Greetings,
TL;DR...ryan_m's post is a positive way to interest players in PvP. If not players will have an awesome PvE ship.
OK, I'm impressed. PvP rebuild from a PvE Fer de Lance version. Here's my initial PvP
rebuild and it will constantly change.
I dusted off my FDL I thought was pretty good with NPCs, ripped out the gear and rebuilt it per his meta FDL design. Then off to the engineers (grand fathering some of the old core modules) per his specs. It's about 90 percent complete less the optional internals which for now a fuel scoop, fuel tank and Guardian FSD booster gets me around to complete the build. I'll fly an Asp Explorer to engineer the optionals with SCBs, HRMs etc then have them transported home. I will also have to redo the overcharged power plant to armoured. That wasn't wise but I also didn't realize that armoured also adds additional power which covers his basic build. Probably doesn't matter if all your enemies are NPCs.
I went G5 charge enhanced distributor which drops 5% capacity but adds 45% recharge. Then I went with cluster capacitors which adds 8% capacity and drops 2% recharge. The end result from stock is all in the blue with 42.1% recharge and 2.6% additional capacity. Seems like the right way to go.
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Combat Test with NPCs
Heading home I hit a USS threat level 1. Well, why not. It's a viper. Three plasmas on fire 1 and two rails on fire 2. One plasma volley and the viper disappears. Another USS threat level 1 with an anaconda. Target the power plant, three plasma volleys and it disappears. Heat only went to 55% then quickly cooled off while the weps pips recharged in 3 seconds. Fire again. No additional heat.
Oh, a USS threat level 5. I'm getting a big head now. With a fast moving FDL and am pretty good with fixed weapons (but never engineered them correctly) I take out the smaller ships and then concentrate on the hard one. It's an Asp Explorer that knows a lot more about shields and SCBs than I do at the moment. Still while I am manuevering and firing it's weapons never hit me and had problems turning around. Maybe effects work on NPCs. Back at a local station collecting my bounties I found replenishing my ammo for a few hits cost 15,000 credits. Don't miss a lot!
The only hits were with multiple ships attacking and I wasn't engaging them. With the meta design and moving fast the shields only lost one ring and recharged almost immediately. I probably should have brought the long range rails online but it is a brand new ship to relearn.
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Reality
Note, I'm not anywhere close to engaging in PvP combat with any competent pilot who has been doing it for years and probably has several ships past the FDL specifically designed to take my build out. But as a starter meta FDL I have a great training build. Now it is up to me to take advantage of it and practice, practice and practice until I dial it all in without thinking. Maybe it will or will not happen. Like anything in the game dedication and persistence often yields positive results.
Thanks to ryan_m posting a positive thread with a few answers for those who might be interested in PvP (or not) if they had some knowledge to start with. ryan_m provided that. Nor was it about his promoting PvP at times or even his ship builds. ryan_m provided ship builds and the equipment to engineer and install. The major difference was he told you WHY you were installing every component in your ship and what it does and does not do in the overall design for a specific PvP encounter. That is so much more important than any specific ship build getting the player to understand their builds and how they work. Thus I came up with my distributor cluster capacitors effect.
That is a positive PvP moment we need more of versus other posts that want to make current aspects of the game as Open mode only for a quick solution. Find a solution that interest other players taking a look at PvP then invite them to it. Never force them into it.
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A best seller book?
ryan_m said he could do 30 pages on PvP combat. Maybe he should write a book inviting other expert players to add chapters to it. But it cannot be an actual hardcopy book. Who knows the direction Frontier will take Elite Dangerous with the next update and a hardcopy could be obsolete plus expensive with all the pretty pictures! Make it an online yearly subscription at a very low cost. Don't get an EGO! Of course per my EGO I'll only take 1% of your profits on the second year after suggesting it.
ryan_m did it the right way. We need more posts like this.
Regards to All
