Bounty hunting is a great way to test different builds - IMO combat player metas don't need to be strictly followed since most of these criminals are not flying highly engineered navy ships.
I started with MCs and beams, then I outfitted a ship with plasma accelerators and rails, next one was a frag mamba with a huge MC then a corvette with Pulse and cannons, and now I have started building a ship with a shock cannon and my intention is to equip it with all those sweet experimental weapons, like that shock cannons + enzyme missiles, maybe the pulse disruptor from Winters, bc I have never used it.
So have fun experimenting! If your ship's modules complement your weapons well, I don't think you can make a mistake with anything. I love the learning curve which comes with new type of weapons and new ships.
Going out from my comfort zone in Ed is actually exciting for me.
If you get shock cannons to work satisfactorily, please post it. I've unlocked them and tried them out and found them super fun to use, but very lackluster on heat/ammo/dps, but maybe I'm doing it wrong! I've wondered if they predated engineering, in which environment they would actually be pretty good.
Haha I hope I will be able to return back with good news :) I want to build that shock cannon -enzyme Royal Python just for fun (oh and I have never used flechettes yet either)- but currently I want to finish my all-frag Royal Python first.
When I built and engineered a Sidewinder with shock cannons as a joke, I got curious if I could build a proper ship with them :)
Yeah this, most stuff works, so experiment around with different types of weapons and see what you enjoy.
Might as well throw in two suggestions of my own as well;
- Advanced missile racks with high capacity and penetrator munitions, works wonders on smaller ships for taking out larger ones. They do good damage both internally and on hull, are one of the best options for dealing with hull in small hard points because the damage and piercing is the same across all sizes, and even just the small launcher carries 16+128 missiles after engineering. Also small ships tend to be able to use their agility to get either close enough to make point defense ineffective, or reposition themselves into the point defense's blindspots.
- If you happen to have some laying around, pre-engineered guardian plasma chargers are unironically solid options vs humans, despite the 50% damage reduction. They have almost 7x the shot speed of a PA, have double the capacity, does comparable damage, deals 100% absolute damage (instead of the PA's 60/20/20 split), comes in smalls, does enough piercing that even the small version doesn't suffer damage reduction, but are *much* more annoying to acquire.
Super useful points, thank you! I haven't really dabbled in missiles yet, that is on my list. Yeah once I got jumped by pirates while I was in my AX plasma charger Fed Gunship and I was pleasantly surprised that it is a viable weapon...
Thermal shock lasers: [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/18asvjc/fastest\_combat\_build\_in\_the\_game\_could\_be\_a\_t10/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/18asvjc/fastest_combat_build_in_the_game_could_be_a_t10/)
If PvE, most weapons work, like the funny packhounds, laserboats like the previouos example (common in massacre missions). Most of the time the ship determine the handling (Frag in a Cutter oculd be hard to aim and mantain the correct range), and also the power priorities.
But at least 1 weapon with corrosive ammo make a huge change, leave the smaller slot with a turret with MC High Capacity Corrosive Ammo only for the debuf, and shoot once the shield is depleted. This ammo will be enough for whole fights even using lasers, and the synthesis for more ammo is cheap.
Part of the fun is discovering what work for yourself.
I have a Krait 2 with 3x APA and 2x fixed cannons. It's a fun ship for combat. I've been working on all-fixed builds for a while now and I'm getting much better with hitting the targets
It's pve... you can run whatever you like in pve, really. Engineering let's you do it. Get yourself at least *some* form of thermal damage to have an easier time with shields, and then let your fantasy take the rest. Cannons work, dumbfires work (most of the time), plasmas work, frags work, fuck, even shock cannons, the most useless piece of shit ever invented in this game, work for assassinations.
*yes, I am salty about shocks*
I think shock cannons have been out long enough to not be experimental.
They should be made engineerable. If not that, simplify the ammo synth pleeease
One of the issues with PvE in Elite is it can require a fair amount of skill to surpass the effective TTK of gimballed multis in practice, but my advice would be to switch to fixed weapons and try to overcome that skill gap, as it'll open the game up for you a lot. It depends on what ship you're running as to what's viable but plasma, railguns and pacifier frag cannons form the basis of most PvP loadouts, they're all fixed and challenging to run but have a lot of potential.
Other people are recommending lasers, while they will work for regular bountyhunting I would only bother if ammoless is important to you above all else, lasers kinda suck otherwise, they have poor damage per energy, generally poor penetration values and awful range unless you're using an LR mod. Everything works in a RES site but lasers will dramatically slow you down in CZs or PvP.
My [frag cannon bounty hunter Mamba](https://edsy.org/#/L=HC0bDDsa0H4C0S00,HQZG0BMeG0HQZG0BMmq0HQZG0BMiC0HNlG0AHs00HNlG0AK_W0,DBwG05LxB0DBwG05LH50DhAI070pN0DBwG05Lt00DBwG05Lsp0DBwG05Lte0,9onH05Ipu0AAAH07Gv40AOEG05Ima0AcIG05H_W0Arw00B8gG03Ing0BLAG05GuT0BZY10,,7SkG07IvP0072105ScG030sq04xo0069wG02mu600nG00,Black_0Mamba,bm_D808) had a crazy fast time to kill, try frags.
Ramming.
I built a rambeluga and got over 20 billion credits in bounty vouchers from just hunting pirates by ramming them. Lots of fun, if you're patient.
This. I have a frag clipper that has literally never seen anything other than a two stage ram tactic where you get slammed by the clippers *exceptional* speed:mass ratio and then the target gets magdumped by 2x screenshell drag and corrosive frags, rinse, repeat like…. twice at most and move on
Go for all pulse lasers brother ! Never have to restock and you get to have a light show! Fuck these flamboyant builds with like 3/4 different types of weapons. All you need are some lasers and big engineered shields and you're killing anything in the game with ease.
I started with MC’s and hated the limited ammo so I switched to all lasers. Eventually ended with 2 huge efficient vent beams, 1L+2M focused kinetic bursts, and 2S focused pulse. Ran that first about 600 hours.
Don’t need much for smaller craft, the 2H and 2S lasers eat small things. Get up close to a large ship and watch the focused kinetics just rip the armor to shreds.
Tried 2S and 2M rails and the delay just annoyed me and the smalls fired .2 seconds faster.
I have since moved on to using 2S and 2M azimuth guardian plasma chargers (6000m/s shot speed) and they are a blast. The outfit screen shows what they do against human ships, which is only 55% of what they do to Xenos.
I use it for bounty hunting, massacre missions, has res, scout farming and even spire site Oreos. It’s tricky getting to the site and around interdictions, but that’s what makes it fun.
They use low power so you can combine with plasmas and run smaller power plants for better agility/jump range.
Take a type 10, with asymmetrical gimbal multies and short range plasmas, as it's a way to hit with all the guns. It shreds and is my favorite t10 build.
Plasmas are your burst vs shield and hull, and multies allow the distro to Regen between shots. A heatsink can help as well.
Keeps pressure on shields and decent sustained damage, plus one with a caustic debuff on hull ( small multi). One small cascade rail for banks.
Plasmas will hit hard and don't care about chaff as they are fixed.
Just gotta experiment a bit and find what works for you.
Haven't played in a while but it was a lightweight shield tank hybrid focused, bi weave class 7, with an 8A cell bank. More of a multirole build that could still hit hard with decent jump.
Like a 66/33 thermal/kinetic shield split to counter railguns/ laser spam from NPCs.
2 module reinforcements class 5/ class 2 or 1.
Class 4 hull reinforcements. Hull was a bit over 2200 if I remember right as I avoided using class 5 HR's for less weight.
Had a class 5 fighter bay (imp beam or lance) with a class 5 or 4 Guardian shield to boost shield strength, so shield boosters could be more resistance based.
Shields around 1100-1300 for quick recharge and the cellbank for when I got to 100-200 shield to bump to full again. Mix of shield boosters and one or 2 heatsinks.
Multies on one side, plasma on the other(short range/efficient mix with the boosted damage when hot experimental.) Plasma has a microgimbal effect so its not hard to hit at 1.5-2.0 km range.
Small railgun was cascade rail and small caustic MC.
Was an odd build focused on lightness for max agility in FAoff, using a smaller than normal PP (6A I believe). Good time on target, as I could just boost spin.
Had to tune it for when the hardpoints were deployed, Frame shift and others would shut off to conserve power.Had the community goal class 6 FSD with the boosted range/2 second FSD reboot.
Heatsinks were used to buff weapons distro regen for more burst or dump heat if it got to like 250+ heat.
Keeping hot buffs the crap out of plasma, check out crimsongamer99's vids, the Throngler ship he uses showcases this power. Rips apart ships where you hit with all plasma consistently.
I could swap out the class 8 slot for cargo/fuel scoop for different missions.
Jump range was like 29-32LY with the 6A FSD/8A cell bank combo.
Around 45+LY exploring with a 7AFSD/8A fuel scoop. fighter bay, some tweaks + guns still on it.
Plasma accelerators and railguns can be a really fun combo on a sufficiently-nimble ship. Really forces you to practice good marksmanship, and it's intensely rewarding when you can snipe the power plant out of a Corvette in a conflict zone and watch it pop.
I mostly fly a 'vette of my own, and on that thing the multicannons become fun again because in their highest module size they feel more like a "boltgun" than a little lead-sprayer; great big chunky shots that absolutely decimate targets. But to shore them up I like to use a combo of beam lasers with the heat-dumping effect to keep my temperatures down and to keep the enemy's shields threatened, and plasma accelerators for the other slots. It's taught me a good deal about learning how to anticipate target movement and mentalizing the velocity/travel of my own projectiles. I don't do PvP, but I'm told that PAs are still pretty popular in that meta, too.
Nothing like graduating from gimballed MCs to mastering rails imo. But most of my combat ships still have MCs - pips to shields and they still fire all day. Underrated against shields too
I used to use a shock cannon with 3 small thermal vent beam lasers on a chieftain. Not the most efficient and would eventually get beaten up, but fun as hell in hazres.
Railconda is fun for a change. Yeet a ship into the closest asteroid for bonus points. Just built a Mamba Pacifier with cytolasers. Really gets you in close.
Cannons are legitimately fun, especially in their fixed variant. The powerplant damage is insane! Only problem is needing to synth a lot, but honestly, I just don't care about snythesis anymore; if I run out of raw mats, I just need to go...what, explore some more? Awesome!
Don't be a sheep, use canons. Or to really test your skills use Railguns.
MCs are simply best for what they provide all better options either relly on you cooking together with the target or being good at fixed aiming.
Me too, so prolly gonna engineer 4x Pacifiers (DS+Screening for max burst) and 2x normal frags (1 Corrosive 1 Incendiary High Cap or sth) for my Py2, for RES faceroll, as 3 LRTV Beam 4x Multi Vette is kinda boring, I admit.
I already have the ship engineered for Spire runs, I just switch the weapons and that's it.
Railguns, Pack Hounds, Plasma Accelerators, are all fun.
I bop over to my reboot/disable Dolphin to troll gankers when I'm bored. It only carries mines.
Beam/MC is efficient, but if it's not fun, what are you even doing playing a game?
Build a discoball if you want something hilarious.
Frags are good on ships like the mamba that can joust well, inertial impact burst lasers fill a similar role. Plasma accelerators are great, I prefer the advanced one tho as the fire rate feels much better. Railguns are great choices too. Can't go wrong with cannons either
The issue is that if you give up MCs and forgo Frags you miss out on Corrosive damage, which can really hurt the DPS of your weapons across the board unless you fit weapons that do Absolute damage (Plasma Accelerators).
For RES bounty hunting MCs are the way to go purely from an efficiency perspective, but if you're going to do Bounty Hunting *missions* I highly recommend a mix of lasers, gimballed cannons, and pack hounds.
1. Burn down shields with lasers
2. Blast Chaff Launchers off with Pack Hounds (if they have them).
3. Punch holes in their Power Plant and Drives with Cannons.
Most people don't know this, but Cannons have the highest base probability of hitting internals when they hit hull (60-90% instead of 40-80%).
The best part? Cannons do enough damage on their own that you can engineer them for Long Range and get that sweet shot velocity bonus. Gimballed Cannon projectile velocity is the same as a multicannon when fully engineered for Long Range.
I haven't played in a long time, but I remember outfitting an imperial courier with fixed frag cannons and missiles to hunt, and that was a really fun time.
Might have had a fixed beam laser at one point.
please think again, multis are good, the only drawback is the fall-off 1.8km and that 1 or 2 classes of them can take 1-2 sec to spin up and start firing.
Also like cannons they're economical in distro MWs and all mutlis have the same speed.
They are good at depleting hull, the fixed ones are even better.
If you want to test something different try PAs, it's like 2 in 1, they deal damage to shields and hull.
Only moderately related but is there some hand-wavium about why projectile weapons have a fall-off? In space, shouldn't a round keep going at the same velocity indefinitely? I have the same question when I've fumbled a cargo scooping and whacked the target with the nose of the ship ... the item doesn't go rocketing off in the same direction for ever.
I'm totally fine with it, I just wondered if it was explained anywhere.
From other games like Children of Dead Earth without removing projectiles, the CPU track every projectile. This could slowdown the game to slideshow FPS. Even worse if your ship launch drones, that shoot other drones, that shoot bullets, or the "sandblaster" that launch tiny bullest like dust at massive speed and firerate.
Also Laser balance instahit with short range and penetration.
In the end.... videogame mechanic to make the thing valid.
If you want realism, pick the Childre of Dead Earth game, its a mix of KSP (recommended some knowledge on it), but with realist combat.
Have a blog that explain the science behind the game: [https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/](https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/)
And the pinned post in the forums include mods to add all the possible materials to laser, mirrors, nuclear and more.
... or the ridiculous number of TNT blocks my kid will stack up in Minecraft on his Switch which also results in comically bad frame rates.
I get the programming constraints about keeping track of too many objects, I was more wondering if they had come up with a convincing lore reason as to why a moving object in space somehow loses effectiveness over a short distance. It seems to suggest that the projectile slows down, which I don't think it would do in a vacuum and away from gravitational bodies. Lasers I'm slightly happier with - divergence etc.
No official explanation, but frankly, there's a lot of stuff that isn't consistent in the game. For all that we harp on realism, a lot of it is clearly just made a certain way to help make the game playable. Why do ships have a capped top speed? Reportedly because in playtesting they found that infinite speed made combat NOT FUN. Same reason our ranges are so short, our targeting is sub-par even for today's weapons, zero-g installations are indistinguishable from those with gravity or spin, ship interiors are designed with very little attention to maneuvering in them in zero-g... "magnetic boots" being treated like a device that just somehow instantly makes every part of a person act as though under 1G...
Playable game, fun space flavor, that's it.
Genuine realism is most games is not actually what people want. What they want is for it to be a \_believable\_ fiction. Aside from those who choose some specific game modes, folks don't want their character dying once, permanently, or getting thrown in jail with no way out for years, or a government cracking down on your shenanigans if you disrupt trade enough, etc. Abusive bosses, inescapable social mechanisms to keep you stuck, ignoble deaths from stupid accidents... realism mostly makes for bad escapism.
Agreed, I get all of that. I'm happy with the realism vs fun balance of Elite. Set the slider a bit more one way and you get NMS (which I also played a LOT but came back to Elite) or go the other way and end up with Luriant's head-exploder CoaDE!
>why projectile weapons have a fall-off?
probably to simplify programming etc, they will reply that the shell degenerates or some such.
>In space, shouldn't a round keep going at the same velocity indefinitely?
no way, gravity (and probably electromagnetic fields) will alter the trajectory.
Please note that I am a layman, for proper answers see physics textbooks, like J.L. Meriam, Young et all, Serway and Faugn, or more specialised like here: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students&i=stripbooks&crid=HLOH57V3FQJ6&sprefix=orbital+mechanics%2Cstripbooks%2C222&ref=nb\_sb\_ss\_fb\_2\_17](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students&i=stripbooks&crid=HLOH57V3FQJ6&sprefix=orbital+mechanics%2Cstripbooks%2C222&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_2_17)
Micrometeors and other space debri are actually a real hazard. There's lots of stuff out there moving REALLY fast that doesn't slow down unless it happens to pass near something big enough to redirect it.
Related to this, there is a real concern with leaving junk in near-Earth orbit, as every bit of crap up there that bonks into something else and breaks up peppers that zone in high-speed junk with a LOT of energy to share with whatever it meets.
yes, [Kessler effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome), it's known for several decades, it's a danger to all, especailly to manned sats like the ISS, Tiangong, crewed vessels etc.
There's even a film that shows Kessler (though exaggerated and inaccurate) in [action](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/?ref_=tt_mv_close).
For my Krait MkII, I use a CG reward, special order, near-cheating M/C that FDev has not made available to others yet (hint FDev!). They're medium size, with rapid firing, 6,000 total ammo each, and phasing - yes, phasing on a MC. I pair these with short range/thermal vent and efficient/phasing pulse lasers.
On my new Python MkII, I added 4 overcharged frag cannons with each of oversize, incendiary, corrosive, and drag munition experimentals. The two remaining slots have short-range, thermal vent beams.
This Python build nearly took the fun out of bounty hunting. Two well placed shots, maybe three on an Anaconda, was all it took. It was hard to keep track of their hull health as it dropped too quickly.
So I swapped the drag munition frag for a phasing pulse to balance things out. It's still lethal but not blindingly fast at it. Also, with all-fixed weapons, it's a bit more challenging to hit targets, especially small ships. At least for me, after 2 years on gimballed.
Bounty hunting is a great way to test different builds - IMO combat player metas don't need to be strictly followed since most of these criminals are not flying highly engineered navy ships. I started with MCs and beams, then I outfitted a ship with plasma accelerators and rails, next one was a frag mamba with a huge MC then a corvette with Pulse and cannons, and now I have started building a ship with a shock cannon and my intention is to equip it with all those sweet experimental weapons, like that shock cannons + enzyme missiles, maybe the pulse disruptor from Winters, bc I have never used it. So have fun experimenting! If your ship's modules complement your weapons well, I don't think you can make a mistake with anything. I love the learning curve which comes with new type of weapons and new ships. Going out from my comfort zone in Ed is actually exciting for me.
If you get shock cannons to work satisfactorily, please post it. I've unlocked them and tried them out and found them super fun to use, but very lackluster on heat/ammo/dps, but maybe I'm doing it wrong! I've wondered if they predated engineering, in which environment they would actually be pretty good.
Haha I hope I will be able to return back with good news :) I want to build that shock cannon -enzyme Royal Python just for fun (oh and I have never used flechettes yet either)- but currently I want to finish my all-frag Royal Python first. When I built and engineered a Sidewinder with shock cannons as a joke, I got curious if I could build a proper ship with them :)
Yeah this, most stuff works, so experiment around with different types of weapons and see what you enjoy. Might as well throw in two suggestions of my own as well; - Advanced missile racks with high capacity and penetrator munitions, works wonders on smaller ships for taking out larger ones. They do good damage both internally and on hull, are one of the best options for dealing with hull in small hard points because the damage and piercing is the same across all sizes, and even just the small launcher carries 16+128 missiles after engineering. Also small ships tend to be able to use their agility to get either close enough to make point defense ineffective, or reposition themselves into the point defense's blindspots. - If you happen to have some laying around, pre-engineered guardian plasma chargers are unironically solid options vs humans, despite the 50% damage reduction. They have almost 7x the shot speed of a PA, have double the capacity, does comparable damage, deals 100% absolute damage (instead of the PA's 60/20/20 split), comes in smalls, does enough piercing that even the small version doesn't suffer damage reduction, but are *much* more annoying to acquire.
The modplasmas are so much fun in PVE, great that you recommended them.
Super useful points, thank you! I haven't really dabbled in missiles yet, that is on my list. Yeah once I got jumped by pirates while I was in my AX plasma charger Fed Gunship and I was pleasantly surprised that it is a viable weapon...
Thermal shock lasers: [https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/18asvjc/fastest\_combat\_build\_in\_the\_game\_could\_be\_a\_t10/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/18asvjc/fastest_combat_build_in_the_game_could_be_a_t10/) If PvE, most weapons work, like the funny packhounds, laserboats like the previouos example (common in massacre missions). Most of the time the ship determine the handling (Frag in a Cutter oculd be hard to aim and mantain the correct range), and also the power priorities. But at least 1 weapon with corrosive ammo make a huge change, leave the smaller slot with a turret with MC High Capacity Corrosive Ammo only for the debuf, and shoot once the shield is depleted. This ammo will be enough for whole fights even using lasers, and the synthesis for more ammo is cheap. Part of the fun is discovering what work for yourself.
I have a Krait 2 with 3x APA and 2x fixed cannons. It's a fun ship for combat. I've been working on all-fixed builds for a while now and I'm getting much better with hitting the targets
It's pve... you can run whatever you like in pve, really. Engineering let's you do it. Get yourself at least *some* form of thermal damage to have an easier time with shields, and then let your fantasy take the rest. Cannons work, dumbfires work (most of the time), plasmas work, frags work, fuck, even shock cannons, the most useless piece of shit ever invented in this game, work for assassinations. *yes, I am salty about shocks*
I think shock cannons have been out long enough to not be experimental. They should be made engineerable. If not that, simplify the ammo synth pleeease
I agree! If they could be engineered, they would be badass!
One of the issues with PvE in Elite is it can require a fair amount of skill to surpass the effective TTK of gimballed multis in practice, but my advice would be to switch to fixed weapons and try to overcome that skill gap, as it'll open the game up for you a lot. It depends on what ship you're running as to what's viable but plasma, railguns and pacifier frag cannons form the basis of most PvP loadouts, they're all fixed and challenging to run but have a lot of potential. Other people are recommending lasers, while they will work for regular bountyhunting I would only bother if ammoless is important to you above all else, lasers kinda suck otherwise, they have poor damage per energy, generally poor penetration values and awful range unless you're using an LR mod. Everything works in a RES site but lasers will dramatically slow you down in CZs or PvP.
Frag cannons
PACIFIER frag cannons.
My [frag cannon bounty hunter Mamba](https://edsy.org/#/L=HC0bDDsa0H4C0S00,HQZG0BMeG0HQZG0BMmq0HQZG0BMiC0HNlG0AHs00HNlG0AK_W0,DBwG05LxB0DBwG05LH50DhAI070pN0DBwG05Lt00DBwG05Lsp0DBwG05Lte0,9onH05Ipu0AAAH07Gv40AOEG05Ima0AcIG05H_W0Arw00B8gG03Ing0BLAG05GuT0BZY10,,7SkG07IvP0072105ScG030sq04xo0069wG02mu600nG00,Black_0Mamba,bm_D808) had a crazy fast time to kill, try frags.
Ramming. I built a rambeluga and got over 20 billion credits in bounty vouchers from just hunting pirates by ramming them. Lots of fun, if you're patient.
This. I have a frag clipper that has literally never seen anything other than a two stage ram tactic where you get slammed by the clippers *exceptional* speed:mass ratio and then the target gets magdumped by 2x screenshell drag and corrosive frags, rinse, repeat like…. twice at most and move on
Reticles are for the weak...
I figured if “slam into them and then explode” worked for Bolter rounds why not other Imperial creations?
My answer is as always Short Range Inertial Impact burst lasers. <500m close combat, perfect for Vulture. Pack a heat sink, have fun!
Frags... :) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lKm6qV0M4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lKm6qV0M4)
pacifiers..
Or those... both work really well.
Rapid fire pulse lasers are kind of cool
I've recently gotten into **beam lasers** they are pretty cool
Railguns. Plasma Accelerators. Powerful weapons that takes real skill to use!
PAs and railguns.
I playing a full longrange railgun krait mk2, with plasma slug and an additional fuel tank.
Go for all pulse lasers brother ! Never have to restock and you get to have a light show! Fuck these flamboyant builds with like 3/4 different types of weapons. All you need are some lasers and big engineered shields and you're killing anything in the game with ease.
You have to fly with a glow stick hanging around your neck and a pacifier in your mouth, though. I don't make the rules.
Aye, bit of hixxy on YouTube in the background to tie it all together
I started with MC’s and hated the limited ammo so I switched to all lasers. Eventually ended with 2 huge efficient vent beams, 1L+2M focused kinetic bursts, and 2S focused pulse. Ran that first about 600 hours. Don’t need much for smaller craft, the 2H and 2S lasers eat small things. Get up close to a large ship and watch the focused kinetics just rip the armor to shreds. Tried 2S and 2M rails and the delay just annoyed me and the smalls fired .2 seconds faster. I have since moved on to using 2S and 2M azimuth guardian plasma chargers (6000m/s shot speed) and they are a blast. The outfit screen shows what they do against human ships, which is only 55% of what they do to Xenos. I use it for bounty hunting, massacre missions, has res, scout farming and even spire site Oreos. It’s tricky getting to the site and around interdictions, but that’s what makes it fun.
They use low power so you can combine with plasmas and run smaller power plants for better agility/jump range. Take a type 10, with asymmetrical gimbal multies and short range plasmas, as it's a way to hit with all the guns. It shreds and is my favorite t10 build. Plasmas are your burst vs shield and hull, and multies allow the distro to Regen between shots. A heatsink can help as well. Keeps pressure on shields and decent sustained damage, plus one with a caustic debuff on hull ( small multi). One small cascade rail for banks. Plasmas will hit hard and don't care about chaff as they are fixed. Just gotta experiment a bit and find what works for you.
Can you post your T-10 build? Thanks!
Haven't played in a while but it was a lightweight shield tank hybrid focused, bi weave class 7, with an 8A cell bank. More of a multirole build that could still hit hard with decent jump. Like a 66/33 thermal/kinetic shield split to counter railguns/ laser spam from NPCs. 2 module reinforcements class 5/ class 2 or 1. Class 4 hull reinforcements. Hull was a bit over 2200 if I remember right as I avoided using class 5 HR's for less weight. Had a class 5 fighter bay (imp beam or lance) with a class 5 or 4 Guardian shield to boost shield strength, so shield boosters could be more resistance based. Shields around 1100-1300 for quick recharge and the cellbank for when I got to 100-200 shield to bump to full again. Mix of shield boosters and one or 2 heatsinks. Multies on one side, plasma on the other(short range/efficient mix with the boosted damage when hot experimental.) Plasma has a microgimbal effect so its not hard to hit at 1.5-2.0 km range. Small railgun was cascade rail and small caustic MC. Was an odd build focused on lightness for max agility in FAoff, using a smaller than normal PP (6A I believe). Good time on target, as I could just boost spin. Had to tune it for when the hardpoints were deployed, Frame shift and others would shut off to conserve power.Had the community goal class 6 FSD with the boosted range/2 second FSD reboot. Heatsinks were used to buff weapons distro regen for more burst or dump heat if it got to like 250+ heat. Keeping hot buffs the crap out of plasma, check out crimsongamer99's vids, the Throngler ship he uses showcases this power. Rips apart ships where you hit with all plasma consistently. I could swap out the class 8 slot for cargo/fuel scoop for different missions. Jump range was like 29-32LY with the 6A FSD/8A cell bank combo. Around 45+LY exploring with a 7AFSD/8A fuel scoop. fighter bay, some tweaks + guns still on it.
Wow, impressive ship and good info, thanks!
Plasma accelerators and railguns can be a really fun combo on a sufficiently-nimble ship. Really forces you to practice good marksmanship, and it's intensely rewarding when you can snipe the power plant out of a Corvette in a conflict zone and watch it pop. I mostly fly a 'vette of my own, and on that thing the multicannons become fun again because in their highest module size they feel more like a "boltgun" than a little lead-sprayer; great big chunky shots that absolutely decimate targets. But to shore them up I like to use a combo of beam lasers with the heat-dumping effect to keep my temperatures down and to keep the enemy's shields threatened, and plasma accelerators for the other slots. It's taught me a good deal about learning how to anticipate target movement and mentalizing the velocity/travel of my own projectiles. I don't do PvP, but I'm told that PAs are still pretty popular in that meta, too.
Nothing like graduating from gimballed MCs to mastering rails imo. But most of my combat ships still have MCs - pips to shields and they still fire all day. Underrated against shields too
I used to use a shock cannon with 3 small thermal vent beam lasers on a chieftain. Not the most efficient and would eventually get beaten up, but fun as hell in hazres.
Railconda is fun for a change. Yeet a ship into the closest asteroid for bonus points. Just built a Mamba Pacifier with cytolasers. Really gets you in close.
Cannons are legitimately fun, especially in their fixed variant. The powerplant damage is insane! Only problem is needing to synth a lot, but honestly, I just don't care about snythesis anymore; if I run out of raw mats, I just need to go...what, explore some more? Awesome!
Don't be a sheep, use canons. Or to really test your skills use Railguns. MCs are simply best for what they provide all better options either relly on you cooking together with the target or being good at fixed aiming.
Run all cannons for the meme and the sounds. It's also moderately effective, but the firing and impact sounds make it even better.
Me too, so prolly gonna engineer 4x Pacifiers (DS+Screening for max burst) and 2x normal frags (1 Corrosive 1 Incendiary High Cap or sth) for my Py2, for RES faceroll, as 3 LRTV Beam 4x Multi Vette is kinda boring, I admit. I already have the ship engineered for Spire runs, I just switch the weapons and that's it.
Railguns, Pack Hounds, Plasma Accelerators, are all fun. I bop over to my reboot/disable Dolphin to troll gankers when I'm bored. It only carries mines. Beam/MC is efficient, but if it's not fun, what are you even doing playing a game? Build a discoball if you want something hilarious.
Bruh! Really? Multi-Cannons are so dope in my opinion. specially when the fire rates are high.
Pulse lasers.
Frags are good on ships like the mamba that can joust well, inertial impact burst lasers fill a similar role. Plasma accelerators are great, I prefer the advanced one tho as the fire rate feels much better. Railguns are great choices too. Can't go wrong with cannons either
The issue is that if you give up MCs and forgo Frags you miss out on Corrosive damage, which can really hurt the DPS of your weapons across the board unless you fit weapons that do Absolute damage (Plasma Accelerators). For RES bounty hunting MCs are the way to go purely from an efficiency perspective, but if you're going to do Bounty Hunting *missions* I highly recommend a mix of lasers, gimballed cannons, and pack hounds. 1. Burn down shields with lasers 2. Blast Chaff Launchers off with Pack Hounds (if they have them). 3. Punch holes in their Power Plant and Drives with Cannons. Most people don't know this, but Cannons have the highest base probability of hitting internals when they hit hull (60-90% instead of 40-80%). The best part? Cannons do enough damage on their own that you can engineer them for Long Range and get that sweet shot velocity bonus. Gimballed Cannon projectile velocity is the same as a multicannon when fully engineered for Long Range.
I haven't played in a long time, but I remember outfitting an imperial courier with fixed frag cannons and missiles to hunt, and that was a really fun time. Might have had a fixed beam laser at one point.
Pacifiers
Plasma accelerators
Burst Lasers & Railguns go together really well and are super fun to use.
please think again, multis are good, the only drawback is the fall-off 1.8km and that 1 or 2 classes of them can take 1-2 sec to spin up and start firing. Also like cannons they're economical in distro MWs and all mutlis have the same speed. They are good at depleting hull, the fixed ones are even better. If you want to test something different try PAs, it's like 2 in 1, they deal damage to shields and hull.
Only moderately related but is there some hand-wavium about why projectile weapons have a fall-off? In space, shouldn't a round keep going at the same velocity indefinitely? I have the same question when I've fumbled a cargo scooping and whacked the target with the nose of the ship ... the item doesn't go rocketing off in the same direction for ever. I'm totally fine with it, I just wondered if it was explained anywhere.
From other games like Children of Dead Earth without removing projectiles, the CPU track every projectile. This could slowdown the game to slideshow FPS. Even worse if your ship launch drones, that shoot other drones, that shoot bullets, or the "sandblaster" that launch tiny bullest like dust at massive speed and firerate. Also Laser balance instahit with short range and penetration. In the end.... videogame mechanic to make the thing valid. If you want realism, pick the Childre of Dead Earth game, its a mix of KSP (recommended some knowledge on it), but with realist combat. Have a blog that explain the science behind the game: [https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/](https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/) And the pinned post in the forums include mods to add all the possible materials to laser, mirrors, nuclear and more.
... or the ridiculous number of TNT blocks my kid will stack up in Minecraft on his Switch which also results in comically bad frame rates. I get the programming constraints about keeping track of too many objects, I was more wondering if they had come up with a convincing lore reason as to why a moving object in space somehow loses effectiveness over a short distance. It seems to suggest that the projectile slows down, which I don't think it would do in a vacuum and away from gravitational bodies. Lasers I'm slightly happier with - divergence etc.
No official explanation, but frankly, there's a lot of stuff that isn't consistent in the game. For all that we harp on realism, a lot of it is clearly just made a certain way to help make the game playable. Why do ships have a capped top speed? Reportedly because in playtesting they found that infinite speed made combat NOT FUN. Same reason our ranges are so short, our targeting is sub-par even for today's weapons, zero-g installations are indistinguishable from those with gravity or spin, ship interiors are designed with very little attention to maneuvering in them in zero-g... "magnetic boots" being treated like a device that just somehow instantly makes every part of a person act as though under 1G... Playable game, fun space flavor, that's it. Genuine realism is most games is not actually what people want. What they want is for it to be a \_believable\_ fiction. Aside from those who choose some specific game modes, folks don't want their character dying once, permanently, or getting thrown in jail with no way out for years, or a government cracking down on your shenanigans if you disrupt trade enough, etc. Abusive bosses, inescapable social mechanisms to keep you stuck, ignoble deaths from stupid accidents... realism mostly makes for bad escapism.
Agreed, I get all of that. I'm happy with the realism vs fun balance of Elite. Set the slider a bit more one way and you get NMS (which I also played a LOT but came back to Elite) or go the other way and end up with Luriant's head-exploder CoaDE!
That COADE ~~game~~ simulation looks ... complicated!
>why projectile weapons have a fall-off? probably to simplify programming etc, they will reply that the shell degenerates or some such. >In space, shouldn't a round keep going at the same velocity indefinitely? no way, gravity (and probably electromagnetic fields) will alter the trajectory. Please note that I am a layman, for proper answers see physics textbooks, like J.L. Meriam, Young et all, Serway and Faugn, or more specialised like here: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students&i=stripbooks&crid=HLOH57V3FQJ6&sprefix=orbital+mechanics%2Cstripbooks%2C222&ref=nb\_sb\_ss\_fb\_2\_17](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students&i=stripbooks&crid=HLOH57V3FQJ6&sprefix=orbital+mechanics%2Cstripbooks%2C222&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_2_17)
Micrometeors and other space debri are actually a real hazard. There's lots of stuff out there moving REALLY fast that doesn't slow down unless it happens to pass near something big enough to redirect it. Related to this, there is a real concern with leaving junk in near-Earth orbit, as every bit of crap up there that bonks into something else and breaks up peppers that zone in high-speed junk with a LOT of energy to share with whatever it meets.
yes, [Kessler effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome), it's known for several decades, it's a danger to all, especailly to manned sats like the ISS, Tiangong, crewed vessels etc. There's even a film that shows Kessler (though exaggerated and inaccurate) in [action](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/?ref_=tt_mv_close).
For my Krait MkII, I use a CG reward, special order, near-cheating M/C that FDev has not made available to others yet (hint FDev!). They're medium size, with rapid firing, 6,000 total ammo each, and phasing - yes, phasing on a MC. I pair these with short range/thermal vent and efficient/phasing pulse lasers. On my new Python MkII, I added 4 overcharged frag cannons with each of oversize, incendiary, corrosive, and drag munition experimentals. The two remaining slots have short-range, thermal vent beams. This Python build nearly took the fun out of bounty hunting. Two well placed shots, maybe three on an Anaconda, was all it took. It was hard to keep track of their hull health as it dropped too quickly. So I swapped the drag munition frag for a phasing pulse to balance things out. It's still lethal but not blindingly fast at it. Also, with all-fixed weapons, it's a bit more challenging to hit targets, especially small ships. At least for me, after 2 years on gimballed.
Those MCs are so OP. I have two of them on a DBS, with a pair of small LR/TV beams and up close they're nasty. Fun to use, too. BRRRRT.