Ships Ship build for noob combat?

[nemolomen]

So, which to do first for a Viper 3 mostly a grade.? I've gotten myself in trouble before by not balancing thermal load with improvements.

I'm assuming I want the Dirty Drag Drive engineering mod for the thrusters and I think I have everything to get me to grade 3.

While I'm there, and assuming I have the mats, should I also bump the FSD while I'm at Farseer?

Thanks!

Disclaimer: I am no expert on Combat. I've been playing for 3.5 years and have not reached Elite in Combat yet. I'm almost getting close to the end of Dangerous. But I do have over 4900 hours in game. What I write below can be considered generic advice.

Most of my combat ships are heavy on the beam lasers and light on other weapons with an Overcharged power plant, a charge enhanced power distributor and Bi-Weave Shields .

With Farseer I recommend:

- Dirty Drive Tuning G3. The Drag Drives Experimental Effect is nice too if you have the mats for it.

- Overcharged Power Plant G1 - though not sure what the gain is at G1.

- Shield Boosters with Thermal Resistance G1 - though again, not sure what the gain is at G1

- You can mod the FSD with longer range. Most combat ships do not have very long jump ranges.

- if you'll have a Frame Shift Drive Interdictor you can put some G1 engineering on it too, I never have.

- G1 long range sensors might be useful

I would suggest starting with the Power Plant, Distributor, Shield Booster(s) and Bi-Weave Shield Generator.

Then pick beam lasers that will push your power limit.

Don't forget you can set your power priorities after you build it so that the FSD and any other supercruise only Optional modules will automatically shut down when hard points are deployed, giving maximum power for weapons. So you can build over your power limit as long as you can turn off enough modules while in combat to not still be over your power limit.

You can play around with numbers at https://coriolis.io/ before you start actually building as well.

Ideally you'd want engineering for the beam lasers, especially with either the Thermal Conduit or Thermal Vent Experimental Effect.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yeah, I did say the V3 was just for playing around and getting a feel for combat. Not a lifelong commitment.

Don't put any more than G1 engineering into it unless for some reason you are madly in love with the V3 and want to keep it forever.

You got the resources for far better ships, think about that ship's engineering. Some modules you might be able to transfer to another ship but you don't want to put too much effort into this starter ship.

 

[Kayvan]

FWIW, just to see how it would perform, I outfitted a Viper III with no engineering. The performance was utterly pathetic, mostly due to the terrible agility. I fitted small burst lasers and medium frags, all gimballed. Picked a fight with a Vulture (Expert) and didn't manage to kill him -- when I had him down to 37% hull or so, he just bailed and there was nothing I could do.

By all means, do give it a try without engineering, just so you have a comparison what a world of difference it makes. ^^

 

[jmatt]

So I built the ship and saw Farseer. Got the drives up to 2G Dirty but was told I need more engineering experience (?) to get level 3. I also did 1G to the Power Plant with Armored experimental effect.

In dock, when I look at the ship build, the Total power is 12.48. The Deployed bar reads across two sections; first is 12.69 and to the right of it reads -.16. Do I have an issue here? It would seem so...

Is anyone aware of a video or guide for ship building that explains the tenets of power and heat considerations? I have been following the advice of others since I started playing but it would be nice if I knew more about such considerations myself.

 

[Kayvan]

That's with the Viper III now?
You do have a bit of wiggle room - you can set the priority of flight assists and cargo hatch in the modules panel to 5 for instance - but it shouldn't be necessary.
Make sure you're using burst lasers and MCs.
Right now you have two choices:

• slap the Monstered experimental on your PP
• use a 0D rated shield booster instead of 0A

Or both. Either should bring your deployed total comfortably below 100%. Go ahead and do the Monstered, that will give you power to spare for future weapon upgrades.

Don't worry about heat. This build runs cool enough for all practical purposes.

Not sure about a good YouTube tutorial, I'll check later.

Oh, and take your Asp Explorer or whatever you're using as bubble taxi and engineer the FSD with Increased Range as much as you can, that should get you over the hump with the engineering experience.

 

[Kayvan]

I didn't find a good up-to-date video about thermals right now, only this one which is some 9 years old, so might be before engineering was introduced:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxAlrvi_Kdo&pp=ygUYZWxpdGUgZGFuZ2Vyb3VzIHRoZXJtYWxz


There is also at least one very useful thread in this forum, but unfo I couldn't find it right now. So I'll try to cover the essentials:

Thermals primer

Each ship has a specific heat capacity - the amount of heat it can accumulate before overheating. Some ships run super cool, especially the Dolphin; others overheat as soon as you look at them, like the T7 or the Beluga.

Heat is generated primarily by

• the power plant (PP),
• and to a lesser extent by other modules like thrusters -- especially when boosting.
• Also by triggering shield cell banks (SCB),
• and last not least by firing your weapons.

The amount of heat generated by the PP depends on two factors:

• current power draw (a 7A PP and a 3A PP both producing 10MW generate the same amount of heat)
• efficiency (lower number is better)

Thrusters generate some heat, also depending on their engineering.

• Dirty drives have a higher thermal load in general, but it's typically just around 2%.
• Clean drives have lower thermal load, but higher power draw, which increases the heat from the reactor. All in all you save maybe 1% compared to unmodified.

Other modules mostly create heat by their own power usage, and hence can be optimized by reducing that number. For instance shields that are "Enhanced Low-Power" with "Lo-Draw experimental" are easier on the thermal load than reinforced ones.
SCBs create a huge heat spike so if you use them, be sure to carry heat sinks.

Weapons vary wildly in their thermal loads. Railguns, Plasmas and Beam lasers have the highest thermal loads, kinetic weapons like MCs, Frags and Cannons the lowest. Pulse and Burst lasers are also pretty easy. Their load can be optimized by choosing the Efficient tuning and Thermal Flow experimental.
Very importantly, weapon heat is buffered by a full WEP capacitor. So 4 pips in weapons will keep you cooler than 2 pips if you fire the same amount.
However, 4 pips will also allow you to fire more, which in turn generates more heat, so some trigger discipline helps. ^^

What's also important to know is that heat dissipation will increase until you reach 66% heat, then stagnate. So basically if you exceed 66% and keep doing what you're doing, you will overheat eventually. You start taking heat damage when you go beyond 100%, but even that is not the end of the world, the ship can take some punishment.

To see how it all works together, check out this link:

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

This is a low-engineering Fer de Lance that you might also consider building. The Lance is pretty easy to fly and very powerful, and with your bankroll you don't need to be afraid of the rebuy. Here I used only mods offered by Farseer, Martuuk and McQuinn.
EDSY is a shipbuilding tool similar to Coriolis, a but more difficult / clumsy to use but more up to date and more precise. In particular it features very useful heat simulations. You see these in the bottom row under "THM":

IDL: base thermal load when idle, no thrust
THR: heat with engines at full throttle without boost
FSD: maximum heat when charging up the FSD
WEP: upper line: maximum heat with all guns firing when WEP capacitor is nearly full (at 2 pips in WEP; this is adjusted automatically when you juggle pips)
lower line: maximum heat when WEP is nearly empty
SCB: time until overheat when triggering SCBs. A mouseover will inform you precisely what the maximum heat level will be (here: 230%) and how long it will take to cool off if you don't fire a heatsink (here: 17s).

So as you can see, this build is very robust and will never overheat, except by popping SCBs.
(As someone else has mentioned, an alternative to using SCBs is to get Guardian shield reinforcements, which are a bit of a grind to get but work fine.)

So, all of that is quite a load, so I'll stop here to let you digest it for a bit. =) If you have any questions, just ask.

 

[tolm]

First ship I had any combat “success” in was a Viper MkIV: the larger shields compared with the MkIII just made it more forgiving, for me. Still plenty quick enough and cheap rebuys if it all goes south. If things can actually go “south” in space …

Medium ship wise, as I think others have mentioned, the Chieftain is a really solid choice. You can even make it a decent shield tank if you have the Guardian modules unlocked and with engineering it’s an absolute beast. For PvE (Haz RES and CZs) I run mine with 2x C1 / 1xC2 LR Thermal Vent Beams and then 2x C3 Overcharged / Autoloader MCs and 1x C3 High Capacity / Corrosive MC. Alongside somewhere around 1000MJ on a 6C BiWeave. Great fun!!

 

[Imo]

So I built the ship and saw Farseer. Got the drives up to 2G Dirty but was told I need more engineering experience (?) to get level 3. I also did 1G to the Power Plant with Armored experimental effect.

In dock, when I look at the ship build, the Total power is 12.48. The Deployed bar reads across two sections; first is 12.69 and to the right of it reads -.16. Do I have an issue here? It would seem so...

Is anyone aware of a video or guide for ship building that explains the tenets of power and heat considerations? I have been following the advice of others since I started playing but it would be nice if I knew more about such considerations myself.

There is an easy way to test if your power plant delivers enough power: Leave the starport, move out of no fire zone for safety and deploy the weapons. If you power plant is too weak, your shield will drop immediately!

 

[AlSki]

If you power plant is too weak, your shield will drop immediately!

Thats not quite how power group works, so here's the most complicated example I have... This ship shouldn't fly, even without weapons powered it wants 2% more than the power plant can give. (Note how the modules in groups 3, 4 & 5 are red, those groups will be turned off)

Of course its never supposed to fly like that, instead when heading to the maelstrom, we turn off the cargo scoop (reducing the demands of group 1). As long as we keep the weapons retracted (aka RET at 96.9%) it can now outrun Glaives and get you into the Maestrom.

At this point however you want the cargo scoop for picking stuff up AND the thermal vent beam to keep you so cold they cant see you, so we turn off what we don't need again. Since you are mass locked by the Titan the loss of FSD and fuel scoop isn't important.

One final thing, when your Power plant is damaged, it only gives a max output of 50%, so you can setup so you can still flee! Different build here, this one is capable of taking damage

Which leads to how I setup normally

1. What I need to run away
2. Defence
3. Attack, life support, power distributor
4. Optional equipment without weapons
5. Fuel scoop, FSD, and SRV hangar

 

[jmatt]

So here's my current Viper 3 build.

It seems I have 8 slots available in my Optional tab in game, but Edsy only allows for 6. Even using the "Military" slot in Edsy (should I be?) that only gets me to 7. I don't seem to have room for my Adv Planetary Approach suite. Is that just a default option built into every ship in the game that Edsy just assumes me to have without listing it specifically?

 

[metatheurgist]

Planetary Approach Suite slot can only be used for that module. You can remove it but you can't put anything else in it's place so the ship sites ignore it.

I wouldn't put a docking computer in any ship, but that's me. Rest of it looks OK.

 

[Kayvan]

So here's my current Viper 3 build.

If you set the power priority of the fuel scoop to 5, you'll be fine.
That said I wouldn't put a fuel scoop in a combat ship at all.

Doesn't make much sense to combine dirty drives with thermal spread -- just use drag drives and enjoy.
As you can see your heat is perfectly fine. With that setup it's literally impossible to overheat during combat unless you engage silent running.

Personally I never use chaff, but do as you like.
Also, I prefer Bi-Weave shields as they recharge much faster. You trade some 20% of max shield strength for almost 200% recharge speed, a good trade in my opinion.

 

[AlSki]

So here's my current Viper 3 build.

It seems I have 8 slots available in my Optional tab in game, but Edsy only allows for 6. Even using the "Military" slot in Edsy (should I be?) that only gets me to 7. I don't seem to have room for my Adv Planetary Approach suite. Is that just a default option built into every ship in the game that Edsy just assumes me to have without listing it specifically?

Yes, Planetary approach is a "free" slot. Basically it's your DLC licence that lets you fly access Horizon's content by flying down to atmospheres.

Also, I would set your power groups like this...

Since you have NO cargo, you could just turn off the hatch as well, leaving you plenty of power all the time.

Just be aware EDSY/Coriolis are fairly good at power limits, but occaisionally they will be wrong when you are right on the limit (e.g. 99.9% rounds to 100%) so always test before jumping into combat.
There is nothing worse than deploying hardpoints and shutting down. Fighting with one weapon switched off is no fun, I've err been told

 

[AEBRAM]

I will put a plug in for this website. It has several excellent ship builds for different flavors of game play and combat style.

ED Ship Builds

edshipbuilds.com

 

[AEBRAM]

So far, only Farseer.

Take a trip to Dav's Hope and Jameson Crash Site to begin collecting all the materials to type cap that you can here. Then, repeat by collecting Raw Material at different locations. This will give you enough engineering materials to run the gauntlet to unlocking engineers in succession. This can be done in a week of casual gameplay and the reward for spending the time is return 10x fold by enjoying your ship choices more when their engineered.

 

[jmatt]

That said I wouldn't put a fuel scoop in a combat ship at all.

Doesn't make much sense to combine dirty drives with thermal spread -- just use drag drives and enjoy.

So you just taxi to the area and call the combat ship?

Also, the dirty drives added agility but +30% heat -- but Thermal Spread effect lowers that to +17%. Just so I can learn, why is that a bad idea? The Drag effect bumps it to +43%.

Thanks!

 

[jmatt]

Since you have NO cargo, you could just turn off the hatch as well, leaving you plenty of power all the time.

Yes, I see that now. Thanks. I can also turn off the Fuel Scoop I suppose.

Been using your guideline and tweaking my setup, and the tool is starting to help me understand. However, my current mass is 116.8 and the max is listed at 116.4. Am I too heavy? I once put together a ship that I could not get off the hanger deck...

 

[jmatt]

Take a trip to Dav's Hope and Jameson Crash Site to begin collecting all the materials to type cap that you can here. Then, repeat by collecting Raw Material at different locations. This will give you enough engineering materials to run the gauntlet to unlocking engineers in succession. This can be done in a week of casual gameplay and the reward for spending the time is return 10x fold by enjoying your ship choices more when their engineered.

Been there, did 50 laps. Also farmed crystal shards (?) and did general mat and wake data gathering. However, I was surprised to find I did not have what she wanted for the Drag Drive effect. Can't remember what it was.

 

[AEBRAM]

Been there, did 50 laps. Also farmed crystal shards (?) and did general mat and wake data gathering. However, I was surprised to find I did not have what she wanted for the Drag Drive effect. Can't remember what it was.

Here is a tip for that does take some SRV drive time, however, you will find the raw material nodes. At Jameson Crash site, the encoded data farm spot, when you go about 2k in the direction of the ship's front is pointing then you'll find low level raw material nodes. Several actually. Their random spawn locations, however, fly low to the ground with night vision on, and you will find the lava and steam jets. Look around them. I mention this because it only takes about 20-30 minutes of the log in-out to cap your encoded data then you could search out these nodes without system jumping. You find Mercury, Nickel, Carbon, Phosphorus, Germenium, Magnese, or so.

I apologize IF this side discussion derails the OP, however, deciding on your go-to ship for combat sort of goes in hand with engineering. The Chieftain is a solid combat ship, the Vulture is a solid small combat ship, and even the Python is a solid combat ship that can swap internals for cargo (highest cargo capacity for medium ship). There are lots of options here.

My #1 suggestion for new players would be...

Buy Diamondback Explorer (with SRV and 5A FSD)
Grind Dav's Hope until the SRV is absolutely out of fuel.

• Banks back engineering components for unlocking engineers.
• Goal: Purchases the 5A pre-engineered FSD

Finish obtaining all the required materials, commodities, raw materials to purchase the 5A pre-engineered FSD.
(Now you have 60 LY jump range)
NEXT
Obtain your Guardian FSD Booster
- This is can be done in a matter of 4-5 log in and outs at the correct Guardian Structure.
Unlock and Purchase gFSD booster
(Now you have 66 LY jump range w/o engineering anything and you can get around the Bubble and it speeds up unlocking engineers since they are distances apart).

As for Combat Ship. There is the reputation grind for the Imperial Cutter > Federation Corvette on role diversity. The Imperial Cutter does everything. More budget friendly would be the Python because it is a durable choice for ship-to-ship combat in low//high-RES combat zones. It can easily be outfitted for other purposes while banking back credits to buy specific role ships. Pythons fully engineered can be a tank-y beast with excellent hardpoints and weapon convergence.

 

[Ashnak]

So you just taxi to the area and call the combat ship?

Also, the dirty drives added agility but +30% heat -- but Thermal Spread effect lowers that to +17%. Just so I can learn, why is that a bad idea? The Drag effect bumps it to +43%.

Thanks!

Heat in a combat ship is usually not the issue - striking power and agility are. If you can balance your power consumption, you will (for most ships) be able to get away with an armoured PP (which adds some thermal improvements and increased power, too). If your loadout relies on hot weapons or on SCBs, you can counter that with thermal vent lasers and/or heat sinks. Running cold to avoid detection is (reputedly) an issue for fighting Thargoids - but I'd go to AXI for optimized builds there.
That doesn't mean that it isn't fun to poke unsuspecting NPCs from a cold ship - but I wouldn't use a Viper for that, my cold pirate is built on a DBX.
Also, the power for the weapons is only required when the weapons are deployed - so if you work with the power priorities, you can have the system automatically swtch off modules that you don't need during combat, like:

• fuel scoop: only active during supercruise in any case. And essentially unnecessary in a combat ship, that space is better used for a shield booster or armour.
• interdictor: likewise, only used in SC
• cargo hatch and limpet controllers: if you go into combat to collect mats, you're unlikely to do so while shooting
• Guardian FSD booster: unless you need (for whatever reasons) the booster to reach the nearest system, you won't need it in or running from combat
• life support: with an A-rated life support, you get 25 minutes running on reserve. Good enough for a joust, and often good enough for a complete outing
• FSD: problematic. If you choose to run, you'll need to wait for the full FSD boot time after stowing your weapons before you can wake out. You can mitigate that somewhat by engineering for "faster boot sequence"