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Cactus
Jun 24, 2006

Holy crap guys my phone screen has a vertical groove now, Jesus.

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Mr Darcy
Feb 8, 2006

Drake_263 posted:

That said, the calculations seem to heavily (ha!) favor the bigger, fatter ship in the equation - you could probably ram the poo poo out of a Cobra or the like in an uparmored Sidey, but you'd likely just bounce off an Anaconda.

I had immense fun crunching small ships passing through a station's docking slot in my fully loaded type 9 during the trade phase of the beta last year.

Eyud
Aug 5, 2006

Mike the TV posted:

Yes, you can turn off the specific FA voice over in the audio settings, or be like me and mute the voice entirely. It actually feels way more immersive (more BSG than Star Trek), and the voice is unnecessary after figuring out the game.

Yep, I do this too. There are other audible cues for just about everything (god bless Frontier's audio team) so the voice really isn't needed.

Typical Pubbie
May 10, 2011
CQC is fun but I want to physically harm the Frenchman who seems to show up in all of my matches with his mic permanently open. There's no way to mute incoming comms, is there?

frank.club
Jan 15, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
C'est pas bien?

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Drake_263 posted:

The best poo poo happens when I'm asleep or at work, I swear.

Hey, you mentioned wanting to see some experiments with cheapo annoying ship builds - I think I'm going to take that over when I get back home. Got any specific requests for builds/hulls? Sidey, Eagle, Adder?

[good words ideas etc]

We are Goons. Our freewinders will blot out the sun, and they shall fight in the shade.

:black101:

That's the Powerbottom spirit! You hit it on the nail exactly and I look forward what you and Zakuz come up with. I dub you both The Bright Boys.

So much that I am adjusting what "Powerbottom" now means. Before, I intended it to be at the very bottom tier of ship: the Sidewinder, the Eagle, and the Adder. After getting good feedback on my word-salad of a dossier, I am simplifying it to include every ship up to and including the Imperial Courtier, specifically the 2 med/2 small family of hardpoint placement.. This does NOT include the DBE, Vulture, or Asp which are being earmarked for other gimmick ops just the same. It DOES include the Type-6 because gently caress it. Gotdamn.

"Operation: Powerswitch" is now reserved for another tier of plan I will not get into right now, but has freed up the ultimate plan code name which is so OP it in itself has a code name. I speak of Project Thunder Swerve.

:getin:

In the meantime I need your help naming another side Op, Diamond Frogs. Again, I am not going to go into particulars but i have mentioned my intention to go into the emergency refueling business like our good friends, the Fuel Rats. To illustrate the nature of this plan, I submit the following youtube link, which may not be considered work safe for content upsetting to small children. It will, however, sum up the spirit of my proposed plan:

:nms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjanA_3fcbs :nms:

I look forward to your suggested code names, Frogs.

Typical Pubbie
May 10, 2011

frank.club posted:

C'est pas bien?

"Ohhhh [inaudible] baise-moi [sound of vacuum cleaner in the background interspersed with dialogue from a French TV drama] est-ce que tu fais ça demain? [sound of his Sidewinder exploding] ohhhh... merde"

Drake_263
Mar 31, 2010
So for medical reasons irrelevant to the point of the discussion, I've got today and likely the rest of the week off. This leaves me with plenty of time to theorycraft.

Note that these builds are purposefully intended to be cheap - you could, with most ships, just ram them full of A-grade equipment, but the point here is to get as effective a vessel with as little money as possible.
That said, I'm more than happy to discuss 'a given ship hull and unlimited budget' builds, as well.

Squawking Eagle

Case in point, this Eagle here. The Eagle is a fast, nimble, deadly interceptor, so I went with a build that emphatizes the design's strengths.

Namely, it's fast as balls.

The most important components to our purposes - the primary thruster array and power distributor - have been upgraded to A-grade (the 3A thruster array admittedly accounting for about two thirds of the retrofit's 750K pricetag - a low-cost alternative is to stick with a 3B model, which does hinder your maneuverability and frameshift range somewhat). Armed with a pair of fixed beam lasers (explaining most of the power draw, along with the high-performance thrusters) in the ventral mounts and a gimbaled multicannon in the dorsal mount, supported by a chaff dispenser and a shield cell bank, the Squawker should make for an exceedingly nasty and very, very, very annoying dogfighting ship. The power generator is a heavyweight B-grade model to support the increased power draw, but the rest of the equipment is low-cost, lightweight D-grade - in fact while we're carrying a full compliment of guns and secondary equipment, our weight has gone down four tons, while the thruster array is optimally rated for about half again our mass. Frankly I'm afraid this thing might be a little too agile for some pilots. Yes, you can't take much damage, but the sheer agility of a lightweight turbocharged Eagle means you should easily be able to win most turning fights and simply stick to a target's blind angles. The rock to your scissors are ships with a heavy compliment of turrets, but that's why the God-Emperor invented chaff. The empty C1 internal bay you can alter to your liking - a hull reinforcement package if you feel like having some extra health, or an auxiliary fuel tank or a fuel scoop for extended travel range. (Speaking of travel, the lighter weight of the ship means our frameshift range has gone up to 10.5-11 LY per jump - not superb, but an improvement over the stock model!)

As a sidenote, like with the tanky Sidey outlined earlier, this Eagle is somewhat designed to mirror its CQC counterpart - this way a newbie pilot can use CQC as a cheap training tool of sorts.

As with the Sidewinder, the Eagle's weakness is larger ships - the default dogfighting build is perfectly capable of handling ships up to about Cobra size by itself, but struggles to inflict damage on larger, heavier vessels - at least singly. Frankly the idea of three or four of these things acting in concert is scary - just one Eagle can make for a supremely frustrating target to corner down, let alone when there's a whole wing of them. Death of a thousand cuts, anyone?

And while we're on a roll, another design I was toying around with..

Blasted Adder

The Adder, I feel, is one of those underappreciated designs out there. It's small, it's surprisingly nimble (as long as you haven't crammed twenty tons of biowaste in the back), kinda fat and makes funny noises. It's kind of like a Hauler and a Cobra3 had a derpy baby. It doesn't help that the vast majority of NPC adders out there are lovely (often shieldless) smuggler/pirate/miner builds that tend to disintegrate when you fart into their general direction.

It is, also, currently the smallest, cheapest, and fastest way of getting into a ship capable of carrying a C2 weapon. This is of high interest to us.

Essentially I took an Adder, crammed in as powerful a thruster array as I could, buffed the shields and power distributor, and filled up the weapon/utility mounts. With a couple of empty internal bays, this thing is actually a ton and a half lighter while carrying an identical thruster array to the Squawker - with an 8/10 maneuver rating (roughly equivalent to the Sidewinder) and a supercharged thruster array, this thing should actually be quite maneuverable for a glorified cargo shuttle. A 3A shield generator and a 2B shield cell bank paired with a chaff dispenser make you pretty drat tough for an Adder. FInally, for utility equipment, I added a KW-scanner and a frameshift interdictor - unlike the Sidewinder and the Eagle, the Adder has internal room to spare. (In fact, there's an empty C3 and C1 internal bay you can feel free to customize to fit your style).

Now, those weapons. A pair of fixed burst lasers is pretty much on par with the previous ships I've touched upon, and then there's the C2 mount -

But Draaaaaaaake/Zhoooorrrrr, I hear you groan. Torpedos are bad and expensive as gently caress!

Actually, the humble and oft-misunderstoodt torpedo pylon has its benefits. See, the limited ammo count on a torpedo pylon makes them bad for 'general' play - most people wanting something to knock over heavy armor would go with a C2 cannon, railgun, or plasma accelerator. Let's do a quick price comparison:

C2 PAC (Fixed): 834,200 CR plus ammo (200CR per shot)
C2 Railgun (Fixed): 421,800 CR plus ammo (200CR per shot)
C2 Cannon (Fixed): 168,430 CR plus ammo (20CR per shot)
C2 Torpedo Pylon: 44,800 CR plus ammo (15,000 CR per shot)

So in fact, with the cost of a single C2 plasma cannon you can buy a torpedo pylon and 52 replacement torpedos. Yes, in the long, long, long run, plasma cannons, railguns and the like are going to be more cost-effective than torps. Yes, when you sell the plasma cannon you'll get its cost back, unlike spent torps. However, for a cheap and dirty 'I'm going to buy and fit this real quick and go ruin some pubbie's day with my buddies' build, the torpedo pylon can't be beat.

Furthermore, torpedos are largely self-contained - the power drain and thermal load of a torpedo pylon are negligible compared to a power-hungry and heat-intensive plasma cannon or railgun. This means you don't have to refit the rest of the ship to handle the increased load on your systems, further making them a surprisingly cost-effective option. Since the Adder has but a C2 power distributor, this makes things easier since we only need to worry about the lasers.

Anyhow. This particular weapon loadout essentially makes you into an improvised two-shot bomber - you come in, attached to a wing of fighters (preferably Eagles, in our 'cheap fast ships' doctrine). Since you have a FSD interdictor, chances are you're the person who picked the target and yanked them down to play. You engage with your lasers, helping the other ships down the target's shields while maneuvering yourself into position.

The moment their shields come down, you cram a torpedo down their afterburner.

Try and target an important subsystem like their main drive, frameshift drive, power plant or shield generator - torpedoes being seeker weapons, they will attempt to actively home in on a targeted subsystem. The downside is, if they're carrying point defense, you have to get as close as possible before you release the torpedo - the further you pop your load from, the longer their PD has to try and shoot your torpedo down. A couple of torps is generally enough to neuter all but the largest ships - you just need to stay alive long enough to fire both torps. (Chances are they're going to become very interested in you once they figure out you came loaded for battleship). Once you've spent your torpedos, you're basically a bigger tougher funny-looking Sidewinder, so fly like one.

A less-gimmicky but perfectly functional build switches out the torpedoes for something like a C2 cannon, multicannon or simply a laser of your preferred flavor. This basically makes you into a babby's first gunship - a surprising amount of punch for something of its cost, and better for general 'let's hang around in this area and kill pirates/annoy pubbies' ops. Torpedoes are more intended for taking out a single high-profile target fast, like ganking an annoying enemy Python or the like.

Drake_263 fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Sep 17, 2015

Condoleezza Nice!
Jan 4, 2010

Lite som Robin Hood
fast inte
okay so I just managed to squeak my way up to Lavigny Rating 5. I got 50.000 credits. What the actual gently caress?

Voyeur
Dec 5, 2000
I like to watch.

Fanzay posted:

okay so I just managed to squeak my way up to Lavigny Rating 5. I got 50.000 credits. What the actual gently caress?

You get the 50mil after a full week at rank 5.

Condoleezza Nice!
Jan 4, 2010

Lite som Robin Hood
fast inte

Voyeur posted:

You get the 50mil after a full week at rank 5.

gently caress me, that's dumb as gently caress

Mercurius
May 4, 2004

Amp it up.

Fanzay posted:

gently caress me, that's dumb as gently caress
This is a good summary of Powerplay.

KakerMix
Apr 8, 2004

8.2 M.P.G.
:byetankie:

Fanzay posted:

gently caress me, that's dumb as gently caress

It is dumb as gently caress but the real money is in a good res. 50 million will be but a portion.

Tom Guycot
Oct 15, 2008

Chief of Governors


Paramemetic posted:

It's 10x less expensive than the anaconda also so I'm not sure why that's the comparison ship?

When you say it's being added later do you mean to the beta or did they cuck us with just a description for 1.4?

Yeah this is a really fair point and I'll be honest, when I was testing out the new ships I wasn't paying attention to the costs at all. I guess my problem is more the anaconda is already pretty useless for combat really, but at least it can haul your whole stamp collection and the kitchen sink, the gunship has a terrible amount of cargo capacity.

I guess the comparison I should have made was with the assault ship which is way zippier,faster, cheaper and has one more large hardpoint on it (though missing the small and 2 medium hard points).

It just feels like a ship without any reason to buy it. If you have 50 million to spend, whether you want to trade or fight theres a better ship in that price range you could be getting.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

Tom Guycot posted:

Yeah this is a really fair point and I'll be honest, when I was testing out the new ships I wasn't paying attention to the costs at all. I guess my problem is more the anaconda is already pretty useless for combat really, but at least it can haul your whole stamp collection and the kitchen sink, the gunship has a terrible amount of cargo capacity.

I guess the comparison I should have made was with the assault ship which is way zippier,faster, cheaper and has one more large hardpoint on it (though missing the small and 2 medium hard points).

It just feels like a ship without any reason to buy it. If you have 50 million to spend, whether you want to trade or fight theres a better ship in that price range you could be getting.

You know, this is kind of interesting. This observation makes it look like Frontier can only lose here: If they make more ships, people will complain about many of them not being the absolute best in whatever category. If they don't make more ships, people will complain about having not enough choice.

Tom Guycot
Oct 15, 2008

Chief of Governors


well, i don't think a ship has to be the best, but it has to have some attribute to it that makes it stand out in some way. Even if just in its price range. I mean I don't have a problem with the eagle being less powerful than a viper, a type 6 having less capacity than a type 7, an adder having less jump range than a hauler, a python being slower than a clipper, a clipper having worse hardpoint placement than an FDL, etc.

I just feel like a ship has to have some reason someone would ever choose it beyond being space rich and wanting it as a collectible. I'll be the first to admit I am no ace at this game, and haven't played in a couple months at that so maybe I'm missing something about its abilities, but I'm at a loss as to who would spend more than twice as much for the gunship, over the assault ship. It feels redundant in its price range in a way few other ships do.

FronzelNeekburm
Jun 1, 2001

STOP, MORTTIME

Libluini posted:

You know, this is kind of interesting. This observation makes it look like Frontier can only lose here: If they make more ships, people will complain about many of them not being the absolute best in whatever category. If they don't make more ships, people will complain about having not enough choice.
The trouble with ships is the time-to-upgrade gaps between Cobra-and-below and everything above it. Maybe making the Anaconda half-price isn't the right move, but it'd be nice to have some sort of ship to jump to after an Asp that isn't 50 hours of grinding trading (or an accomplice thereof). Even in a T7, "you have 50 million credits lying around" isn't a given.

Of course, this is the old "Can't buy ships" vs. "Make your own fun instead of chasing the biggest ships" argument again, but until CQC launches, it's what we're left with these days.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

FronzelNeekburm posted:

The trouble with ships is the time-to-upgrade gaps between Cobra-and-below and everything above it. Maybe making the Anaconda half-price isn't the right move, but it'd be nice to have some sort of ship to jump to after an Asp that isn't 50 hours of grinding trading (or an accomplice thereof). Even in a T7, "you have 50 million credits lying around" isn't a given.

Of course, this is the old "Can't buy ships" vs. "Make your own fun instead of chasing the biggest ships" argument again, but until CQC launches, it's what we're left with these days.

Yeah, I feel that huge money gap makes people more frustrated then they would be normally. For an explorer, going Adder -> DBS -> DBE -> Asp -> ? -> Anaconda, you could possibly change to a more expensive ship purely on doing exploration right up to the Asp. Then you'll be hosed or forced into gameplay you don't like. (I'm playing since December 2014 and did rare trading to outfit my first Asp, since the DBS and the DBE didn't exist back then and exploration had even less payout then today. gently caress going back to trading again.)

TorakFade
Oct 3, 2006

I strongly disapprove


Libluini posted:

Yeah, I feel that huge money gap makes people more frustrated then they would be normally.

It is, simply because your income is kind of capped right now. The best you can get is around what, 10 mil / hour in a lucky RES? And I think that's pretty min-maxed, I am not affiliated with any power and don't reset RES all the time, and my usual income is around 2-3 mil / hour. Let's not even mention that you might also want to do stuff that doesn't make you big bucks like exploring, moving around, interdicting people or whatever.

If you only play 4-5 hours a week like I guess most normal people do, getting the hundreds of millions required to purchase, outfit and operate the big ships is a pain in the rear end. I have a Python, I'm working on upgrading it but it takes a loooong time...

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012


I can see one immediate and obvious problem with this: The power plant isn't big enough to support everything you need for combat when deployed. An A-class power plant will do it.

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic
What's the preferred faction to join by folks 'round these parts?

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

TorakFade posted:

It is, simply because your income is kind of capped right now. The best you can get is around what, 10 mil / hour in a lucky RES? And I think that's pretty min-maxed, I am not affiliated with any power and don't reset RES all the time, and my usual income is around 2-3 mil / hour. Let's not even mention that you might also want to do stuff that doesn't make you big bucks like exploring, moving around, interdicting people or whatever.

If you only play 4-5 hours a week like I guess most normal people do, getting the hundreds of millions required to purchase, outfit and operate the big ships is a pain in the rear end. I have a Python, I'm working on upgrading it but it takes a loooong time...

Don't forget if you're an explorer, you won't have RES nor trading, since we're out there in the great beyond. Not much to shoot at or trade with here. So we only get money from our exploration alone. But scanning down everything, even everything worthwile, would lead to a fast burnout, so we have to travel at a more leisurely pace, which means even less money.

I have my Asp, an Imperial Courier in storage back in civilization and 33 million credits in the bank. And that's with continuously playing since December last year. Explorers are even more hosed by Elite's income system.

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


Dabir posted:

I can see one immediate and obvious problem with this: The power plant isn't big enough to support everything you need for combat when deployed. An A-class power plant will do it.

I didn't look at the specs cause I'm on my phone, but does it still not have enough power if you set priorities to shut down stuff you don t need when weapons are deployed? Stuff like the FSD, fuel scoop, FSD interdictor, etc?

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

It does not have enough power to run thrusters, weapons, shields, shield cells, sensors, life support, chaff and the power distributor.

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib
Normally I'd say power off the banks while guns are out, but eagles have hilariously low shields even in A class, you won't have a chance to turn off the guns and hit the banks.

Chrysophylax
Dec 28, 2006
._.

Paramemetic posted:

Normally I'd say power off the banks while guns are out, but eagles have hilariously low shields even in A class, you won't have a chance to turn off the guns and hit the banks.

Yeah, if you're getting shot at while in an eagle by something larger than a cobra, you'd best hope you have 4 pips in sys and are already in the process of running away, otherwise you barely have any time to react.

Tom Guycot posted:

I guess my problem is more the anaconda is already pretty useless for combat

Can you expand on this? I'm curious because I own an anaconda and I think it's by far the best RES farmboat.

Chrysophylax fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Sep 17, 2015

OB_Juan
Nov 24, 2004

Not every day is a good day.


Dinosaur Gum
That Adder really makes me wish we could reload ammunition. As it is, a hypothetical a wing of that Adder and two Eagles would have a hard time getting anywhere due to short jump distance and no scoops.

Therefore, I present The Master Adder A little more fragile, but it makes up for it by helping the wing get where it's going.

An alt version could have a larger FSD to more quickly return to ferry more teams to the lolzone.

Chrysophylax posted:

Yeah, if you're getting shot at while in an eagle by something larger than a cobra, you'd best hope you have 4 pips in sys and are already in the process of running away, otherwise you barely have any time to react.

Given that Eagles are cheap to rebuy anyway, maybe it's better off without the cell.

Siets
Sep 19, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

KakerMix posted:

It is dumb as gently caress but the real money is in a good res. 50 million will be but a portion.

Can you or someone explain this in more detail? Haven't played since 1.1. I'm working on my Rank 5 at the moment.

Chrysophylax
Dec 28, 2006
._.

Siets posted:

Can you or someone explain this in more detail? Haven't played since 1.1. I'm working on my Rank 5 at the moment.

With the way the different bonuses stack with ALD, you end up with 240% extra money per ship.

What you do at a High Intensity Resource Extraction site (RES, or HIRES) is keep resetting the instance (by exiting to menu and re-entering) until the first ship you see is a Clipper, Dropship or Python. This ensures you're gonna get a good, hard instance with high value challenging targets.

This'll net you 10-30 million per hour.

Kurr de la Cruz
May 21, 2007

Put the boots to him, medium style.

Hair Elf

Siets posted:

Can you or someone explain this in more detail? Haven't played since 1.1. I'm working on my Rank 5 at the moment.

When you hit rank 5, if you're with avril whoever (I can never tell these people apart -- the not anime princess one) her rank 5 bonus is a nice fat 100% added bonus to bounties. So you get rank 5, then you go to a resource extraction site and shoot pirates for their bounties, which get the multiplier when you go to turn them in. resource extraction sites are found at planets with metallic rings. I think also rocky rings. But definitely not icy rings. Hi/Low/Normal intensity doesn't seem to really matter, either way you'll end up doing a lot of quit to menu -> start game to reset the instance until you get one that has lots of good targets to kill.

e:f,b

Drake_263
Mar 31, 2010

Dabir posted:

I can see one immediate and obvious problem with this: The power plant isn't big enough to support everything you need for combat when deployed. An A-class power plant will do it.

This is.. entirely true, and I have no idea how I managed that. It worked at one point, and then I must've changed something and not actually looked at the power specs again. Embarrassing!

But yes, an A-class power plant will do it (I was trying to figure out how to stick with a cheaper B but it's honestly not worth the effort with that price difference).

Screamer 1.01

OB_Juan posted:

That Adder really makes me wish we could reload ammunition. As it is, a hypothetical a wing of that Adder and two Eagles would have a hard time getting anywhere due to short jump distance and no scoops.

Therefore, I present The Master Adder A little more fragile, but it makes up for it by helping the wing get where it's going.

An alt version could have a larger FSD to more quickly return to ferry more teams to the lolzone.


Given that Eagles are cheap to rebuy anyway, maybe it's better off without the cell.

I purposefully left some of the internal equipment bays on the designs to customize for a given mission profile - the Eagle has an empty C1 equipment bay and the Adder an empty C3 and C1 to fit things like fuel scoops, aux fuel tanks and cargo bays into. That said, I love the idea of using the Adder's hefty primary tank and spare cargo bays for a convenient mini-refinery for on-the-fly refueling (I'd actually consider a noncombatant T6 perfect for this job, too).

Also note that these designs are more aimed for the 'cheap and dirty' solution - so yes, they're in desperate need of an FSD overhaul. Just switching the Screamer's FSD for an A model will bring your jump range to ~19 LY per jump (and a bit over 18 for the Adder), which is.. pretty damned nice for a fighter. You only get three or so jumps per Eagle tank and five for the Adder, but that's what the scoops are for.

You're also correct on the rebuy cost for an Eagle being pretty low, but I like shield cells on fighters. Yes, an Eagle can't take much punishment in the first place, but if you get one off before your shields fall, you've pretty much effectively doubled your shield strength.You're not aiming to win a fight by yourself - you'll be operating in a wing, and every second the other side is taking to try and swat you in your cheap annoying little fighter is another they're not using to shoot your teammates. The longer you stay alive, the longer everybody else stays alive.

(That said, if somebody is trying to design a cheap disposable kamikaze eagle for maximum annoyance, I'd love to see what you come up with!)

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

When you hit rank 5, if you're with avril whoever (I can never tell these people apart -- the not anime princess one) her rank 5 bonus is a nice fat 100% added bonus to bounties. So you get rank 5, then you go to a resource extraction site and shoot pirates for their bounties, which get the multiplier when you go to turn them in. resource extraction sites are found at planets with metallic rings. I think also rocky rings. But definitely not icy rings. Hi/Low/Normal intensity doesn't seem to really matter, either way you'll end up doing a lot of quit to menu -> start game to reset the instance until you get one that has lots of good targets to kill.

e:f,b

Notably, also it is best to go to a RES that is in a Control zone for Avril, even though the bonus tanked hard down to 20% because Khaleesi got her poo poo together, it still helps because it's a stacking bonus.

Drake_263
Mar 31, 2010
Just for a blast from the past, I took a look at the Viper.

Bounty Hunter

This is pretty much the loadout I used to fly back in the glory days of the Viper, when the gottagofast space wedge was pretty much the biggest dedicated combat ship. I'd actually pick up those 'go kill us this named elite Anaconda' missions, three or four at a time, and then trawl through systems hunting down big fat pirate lords. It was fast, it was fun, it was glorious.

Anyhow. Abandoning the 'let's see how much we can squeeze out of a lovely hull' mindset, while the Viper certainly has had its spot as King poo poo of Punch Mountain supplanted by newer designs (the Vulture, in particular), I feel the Viper is still very much worth a fly. It's still one of the fastest, if not THE fastest ship in the game. It's still the cheapest and most easily-accessible design in the medium fighter 'two light hardpoints and two medium hardpoints' class. Although the Vulture is more durable, the Viper also still has a respectable amount of shielding for a ship its size (and maintains a smaller target profile).

(It's also extraordinarily fun to fly).

The biggest thing to remember when you're fitting out a Viper (and, to a degree, the other dedicated fihters like the Eagle and Vulture) is that you're typically strangled for power. Most of the time you can have big fancy guns or a tough ship, not both. I chose to go with a tough high-speed design, which limited my choice of weapons severely - big C2 guns like railguns and PACs were right out thanks to their heavy power demands and heat output. Instead, my main weapons are a pair of C2 cannons, backed by a pair of C1 beam lasers. Take the shields down with lasers, target a juicy subsystem, get close and let 'er rip - if you can position both shots on target, just a couple of swoops can cripple a subsystem on an Anaconda-type target.

Now, most of the time I advocate going with fixed laser weapons and gimbaled kinetics for ease of aim. You just line up the lasers with your target and the gimbal for the kinetics does the rest. Here, however, I went with the opposite - for several reasons. First off, gimbaled energy weapons actually take up less energy than equivalent fixed weapons, while gimbaled kinetics take up more. It's not a huge difference, but with an already-strained generator every bit counts. Second-off, gimbaled weapons lose about a quarter of their damage output, and I wanted to stick with bigger primary guns instead of diluting the impact the main cannons would have. Third, while the cannons are a pain in the rear end to aim with they're at least unaffected by chaff. (I've found that with certain pubbies, just knowing how to aim with fixed guns will get you accusations of hacking because clearly chaff should be an unbeatable invisibility cloak).

Last but definitely not the least, the C2 wing mounts on a Viper sit so far back along the belly of the ship that they have pretty much zero traverse upwards. In this case the benefit you'd get from gimbals down there is so miniscule over the loss of firepower that it's just not worth the tradeoff. (If this was a Cobra, I'd definitely consider gimbaled main guns, seeing as the C2 mounts are right there on your nose).

(If you're thinking of a more doghfighter build, the obvious simple retrofit just switches the C2 cannons for C2 multicannons - I still recommend fixed weapons, unless your aim is truly atrocious).

Defense-wise, mil-spec armor, paired with an C3A shield generator, a C2B shield cell bank and a C3D hull reinforcement package give you a decent amount of survivability, particularly when paired with a chaff dispenser. (Back in my day we didn't have hull reinforcement packages, so I used to go with a fuel scoop - the scoop is lighter and gives you more strategic range, but the HRIP is a zero-power boost to toughness that the Viper definitely appreciates. Everything else is more or less scaled to 'how much more can I get out of the reactor', priority given to the thruster array and power distributor. Tweak and balance to your liking - one 'gently caress everything' type build like this downgrades the sensors and life support and removes the FSD interdictor in favor of a fuel scoop and a B-grade shield booster for further increased longevity (at cost of flexibility).

The big kicker here is that while we're using a lot of A- grade technology, the total cost of the ship will stay well underneath five million - a relatively easy sum for even a new pilot to work their way into with a bit of help and guidance. Most pilots will want to avoid tangling with a whole wing of Vipers on the warpath - or if they don't, they will learn.

RabidWeasel
Aug 4, 2007

Cultures thrive on their myths and legends...and snuggles!
The most recent dev update has named 2 more new ships coming with 1.5 - the Asp Scout and Viper mk. IV, because obviously Frontier realised that people are OK with variant ships and it lets them weasel out of properly filling their 30 ships quota that they guaranteed :v:

I'm going to assume that the Viper Mk. IV is going to take the basic Viper structure and 'upgrade' it similar to how the Imperial Eagle is basically just a better eagle, but with one obvious flaw; the viper feels a little outclassed in its niche right now with some of the other ships that have been added. They could go with a lot of options for the Asp Scout, if it's a rebirth of the original super thin Asp that probably everyone who played F:E2 or FFE loved then I'll 100% fly one for a while just for nostalgia. It might also / otherwise be the 'military variant' mentioned in the lore. I hope it isn't just an Asp version of the DBS because that would be loving lazy and pointless since that niche is already filled; if the Asp Scout fills a similar niche to the DBS (good but not full fledged explorer jump range with good combat performance) but bigger with more guns, internals etc. it would be perfect.

RabidWeasel fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Sep 17, 2015

OB_Juan
Nov 24, 2004

Not every day is a good day.


Dinosaur Gum

Drake_263 posted:

I purposefully left some of the internal equipment bays on the designs to customize for a given mission profile - the Eagle has an empty C1 equipment bay and the Adder an empty C3 and C1 to fit things like fuel scoops, aux fuel tanks and cargo bays into. That said, I love the idea of using the Adder's hefty primary tank and spare cargo bays for a convenient mini-refinery for on-the-fly refueling (I'd actually consider a noncombatant T6 perfect for this job, too).

The trick here is that a T6 is getting a little on the pricey side for an Eagle/Adder/Sidewinder escort.

In a world where ship-based repair and reload were options, yeah a T6 one jump away (or hidden in an asteroid field) would be a great way to avoid having to hit a station or outpost. Maybe someday.

Adult Sword Owner
Jun 19, 2011

u deserve diploma for sublime comedy expertise
Where do I buy those 3A's you used on the Viper?

tooterfish
Jul 13, 2013

RabidWeasel posted:

The most recent dev update has named 2 more new ships coming with 1.5 - the Asp Scout and Viper mk. IV, because obviously Frontier realised that people are OK with variant ships and it lets them weasel out of properly filling their 30 ships quota that they guaranteed :v:
The 30 ship quota is old news anyway, they've already said they'll be aiming for more than that.

Variants are fine by me. But yeah I'd rather there were more sidegrades at a given tier instead of just straight up "best in role".

Drake_263
Mar 31, 2010

Adult Sword Owner posted:

Where do I buy those 3A's you used on the Viper?

Back when I was flying mine I shopped in the Beta-1 Tucanae / Atlantis / Caspatsuria triangle. Most high-tech worlds seem to stock a vast variety of Viper-compatible equipment, though. I'm currently in Xihe and while I haven't checked I think you'll find most of the bits you need/want there, too.


RabidWeasel posted:

Viper Mk. IV

want

TorakFade
Oct 3, 2006

I strongly disapprove


RabidWeasel posted:

The most recent dev update has named 2 more new ships coming with 1.5 - the Asp Scout and Viper mk. IV, because obviously Frontier realised that people are OK with variant ships and it lets them weasel out of properly filling their 30 ships quota that they guaranteed :v:

Actually, three

quote:

the Imperial Gutamaya Shipyards are releasing the Imperial Cutter and the Asp Scout and Viper Mk IV will see their debuts, too.

If the Cutter will be the Empire's Python equivalent, :fap:

e: apparently the Cutter is the counterpart to the Corvette, so probably more of an Imperial Anaconda. Kinda scary thought. Anyways I'm really happy we get significantly more ships, I still haven't found my favourite ship (ok for combat it's the Vulture but I can't settle on multirole - Python is too expensive, Cobra is too limited, Asp is for exploration, Clipper too big and clumsy for its shields)

TorakFade fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 17, 2015

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Mike the TV
Jan 14, 2008

Ninety-nine ninety-nine ninety-nine

Pillbug

TorakFade posted:



If the Cutter will be the Empire's Python equivalent, :fap:


Get ready to grind rep

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