Me too Wingy. It's all in good fun and there are few things I like discussing more than Elite ship building. It's to my constant regret that this forum is dead unless I am playing at the mo. Because even when I'm out of the game for a while, I'd still love to talk about it (that's what the Frontier boards are for I reckon)

From the time I began playing, I've regarded you as my Elite sensei. You've shown and taught me much of what I know, especially as a noob. I'd be far less accomplished at this point without your help and I appreciate it.

OK, to the builds!

Yes, I was just looking at Mr Skittles this morning and don't think that insane DPS doesn't jump right out! But it did a year ago too smile

For our Vultures, I think they show to a degree exactly how our approaches differ. For example, my Vulture has more integrity, but is lighter, faster, jumps farther and uses no armor. Part of that is due to you opting for non-combat modules in the smallest slots. Your Vulture hits harder (DPS higher, hull damage better, while mine may do better against shields. Vulture hardpoints/weapons are a sore subject for me, so this ship is sort of a special case). You also have superior module protection.

As I am fond of pointing out, raw numbers only tell part of the story. And I focus on thermals. Looking at the defense metrics on Coriolis I think bears this out, although you have superior explosive and kinectic shield defense. But in thermal, my Vulture is superior, and this is borne out in the "Shield will hold for" estimate despite your Vulture having higher mj. Same with armor. In my case it's largely a function of resistance stacking on the HRPs, better armor protection even with no armor (and the cost and weight). If you were to replace those class 1 slots with more HD HRPs you would close that gap or surpass it. But blaze your own!

For the Kraits, they are actually built very similarly, but with some marked differences too. Of course I can't touch your hitting power. But again, mine is lighter (by 130t!) faster and jumps farther, which of course is what I am gunning for. Your armor is superior, but the way I see it is in PvE, armor is only needed if shields fall, since no, or few? NPCs can bypass shields. I still want good integrity in case my shields ever collapse, but that's pretty rare. So I'm willing to trade armor and hitting power to attain these goals. I'm not even talking about heat, and that is something else I focus on. My Krait idles at 28%, making it one of my hottest ships actually. Dual thermal vent beams helps to offset this of course.

Honestly Wingy, I'd like to see you bump your thermal resists more, but those aren't my ships, and you are far more accomplished in Elite than I am, so you have every right to do it as you see fit. But I think with different shield engineering, you wouldn't ever be losing these shields, even against those wings you keep chaining smile

There are a lot of ways to build ships in Elite, and most of them are viable! It's one of the most appealing parts of the game for me. The fact that just about every commander goes a different route shows how well balanced Frontier made this.

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