Ships Easy Engineered Viper build?

[Shadowscream]

Any improvements on this Easy Engineered Viper build? (PvE)
Farseer, Martuuk, The Dweller & Tod available

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Weapons = All MCs...2 with Incendiary
10 secs to removes Shields on stock Anaconda, 28 secs to remove armor.

Thanks for any advice

 

[sinisalo]

This ship is too heavy for the Enhanced Performance Thrusters (unladen mass of your ship 115t, optimal mass for the EPTs in this build is 92t). It would be faster with 3As. And I think that gap would grow as you go to G5. So I would either switch the thrusters or shed mass. I would shed mass since speed is life and a a EPT Viper is potentially one of the fastest ships in Elite..

I just ran both through Coriolis and actually at G5 in this specific config (with no other changes) it makes little difference. To wit:

G5 EPT with Drive Distributors = 547 boost
G5 3A with Drag Drives = 570 boost.

However, if you shed mass and got it under the EPT optimal mass the boost with G5 Dirty Drive Distributors becomes 639. Of course you have to sacrifice integrity to get there, which is not my recommendation, just an observation. This is what makes Elite shipbuilding so fun.

I would put Long Range on the sensors, but that's me. G3 long range detects ships to about 11km, which I find is plenty for me.

Good hunting commander.

 

[Shadowscream]

This ship is too heavy for the Enhanced Performance Thrusters (unladen mass of your ship 115t, optimal mass for the EPTs in this build is 92t). It would be faster with 3As. And I think that gap would grow as you go to G5. So I would either switch the thrusters or shed mass. I would shed mass since speed is life and a a EPT Viper is potentially one of the fastest ships in Elite..

I would put Long Range on the sensors, but that's me. G3 long range detects ships to about 11km, which I find is plenty for me.

Good hunting commander.

How about a compromise like this:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Dropped some of the weight —> lightweight instead of Military BUT kept HRPs/MRPs. Dropped FSD to D rated, long range but stripped down. Switched to DDrag normal thrusters.
463 speed, 579 speed.....for a loss of 120 absolute HP??

I also put sensors to long range

 

[sinisalo]

Faster yes. More my style, but it's your boat. Put G5 HD/Deep Plating on the stock alloys when you can and the integrity is back up to 850 and that expensive, heavy armor won't be missed.

I always prioritize speed, jump and temp and don't mind compromising in other areas to get it. As I added in the last post, these are not my recommendations, just observations. All of my ships use HD stock alloys. Armor is just so.... slow!

 

[Ethaidan]

My advice... if you're wanting to use a small fast combat ship, unlock Selene. The access to G5 lightweight Reactive armour + 1 G5 Thermal HRP will completely changed your options when it comes to shedding extra HRP weight while retaining integrity. G5 lightweight Reactive weighs as much as 1 size 3 HRP.

If you could go back in time, I'd suggest using the mining CG in Eurybia to unlock Selene, so you would have unlocked Liz at the same time.

 

[Shadowscream]

My advice... if you're wanting to use a small fast combat ship, unlock Selene. The access to G5 lightweight Reactive armour + 1 G5 Thermal HRP will completely changed your options when it comes to shedding extra HRP weight while retaining integrity. G5 lightweight Reactive weighs as much as 1 size 3 HRP.

If you could go back in time, I'd suggest using the mining CG in Eurybia to unlock Selene, so you would have unlocked Liz at the same time.

My son only has the first 4 engineers.....
I will help him get a few more like Selene once I’ve caught my own new account back up.
(started on PC). I got him to follow Manus_Dextras 4 videos on BHunting (He only unlocks the first easy 4 on that guide).
Which seemed easier for a 13 year old than doing all of them

 

[sinisalo]

That's great Shadowscream. My son is ten, and he likes watching me play Elite, but seems to have little interest in it himself. It's the slow burn. He can't just jump right in with the best gear I guess. Your son is off to a great start. Good dad, you are.

 

[Shadowscream]

That's great Shadowscream. My son is ten, and he likes watching me play Elite, but seems to have little interest in it himself. It's the slow burn. He can't just jump right in with the best gear I guess. Your son is off to a great start. Good dad, you are.

My son has no real interest in Mining, Trading, or Exploring....
But PvE in a little ship is a different matter & he‘s better at FA off flying than me already!

 

[Ethaidan]

My son has no real interest in Mining, Trading, or Exploring....
But PvE in a little ship is a different matter & he‘s better at FA off flying than me already!

Well, my oldest (13) also prefers combat (he does support or BGS with some haulage, trade, data, etc. and we did his mining unlock in wing), but he enjoys it much more now in a mostly G5 Krait... we usually focus on CZs and Elite assassination missions now that he has a capable ship.

 

[CMDR Temunjin Boras]

Watch out for the heat efficiency. The viper cooks pretty quick and having the overcharged power plant with monstered plus the four overcharged multicannons (with mostly incendiary) will limit how much the ship can shoot. Switching to an armored power plant with thermal spread will bump the heat down a bit.

Don't worry about getting as much power as possible from the power plant. The ship just needs enough to not be over 100% and you can also assign module priorities to turn off the FSD and cargo hatch when hardpoints are deployed.

If it's really combat focused you might also be able to get away with a smaller FSD. That would bump the speed up a bit and lower the power draw. It drops about 10ly to go to 3D so not great for longer travels but there's no fuel scoop equipped anyway. If it's really not going to travel it could do a 2D FSD with 1C fuel tank too but this might be heresy

If you find that the two extra overcharged multis are still generating too much heat you could try dumbfire missiles. They have a tricky learning curve but with penetrator munitions from Liz the ship can really start punching above its weight. You can take out multiple big ships like anacondas and corvettes with a tiny viper which is super fun! I've heard that dumbfires are good for bombing ground bases too.

 

[Shadowscream]

Watch out for the heat efficiency. The viper cooks pretty quick and having the overcharged power plant with monstered plus the four overcharged multicannons (with mostly incendiary) will limit how much the ship can shoot. Switching to an armored power plant with thermal spread will bump the heat down a bit.

Don't worry about getting as much power as possible from the power plant. The ship just needs enough to not be over 100% and you can also assign module priorities to turn off the FSD and cargo hatch when hardpoints are deployed.

If it's really combat focused you might also be able to get away with a smaller FSD. That would bump the speed up a bit and lower the power draw. It drops about 10ly to go to 3D so not great for longer travels but there's no fuel scoop equipped anyway. If it's really not going to travel it could do a 2D FSD with 1C fuel tank too but this might be heresy

If you find that the two extra overcharged multis are still generating too much heat you could try dumbfire missiles. They have a tricky learning curve but with penetrator munitions from Liz the ship can really start punching above its weight. You can take out multiple big ships like anacondas and corvettes with a tiny viper which is super fun! I've heard that dumbfires are good for bombing ground bases too.

Switching to G1 Low emissions + Thermal Spread (only Farseer available for PPs) still gives an excess of power...
is that the best heatwise for G1 engineering?

 

[Ashnak]

Best heatwise would be low emissions/thermal spread. Possible with your build if you switch off (or depriorise) the cargo hatch. So you can either shoot or scoop, not both:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

But low emissions also reduces your PP's integrity, so tha's not exactly top choice for a fighter that largely relies on its armour to get around.

 

[sinisalo]

Don't worry about getting as much power as possible from the power plant. The ship just needs enough to not be over 100% and you can also assign module priorities

I agree with this. A solid approach to build theory is to finalize all of your choices elsewhere within the ship, and then do the power plant last, with whichever power plant engineering is needed to cover the power cost. For a combat ship I lean toward armored, usually a grade or two, with thermal spread. But depends on other things really.

Even though cool-running is one of my build priorities, I wouldn't necessarily recommend low-emissions in a dedicated fighter, but it is not wrong either. Cut power draw elsewhere, or pair hot weapons with thermal vent beams is how I approach it.

Ashnak's point about low-emissions in this ship is a good one. The shields on this ship are shallow. A shield tank it is not. This increases the likelihood that they will collapse at times, making your choices for integrity underneath all the more important. Armored would be a good choice I think.

 

[Kayvan]

Personally - that being the way it was taught to me - I typically fit the smaller hardpoints with lasers for shield stripping, and the larger ones with MCs (or other kinetics) for hull shredding. Reason being that smaller hardpoints have lower Piercing values, but Piercing is irrelevant against shields. So you want your biggest guns to have maximum effect against hull. Also, instead of Oversized I'd make one of the Multis Corrosive.

Hence, my combat Viper looks more like this:
Hull: Lightweight Alloy / Heavy Duty
Small HPs: Burst Lasers
Med HPs: MCs
Utilities: 2 Shield Boosters if power supply allows
Also, while getting good with Fixed certainly has many benefits in the long run, I got frustrated with them pretty quickly as a beginner and switched to gimballed.

However, I must stress that I don't have many hours logged in my Combat Viper (I also have a Racing one) so take this just as my two cents. Now that I think about it, ammo usage probably isn't crucial since small ships don't have so much endurance anyway, and the reduced power requirements of Incendiary vs Lasers might be worthwhile.