Newcomer / Intro New to elite: Tips on improving my Viper MkIII build?

[Witchesfall]

I'm relatively new to elite (Under 30 hours now) but I'm still not sure if I'm building my Viper correctly. Can I get suggestions from any experienced players? I'm using it for bounty hunting in High Res zones, with mixed success. 50/50 on whether or not I get shot down.

Hardpoints:
2D BEAM LASER GIMBALLED
2D BEAM LASER GIMBALLED
1G MULTI-CANNON GIMBALLED
1G MULTI-CANNON GIMBALLED

UTILITY MOUNTS
OD KILL WARRANT SCANNER
OI CHAFF LAUNCHER - Though I never figured out how to rebind chaff to use it.

CORE INTERNAL
1C LIGHTWEIGHT ALLOYS
3A POWER PLANT
3B THRUSTERS
3D FRAME SHIFT DRIVE
2D LIFE SUPPORT
3A POWER DISTRIBUTION
3C SENSORS
2C FUEL TANK

OPTIONAL INTERNAL
EMPTY
3A SHIELD GENERATOR
1D HULL REINFORCEMENT
EMPTY
1D MODULE REINFORCEMENT PACKAGE
1 PLANETARY APPROACH SUITE

I'm noticing my power consumption when deployed is rather close to maxing out, and I always feel like my shields are insta dropping despite having a the best generator I can muster. Any ideas?

 

[Mo Ronik]

Give this a read...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWtNMRHulYtDyCg-gbvuZ_7mAIkwbyoRnP07k3JiGZU/edit

 

[Mo Ronik]

Then I would maybe do something like this but there are others here with far more experience than me and they can improve on it.

https://s.orbis.zone/17tg

 

[Ethaidan]

Start working unlocking the engineers into whatever you're doing. Even the first tier engineers will open up access to increased PP, weapon buffs, etc.

You could also look into unlocking some of the Guardian modules - PP, PD and shield booster.

In the meantime, upgrade your armour from lightweight to military.

 

[Nova McCool]

I would drop the chaff for a shield booster, also I don't use Beam on smaller ships. As you are new, do you know about assigning prioritys so that thinks like the cargo hatch shut off when you deploy hard points? For instance if I'm really trying to squeeze out some more power I upgraded life support to A and have it turn off with hard points out. This gives you 20+ min of combat time (retracting hard points turns life support back on.

I have been playing for years and still use my Viper, after you unlock engineers like Paylin you can get that thing to go fast enough to not be hit. The Viper is the smallest ship with great speed.

 

[Strangepork]

Try rail guns, in the class 2 slots, one modded to stop SCB working.

Then this ship becomes a very nasty little fighter, well capable of taking down NPC condas and corvettes.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Then I would maybe do something like this but there are others here with far more experience than me and they can improve on it.

https://s.orbis.zone/17tg

Perhaps an oversight on your part, but you want the largest A rated PD you can get.
I'd swap the MRP and the largest HRP too, and maybe change the MCs to frags.

https://s.orbis.zone/17t_



@ OP,
B rated core internals are the heaviest/strongest.
D are the lightest.
A have the highest output.
C are meh, and E should be changed to A, D or maybe B.
Generally you'll see D rated life support and sensors, with everything else A rated, for core modules.

It changes for other modules but if you learn to play around with coriolis and you can answer a lot of questions for yourself.

o7

edit:
You shields are dropping because you are not engineered.
Stock shields have very low resistance to thermal damage, ie lasers etc.

Start working on Dweller, Lei Chung, Farseer/Martuuk immediately, then work towards Prof Palin.
It's totally worth it!

 

[Deleted member 115407]

I'm noticing my power consumption when deployed is rather close to maxing out, and I always feel like my shields are insta dropping despite having a the best generator I can muster. Any ideas?

I have a bunch of optimized combat vipers. I'll have a look at them tonight and let you know my loadout (caveat, they are heavily engineered).

You're going to lose some speed, but get rid of those lightweights and go for a military hull. I'd also suggest replacing your A shield with a bi-weave. The A only gives you 30 more megajoules, and the bi-weave recovers and recharges much faster.

A shields are for tanking.

P.S. Yep, from a shield perspective, you only need to get to Cheung. He comes right after Dweller and can get you G5 shields and G3 boosters. Both Engineers are unlocked by trading (Dweller in black markets, Cheung in regular markets).

 

[Ashnak]

+1 for the Engineers.

Regarding your build - what's your financial situation, i.e. how much money have you got? The Viper is a fast small fighter. She's neither the fastest nor the most agile, but she packs a bigger punch than the (i)Eagle or the Sidey.
If you want to play around, you can use one of the ED shipbuilding sites - and if you want to use coriolis, please use the current official address coriolis.io and not Mo's link to coriolis.edcd.io.

Your loadout isn't too bad, but there are a few things I'd like to comment upon:
- the Viper is agile. You'd better get used to using fixed weapons - gimbals and turrets cost you quite a bit in the damage department.
- kinetic weapons get a penalty against larger ships, depending on their size. It would make more sense therefore to put the kinetics in the size 2 slots and the lasers in the size 1 slots
- rebinding the chaff launcher is there, somewhere, in the options - controls menu. Just don't ask me where, but I managed to bind it to a dedicated key
- if you can, switch to 3A thrusters. And once you've unlocked Felicity Farseer (or Elvira Martuuk), save some money for the enhanced performance thrusters. Only available at your friendly engine specialized engineer, for the low, low price of 5.1 MCr..
- on the Viper, get the bi-weave shields. They're weaker than the A-rated shields, but recharge faster. And if you learn how to avoid enemy fire, I'd even recommend to think about switching to 2C bi-weaves. Yes, you'll lose shield strength (from 150 MJ to 100 MJ), but you'll recharge much faster (28 vs. 43 seconds without the booster) and get some power to spare for other gadgets

As far as your shields insta-dropping, there are two possible reasons for that:
- you don't avoid enemy fire. Especially against bigger ships - a single large HP can put out enough damage to drop your shields with one second, even without engineering.
- you're not giving your shields enough pips. Power distributor, the (in total) 6 dots you can assign to engines (when running), weapons (when shooting) or shields (=SYS, when taking fire). 4 pips to shileds will double your available effective shield strength.

Engineers and Guardians

Once you got a feeling for ED, I'd strongly recommend to work for a while with the Engineers, and maybe even engage in some Powerplay to get some of the unique modules/weapons from some of the factions. Take your Viper as an example. This is what I would do without Engineering or the powerplay weapons I have available. And that is what I might use (if I were to use a Viper) instead with my current powerplay weapons and Engineer/Guardian module access.

And for the record - here is my current combat Sidey

Spoiler

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

+1 for the Engineers.

Regarding your build - what's your financial situation, i.e. how much money have you got? The Viper is a fast small fighter. She's neither the fastest nor the most agile, but she packs a bigger punch than the (i)Eagle or the Sidey.
If you want to play around, you can use one of the ED shipbuilding sites - and if you want to use coriolis, please use the current official address coriolis.io and not Mo's link to coriolis.edcd.io.

Your loadout isn't too bad, but there are a few things I'd like to comment upon:
- the Viper is agile. You'd better get used to using fixed weapons - gimbals and turrets cost you quite a bit in the damage department.
- kinetic weapons get a penalty against larger ships, depending on their size. It would make more sense therefore to put the kinetics in the size 2 slots and the lasers in the size 1 slots
- rebinding the chaff launcher is there, somewhere, in the options - controls menu. Just don't ask me where, but I managed to bind it to a dedicated key
- if you can, switch to 3A thrusters. And once you've unlocked Felicity Farseer (or Elvira Martuuk), save some money for the enhanced performance thrusters. Only available at your friendly engine specialized engineer, for the low, low price of 5.1 MCr..
- on the Viper, get the bi-weave shields. They're weaker than the A-rated shields, but recharge faster. And if you learn how to avoid enemy fire, I'd even recommend to think about switching to 2C bi-weaves. Yes, you'll lose shield strength (from 150 MJ to 100 MJ), but you'll recharge much faster (28 vs. 43 seconds without the booster) and get some power to spare for other gadgets

As far as your shields insta-dropping, there are two possible reasons for that:
- you don't avoid enemy fire. Especially against bigger ships - a single large HP can put out enough damage to drop your shields with one second, even without engineering.
- you're not giving your shields enough pips. Power distributor, the (in total) 6 dots you can assign to engines (when running), weapons (when shooting) or shields (=SYS, when taking fire). 4 pips to shileds will double your available effective shield strength.

Engineers and Guardians

Once you got a feeling for ED, I'd strongly recommend to work for a while with the Engineers, and maybe even engage in some Powerplay to get some of the unique modules/weapons from some of the factions. Take your Viper as an example. This is what I would do without Engineering or the powerplay weapons I have available. And that is what I might use (if I were to use a Viper) instead with my current powerplay weapons and Engineer/Guardian module access.

And for the record - here is my current combat Sidey

Good point about the hardpoint sizes.

 

[Witchesfall]

+1 for the Engineers.

Regarding your build - what's your financial situation, i.e. how much money have you got? The Viper is a fast small fighter. She's neither the fastest nor the most agile, but she packs a bigger punch than the (i)Eagle or the Sidey.
If you want to play around, you can use one of the ED shipbuilding sites - and if you want to use coriolis, please use the current official address coriolis.io and not Mo's link to coriolis.edcd.io.

Your loadout isn't too bad, but there are a few things I'd like to comment upon:
- the Viper is agile. You'd better get used to using fixed weapons - gimbals and turrets cost you quite a bit in the damage department.
- kinetic weapons get a penalty against larger ships, depending on their size. It would make more sense therefore to put the kinetics in the size 2 slots and the lasers in the size 1 slots
- rebinding the chaff launcher is there, somewhere, in the options - controls menu. Just don't ask me where, but I managed to bind it to a dedicated key
- if you can, switch to 3A thrusters. And once you've unlocked Felicity Farseer (or Elvira Martuuk), save some money for the enhanced performance thrusters. Only available at your friendly engine specialized engineer, for the low, low price of 5.1 MCr..
- on the Viper, get the bi-weave shields. They're weaker than the A-rated shields, but recharge faster. And if you learn how to avoid enemy fire, I'd even recommend to think about switching to 2C bi-weaves. Yes, you'll lose shield strength (from 150 MJ to 100 MJ), but you'll recharge much faster (28 vs. 43 seconds without the booster) and get some power to spare for other gadgets

As far as your shields insta-dropping, there are two possible reasons for that:
- you don't avoid enemy fire. Especially against bigger ships - a single large HP can put out enough damage to drop your shields with one second, even without engineering.
- you're not giving your shields enough pips. Power distributor, the (in total) 6 dots you can assign to engines (when running), weapons (when shooting) or shields (=SYS, when taking fire). 4 pips to shileds will double your available effective shield strength.

Engineers and Guardians

Once you got a feeling for ED, I'd strongly recommend to work for a while with the Engineers, and maybe even engage in some Powerplay to get some of the unique modules/weapons from some of the factions. Take your Viper as an example. This is what I would do without Engineering or the powerplay weapons I have available. And that is what I might use (if I were to use a Viper) instead with my current powerplay weapons and Engineer/Guardian module access.

And for the record - here is my current combat Sidey

I'm usually floating around 5 million credits at all times, as for engineers this is the first i've heard of it oh man. I'll look into a guide on where to start with all that right away.
I'm going to for sure switch to non-gimballed guns then, along with switching to Bi-weave shields as everyone suggests. Thankyou all for the help! I'll report back when I make the changes with how I perform!

 

[Lysette]

Give this a read...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWtNMRHulYtDyCg-gbvuZ_7mAIkwbyoRnP07k3JiGZU/edit

nice guide, comprehensive and informative.

 

[Lysette]

always feel like my shields are insta dropping despite having a the best generator I can muster. Any ideas?

There are the Bi-weave shield types, which are a little weaker, but they recharge a whole lot faster. Shields will anyway go down, a "normal" shield does not stay up much longer and you will have to evade incoming damage anyway at some point and then a shield type, which is recharging faster is of more use than a normal shield with slow recharge.

Just for completion, there is a prismatic shield type as well, which looks tankier. That shield type is extremely slow recharging and just good, if you use shield boosters as well. So don't fall for it's initial values, that shield type is not without problems.

 

[Solsticide]

For a starter bounty hunting Viper build without engineering, I'd go for something like this:

https://s.orbis.zone/18aj

Fixed for lasers and gimballed for the MCs, so if necessary you can hit a target with all weapons firing at the same time. Lasers are hitscan and you have to lead with kinetics, so if they were all fixed firing them all at once at a moving target would result in one set of weapons always missing. Unless it was flying directly at/away from you, or a large target you are extremely close to. If you are not yet proficient with fixed weapons then all gimballed also works, but you'll have to put up with chaff and slightly lower damage.