Had a chance to test out the new Challenger build.
Woo hoo! It was like night and day!
Thanks
@Marvin the Martian for your advice on this! My build is very similar to yours, now. Those Guardian Hull Reinforcements are way better than the Grade 4 regular ones I had in there before.
Caustic damage? It was minimal. The beams kept my heat down, and overall the ship performed extremely well.
I was fighting at a planetary port, which was unfortunately in the dark. Hitting the ground was my biggest fear
I fought for maybe a half hour, then had to log. I made 2.7 million in combat bonds. I'm not sure how many scouts that was. Maybe a dozen?
An interceptor showed up and that's when I decided to take a rest. I heard the "Surge detected" warning and attempted to use my Shutdown Field Neutralizer, but I kinda fumbled with the fire groups. I did hit it, eventually, but I'm not sure what it did. Maybe I was in time, because I didn't get shut down. I might have just been far enough away.
This is the build I have so far, modeled after Marvin's build. I used a shield I already had, and some other stuff too, but I came pretty close to what he has. It seems to work.
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
Now it's up to me to gain experience. I was flailing around a lot.
View attachment 336132