Newcomer / Intro Hard point outfitting for Viper

[Touchwood]

Planning to make my first cautious venture into earning CR by combat missions, and remembering I'm a novice, what's the best hardpoint upgrades for my basic 1F pulse lasers? And what should i equip on the other two hardpoints?

Also a query or two about combat - I'm assuming lasers until shields go down, then projectile weapons? And it looks as though when your enemy is targetted he doesn't need to be exactly in your sights to hit him with the lasers - are projectile weapons equally accommodating?

 

[AdamDZ]

Heat/energy weapons are good for shields and kinetic weapons are good for hulls. So yes: lasers take down shields and canons and missiles damage hulls.

There three types of offensive weapons:

Fixed (F)
Gimbaled (G)
Turrets (T)

There are also defensive mines that you drop behind you, in your attacker's way.

Fixed weapons are the most powerful but you have to target with your entire ship, old school, so you need to keep your target in your crosshair all the time. Fixed weapons are best on agile ships like Eagle and Vulture.

Gimbaled weapons are mounted on gimbal mounts so they can move around some and track your target, but you still need to be facing in the general direction of your target. Gimbaled weapons do less damage and cost more than fixed weapons. These weapons are jacks of all trades for general use ships.

Turrets are self-firing self-targeting weapons. They're the weakest and the most expensive. These are good for slow ships and they do have limits. They're limited by the shape of your hull and your hard point placements because they need to have line of sight (LOS) to the target. They also have couple of modes of firing which you adjust in the System Panels on the right side.

So a given weapon may come in three versions. For example there are fixed, gimbaled and turreted beam lasers. You pick the the right type based on your ship type, maneuverability and flying style.

Read the Wiki about ships.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Ships

One of the most important characteristics for combat is maneuverability (agility) and it's shown on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 is the least agile (such as a slow, big cargo ship) and 10 is the most agile (such as a small fighter). Eagle (10) and Vulture (9) are the most agile and they do best with fixed weapons as they're the most powerful type of weapon. Ships with low rating like below 6 will not able to use fixed weapons agains most attackers as the attackers will easily outmaneuver them and get out of their LOS.

I tried both Vipers and I felt like Cobra Mk III was a better choice because it is rated at 6 in terms of agility AND can carry class 4 shields and has the same hard points. It's also the fastest ship so if things go wrong you can boost away and jump.

 

[Touchwood]

Many thanks, AdamDZ, good info.

I'm working my way towards a Cobra, but it's a bumpy ride! See my thread - "How many Cr do I need for a Cobra"

At my age I'm not quick enough to keep an enemy in the cross hairs too well, so it seems maybe gimbaled weapons are the way to go.

Am I right about the use of projectile weapons, rail guns etc.? Or do I just stick with lasers? What are the pros and cons of beam and pulse lasers?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Chris Simon]

Many thanks, AdamDZ, good info.

I'm working my way towards a Cobra, but it's a bumpy ride! See my thread - "How many Cr do I need for a Cobra"

At my age I'm not quick enough to keep an enemy in the cross hairs too well, so it seems maybe gimbaled weapons are the way to go.

Am I right about the use of projectile weapons, rail guns etc.? Or do I just stick with lasers? What are the pros and cons of beam and pulse lasers?

Thanks for your help.

Pulse lasers are a bit weaker, but also use less power. Beam lasers are doing more damage, but drain your WEP capacitor faster.
Fos ships with bigger power distributors, the beam lasers can be really powerful, but with Cobra, Viper and the likes, I found out that Pulse lasers work better. As they don't drain the pool so fast, it means that for same amount of firing time, you can have fewer PIPs in the WEP and you can use them elsewhere, for example in shields.

I may be crucified for this by matadors, but I say - If you don't feel comfortable with normal weapons, or/and your reaction times aren't as good as they used to be, don't be ashamed to use turrets. I personally love them and I use them on most my ships that aren't exactly made for primary combat.
Turrets can do their thing and you can focus on piloting. If you try it, you may find it's actually beneficial for your performance.

Their only drawbacks are that they are a bit weaker (it will take more time to kill stuff) and they are quite expensive. Especially the bigger ones.

Using turrets requires a couple of tricks to make them work well, but it's nothing too terrible. You need to watch the enemy on the radar and roll your ship so they are in your turret's firing arc (above or below your horizon, depending on where you have the weapons) and also I'll recommend to switch them to "Target only" mode, for the majority of the fight (in your functions tab on the right panel) that way they will focus only on the enemy you have targeted. If you leave them on "Fire at will" it can be a mess, obviously.

 

[AdamDZ]

I also use gimbaled weapons as I'm mostly into trading and exploration. I'm still a noob to this game and I had very frustrating time getting through the beginnings. I'll be happy to share my experiences to help you out.

I strongly suggest reading the Wiki all about weapons, ships, etc, tons of useful stuff there
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com

It all comes to balancing heat and power draw. Beam lasers are the most powerful, continued-fire weapons but they also draw more power from the reactor and generate a lot of heat. When the weapons overheat you will not be able to fire them for a while until they cool off. Pulse and burst lasers draw less power and generate less heat but also cause less damage.

Kinetic weapons do not generate significant heat but consume ammo. Some are a mix of kinetic and heat and are very power hungry such as railguns. Since railguns are non-instant, you have to charge them, and are only fixed, they only work well on agile ships. I'd forget them for now.

Beam laser will fire for as long as you hold the trigger until it overheats. Pulse laser only shots single blast per trigger and burst lasers fire three, rapid blasts like an assault rifle. I absolutely love gimbaled beam lasers but you must have 4 pips to weapons and large reactor to be able to use them continuously.

When you outfit a ship you see two bars on the bottom that show you power usage. One for hardpoints retracted and one for hardpoints deployed (max power usage). To make things easy on yourself make sure that both are within what your powerplant can generate. If your systems need more power that your plant can generate you will need to start shutting off some modules or your thrusters and life support may shut down when you deploy your weapons.

Speaking of cost. My biggest complaint about ED is how much you need to grind to get upgrades. A fully kitted out Cobra is around 9 million! A-class FSD is 1.6 million! You probably need at least 3-4 million for a decent kit.

This website will give you an idea:
http://www.edshipyard.com

Although some prices may not be entirely accurate.

 

[Touchwood]

Thanks guys, that's perfect!

 

[CMDR Mr. Boombastic]

If you want some combat tips Vindicator Jones has a some videos in his back catalogue starting from 10 months ago.

Most are fairly short (less then 10 mins) but here is a much longer one featuring a Viper with some tips, techniques & mistakes.

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;M0JnMF5hDfQ]https://youtu.be/M0JnMF5hDfQ[/video]

Generally I would try these in orders of difficulty: Nav Beacon --> Low-RES --> RES --> High-RES --> Haz-RES --> Low CZ --> High CZ

 

[aRJay]

Plasma and Rail Gun are fixed mount only weapons, very powerful but you need to be able to do all the aiming yourself and bear in mind that they like all the cannons take time to arrive so you need to be aware of leading your target and that the <expletive deleted> will always turn just before your shot hits. There are ammo restrictions.

Cannons available on all three mountings and take time to arrive so leading is a thing, however multi-cannon have a high rate of fire which helps compensate. Again ammo restrictions.

Lasers available on all three mounts and as lightspeed weapons no lead required however they use a lot of power and can overheat themselves and your ship. No ammo limitations.

Missiles can be quite effective and come in two varieties dumbfire which are basically like rocket powered cannon shells, you launch them and they go in a straight line until they miss, and Seeker these require you to keep your chosen target in view until you here the lock tone then when fire will chase down the target until they hit it, get destroyed by PD turret or ECM, or some idiot dives in front of them (this is usually a cop who is behind on his quota of bounties issued). They are amongst the longest ranged weapons but there are severe ammo limitations.

Torpedoes I have carried once but never had the opportunity to use, but I believe you only get two shots and they are very slow.

I am a turret fan and have gathering dust somewhere an Imperial Eagle with two turrets (multi-cannons IIRC) and a seeker missile launcher I lurk about select my target pop a missile off to alert the turrets and mess up the target then close in. My FDL has a mixture of MC turrets and pulse lasers with a class 4 beam laser on a gimbal mount, the technique there is to innocently float around a High RES waiting for a pirate to close in scan my non existent cargo hold then turn away at close range making a sarcastic comment, as he turns away I close in to a couple of hundred meters and open fire with the beam often draining it into his stern it is a very large/tough/skilled pirate ship that isn't relatively easy after that and even the big guys are usually messed up enough that my laser has recovered before they are really firing back hard.