Engineers Engineering distributors for combat

[RolloTreadway]

I have a bit of a nooby question, because as long as I've been playing this game, I've never really been much of a fighter. Always been an explorer - I did a bit of shooting at other ships in REZs in the early days to make progress, and I've done enough self-defence to reach Master rank - but I fancy a spot of mindless violence before heading out into the black again.

My question is this: what kind of engineering do you like for your distributor, if you're up for a bit of killing? Weapons focus obviously jump out, but I'm worried that will leave me in a lot of trouble if my shields get shot down.

(Right now, I'm trying out a Challenger - maybe I shouldn't worry about shields so much, because I've taken the opportunity to fit a bunch of hull reinforcement packages in the military slots, and Puffing Billy appears to be very hard.)

 

[ExoForce]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/420564-Power-distributor-Experimental

 

[RolloTreadway]

Thanks, I think. Although I'm not at all certain that answers my question, unless you're saying that Charged Enhanced is the only way to go?

 

[Codger]

Charge enhanced all the way.

 

[Codger]

Is there some background to that as to why it seems such a no-brainer?

Not that I know of. It's just a better upgrade all around. Engine focused has some use in speedy builds and possibly exploration builds that want to use a small distributor and still boost.

 

[RolloTreadway]

Thanks. I presume that's because recharging shields and weapons are equally valuable?

 

[Speedcuffs]

Thanks. I presume that's because recharging shields and weapons are equally valuable?

And boosting.
I have tried various combinations on PDs, I always go with charge enhanced now.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Is there some background to that as to why it seems such a no-brainer?

It is generally what constrains your firing.
Having a larger capacity is nearly useless since it just takes way longer to fill up with lower recharge.
If you need a large capacity to fire a full set of PAs or something, that might be an exception.

Much like how having a larger bank vault is useless if your paycheck gets smaller.
You can only spend what you make.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Ok thanks. Is weapon focused considered useless? And if so, why (for energy hungry weapons like beam laser for instance)?

The recharge rate is almost the same for weps but you miss out on the recharge for sys and eng.

 

[Speedcuffs]

It is generally what constrains your firing.
Having a larger capacity is nearly useless since it just takes way longer to fill up with lower recharge.
If you need a large capacity to fire a full set of PAs or something, that might be an exception.

Much like how having a larger bank vault is useless if your paycheck gets smaller.
You can only spend what you make.

Wow, that's the best way of explaining it![yesnod]

 

[Jankules]

Also general benefit from this mod(distributor mods in general) is not that high like say overcharged multies mod when you get 70% increase from stock.On paper sounds like high numbers but on field barely you can see difference.After 3.0 shields mods
(Reinforced) plus some special effects draw distributor very fast when recharging...you want good numbers in Sys also.Thus overall charged increased distributor mod is far better than gr5 mode.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

i still struggle to find any other useful mod aside of the faster recharge for all three.

the higher capacity would be interesting for me, if the gains would be MUCH higher, and the negative recharge smaller.
it also sounds like its a mod for someone good at micromanaging his pips, as this one will not recharge reasonable fast unless you put full pips into it.

i could imagine that the weapon-focused one could be interesting for someone heavily using guardian gauss, due to the combined higher recharge and capacity.
or in mining ships.

there is that heat multiplier that grows the less your wep capacitor is filled. i often notice that one during mining when i forget to put enough pips into weps.

 

[Daynen]

Charge enhanced distributors are an excellent gateway to most ship builds. It's hard to go wrong with faster charge in everything and makes an excellent pinned blueprint. That said, upon experimenting with your ship's loadout a bit, you may find you constantly want more of a certain bar or constantly run only one pip in something. If, for example, you run a shieldless hull tank, you have zero use for pips in systems and could thus consider a weapon focused distributor. If you're running a small speed demon of a ship that boost turns constantly to circle folks but uses weapons with no real draw, try an engine focused build and see if it feels right for you. No matter your strategy though, charge enhanced is never a bad choice.

High capacity, however, is ALWAYS a bad choice. It's never needed and losing recharge speed completely defeats the point. I don't know why the devs thought that recharge speed was a worthy sacrifice for extra capacity. It's not. Extra weight, heat, power draw or ANYTHING else would've made more sense, Fdev.

 

[Sylow]

It is generally what constrains your firing.
Having a larger capacity is nearly useless since it just takes way longer to fill up with lower recharge.
If you need a large capacity to fire a full set of PAs or something, that might be an exception.

Much like how having a larger bank vault is useless if your paycheck gets smaller.
You can only spend what you make.

.
Perfectly said. Only setups which carry (too) many railguns or PAs sometimes want weapon capacity instead of charge enhanced. And I'd not really advise to use any of them, unless you know exactly what you are doing.
.