Ships Need recommendation on my next combat ship.

[Ceekay]

Go old school try the FAS, build as a hybrid hull tank + fast shield regen and fit fixed beams+ MC's, the Fed Gunship can be a bit of a beast not fast or agile but a big PD and a fighter can make a surprising difference in combat.
The Chief/Chall are limited by their class 6 PD and can be a little twitchy with fixed weps, also try the Mamba having all the wep hard points on top can make a huge difference.

 

[Slange Lands]

Ok, so I spent 2 day engineering and trying both ships. And I still can't make a decision lol.

The FDL is fast, the lateral thrusters are super nice, but its pitching is not that good unless you stay in the 50% zone. And FA off is a must if you want to keep target in your sight.

The Chieftain is almost the complete opposite. It's slow, and the lateral thrusters are pretty bad, but your pitching is so good I thought my FA was turned off by mistake. You can always keep target in your sight even with FA on, but you need boosting if you want to stick to your target.

They're both nimble but I feel like they're on opposite ends of the spectrum

Moving over from the Krait, I kept overshooting my target on the FDL, and while I was on my Chieftain, all the targets overshoot me instead. This is gonna take some getting used to lol.

Well, you don't really need to make a decision, do you? Try both.

Time on target has to do with range control and interception, that is predicting in advance where your target will be. FA on or FA off is not the issue here. There are fantastic pilots who are FA on only with superb range control.

In other words range control is about speed control. With the FDL, when a target is within 1.5 km I decelerate. If I need to boost for more maneuverability, I boost at 0 throttle... or boost and immediately down throttle.

NPCs, especially high ranked Viper3s are much faster than my FDL, so I often have to play a catch up game, just as you do with your Chieftain. In such a case, predicting where your target will be in the future is of the essence.

There could be as much as a 20 m/s difference in boost speed, but a highly skilled pilot in the slower ship will always win over a lesser skilled pilot in the faster ship.

There's a ton of nuance in this game, which is why I love it so much.

 

[tolm]

Go old school try the FAS, build as a hybrid hull tank + fast shield regen and fit fixed beams+ MC's, the Fed Gunship can be a bit of a beast not fast or agile but a big PD and a fighter can make a surprising difference in combat.
The Chief/Chall are limited by their class 6 PD and can be a little twitchy with fixed weps, also try the Mamba having all the wep hard points on top can make a huge difference.

Man ... I wanted to LOVE the Mamba ... central cockpit seat, Huge HP up top, massively fast ... and it’s looks SOOOO good ... but it’s SUCH a big target, turns like a stone and desperately needs a C6 internal to take advantage of the large BiWeave charge times to make up for all the getting shot that will inevitably happen ... honestly, with a C6 BiWeave I think it could be a proper mini-Corvette rather than a shoddy FDL alternative.

 

[Ceekay]

Here's a few builds worth considering although the big problem is how boringly capable the Krait mk2 is (why use anything else?)

Challenger high resistance shield + fixed weapons https://s.orbis.zone/bgfO

T10 small fast regen shield + lotsa guns! https://s.orbis.zone/bgfQ

FDS beam + MC https://s.orbis.zone/afi_

FAS beam + MC https://s.orbis.zone/bgfW

Mamba beam + MC(T) the turrets are for orbiting attacks once the target shields are down (also frag turrets are very effective close in as they only fire at optimum range

Mamba beam + MC(T) https://s.orbis.zone/bgg8

Mamba beam + Fr(T) https://s.orbis.zone/bgga

 

[Slange Lands]

OP,
It is obvious from your posts that you are a very discerning combat pilot. There are two things in Elite Dangerous that I treasure. First, is the 1:1 copy of the Milky Way and second is the Flight Model. Below is a video of perhaps the best pilot in the game taking the Flight Model to its utter limit. In this 2v2, Yamato is evading from a two man focus of very very good pilots, yet he is still firing back when opportunity allows. What's special about Yamato is his range control. His boost is only 544 m/s; his opponents are most likely faster. However, his attention to vector and sensitivity to his opponents boosts' makes the speed difference irrelevant. He is using fixed RF multis which are difficult when it comes to ToT. He makes it look very easy. I would have died from such a focus almost immediately.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ym15piiss

 

[Hawke613]

OP,
It is obvious from your posts that you are a very discerning combat pilot. There are two things in Elite Dangerous that I treasure. First, is the 1:1 copy of the Milky Way and second is the Flight Model. Below is a video of perhaps the best pilot in the game taking the Flight Model to its utter limit. In this 2v2, Yamato is evading from a two man focus of very very good pilots, yet he is still firing back when opportunity allows. What's special about Yamato is his range control. His boost is only 544 m/s; his opponents are most likely faster. However, his attention to vector and sensitivity to his opponents boosts' makes the speed difference irrelevant. He is using fixed RF multis which are difficult when it comes to ToT. He makes it look very easy. I would have died from such a focus almost immediately.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ym15piiss

Wow, the way he control the FDL makes it looks like a complete different game. Seeing that video really solidified my decision haha.
I decided to go with the FDL for the strong lateral thruster. It feels closer to the Krait, but much more nimble. The Chieftain pitching speed is a bit too sensitive for my taste with mouse and keyboard.
The only thing the Chieftain has that I wish I had on the FDL is the grade 6 shield with higher regen rate.

 

[Slange Lands]

Yes, the regen rate of the size 6 shield on the Chieftain is awesome. There is a hulltank tournament starting in January. Since no FDLs or Mambi are allowed, my guess is that the meta ship will be a biweave Chieftain because of the regen rate and its maneuverability compared to the FAS or both Kraits. The 17 secs it takes for the shields to start regen feels so loooong.

Yes, the pitch is very sensitive on the Chief. It's much harder for me to control after having flown almost exclusively the FDL. Challenge is good tho. Just gotta be patient.

heh, right