Ships The Keelback Club

Hello All,

I have nearly kitted out my Keelback, for: deliveries, scavenging and bounty hunting.

My next step is engineer mods, I will make mine an Anaconda killer!

Anyone want to join up in-game? a fleet of Keels with soon deployable fighters, will be a sight to be in awe of.

My in-game name: Flynn, (yes and the comma)

Regards,

Flynn,


Nb: my other account has a corvette/fdl/viper mkiv, I am primarily combat here. But my other account is trying to rank imperial in the keel and spend more time with missions.
 
Hello All,

I have nearly kitted out my Keelback, for: deliveries, scavenging and bounty hunting.

My next step is engineer mods, I will make mine an Anaconda killer!

Anyone want to join up in-game? a fleet of Keels with soon deployable fighters, will be a sight to be in awe of.

My in-game name: Flynn, (yes and the comma)

Regards,

Flynn,


Nb: my other account has a corvette/fdl/viper mkiv, I am primarily combat here. But my other account is trying to rank imperial in the keel and spend more time with missions.

Anaconda killer? Dream big, dude :D
 
It looks larger than the basic Type 6, but can land on small pads apparently (while the T6 is limited to medium+).

What makes it take less space?
 
I love the Keelback. It runs very cool and I can scoop at max depth ... and go AFK without a care in the world. Because of how quickly and easily she scoops (5A scoop), she's pretty much become my fastest ship.

She has become my main flying around ship for material collection. I have her souped up with level 5 dirty drives and she can hit 430 m/s. I also have level 5 FSD boost (33LY in full gear), level 4 charged enhanced PD, level 5 heavy duty mod on my lightweight armor. Haven't touched the shields yet as I'm waiting to see whether the fighter bay will use a class 3 or 5 internal. Oh and level 1 overcharged PP for now.

But yeah, I love her to bits. She's so much fun to fly.
 
Dream big....in my main account I practiced killing Anacondas in my Sidewinder.

A door stopper than bites back, will raise an eyebrow.

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you are where I want to be.

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I love the Keelback. It runs very cool and I can scoop at max depth ... and go AFK without a care in the world. Because of how quickly and easily she scoops (5A scoop), she's pretty much become my fastest ship.

She has become my main flying around ship for material collection. I have her souped up with level 5 dirty drives and she can hit 430 m/s. I also have level 5 FSD boost (33LY in full gear), level 4 charged enhanced PD, level 5 heavy duty mod on my lightweight armor. Haven't touched the shields yet as I'm waiting to see whether the fighter bay will use a class 3 or 5 internal. Oh and level 1 overcharged PP for now.

But yeah, I love her to bits. She's so much fun to fly.

you are where i want to beee
 
I love the Keelback. It runs very cool and I can scoop at max depth ... and go AFK without a care in the world. Because of how quickly and easily she scoops (5A scoop), she's pretty much become my fastest ship.

She has become my main flying around ship for material collection. I have her souped up with level 5 dirty drives and she can hit 430 m/s. I also have level 5 FSD boost (33LY in full gear), level 4 charged enhanced PD, level 5 heavy duty mod on my lightweight armor. Haven't touched the shields yet as I'm waiting to see whether the fighter bay will use a class 3 or 5 internal. Oh and level 1 overcharged PP for now.

But yeah, I love her to bits. She's so much fun to fly.


If I might ask, how is your pitch rate with the level 5 dirty drives? That is the KB's biggest weak point (its pitch is slower than any other non-large ship).

I'm looking to buff my KB as a fun multirole PVE ship, and am well on my way for that. Currently I have:

2 Class 1 gimbled pulse lasers (overcharged level 4 with Scramble Spectrum)
1 Pack Hound Missile Rack (currently with drag munitions)
1 Multicannon

This last weapon is a variable though. Considering getting it Class 5 Overcharged with Corrosive ammo, or maybe thermal ammo. Part of my thinking is to take down shields quick so I can target external weapons with my missiles and let the scrambles wreak havoc on the subsystems. So I'm all over the place with options: do I use thermal munitions on the missile rack? Take a C2 Rail Gun instead of multicannon? Another overcharged pulse laser?

But of course all those weapons mean squat without a decent turn rate.

I got really lucky on my hull reinforcement. I have lightweight armor but took the heavy duty mod (level 5) which doesn't actually increase the mass, but I ended up maxing out ALL the resistances and hull boost elements. Same goes for the hull reinforcement package. So she'll take a bounding that's for sure.

Next up is adding thermal resistance to the shields (torn between normal and bi-weave - prismatics don't make sense for the KB, I don't think...)

Any thoughts on your build?
 
At normal speeds, the pitch is decent, but she still suffers from poor pitch when at boosting speeds. Honestly, I mostly run from fights with her right now. Waiting on the fighter before turning her into a combat ship. Unless I'm being attacked by a Cobra or something.

Currently, I have her equipped with two medium gimballed burst lasers and two small seeking missile racks. Optional internals are a 32T cargo rack, 5A fuel scoop, 3A shields, 2G srv bay, advanced discovery scanner, and detailed surface scanner. Utility slots are 1xchaff, 2xpoiMt defense.

By the way, fyi: burst lasers use the same amount of PD as pulse, but require more power plant. They do around 10 or 15% more damage. If you have the power to be able to use burst, do it.
 
At normal speeds, the pitch is decent, but she still suffers from poor pitch when at boosting speeds. Honestly, I mostly run from fights with her right now. Waiting on the fighter before turning her into a combat ship. Unless I'm being attacked by a Cobra or something.

Currently, I have her equipped with two medium gimballed burst lasers and two small seeking missile racks. Optional internals are a 32T cargo rack, 5A fuel scoop, 3A shields, 2G srv bay, advanced discovery scanner, and detailed surface scanner. Utility slots are 1xchaff, 2xpoiMt defense.

I decided to go for heat based packhound missiles to help with shields and corrosive multicannon so that everything hits harder once the shields go down.

By the way, fyi: burst lasers use the same amount of PD as pulse, but require more power plant. They do around 10 or 15% more damage. If you have the power to be able to use burst, do it.

But you can upgrade up to level 4 on pulse and only level 3 on burst. If you're overchargering, I think the DPS works out about the same, and less jitter.
 
I haven't played around with weapon engi mods simply because I find the special effects even more of a gamble than I'm comfortable with. Anyways, I don't do enough combat to make it worth my time. So I'm just equipping the best base weapons I can for now.

I'd love to have pack-hounds, mind you. But I don't want to power play for a month and suffer non stop interdictions because I can't turn it off :p
 
I haven't played around with weapon engi mods simply because I find the special effects even more of a gamble than I'm comfortable with. Anyways, I don't do enough combat to make it worth my time. So I'm just equipping the best base weapons I can for now.

I'd love to have pack-hounds, mind you. But I don't want to power play for a month and suffer non stop interdictions because I can't turn it off :p

Pack hounds are great. Consider, the KB's biggest weakness is its turn rate, meaning that enemies are going to get out of line of sight far more than with other ships. But a missile lock lasts for a few seconds after you are out of LOS.

So typically what I try to do is fire with my overcharged pulse/MCs as much as possible, and then once I lose the gimble lock (either moved out of LOS or using chaff) I let loose the packhounds. With the extended clip mod I can fire 22 missiles at a go before needing to reload, and these do thermal damage as well as explosive (oh, and I got a damage buff per missile as a bonus). So good for hurting shields, and a crap load of them to boot. Target the external weapons and once their shields go down you can defang an enemy pretty quick.

Corrosive shells on the MC increase overall damage output, while the scrambles on the pulses give you a chance at fortunate shutdown. All in all a deadly combination.

I also got very lucky upgrading my armor and shields recently, and my power distributor.

The only thing left for me is the engines. Once I get the Class 5 dirty drives, the only thing I'll have left to do is take a level of Low Emission Power Generator that will still allow me to function. Dirty Drives are great for speed, but there is a heat issue to contend with already (firing off 22 missiles tends to start to cook you ;) ). Honestly the missiles really are something you want to have because they don't get affected by chaff, keeps your options open in fight.

Once those two things are done we'll see if the KB makes for an impressive PVE ship or not ;)

UPDATE. Got the 5DD - actually went sightly over the max possible roll due to a bonus, but the heat and power use was hit hard, and I only had the one roll.

Boost speed is 415 dry for now. I say for now because the weight will change as I tweak further. Hoping to increase FSD range over 30LY loaded, and will look to try and trim weight and heat elsewhere. Got level 1 low emissions power plant and had 50 tries at it (only needs one iron ;) ) so I managed to max out its benefits. With luck it will be enough heat reduction to function well in combat.

We'll see how the next few combat encounters go and report back ;)

Right now my big question involves the hull reinforcement package, and the effective difference between lightweight and heavy duty mods. It's hard to tell from the blueprints just how it will affect the bottom line
 
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Well with the changes to Passsenger cabins, I think the Keelback has the potential to be a very fun all around PvE ship

Consider this loadout:

Class 5 Cargo (32 tons, same as a CobraIII making use of its two large racks)
Class 5 Fighter Bay with fighter (for defense and exploration scouting)
Class 3 shield (maxed out with thermal resistance)
Class 3 Passenger Cabins (Economy or Business)
Class 2 SRV Bay
Class 2 Discovery Scanner

This has a lot of potential for a variety of gameplay and in-bubble exploration. If you wanted to go exploring out-bubble, though (ie take passengers sight seeing), you'd need to replace that cargo hold with a fuel scoop (need a discovery scanner and a class 2 scoop is useless anyways), but it kind of sucks to think you can't pick up ANYTHING you might find then.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the Keelback needs one more small internal compartment. Even if it was just a class 1.
 
Well with the changes to Passsenger cabins, I think the Keelback has the potential to be a very fun all around PvE ship

Consider this loadout:

Class 5 Cargo (32 tons, same as a CobraIII making use of its two large racks)
Class 5 Fighter Bay with fighter (for defense and exploration scouting)
Class 3 shield (maxed out with thermal resistance)
Class 3 Passenger Cabins (Economy or Business)
Class 2 SRV Bay
Class 2 Discovery Scanner

This has a lot of potential for a variety of gameplay and in-bubble exploration. If you wanted to go exploring out-bubble, though (ie take passengers sight seeing), you'd need to replace that cargo hold with a fuel scoop (need a discovery scanner and a class 2 scoop is useless anyways), but it kind of sucks to think you can't pick up ANYTHING you might find then.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the Keelback needs one more small internal compartment. Even if it was just a class 1.

The Keelster can pack everything for exploration, the only choice is whether to take an AFMU or a fighter me thinks.
 
The Keelster can pack everything for exploration, the only choice is whether to take an AFMU or a fighter me thinks.

Regular exploration, sure, but I'd have liked to have just a smidge more flexibility. Given how the T6 is laid out with 7 slots and how the KB has only 6 (and a number of them reduced in size) having an extra class 1 would actually make sense.

I've never needed an AFMU, though that might change if I go neutron hopping ;)
 
A lot of people think they're ugly, but I love the look of the Lakons! I have the Type-6 which I initially used as an exploration vessel, but have decided to turn it into my cargo ship (100 ton storage), and planning on getting a Keelback to be my new Exploration / Scavenger ship.

I have a couple of questions:

- Is it confirmed that the Keelback is going to get an upgrade?

- Also, are they going to release paint jobs for it?

Thanks guys :D
 
It looks like the KB will get a hull and shield strength buff, plus one of its class 3 slots will become class 4, which is awesome.

no word on paint but I look forward to it when it comes!
 
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There is something that calls to me about the keelback....not sure what it is but I will probably get another very shortly....

ATM I'm flying around in my Cobra MK IV and enjoying it but I really like the Lakon cockpit designs and the I do like 'bad' ship to fly it seems :)
 

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Considering making a Keelback my "main" when 2.2 drops.

On paper it looks like the Keelback will be very compatible with engineers, especially after the buffs due in the update.

Also, only Lakon with snake name to carry Lakon fighter, also named for a snake. Coincidence? I think not.
 
Considering making a Keelback my "main" when 2.2 drops.

On paper it looks like the Keelback will be very compatible with engineers, especially after the buffs due in the update.

Also, only Lakon with snake name to carry Lakon fighter, also named for a snake. Coincidence? I think not.

I got mine up to 420 speed fully engineer upgraded (though not fully loaded with cargo/passengers). So that's something ;)
 
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