Specialized outfitting. Viper for Combat only.

[Hethwill_Khan]

Hello Commanders.

Going through a process of bringing all the ships into the same system base ( quite easy to do using cheap ships and simply respawning on the far away ones and travel... ).

I am in the process of buying a Viper and having it as the Bounty Hunter ship. Given I previously only used Hybrid ships, Adder ( my smuggler crate ), Cobra ( perfect piracy cutter ), which have a lot of options, jumping to a limited Viper, specialized hull for combat purpose how to outfit it ?

I used the cash to primarily give it a good power plant, distributor and shield generator. Still not running the high end options because I still need to put some firepower on it along with Chaff, Shield Cells and all mandatory bounty scanners.

Beams and Multi Cannons seem like a very popular choice. Given I had used this combo on the Cobra I know it is adequate. Last experiments i did on the Cobra was with Cannons. Do you ever use them in the Viper ?

Plus good combat tactics for the Viper against bigger ships ? I feel the Viper will be way more fragile than the Cobra so tanking those turrets and gimbals is not a choice...

Thanks for all the input and appreciated for sharing your knowledge and experience.

 

[animism]

i did something similar with a friend the other day, in the end he went for 2x class 2 fixed beam and 2x class 1 dumbfire missles, i'm lazy and have more money so i ended up on 2x class 2 gimballed beam and 2x class 1 dumb fire missle

power gets very tight like this though, might not be able to have rating A parts on some things

however the twin beams tear shields apart so with small ships you just melt them, with bigger ones you start using the missles, a full clip of missles from each launcher will ruin an anacondas days if you get the sheilds down first

i used to use the multicannons for a while they... meh ok, tried straight cannon, a bit meh, fragment cannon was decent but i loved the dumb missles from the first time

 

[Commander Silex]

The Viper is also very manouevrable. I use a shield cell for those times a larger ship gets the drop on me or I screw up my positioning, but generally it's not that hard to get on the tail of a Python or Anaconda, at which point you can let rip to devastating effect. I can't say I liked cannons too much, as they seem better suited to attacking large ships at the expense of making small fighters harder to deal with. They're most likely one of those things that come down to personal taste.

 

[baael]

I think Viper on low speeds do not have good maneuverability, so fixed cannons may be too expensive for it. If you hunt for a big prey then it is great choice, otherwise multi-cannons, pulse and beam lasers, because you will get too fast out of ammo.

 

[BladeUK]

I use 2 x Class 1 Cannons and 2 x Class 2 Multi cannons, all gimbaled. I find this is a good setup for both big and small ship hunting and can easily take down Asps and Pythons, and literally rips smaller ships like Eagles and sidewinders apart.

I have found the vipers speed is it's best asset as it can hunt smaller ships easily or get out of tight spots , and the maneuverability is decent enough to out turn the big ships and stay in their blind spots, even those with turrets.

 

[Vidmaster]

Make *CERTAIN* you buy it in a high-tech system and have enough money for a better frameshift drive, the default jump range is a problem.
My Viper has been using two class 2 fixed beam lasers and two class 1 dumbfire missiles, which is easily enough to kill everything in front off you. Sidewinder pilots can be nightmarish in a Viper but is high top speed is really useful. The Viper also seems to be a very useful smuggler ship thanks to said speed, since you can turbo yourself out of any scan when approaching a dock. Obviously you have to be good enough to make it through the station's docking port at high speeds but no more silent running required there

 

[Hethwill_Khan]

Yes, the FSD drive is next after I manage the last step on the Power plant ( one more stop to go only ).

Blade you using all kinectic power, how does that cope with shields in the short run ?

Actually got some surprising success with cannons in the cobra blasting FSDs from 40 - 46% many times, so I like their derp effect.

I am seeing the Viper as a interceptor, like a boom knife fighter and zoom out when things get tight, and if against a big ship try a "thousand paper cuts" kills.

I hope I can deliver this through. Won't be doing any crazy smuggle runs with it and sticking with the basic cargo hold for those special missions.

 

[BladeUK]

Blade you using all kinectic power, how does that cope with shields in the short run ?

I've only ran into one Anaconda which I struggled to bring the shields down on - it actually took a good few minutes, it's maybe not as fast as using lasers but I prefer to use my power on engines in a fight than all power to weapons. That's my personal preference though.