are both up and down.

 

[V'larr]

Forum-surfing here, a note on cytoscramblers: you get a lot more bang-for-buck using Short Range + Inertial Impact. Given the high base jitter, the downside of SR is negligible and you're already going to need to be in ideal range for SR anyway; and, with cytos you don't care about sniping modules anyhow. Inertial Impact is key because it's a +50% raw DPS boost - the kinetic damage is pure bonus damage.

About thermal shock - it's not about hits/second, it's the raw DPS (but there is a cap on the effect so you don't want/need it on everything):

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Rw6MCYCnY

 

[Three Stars]

@v’larr

About thermal shock - it's not about hits/second, it's the raw DPS (but there is a cap on the effect so you don't want/need it on everything):

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Rw6MCYCnY

That isn’t true, in my experience. I’ve been experimenting with Thermal Shock for many years. It’s well known that heat is capped at 95% no matter what. It’s less known that PvE ships run slower and avoid high heat actions (hot weapons) when kept at that 95% heat level by thermal shock weapon fire. Heat is a steady state process in this game, so even as you’re trying to push it up to 95%, the enemy is radiating heat outwards, and this is happening frame by frame. The point is…how consistently can you keep a PvE target’s heat at that 95%? Even the brief moments between pulse shots result in heat loss. There’s a critical threshold somewhere around 7 hits per second where the effect becomes consistent. The more hits per second you add above that, the more persistent and consistent you see the thermal shock effect. Think of a sine wave. A slower wave (with fewer hits) will touch the top less often compared to a faster wave (with more hits).

Two small fixed rapid fire pulses, two small fixed beams, or one cytoscrambler do nicely for the baseline effect. This is reproducible in the game, so feel free to try it. Try it against pythons and vultures if you really want to see a dramatic difference.

 

[Kayvan]

Nah, on the contrary. I have moved on to modding my Cytos for LR, which gives me around 1000% more time on target. Instead of +50% DPS for a couple of milliseconds I can strip shields from 2km away.

Ofc if you can constantly stick within 500m of the enemy then more power to you; I can't do that reliably and it's especially a pain when fighting other small ships.

 

[Kayvan]

@Kayvan The DBS for me is basically the junior Chieftain. I’ve made a bunch of them on the principle that they’re exceptionally cold running and small, so I lean into the cold part to make myself as difficult to hit as possible. Using 0E shield boosters helps an awful lot with power savings. I recommend thermal shock on the cytoscramblers as it has a slowing/inhibiting effect on targets that works best with higher hits/second.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffj Drop shields, take shots at the power plant with the PA/missile combo.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffm Jazz hands! Short range inertial impact cytoscramblers. The cannon is there for module shots. The corrosive is essential to let the cytos damage hulls once shields are down.

https://s.orbis.zone/nffo These use the special phasing/high cap/rapid fire/short range CG multicannons from a year or so ago. They can help when shields are both up and down.

I'll have to check if I also have those MCs; I did partake in every CG for a while there. ^^ As I wrote above I hate those jazz hands but the other two look fun. =)

 

[Screemonster]

cyto scouts are very fun, had one myself, got pulled by some novice in babby's first metadelance in shinrarta while I was still tweaking the outfitting, taught him that a metadelance flying with FA on in the hands of a mediocre pilot can and will be outrun and outturned by a properly fitted DBS. Cling to your target's belly and don't let go. I ran phasing on mine for hull checking, but that probably won't be as effective against NPCs as it is against players who frontload shields and skip hull day.

The hardpoint convergence is top-notch as well, you might enjoy giving rails a go if you fancy sniping.

The shields are poor as you said - which is why I ditched mine and went for a pure hulltank, though that may be more of an AX build than something for fighting human NPCs and their copious amounts of missile spam as soon as shields drop.

 

[Three Stars]

Not that I’m a huge fan of phasing in general, but cytoscramblers are a great way to use it.

I haven’t used long range cytos, mostly because for me they seem to have a practical range of 850m before the jitter makes it too difficult to hit consistently.

Efficient has no downside, as it’s difficult to get 30+ anti-shield dps from a small (or even a medium) hardpoint otherwise. Overcharged is also good if you can spare the distributor draw. OC 5 + thermal shock is a ton of anti-shield, plus the target stays nice and still for you.

 

[V'larr]

@v’larr

That isn’t true, in my experience. I’ve been experimenting with Thermal Shock for many years. It’s well known that heat is capped at 95% no matter what. It’s less known that PvE ships run slower and avoid high heat actions (hot weapons) when kept at that 95% heat level by thermal shock weapon fire. Heat is a steady state process in this game, so even as you’re trying to push it up to 95%, the enemy is radiating heat outwards, and this is happening frame by frame. The point is…how consistently can you keep a PvE target’s heat at that 95%? Even the brief moments between pulse shots result in heat loss. There’s a critical threshold somewhere around 7 hits per second where the effect becomes consistent. The more hits per second you add above that, the more persistent and consistent you see the thermal shock effect. Think of a sine wave. A slower wave (with fewer hits) will touch the top less often compared to a faster wave (with more hits).

Two small fixed rapid fire pulses, two small fixed beams, or one cytoscrambler do nicely for the baseline effect. This is reproducible in the game, so feel free to try it. Try it against pythons and vultures if you really want to see a dramatic difference.

Most of this is more or less what is said in the video: the benefit of thermal shock is to affect the behavior of the NPC target, so that it less often is spamming boost/SCBs/high-heat weapons.

However: the amount of heat added is directly related to the damage of the weapon with the thermal shock effect. This is why it's necessary to have additional thermal shock weapons to have the desired effect. If it were just simply hits per second, any lone small class beam laser would suffice even on ships with the largest heat capacity.

Part of your testing results may well be related to the use of those cytoscramblers, which with SR + Inertial Impact have extremely high raw damage relative to the hardpoint size.

Incidentally, two small beams is comparable to a single medium, which is what the video does recommend as a general rule of thumb for 'how much thermal shock is enough'.

 

[V'larr]

Nah, on the contrary. I have moved on to modding my Cytos for LR, which gives me around 1000% more time on target. Instead of +50% DPS for a couple of milliseconds I can strip shields from 2km away.

Ofc if you can constantly stick within 500m of the enemy then more power to you; I can't do that reliably and it's especially a pain when fighting other small ships.

With that jitter at 2km you're going to miss much of your shots against most targets that aren't L-pad ships, and you aren't close enough to reliably get those PA hits in, especially for sniping powerplants which is the key way for small ships to have a good chance against larger opponents.

You shouldn't really be having much trouble controlling engagement distance in a ship as small/nimble as a DBS scout. Throttle, lateral thrust, and distributor pips are all key to doing so, of course; try to match your opponent's 3-dimensional trajectory, rather than playing catch-up with their current facing, and use boost only sparingly/when needed (and remember you can deploy landing gear/cargo scoop to 'choke' an active boost if it seems like it's bad timing).

And upgrade your thrusters, naturally!

edit: I will say, NPC Vipers are particularly annoying pests especially for using PAs, but you can stick to them with some careful control & anticipation - and there's always the reverski to make them come to you. Plus, once you do land some hits, they pop pretty quick. Most other small/medium opponents aren't too bad.