Ships New Fer-De-Lance for PvE only

khaos526

khaos526
So getting into combat finally and tried out a Vulture and am just having too many power issues with what I want for weapons. So I figure I would have better luck trying for a complete A grade Fer-De-Lance for generally PvE bounty hunting, combat, CZ, RES etc, but nothing very in-depth.

Money isn't an object as I have a few billion banked up, so I just want to get a nice fun build that's not over complicated, but effective and has great maneuverability (G5 Dirty Drives, modified PP, PD, FSD, Shields, Weapons, etc).

Seems most the builds I see are more for PvP and figure there might be a number things I don't need or I could switch out with those builds for more a general combat PVE roll...
 

Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
khaos526 said:
So getting into combat finally and tried out a Vulture and am just having too many power issues with what I want for weapons. So I figure I would have better luck trying for a complete A grade Fer-De-Lance for generally PvE bounty hunting, combat, CZ, RES etc, but nothing very in-depth.

Money isn't an object as I have a few billion banked up, so I just want to get a nice fun build that's not over complicated, but effective and has great maneuverability (G5 Dirty Drives, modified PP, PD, FSD, Shields, Weapons, etc).

Seems most the builds I see are more for PvP and figure there might be a number things I don't need or I could switch out with those builds for more a general combat PVE roll...
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A few BILLION?

Jesus, I play for an entire weekend and barely made 20 million!
 

khaos526

khaos526
Well I have been playing since 2015 so it's been awhile, plus the only ships I currently own is a Python which I've been using along with my 2 ASPs (General and Exploration)...
 
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Arry

Arry
i have fitted 5 pulses on mine. I did have a huge multi-cannon, but kept having to return to reload it.
 

khaos526

khaos526
I've seen builds with that and was curious why that was. I was thinking bust lasers with a mutli-cannon would be good, but noticed a lot of builds just had the pulse lasers. I assume you have 1/2 set up to one fire button and the other 1/2 set to the second fire button then?
 

Arry

Arry
khaos526 said:
I've seen builds with that and was curious why that was. I was thinking bust lasers with a mutli-cannon would be good, but noticed a lot of builds just had the pulse lasers. I assume you have 1/2 set up to one fire button and the other 1/2 set to the second fire button then?
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Well; yes, two buttons. I have 4 turrets and one huge gimbled. But around here, turrets on an FDL is not politically correct.
 
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khaos526

khaos526
Ok that makes sense. As I mentioned I haven't really done much combat other than with a vulture in the past and only having 2 hard points, one for each button. Forgot you could double up weapons like that.

So beams are better than saw the pulse or burst? I always thought (which could be incorrect) that beams were better for getting shields down and not as much for destroying the hull afterwards...
 

Arry

Arry
khaos526 said:
Ok that makes sense. As I mentioned I haven't really done much combat other than with a vulture in the past and only having 2 hard points, one for each button. Forgot you could double up weapons like that.

So beams are better than saw the pulse or burst? I always thought (which could be incorrect) that beams were better for getting shields down and not as much for destroying the hull afterwards...
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Beams strip shields the best, that is correct, however: They really burn the power and create a lot of heat. 5 pulses will run on 3 pips without any engineers mods.
 

Caliber_az

Caliber_az
I admit, I am a lousy pilot but I still really enjoy pve with my FDL.

I use this load out
4E burst laser
2F pulse laser this one trigger 1

2C plasma accelerater
2D Cannon
2D Fragment Cannon the for trigger 2

All but the Plasma is gimballed

No problem handling wings of 2, havent tried wings of 3 yet as I have only had this loadout a few days.

Caliber_az
 

Lanceor

Lanceor
The Fer de Lance has many viable PvE weapon loadouts. You'll need to try them out to see what works best for you.

Here's some of the more common ones (with variants):

Basic thermal/kinetic gimballed loadouts
Variant 1: 4 x C2 Pulse Laser, 1 x C4 Multicannon
Variant 2: 4 x C2 Multicannons, 1 x C4 Beam Laser
Variant 3: 2 x C2 Beam Lasers, 2 x C2 Multicannons, 1 x C4 Multicannon
Variant 4: 2 x C2 Pulse Lasers, 2 x C2 Multicannons, 1 x C3 Beam Laser (C4 if engineered)

Slow fixed weapon loadouts Fun!
Variant 1: 4 x C2 Pulse Laser (fixed or gimballed), 1 x C4 Plasma Accelerator
Variant 2: 4 x C2 Pulse Laser (fixed or gimballed), 1 x C4 Cannon (fixed)

Frag de Lance (ultimate short ranged DPS)
4 x C2 Frag Cannons (gimballed), 1 x C4 Beam Laser (fixed or gimballed)

Lanceor's DPS loadout (needs engineering for sustainability)
2 x C2 Multicannons (gimballed), 2 x C2 Railguns, 1 x C4 Beam Laser (fixed)
 

Arry

Arry
1 beam and 4 pack-hounds; target modules, point defence, drive and whatever you feel like after that and then it is game over.
 

khaos526

khaos526
I was thinking of starting off simple since, like I mentioned, I haven't done any combat for 2+ years. So maybe using this 4 x 2F Pulse Laser, 1 x 4A Multicannon to start then I can see about the pack-hounds once I start to get a hang of it.

What button assignments do you use for your 5 weapons?

Also for PvE, is Point Defense still worth it (3 Shield boosters, 1 Kill Warrant, 1 PD and 1 Chaff)? or are 2 Chaff's better or just one Chaff and 4 Shield boosters?
 
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Arry

Arry
I play keyboard exclusively. (A) (Z). Point defence is a must, after all you have the slots. 1 Heat sink and a 1 chaff, the rest shield boosters. I have not had to use the heat sink, unless I feel the need to use a shield sell bank.

Pack hounds are a power play weapon.
 

Arry

Arry
khaos526 said:
Just saw that, so since I only do PvE and never bothered with the Power Play (well tried it out a long while back), I'll stick to the other weapon examples then.
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I would do what you feel happy with. I have the 5 pulse build for CZ and RES, but put a multi-cannon underneath, for general use. It hits harder than the pulse and the power is still fine. At the same time, once I get together another 9 million, I have to try the Huge beam; mostly because I love beams. However: If I fit the huge beam, the other points, don't need to be thermal and so I will experiment with Multis or missile fits, or combinations. I am not sure what I will end up with. I do like the full pulse fit though, cheap, effective against shields, hulls and modules and not power hungry.
 

Draxxen

Draxxen
I also tried huge pulse, fixed, and 4 medium gimballed cannons: I could run with 2 pips to weapons no problem, and not much heat buildup.
But the huge fixed beam and missiles are the most fun! :D ..only not very practical in a REZ.

Huge Beam/Pulse+Multicannons work very well.
 

MyklAtrum

MyklAtrum
I just came to say that I'm also building an FDL for the first time ever today. And this thread is helping a lot! Haven't done combat in at least a year, and the last thing I used for combat was a Vulture. Thanks for all the info guys. :)
 

khaos526

khaos526
Arry said:
I would do what you feel happy with. I have the 5 pulse build for CZ and RES, but put a multi-cannon underneath, for general use. It hits harder than the pulse and the power is still fine. At the same time, once I get together another 9 million, I have to try the Huge beam; mostly because I love beams. However: If I fit the huge beam, the other points, don't need to be thermal and so I will experiment with Multis or missile fits, or combinations. I am not sure what I will end up with. I do like the full pulse fit though, cheap, effective against shields, hulls and modules and not power hungry.
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That's what I'm going to try next. Tried the 4 pulse and one Multi and it worked, but figure the large beam might be better to take the shields down faster and then destroy using the 4 mutli cannons. I'm hoping it is a bit faster.

Now to re-learn how to use the Flight Assist off with this ship. Been a long time since I've toyed around with that (used something similar called Neutronian flight with an old game called Space Rogue for the C-64) and think it's similar to that...
 

Innocentius

Innocentius
khaos526 said:
Now to re-learn how to use the Flight Assist off with this ship. Been a long time since I've toyed around with that (used something similar called Neutronian flight with an old game called Space Rogue for the C-64) and think it's similar to that...
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For me pip management is a lot more important for FDL than flight assist off. Just make macros to switch between different pip profiles. I have F1 to F4 set for the following pips 4-1-1, 1-4-1, 1-1-4 and 4-0-2. If I need some other variant, I just manually set it. Almost every turn I switch FDL to "F2" as it responds so well to engine pips (and suffers so much for not having those pips there).
 
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