Newcomer / Intro Pure Pirate Bounty Hunter Ship Recommendations

Marvin the Martian

Marvin the Martian
OK guys and gals, I'm looking for recommendations for a PURE PvE pirate bounty hunter.

I've been reading quite a bit and while I do really enjoy flying my Krait Mk II, after all the reading I think I'm missing out on a better fighting ship. I've read good things about the Fer de Lance and the Mamba. I really like the look of the Mamba.

I've also read that the FDL isn't very forgiving for newer pilots but I've not seen that sort of warning about the Mamba.

So bearing in mind I'm about 300 hours in, which would you recommend? (Other suggestions welcomed, of course!)
 

Codger

Codger
Mamba does look cool. I use it to take cool screenshots. Can't help you with your question, though, I'm not enough of a combat guy to comment. I have an FDL somewhere.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Krait Mk2 from mediums, Corvette from the large ships
FDL with 4 beams and a huge mc is also an option, but i think the krait is better
 

rOmiLaYu

rOmiLaYu
FdL is honestly a little bit overkill for PvE. For all intents and purposes, a Mamba is just an FdL that heats up faster and flies a little more poorly. Both can be shield and hull tanks.

For where you are in the game, I would recommend a Viper Mk4. Or a Chieftain.
 

dm06

dm06
Marvin the Martian said:
Hence my statement:
I'm looking for recommendations for a PURE PvE pirate bounty hunter.
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Still depends what you want to do. I can see options:
  • hunt wanted ships in SC
  • kill wanted ships in HAZ res
  • kill wanted ships in HAZ res with cargo full of gold
  • kill wanted ships near navbeacons
  • kill wanted ships in LOW res with the help of cops
  • kill engineered wanted ships in pirate activity signal sources

So... what do you want to do?
 

d8veh

d8veh
Marvin the Martian said:
Hence my statement:
Click to expand...
But for what aim? You can have a lot of fun in an Eagle. A Vulture is best to hone flying skills. A FAS gets you the most money, A Corvette is the safest. Where do you want to do your pirate hunting and why? Is it just the fun of the battle or do you want to make money? If you want to have fun, it's the same fun using a Diamondback Scout in a low RES as it is an FDL in a haz RES. What didn't you like about your present ship? if you want to kill faster, you can go to medium or low RES.

Basically, there is no answer to your question. Best is try evrything and be creative with load-outs.
 
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Ashnak

Ashnak
What type of bounty hunter? Are you talking about "kill famous pirate" missions, "massacre xyz" missions, "kill terrorist..." missions, "eliminate general..." missions or simply going into RES or infested nav beacons to bag as many as you can?

The difference I'm aiming at is - do you want to strike fast and hard (a.k.a. "alpha strike" capability), or do you want staying power that enables you to kill NPCs for hours without having to return to base?

Massacre missions and RES/Nav Beacons favour staying power, targeted kills favour alpha strike power. Staying power means you'll either have to synthesize ammo or you need to rely on ammoless weapons, i.e. lasers. And lasers take a lot more time to kill, especially against hardened targets (like those venerable generals). My ships for these kinds of operastions are:
  • Krait Mk.II, triple Pacifiers, dual gimballed beams. You could put in the larger PP and PD (at the cost of reduced speed and agility) and switch to all energy weapons. https://s.orbis.zone/jcop. Unsurpassed in alpha strike capability - but also unfortunately in ammo consumption. If I'm not careful, I have to split the last of those four Anacondas that come after certain cargo missions between the lasers and the SLF (put a fighter hangar in one of the class 5 slots and cargo in the empty class 6 slot).
  • Mamba, cytos, beams and a big PA. Other loadouts would use all beams or a big MC on top. But the PA variant is (usually) good enough to clear out CZs. https://s.orbis.zone/jcos. I also have stored a full dakka loadout I always wanted to try: https://s.orbis.zone/jcou.
  • The Corvette makes PvE almost too easy. This is again a full dakka loadout - primary use is as transport, but also for harvesting manufactured materials from what is left over from any pirates that formerly were interested in my cargo: https://s.orbis.zone/jcov
 

Marvin the Martian

Marvin the Martian
A lot of post in here are completely ignoring the fact that I'm only 300 hours in and don't have access to the engineering to max out things yet. I can't even power up the entire build on my Corvette yet.

I'm just talking about the simple "Go kill this one pirate missions".
 

Codger

Codger
Marvin the Martian said:
I'm just talking about the simple "Go kill this one pirate missions".
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Even those have variables -- higher ranked missions will have much tougher opponents, meaning you'd want a tougher ship, probably with some engineering.

I don't think there's a "one size fits all" answer.

Personally, I do the single target assassination missions in a Corvette because sometimes the opponent is quite tough, and sometimes he has buddies.

You'll probably have to sort of find your own way here. Pilot preferences are a big factor in choosing a ship for a purpose.

For example, many folks LOVE the Chieftain for all sorts of combat. I dislike it, so I'd never use it, but they enjoy the heck out of it.

No one can really tell you what your preference will be :)
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
Also depends if you want to get good at bounty hunting, or succeed at bounty hunting - a smaller ship will probably help you learn good skills - a larger one will be less likely to ever get you killed. And a larger ship won't need re-arming as often.

One recommendation I'd make is to fit a collector limpet controller (or one of the fancy new multi-roles with collectors) so you can gather mats from your kills. And while you're tracking down your targets watch out for nearby High Grade Emissions. Always more fun to get engineering mats organically than it is to relog grind :)
 

aRJay

aRJay
The FdL and Mamba are in a lot of ways very similar, the FdL has the edge as a pure killing machine but is slightly easier to stall and for some the canopy support layout is too annoying for them to fly it. The Mamba is slightly more forgiving in the turns and is only a fraction less efficient at killing the thing about it that spoils you for other ships is having all the weapons on the one face of the ship.
Both ships are expensive to buy and equip which can lead to big insurance losses, they both suffer the combat ships achilles heel of small fuel tank and poor jump range, it is possible to run out of fuel in combat if you don’t have to return to a station to rearm. They both rely on their shields for protection.

The Chieftain is great fun to fly and has pretty good weapons layout, it isn’t as extreme as the previous two but can still be a force to be reckoned with. One advantage is if you intend to harvest the materials dropped by your targets you can consider not bothering with collector limpets as it is one of the easiest ships with which to scoop. When it came out it was compared with the Federal Assault Ship, personally I prefer the Chieftain over the FAS. It Is a hull armour based ship.
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
FWIW - I use various small ships to assassinate pirate lords (that's what those missions used to be called - I think now they just say kill named pirate). The ones I take are usually high ranking and involve destroying a Federal Corvette. For these missions I use either an iCourier, occasionally a Viper Mk III, sometimes a Vulture. Other than the Vulture they do tend to take a bit of time due to the smaller hard points on those ships, but they're all fun. If I'm in a hurry I'll use a FDL or a Mamba.

If I'm massacring pirates (kill x number of pirates in system y), I'll aim for a RES or a compromised nav beacon with a Krait Mk II and an SLF.

Yes, all my ships are engineered, and that makes things significantly easier, but the iCourier is by far my favorite ship to fly, very fast, decent shields and the three medium hard points at least makes it reasonably effective even against large ships.
 
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