You know the trick with deploying your landing gear just after a boost to cap your Max Speed to half ? Helps alot with overshooting.Yeah, that's how I fly since I switched to dual joysticks. Before, I had stick and kb and I just hammered the thrusters more or less randomly mostly to evade incoming fire
But as said before, all that works on the Chief (and a bit worse, the Chally) even without boost. XD And on the Krait my problem is that the first boost often runs out of steam just a bit too soon, but a second boost would be too much and cause me to overshoot. It just kinda feels like a truck with nitro injection.
Wait, you are not using your thrusters at all?That is too much for me, thanks, I am a humble mouse user
But like Kayvan here says, Cheffy is so easy and nimble to turn, without any boost - and you can control the range much better.... Usually in Krait I come or too close, and I overshoot...or I need a second boost, and I get again too close... sure may be a thing of practice, but Cheffy is so much friendly to fly....
Before I started using HOTAS I had them bound to WASD (laterals) and RF (up/down), worked reasonably well.Have one surplus 4-way hat? I have one bound to: landing gear/cargo hatch/deploy hardpoints/nightvision. Pretty happy with that.
Hmmh, my right hat is for pips, and the left one for targeting. ^ Next Target, > Biggest Threat, v Previous Target, < Previous Module. The other buttons on the left stick are for FA-Off Toggle, Boost, Set Speed to 0/50/100%, and Push-to-Talk.
Hm, I might reassign the 100% thrust one - it's mostly convenience, I guess when I need that I can also press it on the keyboard.
For breaking a boost, opening cargo hatch works just as well as deploying landing gear, I presume? Cuz I use that one more often in my trash collectors, obviously. ^^
That's where the TWCS throttle comes in nicely with 3 hats, a ministick and a gazillion of buttons.
Are you using the t1600m? With two of them you should have more than enough buttons for everything.
I would assume so, but could be wrong.
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Nah my setup is kinda improvised. ^^ The main stick is a T-Flight Stick X, which I've had for years, and the other a Saitek Cyborg Evo which I bought cheaply second-hand from the classifieds. One of the few sticks that's suitable for the left hand. ^^ The Flightstick is a bit short on buttons, only 4 and a hat on the actual stick.
Initially I also wanted a TWCS but it's impossible to find that for cheap - like 80€ as opposed to the 15 I paid for the Saitek. But the advantage of dual sticks is that I have the full 6 degrees of freedom on analog axes. ^^
Initially I also wanted a TWCS but it's impossible to find that for cheap - like 80€ as opposed to the 15 I paid for the Saitek. But the advantage of dual sticks is that I have the full 6 degrees of freedom on analog axes. ^^
Yes, works the same. Usually tho the cargo bay is one of the most turned off modules in fights so i tend to prefer landing gear.
Well, dual stick could be considered the true way of flying spacecraft, so you are on the right track there.
Got my TWCS only recently and surely paid some premium for it... the recent flight sim boom has swepped the market clean of all these devices. Lucky me still had a stick lying around from years back, when I started out with E
in October...Got to love the multitude of possible bindings though. Got almost all controlls mapped to my stick and throttle without any double bindings. Immersion is also pretty neat with that thing, and very intuitive thruster control as well.
With it's analogue ministick it also provides access to all 6 DoF in combination with a stick btw!
Oh yeah look, I didn't even know the TWCS has a mini-stick. That's pretty awesome. ^^ But yeah it's even more expensive now than when I first looked a year ago. I didn't even know there has been a flight sim boom. Couple of years ago when I discussed gaming trends with my students we agreed that flight sims were dead.
Like, I asked who of them were gamers (most of them) -- and how many had a joystick (almost none of them). Those were mostly 20yos and most of them had never touched a flightsim, while they were all the rage when I was in high school.--
ANYWAY -- btt -- I am mostly happy now with my Challenger as Garbage Truck, the key were really the 2 med Plasmas. But I still haven't found the perfect fit for the Large hardpoint. Sometimes the devil is really in the detail:
- Large MC suffers from the startup time. I didn't used to mind that a lot on the Chief (where I used them as starter setup), but here it somehow doesn't work right -- I can't spend the ammo fast enough.
- Large Beam is too hard on the distro, when I take potshots with the PAs.
- I tried shuffling around a bit and replace the medium beam with a FBC rail, but that doesn't work well with the fire groups. Otherwise -- if we were allowed to assign a 3rd fire button -- it would be perfect.
- Large PA is even harder on the power and heat (just barely tolerable with Eff 5), and also it's unsynchronized with the med ones.
Also, a third PA might really cut into the fuel endurance... yesterday I actually drained my tank to 10% with the two (which was a good point to head home anyway).
- Cannon might be fun (with Long Range and Force Shell or whatever) but it's also pretty short on ammo -> bad endurance
- Pulse/Burst laser would be the "cheap" option but I feel it wouldn't add much.
If you care to have a look, here's the current build (Large slot left blank bc I'm swapping all the time)
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
Well, this came with the advent of Microsoft Flight Sim 2020 late last year. Also DCS to some degree maybe.Oh yeah look, I didn't even know the TWCS has a mini-stick. That's pretty awesome. ^^ But yeah it's even more expensive now than when I first looked a year ago. I didn't even know there has been a flight sim boom. Couple of years ago when I discussed gaming trends with my students we agreed that flight sims were dead.
--
ANYWAY -- btt -- I am mostly happy now with my Challenger as Garbage Truck, the key were really the 2 med Plasmas. But I still haven't found the perfect fit for the Large hardpoint. Sometimes the devil is really in the detail:
BTW - according to Coriolis, a Large RF PA has a RoF of 0.5/s at G5, while a Med one has 0.6/s. What gives? Both start out at 0.3/s, how can that be?
- Large MC suffers from the startup time. I didn't used to mind that a lot on the Chief (where I used them as starter setup), but here it somehow doesn't work right -- I can't spend the ammo fast enough.
- Large Beam is too hard on the distro, when I take potshots with the PAs.
- I tried shuffling around a bit and replace the medium beam with a FBC rail, but that doesn't work well with the fire groups. Otherwise -- if we were allowed to assign a 3rd fire button -- it would be perfect.
- Large PA is even harder on the power and heat (just barely tolerable with Eff 5), and also it's unsynchronized with the med ones.
Also, a third PA might really cut into the fuel endurance... yesterday I actually drained my tank to 10% with the two (which was a good point to head home anyway).
- Cannon might be fun (with Long Range and Force Shell or whatever) but it's also pretty short on ammo -> bad endurance
- Pulse/Burst laser would be the "cheap" option but I feel it wouldn't add much.
If you care to have a look, here's the current build (Large slot left blank bc I'm swapping all the time)
I thinks SciFi in general has grown in popularity in the last years, as you can see with hugely popular tv-shows like The Expanse and also a lot of recent movies. Good times for space nerds like me.
About your setup, first I notice a lot of missing experimentals. But I guess that is due to it being still work in progress, right?
I would recommend swapping the military armour for reactive lightweight deep plating. MUCH better protection! Might want to balance its weak thermal resistance by installing a thermal resistant deep plating HRP in the vacant class 1 slot.
I know I have shown you my Krait build already, but again for reference, I have got only 200Mj less shields but significantly faster recovery rate by almost a minute. Also it has more than double the hull integrity with miles better resistances. It is also much faster and jumps almost twice as far. All very convenient for the mats collection business. Lets see where you can get the challenger once it is fully optimised. I have quickly adapted your build on coriolis to my preferences and quite like the result. Let me know if you want to see it, don't want to spoil your investigative drive too much.
The weapons layout is a more difficult topic. I am still convinced two or three OC multicannons with corrosive/ autoloader in the largest slots would be your best bet.
If you want to stick with PA's consider making them all efficient, they only come with huge power and distributor draw benefits and even a considerable DMG boost along with lower heat generation. That way you might even be able to run a PA in the large slot as well.
I'm really not familiar with rapid fire on PA, but could imagine they drain your fuel quite a lot faster, because fuel usage is a fixed per shot amount afaik. So I think running efficient PA's with plasma slug will give you a lot more 'damage mileage' out of your fuel capacity.
All in all I like the combination of the Challengers internal compartments in comparison to the Chieftain. Might even try this one out myself sometime.
Got to say, the hardpoint layout of the challenger is amazing!! Can fit anything you'd ever want in there.
Allows for several MC, Beams, and even some rails for those pesky SCB spammers.
Can fit anything you'd ever want in there.Allows for several MC, Beams, and even some rails for those pesky SCB spammers.
Challenger Internal are so much better than Cheffy ones, the fact you have the III ones instead of IV or II make them perfect for Limpets. Also, I found the Challenger weapons array better, somehow... Feels like some much practical approach - unfortunately, is not as fast or nimble, but also not far from Cheffy...Well, this came with the advent of Microsoft Flight Sim 2020 late last year. Also DCS to some degree maybe.
I thinks SciFi in general has grown in popularity in the last years, as you can see with hugely popular tv-shows like The Expanse and also a lot of recent movies. Good times for space nerds like me.
About your setup, first I notice a lot of missing experimentals. But I guess that is due to it being still work in progress, right?
I would recommend swapping the military armour for reactive lightweight deep plating. MUCH better protection! Might want to balance its weak thermal resistance by installing a thermal resistant deep plating HRP in the vacant class 1 slot.
I know I have shown you my Krait build already, but again for reference, I have got only 200Mj less shields but significantly faster recovery rate by almost a minute. Also it has more than double the hull integrity with miles better resistances. It is also much faster and jumps almost twice as far. All very convenient for the mats collection business. Lets see where you can get the challenger once it is fully optimised. I have quickly adapted your build on coriolis to my preferences and quite like the result. Let me know if you want to see it, don't want to spoil your investigative drive too much.
The weapons layout is a more difficult topic. I am still convinced two or three OC multicannons with corrosive/ autoloader in the largest slots would be your best bet.
If you want to stick with PA's consider making them all efficient, they only come with huge power and distributor draw benefits and even a considerable DMG boost along with lower heat generation. That way you might even be able to run a PA in the large slot as well.
I'm really not familiar with rapid fire on PA, but could imagine they drain your fuel quite a lot faster, because fuel usage is a fixed per shot amount afaik. So I think running efficient PA's with plasma slug will give you a lot more 'damage mileage' out of your fuel capacity.
All in all I like the combination of the Challengers internal compartments in comparison to the Chieftain. Might even try this one out myself sometime.
Yeah of course. You know how annoying it is to transfer an unfinished ship / modules between all the engineers to fit the Experimentals. Usually I ship anything that will fit into my Phantom. Anyway I am also holding back on some experimentals so that I can put for instance Low Draw on some shield boosters etc if the power supply turns out to be tight.
I know I have shown you my Krait build already, but again for reference, I have got only 200Mj less shields but significantly faster recovery rate by almost a minute. Also it has more than double the hull integrity with miles better resistances. It is also much faster and jumps almost twice as far. All very convenient for the mats collection business. Lets see where you can get the challenger once it is fully optimised. I have quickly adapted your build on coriolis to my preferences and quite like the result. Let me know if you want to see it, don't want to spoil your investigative drive too much.
Well let's see. I think you are misrepresenting the numbers a bit.
My "Take Out The Trash" takes 30% longer to recharge its shields, yes, but has 50% more effective strength against any non-absolute damage. It's been days now since I last lost my shields so I guess hull strength doesn't matter that much for this purpose -- basically when shields fail I just need enough staying power to get away or land the last 1-2 shots; it's not a PVP ship after all.Either way, yes I thought about Reactive armour, but I like to at least pretend that Credits are worth something, and I figured the cheaper armour will do what it's meant to do. ^^ As a side note, the Chally has harder armour - 65 vs 55 - so it gets more mileage out of every single hull point than the Krait. (Keep in mind RES NPCs don't use Corrosive)
Also I don't see how jump range is relevant -- this ship is specifically meant to pick up mats from destroyed ships and for that any RES will do; all other kinds of mat farming (HGEs, Raw, Encoded) I do with my Phantom that jumps 70LY but couldn't fight its way out of a paper bag. xD
And yes, the Krait is faster in a straight line -- not much can be done about that. ^^ [BTW it's a bit strange that the Krait has a higher MLF even though the Alliance ships are heavier]
But anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing your adaptation. ^^
Well... MCs always work, in a way, but they also are rather boring I think. ^^
I'll run some models with Efficient PAs, too - the power/heat advantage ofc is sth the basic DPS comparison doesn't catch. Actually I did a trial run today with a Large Beam and an Efficient PA in the 3rd Med slot. Ofc hilarious Alpha strike for about 150+ dmg. But the power draw is really evil. More so ofc for more power-hungry mods like OC or SRB -- imagine 290 Alpha, but immediate barbecue inside your ship. xD
As mentioned above, theoretically Rapid Fire offers the highest SDPS of all mods, and the jitter is negligible -- 0.5° means a deviation of about 4.5m off center at 1000m range; really meaningless when you're shooting at a moving target anyway.
As for the internals, I generally prefer the Chieftain there for pure combat purposes, but when you want a vacuum cleaner -- see Homerzilla.
Got to say, the hardpoint layout of the challenger is amazing!!
Allows for several MC, Beams, and even some rails for those pesky SCB spammers.
Yes, that's a big perk of the Alliance ships -- especially the convergence is much better than many other ships' (although the Krait is still acceptable in that regard). As I wrote above, the problem can be to figure out workable fire groups -- for instance PAs and Rails don't go well together if you also want to have tracking weapons - or you have to be really good at juggling more than 3 FGs.
In my Chieftain, I have sorted the hardpoints very straightforward into 2 fire groups:
A vs Shields: (1) FBC Rail, (2) Lasers [2]
B vs Hull: (1) Pacifiers [2], (2) Lasers + Corr MC
(And here my inner Monk had to cede to practicality -- I used to have the lasers on 2 central (vertical) positions, but that meant the offset railgun was more difficult to aim. Now the rail has moved into the center spot and is much more reliable to use, at the cost of asymmetric lasers.) It's really amazing how even a single small FBC can ruin a bank tank's day.
However now that I've been using PAs more again with the Chally, I'm also tempted to build a few more Large PAs for the Chief. ^^ Actually, what I'm kinda dreaming of is a double-engineered PA, but we'll see if anything like that will ever come.
I know that too well... I have recently resorted to just stripping the ship in question from everything that needs no engineering, install a fuel scoop and the largest FSD booster and do the most economic round trip. Seems to be the fastest option, specially considering you need to jump the ship anyway to engineer its hull.
Well, I think we had this discussion before.Well let's see. I think you are misrepresenting the numbers a bit.
I found my personal sweetspot to be around 800 mJ with 1,3 min recovery time for continuous PVE fighting. Have it set like that on my Krait and also my Vulture, with which I have done a lot of high CZ lately. Can't even remember when I last lost the shields on both these ships. I find the fast recharge invaluable.But I also noticed it is not possible to achieve that on either the Chieftain nor the Challenger, there seems to be some kind of hidden factor to set them apart from the likes of Krait etc. in that regard.
I used to think like that in my earlier days as well, and now I sit on a pile of useless fully engineered military grade armour for several ships which I have replaced one after another with the out of question superior reactive armour. Could weep thinking about all the materials that went to waste there...
About jump range, sure if you are ONLY doing Has Rez collection you wont need that. My Krait is my Millenium Falcon, my base of operations. It is built to be general purpose, mission runner and mats collector. For that I like to be able to quickly cross the bubble to collect the HGE that are power specific in their space etc.
Seems reasonable to me, I would set it the same way.
Here is my adaptation btw, like I said I am really liking how it is looking, specially the weapons setup for Haz Res purposes, missing the rails on my Krait regularly when I go against the big bank spammers:
Challenger
Seriously thinking about building myself one now.
Can't seem to edit my post, there was an oversight in the build I posted, this one would actually be able to power itself.
Challenger
Challenger
[/QUOTE]
Hmh I kinda do it the other way round -- i.e. just moving the modules in a long range ship -- and if that is not possible for some reason, I usually still fly to the engineer in question with a fast ship and transfer the other ship there via shipyard. In case of the Challenger, I actually bought a second Chally just to move the armour. xD They are discounted rn anyway and I guess I can sell it back later.
[/QUOTE]Well, I think we had this discussion before.
But I also noticed it is not possible to achieve that on either the Chieftain nor the Challenger, there seems to be some kind of hidden factor to set them apart from the likes of Krait etc. in that regard.
Well yes, every ship has its own "base shield bonus" or whatever the devs call it, which is added on top of (or multiplied with, idk) the actual shield strength specified by the generator. This doesn't seem to follow any logic other than attempted game balance.
Anyway, I may try to carefully reduce the shields a bit and see how I fare -- for instance, couple days ago I replaced one shield booster with a KWS on my Chief and it has worked well so far. Lost my shield today while doing a Pirate Activity zone in Wing, but mostly bc my wingmates (who are rather casual players) chickened out at one point and low-waked out (and told me to run away too). But for me it was a matter of pride not to flee at that point, so I finished the fight alone and gained some space-cred. I lost quite a chunk of hull but had it under control the whole time -- the armour was good enough after all. ^^
[/QUOTE]I used to think like that in my earlier days as well, and now I sit on a pile of useless fully engineered military grade armour for several ships which I have replaced one after another with the out of question superior reactive armour. Could weep thinking about all the materials that went to waste there...
I suppose you have a point there. I'll fiddle a bit with it to see how to patch the Thermal hole while sticking to the Lightweight mod.
Mhm that doesn't look bad. ^^ I like how your setup saves enough power to get by with an Armoured PP. I somehow always end up having to OC4-5 my reactor. So ofc that's a nice perk of MCs (and Frags) that they go so easy on the power.Here is my adaptation btw, like I said I am really liking how it is looking, specially the weapons setup for Haz Res purposes, missing the rails on my Krait regularly when I go against the big bank spammers:
Challenger
Seriously thinking about building myself one now.
But go ahead and build it, and rejoice when you get to fly a ship that TURNS when you twist that stick and doesn't need to be flogged into submission with a whiplash of Boost every time you want to change direction.
And yeah, even a Small FC rail really works wonders, I gotta say. And I only started using them recently so the difference is still fresh in my mind. ^^
Yeah that is what I figured as well. Maybe to kind of 'force' them into their hull tank niche.
Time for some new wingmates maybe? That is treason of the highest order!
One thermal resistant HRP in the smallest available slot takes care of that just fine.
Thanks. Yeah, I try to avoid overcharged PP's as much as possible because of the heat issues.Mhm that doesn't look bad. ^^ I like how your setup saves enough power to get by with an Armoured PP. I somehow always end up having to OC4-5 my reactor. So ofc that's a nice perk of MCs (and Frags) that they go so easy on the power.
But go ahead and build it, and rejoice when you get to fly a ship that TURNS when you twist that stick and doesn't need to be flogged into submission with a whiplash of Boost every time you want to change direction.
And yeah, even a Small FC rail really works wonders, I gotta say. And I only started using them recently so the difference is still fresh in my mind. ^^
Challenger hull and armor is already purchased.
Now contemplating if I should just strip my Chief to equip it, our build yet another completely new ship... Had a nice lol at your description of the Krait-flying.
I am actually thinking about making both rails FBC to have better cancelling effect, as I don't really make much use of the superpenetrator anyways.
Oh btw one thing I noticed while tinkering around with your build: you have cluster capacitors experimental on your PD, by exchanging that for super conduits you get one (sic!) second faster boost cycle. Can't really see the other benefits it has, i.e. on the capacitor recharge rates on coriolis (at least I couldn't so far) but on most combat focused builds this is generally regarded to be the go-to experimental.
Challenger hull and armor is already purchased.
Swap, I'd say. If they share the same cores. I'd want to run out some test flights before committing the mats, and that would allow you to do that, plus see what changes you'd want to make. It's a pain to module swap everything, I know. But this is how I came to test my first Krait II (Python cores) and the Phantom (Krait II cores). But if you know it's a keeper anyway then this matters less.
Only Alliance ship I have owned is the Chieftain. I saw your comment Ander about super conduits, and was going to say something like "plus it will give your low TTD a boost". But it doesn't. Always mock it up before sticking foot in mouth haha. How do you guys handle such a short TTD? You have to selectively fire the weapons, can't get them all going together for long I reckon? Too many hardpoints for a C6 PD to support it looks.
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