Looking for a better bounty hunting ship and a better way to find things.

[Burned_Follower]

I'm planning on upgrading my Viper mark 3 to a mark 4, but I also am looking for a good bounty hunting ship that has decent cargo space as well, because I'm doing business with Tod at Wolf 397 and I'm going to have to obtain some mechanical scraps. I googled how to do that and it looks like the only way to get it is to salvage that stuff from wrecks, whether it be from ships I just destroyed or signals that turn out to be a wreckage.

When I googled what a good bounty hunting ship to get, I got names of different ships, but no "whys" for the "what" ships were being suggested. I don't wanna spend a lot of in game money on something unless I know 'why' that specific thing is worth the money. I'm open to any suggestions.

Also, is there such a thing as an ingame shop where players sell stuff? A good example is several years ago when I used to play Star Trek Online, if there were certain parts you wanted for your ship, there were consoles on space stations where you can access an ingame market and search for whatever you need and get it as long as you had enough in game credits. If such a thing exists for Elite Dangerous, how do I access it? So far, I'm using the EDDB as the next best thing.

 

[GroG79]

Have you tried the vulture? A great small combat ship. You can equip limpet controllers and a little cargo rack to pick up the pieces of your victims. Btw your viper is a good plane. Next step up would be a medium ship

 

[Dragsham]

I started off as I meant to go on. All my ships have rails and frag cannons or multicannons. So speed and manoeuvrability are the mantra in small ships. So it depends on your style. A cobra mk3 is a nice ship especially as it has a low profile head on. As does a vulture.
What weps do you use. Are you armoured or lightweight for speed etc

 

[Ashnak]

How much money you got, which engineers and/or guardian goodies and/or powerplay toys do you have access to?

Also, Tod only wants the bounty vouchers for access. The Mechanical Scrap you need for engineering are Materials, not Cargo, and as as such don't take up cargo space.

 

[Burned_Follower]

I started off as I meant to go on. All my ships have rails and frag cannons or multicannons. So speed and manoeuvrability are the mantra in small ships. So it depends on your style. A cobra mk3 is a nice ship especially as it has a low profile head on. As does a vulture.
What weps do you use. Are you armoured or lightweight for speed etc

So far my fighting style is 'fight till my shields are drained' then retreat until my shields are recharged. I have a hotas so I manuver pretty well and am pretty accurate. When it comes to weapons, I use pulse lasers to take down the enemy shields, then I start lobbing seeker missiles at them, or rail gun ordinance, depending if I'm in the mood to equip my ship with seeker missiles or rail guns. I've been using rail guns a lot lately, since I haven't unlocked the missle engineer yet(Liz Ryder). I want to upgrade my rail guns first just for the sake of gaining experience when it comes to working with engineers.

As for money, I only got 5 million right now but that's because that is around how much I left the starter zone with and I haven't played that much in the last several days due to RL stuff. I know how to rack up a lot of money via bounty hunting in resource extraction sights now so it shouldn't be hard to build up to 147 million. Reason I'm shooting for that is because from the time I originally made this post until now, I found a station that's selling the viper mark iv, and just noticed a ship called an an Anaconda that seems like a really epic ship to have. it's got epic hard points and epic cargo space. Looks like something I could mine with, do cargo missions with and do bounty hunts with(but of course I'm speaking from the perspective of a new Elite Dangerous player).

 

[Xious]

Cobra MkIII for now

 

[Ashnak]

If you aim for a 'conda with 147 MCr. cash in hand, you'll also be in for an epic disappointment - and proabably a trip back to the starter Sidey via the rebuy screen. The 'conda is big, yes, and it has the best jump range (bar carriers) in the game, but that's about it. "Looks like a fish, flies like a fish, steers like a cow".

At 5 MCr., you'll better stick to the Viper Mk.III for a while. The next better combat ship pricewise would be the iCourier, and then the Vulture. If you like rails, the iCourier may be for you - the Vulture is a close up and dirty knife fighter, especially if you don't have any of the mid-to-high level power plant engineers unlocked.

Here's an example of an unengineered Vulture loadout. Witout engineering, you're pretty much limited to kinetic weapons (althoughg I don't consider using frags on a Vulture a limitation). Don't worry too much about not having thermal weapons against shields - the raw damage output of frags more than makes up for that. As you can see, that little gem will cost you just shy of 22 MCr. - keep a few rebuys, and you're looking at something like 30 MCr.. Just don't get caught with a bounty, though. The limited jump range of that D rated FSD means you'll have a long walk back home again after you arrived at the detention ship. Maybe buy (and store) an additional A-rated FSD for this case. Shipping a module is cheaper than shipping a whole ship (although you could also get a perfectly serviceable taxi Hauler for less than the price of that FSD).

 

[Dragsham]

Railing is a good skill to master i too use them vs pirates or even cmdrs. Combined with frags for close range their very handy.
A fully engineered anaconda with 5000mj shields and similarly the hull, with pacifiers x4 and rails a a few mc turrets your talking a killing machine on a par with the corvette.
But its a fully functioning engineered version. Not the out of the box rebuy waiting to happen version.
Good luck cmdr.

o7

 

[SMcA]

If you aim for a 'conda with 147 MCr. cash in hand, you'll also be in for an epic disappointment - and proabably a trip back to the starter Sidey via the rebuy screen. The 'conda is big, yes, and it has the best jump range (bar carriers) in the game, but that's about it. "Looks like a fish, flies like a fish, steers like a cow".

I don't often disagree with you but the 'conda can be a nifty ship with a dirty drive. The main reason I wouldn't buy an Anaconda with only 150 MCr is that is only the buying price. He will need to upgrade it and keep a large reserve for insurance.
I just did the grind for an Imperial Cutter. Now that seems to be a space cow.

 

[Burned_Follower]

After fooling around with the mark IV, got some questions:

1. A question about the phrase i've been seeing a lot in this forum: "a fully engineered ship" is that implying that I can build a ship instead of buy a ship...or is that referring to buying a ship first, and then using engineers to upgrade everything on said ship?(which from what I understand I would have to unlock every engineer for every possible upgrade that one can get for stuff on a ship.

2. *OP deleted this question due to figureing it out.

3. I don't know if the mark IV is considered a medium ship, but the reason I'm looking to get a bigger than a small ship is because I'm in a part of the black where most of the pirates I'm coming across are bigger and more powerful than me and my weapons are taking forever to kill the ship after I knock out their shields, but when they knock out my shields I have to run for my life and hid behind an asteroid while I wait for my shields to recharge, because it seems my hull is made out of cardboard and duct tape lol. Lot of these ships seem to be anacondas, or other ships equal'ish to its size. Only way I can take them down right now is to gain up on one when the police are shooting at one. Which ship do I need to take these bigger pirates down?

4. I discovered an item I can purchase called a repair limpet. Do these things repair my hull or my shields? How does this work? The extent of my knowledge when it comes to limpets, is that I'm supposed to get a limpet controller and limpets, but for the purpose of filling up my cargo racks when mining. How do things work regarding repair limpets?

 

[Burned_Follower]

After fooling around with the mark IV, got some questions:

1. A question about the phrase i've been seeing a lot in this forum: "a fully engineered ship" is that implying that I can build a ship instead of buy a ship...or is that referring to buying a ship first, and then using engineers to upgrade everything on said ship?(which from what I understand I would have to unlock every engineer for every possible upgrade that one can get for stuff on a ship.

2. *OP deleted this question due to figureing it out.

3. I don't know if the mark IV is considered a medium ship, but the reason I'm looking to get a bigger than a small ship is because I'm in a part of the black where most of the pirates I'm coming across are bigger and more powerful than me and my weapons are taking forever to kill the ship after I knock out their shields, but when they knock out my shields I have to run for my life and hid behind an asteroid while I wait for my shields to recharge, because it seems my hull is made out of cardboard and duct tape lol. Lot of these ships seem to be anacondas, or other ships equal'ish to its size. Only way I can take them down right now is to gain up on one when the police are shooting at one. Which ship do I need to take these bigger pirates down?

4. I discovered an item I can purchase called a repair limpet. Do these things repair my hull or my shields? How does this work? The extent of my knowledge when it comes to limpets, is that I'm supposed to get a limpet controller and limpets, but for the purpose of filling up my cargo racks when mining. How do things work regarding repair limpets?

found out one of the 'more powerful ships' I've been fighting is called an imperial clipper. such a BA ship.

 

[Ashnak]

After fooling around with the mark IV, got some questions:

1. A question about the phrase i've been seeing a lot in this forum: "a fully engineered ship" is that implying that I can build a ship instead of buy a ship...or is that referring to buying a ship first, and then using engineers to upgrade everything on said ship?(which from what I understand I would have to unlock every engineer for every possible upgrade that one can get for stuff on a ship.

2. *OP deleted this question due to figureing it out.

3. I don't know if the mark IV is considered a medium ship, but the reason I'm looking to get a bigger than a small ship is because I'm in a part of the black where most of the pirates I'm coming across are bigger and more powerful than me and my weapons are taking forever to kill the ship after I knock out their shields, but when they knock out my shields I have to run for my life and hid behind an asteroid while I wait for my shields to recharge, because it seems my hull is made out of cardboard and duct tape lol. Lot of these ships seem to be anacondas, or other ships equal'ish to its size. Only way I can take them down right now is to gain up on one when the police are shooting at one. Which ship do I need to take these bigger pirates down?

4. I discovered an item I can purchase called a repair limpet. Do these things repair my hull or my shields? How does this work? The extent of my knowledge when it comes to limpets, is that I'm supposed to get a limpet controller and limpets, but for the purpose of filling up my cargo racks when mining. How do things work regarding repair limpets?

1. check out e.g. coriolis for all (most of) your ship building questions. In response to you - the phrase is referring to a ship you've bought and then applied Engineer upgrades to everything.
For example, this is a regular A-rated Krait Mk.II:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

As comparison, this is my everyday mission runner (more or less, at least the last stored version):

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Note the differences in speed, shields, DPS and jump range - and pretty much everything else.

3. Also see coriolis. The Viper Mk.IV is also a small ship, i.e. it can land on a small pad. The Imperial Clipper is arguably a large ship (needs a large pad, but is in all other respects mor comparable to the medium ships like Python or Krait), the Imperial Cutter (for example) or the Anaconda are undoubtedly large ships. As to what you need to take down bigger pirates - that depends on their level and your capabilities. Some people manage to take down Elite NPC Anacondas with a Sidewinder. I prefer my Krait Mk.II in general, or my Mamba for combat zones.

4. Repair limpets repair hull damage - which you can't do with ordinary repair mechanisms (i.e. an AFMU). Prospectors you probably know - then there's also hatch breakers (if you want to get something out of another ship) and fuel transfer limpets (if you want to transfer some of your fuel to another ship). Classified as "experimental", you get recon, research and decontamination limpets - the latter two are used for picking up samples from Thargoids (reputedly broken currently, haven't tried myself for some time) and for removing the effects of their acid attacks.

 

[Dragsham]

Your budget determines the ship.
Corvettes anacondas both take alot of credits to purchase insure against rebuy and of course engineering itself.
Example...
Anaconda sets you back 145 mill or so to buy. But to buy reactive armour which is the best costs 300 mill thereabouts. Your talking almost a billion to upgrade the ship to A rated fsd PowerPlant distributor etc. And even then your on a long road to engineer your new ship and its new modules. Weeks months will pass as you farm the materials, unlocking engineers to actually engineer the parts.
But once you've done it and your ranking up you'll find your enemy's scale with you. So bear that in mind.
If your into pve or even pvp engineering is the way to go. But not compulsory.
Quick note about resistances.
Theres 3 types thermal kinetic and explosive 50% to all is about where u wanna be. But again not compulsory. And not in pvp. Pvp u stack hitpoints pure n simples.

 

[tolm]

Viper MkIV will allow you to equip better shields than the MkIII but is a significant amount more to buy. That said, it’s significantly less than a Vulture and, personally, I preferred it at that stage of the game. Vulture needs some decent engineering to make it viable, IMO - I feel the PP and PD are pretty small for running the number and size of modules / hardpoints - though that possibly speaks to my skill level as much as the ship.

A multi-purpose choice (you mentioned cargo space) would be the Cobra, which could equally handle some light combat and other missions, allowing you to then save up until a Krait is an option at which point you don’t really ever need another ship, it’s just what you want after that.

More combat focused choice at that stage might be a Chieftan but, even though the purchase price is less than a Krait it’ll still take quite a bit to properly kit it out. And personally the Chieftan didn’t fully “click” for me until I got Long Range engineered Beam Lasers and overcharged MultiCannons on it. At which point it became an absolute beast in HazRES.

 

[d8veh]

I've stopped using the Viper now. The Diamondback Scout works much better for beginners' combat because of the weapons placement on the front of the ship. Next step would be a Vulture, then an FDL. I'd stick with the Vulture until I got about 300 million. With powerplay 50% bonus and a KWS, you should be able to get around 30 mil per hour, so that shouldn't take long. After that, I'd stop combat and sort out all the engineers and the guardian stuff before deciding what to do next. I'd probably do the grinds for Corvette and Cutter.

 

[Ethaidan]

found out one of the 'more powerful ships' I've been fighting is called an imperial clipper. such a BA ship.

The Clipper is alright. I'd aim for a Phantom - same weapons as a Clipper/FAS, much better weapon convergence, fast, etc.