Newcomer / Intro Going from Viper to Vulture?

[Saiper]

For the last couple of weeks I have been having a great time taking out bounties with my A-kitted Viper. So much so, that I have managed to make enough credits to comfortably buy a Vulture and a few nice components. I'm just not sure if it's worth it though...Presently, in solo mode, I'm having no issues at all taking on a range of different craft and differently skilled NPC's. In short, it fullfills my requirements. That said, I do fancy a change and the Vulture stands out as a potential replacement. Given it's price in comparison to the stock Viper, is it really vastly beter? Would a fully A loaded Vulture be vastly superior to a Viper? How about a stock Vulture compared to an A grade Viper?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Saiper

 

[Ouranos]

Get some bucks before you want to get a Vulture.
Also, allied with a High-Tech and an Industrial system

It has the fire power and mobility, you don't have to pip one to the Engine unless boosting.
But suffering two only hardpoints and big cockpit. Shields are quite strong IMO.
I switch from my Viper to Vulture only because I wanted to fry some condas with Beams

If you doing bounty hunting, fighting NPCs, big ships.
Vulture has the choice of bringing the Plasma of Doom.
But with that, power issues though. Can't put a shield booster on it.

Most of the CDMRs out there use dual pulse or dual burst.
I picked one C3 Beam and a Cannon.
Used to be with a Pulse and Plasma but bored with it.

Yes a topped Vulture can fry Viper just because of its two hardpoints.
A stock Vulture will run into power issues instantly so not be able to drive a Class 3 weapon.
However for Vulture, to save some MW for your weapons and shield booster.
Use D thrusters over A.

But really, save some money and reps for it.

 

[Pyrion]

A stock vulture is garbage of course, it only has size 1 weapons, which does not make sense. A slightly upgraded vulture (lets say all D and 2 class 3 pulse lasers) would already own any viper, if pilots are comparable. The only thing going for the viper would be that it could run because it's faster. The vulture has about twice the shield strength, is more manouverable and a lot more fire power, especially against big targets.

 

[who?]

You'll need to upgrade the Vulture, of course. But once upgraded, it's freakishly agile, has two massive weapons points, more power to drive them, more utility points and internal compartments, better visibility above you (handy if you're "rolling and pitching" to turn and want to keep an eye on the target). Better jump range too, I think.

The only negatives, it's quite slow which can make it tricky to escape from attackers, and there's limited visibility to either side. And even the slowness isn't a big deal, since with a fully upgraded power distribution unit, you can boost almost constantly, keeping a speed of above 350m/s. (Obviously it's a pain if you have to constantly boost, but if you need to escape....)

It's also a 2-seater (you can see the second seat behind you to your left if you have Oculus Rift or head tracking) which might open up other kinds of gameplay later on.

 

[Saiper]

Thanks for the help How much would you recommend I have on top of the initial purchase cost of the vessel to ensure I can get some decent parts and still be safe insurance wise?

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

You can't "fully A-kit" a Vulture simply because it needs too much power then. But you can have most of your important parts A-grade for under 20 mill:

[Vulture with Cargo Bay for Missions and Bounty Hunting]

L: 3E/G Pulse Laser
L: 3E/G Pulse Laser
U: 0I Chaff Launcher
U: 0F Electronic Countermeasure
U: 0E Kill Warrant Scanner
U: 0E Shield Booster

BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy (you are nimble enough to avoid enemy fire)
RB: 4A Power Plant
TM: 5A Thrusters (~ 391 m/s on second boost)
FH: 4A Frame Shift Drive (15.6 - 16.7 ly range)
EC: 3C Life Support (10 min emergency oxygen supply)
PC: 5A Power Distributor
SS: 4C Sensors (6 km range in sublight speed)
FS: 3C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 8)

5: 5A Shield Generator
4: 4E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 16)
2: 2B Shield Cell Bank (5 x D-grade charge) or 2A Shield Cell Bank (4 x C-grade charge)
1: 1E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 2)
1: 1E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 2) ----> 16+2+2 = 20 tons of cargo possible

Cost: 19.847.031 cr, Rebuy: 992.352 cr

If you put FSD and Cargo Hatch on Module priority 2, this should work fine in combat.

If you want to be more tanky and don't need cargo at all, you can exchange the cargo bays for hull reinforcements and buy armor.

This will reduce your jump range to 14 ly and raise your costs to ~30 millions with a rebuy of ~1.5 millions at maximum.

Regarding the weaponry: You really need nothing more than Class 3 Pulse Lasers on your Vulture. Everything else is overkill. Using gimballed pulse lasers, you can take out Elite Anacondas by targeting their Power plant and strafing around avoiding their firing arcs. The most damage I got during such a fight was 39 % of hull damage. But lightweight alloys are very inexpensive to repair.

 

[Ouranos]

Thanks for the help How much would you recommend I have on top of the initial purchase cost of the vessel to ensure I can get some decent parts and still be safe insurance wise?

[Vulture]
L: 3C/F Beam Laser
L: 3C/G Cannon ---------- I cant see Class 3 Gimball cannon in shipyard but it does exist.
U: 0E Frame Shift Wake Scanner
U: 0A Shield Booster
U: 0A Shield Booster
U: 0I Chaff Launcher


BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 4A Power Plant
TM: 5D Thrusters
FH: 4B Frame Shift Drive
EC: 3E Life Support
PC: 5A Power Distributor
SS: 4D Sensors
FS: 3C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 8)


5: 5A Shield Generator
4: 4D Hull Reinforcement Package
2: 2D Hull Reinforcement Package
1: 1A Fuel Scoop

Hull Reinforcement just filling up mountings
I use this for bounty hunting in RES.
Beam for taking down shield ASAP. Cannon for powerplants
Clearly swaping my thruster for fire power but it is worth it.

When my bounty target is killed and I still have a full tank on WEP,
that is wasting my power. Instead I want my WEP nearly empty at the exact time when my target is done.
When I was down in a warzone I used C2/3 PA and C3 Pulse.
Big ship : Two shot powerplants. Do things quickly. Small ship : pew pew pulse.

If you are only doing bounty hunting. Higher firepower to save your time.

Killing Conda NPCs are simple if you are doing quite well in your Viper.
Find the blind spot or is it safer above him or below him, best with back of him.
Shield down, Cannon to Drive, if you have power. Fry him as well.
Drive down. Powerplant.
With C2/3 PA and fair maneuvers, it only takes 1 minute to get the shield down and bring him to pointless spins.
the next 30 sec you are just try to get plasma to his powerplant. I bet 3 shots are enough (Or two)
Of course with Cannon you are not going to do this. Takes a bit longer but you can equip two Class A Shield booster.
Cannon still do fair amount of sub-system damage while very less power needed.