Ships Viper - Weapons Loadout

[Krivan]

Greetings, after running missions for a while in my Sidewinder, then Adder, I had enough to buy a kit out a Viper. Now I'm struggling to find a weapons loadout that works and destroys ships relatively quickly.

For reference my ship is A-rated apart from B-Shield Generator and C-FSD (along with D Life Support and Sensors).

Currently running all burst lasers at the suggestion of an Anaconda I was in a CZ with. Great for shields, takes forever to do anything to the hull. Prior to that I had 2 Medium Multicannons (gimballed) and 2 Small Burst lasers (fixed), which was probably the best weapons load I've tried. But it still took me 3/4 minutes to kill a Viper in a CZ. Which feels very slow.

Also piloting tips, I'm mainly just jousting with the AI, trying to get behind them if they're in a slower or fatter ship. Is there anything I could do to improve in this area as well?


Thanks,

K

 

[paganpenguin]

From my experience, the ships in CZs are generally more resilient to punishment so taking four minutes to best a similar ship can be counted at pretty good going!

Personally, if you found them twin bursts and MCs then stick with them - generally on small ships I go the 4 x MC route but that is just my favourite loadout. Perhaps experiment with a Railgun and three thermals, seem to remember seeing that being quite effective in a video somewhere. Just try something and if it feels right go for it!

As for hints and tips how about (if you don't already) try some turns and positioning while FAOff (flight assist off) - it can help give you an edge but can also mess things up. Just switch between on and off when you need to - or even try going FAOff full time... (For the record I currently toggle while in combat)

 

[Krivan]

Thanks for the advice. Went and swapped back to Class 2 Multicannons, having much better luck now. Especially once I actually thought about the hardpoint placement. As soon as I started trying to keep my enemy below the nose (for the medium multi's), things got a lot smoother.

There's a lot of mention of the all MC loadouts, but they don't make sense to me. How do you deal with shields?

 

[newman1702]

Thanks for the advice. Went and swapped back to Class 2 Multicannons, having much better luck now. Especially once I actually thought about the hardpoint placement. As soon as I started trying to keep my enemy below the nose (for the medium multi's), things got a lot smoother.

There's a lot of mention of the all MC loadouts, but they don't make sense to me. How do you deal with shields?

You basically overwhelm them with a hail of bullets. The fact that kinetics are less effective against shields is somewhat offset by the fact that there is now more kinetics hitting the shield at once, only interrupted by reloads. Personally not a fan because you're pretty much unable to fight at all when you run out of ammo, forcing you back to spacedock. But, it does depend on what you intend to do. For RES bounty hunting I tend to go with setups you can use almost indefinitely, for those extended stays.

 

[Krivan]

You basically overwhelm them with a hail of bullets. The fact that kinetics are less effective against shields is somewhat offset by the fact that there is now more kinetics hitting the shield at once, only interrupted by reloads. Personally not a fan because you're pretty much unable to fight at all when you run out of ammo, forcing you back to spacedock. But, it does depend on what you intend to do. For RES bounty hunting I tend to go with setups you can use almost indefinitely, for those extended stays.

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Once again, thanks for all the advice. Made just shy of 1,000,000cr in a High Intensity RES with less than an hour spent there using this loadout. Would have been more if I didn't have to run away to recharge my shields twice against the final Fed Dropship. Might try Shield Cell Banks instead of the Booster next time out...

 

[noldunar]

I think the loadout you posted should work quite well and I would consider it a "classic". I would consider changing the burst lasers to beam lasers and I would go gimballed beams. They might do a little less damage compared to fixed but in my experience make up for that simply with more time on target. If the target uses chaffs, you can just untarget it and use the beams as fixed lasers, giving you the best of both worlds.

Against small ships (Eagle, Sidewinder, Adder) you can use the beams only quite effectivly and conserve ammo.

Like said before, conflict zone ships are tougher than normal pirates because they all feature shield boosters. You should not have so much trouble against "normal" pirates.

You do the right thing by keeping the target below the nose for the gimballed multis. The gimballed multis even hit the target if it is slightly out of view below your ship. Also, make sure you also yaw together with pitch and roll. You can compensate sideways movement a little by using yaw, resulting in even more time on target with the big multis.

 

[Ceekay]

Try this, one on one it's capable of downing an Elite Vulture, the small pulse turrets fire almost continuously even when evading and both weapon groups can fire together for around 10 seconds, it's my weapon of choice for CZ's

http://coriolis.io/outfit/viper/03A3A3A2D3A3D2C1b1b19190404-40-24.AwRj4yyA.CwBhrSs4g===?bn=Viper CZ

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

For conflict zones:

Small lasers and medium multicannons.

For RES bounty farming:

Medium pulse lasers and small cannons.

 

[Krivan]

I think the loadout you posted should work quite well and I would consider it a "classic". I would consider changing the burst lasers to beam lasers and I would go gimballed beams. They might do a little less damage compared to fixed but in my experience make up for that simply with more time on target. If the target uses chaffs, you can just untarget it and use the beams as fixed lasers, giving you the best of both worlds.

Against small ships (Eagle, Sidewinder, Adder) you can use the beams only quite effectivly and conserve ammo.

Like said before, conflict zone ships are tougher than normal pirates because they all feature shield boosters. You should not have so much trouble against "normal" pirates.

You do the right thing by keeping the target below the nose for the gimballed multis. The gimballed multis even hit the target if it is slightly out of view below your ship. Also, make sure you also yaw together with pitch and roll. You can compensate sideways movement a little by using yaw, resulting in even more time on target with the big multis.

I'll definitely consider switching to gimballed beams, but with the loadout I'm currently using there is simply not enough power. I'm forced to use Fixed Pulses, but the upside is they are helping me become a better pilot.

Try this, one on one it's capable of downing an Elite Vulture, the small pulse turrets fire almost continuously even when evading and both weapon groups can fire together for around 10 seconds, it's my weapon of choice for CZ's

http://coriolis.io/outfit/viper/03A3A3A2D3A3D2C1b1b19190404-40-24.AwRj4yyA.CwBhrSs4g===?bn=Viper CZ

That's an interesting fit. Will give it a go when my cash flow has improved. Not sure about turrets on such a small ship though, seems as though they would make you lazy.

For conflict zones:

Small lasers and medium multicannons.

For RES bounty farming:

Medium pulse lasers and small cannons.

Do you mind sharing your reasoning between the different loadouts? Also, are there any glaring differences for PvP? I'm currently en-route to Kamadhenu (ALD capital) in this and was wondering if there's anything I'd need to change in case of player encounters. The only thing I can think of is dropping the Shield Booster for more Chaff.


Thanks for answering all my questions, everyone. It's probably really simple "how can he not know this?!" stuff, but the learning curve is huge. Loving it so far!

 

[CMDR Corlas]

My favorite Viper loadout is 2x C1 gimballed beams and 2x C2 fixed cannons. It works out great, and the fixed cannons shred ships.

 

[Ceekay]

@ Krivan

"That's an interesting fit. Will give it a go when my cash flow has improved. Not sure about turrets on such a small ship though, seems as though they would make you lazy."

Turrets although they will be hitting the target more do have low DPS compared to a fixed version (1/3!) but they do hit the target a lot more times so they probably balance out, also chaff breaks target lock on turrets and gimbals so there's that to contend with as well.
I reckon using fixed or gimballed weapons you get exposed to a lot more fire especially from small agile fighters like the Sidey and Eagle so I use the turrets to soften them up a bit before maneuvering into a firing position for all weapons.

On high agility fighters like the Vulture fixed are fine although they do have convergence issues with small ships (only one weapon hits a Sidey if it's too close)