Ships The "Firefly" - worth a try?

[[VR] Deggial]

I am toying around with the idea to built a really hot running Eagle to fool around in and compensate for the sluggish Anaconda I recently bought (for the first time in my entire 2 years playing ED).

I want to overcome the power shortage with a grade 5 overcharged PP and add an enhanced performance thruster with dirty drive modification. Nothing overly creative, so far.
However, this little ship will run incredibly hot - especially, if I'll add two beam lasers in addition to that.

- The basic idea is to use all this heat to increase weapon damage by choosing 'Thermal conduit' as special effect on those beam lasers (hence the weapon choice in the first place. I know, this effect isn't according to the current meta. Which is partly why I sympathize with it. Is this overly stupid?)
- However, I've never flown such a hot-running ship. Is it even feasible in a fight?
- Or would it be better to take 'Thermal vent' in order to get rid of the heat rather than use it and limit myself to the already high beam laser dps?
- As the "Firefly" would be an infighter rather than a long range sniper, I would use short range (or lightweight in order to safe weight) weapons as basic blueprint. (They should be better, once the balance update goes life!?)
- The third hard point will be filled with a Fragment cannon with the inevitable 'Corrosive shells" effect. Or maybe an equally modified multi cannon.

What is your opinion on this plan?

Usually, when I read those "please help me with my ship load-out" threads, I think: "why don't you simply try it out yourself?"
However, this layout will need quite some engineering to work and if it is a death borne, I will have waisted an awful lot of materials. Some good advice from experienced ship tinkerers will be highly welcome!

P.S. the ship should work in principle, as I tried in E: D Shipyard.
I used just "mediocre" RNG rolls; only the PP modification needs a "good" one (not a "perfect" one, though).

I think, it looks promising ...

P.P.S. I also have this paint job bought long, long ago. You know, this fiery one. I have to use it, after all, at some point. This built seems fitting ...

 

[GammaZ]

Tried something like this in beta few days ago, used efficient beams without specials + corrosive overcharged MC, it works pretty well. Only grade 2 overcharged PP, ~100Mj thermal resistant biweave shield, chaff in utility...
With all the lightweight upgrades (life support, chaff etc) and empty optional internals i was able to fit it within thruster optimal mass, ~390/570 speeds, no heat issues and ability to fire indefinitely with 4 pips in wep...
Instead of reinforced alloys i used heavy duty upgrade on lightweight alloys, pretty similar results with no additional mass.
Quite fun ship, but still paper thin/very unforgiving to fly, adding HRP-s help but affects speed/maneuverability a lot.

Spoiler

As for thermal conduit... tested it back in engineers beta and did not find it too usefull. Too much damage to own modules and too little actual effect.

 

[goemon]

i have an g4/g5 engineered eagle.

- enhanced performance thrusters with G5 dirty drive tuning. not much of a problem, if you don't boost much

- i don't think the class 2 PD can run 2 beams, especially not shortrange modded.

- i run 3 MC on my eagle, lightweight modded with special - with the enhanced performance thrusters every T counts. basically you want to end up below 90 T including fuel, other wise you would be better off taking normal a-class thrsuters.

- i consider 1 beam + 1 MC + 1 cannon as an alternative (my old favourite layout) - if you don't want to ressort to kill stealing, a cannon is the only way to get medium/large ships down in reasonable time.

 

[Eden von Ragnarok]

Doesn't the Imperial Eagle have heat issues? Because that might make it more effective for your strategy. No idea if it's a good strat, but who gives a toss as long as you have fun with it.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Thank you, commanders, for your educated and helpful answers!

... Instead of reinforced alloys i used heavy duty upgrade on lightweight alloys, pretty similar results with no additional mass.
Quite fun ship, but still paper thin/very unforgiving to fly, adding HRP-s help but affects speed/maneuverability a lot. ...

I will try this. I wanted to grant the ship at least a little bit of hull hardness (engendered, too, obviously; I just forgot to add it in the linked Shipyard build). But I guess, the "paper thin hull" would only be improved to "ligth cartoon" and the maneuverability loss wouldn't be worth it.

- i don't think the class 2 PD can run 2 beams, especially not shortrange modded.

- i run 3 MC on my eagle, lightweight modded with special - with the enhanced performance thrusters every T counts. basically you want to end up below 90 T including fuel, other wise you would be better off taking normal a-class thrsuters.

- i consider 1 beam + 1 MC + 1 cannon as an alternative (my old favourite layout) - if you don't want to ressort to kill stealing, a cannon is the only way to get medium/large ships down in reasonable time.

- Not even with a weapon enhanced distributor? The shipyard calculates a burst duration of 11 sec. (4 pips), which doesn't seem so bad for me?
This is based on lightweight weapons, though and I guess, I'll be better off sticking to them instead of short range.

- The layout says 80t, so I should be on the save side.

- Definitely a good advice and usually, I would outfit something like this. It doesn't fit the "heat" idea, though and - as long as it isn't utter nonsens - I want to stick to the theme.
Maybe I should exchange the fragment cannon to an actual cannon. There is no corrosive shell effect available, though, And I don't know, whether or not I am willing to skip this one.

Doesn't the Imperial Eagle have heat issues? Because that might make it more effective for your strategy. No idea if it's a good strat, but who gives a toss as long as you have fun with it.

You are probably right, of course! I don't own an appropriate paint job for the iEagle though, and I guess all the painted flames will increase the temperature by at least 150 degrees and cause my opponents to sweat just by looking at them!

 

[goemon]

Thank you, commanders, for your educated and helpful answers!



I will try this. I wanted to grant the ship at least a little bit of hull hardness (engendered, too, obviously; I just forgot to add it in the linked Shipyard build). But I guess, the "paper thin hull" would only be improved to "ligth cartoon" and the maneuverability loss wouldn't be worth it.



- Not even with a weapon enhanced distributor? The shipyard calculates a burst duration of 11 sec. (4 pips), which doesn't seem so bad for me?
This is based on lightweight weapons, though and I guess, I'll be better off sticking to them instead of short range.

- The layout says 80t, so I should be on the save side.

- Definitely a good advice and usually, I would outfit something like this. It doesn't fit the "heat" idea, though and - as long as it isn't utter nonsens - I want to stick to the theme.
Maybe I should exchange the fragment cannon to an actual cannon. There is no corrosive shell effect available, though, And I don't know, whether or not I am willing to skip this one.



You are probably right, of course! I don't own an appropriate paint job for the iEagle though, and I guess all the painted flames will increase the temperature by at least 150 degrees and cause my opponents to sweat just by looking at them!

- eagle has really low hull stats --- you'd gain much more from HRP, maybe lightweight modded

- shortrange adds up to 25% distributor draw, that's why 2 shortrange beams won't work even with a charge enhanced power distributor

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I've noticed that the Eagle is getting a lot more love with the prospect of gaining a military slot.

I'm certainly looking at the ship fondly.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Any further comments and ideas regarding 'thermal conduit'? Is it really so bad?
GammaZ didn't seem to like it. If the effect is indeed sub par, it migth be due to a buff in the current balance pass?

Or is it just the case that a hot running ship that would benefit from it isn't according to the popular meta "flow" and the effect hence never gets used?

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I think the main problem with thermal conduit on C1 beams (and admittedly, this is speculation) is that, as I understand, it's a % damage boost. Given the relatively low starting damage that a C1 hardpoint gives you, you're getting a very minimal increase in actual damage. I don't think it would be worth designing a ship based around % boosts to C1 beams.

On a less theorycrafting note, I'd drop the shield cell, personally. You have bi-weaves on an already tiny shield and performance-enhanced thrusters. If you need a bit of regen, just press your boost button and wait a few seconds.

 

[GammaZ]

The problem i had with thermal conduit is that it adds noticable damage penalty to start with, and you are starting to get damage increase only when you go over 100%.
I was pretty interested in this effect so i tested it with a friend in engineers beta, and it seemed really bad to me.
First of all if you keep your heat over 100% for a long time you will have module malfunctions really fast. Basically you have to use AFMU and stop for repairs every few minutes.
And second issue is that it is not as easy as in seems to always keep your heat high. When you have to do some maneuvering, or are out of wep capacitor ship cools down and as a result each time you start shooting you have less damage than you will have with stock beam, untill your heat rises enough, but buy this time you may either loose your target or run out of capacitor again. Of course you can use silent running, but it turns your shield off...

Here is damage decrease i am talking about:

Spoiler

(used sturdy mount just for demonstration because it does not affect DPS by itself)

 

[[VR] Deggial]

I think the main problem with thermal conduit on C1 beams (and admittedly, this is speculation) is that, as I understand, it's a % damage boost. Given the relatively low starting damage that a C1 hardpoint gives you, you're getting a very minimal increase in actual damage. I don't think it would be worth designing a ship based around % boosts to C1 beams.

On a less theorycrafting note, I'd drop the shield cell, personally. You have bi-weaves on an already tiny shield and performance-enhanced thrusters. If you need a bit of regen, just press your boost button and wait a few seconds.

Regarding DPS: Well, They are C1 hardpoints, after all; tinny weapons get tinny buffs.
If I want fast kills, I fly my Python.

Regarding the SCB: I already considered to exchange those with HRP and according to the reccomondations in this thread, this is probably the way to go. It will add 3 tonns of weight, though ...

... horrible things ...

Oh, this doesn't sound good. Not at all!

The damage drop surprises me badly (INARA doesn't mention it) and I would have hoped, that the damage increase starts quite a bit below 100% and then ramps up noticeably.

This really sounds like an issue!
Did you consider raising this problem in the current balance pass discussion? An effect that is clearly so underwhelming does indeed deserve to be looked at. It still might not be too late.
(Without access to 2.0 beta, I don't feel entitled to participate in an engineers-based discussion myself.)

(Additional thought: Outfitting an AFMU might help, but there is no spare energy left. I could drop the beam lasers to save power - but then (without 'thermal conduit'), I won't need the AFMU any more ... )

--

Anyway, there seems to go my "Firefly" idea ...
I still want to make an Eagle work as a light, fun and unusual combat ship.
Maybe I'll just subscribe this form, those utopian fanatics hand me every weekend at the mall.
3 enforcer cannons migth be a quite interesting and unique built, too.

Again: thanks, guys, for the helpful advice!

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Try the opposite route of the Firefly maybe. Some railguns and then thermal vent beams to ditch the heat.

 

[GammaZ]

Well, damage increase starts way below 100%, but to be effective it needs to compensate for those 20% first, which happens far too late, when you are already taking damage (my tests probably are not that accurate too, because it is impossible to control your heat in such way that you have, for example, constant ~90% heat. So may be it exceeds those 20% not at 100%, but at 90%, but IMO it does not matter that much)...
Also you do not need power for AFMU, you use it out of combat anyway, so just turn off thrusters while using it and you will have a lot of spare power.
I think it may be a good idea to outfit/engineer ship without weapons and then try different weapon configurations. Use grade 1 upgrades to get specials as it is fast and easy, and when you find something that works you can properly upgrade it. It may be a good idea to still try thermal conduit too, it may not be very effective but... you are not going to use eagle because it is effective, right?
And thermal vent is a nice thing indeed, just not sure how you can adapt it for your needs...