Ships What's your favourite and your most effective combat ship?

[Stabby_Dave]

Most effective, I'd say - for assassination missions is my prismo shield tank mamba with 4 shock cannons and a huge overcharged thermal vent beam or corrosive multi.

Get behind him, blow him away in short order and scoot away at 600m/s.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Most effective, I'd say - for assassination missions is my prismo shield tank mamba with 4 shock cannons and a huge overcharged thermal vent beam or corrosive multi.

Get behind him, blow him away in short order and scoot away at 600m/s.

Shock cannons are on my list to play with sometime, just so long as they have no delay in firing like rail guns - I'm not very good with these. I'm, going to try out frag cannons on a FAS and a Mamba with a huge beam laser next. I got Zacariah Nemo unlocked before work this morning so I can get grade 5 engineering on frags done.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Shock cannons are on my list to play with sometime, just so long as they have no delay in firing like rail guns - I'm not very good with these. I'm, going to try out frag cannons on a FAS and a Mamba with a huge beam laser next. I got Zacariah Nemo unlocked before work this morning so I can get grade 5 engineering on frags done.

No delay and auto reload. However heat like an RG and you have to press the trigger to fire every shot. They also get a larger spead with each round. Insane damage up close and crap ammo. Assaination missions or don't.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I am quite sure many Commanders know my answers to both of those questions by now, which is:

• Mamba
• Fragment Cannons
• Power Plant

Shields are handled mostly with stabbing, a class 4 Beam Laser, and one appropriate sidearm (Cytoscrambler if you have one, otherwise a class 1 Rail Gun).

Demonstration:

https://iniv.space/s/a9ArC4.mp4

Loadout:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Fire groups:

https://iniv.space/s/suLhQD.jpg

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

Two questions here in case they have a different answer.
What is your favourite combat ship?
And...
What is the combat ship you can destroy everything from an Eagle to an Anaconda/Corvette the quickest in?

Obviously the build matters too.
More a PVE rather than PVP question.

For PvP, Pacifier/rail Python
For PvE, fuel PAs and fuel rails, on Python.

 

[Lavrentij Palych]

My main objective: open-type PvE as dealing with CZ (high and medium) and SpecOps (Including SpecOps pirate in wing missions).

Three of my ships for this task, in the form of decrease in efficiency:

Anaconda:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Two weapon groups: anti-shield - automatic rails plus beams for their cooling and anti-hull multi-cannons. Focus on target's power plant.

Krait MkII:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Yep. Love this imperial hammers: best anti-shield weapon in the game. Don't know how to switch from gimbal to fixed armament? Here's a simple trick: railguns or beams and subsystems targeting.

Alliance Crusader:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

It's more of a wing dropship than a combat ship. But even in the medium CZ, she feels more than fine, especially with an elite NPC pilot on Gelid F Gu-97. The trick is in the amazing agility of this ship, which makes it easy to direct alpha strikes with frag and missiles.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I am quite sure many Commanders know my answers to both of those questions by now, which is:

• Mamba
• Fragment Cannons
• Power Plant

Shields are handled mostly with stabbing, a class 4 Beam Laser, and one appropriate sidearm (Cytoscrambler if you have one, otherwise a class 1 Rail Gun).

Demonstration:

https://iniv.space/s/a9ArC4.mp4

Loadout:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Fire groups:

https://iniv.space/s/suLhQD.jpg

I seem to have settled on a variation of your Mamba build as my dedicated combat ship. I'm not good with railguns and I decided on a huge rapid fire multi cannon with incendiary rounds instead of the beam laser to keep power draw on the power distributor down and reduce pip management workload. I've got a huge beam laser on an Anaconda I can always move across if I want to play with that. I've got the large frags and corrosive small multi cannon. The other small hardpoint has a small thermal vent beam laser just to help keep heat down, although I sometimes switch in an efficient pulse laser turret with emissive effect which helps with situation awareness with the target sometimes, and seems to help maintain target lock for the gimballed weapons.
It's a lot of fun that doesn't last long because of limited ammo and the double shot modification, but it kills medium and especially large ships very fast. Fortunately a member of my squadron keeps his Fleet Carrier parked near the compromised nav beacon we bounty hunt at, so reloads don't take long to get. The Mamba is the nearest to fighter pilot experience I've had in this game. An unfairly maligned ship at times. I've learned how to make it turn well, although I don't go in for complicated combinations of boost, FA off and landing gear. The landing gear step is one too many for me and I've not been able to make it add much of an advantage over keep in the blue zone for throttle and maybe a bit of FA off boost turn on occasion. I guess that needs more practice to master.

 

[Dragsham]

Quite a variation.
Mambas alliance vessels vultures vettes kraits.. fab.. shows an overall balance does it not.

For me it's an fdl (short range x4 railer with a big rapid firing multicannon) for single missions and pvp.
A vette with 4k biweaves and a raft of beams. Pve
Another with 6k prismatics and all rapid firing incendiary multicannons for piratelords.
But my favourite as Op asked is my smuggling krait ll.
2 drag packhounds and 3 double shot screening shell pacifiers.
All fully engineered of course.
Oddly my cutter has PAs. 5 of em hehehe, with 2 drag packhounds on the nacelles. Focused so the PAs are much quicker.
Rails are my goto funwise. Short and long range work well on a conda. Nice convergence.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Quite a variation.
Mambas alliance vessels vultures vettes kraits.. fab.. shows an overall balance does it not.

For me it's an fdl (short range x4 railer with a big rapid firing multicannon) for single missions and pvp.
A vette with 4k biweaves and a raft of beams. Pve
Another with 6k prismatics and all rapid firing incendiary multicannons for piratelords.
But my favourite as Op asked is my smuggling krait ll.
2 drag packhounds and 3 double shot screening shell pacifiers.
All fully engineered of course.
Oddly my cutter has PAs. 5 of em hehehe, with 2 drag packhounds on the nacelles. Focused so the PAs are much quicker.
Rails are my goto funwise. Short and long range work well on a conda. Nice convergence.

There is quite a lot of variety here.
Must add pacifiers on my Krait II to my to try list. That's a month of pledging to wait to begin with.

 

[Dragsham]

Pacifiers frag cannons rails and PAs have no regard for shields.
And that's why I use em

 

[Shir]

Most effective is my BGS Corvette, gimballed multis and beam lasers, wanted in half the Galaxy..

Most enjoyable is my vulture, same weapons, perfect combination of firepower and FAoff fighter fun!

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I seem to have settled on a variation of your Mamba build as my dedicated combat ship. I'm not good with railguns and I decided on a huge rapid fire multi cannon with incendiary rounds instead of the beam laser to keep power draw on the power distributor down and reduce pip management workload. I've got a huge beam laser on an Anaconda I can always move across if I want to play with that. I've got the large frags and corrosive small multi cannon. The other small hardpoint has a small thermal vent beam laser just to help keep heat down, although I sometimes switch in an efficient pulse laser turret with emissive effect which helps with situation awareness with the target sometimes, and seems to help maintain target lock for the gimballed weapons.
It's a lot of fun that doesn't last long because of limited ammo and the double shot modification, but it kills medium and especially large ships very fast. Fortunately a member of my squadron keeps his Fleet Carrier parked near the compromised nav beacon we bounty hunt at, so reloads don't take long to get. The Mamba is the nearest to fighter pilot experience I've had in this game. An unfairly maligned ship at times. I've learned how to make it turn well, although I don't go in for complicated combinations of boost, FA off and landing gear. The landing gear step is one too many for me and I've not been able to make it add much of an advantage over keep in the blue zone for throttle and maybe a bit of FA off boost turn on occasion. I guess that needs more practice to master.

Thank you most kindly; hearing about results of inspiration and improvement means ever so much to me, as does discovering what modifications other Commanders decide to make.

Emissive Munitions is indeed a pleasant luxury, where cold targets are just about rare enough to make it non-essential, despite imposing a much larger impact than is the case with Chaff. If I felt it necessary, I think I would make room for it by moving Corrosive Shell to a class 3 hardpoint. Either way though, you are applying the correct general idea with how one should treat the Mamba class 1 hardpoints: as anything except a traditional weapon. For the most part they exist to provide support effects, though weapons with uniform Pierce are also allowable, such as a Rail Gun or an explosive.

On that very point, I suggest aiming to obtain a Cytoscrambler. Quite independently of whether the Fragment Cannons are Overcharged, Double Shot or Rapid Fire, I found that the Cytoscrambler overture replaces most uses of Fragment Cannon rounds against target shields, leaving so much more ammunition available for the Power Plant symphony. It can even tear into the hull of a smaller target when used in combination with Corrosive Shell, where its 1 Pierce becomes effectively 21.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Thank you most kindly; hearing about results of inspiration and improvement means ever so much to me, as does discovering what modifications other Commanders decide to make.

Emissive Munitions is indeed a pleasant luxury, where cold targets are just about rare enough to make it non-essential, despite imposing a much larger impact than is the case with Chaff. If I felt it necessary, I think I would make room for it by moving Corrosive Shell to a class 3 hardpoint. Either way though, you are applying the correct general idea with how one should treat the Mamba class 1 hardpoints: as anything except a traditional weapon. For the most part they exist to provide support effects, though weapons with uniform Pierce are also allowable, such as a Rail Gun or an explosive.

On that very point, I suggest aiming to obtain a Cytoscrambler. Quite independently of whether the Fragment Cannons are Overcharged, Double Shot or Rapid Fire, I found that the Cytoscrambler overture replaces most uses of Fragment Cannon rounds against target shields, leaving so much more ammunition available for the Power Plant symphony. It can even tear into the hull of a smaller target when used in combination with Corrosive Shell, where its 1 Pierce becomes effectively 21.

Actually I have been meaning to try the crypto scrambler laser sometime, but had not considered putting it on the Mamba small hard point(s). I don't think I'm pledged to anyone right now, so could have them end of 3rd week of August - I'm away from home and offline for most of early August.
I normally use the turret pulse with emissive on the Corvette where the additional situational awareness helps keep track of smaller faster targets running rings around the big relatively slow Corvette. The other small hardpoint on the Covette is, of course, grade 5 high capacity mutlicannon with corrosive. Despite the high capacity engineering, its still the first to run out of ammo.

 

[Gamsir]

My favorite is my 6 year old Vulture.
I’m partial to small ships, don’t have any use for cargospace and this bird does anything I want it to.
Getting the shields down on an elite Corvette is time consuming, but using a small ship really ups the challenge a bit and forces you to fly smart and use positioning.
Btw I have great fun with scramble spectrum pulselasers so I always have one.

AN honorable mention contender to my Vulture is my beloved Viper mk IV.

My most effective ship is my Challenger. It’s a shield tank build with a good armor reserve, but nothing has ever broken the shields (Besides Thargoids).

The Challenger pitches a full 360 deg 0,7 s slower than a Chieftain or Vulture at similar outfitting, but you can actually set throttle to about 60 or 70% (top blue zone) getting 35-50 ms more speed and the Challenger will not loose momentum when doing fast turns! It’s the only ship I’ve tried with this flightmodel. This means it’s far more easy and effective to position yourself to your target.

When outfitting similarly, the challenger gets more shields, similar armor and higher sustained dps than the other medium ships that I fly (chieftain, FDL and FAS) - Well of course the FDL has higher shields, but those are redundant. And the Challenger’s got a better flightmodel IMO.
Simply put; It flies perfect, melts targets, has perfect shields and great backup armor.