*** Shield tanking is gone with 1.5 update. This guide may be not viable any longer, as most was build around that.
Hi! I own a Python for several month now, tried a ton of setups and read every thread about actual stats tested by fellow Commaders and tried to find the most efficient setup also. A well rounded, combat focused setup was finally developed. It dominates any PvE and need not to fear any PvP encounter other than a 4-FdL-Squad (but who doesn't?) but can even manage that. It's especially useful in combat zones and wing-combat. Any thoughts of my build keep in mind that PvP encounters can (and will) happen, but I do not actively force them (i.e. being a pirate). It's mostly a defensive setup which turns the favour of the battle on your side if someone tries to destroy you. One thing you need to keep in mind while reading this is that I count a retreat through losing shields a win of the engagement, as there is no real way to destroy somebody right now. (So yes, I lose the fight when I retreat myself).
I also present you an alternative setup which is a bit more versatile and better suited for PvE. It uses (optional) armor which may come in handy when the power plant didn't blow up your ship. I suppose it's weaker in PvP though, where shield tanking still may be necessary [As the power plant change of 1.4 has to come yet, I can only speculate]
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Alternative #1
This is my PvP setup: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=705,5...,2-B69Y7_6QB69s8I,7UI7jw7jw7iW7iW0727fO7fO9qI
(Prio: Shield+Booster on 2, SCB on 3 [shields can't go offline when switching], Cargo+FSD-I on 4, FSD on 5 [switch to 1 if your PP only gives 50% and need it to jump away])
Weapons
Currently PvP situations mostly end with somebody losing shields and retreat. So a full laser setup is the choice. The Pulse Lasers are favoured because Beams use too much capacitor energy and their damage drops off fast after that. The Bursts do not offer enough damage advantage for their much more MW used (which is critical in my setup) and the gimballed version tend to miss more that Pulses. When the reticule goes next to the ship, all three hits will miss. Using only the Pulse allows constant firing for 20+ seconds (I never counted). They're the main weapons against power plants after the target lost its shields and they're quite effective. Their damage renders C2 Multicannons kinda useless in that regard vs NPC (just takes longer) + you won't need ammo. Players will not allow you to destroy their PP so they will escape anyway. No need for a physical weapon.
The fixed C2 beams do slightly more damage than the C3 Pulse and are the strongest anti-shield option available for C2. They can fire (almost) forever if you use only them. Their purpose is to increase the alpha damage (damage done in the first attack until you overshoot your target or your capacitor is empty), provide firepower if the enemy used chaff (they're on the inner hardpoints and focus perfectly) and snipe off the last 10% of a target boosting away, but can be generally used to spam at targets 2km away where the Pulse will miss most of the time.
Using all weapons together result in ~95MJ shield damage per second in below 1km range, the capacitor empties after 7 seconds so under perfect conditions you'll deal a ~665MJ alpha strike which most ships can't tank in the first place and renders their SCB useless.
TL;DR: full laser setup to kill shields fast in occasional PvP, you don't need multicannons for PvE which gets completly dominated anyway
Shields
I use 4xA Shield Booster and 6A Shield Generator for max base shield strength. It results in 726MJ shields* which means I could not strip my own shields in an alpha strike allowing me to use SCB. I have a battery of 2x3 SCB running simultaneously, while only one battery is activated. 1x3 will restore ~485MJ** in one usage. I can use one battery for five times (1+4), so it results in 2425 MJ max shield restore. When one battery is empty, I can activate the second one and potentially even double that. All in all I have a potential shield strength of 726+2425+2425=5576MJ, assuming I always use it correctly (no waste because I use too early, or lose shields because I use them too late). In reality you will lose some MJ because it's better be safe than sorry and you shouldn't try to squeeze out every MJ if facing multiple enemies where it can be hard to predict the incoming damage in the next five seconds.
An FdL can't equip so many SCB at all, meaning you can outtank one all day long (it may reach max 1500-2000MJ depending on the setup), besides it cannot masslock you (since 1.3). An Anaconda can potentially tank even more (didn't check multiple SCB batteries, but one results in ~3600MJ so I guess it's between 6000 and 7000MJ). One downside though is that all these SCB make the ship heavy, thus slower and less agile.
You can use armor if you want, but that is totally up to you. I personally don't use armor in this setup, because when shields are gone it's time to go. The ship is also already quite heavy, but it can buy you some time if you are under heavy fire while charging FSD.
TL;DR: up to ~5576MJ shields (at perfect SCB usage)
Combat
It does not mean that you're invincible. But in 1on1 situations you're almost. There is only one ship that can tank more and has more firepower if it's fully equipped for that. But you can outrun an Anaconda if there is no other option left. Everything else is inferior to you, they have two options basically: run or die. They do not have the alpha strike to disable your shields whereas you usually have. FdL can potentially be a threat if he severely outskills you, but it can't masslock you. Vultures are annoying, nothing more. They basically lack the firepower to be a major threat to you and one major mistake by them and their shields are gone. So in the end there is one big threat left: another Python. Here it depends on skill the most, because the circumstances are similar: masslocked, but same speed (if he is less tanky, he will be faster), same firepower.
If you're alone and a wing comes up and interdicts you, things become complicated as there are too many situations to cover. If they are three Cobras, you can potentially destroy them all. 2 Vultures? Fight. 4 Vultures? Maybe you will kill one, but over time your PP explodes. But they can't masslock you, so you can escape fast if you can't take them. 3 or 4 FdL? 4 pips in Sys, jump and spam SCB while charging. Now we could do all combinations, and it also depends on personal skill. But vastly outnumbered by ships like Vulture and above should be avoided by jumping away, I think that's straight forward. If there is no other Python or Anaconda, you can escape every wing. Note: A wing of Pythons may be the most dangerous you can face. Hyperjump and spam SCB immediately.
As I already said at the beginning: this is a defensive setup for a defensive ship as it's designed. You can't chase but defend yourself with tankiness and strong firepower. The super agile ships bring not enough firepower and if you get them in your sights, they're in trouble. You need to like this style of a ship and it also needs to fit your own playstyle. A pirate will not be happy with this setup, an open player who goes into community goal combat zones or undermines enemy territory will be happy more likely. In wing combat its role is similar to an Anaconda (which arguably has no real role I know), trading some tankiness and firepower for speed (which arguably makes it more useful). It either dishes out a ton of damage or can tank quite a lot if they try to focus you down, allowing your wingmates to focus on them instead.
As you have no Armor and Hull Reinforcement, I would not recommend to fight without shields and retreat immediately when losing them, because even if your PP survives, you will not survive much longer.
TL;DR: you can take any 1on1, strong wings can be outtanked to (hyper)jump away, small/weak ones be fought. it's a defensive ship and setup, home in combat zones and useful in wing combat. And for people who like PvE in open, but still be powerful if somebody interdicts.
Other upgrades
We still have enough energy to basically get everything to A (with priority management of course). The Power Plant is the most expensive one, but the more MW the more combat efficiency so for me a no-brainer to get the best (and you need 15MW to keep your ship operational losing the PP). Best thrusters are also needed to move this heavy setup, FSD even more so. Even then only 13Ly which are sufficient for me, but not for everyone. Best Life Support because I don't risk losing my ship because of a canopy breach and lose millions of insurance for just +12T and +0,28MW. 7A Distributor of course, there is no reason to use a lesser one in a combat ship. C Sensors as the A consume too much power finally and can't be supported, and B add even more weight for little benefit.
TL;DR: all A (except sensors) because we have plenty of MW left and everything indirectly increases our combat efficiency
Options
There are some options you can choose without reworking half of the ship and need to go 3 different stations to get your desired equipment.
One thing is that you can easily swap one Shield Booster to a (Class C)-KWS if needed or a Chaff Launcher if you think you will benefit more from it. Depends on how often you encounter full gimballed setups. But it will decrease your alpha strike resistance against (especially) fixed weapons by reducing the shields to 645MJ (you remember my own alpha strike would be ~665MJ? It can be the difference!).
You can use the C4 and C2 internal utility slot basically for whatever you like, I use an A2 interdictor and 16t for some (ranking) missions and Powerplay stuff.
Also you can easily replace the C2 beams with everything else than a Plasma/Railgun without running into energy problems, as they have the 3rd highest MW usage.
Always be careful that this setup has very little spare energy left, so always check twice if you change something.
TL;DR: swap booster for KWS/Chaff, C4+C2 utility free, C2 beams with every weapon due to high energy use (but not PA/Rail)
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Alternative #2
(I recommend that you have read Alternative #1 before even if you don't plan to use the PvP setup)
I have also another setup (which I currently use) with some slight differences suited better for PvE: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=705,5...,31B69Y7_6QB69s8I,7UJ16y16y16y7gy7fO7fO7fO9qI
(Prio: Shield+SCB+Booster on 2, Cargo+FSD-I on 3, FSD on 5 [switch to 1 if your PP only gives 50% and need it to jump away])
I made this setup after the Powerplay modules became available and we got the info that with 1.4 the power plant targeting will be toned down: there'll be only a (hopefully small) chance that you instantly blow up when the power plant reaches 0% now, instead most of the times it will only provide 50% power in that case. Shields are still far more important and you still don't wanna be without, but it's not so deadly as before. It works better against NPC as they don't focus so much on shield tanking, but is not as good as the other setup in PvP. Although you can defend yourself, I would recommend the other setup if you plan to do heavy PvP.
The Beams got replaced by the Cannons due to the fact that it won't be enough to just always use the Pulse against the power plant to destroy big targets and it decreases the general time to kill NPC (at least for me). Obviously you have less shield damage now, which is one of the reasons you are not as strong in PvP as before. The Pulse stay due to their efficiency, but you can switch them to fixed if you don't like full gimballed. Note that you do NOT have the energy to use Multis instead of Cannons, you must change the SCB setup (the 4B to 3B; hint: the lower classed SCB are more efficient in MW->MJ ratio and weight less; rating B because it has most charges per class -> most MJ restored).
I installed the Prismatic Shield to boost the shield up to 857MJ and use one 4-stack of SCB (without the Beams you will not run into severe heat problems, but you can go up to 120% for some seconds if you keep firing the pulse while charging the SCB. If possible I wait until I can't fire at him anyway or just take the negligible amount of damage). With this basic shield strength it's impossible to alpha-strike your shields by just one attacker, you may even block two or three depending on ships and situation (you in fact cannot be alpha striked by two Vultures). It also allows some safer SCB usage as you don't need to use them so close before losing them for full effect. The SCB-stack heals for about 490MJ per charge and can be used 5 times giving you 2450MJ+857MJ=3307MJ. This setup is more guaranteed that you can use the its full MJ potential, but loses more than 2000 potential MJ compared to the other one. It's a trade-off: more alpha-resistance and versatility, less (shield) persistence.
Why the "(shield)"? Because of the not always exploding PP you can try to destroy your opponent even without shields (if you can live with the risk and it's even possible, i.e. a very close fight you absolutely want to win). You have 468+3*240 = 1188 armor (plus military or if you can afford mirrored armor***), which is quite strong (stock Anaconda is 945). Even if your PP only gives 50%, it still provides 15MW. Enough to support all core modules and weapons to keep the ship operational. Your shields will never come back online within the fight, so everything related can just go offline.
But this is entirely optional, you can replace the Hull Reinforcements with whatever you like, i.e. you still want some cargo space. I will definitely replace one when Horizon comes out
But keep in mind that you use 29.98MW even with priority management so you can't put anything in consuming more MW without redesigning the SCB-stack. As I said for just small gains I would replace the 4B with 3B. And forget what I said about fighting without shields if you don't want to use any armor
TL;DR: less shield damage, more hull damage, less shield tanking, more armor (or versatility if you don't use armor) mostly because of 1.4 changes
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Alternative #3
WAIT! I don't plan to ever get Prismatic Shields! I don't need a PvP setup! What do I do?! Well, in that case I can help much to be honest. You should have gotten the idea how I worked out these setups. Both aimed to maximize the MW used while providing a strong defence. This basically only works with putting tons of SCB on the ship or use this power-hungry Prismatic Shield, in most other cases you can put in whatever you like and don't run out of power. Some hints: you can replace two Pulse Laser or the Cannons with something more power hungry or use a stronger SCB stack (you can use a 5B instead of a 3B SCB or redesign it completely, but never more than 4 at once as you will take noticable amount of heat damage on every usage). Or maybe you just developed and idea yourself after reading this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So here you are. Tell me what you think about these setups and if you have something that can be optimized. I think the first setup fits the current shield meta quite well with potentially insanely persistent shields making you practically unkillable in 1vs1 situations, while having powerful anti-shield-DPS yourself. I would say it's more PvP orientated than PvE/Solo, because there you can happily use some cannons and less SCB and have no problems. Or maybe better: it's designed to be a strong force in Open play in every situation.
That's why I added the second setup: right now I'm only playing occasionally and away from player hotspots and therefore had no PvP for a while, so I chose to share what I use right now in PvE (being maxed out is not necessary then, it's a bit more versatile with its internal compartments) with some short reasoning behind it. But I think you can still use this in Open and not be a helpless victim.
Fly safe Commanders!
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Changelog:
1.3/1.4 Update: Added a second alternative better suited for PvE with the initial armor idea (power plant less vulnerable). Infos about Horizon said we'll need some internal space for landings, it will be more practical for that.
1.3 Update: Re-worked the setup (rethought the idea of armor, shield-meta unchanged)
The new faction weapons can't be tested at the moment. I will update as soon as especially the Cytoscrambler (anti-shield weapon) and Imperial Hammer (multi-railgun) could be tested and if that has an impact on shield tanking. But also nobody knows how powerful the Prismatic Shields will be. UPDATE: Shields are nice on Python, Cyto has some general flaws and is no special threat to mention, Hammer can be dangerous depending on the user.
1.2: Guide Released
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*values from ED Shipyard
**values from this thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=137188
*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkvAfbvrFgk (worth checking out if you don't know him. A lot of informative videos)
Hi! I own a Python for several month now, tried a ton of setups and read every thread about actual stats tested by fellow Commaders and tried to find the most efficient setup also. A well rounded, combat focused setup was finally developed. It dominates any PvE and need not to fear any PvP encounter other than a 4-FdL-Squad (but who doesn't?) but can even manage that. It's especially useful in combat zones and wing-combat. Any thoughts of my build keep in mind that PvP encounters can (and will) happen, but I do not actively force them (i.e. being a pirate). It's mostly a defensive setup which turns the favour of the battle on your side if someone tries to destroy you. One thing you need to keep in mind while reading this is that I count a retreat through losing shields a win of the engagement, as there is no real way to destroy somebody right now. (So yes, I lose the fight when I retreat myself).
I also present you an alternative setup which is a bit more versatile and better suited for PvE. It uses (optional) armor which may come in handy when the power plant didn't blow up your ship. I suppose it's weaker in PvP though, where shield tanking still may be necessary [As the power plant change of 1.4 has to come yet, I can only speculate]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternative #1
This is my PvP setup: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=705,5...,2-B69Y7_6QB69s8I,7UI7jw7jw7iW7iW0727fO7fO9qI
(Prio: Shield+Booster on 2, SCB on 3 [shields can't go offline when switching], Cargo+FSD-I on 4, FSD on 5 [switch to 1 if your PP only gives 50% and need it to jump away])
Weapons
Currently PvP situations mostly end with somebody losing shields and retreat. So a full laser setup is the choice. The Pulse Lasers are favoured because Beams use too much capacitor energy and their damage drops off fast after that. The Bursts do not offer enough damage advantage for their much more MW used (which is critical in my setup) and the gimballed version tend to miss more that Pulses. When the reticule goes next to the ship, all three hits will miss. Using only the Pulse allows constant firing for 20+ seconds (I never counted). They're the main weapons against power plants after the target lost its shields and they're quite effective. Their damage renders C2 Multicannons kinda useless in that regard vs NPC (just takes longer) + you won't need ammo. Players will not allow you to destroy their PP so they will escape anyway. No need for a physical weapon.
The fixed C2 beams do slightly more damage than the C3 Pulse and are the strongest anti-shield option available for C2. They can fire (almost) forever if you use only them. Their purpose is to increase the alpha damage (damage done in the first attack until you overshoot your target or your capacitor is empty), provide firepower if the enemy used chaff (they're on the inner hardpoints and focus perfectly) and snipe off the last 10% of a target boosting away, but can be generally used to spam at targets 2km away where the Pulse will miss most of the time.
Using all weapons together result in ~95MJ shield damage per second in below 1km range, the capacitor empties after 7 seconds so under perfect conditions you'll deal a ~665MJ alpha strike which most ships can't tank in the first place and renders their SCB useless.
TL;DR: full laser setup to kill shields fast in occasional PvP, you don't need multicannons for PvE which gets completly dominated anyway
Shields
I use 4xA Shield Booster and 6A Shield Generator for max base shield strength. It results in 726MJ shields* which means I could not strip my own shields in an alpha strike allowing me to use SCB. I have a battery of 2x3 SCB running simultaneously, while only one battery is activated. 1x3 will restore ~485MJ** in one usage. I can use one battery for five times (1+4), so it results in 2425 MJ max shield restore. When one battery is empty, I can activate the second one and potentially even double that. All in all I have a potential shield strength of 726+2425+2425=5576MJ, assuming I always use it correctly (no waste because I use too early, or lose shields because I use them too late). In reality you will lose some MJ because it's better be safe than sorry and you shouldn't try to squeeze out every MJ if facing multiple enemies where it can be hard to predict the incoming damage in the next five seconds.
An FdL can't equip so many SCB at all, meaning you can outtank one all day long (it may reach max 1500-2000MJ depending on the setup), besides it cannot masslock you (since 1.3). An Anaconda can potentially tank even more (didn't check multiple SCB batteries, but one results in ~3600MJ so I guess it's between 6000 and 7000MJ). One downside though is that all these SCB make the ship heavy, thus slower and less agile.
You can use armor if you want, but that is totally up to you. I personally don't use armor in this setup, because when shields are gone it's time to go. The ship is also already quite heavy, but it can buy you some time if you are under heavy fire while charging FSD.
TL;DR: up to ~5576MJ shields (at perfect SCB usage)
Combat
It does not mean that you're invincible. But in 1on1 situations you're almost. There is only one ship that can tank more and has more firepower if it's fully equipped for that. But you can outrun an Anaconda if there is no other option left. Everything else is inferior to you, they have two options basically: run or die. They do not have the alpha strike to disable your shields whereas you usually have. FdL can potentially be a threat if he severely outskills you, but it can't masslock you. Vultures are annoying, nothing more. They basically lack the firepower to be a major threat to you and one major mistake by them and their shields are gone. So in the end there is one big threat left: another Python. Here it depends on skill the most, because the circumstances are similar: masslocked, but same speed (if he is less tanky, he will be faster), same firepower.
If you're alone and a wing comes up and interdicts you, things become complicated as there are too many situations to cover. If they are three Cobras, you can potentially destroy them all. 2 Vultures? Fight. 4 Vultures? Maybe you will kill one, but over time your PP explodes. But they can't masslock you, so you can escape fast if you can't take them. 3 or 4 FdL? 4 pips in Sys, jump and spam SCB while charging. Now we could do all combinations, and it also depends on personal skill. But vastly outnumbered by ships like Vulture and above should be avoided by jumping away, I think that's straight forward. If there is no other Python or Anaconda, you can escape every wing. Note: A wing of Pythons may be the most dangerous you can face. Hyperjump and spam SCB immediately.
As I already said at the beginning: this is a defensive setup for a defensive ship as it's designed. You can't chase but defend yourself with tankiness and strong firepower. The super agile ships bring not enough firepower and if you get them in your sights, they're in trouble. You need to like this style of a ship and it also needs to fit your own playstyle. A pirate will not be happy with this setup, an open player who goes into community goal combat zones or undermines enemy territory will be happy more likely. In wing combat its role is similar to an Anaconda (which arguably has no real role I know), trading some tankiness and firepower for speed (which arguably makes it more useful). It either dishes out a ton of damage or can tank quite a lot if they try to focus you down, allowing your wingmates to focus on them instead.
As you have no Armor and Hull Reinforcement, I would not recommend to fight without shields and retreat immediately when losing them, because even if your PP survives, you will not survive much longer.
TL;DR: you can take any 1on1, strong wings can be outtanked to (hyper)jump away, small/weak ones be fought. it's a defensive ship and setup, home in combat zones and useful in wing combat. And for people who like PvE in open, but still be powerful if somebody interdicts.
Other upgrades
We still have enough energy to basically get everything to A (with priority management of course). The Power Plant is the most expensive one, but the more MW the more combat efficiency so for me a no-brainer to get the best (and you need 15MW to keep your ship operational losing the PP). Best thrusters are also needed to move this heavy setup, FSD even more so. Even then only 13Ly which are sufficient for me, but not for everyone. Best Life Support because I don't risk losing my ship because of a canopy breach and lose millions of insurance for just +12T and +0,28MW. 7A Distributor of course, there is no reason to use a lesser one in a combat ship. C Sensors as the A consume too much power finally and can't be supported, and B add even more weight for little benefit.
TL;DR: all A (except sensors) because we have plenty of MW left and everything indirectly increases our combat efficiency
Options
There are some options you can choose without reworking half of the ship and need to go 3 different stations to get your desired equipment.
One thing is that you can easily swap one Shield Booster to a (Class C)-KWS if needed or a Chaff Launcher if you think you will benefit more from it. Depends on how often you encounter full gimballed setups. But it will decrease your alpha strike resistance against (especially) fixed weapons by reducing the shields to 645MJ (you remember my own alpha strike would be ~665MJ? It can be the difference!).
You can use the C4 and C2 internal utility slot basically for whatever you like, I use an A2 interdictor and 16t for some (ranking) missions and Powerplay stuff.
Also you can easily replace the C2 beams with everything else than a Plasma/Railgun without running into energy problems, as they have the 3rd highest MW usage.
Always be careful that this setup has very little spare energy left, so always check twice if you change something.
TL;DR: swap booster for KWS/Chaff, C4+C2 utility free, C2 beams with every weapon due to high energy use (but not PA/Rail)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternative #2
(I recommend that you have read Alternative #1 before even if you don't plan to use the PvP setup)
I have also another setup (which I currently use) with some slight differences suited better for PvE: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=705,5...,31B69Y7_6QB69s8I,7UJ16y16y16y7gy7fO7fO7fO9qI
(Prio: Shield+SCB+Booster on 2, Cargo+FSD-I on 3, FSD on 5 [switch to 1 if your PP only gives 50% and need it to jump away])
I made this setup after the Powerplay modules became available and we got the info that with 1.4 the power plant targeting will be toned down: there'll be only a (hopefully small) chance that you instantly blow up when the power plant reaches 0% now, instead most of the times it will only provide 50% power in that case. Shields are still far more important and you still don't wanna be without, but it's not so deadly as before. It works better against NPC as they don't focus so much on shield tanking, but is not as good as the other setup in PvP. Although you can defend yourself, I would recommend the other setup if you plan to do heavy PvP.
The Beams got replaced by the Cannons due to the fact that it won't be enough to just always use the Pulse against the power plant to destroy big targets and it decreases the general time to kill NPC (at least for me). Obviously you have less shield damage now, which is one of the reasons you are not as strong in PvP as before. The Pulse stay due to their efficiency, but you can switch them to fixed if you don't like full gimballed. Note that you do NOT have the energy to use Multis instead of Cannons, you must change the SCB setup (the 4B to 3B; hint: the lower classed SCB are more efficient in MW->MJ ratio and weight less; rating B because it has most charges per class -> most MJ restored).
I installed the Prismatic Shield to boost the shield up to 857MJ and use one 4-stack of SCB (without the Beams you will not run into severe heat problems, but you can go up to 120% for some seconds if you keep firing the pulse while charging the SCB. If possible I wait until I can't fire at him anyway or just take the negligible amount of damage). With this basic shield strength it's impossible to alpha-strike your shields by just one attacker, you may even block two or three depending on ships and situation (you in fact cannot be alpha striked by two Vultures). It also allows some safer SCB usage as you don't need to use them so close before losing them for full effect. The SCB-stack heals for about 490MJ per charge and can be used 5 times giving you 2450MJ+857MJ=3307MJ. This setup is more guaranteed that you can use the its full MJ potential, but loses more than 2000 potential MJ compared to the other one. It's a trade-off: more alpha-resistance and versatility, less (shield) persistence.
Why the "(shield)"? Because of the not always exploding PP you can try to destroy your opponent even without shields (if you can live with the risk and it's even possible, i.e. a very close fight you absolutely want to win). You have 468+3*240 = 1188 armor (plus military or if you can afford mirrored armor***), which is quite strong (stock Anaconda is 945). Even if your PP only gives 50%, it still provides 15MW. Enough to support all core modules and weapons to keep the ship operational. Your shields will never come back online within the fight, so everything related can just go offline.
But this is entirely optional, you can replace the Hull Reinforcements with whatever you like, i.e. you still want some cargo space. I will definitely replace one when Horizon comes out
But keep in mind that you use 29.98MW even with priority management so you can't put anything in consuming more MW without redesigning the SCB-stack. As I said for just small gains I would replace the 4B with 3B. And forget what I said about fighting without shields if you don't want to use any armor TL;DR: less shield damage, more hull damage, less shield tanking, more armor (or versatility if you don't use armor) mostly because of 1.4 changes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternative #3
WAIT! I don't plan to ever get Prismatic Shields! I don't need a PvP setup! What do I do?! Well, in that case I can help much to be honest. You should have gotten the idea how I worked out these setups. Both aimed to maximize the MW used while providing a strong defence. This basically only works with putting tons of SCB on the ship or use this power-hungry Prismatic Shield, in most other cases you can put in whatever you like and don't run out of power. Some hints: you can replace two Pulse Laser or the Cannons with something more power hungry or use a stronger SCB stack (you can use a 5B instead of a 3B SCB or redesign it completely, but never more than 4 at once as you will take noticable amount of heat damage on every usage). Or maybe you just developed and idea yourself after reading this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So here you are. Tell me what you think about these setups and if you have something that can be optimized. I think the first setup fits the current shield meta quite well with potentially insanely persistent shields making you practically unkillable in 1vs1 situations, while having powerful anti-shield-DPS yourself. I would say it's more PvP orientated than PvE/Solo, because there you can happily use some cannons and less SCB and have no problems. Or maybe better: it's designed to be a strong force in Open play in every situation.
That's why I added the second setup: right now I'm only playing occasionally and away from player hotspots and therefore had no PvP for a while, so I chose to share what I use right now in PvE (being maxed out is not necessary then, it's a bit more versatile with its internal compartments) with some short reasoning behind it. But I think you can still use this in Open and not be a helpless victim.
Fly safe Commanders!
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Changelog:
1.3/1.4 Update: Added a second alternative better suited for PvE with the initial armor idea (power plant less vulnerable). Infos about Horizon said we'll need some internal space for landings, it will be more practical for that.
1.3 Update: Re-worked the setup (rethought the idea of armor, shield-meta unchanged)
The new faction weapons can't be tested at the moment. I will update as soon as especially the Cytoscrambler (anti-shield weapon) and Imperial Hammer (multi-railgun) could be tested and if that has an impact on shield tanking. But also nobody knows how powerful the Prismatic Shields will be. UPDATE: Shields are nice on Python, Cyto has some general flaws and is no special threat to mention, Hammer can be dangerous depending on the user.
1.2: Guide Released
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*values from ED Shipyard
**values from this thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=137188
*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkvAfbvrFgk (worth checking out if you don't know him. A lot of informative videos)
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