How To Build A PvE Combat Ship

[Seizewell Warrior]

Thought I'd drop this in here rather than start a new thread.

Really struggling to configure a good combat ship that can both dish out and soak up punishment. So far, I've tried outfitting an Imperial Courier, a FDL and even dusted off my old Cobra Mk3 from 15 months ago. I've tried outfitting along the lines of some of the builds here, with the caveat I haven't unlocked the combat engineers. However even at moderate Nav points and Low RES, I seem to be getting it handed to me. The recommended pulse lasers are about as much use as harsh language and despite fitting A rated shields and boosters on the hard points, these seem to go down and stay down. It's really not much fun having to hyperspace away in the middle of a battle because whatever fighter I try is not compatible with my current "git gud" state. Then find the bounties I've earned barely cover ship repairs.

Never seemed to have this issue in other space games such as Terran Conflict where I could engage Xenon and Khaak fairly readily and keep in the fight. I suspect I probably need to look at moving up to corvette class - something akin to the Vidar or Skiron from TC - but does this class of ship still suffer from the same kind of imbalance in ED? I don't want to be indestructible but OTOH I don't want to be running away because an Eagle or similar has put my shields down to one ring with a couple of bursts.

Suggestions for a suitable ship/loadout welcome.

 

[aRJay]

Thought I'd drop this in here rather than start a new thread.

Really struggling to configure a good combat ship that can both dish out and soak up punishment. So far, I've tried outfitting an Imperial Courier, a FDL and even dusted off my old Cobra Mk3 from 15 months ago. I've tried outfitting along the lines of some of the builds here, with the caveat I haven't unlocked the combat engineers. However even at moderate Nav points and Low RES, I seem to be getting it handed to me. The recommended pulse lasers are about as much use as harsh language and despite fitting A rated shields and boosters on the hard points, these seem to go down and stay down. It's really not much fun having to hyperspace away in the middle of a battle because whatever fighter I try is not compatible with my current "git gud" state. Then find the bounties I've earned barely cover ship repairs.

Never seemed to have this issue in other space games such as Terran Conflict where I could engage Xenon and Khaak fairly readily and keep in the fight. I suspect I probably need to look at moving up to corvette class - something akin to the Vidar or Skiron from TC - but does this class of ship still suffer from the same kind of imbalance in ED? I don't want to be indestructible but OTOH I don't want to be running away because an Eagle or similar has put my shields down to one ring with a couple of bursts.

Suggestions for a suitable ship/loadout welcome.

Posting a Coriolis or EDshipyard of your current builds would help.

That said this is roughly what my FdL build used to look like before engineering, the shields aren’t the strongest but they recover fairly fast and the beam is pretty good at eating enemy shields. When their shields are down you can go 4&2 Sys and Wep with the pips, when your shields go just fly away till they recharge.

Spoiler

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

That looks like a better build than mine. I'll trek back over to Jameson with a view to a quick refit.

 

[aRJay]

That looks like a better build than mine. I'll trek back over to Jameson with a view to a quick refit.

It will benefit from efficient beam engineering, dirty drag drives, and a fast recharge experimental is effective on shields.
The multis would be more potent as gimbals but I like being able to shoot things that think they have got out of arc.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Just looking at engineering some long range lasers and noticed the experimental options of Phasing Sequence and Inertial Impact
has anyone tried these and if so how do they stack up against each other?

I know this is a slightly older post but:
Phasing sequence is not affected by damage falloff so LR is less useful than it might seem by the numbers.
Inertial impact jitter makes LR impractical.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Thought I'd drop this in here rather than start a new thread.

Really struggling to configure a good combat ship that can both dish out and soak up punishment. So far, I've tried outfitting an Imperial Courier, a FDL and even dusted off my old Cobra Mk3 from 15 months ago. I've tried outfitting along the lines of some of the builds here, with the caveat I haven't unlocked the combat engineers. However even at moderate Nav points and Low RES, I seem to be getting it handed to me. The recommended pulse lasers are about as much use as harsh language and despite fitting A rated shields and boosters on the hard points, these seem to go down and stay down. It's really not much fun having to hyperspace away in the middle of a battle because whatever fighter I try is not compatible with my current "git gud" state. Then find the bounties I've earned barely cover ship repairs.

Never seemed to have this issue in other space games such as Terran Conflict where I could engage Xenon and Khaak fairly readily and keep in the fight. I suspect I probably need to look at moving up to corvette class - something akin to the Vidar or Skiron from TC - but does this class of ship still suffer from the same kind of imbalance in ED? I don't want to be indestructible but OTOH I don't want to be running away because an Eagle or similar has put my shields down to one ring with a couple of bursts.

Suggestions for a suitable ship/loadout welcome.

Engineering will likely help you more than changing ships.
Work on your strategy too.
In Hi/Lo RES, you should never be fighting alone.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

Arjay's build already working much better for me, thanks. I've put it through Todd's chop shop a couple of times and finished the L3 rolls on the multi cannons, but need to gather more materials for L4 and onward. Will pay a visit to the shield engineer in due course.

Agree re picking your target carefully, watch and see if they're in a wing and probably better to ignore in favour of the lone wolf (unless the authority ships are close by).

Thanks guys - combat Elite a long way off but at least I'm getting the training wheels off.

 

[CMD Worbly Blorble]

Thanks for the guide. I don't 100% agree with everything but it gets me thinking about my build more and the interactions which is actually a great thing!

 

[Nomex_G]

Over the weekend, I put together a pretty detailed guide for the Galactic Academy discord server explaining how to build a combat ship for PvE, both with and without engineering. The server is meant for newbies to have a place to ask questions and learn the basics of the game, so the guide is targeted towards that crowd.
It's a little too long to post here, so I linked the Google Doc above and put a little rundown below.
What is in the guide?

• Basic concepts around weapons, defenses, positioning in combat, utilities, pip management
• Outfitting examples for a non-engineered Viper mk 3 and an FDL while explaining the choices behind every selected module
• Very basic explanation about engineering
• Outfitting example for a fully G5 rated FDL with explanations for every engineered module
• Engineering "tier" list
• Build links to multiple ships with and without engineering
• Useful utilities section that makes building ships easier

I'm also working on a PvP guide as well, but that's still in process.
Hope this can help some of you with your ship builds!

Dude, nice guide for newbs like me. TYVM

 

[Bigmaec]

Dude, nice guide for newbs like me. TYVM

While it's one of the best advice threads, and ryan is one of the best, keep in mind this

a) was a NECROOOOOooooooo

b) ships have changed a bit, so some parts like the armor might have changed (the military is usually changed to reactive nowadays because we got
an additional c1 slot which conveniently fits a c1 thermal res hrp, also there are other viable weapons alternatives)