Newcomer / Intro The Keelback in battle...?

[Mohenjo]

So... I have a Keelback I use for many things. She's pretty general purpose. Right now, she's set up for some local exploring, but she's capable of defending herself. Or so I thought.

She's carrying a fighter, and is armed with a top of the line shield generator (5A, engineered for cap) and shield booster, two beam lasers and two multicannons.

During one of my expeditions, I found a few occupied escape pods and collected them. On my way to a nearby base, I was interdicted by a Viper MkIV. I was kind of interested to see how the ship would perform in battle, never having tried using a fighter before.

Submitting to the interdiction, my shields were already at about 1/3 strength by the time I went through all the menus just to launch the fighter. I then turned to attack the Viper. However, I found it VERY hard to get a bead on the thing. The Keelback seems to turn like a cow in 3 feet of mud. I did get a few shots at him, and my fighter was a huge help, but soon my shields were gone and I got warnings about some kind of cracking attacks and modules all started going offline and stuff like that. I've no idea what any of that is, last battles I got into in the game, it was just lasers and multicannons, and you couldn't magically disable enemy systems without actually shooting them. But whatever.

My question is this: How does the Keelback fare in battle in general? Is this typical? I did kill the Viper, but came away with about 47% health left. How do I improve the ship's survivability? How do I get my fighter airborne in time to actually protect me from a crippling alpha strike (usually while I'm still loading in)?

Just wondering if there's anything else I can do to help the ship in combat, or if I should just abandon that idea entirely and avoid all interdictions.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yeah, I'd say it's somewhat typical.
"Combat capable" multipurpose ships are just that - capable of combat. But when you face a real combat ship it gets iffy.
I always liked Keelback, but you have to curb your ambition a little.
...or do some extensive engineering on basically everything in the ship.

 

[Dommarraa]

The Keelback would work if it followed it originating principals and appeared as a T6 on scanners, and the enemy only reaslised their mistake when they saw the SLF launch.
However, it doesnt, so it's a clever but futile idea.

 

[Mohenjo]

I think what I might do with her, is make her a dedicated salvage ship, for collecting materials for engineering. She did take on the Viper and lived to tell the tale, so it's not all bad.

 

[Chris Simon]

I think what I might do with her, is make her a dedicated salvage ship, for collecting materials for engineering. She did take on the Viper and lived to tell the tale, so it's not all bad.

One thing that Keelback has going for her is stronger than average vertical thrusters. She and Cobra Mk.IV, actually. What that means is they handle gravity much better. Makes it more comfortable to use for planetary operations.
I know it's a very specific "advantage", but it's actually nice to have, especially for something like wreck hunting.

 

[Mohenjo]

I have a Cobra IV too.... I realize she's a more sluggish ship, so I made all the weapons on the top into turrets (Multicannons). Front guns are beam lasers.

Actually, that brings up a question. My usual setup on all my ships is beam lasers and multicannons. Is there a better arrangement?

Also, what are enemies doing to me that are instantly disabling modules? I mean, it announces something about internal attacks or cracking attacks or something (I was distracted at the time, I didn't catch what was actually said), but I have no idea what that is, or how to defend myself against it.

 

[Chris Simon]

I have a Cobra IV too.... I realize she's a more sluggish ship, so I made all the weapons on the top into turrets (Multicannons). Front guns are beam lasers.

Actually, that brings up a question. My usual setup on all my ships is beam lasers and multicannons. Is there a better arrangement?

Also, what are enemies doing to me that are instantly disabling modules? I mean, it announces something about internal attacks or cracking attacks or something (I was distracted at the time, I didn't catch what was actually said), but I have no idea what that is, or how to defend myself against it.

It's probably one of the engineering experimental effects
Phasing sequence for example makes a certain percentage of damage dealt "bleed through" shields (i.e. it damages hull and modules even through the shields) or there is another one that I can't remember the name of which, with every hit, has a certain probability to cause a module malfunction.

As for the weapons setup, if you're using an SLF with a decent pilot, you can use a fixed beam lasers on that, which is awesome for stripping shields and so you can equip your mothership with all anti-hull weapons (MCs, Cannons, etc.)
For a combined loadout, I like the beams + MCs the best as well. On the ships with crappy distributor or bad thermal dissipation I use burst lasers + MCs, though.

 

[SushiCW]

The stock Keelback has a tough time in fights: she turns too slow to easily deal with small nimble fighters, and doesn't have the shields/firepower to deal with larger threats. Once fully A-rated, she does better, and if you're willing to invest in engineering you can get her to the point of being really capable against most NPC threats.

As for getting the fighter out quickly, that's mostly muscle memory that after a bit of practice becomes as quick & routine as requesting docking permission.

 

[SushiCW]

Actually, that brings up a question. My usual setup on all my ships is beam lasers and multicannons. Is there a better arrangement?

It's a solid reliable combo and you can't really go wrong with it.

Also, what are enemies doing to me that are instantly disabling modules? I mean, it announces something about internal attacks or cracking attacks or something (I was distracted at the time, I didn't catch what was actually said), but I have no idea what that is, or how to defend myself against it.

In your case, most likely your modules just got damaged once your shields were down. I don't think any NPCs that interdict carry any special anti-module equipment, unless something's changed in Odyssey. Missiles in particular do a lot of damage to modules, and if your ship & modules aren't fully upgraded they'll take damage quicker.

 

[d8veh]

So... I have a Keelback I use for many things. She's pretty general purpose. Right now, she's set up for some local exploring, but she's capable of defending herself. Or so I thought.

She's carrying a fighter, and is armed with a top of the line shield generator (5A, engineered for cap) and shield booster, two beam lasers and two multicannons.

During one of my expeditions, I found a few occupied escape pods and collected them. On my way to a nearby base, I was interdicted by a Viper MkIV. I was kind of interested to see how the ship would perform in battle, never having tried using a fighter before.

Submitting to the interdiction, my shields were already at about 1/3 strength by the time I went through all the menus just to launch the fighter. I then turned to attack the Viper. However, I found it VERY hard to get a bead on the thing. The Keelback seems to turn like a cow in 3 feet of mud. I did get a few shots at him, and my fighter was a huge help, but soon my shields were gone and I got warnings about some kind of cracking attacks and modules all started going offline and stuff like that. I've no idea what any of that is, last battles I got into in the game, it was just lasers and multicannons, and you couldn't magically disable enemy systems without actually shooting them. But whatever.

My question is this: How does the Keelback fare in battle in general? Is this typical? I did kill the Viper, but came away with about 47% health left. How do I improve the ship's survivability? How do I get my fighter airborne in time to actually protect me from a crippling alpha strike (usually while I'm still loading in)?

Just wondering if there's anything else I can do to help the ship in combat, or if I should just abandon that idea entirely and avoid all interdictions.

A fewof things that might have helped.
1. If you're going to fight an interdictor, you should be travelling with 4 pips to shields and 2 to engines (other way round if you're going to run). That will make your shields stronger while you get your fighter and weapons out and figure out what you're going to do.
2. You need to be able to launch the fighter immediately. For that you have to practice.
3. The NPCs, especially Vipers, try to fly over your head to get behind you. To defeat that strategy, fly backwards and pitch up as it tries to go over you. Be active with your pips.
4. Chaff is always useful against NPCs.
5. For any ship you want to fight with, make sure that you have the best power distributor and thrusters you can get.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKdEaINeG2w

 

[Andrzej Lawa]

Submitting to the interdiction, my shields were already at about 1/3 strength by the time I went through all the menus just to launch the fighter. I then turned to attack the Viper. However, I found it VERY hard to get a bead on the thing. The Keelback seems to turn like a cow in 3 feet of mud. I did get a few shots at him, and my fighter was a huge help, but soon my shields were gone and I got warnings about some kind of cracking attacks and modules all started going offline and stuff like that. I've no idea what any of that is, last battles I got into in the game, it was just lasers and multicannons, and you couldn't magically disable enemy systems without actually shooting them. But whatever.

Make it light, empty, with decent thrusters (maybe try some engineering?) and it gets quite nice turning rates.

However against a Viper... a fighter should take care of the problem by itself - you don't have to get involved with the main ship.

Launching a fighter should be quite quick - with x360 pad it's just X-down, deploy fighter (with an NPC crew) and it automatically starts in defense mode. Sometimes I even manage to get the fighter to attack before the pirate manages to start shooting at me.

Yesterday I went to a low-level extraction site to do some fun small-scale bounty hunting - I just looked for a "wanted" ship already involved with the space police, launched the fighter, stayed back and enjoyed the fireworks I did made a mistake of attacking an Imperial Clipper (mistakenly read it as Imperial Courier) but the space police helped and got more bounty then the repair cost (I got to about 80% of the hull integrity).