Newcomer / Intro Selecting combat missions

[geesloper]

Hello all,

I'm not so much 'new' (strictly speaking) as 'coming back after a number of years'. I spent a few days watching all of the training videos, and doing all of the tutorials, and googling, and then I did some low-key combat missing and it went quite well....

Then today, I tried again and it went ... comically badly.

All the stuff I think might be relevant to my question is at the end of the post, but the gist of my question is based on these two observations.

1. I've been avoiding any mission flagged as "Team Mission" or "High Threat", because I'm new (sort of) and inexperienced, but the difficulty of the ones I pick is ... unpredictable. For example, I had one where the target was very easy to destroy, and then I had one where he fragged me in like 20 seconds flat, and I couldn't even get his shields below 50%. Neither was "High Threat" (apparently).
2. I see that most missions either ask you to go scan the nav beacon (in space), or a data link on a surface settlement. The nav beacon ones all seem Ok, but for the surface data links, some of them I can't get close to without getting shot up and accruing fines. I am vaguely aware this has to do with whether or not the data link is "private".

So my questions are:

1. Is there a way to determine (and avoid) these missions before accepting them, or do you just have to accept them and see how you go?
2. I'm aware there are better weapons that will technically fit the Diamondback's slots, but anything better I add sends the power draw into the red, even with an 'A' Powerplant. I'm pretty sure my weapon choices are very haphazard and not optimised. Short of upgrading to a better ship (a Python is next on my list), is there any way I can swap things out on the Diamondback to improve its output? I did look into Engineering, but it sounds like a painful grind, so I was planning on holding off until I settled on a ship for the longer term.

Ship
Diamondback Explorer

Server Mode
Solo (for now)

Weapons
3I Torpedo Pylon, 2E Turreted Beam Laser, 2E Fixed Multicannon

Powerplant
4A Powerplant

Shields
4A Shield Generator

Expansions
Horizons, yes, Odyssey no.

 

[aRJay]

With regards to fitting out your Diamondback Explorer, I would suggest getting rid of the torpedo as you only get four shots which while powerful if they hit can be dealt with because of how slow they are.
Maybe something like this with the beam on one trigger binding to burn off the shields and the multis on another to chew through the hull. Note this is a theoretical build as I don’t use my DBX for combat.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

Oh! and Welcome Back.

 

[metatheurgist]

DBX is not a great combat ship.

 

[Ashnak]

A DBX for assassination missions... I wouldn't .

Sure, the DBX can be a tough little customer with high agility, but, as you found out, is hampered by the small PP and PD. And I wouldn't voluntarily engage in combat without engineering.
Regarding the missions: used to be that the wording of the missions would give you some clue as to whether you had to check out a ground base for the target's location. And the rating of the mission (and especially the payout) shoud give you a hint regarding your target. Nobody is going to pay you 10MCr. to take out a harmless pilot in a sidewinder.

If you find yourself settled with one of those missions, keep in mind that you can change ships during the mission. So you can do the scan from a small and agile ship (I prefer a Viper Mk.III, engineered to the hilt) and then do the actual deed in a heavy hitter (my favourite is Krait MK.II with triple Pacifiers - a powerplay weapon).

You may not like it (you already said), but I'd suggest you go for engineering - it's going to be tough otherwise. Oh, and a few of the Guardian goodies (shield and FSD boosters, mainly). As a combat ship, I wouldn't use a Python (ok, I do use a Krait Mk.II witha fighter bay, though). The medium combat ships are the FdL, Mamba and the three Alliance ships. If you want to try a small combat ship first, the Vulture is as nasty as they come. But has again the problem of a small power plant.

This is what a unengineered Vulture could look like. You could swap in Multicannon or Pulse Lasers instead of the frags, but anything else will blow your power budget:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Frags are only useful at point-blank distance - but the Vulture is the most agile ship available. Which is also the reason why I didn't use gimbals here - if you can't use fixed weapons in a Vulture you better find a different career path...

Of course, once you have all the Engineers, Guardians goodies and relevant powerplay toys available, you can turn the Vulture into something really nasty. I've been doing my 2HOT2MESSY deliveries in one after some would-entrepreneurs attempted to interdict my Dolphin. With the Vulture, I could usually add a few MCr. of bounties to my mug deliveries . Can't give you the loadout link, that's on my other PC.

Edit: switched PCs and actually looked at the loadout this time - here's my mug delivery Vulture. Engineered to 11.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

She gets the job done in those places where you can only get a small landing pad (i.e. lots of those Odyssey ground bases).

 

[thesmith_de]

Is there a way to determine (and avoid) these missions before accepting them, or do you just have to accept them and see how you go?

Each mission has a threat level on the top right corner. Go for 1 and you should be fine, then with experience and better equipment crank it up.

 

[geesloper]

Wow, thanks for all the tips everyone!

It sounds like the Diamondback really has to go, which is fine, I need an upgrade anyway.

I'm not averse to doing Engineering, I just figured it wasn't worth it for a ship you don't intend to keep. They (the engineers) seem to be spread out over quite a massive area, so lots of flying around to get tothem all? Unless I just haven't found 'better' ones, yet.

 

[Ashnak]

You will find other Engineers - but yes, they're all over the Bubble. Unless you come to Colonia, where you can get all your engineering done within a couple of jumps. But you'll need to unlock almost all of the Bubble engineers first to get the introduction to the Colonia engineers, so that's a late game shortcut.
And the best FSD engineer is actually Felicity Farseer, one of the first you can meet.

 

[aRJay]

Wow, thanks for all the tips everyone!

It sounds like the Diamondback really has to go, which is fine, I need an upgrade anyway.

I'm not averse to doing Engineering, I just figured it wasn't worth it for a ship you don't intend to keep. They (the engineers) seem to be spread out over quite a massive area, so lots of flying around to get tothem all? Unless I just haven't found 'better' ones, yet.

The thing with engineering is that the only thing that is ship specific is the armour all the other modules can be swapped between your ships subject of course to module size and commander sanity.

As has been said the best engineers are arguably the ones in Colonia I have only been playing for just under 7 years so haven’t got out there to verify that, actually there is at least one bubble based engineer I haven’t bothered with either.

 

[nemolomen]

My mostly unengineered DBX fights off pirates using triple Rail Guns...

https://s.orbis.zone/l__b

 

[Lhorndra]

Welcome back!

1. I'm aware there are better weapons that will technically fit the Diamondback's slots, but anything better I add sends the power draw into the red, even with an 'A' Powerplant.

You can also deactivate some modules before a fight to save some power (e.g. a SRV bay, should you have one). You can do that in your right panel. Also on that panel, you can assign different power priorities to your modules. So, for example, if your powerplant can't power all modules at the same time, set the SRV bay to priority 5 and your weapons to priority 3. Then, the SRV bay gets switched off automatically when you deploy weapons.

Tutorial: Power Priorities Explained

With regards to fitting out your Diamondback Explorer, I would suggest getting rid of the torpedo as you only get four shots which while powerful if they hit can be dealt with because of how slow they are.
Maybe something like this with the beam on one trigger binding to burn off the shields and the multis on another to chew through the hull.

Yeah, that's exactly how I started doing combat with my then brand new Cobra. Fire the lasers first, and when the shields are down, fire the frag or multi cannons. Other weapons might have a bigger impact, but are also more difficult to master, at least in my experience.

It sounds like the Diamondback really has to go, which is fine, I need an upgrade anyway.

Don't sell the Diamondback! You might want to go exploring at one point, and the Diamondback Explorer (!) is a damn good cheap exploration vessel.

I'm not averse to doing Engineering, I just figured it wasn't worth it for a ship you don't intend to keep. They (the engineers) seem to be spread out over quite a massive area, so lots of flying around to get tothem all?

Yes. But once you start collecting all the materials needed, "lots of flying" is the least of your concerns.

[Edit: clarification]