Open vs PG vs Solo is not the goal of this thread.
This thread is entirely about ship building and ship build theory in regards to surviving in Open. Here I will outline some things that will keep those who are curious on how to survive in Open, alive longer. This thread is for literally anyone, and aimed at literally anyone looking to learn about not dying in Open.
There are some things we must keep in mind about flying in Open, and I will start with those.
1 - NPCs pose little to no risk due to bad builds and poor skill. Your primary risk is other players.
2 - Other players typically are engineered and usually G5 engineered.
3 - Other players will not be running suboptimal builds "for immersion" or some other ephemeral non-metric that we cannot account for.
Because of these things, I will not propose builds that are "fun but not optimized", because the people trying to kill you are not doing that. Fun and immersion are also too subjective. If you want immersion over survival, this thread may be useful still, but it isn’t the goal. In this thread, the goal will be to propose build tactics and build ideas that are optimized for the given mission of the ship, and optimized for surviving attack from other players. We will of course assume the aggressor is highly engineered and highly skilled. Assuming the aggressor is either unengineered or unskilled is underestimating our "opponent" and isn't going to get us very far.
With this in mind, some general ship building guidelines are in order. These are guidelines aimed to help the widest amount of people. Yes, some people can have varying degrees of success by breaking or bending some of these guidelines, but others may not. Instead what I propose are tactics versatile enough for basically anyone to adopt. Feel free to adjust them based on your skill/experience level.
1 - Biweaves are generally out. On large ships (Conda and above) they can suffice, but on mediums they are usually not what we want. Some hybrids don't have a choice, but you will need the hull and MRPs to back that up, then. Prismatics are king. Fight this all you like, but MJ values are supreme when SRB rails come a knockin', and PvE biweaves on a do-it-all Python aren't going to last long. If you don't have Prismatics, then pledge now and in 4 weeks you can make your ships much harder to kill.
Along with this, you can tweak resistances and try to get some of the figures many PvE players desire, however, many PvP aggressors will be relying either on Frags (overwhelming DPS) or Absolute damage combo weapons like PAs and Railguns. Some Thermal resistance, along with high MJ resistance, is usually a safer bet than perfectly even resistances accompanied by lower MJ values because Absolute damage can only really be countered with high MJ values.
2 - Stealth is always out (emergencies you gotta do what you gotta do of course). Night vision is a button press away, and your drives are easy enough to track either way. Relying primarily on "stealth" in Elite to evade players will not work reliably enough, for enough people, to be discussed here.
3 – Drives (if you engineer) are always Dirty Drive G5 + Drag and Distro (if you engineer) is always Charge Enhanced + Super Conduits. Heavy Duty + Deep Plating armor simply for the raw health.
4 - Fast Boot! Fast Boot! Range is cool, but FSD Interrupt effects will lock you down in a bad way. You can hard counter this by using Fast Boot on your FSD. You will run Fast Boot + Mass Manager and if you want even more range, a Guardian FSD Booster. This is less range than stacking range entirely, yes, but it is safer in Open. SCO + Fast Boot + Mass Manager is the new king here of course, but previous Tech Broker FSDs are fine since they come with Fast Boot on them. For reference why this is important, an FSD Reboot effect follows roughly the outline below:
Normal Dumbfire with FSD Reboot engineering - 1.2x the reboot time. On a normal FSD with a reboot time of 10 seconds, this means once you're hit you cannot try to wake out again for 12 seconds. With Fast Boot, your reboot time is 2 seconds, and 1.2 x 2 = 2.4 second reboot time.
Grom Missile without engineering - 1.3x the reboot time
Grom Missile with FSD Reboot engineering stacked on top of the normal one - 1.4-1.5x reboot time or so. So, unless you want to get stuck for 15 seconds, Fast Boot is the way to go. Max on Fast Boot? 3 seconds basically.
5 - You will high wake from all PvP attacks and will put 4 pips into Systems once you’re being attacked. Doing otherwise is deviating from the premise of these builds, and results will deviate, too. High wake is not effected by Mass Lock and will get you out of the system to regain your bearings instead of chucking you back into SC where you will just get pulled again.
6 - You will have to understand that not all battles can be won. If someone is hunting Supercruise between you and your drop off point and they pull you every time, you might need to wait for them to leave, relog to another instance, go to Solo, or take the risk of trying to get to the station anyways. You cannot beat everyone at everything, that's just how the game is made. Similarly, not every ship can be made as safe as every other ship. Some ships, in certain situations, are basically just rebuys with a paint job. Most of the early game, and some of the mid game ships are this way. Situational awareness and getting out of trouble before you get into it are skills just as worthwhile as a good build. Seeing a bunch of hollows in SC in a presumed to be popular system, is a good sign you might want to pass on your objective unless you’re in a very strong ship.
7 – In the same vein as #6, you may need to realign how you think about ship building. If you look at a cargo build and balk at the lowered capacity due to strong shields taking up an internal slot, then you probably don’t want to fly that ship in Open. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it too all of the time. Elite is a game about trade offs in this regard, and if you want to fly in Open, and want to fly paper thin ships to maximize profit, but are unwilling to accept the risk associated with both actions occurring at once, you need to reassess your priorities in the ship. If you simply insist on building risky ships, then I suggest flying in one of the other modes that allows this with ease due to the low danger NPCs provide. Another way to look at this is, if I get blown up right now, am I ok with that? If the answer is “no”, then you need to start doing some risk mitigation. Explorers often die and lose a lot of data (sometimes weeks or months worth even) due to weak shields and weak hull, and not just from players, but from collisions, too. Had they asked themselves before leaving “am I willing to bet weeks or months worth of data on these shields, and on this hull?” and then engineered and built the ship accordingly based on their own answer, they would have saved themselves a lot of heartache.
8 – Reverberating Cascade does not matter because Torpedoes have a maximum speed of 250m/s and mines do not move. The overwhelming majority of players can outfly these weapons. However, Flechettes do matter, and MRPs are used to counter them.
With these guidelines in mind, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us in a position where most things a Type 7 and bigger can survive a typical 1 person gank. Many things over a Type 7 in size can reliably survive a 2-3 person gank as well (Clippers and Orcas for instance due to the MJ values and speed, the Krait Mk2 and Python due to shields and bulk). Certain ships can pretty much always survive a full 4 player wing attacking them. This list is smaller, but there is a lot to work with here, really.
The builds I’m going to link do not include guns, usually, because everyone likes different things. You will need to move internals around a bit, and weapons too, in order to meet your needs. Should you run out of power, Overcharge the plant. MRPs are there because people can and do run flechettes which will go through your shield and kill your drives unless you outrun the shots. The other thing is, speed will play in your favor, since damage falloff will occur. Very fast ships like the Mamba or Orca can capitalize on this to reduce the damage they take while not having to run as high of shields as other ships. This matters a lot against ships that boost in the mid 500s and run SRB rails.
Type 7 mid shield https://edsy.org/s/vClGdYH - viable against 1 and maybe 2 aggressors
Type 7 big shield https://edsy.org/s/vF3BuZO - viable against 1-2 aggressors. 1-3 could be possible here, but I wouldn’t prefer this ship for it, either.
Orca https://edsy.org/s/vtB07dY - viable for 1-3 aggressors due to the MJ + speed, 1-4 could be possible as well. A Clipper with high speed and high MJ will have similar results.
Krait https://edsy.org/s/vGTYa3A - viable for 1-4 if you’re quick, and you can apply the theory here to the Python and Phantom with mostly similar results. With these ideas, building an FDL or Mamba should be easy as well. FDL/Mamba can wake on full wings with ease using these ideas.
Type 9 https://edsy.org/s/v4ZzoXt Notably lower cargo than many are used to, but this ship is honestly quite bad at hauling cargo in a safe way in Open. It lacks the Utility slots to crank up the MJ values, and because of this even with this low cargo build I wouldn’t want to face more than 1-3 aggressors with it.
Cutter https://edsy.org/s/vZnhH4k - Viable against all, and upgrading the shield gen size will only make you stronger. The ECMs are to prevent a pirate from trying to hatchbreak cargo while you leave. The ECMs are not on the Type 7/9 because it really needs the shields. The theory on the Cutter can be used for the Type 10, Conda, and Corvette as well. 3k+ MJ is a good number, but I recommend 4k+ if you can manage it.
Phasing Cutter for those worried about it - https://edsy.org/s/v1bibtD There's no need to take less cargo in this ship, it has an overwhelming advantage in your favor.
Should you have questions about any of these builds or questions about your own build, feel free to ask.
As pointed out by @ethelred, if you hit Ctrl+B you will get a bandwidth to show on your screen, and when this spikes, you have an instance with players in it. You can watch that and know if a system is populated by people before you even drop in. This is built into the game, so I don't think it's unfair to use otherwise FDev would just remove it, and does give you good info.
This thread is entirely about ship building and ship build theory in regards to surviving in Open. Here I will outline some things that will keep those who are curious on how to survive in Open, alive longer. This thread is for literally anyone, and aimed at literally anyone looking to learn about not dying in Open.
There are some things we must keep in mind about flying in Open, and I will start with those.
1 - NPCs pose little to no risk due to bad builds and poor skill. Your primary risk is other players.
2 - Other players typically are engineered and usually G5 engineered.
3 - Other players will not be running suboptimal builds "for immersion" or some other ephemeral non-metric that we cannot account for.
Because of these things, I will not propose builds that are "fun but not optimized", because the people trying to kill you are not doing that. Fun and immersion are also too subjective. If you want immersion over survival, this thread may be useful still, but it isn’t the goal. In this thread, the goal will be to propose build tactics and build ideas that are optimized for the given mission of the ship, and optimized for surviving attack from other players. We will of course assume the aggressor is highly engineered and highly skilled. Assuming the aggressor is either unengineered or unskilled is underestimating our "opponent" and isn't going to get us very far.
With this in mind, some general ship building guidelines are in order. These are guidelines aimed to help the widest amount of people. Yes, some people can have varying degrees of success by breaking or bending some of these guidelines, but others may not. Instead what I propose are tactics versatile enough for basically anyone to adopt. Feel free to adjust them based on your skill/experience level.
1 - Biweaves are generally out. On large ships (Conda and above) they can suffice, but on mediums they are usually not what we want. Some hybrids don't have a choice, but you will need the hull and MRPs to back that up, then. Prismatics are king. Fight this all you like, but MJ values are supreme when SRB rails come a knockin', and PvE biweaves on a do-it-all Python aren't going to last long. If you don't have Prismatics, then pledge now and in 4 weeks you can make your ships much harder to kill.
Along with this, you can tweak resistances and try to get some of the figures many PvE players desire, however, many PvP aggressors will be relying either on Frags (overwhelming DPS) or Absolute damage combo weapons like PAs and Railguns. Some Thermal resistance, along with high MJ resistance, is usually a safer bet than perfectly even resistances accompanied by lower MJ values because Absolute damage can only really be countered with high MJ values.
2 - Stealth is always out (emergencies you gotta do what you gotta do of course). Night vision is a button press away, and your drives are easy enough to track either way. Relying primarily on "stealth" in Elite to evade players will not work reliably enough, for enough people, to be discussed here.
3 – Drives (if you engineer) are always Dirty Drive G5 + Drag and Distro (if you engineer) is always Charge Enhanced + Super Conduits. Heavy Duty + Deep Plating armor simply for the raw health.
4 - Fast Boot! Fast Boot! Range is cool, but FSD Interrupt effects will lock you down in a bad way. You can hard counter this by using Fast Boot on your FSD. You will run Fast Boot + Mass Manager and if you want even more range, a Guardian FSD Booster. This is less range than stacking range entirely, yes, but it is safer in Open. SCO + Fast Boot + Mass Manager is the new king here of course, but previous Tech Broker FSDs are fine since they come with Fast Boot on them. For reference why this is important, an FSD Reboot effect follows roughly the outline below:
Normal Dumbfire with FSD Reboot engineering - 1.2x the reboot time. On a normal FSD with a reboot time of 10 seconds, this means once you're hit you cannot try to wake out again for 12 seconds. With Fast Boot, your reboot time is 2 seconds, and 1.2 x 2 = 2.4 second reboot time.
Grom Missile without engineering - 1.3x the reboot time
Grom Missile with FSD Reboot engineering stacked on top of the normal one - 1.4-1.5x reboot time or so. So, unless you want to get stuck for 15 seconds, Fast Boot is the way to go. Max on Fast Boot? 3 seconds basically.
5 - You will high wake from all PvP attacks and will put 4 pips into Systems once you’re being attacked. Doing otherwise is deviating from the premise of these builds, and results will deviate, too. High wake is not effected by Mass Lock and will get you out of the system to regain your bearings instead of chucking you back into SC where you will just get pulled again.
6 - You will have to understand that not all battles can be won. If someone is hunting Supercruise between you and your drop off point and they pull you every time, you might need to wait for them to leave, relog to another instance, go to Solo, or take the risk of trying to get to the station anyways. You cannot beat everyone at everything, that's just how the game is made. Similarly, not every ship can be made as safe as every other ship. Some ships, in certain situations, are basically just rebuys with a paint job. Most of the early game, and some of the mid game ships are this way. Situational awareness and getting out of trouble before you get into it are skills just as worthwhile as a good build. Seeing a bunch of hollows in SC in a presumed to be popular system, is a good sign you might want to pass on your objective unless you’re in a very strong ship.
7 – In the same vein as #6, you may need to realign how you think about ship building. If you look at a cargo build and balk at the lowered capacity due to strong shields taking up an internal slot, then you probably don’t want to fly that ship in Open. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it too all of the time. Elite is a game about trade offs in this regard, and if you want to fly in Open, and want to fly paper thin ships to maximize profit, but are unwilling to accept the risk associated with both actions occurring at once, you need to reassess your priorities in the ship. If you simply insist on building risky ships, then I suggest flying in one of the other modes that allows this with ease due to the low danger NPCs provide. Another way to look at this is, if I get blown up right now, am I ok with that? If the answer is “no”, then you need to start doing some risk mitigation. Explorers often die and lose a lot of data (sometimes weeks or months worth even) due to weak shields and weak hull, and not just from players, but from collisions, too. Had they asked themselves before leaving “am I willing to bet weeks or months worth of data on these shields, and on this hull?” and then engineered and built the ship accordingly based on their own answer, they would have saved themselves a lot of heartache.
8 – Reverberating Cascade does not matter because Torpedoes have a maximum speed of 250m/s and mines do not move. The overwhelming majority of players can outfly these weapons. However, Flechettes do matter, and MRPs are used to counter them.
With these guidelines in mind, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us in a position where most things a Type 7 and bigger can survive a typical 1 person gank. Many things over a Type 7 in size can reliably survive a 2-3 person gank as well (Clippers and Orcas for instance due to the MJ values and speed, the Krait Mk2 and Python due to shields and bulk). Certain ships can pretty much always survive a full 4 player wing attacking them. This list is smaller, but there is a lot to work with here, really.
The builds I’m going to link do not include guns, usually, because everyone likes different things. You will need to move internals around a bit, and weapons too, in order to meet your needs. Should you run out of power, Overcharge the plant. MRPs are there because people can and do run flechettes which will go through your shield and kill your drives unless you outrun the shots. The other thing is, speed will play in your favor, since damage falloff will occur. Very fast ships like the Mamba or Orca can capitalize on this to reduce the damage they take while not having to run as high of shields as other ships. This matters a lot against ships that boost in the mid 500s and run SRB rails.
Type 7 mid shield https://edsy.org/s/vClGdYH - viable against 1 and maybe 2 aggressors
Type 7 big shield https://edsy.org/s/vF3BuZO - viable against 1-2 aggressors. 1-3 could be possible here, but I wouldn’t prefer this ship for it, either.
Orca https://edsy.org/s/vtB07dY - viable for 1-3 aggressors due to the MJ + speed, 1-4 could be possible as well. A Clipper with high speed and high MJ will have similar results.
Krait https://edsy.org/s/vGTYa3A - viable for 1-4 if you’re quick, and you can apply the theory here to the Python and Phantom with mostly similar results. With these ideas, building an FDL or Mamba should be easy as well. FDL/Mamba can wake on full wings with ease using these ideas.
Type 9 https://edsy.org/s/v4ZzoXt Notably lower cargo than many are used to, but this ship is honestly quite bad at hauling cargo in a safe way in Open. It lacks the Utility slots to crank up the MJ values, and because of this even with this low cargo build I wouldn’t want to face more than 1-3 aggressors with it.
Cutter https://edsy.org/s/vZnhH4k - Viable against all, and upgrading the shield gen size will only make you stronger. The ECMs are to prevent a pirate from trying to hatchbreak cargo while you leave. The ECMs are not on the Type 7/9 because it really needs the shields. The theory on the Cutter can be used for the Type 10, Conda, and Corvette as well. 3k+ MJ is a good number, but I recommend 4k+ if you can manage it.
Phasing Cutter for those worried about it - https://edsy.org/s/v1bibtD There's no need to take less cargo in this ship, it has an overwhelming advantage in your favor.
Should you have questions about any of these builds or questions about your own build, feel free to ask.
As pointed out by @ethelred, if you hit Ctrl+B you will get a bandwidth to show on your screen, and when this spikes, you have an instance with players in it. You can watch that and know if a system is populated by people before you even drop in. This is built into the game, so I don't think it's unfair to use otherwise FDev would just remove it, and does give you good info.
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