Ships Gun Gun Gun

Newt Loranas

Newt Loranas
I want to have a multirole Courier.

What I have so far is this: https://eddp.co/u/2qmEmZDh

I've read a few forum posts and watched a few youtube videos about the Courier and the bottom line seems to be it's quite tanky on shields with boosters fitted.

Now I've put in the Bi-Weave mainly for power requirements at this point and, because I want multi-role, I've foregone the military bulkheads and the hull reinforcements. One thread I read said they don't get into hull so I thought - why bother with hull reinforcements then?

It's currently non-engineered and I have an idea of which way to go ( Long range FSD 5, Dirty Drive 3, Overcharge Reactor 2 ( or maybe more ) ) But My main issue is guns.

I do like the frag cannons but they need you to be so close ( perfectly possible mind in a Courier ) but I'm not that great a pilot ( yet, I guess) and while I "git gud" it would be cool if I could get some recommendations and pros and cons of loadouts.

I've always preferred All Beams on my ships in past because although they do less damage to hull I find I hit more often with them than with kinetics meaning I ( personally ) tend to do more damage )

I like the 3E cargo as it gives me the option to pick up 3 recovery missions as they seem to max out at 4 black boxes per mission. Though I could dump that for a class 3 scb?.

Tips on everything ( but mainly guns ) gratfeully received [smile]
 

Nova Hett

N
I'd switch the 3C Bi-weave for a 2A Standard becuase you want to use all those sheild boosters. alternatively you can go with the 3c-Biweaves and add a SCB and drop all the shield boosters.

i use the 2a sheild setup for mission running, and the 3c-biweave setup for RES site hunting. I'd also ad some hull reinforcement for res sites.

as for guns, the Courier heats up, so I use pulses and MCs.
 
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Nova Hett

N
It's the other way around. The bi-weave regens faster than standard, but shield boosters lower the regen rate. So if you want to maximize shield strength, then just go with boosters and a standard shield. That setup is good for mission running where one encounter is all you need your shields for. But if you want to have multiple encounters then having shields that regen faster is better, so bi-weaves with no boosters is good for that.

Edit: i'm checking if thats true.

Edit 2: heh, I guess I was wrong, regen rate isn't affected by shield boosters., at least not according to coriolis.

Edit 3: what shield boosters do is cause your shileds to take longer to come back on line after breaking. but you can turn off your boosters till they come back up, and then turn them on again.
 
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Newt Loranas

Newt Loranas
Nova Hett said:
It's the other way around. The bi-weave regens faster than standard, but shield boosters lower the regen rate. So if you want to maximize shield strength, then just go with boosters and a standard shield. That setup is good for mission running where one encounter is all you need your shields for. But if you want to have multiple encounters then having shields that regen faster is better, so bi-weaves with no boosters is good for that.

i'm checking if thats true.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I was looking at that on coriolis just now. I've had the game since launch but only recently really started playing and getting into the theory crafting. Given that I have to be up close for the frag cannons I'm actually considering going with three frags as at that range they also deal with shields fairly well. Once engineered they could be even better.

My missions ( fetch the black box) spawn multiple ships for me now as I'm most of the way through Ranger in exploration but I think I'll go for the 2A + boosters route as I don't stop to fight. I just scoop and run. More important is going to be an engineered dirty enhanced drive.
 

Ceekay

Ceekay

Ceekay

Ceekay
Loranas said:
Thanks, I was looking at that on coriolis just now. I've had the game since launch but only recently really started playing and getting into the theory crafting. Given that I have to be up close for the frag cannons I'm actually considering going with three frags as at that range they also deal with shields fairly well. Once engineered they could be even better.

My missions ( fetch the black box) spawn multiple ships for me now as I'm most of the way through Ranger in exploration but I think I'll go for the 2A + boosters route as I don't stop to fight. I just scoop and run. More important is going to be an engineered dirty enhanced drive.
Click to expand...

Enhanced drives drop the optimal mass significantly (25%) over the equivalent standard drive and DDT mods drop it even further, if you do a DDT mod on my low mass build it drops boost speed by over 100 m/s, that's why mine has CDT G5 instead essentially you'd have to get an incredibly good DDT roll with very low OM reduction to get the same performance and the CDT mats are a bit easier to get hold of.
 

Newt Loranas

Newt Loranas
Clean it is then! Do CDT and DDT mods also affect lateral thrusters as well as mains? I've never done either so I have no experience in this to draw on.
 

Gamsir

G
In my experience, an all laser setup isn’t particularly effective on the icourier. Even with clean drives, it heats up too fast and drains the power distributor fast, even with 3-4 pips into weapons. I went 3 x multicannon for a sustainable damagedealer.
Downside is the need for rearmament/synthezis.

Even with the good shields, the IC is fragile when the shields break. I went reactive armor and engineered it with laser resistance.

Regarding shields, I agree on what’s been mentioned above. I’ve become a fan of engineering the resistance weaknesses out of my defences.
I outfitted and engineered my old IC like my vulture, laser-resistant bi-weave, 1 laser-resistant shield booster and 1 reinforced booster. This gives you very fast shield regen (a. Less mj shield to regenerate, b. Non-reinforced bi-weave recharges faster overall) while giving you almost the same overall defence. In most practical encounters, npc use energiweapons so laser resistance is prefereble to more mj.

This is especially true with the IC. Because of its fragile hull, you need to use manouvering and speed. The IC is very nimble, and you should in most onstances be able to stay behind your target where it can’t hit you easily. Basically awoid facetanking - the nice shields should enable you to get behind the target.
With multicannons you can peck away on shields and hull for a long time, and it gives you ample time to do a little on the fly distributor management (putting pips into system/weapons as needed).

When you get into trouble: 4 pips into engines and boost away.
 

5 Puppis

5
I use standard shields engineered for thermal resistance with shield boosters. They stay up longer than biweaves. Slower to come back for sure, but with the courier's speed you should be able to run to a safe distance and take your time letting shields come back.

The distributor can't sustain multiple lasers for long, especially beams, so kinetics have much better dps in practice. I use a single beam to help bring shields down and 2 multicannons. Many people also just run 3 MC. The MC is more forgiving in terms of how far you need to keep from the target. Also, the spread from the frag has gotten me in trouble a couple of times when it accidentally hits a cop and earns me a bounty.
 

Newt Loranas

Newt Loranas
After much messing around I think I've decided to try and make this:

https://eddp.co/u/slp61csr

it's not as fast as other couriers, being a little heavier but it does have good effective hit points due to the resists. I went with three shield boosters, one of each resistance flavour rather than augmented ones to avoid the power draw. I think that gives me the best overall resistances resulting in about a 14% increase on each. I also went with thermal resist on the main shield generator. It should be weakest against kinetic but even then way stronger than stock.

If anyone can spot any fatal flaws in my design then please let me know.

I'm flying an un-engineered version at the moment and I must say I'm very happy with the 3 shotguns on the nose. My plan is to use this for general missions and bounty hunting. Looking forward to being quicker and more manoeuvrable.
 
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