Talk to me about engineering my PvE Python...

tengri

T
I managed to unlock and rank up most engineers now and time has come to fine tune my trusty old workhorse a little more.
First of all, she is a multi-role, mission/material grinder vessel, PvE only. Moderate PvE only that is... as in not having to run most times some pirate interdicts me or to automatically chicken out when a nice assassination mission pops up on the bulletin board. Not planning to go to a Rez with this ship.

What I am most unsure about are the shields.
Currently I run stock 6C Bi-weave and 2x A shield boosters.
From what I've learned so far is that most ppl like to go thermal resist shields. Fine, I can do that.
But what mods for the shield boosters? And how many after they are all properly engineered? And stay with 0A?

For weapons I currently run 3xMC (one large) and 2x large pulse lasers. Nothing modded yet either but ideas/suggestions on this front are plenty out there.
One thing though... currently I am having difficulties killing "bigger" things so I was thinking replacing one medium MC with seeker missiles perhaps? The last time I played with missiles was well over a year ago and results where... well... mixed. Did they get a little more useful with engineering now and are worth taking again (for PvE that is)? Maybe?
 
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Kaybe

Kaybe
The two big things you NEED to engineer are your thrusters and your FSD.

FSD range is a must since jumping repeatedly can get tedious, plus time is money.

Thrusters means you can greatly increase your top speed and can dictate the conditions of a fight. My Python has grade 5 dirty drives and can boost to 460 m/s or more. There are no NPC ships that can catch me. I threw those same engines onto an Imperial Clipper and can do 590!

The rest is all optional. But the above two are not.

Palin is a paaaain to get in touch with, but Felicity Farseer is quite easy and you can get grade 5 FSD and grade 3 thruster modifications from her.
 
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Thetele

T
Kaybe said:
The two big things you NEED to engineer are your thrusters and your FSD.

FSD range is a must since jumping repeatedly can get tedious, plus time is money.

Thrusters means you can greatly increase your top and can dictate the conditions of a fight. My Python has grade 5 dirty drives and can boost to 460 m/s or more. There are no NPC ships that can catch me. I threw those same engines onto an Imperial Clipper and go do 590!

The rest is all optional. But the above two are not.

Palin is a paaaain to get in touch with, but Felicity Farseer is quite easy and you can get grade 5 FSD and grade 3 thruster modifications from her.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this engines and fsd. Engineering shields, shield boosters and weapons make any ship much better at combat (both DPS and amount of damage you can take) but you can live without those, drives and fsd will make everything much easier and less time consuming as you can travel faster and dock/leave station faster.
 
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Madcowz

M
Your requirements are almost identical to mine.

I've got 2 x 3C MC overcharged with corrosive and 2 X 2F pulse with Scramble and I'm currently playing with a 3C beam which while is great fun and melts shields soo quickly, isn't really sensible so I will swap it back to another pulse. On top of that I've got G2 durty drives and G2 charge enhanced PD. So not really highly modded as I'm still early on in my engineer career.

I have no trouble going to Haz Res with this setup and tackling Conda's, FDL's etc (all PvE though).

My build: https://eddp.co/u/pe2qM1AE

Can't help with the shields though. Still researching myself so will be interested in this thread.
 

goemon

goemon
i run a class 6 low-power bi-weave shields as a good compromise between mass/jumprange and occasional combat, 1 a-class thermal resit shieldbooster and 1 res augmented a-class shieldbooster. the ship can still have a go at haz res or comp nav beacons. my python is a one-ship-to-do-it-all now, with a class 5 passenger cabin, srv, collector limpet controllers, class 5 fuelscoop, 128 T of cargo, discovery scanner ...

as other have said: thrusters are the main upgrade, which change the ship massively (dd G3-G5...)- and FSD for QoL.

an alternative would be a 5A reinforced shield with two a-class augmented res boosters, for single engangements and still >200T of cargo.

in a combat outfit i would run a class 6 bi-weave thermal modded + 2 or 3 res augmented boosters + class 6 scb... but i have other ships which i fly in CZ or for extended combat.
 

thirstyfish

thirstyfish
tengri said:
I managed to unlock and rank up most engineers now and time has come to fine tune my trusty old workhorse a little more.
First of all, she is a multi-role, mission/material grinder vessel, PvE only. Moderate PvE only that is... as in not having to run most times some pirate interdicts me or to automatically chicken out when a nice assassination mission pops up on the bulletin board. Not planning to go to a Rez with this ship.

What I am most unsure about are the shields.
Currently I run stock 6C Bi-weave and 2x A shield boosters.
From what I've learned so far is that most ppl like to go thermal resist shields. Fine, I can do that.
But what mods for the shield boosters? And how many after they are all properly engineered? And stay with 0A?

For weapons I currently run 3xMC (one large) and 2x large pulse lasers. Nothing modded yet either but ideas/suggestions on this front are plenty out there.
One thing though... currently I am having difficulties killing "bigger" things so I was thinking replacing one medium MC with seeker missiles perhaps? The last time I played with missiles was well over a year ago and results where... well... mixed. Did they get a little more useful with engineering now and are worth taking again (for PvE that is)? Maybe?
Click to expand...

get resistance augmented on your boosters-- boosts all of your resistances at the same time. Makes shields less squishy against thermal weapons and even tougher against kinetic and explosive. stay with 0A as far as I am concerned
get heavy duty on your shield gen-- boost shield strength and resistances. Adds on to your broken regen time, but if that happens you are probably bugging out anyway.
FSD---boost that range. G5 if you got it.
Thrusters- dirty drive if you can, clean otherwise.
Powerplant. If you have a 6A plant, you can get away with the thermal efficient mod. If you get lucky, your secondary effect can mitigate the loss of power production, or even completely counter it.
Weapons -- as you see fit.

Priority: FSD/thrusters, then powerplant, then shields and weps.
 

Tassier

T
Here's the route I went with my PVE Python, I'm very happy with it. All components are A class.

Core:
Standard armour G5 Heavy duty
Power G5 Armoured
Thrusters G3 Dirty drive
FSD G4 increased range
Power dist G4 Charge enhanced

6A Shields G4 Thermal resist
0A Shield booster G3 heavy duty
0A Shield booster G3 resist aug
0A Shield booster G3 resist aug
point defence
5B Shield cell bank G2 specialised

Large Beam laser G3 short range blaster
Med Pulse laser G4 rapid fire + phasing sequence
Med Pulse laser G3 rapid fire + scramble spectrum
Large Multicannon G4 rapid fire + corrosive
Large Multicannon G4 overcharged

Although currently I've swapped out one of the shield boosters with a wake scanner because Thargoids.

It's still a work in progress as I upgrade bits and pieces when I can.

In fights the lasers work well taking down shields and the MCs are amazing against hulls.

But as everyone says start with FSD, and upgrade thrusters early on.
 

PavelKCZ

PavelKCZ
The FSD engineering is mandatory for Python. On the other side, I am not using any engineering for the thrusters (because I flew to Colonia with my Conda last summer and I used just the ship transfer of my Python to Jacques couple of weeks ago) and I do not have any problems with stock A rated thrusters. At least for PvE. I have two large turreted beam lasers and smaller ships including Vultures are toasted before I need to do some wild loops or use my set of MCs.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Ah, Python.. How I use you so much.. I outfit this way for general mission running and CZ mayhem: https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/pyt...s02040403B1052d2dm92b2t5827.Iw18eQ==.Aw18eQ==.

I've engineered every last piece of everything I have to engineer on it as high as RNGesus allows.

The most important upgrades: FSD for sure, alloy, and power plant. Followed very closely by distributor and shield generator/booster.

Shield generator is Reinforced, Boosters are Heavy Duty and Resistance Augmented.

Wait? Alloy? You bet. The default lightweight alloy is immune to mass gain, and it engineers quite nicely to turn that recycled aluminium can hull into something respectable without spending a fortune or adding mass and decreasing frame shift range. Besides, those armor plates make up for it quite nicely.

Sometimes though I use my python for other things, and for that I can sub my armor plates for more job-specific modules - refinery and limpet controllers for mining, cabins for passengers - whatever I happen to need to accomplish my task.

Thrusters need some love too, but were not a major concern - I'm use to flying big heavy ships, like the Type-9, so the normal space handling has never been an issue - though I did also upgrade these to G3 dirty, because unlocking the Professor requires a trip outside the bubble that exceeds the tolerance of my sanity.
 

CMDR_KWinchester

C
IndigoWyrd said:
Wait? Alloy? You bet. The default lightweight alloy is immune to mass gain, and it engineers quite nicely to turn that recycled aluminium can hull into something respectable without spending a fortune or adding mass and decreasing frame shift range. Besides, those armor plates make up for it quite nicely.
Click to expand...

I was not aware of this! I have military grade armor and a 25 ly jump range. Can't wait to adjust this and get a bump in range!! Thanks so much!!
 

Pville_Piper

Pville_Piper
vindelanos said:
It's the true end-game ship :)
Click to expand...

That's why I resist getting one... It's like getting an easy button. I did flirt with getting one last week when I was outfitting my Dropship for mining... The Python keep trying to entice me to come over to the dark side! [where is it]
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
Thermal resist boosters now go to G5 with + 25 resistance worth adding one along with resist aug or heavy duty
 

Bryan K

Bryan K
Don't forget to give your shields some Engineer love. I'd go for Thermal Resistant, since you get more bang for your buck with that. Also, get your distributor a nice Charge Enhanced mod.

There are some good weapon mods and special effects out there that I'd take advantage of. I never leave the starport without at least one Corrosive Shell overcharged MC. I've been experimenting with Phasing Sequence burst lasers on my Python, and the results are quite promising.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
thirstyfish said:
You should have no reason to use a 7a powerplant ever with a python. I use a 6a and modified it to run colder. Still have plenty capacity for what I need.
Click to expand...

It's nice to be able to take it out mining, with a single medium sized mining laser on the underside, point it at a rock, let loose the marmosets, fire the laser, switch to the debug cam, go get a drink, come back, switch out of debug cam and find my little space monkeys just about done cleaning up the mess the laser made, and never deplete my charge.
 

Bryan K

Bryan K
thirstyfish said:
You should have no reason to use a 7a powerplant ever with a python. I use a 6a and modified it to run colder. Still have plenty capacity for what I need.
Click to expand...
Seconded. 6a gives you a better jump range, less rebuy cost, and only needs grade 1 or 2 overcharging to be plenty, even with a full combat build. Plus, the Python handles her heat extremely well. I've never had a problem with power management on my Python.

- - - Updated - - -

IndigoWyrd said:
It's nice to be able to take it out mining, with a single medium sized mining laser on the underside, point it at a rock, let loose the marmosets, fire the laser, switch to the debug cam, go get a drink, come back, switch out of debug cam and find my little space monkeys just about done cleaning up the mess the laser made, and never deplete my charge.
Click to expand...

Marmosets? I like that. From now on I'll always think of limpets as space marmosets.
 

baudelier

baudelier
For shields I'd go with regular A rated over by-weave for the extra up time the stronger shields will give you.

As far as boosters go, once I gather some more materials I'll be going from 3 A rated boosters to 1 A rated resistance nodded booster and 2 E rated heavy duty boosters. A good level 5 roll will make that E rated booster stronger than an A rated stock booster for less weight and power.

EDIT: forgot my build. :3
https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/pyt...EKD5VyEbmo0xJ4p/OL3ru/7S4AQAA&bn=HMS Malamute
 
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