whats your loadout for bounty hunting/conflict zone fighting?

[CMDR saitama]

mining void opals is fun and all (it's really not, how people do this for hours on end I dont know) but combat I've heard is the way to for decent income

so whats your loadout? I'm thinking of either getting a FDL or Krait, Krait cause having a fighter to distract for me sounds nice but I've heard the FDL can be quite deadly aswell. what do you think?

 

[Ashnak]

Different
BH: Krait Mk.II, three rapid fire/screening shell Pacifiers, two gimballed MCs, one of them high cap/corrosive
CZ: Mamba, two cytos, two gimballed beams efficient/thermal vent, huge PA

----
Oh yes forgot about the fighter on the Krait.

 

[Rock Hunter]

If you don’t want to share your earnings and rank (unless you‘re Elite in combat already) you could go with the FdL and fit a Huge efficient PA and four overcharged multi cannons, or a full gimballed multi cannon build if fixed weapons aren’t for you.

For CZs I’ve tended to use smaller ships following advice received when I started playing a few years back (you’ll garner less attention being the idea but as soon as you start taking down opponents that no longer seems to apply) and stuck with them, they’re such fun. For those I like the Courier and I’m back to enjoying a Vulture with two Pacifier Frags. Not much ammo but a whole lot of fun.

 

[Treya]

Do it long enough and anything becomes dull, that's why I like to switch things up. The current money meta seems to be stacking massacre missions which is a subset of bounty hunting but after a while that gets just as repetitive as cracking rocks. Luckily there are more options for combat, so don't get hung up on just massacres.
CZs are a bit of a divisive topic because the ships encountered in these are heavy on the defense with some finding that to be too much of a bullet sponge, others (like me) enjoy it because it requires better tactics and loadouts. Definitely check them out (especially those with a Fed or Imp faction as those can bring in Capital Ships which are a sight to behold) but for starters it's probably better to start out with BH at a (compromised) nav beacon. Against pirates there is less need for engineering plus the income there tends to be better as well.
Krait Mk II and FDL are both solid choices, personally I prefer the Alliance C Ships. They are all capable of taking on pretty much anything so try them all and see which one you like better.
Equipment wise Lasers and Multis are a classic, start off with the gimballed versions then move on to fixed lasers. Next up are cannons and frags, both have their uses but require a bit more practice. At the upper end of the scale are rail guns and plasmas, devastating in the right hands but fixed aiming skills need to be well developed (which is one reason why I recommended fixed lasers earlier).
Engineering is a topic well unto its own but arguably the most useful one is to apply the corrosive experimental effect onto a MC as that elevates the damage potential of every weapon hitting the target.
Also, for bounty hunting a kill warrant scanner can improve your earnings so if you have a spare slot bring one.

Other than that go out there and try things, find a ship and weapon combo that works for you and your playstyle - that's where half of the fun is.

 

[GunnerBill]

Corvette.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Cmdr Snuffler]

Big ships are for beginners...or Cmdrs who are "lazy"
Small/Medium is where the fun and skill is at.

Vulture is the only ship I use for combat, be it any missions or High CZs:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[wenkman]

i think you ask for loadout not for my favorite ship?

i would suggest weapons that dont run empty fast to prolong your stay. in CZ or RES you often have NPCs on your side to help soften the tougher targets up.

so for loadout:

• good shield that can recharge
  • (e.g. bi-weave+ shield boosters, a ship that can carry 4 boosters, engineering is recommended)
  • bring you shield up to 2000 plain or some 1500 if you focus on resistance augments
• weapon for shields
  • multiple C2/3 beams with termal venting
  • huge plasma accellerator (maybe with Plasma Slug for ammo)
  • rails (limited ammo)
• weapon for hull
  • C1/2 multis with corrosive shell (corrosive shell is cheap to get and very usefull)
  • other to your liking that dont run out of ammo fast.
• for taking out many small/medium enemies a big ship with turrets is not uncool
• for taking out few strong targets medium ship with gimball/fixed is better (yes, FDL)

 

[goemon]

i'm using a bunch of different ships for conflictzones (and bhing)
eagle loadout a: full MC
eagle loadout b: beam, mc, cannon
cobra mkIII: burst, pulse, small mc, small seekers
DBE: full MC
FDL: huge mc, burst, pulse, beam, seekers
krait mkII: fighter, large beam, 2 large mc, medium pulse, medium seekers
python: 2 large pulses, 1 large burst, medium seekers, medium pulse
corvette: fighter, 2 huge MC, 2 medium pulses, large seekers,small mc + small pulse
cutter: fighter, huge beam, 2 large + 1 medium frag, medium mc, medium pulse turret, medium seekers

i have sported various frag loadouts for some time (frag courier, frag cobra, frag fas, frag python) - and also a railgun and a plasma DBS. weapon choice is for some dictated by special effects to apply. seekers are great in cz against eagles and fighters, and good to strip chaff.

• bi weave shields thermal reistant for fast recharge
• pulses to apply emissive to buff gimbal tracking
• corrosive MC to buff damage and armour piercing
• beam with thermal vent to keep the ships running cool
• medium pulse and burst lasers focussed, all others G1 longrange
• seekers with drag munition on the slower ships
• overcharged multies either with autoloader or incendiary
• corrosive multis with ammo increased
• frags with G3 ammo increase for 6 shotspre reload
• ion a cz, point defense help.

 

[Oytis57]

Well it depends on your preferences,I have 4 ships for thet job with different loadouts, Combat it's a lot of fun but if you are after real money you have to stack Massacre Missions in Wing. The best source of money actually is a Python and Robigo Mines Passenger runs to Sothis Sirius Atmospheric Beacon, 8 minutes job (four jumps in all,going and return,no need to scoop either) and about 120/180 Millions an hour.

 

[Winterwalker]

Krait II bounty hunting I concentrate on collecting materials and 'confiscating' cargo. Long range (module interference) pulse lasers (times three) for knocking out the FSD, two small beam laser for dropping shields. Cell bank defenses, hatch break and collector limpets (x2) controllers, wake and kill warrant scanners, couple of shield boosters. 64 ton hold the rest is made up with module reinforcement packages and autocruise tools, for travelling between degraded emission signals.

 

[Vahnkiljoy]

In my Krait 2, a medium beam/pulse and 3 large seeker missiles. Guardian fighters as well.

 

[CMDR D Noize]

My personal favourites, Armoured Mambas with 4 Burst Lasers and a Huge MC

For BH/HAZ RES purposes...
Laser Raptor

For CZs
Disco 3000

 

[d8veh]

If you want to make a lot of money RES farming, you need an all laser loadout with at least some of them long range. Some of the lasers will probably have to be efficient with flow control so that you can power them all and not drain your PD too quickly. You also need sensors that can see at least 12km and a relatively fast ship. Other essential things are biweave shields and SCBs if your ship has sufficient shield strength to give you time to use them, like an FDL or any of the big 3. A fighter will take a percentage of your earnings, but if you use it right, it can boost your earnings rate above that. Next, you need a kill warrant scanner to boost your overall earnings by 30%. Finally, you need to sign up with Zachary or ALD and do at least level 2 powerplay to get their bonus, which would be 20% to 40% for level 2, depending where they are in the charts, or 100% bonus for level 5. Say you could earn 25 mil/hr bounties. With the KWS, that would go up to 33 mil/hr, and with level 5 PP, that would go up to 66 mil/hr. If you can find kill pirate missions as well, your earnings would be very much higher.

Conflict zones are similar regarding the sensors, long range weapons and speed, except that you can use some weapons that require ammo especially if the station is near the CZs, which they're sometimes not, especially if you've been fighting in CZs nearby and are loaded up with missions, only to find that the local CZs have gone and the only available ones are 100kls away. A KWS has no use for CZs.

Even with missions, CZs don't pay as well as RES farming.

 

[Eraden]

For Hi Rez and medium CZ I use my Type 10. It has 4 large gimballed oversized long range burst lasers and 3 medium turreted overcharged smart round (so I don't tag system authorities or allies) multi cannons and 2 small turreted overcharged smart round multicannons. It's not the most dps that could be achieved but it's a lazy man's set up that does not require a lot of twitch skills. When I do combat, it's really more for a bit of casual fun than any kind of attempt to challenge my skills. Oh, by the way, I also have a Taipan that is controlled by an elite NPC crew member.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

My vote is for a federal assault ship with some mix of fixed plasma and cannons on the bottom and a gimballed corrosive multi on top. Bi weave shield, 2 Resistance augmented boosters, chaff and point defense.

 

[Schmack]

Big ships are for beginners...or Cmdrs who are "lazy"
Small/Medium is where the fun and skill is at.

Vulture is the only ship I use for combat, be it any missions or High CZs:

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

This is interesting since I started off in a Vulture and progressed to a vette.

I get it that smaller ships don't get the dps and aggro tanking capability as the larger ones, but there's something to be said for knowing how to stay engaged with small ships when you're flying that beast. The Vulture is a lot more fun to fly though, but you basically lose nothing when it all goes south. With a vette you'll likely look to dip out when the shields drop.

 

[Schmack]

If you want to make a lot of money RES farming, you need an all laser loadout with at least some of them long range. Some of the lasers will probably have to be efficient with flow control so that you can power them all and not drain your PD too quickly. You also need sensors that can see at least 12km and a relatively fast ship. Other essential things are biweave shields and SCBs if your ship has sufficient shield strength to give you time to use them, like an FDL or any of the big 3. A fighter will take a percentage of your earnings, but if you use it right, it can boost your earnings rate above that. Next, you need a kill warrant scanner to boost your overall earnings by 30%. Finally, you need to sign up with Zachary or ALD and do at least level 2 powerplay to get their bonus, which would be 20% to 40% for level 2, depending where they are in the charts, or 100% bonus for level 5. Say you could earn 25 mil/hr bounties. With the KWS, that would go up to 33 mil/hr, and with level 5 PP, that would go up to 66 mil/hr. If you can find kill pirate missions as well, your earnings would be very much higher.

Conflict zones are similar regarding the sensors, long range weapons and speed, except that you can use some weapons that require ammo especially if the station is near the CZs, which they're sometimes not, especially if you've been fighting in CZs nearby and are loaded up with missions, only to find that the local CZs have gone and the only available ones are 100kls away. A KWS has no use for CZs.

Even with missions, CZs don't pay as well as RES farming.

RES farming w/pirate missions stacked is the ultimate.

 

[Cmdr Snuffler]

This is interesting since I started off in a Vulture and progressed to a vette.

I get it that smaller ships don't get the dps and aggro tanking capability as the larger ones, but there's something to be said for knowing how to stay engaged with small ships when you're flying that beast. The Vulture is a lot more fun to fly though, but you basically lose nothing when it all goes south. With a vette you'll likely look to dip out when the shields drop.

It's very common for Cmdrs to go from small to medium to large, thinking that large is better.
In an engineered ship, be it small or large, you only see a rebuy screen if you want to see a rebuy screen....with a correctly specced ship that is. So it makes no diff that the rebuy for a vette is much more than a Vulture.
That said, what's fun for me, or you, might not be fun for someone else...I do own a fully pimped out vette, just because I can. But the only time I've flown it is to engineers and once or twice to try it out in combat. It simply does not put a smile on my face
The other thing Cmdrs sometimes overlook is that yes, a large ship does have more fire power and dps, but if youu're only only youur target for 30% of the time, compared to 99% of the time when flying a Vulture, then the Vulture gets the quicker kill

 

[Riverside]

It's very common for Cmdrs to go from small to medium to large, thinking that large is better.
In an engineered ship, be it small or large, you only see a rebuy screen if you want to see a rebuy screen....with a correctly specced ship that is. So it makes no diff that the rebuy for a vette is much more than a Vulture.
That said, what's fun for me, or you, might not be fun for someone else...I do own a fully pimped out vette, just because I can. But the only time I've flown it is to engineers and once or twice to try it out in combat. It simply does not put a smile on my face
The other thing Cmdrs sometimes overlook is that yes, a large ship does have more fire power and dps, but if youu're only only youur target for 30% of the time, compared to 99% of the time when flying a Vulture, then the Vulture gets the quicker kill

I really like the Corvette, that it's great at PvE combat is just a bonus

I can certainly kill any one ship more quickly with frags (Chieftain is fun & easy, Python is a good jack of all trades, FDL punishes mistakes & rewards finesse). But if I want to kill a lot of ships I use a Corvette.

Current CZ ship of choice is a vette with 1x C3 long range thermal vent fixed beam under the nose & 2x C4 short range multi-s (one corrosive, can't remember what the other one is, probably autoloader) and whatever lasers I have spare power for in the other four hardpoints. And a 2-bay SLF hanger with fixed beam imp fighters for the NPC pilot to chew through.

 

[Schmack]

It's very common for Cmdrs to go from small to medium to large, thinking that large is better.
In an engineered ship, be it small or large, you only see a rebuy screen if you want to see a rebuy screen....with a correctly specced ship that is. So it makes no diff that the rebuy for a vette is much more than a Vulture.
That said, what's fun for me, or you, might not be fun for someone else...I do own a fully pimped out vette, just because I can. But the only time I've flown it is to engineers and once or twice to try it out in combat. It simply does not put a smile on my face
The other thing Cmdrs sometimes overlook is that yes, a large ship does have more fire power and dps, but if youu're only only youur target for 30% of the time, compared to 99% of the time when flying a Vulture, then the Vulture gets the quicker kill

Well that's a completely different take than saying big ships are for beginners or lazy people. I think we can all appreciate individual builds and fly the platform of our choice without ship shaming.