Lately I've been giving more attention to my Courier. It's one of my favorite ships to fly, but other ships have been getting the engineering love.

My goals for this build

-- Very fast. I want boost speed of 800 or close to it

-- Good shields. At least 600 mj if possible. Resistances are important, but I'm finding it hard to get it all

-- Armed. I want to use it for bounty hunting. It is immense fun to fly a super-fast ship in a RES

It's a tricky build. In order to get those sorts of speeds, Enhanced Performance Thrusters are required. When combined with Dirty Drives the optimal mass is reduced significantly. That in turn makes it hard to use the weapons, modules and utilities I need to meet requirements 2 and 3, shields and weapons. Ain't no free lunch as they say.

Here's Velocity as she sits now

Velocity


It's fast, but without weapons. At G4 Dirty Drags, optimal mass is 81t. To get the most speed out of it I need to keep combat weight below that. Class 2 weapons weigh 4t apiece. G5 lightweight would reduce weight of the weapons by 90%, so drop from 12t to 1.2t for three. That's workable if I can shed weight elsewhere. I can unlock Lori Jameson and shed some weight off the Life support but that won't even be half a ton. The other thing I can do is go another class lower on the power plant. It's 3A now, I could go 2A and save an additional 1.2t (exactly matching the added weight from three G5 lightweight weapons), but it would require overcharging to at least G3, which means more heat. I can live with it if can be kept to around 35% heat.

The other issue that presents is using lightweight mods on weapons costs integrity, and the opportunity cost in the mods not chosen. No overcharge, no efficient. So the weapons would be plain Jane and sorta weak as a result. I have yet to decide which types of weapons I will use. Three beams would be nice, but without efficient modification they are less appealing.

Here is the same ship but with the engineering taken to higher levels

Velocity Mock Up


DPS is just 37.5. Not going to kill much, but can get my shots in for claims anyway. But this meets the speed goal, and the shield megajoules goal at 600+. Thermal resist is quite low. But honestly with 800+ boost it won't get hit much right?

Power Plant was switched to 2A to save weight. Lightweight was done to the Life Support. Shields and booster were done to G5. Eventually I can G5 heavy duty the bulkheads, though that doesn't add up to much. This is a ship where if the shields fall, you're mostly dead.

Any thoughts from the folks here? If you're bored, build your ideal fast battle Courier at Coriolis and post it. Might give me some new ideas.


No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!