Ships Tough enough?

[Hooter]

I'm ready to immerse myself into a bit of combat and thought I would have a bash with a Vulture. Here's what I have. https://eddp.co/u/UquqBbAW

I'm still getting to grips with it but seems pretty solid. I took on a Master Anaconda in a hat rez last night but had to run away with 10% hull. Got them down below 50% before fleeing though.

Any tweaks anyone would add/change etc?

 

[seanguzzi]

I'm ready to immerse myself into a bit of combat and thought I would have a bash with a Vulture. Here's what I have. https://eddp.co/u/UquqBbAW

I'm still getting to grips with it but seems pretty solid. I took on a Master Anaconda in a hat rez last night but had to run away with 10% hull. Got them down below 50% before fleeing though.

Any tweaks anyone would add/change etc?

I would say the weakness is thermal resistance on shields. Try to balance that with a thermal resistance mod on the shield gen, & possibly resistance augmented shield booster, then HD shield boosters to increase overall shield health. Most NPCs use thermal weapons until your shields go away.

Maybe replace the fuel scoop with another HRP, and the empty slot with an MRP.

Master Anaconda in a HazRes can be a tough customer for someone just getting into combat, even piloting the potent Vulture. High Rez can be much more forgiving, and gives you a chance to learn some points of positioning, module targeting, managing pips, etc. with a support wing of security ships, just in case.

Good luck, combat is hella fun.

 

[Ceekay]

I tried G5 efficient beams on a Vulture a while back and although they didn't cause heat issues they did empty the wep cap fairly quick so I went back to my usual G5 rapid fire pulses similar DPS and some minor heat issues (get in close to target and the weapon jitter is irrelevant), I agree with mr seanguzzi re the shields as most NPC's will use energy weapons so good effective thermal shield strength is important.

Here's my current Vulture build (I can't be having that asymmetrical weapons fit it needs to be balanced! )

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/vul...A5gK4B2AzgBYCWADiPBM0A===&bn=Vulture F (EDMC)

 

[Hooter]

I would say the weakness is thermal resistance on shields. Try to balance that with a thermal resistance mod on the shield gen, & possibly resistance augmented shield booster, then HD shield boosters to increase overall shield health. Most NPCs use thermal weapons until your shields go away.

Maybe replace the fuel scoop with another HRP, and the empty slot with an MRP.

Master Anaconda in a HazRes can be a tough customer for someone just getting into combat, even piloting the potent Vulture. High Rez can be much more forgiving, and gives you a chance to learn some points of positioning, module targeting, managing pips, etc. with a support wing of security ships, just in case.

Good luck, combat is hella fun.

Makes sense re- the shields. I guess I was trying to balance thermal, kinetic, and explosive all together. If I go thermal resistance on the shield gen, I suppose I would need to go HD on the armour to increase kinetic and explosive resistance?

The annie was a bit too much for me but fun having a go. I seem to be good enough against master FDL and the FAS/FGS. And hell yeah, combat is fun.

I tried G5 efficient beams on a Vulture a while back and although they didn't cause heat issues they did empty the wep cap fairly quick so I went back to my usual G5 rapid fire pulses similar DPS and some minor heat issues (get in close to target and the weapon jitter is irrelevant), I agree with mr seanguzzi re the shields as most NPC's will use energy weapons so good effective thermal shield strength is important.

Here's my current Vulture build (I can't be having that asymmetrical weapons fit it needs to be balanced! )

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/vul...A5gK4B2AzgBYCWADiPBM0A===&bn=Vulture F (EDMC)

I see you use fixed weapons which are probably better so long as one can stay in close proximity but I'm not quite there yet. And yeah, the asymmetrical weapons wouldn't normally be my ideal but had mods for a G5 multi cannon so rolled with that. It absolutely shreds hulls! When I get the engineer for G5 lasers, I will play around with some other setup's, but I've grown quite fond of my asym' setup.

Btw Ceekay, I saw on another thread you recommended two point defence on the front of the ship. Good call.., I fitted these today and they have definitely helped win a fight or two for me.

 

[Starwolfe]

A singe G5 Efficient Beam and something light on the PD like MC or Pulse does well; I use a Pulse with a Beam for mine.

I would argue Dropping the PD for more Boosters or a KWS and instead run a Bi-Weave with Thermal resists for a shield - it'll recharge better. Other than that, it looks like a nice solid fit.

Mine for reference; https://eddp.co/u/qtnfX8ts

 

[seanguzzi]

Makes sense re- the shields. I guess I was trying to balance thermal, kinetic, and explosive all together. If I go thermal resistance on the shield gen, I suppose I would need to go HD on the armour to increase kinetic and explosive resistance?

Shield & Hull resistances are separate.
Shield generator & shield boosters (and engineering mods to both) determine shield strength.
For example, default 5A shield gen resistances are:
KiR 54.1%
ThR 26.0%
ExR 61.8%

A thermal resists engineering mod should bring them closer to balance. (The thermal resistance mod will decrease the Kinetic and Explosive resistance somewhat.)
A resist-augmented shield booster should enhance all resistance values.
Finally, heavy-duty modded booster will bump overall shield strength, with the possibility of slight bumps to resistances (depends on RNG).

That's the usual order & process I go through when setting up a new combat ship. This is for PvE only.

I don't have my current Vulture loadout saved, but here is my FdL build. I'll swap out the KWS for another shield booster if I'm going to a CZ where bounties don't matter.

The resistances shown by the shield generator are the final resistances after all of the engineering/boosters are applied.

 

[seanguzzi]

For hull, I just try to balance resistances and boost overall strength. If my shields drop I'm probably going to "bravely retreat" soon anyway, unless I'm in a hull tank.

 

[Gamsir]

Base buold is solid, good advice in the above (+1 here with thermal bi-weave). Maube swap out one PD for a chaff launcher. They actually help a lot when ending up facetanking heavy hitting stuff.

You seem like you’re new to combat and you’re taking down an anaconda in a CZ - that shows how good a ship it is.
Get some practise in this great ship and learn to stay at target six - you’ll soon be taking down elite corvettes

 

[CMDR Percivus Keenblade]

Hmm.. Personally I could say a couple things here.

1- First, overcharged PP grade 4!? Thats too much. You might be able to get away with a good g2 roll or at worst an average g3. No need to put your ship though stress of the disadvantage of g4 PP so hard.
2- If I were you, I would rather expect my shield to hold and break off from combat the moment its down. Firstly since you, as I understand focusing on PvE right now, secondly on Vulture your modules start dying off way too quick the moment something starts hitting that hull, especially that oversized glass dome over your head pops out too quick. Thirdly, Vulture is a good shield ship. Strong base shields. So I would remove that armor module and keep light.
3- For reason above you could stick with normal shields instead of bi-w. But your thermal resist seems to be lacking. I would get thermal resist g5 on that and afterwards play around with boosters to see how much effective shield I will get relatively to what Im trying. I think if you go thermal g5 normal shields + 2 g5 heavy duty that would give you the best effective shield for the Vulture. Try it out and check those stats under "defence" in Coriolis.
4- Don't forget that your beam starts loosing its damage after 600meters (aka falloff distance. You can see it visually in Coriolis, it provides that in "profiles" tab). Vulture is quick enough to stick to less than 600m on someone to maximize that damage, so considering the problem of heat and power from using that beam, I would simply refrain from shooting my beam anywhere more than that distance. For that playstyle efficient would be good, and if you find yourself in such a position that you can only keep that laser up for a second or two on a target in such distance you can even go overcharged to maximize that damage to deal in that small frame of time, but ofcourse that will change your engagement style to keep you from pressing the laser for long. If you want to be able to shoot further than 600 meters, you would need to go longrange on it. g2 would be more than enough.
5- Vulture is pretty agile. I'd suggest using fixed weapons instead of gimballs. Good opportunity to learn using them too.
6- Two point defence might be a little overkill. Or point defence itself might be a bit overkill. Since you are running shields up, you wont take that much of a damage from missiles, anyway. Consider chaff and KWScanner.
7- Might wanna fill a SCB into the slot you freed from hrp. You might need to shuffle modules on/off to use it if it becomes necessary due ripping your power out.
8- Don't forget to setup module priority.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I'd recommend going the entire other way from everyone else. If you're just getting into combat, you need to start on the basics - maneuvering, positioning, etc. A Vulture - especially one with a shield as beefy as that (not to mention increasing it further) - will just let you get away with bad habits that'll be hard to break.

What you want is something with a small shield. That will force you to pay close attention to it. Something cheap as well, so a lot of rebuys won't hurt.

Grab a Viper III or an Eagle, and go out hunting in that. Once you can regularly take out big prey, then move on up to the Vulture: Those Anacondas will drop without even getting a single shot on you.

 

[Zeeman]

For me, you are kinda squandering the Vulture's primary asset - agility.

I use the bog standard light weight armour, then throw the heavy duty mod on it - it boosts your armour with 0 mass increase.

I then go for Bi-waves - you're not trying to tank, what you want is to use the Vulture's agility to avoid being hit in the first place, and the odd shot that hits you, you want the shields to pop back up fast.

For my beam, I have an efficient/thermal vent (keeps you cool), and for my multi cannon, I have an overcharged with corrosive mod. I don't have a hull enforcement package, I prefer to save that weight for a shield cell bank. If my shields are getting low, pop an SCB, and make sure your beam laser is hitting something, and you'll stay cool.

Basically, if your shields go down, you are still a small ship, you should be running, you won't go toe to toe with a big ship with no shields. If you can, then you know how to fly a Vulture, and you won't be losing shields to begin with.

The Vulture is a giant killer, but it's not a "take on wings of ships in a high intensity CZ" ship, and certainly not a toe to toe with big ships fighter. It's the "Water Dancer", or "Oberyn Martel" as apposed to The Mountain, if you watch Game of Thrones, you'll get what I mean.

The trick is basically to "orbit" big ships, sticking to their least well armed sections (or up their tailpipe) and just keep on firing. Those 2 x C3 hard points do a lot of damage.

I like to pretty much sit right on top of the big target, and they simply can't manoeuvre well enough to get free.

If you're getting to 10% hull vs a big ship, you're doing it wrong.

I'd actually agree with CMDR Corlas, in that you should grab a small, cheap fast ship to get the hang of low shields/high agility combat, it'll teach you to avoid taking hits, and a good bit of situational awareness.

A final note re fixed v gimbal.

take one of each - ie, if you have a fixed MC, and a fix laser, unless you are right on top of a target, you can't fire both (one will miss). I will usually do a fixed efficient beam, and a gimbal MC, this means I can keep both firing when I really want to take something out quick.

Z...

 

[Dirtbird]

Let’s fix up a couple of modules first. What I’d do is the following:

1) Change the 4A fuel scoop for a 4E. Lower power draw and still scoops 0.147 tonnes/sec vs 0.342 for your 4A. It will double your refuelling time which in my opinion is not an issue unless you want to go exploring rather than vulching in your Vulture. That’s 1 minute to refuel when empty and if you run a Vulture’s 8 tonne fuel tank to empty, you are courageous indeed.
2) Swap 5D HRP for a MRP, 3D, 4D or 5D depending on how much weight reduction you feel you must have. You need the module protection as the second your shields go down, NPCs, especially in combat zones love to spam you with missiles which can quickly destroy things like your lovely engineered 5A thrusters which despite boosting to 506 m/s, aren’t fast enough for you to disengage without taking a few missiles up the tailpipe.
3) Change one of the shield boosters to Thermal Resistant to balance your resistances a bit more.
4) Swap the 2D interdictor for a 1A. You only lose a little bit of integrity, but it fits in a size 1 slot.
5) Engineer up a 2D HRP for your now free size 2 slot.
6) Swap the 5A shields for 5C biweaves. Lower power draw and hopefully you’re not trying to face tank in a Vulture - you’ll be wanting to take hits occasionally and have your shields recharge quickly. Much lower power draw and they come back to life much faster when they go down. If you want to minimise shield restart time, swap your 0A shield boosters for 0D.
7) Swap one point defence for a chaff. It’s almost amazing how much NPC fire dies down when you deploy chaff.
8) With the power you’ve saved, re-roll your power plant for G1 overcharged. A good roll will give you enough power to run everything except the fuel scoop and cargo hatch when your hard points are deployed, while keeping your power plant efficiency close to the stock 0.4, keeping that Vulture nice and cool.

My own Vulture is very close to those specs apart from the fact I haven’t unlocked grade 5 hull reinforcements yet (only have grade 1) but no single NPC ship can beat me in it. I’ve destroyed everything from wings of rail Eagles to Elite Federal Corvettes fitted with plasma accelerators, all without losing my shields. The Vulture is indeed a very manoeuvrable ship. With good flying, you’re pretty much untouchable.

Just a note about mass - adding heavy HRPs and MRPs modules will only affect your handling a very small amount. That is because the typical mass of a Vulture is somewhere around half the optimal mass of a set of 5A thrusters. You might lose 2 m/s boost speed at the worst and your degrees per second in yaw/pitch/roll will decrease by maybe single figures. Hard to perceive when flying. On the other hand, your jump range will drop quite noticeably. Balance it to your taste

 

[GammaZ]

...
1) Change the 4A fuel scoop for a 4E. Lower power draw and still scoops 0.147 tonnes/sec vs 0.342 for your 4A. It will double your refuelling time which in my opinion is not an issue unless you want to go exploring rather than vulching in your Vulture. That’s 1 minute to refuel when empty and if you run a Vulture’s 8 tonne fuel tank to empty, you are courageous indeed.
...

That is utterly pointless. Just set it to lower priority so it shuts down in combat and use A-grade for more convenience. Saving power in SC with weapons stowed is pointless.

Also armor on vulture is questionable choice IMO. It is possible, but with engineered shields they are more than enough, no reason to reduce maneuverability by making it heavy.

 

[hypervoodoo77]

It has a great rep but personally I like the courier better.
I think the big canopy is a weakness and the power supply.

 

[Gamsir]

That is utterly pointless. Just set it to lower priority so it shuts down in combat and use A-grade for more convenience. Saving power in SC with weapons stowed is pointless.

Also armor on vulture is questionable choice IMO. It is possible, but with engineered shields they are more than enough, no reason to reduce maneuverability by making it heavy.

Armor on the vulture is a question of preference - religion almost...

For me, the vulture is far yoo agile pitch-wise when engineered. I had to go with clean drives and hull it up to keep it manageble. Mind you it still have a +50 pitch rate (clean drives gr 3), the speed have taken a small hit, but with a good roll on the distributor you can permaboost while shooting with no problems.
The ekstra hull is just icing on the cake while having all weaknesses on the hull negated.
Sure, you could put a scb or module protection in, but with the manouverability, recharge rate of a thermal bi-weave and 1100+ integrity you don’t need it.

To each his own, which is what I love about this game and the forums

 

[Hooter]

This is a great response folks. There's a lot of advice and guidance here to go by and hopefully some other cmdr's can use this information too.

I won't quote anyone as I could easily quote everyone for you all have valid points and things one should try as a novice in combat. (well competent, but only just and much is owed to easy pickings with security backup)!

I will definitely address the thermal shields and try out bi-weaves. I really need to increase the current re-gen rate.

Hull reinforcements I can easily store and try without. I find the ship pretty agile with it fitted. As said, a little help with the hull can't hurt as long as it doesn't impede my flying too much.

I've got some materials to collect for further engineering that I really don't want to do right now, so as CMDR Corlas advises, I'm out in an imperial eagle getting the hang of positioning, manoeuvrability and using fixed hard points.

Chaff might be an option as a replacement for a point defence but at the moment, pip management, speed adjustment and two weapon types is enough for me to do. Changing fire groups and letting off a bit of chaff I can add into the fold later. And kws I did have fitted but didn't really need the extra credits to waste time using it. Right now I'm looking to git gud at combat.

The Vulture is a nice ship to fly and it seems a very tough little ship. When I've made a few modifications and tried it out i shall report back.

Thanks to you all.

 

[Ashnak]

Looks like I'm late to the party - in any case, we also recently had a couple of Vulture discussions over in the Newcomers subforum, here is one of them, including a link to (a previous incarnation of) mine (should now have the DD G5, the Pacifiers are modded for Double Shot, but no special effects yet).

A general comment regarding your (and a few other) build in this thread: why is everyone so intent on using a maximum overcharged PP and then throwing everything on shields and lasers? Those overcharged PPs run HOT, and (beam) lasers aren't going to help there, either.
Check out the module priorization (right HUD, or in coriolis), and priorize down everything you don't need in combat. Next, priorize to a lower level everything you don't need any more while running off. Sometimes, power plants get damaged.

As for the life support, though - go A-rated here. Once you lose your shields, your canopy is as good as gone. In addition, you could even switch off (or prio down) life support in combat, 25 minutes is usually ample.

The strength of the Vulture is its agility - don't use it to face tank an Anaconda or Python from 2 km out, get behind it, close and personal, and kick its backside with close range weapons. This way, you won't have to face the big guns and your shields will last much longer.

Oh, and thrusters/agility - no need to skimp with armour on the Vulture. Those 5A thrusters have a minimum mass of 420 tons. As long as you stay below that, you won't gain anything in speed/agility. So lay on those heavy duty military bulkheads and engineered hull reinforcements. The only thing you'll lose id jump range, and if you want to set uo a Vulture as an expedition ship (some people have, she's got a nice view), you'll have other priorities.

 

[Dirtbird]

That is utterly pointless. Just set it to lower priority so it shuts down in combat and use A-grade for more convenience. Saving power in SC with weapons stowed is pointless.

Also armor on vulture is questionable choice IMO. It is possible, but with engineered shields they are more than enough, no reason to reduce maneuverability by making it heavy.

Good point on the fuel scoop, I have a 4E on mine because I don't need to set module priorities and I don't do 5 kLy missions in my Vulture. However you are incorrect about the armour making the Vulture heavy and losing maneuverability. I have addressed that point in my previous post.

 

[GammaZ]

Armor on the vulture is a question of preference - religion almost...

For me, the vulture is far yoo agile pitch-wise when engineered. I had to go with clean drives and hull it up to keep it manageble. Mind you it still have a +50 pitch rate (clean drives gr 3), the speed have taken a small hit, but with a good roll on the distributor you can permaboost while shooting with no problems.
The ekstra hull is just icing on the cake while having all weaknesses on the hull negated.
Sure, you could put a scb or module protection in, but with the manouverability, recharge rate of a thermal bi-weave and 1100+ integrity you don’t need it.

To each his own, which is what I love about this game and the forums

Won't argue with that, loadout is always a matter of personal choice, and every post in such topic should be considered personal opinion...
I've tried armor on vulture, i did not like reduced speed (maneuverability was fine for me either way), issues with canopy and the fact that i have to ditch all the "multipurpose" modules like SRV and cargo to do that (yes, i often run missions in vulture, it is joy to fly and has nice jump range with FSD upgrade and relatively light loadout).
SCB is not very useful either, but at least it works as nice panic button in case i do something stupid like catching a couple of dual huge PA shots from npc corvette. Putting HRP/MRP in this compartment is pointless without other components of hull tank, so another option is leaving it empty...

Good point on the fuel scoop, I have a 4E on mine because I don't need to set module priorities and I don't do 5 kLy missions in my Vulture. However you are incorrect about the armour making the Vulture heavy and losing maneuverability. I have addressed that point in my previous post.

I know about minimal mass, yes. And with stock thrusters it is indeed possible to stay within it with armor, without any speed/maneuverability impact. But once you upgrade thrusters minimal/optimal mass is reduced, often significantly if you are not doing over9000 rolls to get best one. And even small reduction is enough to bring most loadouts above minimal, making ship mass relevant. But it is a matter of personal preference of course.

...
A general comment regarding your (and a few other) build in this thread: why is everyone so intent on using a maximum overcharged PP and then throwing everything on shields and lasers? Those overcharged PPs run HOT, and (beam) lasers aren't going to help there, either.
Check out the module priorization (right HUD, or in coriolis), and priorize down everything you don't need in combat. Next, priorize to a lower level everything you don't need any more while running off. Sometimes, power plants get damaged.
...

It is a matter of general loadout choice actually. If you go for OC PP you then have to go for shield tank instead of hull one as PP integrity is reduced and it is one of the most vulnerable parts along with canopy on vulture. Heat issues can be solved in different ways, for example by using different weapons or using efficient mods.
For me personally it was just a matter of convenience. I flied vulture a lot before engineers and with rather power-hungry weapons, and i was so fed up with power issues and the need to save every 0.01MW of power that i went for G5 overcharge simply to get rid of it all and be able to choose things based on their usefulness and not power consumption again.

 

[Zeeman]

That is utterly pointless. Just set it to lower priority so it shuts down in combat and use A-grade for more convenience. Saving power in SC with weapons stowed is pointless.

Also armor on vulture is questionable choice IMO. It is possible, but with engineered shields they are more than enough, no reason to reduce maneuverability by making it heavy.

Exactly. Power priorities are there for exactly this reason. 4E is epically slow scooping, and may as well not even have a scoop. Fuel scoops only cost money, and use power, they do not add weight.

Personally, I use a 3A, to free up the size four slot.

Z...