Ship Builds & Load Outs Imperial Courier Weapons suggestions.

[Troopi]

I use 1 lightweight beam with thermal vent on the left, 1 lightweight cannon on the right with force shell, and a burst focused oversized bellow. All gimballed.
It works great. Obliterates small ships, and for medium/large, I target the PP (drives on a conda, for lols). The focused burst and cannon are great to pierce through armor. The beam is great at chewing shields.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

My OCD would go into overdrive if I didn't have matching weapons on the nacelles.

 

[Troopi]

I used to have two thermals, but for bigger ships, one needs piercing power. 1 medium focused laser is good at chewing subsystems. The cannon does the rest.
But that's my thing. I love cannons.

 

[S0rkvild]

I'm using two frag cannons and lightweight imperial hammer.

 

[AlSki]

but i'm not sure the distributor will handle such a loadout well.

Twin G5 Efficient beams with Thermal Vent almost perfectly match a G5 Charge enhanced Power distributor on a courier. If you then fire another weapon at the same time then the weapon capacitor goes down by the amount of that third weapon.
However, I think there might be bonus damage with the initial contact of the beam. I've been killing other ships and watching their hulls go down one percent at a time, then as they boost and turn, I've stopped firing and seen them drop by 3% on the initial hit when I start firing again. (I'd be really interested if anyone else has seen this too).
So it might actually be better to fire the PA while releasing the beams, or at least to "pulse" the beams so they charge back up to full WEP again.

I have one engineered for lightweight which puts the speed up to 840 on ammo

This is where I find the problem with a Courier. You want it go fast(er) so you lightweight everything, and then it lacks punch. If you compromise and keep some punch in the weapons, then other ships start to look temptingly close on speed.
So then you try another build with a different set of compromises, and Couriers aren't expensive to buy and outift so you keep the old so you can compare it. The next thing you know you have 7 of them...
It only really costs materials

I'm using two frag cannons and lightweight imperial hammer.

Hmmmm, build number 8?

Think I wasted the mats on the railgun

Nope. Keep that for an exploration build, because you want one with Plasma Slug just in case you need to "remove" some fuel to get the perfect long range jump ;-)

 

[S0rkvild]

This is where I find the problem with a Courier. You want it go fast(er) so you lightweight everything, and then it lacks punch. If you compromise and keep some punch in the weapons,
then other ships start to look temptingly close on speed.

Hmmmm, build number 8?

Here it is. Even with three fully sized weapons my courier boosts to 700. Why is that? because I decided to downsize a fuel tank, installed D-class charge enchanced distro and D-class fsd. By doing that I saved 12,5 tonnes of mass. Lightweight disto works amazingly well, range is satisfactionary ~20ly. When I'm basing in only one sector I reduce the size of fuel tank to smallest one and that gives me 2 tonnes of extra mass - that can be used for another fully sized weapon or just add to greater speed.

Ships - Ungankable iCourier

Please help me with an iCourier. I remember reading about a pretty awesome iCourier once and I can't seem to find the thread anymore. I need this ship for BGS courier work as well as traveling to Shinrarta in style, I live on the outskirts so it needs a scoop and fair jump. I can live with about...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[AlSki]

installed D-class charge enchanced distro .... Lightweight disto works amazingly well

Ooooh.... Never tried this... Back later ;-)

 

[Stabby_Dave]

OK. I'm finally happy with this build. The beams can fire all day long with 3 pips to weapons, and it's fast enough to get out of a scrape. I've also built his speedy brother. What I'm now looking at for this one, weapons wise, is the most annoying setup I can manage. I'm not that worried about damage, I just want them to be really irritating. Give me your suggestions. The only caveat is that they have to be lightweight, cos I want to keep the speed at 885 (max possible). At the moment, I'm thinking of a cannon with force shell, a drag frag and a burst laser with scramble spectrum.

Whaddya reckon?

Cheers.

 

[Troopi]

I don't like scramble spectrum. The effects are minimal, and only other players get troubled by it. NPCs seem to override the effects in 1 second. The worst I have seen from it, is a ship dropping cargo suddenly. Never a drivers malfunction (uncrontolled drift for x seconds), never a shield malfunction (reset to recharge), never an FSD malfunction (FSD reboot). Nada.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Good to know. That pretty much leaves phasing sequence and thermal shock (which, afaik, does nothing to npcs) for lasers. Any ideas what else would be annoying? This is for both PvE and PvP.

 

[SergMx]

Good to know. That pretty much leaves phasing sequence and thermal shock (which, afaik, does nothing to npcs) for lasers. Any ideas what else would be annoying? This is for both PvE and PvP.

i fly on open and use mine.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Hmmm. I know that thermal shock was hit with the nerf bat, but I'd like to know whether it's still worth it. All the reviews I've come across are from 4 years ago.

 

[Troopi]

Hmmm. I know that thermal shock was hit with the nerf bat, but I'd like to know whether it's still worth it. All the reviews I've come across are from 4 years ago.

NPCs seem indifferent to it. Players can overheat but rarely cook.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

As long as it's irritating - I'm thinking about an anti seal clubber setup.

 

[C64Fan]

I used to have two thermals, but for bigger ships, one needs piercing power. 1 medium focused laser is good at chewing subsystems. The cannon does the rest.
But that's my thing. I love cannons.

Then you probably hate that the cannon sizes have different shot speeds. I know I do. You can sort of engineer them to be about the same speed, but it isn’t optimal. I get that it’s realistic, but still I don’t like it.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

O the end, I went for a gimballed Cannon with force, a gimballed frag cannon with drag (I read somewhere that only 1 pellet has to hit foe the drag to be effective) and a gimballed burst laser with phasing sequence.

 

[Troopi]

O the end, I went for a gimballed Cannon with force, a gimballed frag cannon with drag (I read somewhere that only 1 pellet has to hit foe the drag to be effective) and a gimballed burst laser with phasing sequence.

Good choice. That looks like a seriously annoying wasp.

 

[F4fred]

I went For 2x Lightweight Gimballed Frags with screening shell, and a lightweight a plasma slug rail gun and it can take down pretty much anything while keping the distributor draw low (1 or 2 pips into weapons will be enough). I also went for a resistance oriented, fast charge Bi-Weave shield with 270 Mj that never once dropped.

Whatever you choose, please swap Drag Drive For Drive Distributor on your engines and you won't look back.

Unless you go very light then drag drives are better. Around 63t is the change over point. With drive distributors you are pegged at 851 boost at 67t which is the optimum mass, but with drag drives optimum mass is 61t. IIRC at 62t with drag drives boost is 863 and at 61t it is 885, max boost for a Courier.

 

[Kayvan]

Just a thought when musing about my Chieftain armament in the other thread:

Fixed Long Range Lasers.
Reverse.
Profit.

i.e. with your high general speed you should also have a reverse speed that's higher than most enemies' forward speed, so you can stay at long range and pepper them with your lasers without damage falloff and they can do absolutely nothing about it except wake out.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Unless they have long range also, in which case you're toast.