Ships Need some shipbuilding help....I think?

[DanielKT]

you have too many beams.
never said that before

you need a mix, you need a mc or 2 or a rail or 2
all this ships is, is a power sucker.
more importantly, efficient is not the best choice, long range or overcharged is better
there are many options
mine uses
2 class 3 fixed beams long range with thermal conduit
1 class 4 fixed MC overcharged with corrosive
3 class 2 rails short range blaster with super pen
2 class 1 MC's turret long range with corrosive

the main weapons are the 2 beams the 3 rails, the others help but are not vital to death

I actually do not use a class 4 beam on anything but fdl, cutter, vette
it works fine on a conda but power and mix of weapons is important
2 class 3's are more than enough, 3 takes too much power, can be done but is not as efficient as this build.
these 2 beams are enough to melt things all by themselves
adding 3 mc's makes it a bit faster
adding 3 rails makes it a whole lot faster.

I don't use point defence. I do use 2 heatsinks the rest shield boosters
I use rapid charge with flow control on scb's - I use 2 6a's or 2 6b's depends on the ship.

I would replace the extras with hull or shield reinforcement
like fuel scoop - only when it is going several hundred LY away from home...
srv - only when it is needed
collector - I get it, but just temporary, no need to always have one. I use a class 3 multi-limpit, but only when I am super low on materials.
supercruise assist - never, not on any ship. that's my job.
docking computer - if you have to, fine.
I have multi-tasking ships, but I tend to use my specialized ships more, as they are better at one thing.
this is meant to be a killer, not an explorer, freighter
.
know that using thermal conduit, you have an overcharge ability brought on by extreme heat, also why I need 2 heatsinks - to cool fast and try to prevent too much self damage.
bringing the temp up to 400% and higher is melting time for anything the beams touch. the higher the temp the faster they melt.
the beams alone will slowly get hot and hotter
use of the rails or firing an scb without a heatsink is usually enough to bring on the heat.
practice, gets better and causes less damage to your own ship.
imo this is the single most powerful weapon in the game.

this build can kill other condas in 3 seconds, average is around 11 seconds (as in relaxed)

on a vette, I use the class 4, 1 or 2. either is very deadly
on a conda, it is not the same weapon.

also it is important to build according to target, if all targets are tiny fast, this is a waste of ship
adding a long range mc is often enough to help take on the tiny fast ships. the bullets are faster so they hit more often.

Explanation points:
Most of my experience reference for other weapons is prior to engineering.

Also should be relevent that I pretty much only have this ship in any sort of useful state with roughly 50m in the bank. I have a mining ship and something for scanning wakes but they are mostly hollow shells with zero engineering to speak of.

Efficient had the virtue of improving just about everything, which is why I am/was using it. Heat doesn't build up, currently, before the power runs out. So that was one part of it.
I'm currently going to try the plasma guns again and sent out for the stored multi-cannons I have somewhere to move to the station before I logged off last, so I'll see how that goes too.

I've used multi-cannons before but frequently ran into problems with running out of ammo. Aside from that frustration, they seemed to work 'okay'.

The point defense is a result of very frequently running into missiles and limpets. I don't know if it's just who I'm fighting or something else, but most of the ships I fight seem to tossing a lot of missiles at me.

The fuel scoop is/was a result of slurping down massive amounts of fuel on it's jumps. Also; I have the unlimited plasma ammo mod on the plasma accelerators.
SRV and collector are both related to the fact that I usually have less than 20-30 of any given engineering material, or less and need to constantly collect it. And chugging multiple KM to pick them up seems slightly silly when I can use limpets lol
Supercruise and the docking computer don't really, for me, take up much and it lets me do other stuff while the AI deals with some of that if need be. Like bickering boys >_< lol

I'll see if I can work out something simular to what your describing to try out subject to my limits. It does sound interesting. Just unsure I can do it yet.

 

[cmdr milesred]

all good, and I suspected as much

still, as long as you go out to do bounty hunting, it would be good to store the items you don't need
partly because the more value your ship has, makes repairs and rebuys higher
extra weight slows your ship down for combat
you have 200 storage slots

I usually use a dbx for surface stuff, like the srv and getting materials
its cheap and far more efficient to use as a taxi,
the conda and the dbx are the 2 best long range ships
even without guardian fsd booster
if you have fsd engineering unlocked, that helps a lot
also for engineering knowing the fastest way to get mats is helpful

if you don't have Palin unlocked, his 5k LY unlock is easy in a dbx
fly 5k LY, explode, done.
takes maybe 2 hours

I usually go to the bug killer site, Hip 16613 1A
there are 3 cargo racks and 3 comms
so you get filled up on some encoded data and some raw mats
then you can use a material trader to get the things you actually need for engineering

and as long as you can kill and are killing, then you can get manufactured mats
also HGE USS's , high grade emissions, always give G5,G4 manufactured
take anything, then visit a material trader


if you need anything to unlock an engineer and you can't figure it out or something in the way..ask

I mentioned my carrier mostly for farseer, I have MA's

as for actual credits to buy stuff
most of mine came from massacre missions, pre-Horizons
but then Horizons brought skimmer massacre missions which was insane for credits

nowadays just regular massacre missions are good. I don't anymore though
I do mining missions and recommend them for making credits
roughly 30 to 50 mil each
and mining gold, silver, bertrandite and a few others, all items you can buy. making mining not necessary
I do these for the interdictions they give me.
this brings the pirates to me. I don't have to go looking for them
I support an Anarchy faction and this is how I collect bounties for them.
the credits is a bonus that does not matter to me.
for me, I take any mining mission because all I want is the interdictors. I abandon a lot of completed missions as well as I do NOT mine, so I also abandon many of the missions that you do have to mine for.
but the gold, silver bertrandite, indite ones get me an average of 1bil credits a week with very little effort.
solo or winged, doesn't matter.
not to mention, the materials dropped from all my interdictors has me seeing a material trader very often because I get too full of g5 mats fast.

 

[cmdr milesred]

where I do my mining missions is to an agriculture station and an industrial station

the industrial stations are often wanting 30 to 50 tons of water or liquid oxygen, cobalt and very often give nice g5 mats.
taking 720 tons of water there gets me a lot of mats
or a mix of them

 

[DanielKT]

where I do my mining missions is to an agriculture station and an industrial station

the industrial stations are often wanting 30 to 50 tons of water or liquid oxygen, cobalt and very often give nice g5 mats.
taking 720 tons of water there gets me a lot of mats
or a mix of them

1 efficent beam laser, 3 overcharged multi-cannons +(whatever I can afford; running very low) and 4 short range + super pen railguns?

I figure that most of the engagement seems to happen under 2km anyway, so having the rails that cap out at 1.5km isn't likely to be a big hindrance.

 

[cmdr milesred]

for the conda I would use 3 rails

fwiw the long range does better than efficient on distance, and it can still overheat.

so much of the choices depend on what you do with the ship

I kill almost nothing but condas, t-10's

if I go hunting in a haz res I use a different build
I will usually still have the beams, the rails are better as 2 SRB and 1 LR and usually at least 1 MC long range, preferably a class 2 as well
and this is just so I can help my fighter keep the tiny ships off me.
and tbh, bounty hunting means getting bounties, not killing because they are too small is just hard on shields...

I have a different conda for this because I don't like swapping modules
pretty much have several builds for every ship, conda, krait, vette have the biggest range of builds, for me anyway

in a cz I usually keep the 3 srb rails, because they are devastating to cutters and the bonus ships that are worthless...but tough.
and I don't care about the tiny ships in a cz.
I usually go into a cz for the mats or to win, either way I am only interested in cutters, condas, t-9's, pythons, clippers
so I really don't need the long range here

long range on the MC's makes the bullets faster, able to kill vipers, couriers, eagles easily.
one of the reason I really like the conda is it is so easy to keep its weapons close to the nose of the target.
I do have fun wiping out couriers in a cz with only the rails. keeps me sharp.

eventually you will get good enough with rails to put every shot from each gun into the same spot on the target. most of the time. killing even faster.
harder to do with a clipper, or a t-10 but do-able. it is pretty much a requirement to use rails on these 2 effectively.
moving the ship to get the best convergence...
the conda does it with so little effort because it has the best convergence of all.

many people will tell you to use a diff mod on the rails to shutdown scb's...but destroying the scb works too. that's what super pen will do.
and maybe it is just me, but anytime I target powerplant, it takes longer to kill, no matter what weapons I use
so I do not subtarget, I only target the ship and it usually dies with still a lot of hull left.
try it see how it does for you.

I have other ships for sniping modules..these ships aren't snipers

 

[cmdr milesred]

if you want a hand with some credits or materials, feel free to find me in game.
happy to share or to show you some nice missions you can make credits or materials from, or both

 

[DanielKT]

if you want a hand with some credits or materials, feel free to find me in game.
happy to share or to show you some nice missions you can make credits or materials from, or both

Most of what I'm doing is stacking the "Kill X number of Y faction ships" where 1 kill counts for like 4 missions.

I'm fighting everything from sidewinders to fed corvettes and just about everything inbetween that.

The multi-cannons and beam lasers "feel" slow to kill targets. I'm considering going back to the plasma/railgun setup.
It's possible that since I've been used to the damage output of fixed cannons/plasmas that my view point on kill speed is skewed....