Engineering Pacifiers?

[Stealthie]

Having recently been made aware of the usefulness of Pacifiers, I got myself some.

Just wondering what mod's people apply to them?

I've never really paid a lot of attention to frag' cannons but when I have used them I've always applied double-shot with 1x drag and then a variety of other XFX depending on what other weapons I have.
I usually, for example, always have an MC with the Corrosive XFX so I don't need to apply that to the FCs.

The two things that put me off FCs are the range and the lack of ammo.
Might I, perhaps, be better off using Overcharged or Rapid Fire instead of Double-Shot?

They're going to be fitted to "Assassination" ships, for, erm, assassination and wetwork missions - one engagement and then RTB.

 

[Bigmaec]

Overcharged + screening Shell.

 

[Stealthie]

Overcharged + screening Shell.

Heh, I think I must've mentally blanked-out the "screening shell" XFX 'cos I didn't have a clue what it does.

"Decreased reloading time" I understand but WTH is "Increased effectiveness against munitions"?

 

[Bigmaec]

It creates hilarious laughter when you, by pure chance (or in my case l33t combat skillz) shoot down a drag seeker of your PvP sparrings partner.
Apart from that it's useless but your reload halves to 2.5 seconds.

 

[Kzak]

Overcharged + Screening Shell, yes. Ridiculous DPS for the win.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Overcharged + screening Shell.

Also wouldn't hurt to make some corrosive, incendiary and drag. I have 8 pacifiers, 4 screening shell, 1 corrosive, 1 drag and 2 incendiary. All overcharged

 

[Bigmaec]

Also wouldn't hurt to make some corrosive, incendiary and drag. I have 8 pacifiers, 4 screening shell, 1 corrosive, 1 drag and 2 incendiary. All overcharged

True, corrosive never hurts (or does it? ). I love the hardpoints of the Krait MkII for Pacifiers, the two outer c3s get screening shell, the middle gets corrosive. First hit applies corrosive, the faster reload screenings apply more hurt after 2.5 seconds

 

[Stealthie]

Gave 'em a try and, I'm not sure about this.

I mean, they work fine but I like dogfighting whereas these are just about shooting your target in the face at close range.
They're actually really good in the new "target runs away at the first sign of trouble" paradigm but I feel like we should be hoping for that to be modified rather than optimising our ships to suit it.

It's kind of like buying a diesel car; it's going to benefit you and everybody else is doing it but you know it's a bad idea really.

Still, got 'em now.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Gave 'em a try and, I'm not sure about this.

I mean, they work fine but I like dogfighting whereas these are just about shooting your target in the face at close range.
They're actually really good in the new "target runs away at the first sign of trouble" paradigm but I feel like we should be hoping for that to be modified rather than optimising our ships to suit it.

It's kind of like buying a diesel car; it's going to benefit you and everybody else is doing it but you know it's a bad idea really.

Still, got 'em now.

I use this occasionally for PvP wing battles. It's actually a really fun build to use with the pacifiers.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Troy_McClure]

Gave 'em a try and, I'm not sure about this.

I mean, they work fine but I like dogfighting whereas these are just about shooting your target in the face at close range.
They're actually really good in the new "target runs away at the first sign of trouble" paradigm but I feel like we should be hoping for that to be modified rather than optimising our ships to suit it.

It's kind of like buying a diesel car; it's going to benefit you and everybody else is doing it but you know it's a bad idea really.

Still, got 'em now.

Pacifiers are difficult to use against small manoeuvrable ships, hence if that's what you mean by 'dogfighting' then fair enough; but if you are referring to the actual style of close-up combat regardless of the opponent's ship size, then these weps are more suited to dogfighting than a face-tank DPS battle because they are by their very nature short range weapons & specifically benefit from advantageous positioning in relation to the bigger areas of your foe's ship due to the large fragment spread.

With ref to the 'munitions effectiveness'; on top of general missile destruction (if one is blessed with sufficient Sun Tzu-style strategic awareness & accuracy like Bigmaec above) they are also fantastic against reverski reverb mine launching cmdrs. I fought one of this forum's regulars using the aforementioned technique in my pacifier vulture after I'd finished fighting another player who had just waked out from one of the old CG CZs (RIP - much missed for random player interaction); he surreptitiously attacked me in his SR mine bomber DBS after watching me fight, knowing I must be low on ammo, but I had enough to deal with his mine salvos.

There's nothing funnier than turning the tables on a sneaky player as he tempted me into chasing him while he flipped a 180 into the vapid FAOFF reverse manoeuvre plus mine release & subsequently watching the screening shell deal with this lazy combat technique - unfortunately I didn't have enough ammo remaining to complete the job hence I had to ram him back to the rebuy screen instead. To his credit, he stayed around for the kill.

I still have the vid on my old work laptop but to post it would be mean-spirited.

 

[Bigmaec]

(if one is blessed with sufficient Sun Tzu-style strategic awareness & accuracy like Bigmaec above) .

Liked/repped +1

The actual discord was I guess somewhat like this...

Phisto: lol BM shot my missile down
someone else: what really?
Me: what happened?
Phisto: you shot my drag missile...
Me: lmao explodes

 

[Starman 1966]

If coriolis is right screening shell should really shine if coupled with rapid fire.

But for ammo dependency reasons I prefer overcharged with e. g. drag and incendiary.

 

[Stealthie]

Pacifiers are difficult to use against small manoeuvrable ships, hence if that's what you mean by 'dogfighting' then fair enough; but if you are referring to the actual style of close-up combat regardless of the opponent's ship size, then these weps are more suited to dogfighting than a face-tank DPS battle because they are by their very nature short range weapons & specifically benefit from advantageous positioning in relation to the bigger areas of your foe's ship due to the large fragment spread.

What I mean is, I like trying to stay on the tail of an opponent for as long as possible to score hits - like you need to do with lasers or MCs.
I know it's a bit silly but I kind of feel like it's "easy mode" to have a weapon that you just need to get on-target for the split-second when you pull the trigger.
Won't stop me using 'em though.

In general, I'm a firm believer in having different types of weapon for different situations.
I'll still have a 4A beam-laser on my FdL, for example, to get rid of irritating Eagles.
Beyond that, I'm not yet sure whether I'll go for a pair of MCs and a pair of Pacifiers or 2 pairs of Pacifiers.
I prefer the idea of MCs and Pacifiers cos I think it'll make for a better "all-rounder" (and the MCs already have the Corrosive/Incindiary XFX on 'em) but that's not really what the ship's for so it might be better just bunging on 2 pairs of pacifiers.

I've been doing a bunch of "wetwork" (kill the innocent civilians) missions and they always try to run away.
If I find I'm getting targets that I can't kill with MCs/Pacifiers before they jump out I'll swap to 2 pairs of Pacifiers.

 

[Aashenfox]

Personally, I'd go overcharged incendiary and overcharged corrosive for most situations. The combination of massive thermal damage (meta leans away from thermal resists to a point) with the extra hull damage for 4 out of every 6 blasts will be devastating.

The rest of your query and the reason why I wouldn't choose screening shell for most encounters, is answered by the way you use frags (in pvp). They're suited to jousting, sitting in the pocket and trying to get on tails will only make you easier to hit, maintain high speed passes and unload a full volley each time. Even if you know you'll miss two shots, still fire all three, so that you have all three available for the next pass in case it's a nice flush hit. In PvE, as Starman mentions, the combination of rapid fire and screening shell is literally hilarious, especially against larger ships where you can sit on them and just unload. If you have a third hardpoint to put a corrosive weapon, this setup is just ridiculous. Screening shell is always a good choice, but it then requires all to be screening shell in order to sync up, and frags have some nice specials, so it seems a shame.

 

[Saool]

I've tried flak. I have some in storage somewhere. They never sat well with me as they sound feeble. If they made the mother of all rackets when fired I would use them. Instead I found myself asking 'did they fire?'.

They need to make my sub woofer shake pictures off the wall.

 

[Aashenfox]

I've tried flak. I have some in storage somewhere. They never sat well with me as they sound feeble. If they made the mother of all rackets when fired I would use them. Instead I found myself asking 'did they fire?'.

They need to make my sub woofer shake pictures off the wall.

In PvE, frags are the man, the boss, the king dong. Always overcharged, always gimballed (not available on pacifiers). They are only outstripped in pvp by PAs. I like the paf, paf, paf sound and the sound when they hit the other ship. I always found them a really satisfying weapon to use, you should definietly give them another chance.

 

[Hellfire85]

Pacifiers work best on a vulture, go in close, unleash hell, dash away, repeat.
Good mods are screening on OCed or incendiary and drag

 

[Stealthie]

Pacifiers work best on a vulture, go in close, unleash hell, dash away, repeat.

And, that's just made me realise I've screwed up my planning....

I tested out the Pacifiers on my Mamba, which I thought had the same mid-sized hardpoints as the FdL.

It doesn't though.
The Mamba has a pair of large hardpoints and a pair of small whereas the the FdL has 2 pairs of medium hardpoints.
Guess I won't be putting these on my FdL at all.

So, a Mamba with a 4A Beam, the Pacifiers and.. what?
A pair of C1 MCs? Rails? Cannons? C1 frags?

Also, I feel silly writing the word "Pacifier" cos, to me, a "Pacifier" is a baby's dummy.

 

[Bigmaec]

The convergence on the c1s and the c4 is good, so fixed beams work, or a fixed beam and two c1 rails.

 

[Morbad]

Also, I feel silly writing the word "Pacifier" cos, to me, a "Pacifier" is a baby's dummy.

They do the same thing, just via different means.