Fer De Lance - Best 'Laser Only' Build...?

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Do not use beam lasers, especially not as the main DPS source. Extremly inefficient, even with efficient it's meh even though forums will try to convince you otherwise.

Efficient isn't the best way either. It looks great when you can fire indefinitely due to low capacitor draw. But lasers have INSANE damage penalties even at medium range. Unless all your fights happen at point-blank range, efficient is not the best mod.

Use long range. It completly removes the damage penalty. It's a massive total damage boost and gives you ridiculous flexibility.
A full laser build doesn't work though, lasers use too much distributor draw. On the FDL, a huge+med+med fixed long range pulses are ideal, put whatever you like in the empty two hardpoints (railguns with superpen and feedback are good, high yield fixed cannons are good, missiles are fine, corrosive MC is good).

While I may not alter my current FDL build to follow your advice, I am going to test it out on my Anaconda and Corvette. I knew the long range mod increased your maximum range, but I did NOT know that it also increased the damage drop off to your maximum range. So this is definitely worth some testing.

+1 Rep for showing me something new.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

just want to thank everyone in thread i have learned some important things to consider both for my current FAS combat/trader and cobar 4 surface mission trader, but also the FDL i want and other builds into the future.

 

[Morbad]

Lol...post-2.1 PvE summed up.

Okay they were even more braindead before but at least we were physically on par.

I don't even need hardpoints any more.

Heavy ship, modded bi-weaves, plus some DD5s and the ramifications become all too obvious.

 

[Shir]

I ended up with all efficient beams on the corvette, and all long range beams on the anaconda. 2 huge long range were a bit too much at the corvette

 

[Morbad]

The PvE guys can of course speak for themselves, but I think most take running out of ammo as a cue to go and cash in the bounties/bonds. It's only a few minutes until you're back in the RES/CZ.

I tend to use mixed loadouts on PvP focused ships, and just switch to my energy-weapons-only fire group when mowing down NPCs...unless I'm really in a hurry.

TLB & Dispersal (teehee) on the PA's and High Yield on the cannon. Brand new setup, just got things dialed in late last night. I spend a loooooooooot more time looking for materials than I do flying combat. Hopefully that'll change with completing this setup. At least for a few weeks....

Will have to test it against my Vulture, which is mostly combat ready at this point.

From fairly extensive reading of these hallowed pages, I was led to believe that Scramble Spectrum had a roughly 1 in a 100 chance of triggering per hull strike. The enemy ship hologram would then indicate a yellow triangle (moderate malfunction) or a red triangle for serious (I assume the likes of power plant or thrusters etc). There would then be a cool-down period before it could be triggered again.

The chance is much higher than this and the threshold is damage based.

I frequently run a large scramble burst turret on the chin hardpoint of my Corvette and against bare hulls, it rarely needs to land more than three bursts to produce a malfunction.

It's not a game breaker because the module affected is almost completely random, and the only thing one can do to influence it's effect is by controlling which hemisphere of the target ship is being shot. Only rarely does a critical module malfunction, and even then the duration isn't long. It's a nice effect to have, but again, not a game breaker.

 

[Spacecat]

i notice people who use mc go on about running out of ammo. is this with or without synthesis? i can make more ammo, but from the lack of mentions of synth im guessing its not worth doing except in emergency?

Seems like it usually takes me about 45 mins to an hour (depending on spawn rate) to run out and I'm usually ready for a break by then anyway.

 

[HeavyGroovez]

Lol switched to full site two rep you two (but then switched back after, because YUCK).

Yeah I miss the first AI upgrade, SkynetBorg V1. Still have nightmares of that Elite Annie spinning on a dime and then raking me with machine gun plasma fire. But at the same time, wish it provided the same kind of challenge.

Thanks folks, one Christmas tree FDL coming up (or will be when I get back from Crete).

Repped for everything !

Crete is mega, make sure you go down to Iarepetra (where all the Greeks go, best Souvlaki on the island) and head west to Balos beach - its an awesome spot.

 

[Spacecat]

I couldn't make up my mind so I think I'll try 2 beams, 2 mc's on fg1 and a huge cannon on fg2. A little bit of everything.

 

[jasonbarron]

I tend to use mixed loadouts on PvP focused ships, and just switch to my energy-weapons-only fire group when mowing down NPCs...unless I'm really in a hurry.



Will have to test it against my Vulture, which is mostly combat ready at this point.



The chance is much higher than this and the threshold is damage based.

I frequently run a large scramble burst turret on the chin hardpoint of my Corvette and against bare hulls, it rarely needs to land more than three bursts to produce a malfunction.

It's not a game breaker because the module affected is almost completely random, and the only thing one can do to influence it's effect is by controlling which hemisphere of the target ship is being shot. Only rarely does a critical module malfunction, and even then the duration isn't long. It's a nice effect to have, but again, not a game breaker.

Let's do it. I'm at Shinrarta. It'll make a nice change from destroying people with docking computers (I jest!). I'm still running into some heat issues, though. I put a lot of work into heat reduction secondaries, but maybe not enough.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Sorry late to the party but I run 5 phasing lasers. You won't believe how many leightweight FDLs are currently running around with paper thin hull. It's an instawin and es many people off because they wanna abuse the FDLs low mass. That said, grinding through that armor before their shields break is fun indeed I can tell you. Most don't even notice and blow up with shields and claim you a hacker afterwards because you 'can't kill someone with shields online'

 

[Morbad]

Sorry late to the party but I run 5 phasing lasers. You won't believe how many leightweight FDLs are currently running around with paper thin hull. It's an instawin and es many people off because they wanna abuse the FDLs low mass. That said, grinding through that armor before their shields break is fun indeed I can tell you. Most don't even notice and blow up with shields and claim you a hacker afterwards because you 'can't kill someone with shields online'

This is why even my 'light' FDL (550+ m/s without anywhere near a 'god roll' on the drives) still has ~1800 hull integrity.

 

[HeavyGroovez]

Sorry late to the party but I run 5 phasing lasers. You won't believe how many leightweight FDLs are currently running around with paper thin hull. It's an instawin and es many people off because they wanna abuse the FDLs low mass. That said, grinding through that armor before their shields break is fun indeed I can tell you. Most don't even notice and blow up with shields and claim you a hacker afterwards because you 'can't kill someone with shields online'

Learnt that the hard way. Fortunately it was in testing. I now have lightweight Reactive and an HRP that has more than doubled my integrity but still if I come up against phasing in future I'm hi waking. Personally I won't consider using it because its up there with all the cheese builds but it's in the game so I need to be prepared for it.

 

[Truesilver]

Learnt that the hard way. Fortunately it was in testing. I now have lightweight Reactive and an HRP that has more than doubled my integrity but still if I come up against phasing in future I'm hi waking. Personally I won't consider using it because its up there with all the cheese builds but it's in the game so I need to be prepared for it.

Not a criticism but the problem is ... what is left that isn't cheese?

Personally the only thing I will not duel against is missiles. I'm not even flying a hull tank but I hate their 'low damage, zero skill' model, which is drip-drip death to duelling. I would love it if missiles were high skill, massive damage - Top Gun style. But as it is, what's the point in a missile duel?

Missiles aside, the only tactic I would refuse to fight against would be perpetual 5 km plus long range reverski, albeit I've yet to meet anyone who actually will or can do this.

Now, you're saying you won't fight phasing.

And at least half of PvP won't fight thermal cascade.

Many big ship guys won't fight Target Lock Breaker. Or reverberating cascade.

Some won't fight pack hounds on any basis, on principle.

Like I say, this isn't about your goodself Mr Groovez it's about all of us, and the predicament the space magic RNGineering leaves us in - but I think we're at a stage now where the 'cheese' list is starting to be longer than the 'not cheese' list...

 

[StiTch]

Some won't fight pack hounds on any basis, on principle.

This is my only real "rule" when playing in anything I ever expect to lose shields in, on account of its lack of counters (also if I am not in the mood for pointless rebuys, I won't fight wings that are blatantly too scared to go in for 1-v-1s).

Standard missiles - we got PD, even if I didn't equip one. Heat cannons...utter, utter pap - but you can at least entertain a fight for a while while one has any chaff/heat sinks online (and hoping they aren't using fixed). Phasing - use a goddamn half decent hull. Target lock breaker - any ship incapable of fighting fixed/targetless has left a hole in its build, and I will always try to retain a hitscan weapon if possible for detarget/chaff. Reverski - just reverse away from them too, type a sarcastic waving message in the chat, watch them come back for a proper fight or drop off your scanner for good.

Packhounds? If your build isn't a focused shield build, which should not be a mandatory choice, you have no hope. No dedicated missile counter or technique will ever save your external modules if they decided to bring anything with emissive and a chunk of them things. Loadouts with few counters are one thing - loadouts with no counters is another entirely.

I think we're at a stage now where the 'cheese' list is starting to be longer than the 'not cheese' list...

Because this totally wasn't predictable when FD announced magic, offset-less ship enhancements -_-

 

[HeavyGroovez]

Not a criticism but the problem is ... what is left that isn't cheese?

Yes very true. The real danger for me is the "if you cant beat them join them" mentality that cheese builds tend to cause.

 

[N3rd Murd3r3r]

HeavyGroovez - was looking at that excursion in Crete for tomorrow actually! But have the kid and it seemed a bit of a long one (he's only four), about 5 hours travelling all in.

Truesilver - you still fly the iCourier regularly? My fave ship. Seen your older vids. What loadout are you rocking on that these days?

For PVE, I'm just using the old x2 Incendiary and one Corrosive multi cannons (lightweight mod so it still boosts over 800ms). On XBone so until that HOTAS rig comes out I stay clear of fixed weapons as I find the game pad too clumsy (disclaimer: this post may lack G1t Gud).

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

I think the PvP community is in real danger of becoming stagnant. Basically, everyone has a lightweight FDL and anything that directly counters that kind of build is either frowned upon or seen as cheese. FDLs run hot. Heat *should* counter them. Phasing *should* counter them. Otherwise you just get into 15 minute plinking duels while trying to fight through enormous shields. It's kinda boring.

I've done a few duels with packhounds in my shieldless FAS. It didn't seem to be that big of a problem. I have sturdy mounts on most of the hardpoints, target lock breaker on the PA, 2 PDDs and a couple heat sinks. My understanding is that if you can break a lock, packhounds aren't that much of an issue? I'm guessing ECM would work wonders as well. When the hounds did go off, boosting off their vector seemed to do the trick. But again, I haven't faced them often.

 

[Han_Zen]

Missiles aside, the only tactic I would refuse to fight against would be perpetual 5 km plus long range reverski, albeit I've yet to meet anyone who actually will or can do this.

I've experimented a bit with full long range builds in betas. It's a tactic that has no real counter, except it self.
You can skimp on the defenses to make sure you are fast enough, as you don't get hit much at all. Fixed weapons become almost like gimbals at that range to. If you do fit gimbals, you eliminate the need for any FA off skill. You only need to be able to point the ship in a general direction.

It's also a very low cost build. Both in terms of money and engineering. I'm actually a bit surprised it isn't more popular. Must be because it's quite boring to fight that way.

 

[StiTch]

I've done a few duels with packhounds in my shieldless FAS. It didn't seem to be that big of a problem. I have sturdy mounts on most of the hardpoints, target lock breaker on the PA, 2 PDDs and a couple heat sinks. My understanding is that if you can break a lock, packhounds aren't that much of an issue? I'm guessing ECM would work wonders as well.

Actually, I'll give it to you as a "sort of" counter; you can indeed use SR and target lock breakers to break their target before firing.

It goes without saying though that a low-heat hull-focused build with target lock breaker APAs is a tad specific as the only real counter going, especially when even then it's a "counter" in that it allows you to survive against it with constant vigilance; not what I would call a "counter" in that it has an advantage against that build.

I'm glad not everyone feels so mashed by this plague though...I've had several encounters with them, and in my hybrid FGS I've only been able to continue fights with vigilant use of AFMUs (yup, I carry an AFMU on the already semi-fragile FGS. Go figure). Any hardpoints not modded with sturdy melt, and those that are modded don't get enough extra longevity for my liking.

Regarding ECMs, they completely fall over against packhounds. The charge up period and CD/delays stop you consistently breaking the missiles, because packhounds can be held for basically automatic missile fire. The moment someone knows you have an ECM, they just need to have half a brain to bait you into using it, and the moment it's popped off they'll get a few moments of unrestricted boom on your ship.

 

[Truesilver]

Truesilver - you still fly the iCourier regularly? My fave ship. Seen your older vids. What loadout are you rocking on that these days?

Yes indeed, thank you. I took a short break from the game but am now back and already have a ton of footage of 1v1's against a wide variety of ship types. My Courier has undergone some changes ... the crucial one classified until I get around to doing another big vid or guide, lol ... but my most recent weapon set up was focused TLB plasma plus 2 x efficient gimballed multis, one with emissive, one with corrosive.

I think the PvP community is in real danger of becoming stagnant. Basically, everyone has a lightweight FDL and anything that directly counters that kind of build is either frowned upon or seen as cheese.

Oh, yeah ^^.

Right back in late 2015 / early 2016, a consensus started to form that the epitome of skilful PvP is the SCB Fer-de-Lance with 5 x fixed weapons. Although I don't actually disagree much if at all with that, quite a powerful lobby has formed around SCB Fixed Ferdie to the point that anything that counters it is frowned upon and, frequently, shouted down. You're quite right that 'SCB Fixed Ferdie' has now become 'SCB Lightweight Fixed Ferdie'.

An early example of this shouting down was over the silent running era. We all agreed that some re-balancing was required ... but not necessarily the host of nerfs to silent running, hull tanking and rail guns that Frontier introduced in 2.1.

As matters currently stand, I personally strongly agree that gimbals are OP in a 1v1 and to that extent I believe that major rebalances are required. However, I'm generally unsympathetic towards other lobbying in favour of SCB Lightweight Fixed Ferdie, and personally believe that phasing should go back up to 15% bleed through.