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#4509799 - 03/06/20 09:09 PM Small Fighter Theory Workshop  
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Nice title eh? biggrin

With the fine crew 'round here floating the idea of small-ship combat, I thought I'd start a thread to discuss the finer points of the craft. Building viable combat crates from the limited small-ship choices is challenging. Finding the right balance of speed, firepower and protection, for me, is considerably more difficult in small ships than medium or large ones, with the Vulture being an outlier.

But that's what makes it fun. Messing around today I tried to run some builds through Coriolis, particularly the Cobra 3. This ship was my first one after the Sidewinder and holds a special place. Buying this ship made me feel like I was moving up, which looking back is rather relative isn't it? (money was much more precious then) So over the past year I occasionally mentioned building another Cobra for the nostalgia.

I know Wingy recently built a Cobra and I'd like to see the build. I could make it fast. I could make it jump far and have good integrity. But those shields! Barely breaking 300mj. One of the restrictions with this ship is having just two utilities. So you can't be stacking boosters. In the end I went with a Guardian shield reinforcement in a C4 slot. Combined with a couple of heavy duty E boosters the end result is pretty good.

Cobra 3 Mock Up

Good speed, jump and integrity. Better DPS than my Courier (one additional hardpoint). What I do not like about what I have built are the resistances. I didn't spend too much time on it, and maybe messing around with shield and booster experimentals can help raise and spread the resistances. Thermal is way too low. MJ is important, particularly as collision defense, but I focus more on the 'Shield HP' section. For me that's a better representation of protection against various weaponry. But here is where the trade offs occur. I could go bi-weave, or put thermal resist on the shields or thermal block experimental, but now my mj is going to drop. That TTD also looks weak, so that would need some attention. A class 4 PD would really help the Cobra. I'll keep messing around with it. Love me some beams though. It's a viable combat ship, but requires refinement. Maybe I'll build it.

Compare it to my Courier

Velocity


The Courier is about 150 m/s faster, which is expected as the Cobra is too heavy for EP thrusters, and I doubt the Cobra can touch it for agility, and certainly not the view!. Shields are on par, but the Courier has much better resistances, largely because of the additional two boosters, which allow more freedom with the experimental bonuses. I can also run Thermal Resist on the shields, which are undersized 2A, and keep the MJ reasonable. Less integrity due to fewer internal slots, and no collector limpet on my Courier. Yet anyway. I don't want to keep dropping the speed further by adding doodads and whizbangs, and with the EP thrusters especially, every half-ton matters.

When I decided to build a small fighter a year ago I ran a face-off between the iEagle and the Courier, swapping modules and running each ship through it's paces. The Courier won in the end due to the fact I could protect it better. At these speeds, ample protection is a requirement!

Anyway, if anyone wants to talk small fighter builds or show their builds please do so. I think this is a rather neglected part of Elite with so many cool medium and big ships to choose from.


No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
#4509801 - 03/06/20 09:52 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Originally Posted by DBond
Less integrity due to fewer internal slots


That's not true, I have several empty slots. It was due to mass and speed, not slots.


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#4509805 - 03/06/20 10:32 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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“Vulture be,ing the outlier”

I find the Vulture a tough one for me to theory build in Coriolis. Power starved even with engineering and only 2 hard points. Don’t get me wrong, the Vulture is a good ship and one used for quite a while. I’ve messed around and tried to come up with a build that I find satisfactory to me, but find I just have to make too many compromises to be worth burning the mats during the engineering. YMMV, obviously.

#4509808 - 03/06/20 11:00 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Yeah, and that's why Coriolis is so #%&*$# valuable haha. Think of all the mats we save smile

I sold my Vulture some time ago, you might recall my intervention thread where I sold half the lot. I really do like the ship, but I had too many I thought.

But I did just work this up on Coriolis.

Vulture Test Dual-Beam


It could use some refinement. But I think it shows why I call it an outlier among small fighters. It's pretty easy to about double the shields, and with Bi-Weaves to boot. I put dual beams on it, and efficient, thermal vent to keep the power down. It has it's limitations of course, and that jump range is one of them. Hard choices too on the weapons. When I had one I never was happy with my choices, like one corrosive and one incendiary MC which never felt effective enough. In this build there are a few percentage points of power to still play with considering module priority. 50 dps is not great, but that TTD suggests it can shoot for a long time. I always choose boring weapons anyway. Beams and multicannons ya know?

It's so agile, and with dirty drags it is really a hell of a dogfighter. Compared to other small fighters I think it's easily superior for combat in all but speed potential and then jump range. But of course nobody flies one to fly straight lines smile

But I get what you're saying Bo. When I owned one I was never quite happy with it. I think now that I have access to more engineers I could get there. This one I just put up wold do me fine I think.


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#4509836 - 03/07/20 04:30 AM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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My Vulture build https://s.orbis.zone/69ry

Will probably change the Laser to Overcharged / Regeneration to assist the Wingmen!

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#4509875 - 03/07/20 01:28 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Nice one Wingnuts. Thermal resistance is low, I'd be looking to improve that, probably by swapping low-power for thermal resist . Some MJ would be lost but the 'shield hp', or MJ modified by resistances, would be far better. But you've got good integrity and even managed to squeeze in a GFSDB for more reasonable jump.

I reason that especially on fast and highly agile ships, that the enemy weapons I have to be most concerned about are lasers with their infinite? shot speed. Since they instantly hit what they are pointing at, lasers are much more likely to hit than kinetic or explosive weapons which travel much more slowly of course. So maybe more so than larger ships I think thermal shield resistance is really valuable on small fighters.

Was it you who recently mentioned building a Cobra? Can you share the build?

I flew my Courier last night for a little bit of bounty hunting, and saw how sensitive it is to mass. I have a class 2 fuel tank, and after jumping 10 light years to my hunting grounds, and flying around shooting things I was down to 2/3 fuel. That spent fuel resulted in speed gain. Instead of 4-pipping at 575, it was now 585, and boost speed jumped from 780 to 795! Just from burning some fuel. And not much of that. I'd be boosting 800 with a little more gone. Hadn't noticed this before somehow. On most ships the gain here would be tiny. But on an EP thrusters-equipped ship it is a significant thing.


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#4509998 - 03/08/20 10:22 AM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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I mentioned throwing together a CM4. Unfortunately, real life got in the way this weekend and wasn’t able to log in much. Only got about 3-4 hrs game time which was spent grinding out a few % combat rank. Chasing Recluse and trying to catch up to him in percentage.

We definitely try and get a small pad fleet together for this weekend and hit a haz res or CNB.

#4510011 - 03/08/20 01:40 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Is that Cobra Mark IV? I've not even seen one yet. So yeah, do that smile

When I got back in to Elite a couple weeks ago my plan was to try and stealth-ninja you guys by closing the combat rank gap while you weren't paying attention and/or bored with Elite. Devious plan it was, but you lot have been shooting down ships by the bushel and if anything you've pulled away. Haha, well, it's quite an achievement, and you and Rec are both going to hit it soon. When I first got this game and learned what triple Elite meant I thought, now if there's an end-game goal then that's it. Of course the other ranks got easier to reach, but combat's still as hard as ever. Probably more so as the NPCs are better ships these days on average. Wingnuts did it the hard way, but we have found a little easier path I think especially for me with Trade rank becoming rather trivial.

Rec and Wingy were on last night in Vultures I think. I wasn't able to join. I logged on to import a ship to Coriolis, but didn't get any flying in. I minimized Elite to use EDMC to grab the ship so I logged another 4 hours before realizing it was still open.

When my son's home I don't get the headset on as he's still young and I gotta be able to pay attention, so most of the week when I fly it's solo. But Wednesdays and Thursdays are always good for me. Unfortunately Saturdays are not. So if anyone wants to plan something for say Thursday I'm in. I think I'm going to build another Vulture, still have the modules, and like I said I think with access to more engineers and higher levels I can build a much better one than I used before. I've been doing a lot of mat gathering over the past two weeks and maybe time to burn some of it.


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#4510020 - 03/08/20 04:32 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Thurs works for me as I’m off work Fri and Sat.

#4510037 - 03/08/20 07:28 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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OK sounds good Bo.

I decided to follow through and bought another Vulture. Started to put it together after running a number of variations through Coriolis. I flew to a tech trader to get a Guardian shield reinforcement only to discover I never actually unlocked this. I have a blueprint, but missing some of the ingredients. So it won't be quite as much of a shield tank as I wanted. I'll have to get around to getting that unlocked. Going dual-beam, bi-weave and hoping to maintain at least 30 jump. I'll have to sacrifice some integrity but that's OK.


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#4510051 - 03/08/20 10:48 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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https://s.orbis.zone/6ad5

That's my tentative CM4 build.

#4510056 - 03/08/20 11:14 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Wings Cobra as it is for now https://s.orbis.zone/6adq

Still some engineering to do as I bult it out of storage parts mostly.


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#4510077 - 03/09/20 04:02 AM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Nice whips fellas. Wingnuts that's one amazing Cobra. The speed, jump and firepower are fantastic. My Cobra was nothing like that haha.

It's great to see these builds.

I'll add one. here's what I spent today building

Dual Beam Bi-Weave Vulture

I ran out of mats for a lot of stuff, but good protection (both hull and shield resistances) and jump without adding too much weight to retain as much agility as I could. Quick shield recharge/recover times. This is a much better Vulture than I used to have smile


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#4510120 - 03/09/20 01:35 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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Dual Beam Bi-Weave Vulture



OK, analysis time. It was late when I posted that build so straight to bed. But I'm very happy with the result. Easily the fastest I've put together a ship, one day, and that's with getting experimentals on everything which requires visits to a long list of engineers of course. It also required dusting off the AspX to go for a SRV run to gather up some mercury and ruthenium which I was low on. Turns out I should have looked for some tungsten as well, which I ran out of during the build. That leaves all of those hull reinforcements at partial G5 until I can get more tungsten to finish them. Doing so will bring the integrity up a little as well as round off the resistances nicely.

As you can tell by my comments, I focus on resistances. Integrity and shield MJ numbers are important, but only tell part of the story. How well these figures are modified by resistances, for me, is much more important. I did a pretty good job of it I think, although I would like to see a little higher kinetic resistance on the shields. Kinetic resistance is low when using the Thermal Resistant engineering on the shield. I made up for it somewhat through shield booster experimentals, but I would prefer to see this number north of 50%. As posted, hull resistances are a little low too, but that's in part due to running out of tungsten as mentioned.

Approaching this build I wanted to try and retain the wonderful agility this ship has, as well as try to hit my target of 30 jump. In order to do so I had to keep it as light as possible. So I opted for no armor, instead using heavy duty mod on the stock lightweight alloy bulkheads. Heavy-duty adds considerable weight, except when the bulkheads weigh nothing haha. So it's 'free' integrity. That alone isn't enough, so several HRPs were used to bring it up. Heavy duty mod on these adds integrity and just as importantly, resistances. But it does add mass.

If I had it unlocked I would have used a Guardian shield reinforcement in the C5 military slot. But since I do not, a C5 HRP instead. So it's more hull tank than I set out to build, and a little heavier as a result.

I really like how the shields turned out. Bi-Weaves are great, and with good resists and very fast recharge times it's a really nice setup. Throw some pips in to SYS and any lost ring will refill in seconds. 777 MJ, but modified is 1700+ thermal MJ, which is great protection. Again, kinetic's a little low, but I had to accept it. If there were a way to trade some explosive resist for kinetic I'd do so in a heartbeat. But overall, the shields turned out great and are perfect for any PvE instance. Between the shields and integrity I think I have a very well protected Vulture.

On the other side of the coin -- performance and firepower -- I think I did fine. By keeping it relatively lightweight it retains good speed, 353/571. Agility numbers are very high. I forgot to write them down, and Coriolis doesn't display this. But the numbers are significantly better than even my Courier. After finishing it and before hitting the sack, I had to take it to a RES and test it out and the agility and energy retention are insane. Nothing flies like a Vulture. No drift, just constant purchase, and you can fly rings around anything.

The main challenge when engineering a Vulture is power I think. It's starved a bit and with just a C4 PP some overcharging is required. I got by with G2 here and added Thermal Spread to keep the heat down a bit. Still a little overhead remains, and could always go with another overcharge level if needed. It's part of the reason I opted for efficient beams. This mod greatly reduces the power and heat footprint of the beams and allows me to get busy elsewhere. I would have gone dual-thermal vent, but only had enough mats for one! So the other is oversized.

This mixed-beam set up results in a static or slight drop to heat signature when firing as the thermal vent cancels out the oversized one. I like to use dual-vent when I can. I've never seen anyone mention it, but one of the most amazing benefits of this is how it chills the ship. I have a couple of ships with this setup and standing on the beams ices over the cockpit. That's cool yeah, but what I think no one considers is that dropping your heat like this makes your ship essentially invisible to the NPCs. So while you are attacking you're essentially cloaked. That's a big benefit I've not seen mentioned anywhere.

Weapons are another challenge when building a Vulture. Two large hardpoints is nice in a small ship. But it leaves little room for diversity, and makes coming up with a satisfactory solution to be effective against both shields and hull a challenge. Dual beams strip shields quickly, but not as good for hulls. You can see Wingnuts opted to mix a beam and a corrosive MC. I've used this too, and actually have a C3 incendiary and C3 corrosive MC in storage, so I can chop and change if I get the urge. But dual-beams is ammoless and with 3 or 4 pips to WEP can fire for days. Coriolis says infinite TTD with 4 pips.

I went with D sensors with a few levels of long-range for power reasons. A-sensors draw too much power for this build. A Guardian FSD booster got me to the target of 30 jump, but that does gulp a lot of gas. Can't jump three times at max range on a C3 tank, so plotting a scoopable route is important. It did make flying it to all of those engineers a little better though.

In all, I'm very happy with my new Vulture. This build kind of came out of nowhere. I wasn't planning on a new ship. But this thread got me to thinking, and that's always dangerous biggrin






No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
#4510124 - 03/09/20 02:08 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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I used to run 5 railguns and no shields and full armor on a Cobra MK IV, but that was way back in 2014 or 2015? Anyways, the devs then nerfed the crap out of railguns and made it so they melt individually if you start to overheat. I haven't played much since. It was an awesome feeling taking down player FDLs in a Cobra, though, and couldn't fathom a good reason why they ruined such a fun build or weapon.

#4510129 - 03/09/20 02:37 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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You mentioned it before Blastman, and I think you should give it another go. Maybe you can't use five rails anymore, but build a ship and see what you CAN get away with. I bet a pair of thermal vent beams could offset those rails even today. Lots of other ways to dissipate heat too. Seems an interesting build project.


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#4510130 - 03/09/20 02:42 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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3 fully engineered beam lasers and 4 fully engineered frag cannons are more than plenty of firepower for me on my Fed Corvette. smile


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#4510146 - 03/09/20 03:51 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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What the DPS number on that setup PM?

After Blastman's post I did a little looking around. I've not experimented with rails much myself, as I see it as a PvP weapon and I don't do much of that. But I found a number of threads from the past couple of years with players using four, five and even seven rails. I didn't dig too deeply, or find out how this is counterbalanced. I think maybe it's viable but will be dependent on how the rest of the ship is built. You have to take care of that heat. So while the configuration Blastman was using when they made changes may have been invalidated, it seems to me it's still possible to run this sort of build with the right engineering soup.


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#4510186 - 03/09/20 06:36 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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DBond, consider a AMFU size 1 for your ship. You can use it to repair your canopy when it breaks. It's not if on that canopy it's when. Just turn off the power to the AMFU until you want to use it.


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#4510190 - 03/09/20 06:49 PM Re: Small Fighter Theory Workshop [Re: DBond]  
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I will consider it, thanks for the tip. I still have that unused C1 slot.

Is it true that a canopy won't pop unless shields are gone? If so I cannot see that happening. Famous last words perhaps!

Thanks for the comment. I made that lengthy dissertation about my build but it didn't generate any discussion. What do you think of the build?


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