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[Elite: Dangerous] THARGOIDS INVADE BUBBLE! December 3308 Update!

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  • LilleDjevelLilleDjevel Registered User regular
    So is there any reason at all to not go for A rated modules if you can afford them?

    Grass Grows,
    Birds Fly,
    'til there's Fire in the Sky...

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  • IanatorIanator Gaze upon my works, ye mighty and facepalm.Registered User regular
    There may be concerns such as power draw or weight that are better handled by lower-rated modules. Those may apply more to niche applications though (jump range, top speed, etc).

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  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    So is there any reason at all to not go for A rated modules if you can afford them?

    While overall module quality goes up as you climb up to A rated gear, if you look closely each rating tends to be min-maxed towards something. D rated equipment is popular since it is low mass, which is most notable for influencing your ship's jump range. Some gear draws less power, while other gear has more fortified module integrity so that it is less likely to be destroyed by taking damage.

    Honestly I only use A or D rated equipment 99% of the time.

    General_Armchair on
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  • dylmandylman Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I would say, never use E rated modules. B and C rated modules should be avoided unless you have a precise reason to use them. The ideal build for a given purpose will usually be composed of mostly A-rated, with some D-rated components (usually life support and sensors). Don't be afraid to undersize when appropriate (ie a 4A power plant in a class 5 slot).

    Your personal priorities are a major factor - how much jump range am I willing to sacrifice for combat performance is my usual balancing act for example.

    Also be aware that the numbering system for weapons is completely different, for reasons.

    dylman on
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    dylman wrote: »
    Don't be afraid to undersize when appropriate (ie a 4A power plant in a class 5 slot).

    More on this. There can be some overlap in power output when choosing between a small high quality power plant or a larger low end power plant. I recommend always going with the 'A' rated power plants because A rated plants are better at dissipating heat. I can't recall if this is actually stated on the stat screen anywhere, but it's true. It's particularly helpful when fuel scooping, running hot energy weapons, or spinning up your jump drive after accidentally dropping into real-space too close to a star.

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  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    IIRC larger A plants handle heat better than smaller sizes.

    Like 5A handles heat more efficiently than 4A, no matter how much power you actually use.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    But I'm pretty certain that it's still cooler to run a 4A over , say, a 5D.

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  • LilleDjevelLilleDjevel Registered User regular
    Hum ok thanks!

    This mining update has given me more progress than the entier last year combined lol!

    So the question now is to keep gearing my kraith mk2 or just rush for the conda... huuuuuuuuuuum!

    Or both, probs gonna do both!

    Grass Grows,
    Birds Fly,
    'til there's Fire in the Sky...

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  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Just make sure that you can always afford the rebuy. Don't get greedy

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  • LilleDjevelLilleDjevel Registered User regular
    So what do you gents think would be the best supliment weapon to my 3 large beams on a kraith mk2?

    Has to fit on a medium hardpoint!

    Grass Grows,
    Birds Fly,
    'til there's Fire in the Sky...

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  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    This got linked in a Discord and I am super impressed by the editing at a specific part of the video. Also its just amusing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41Nv2XSOeg

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  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    So what do you gents think would be the best supliment weapon to my 3 large beams on a kraith mk2?

    Has to fit on a medium hardpoint!

    What type of combat are you intending? Long term fights in a warzone/haz rez, or short term ganks to crack ships open for their juicy material loot?

    My personal tastes on the former would either be more beams or gimballed corrosive multicannons (assuming that the big guns are fixed). For the latter I'd probably lean towards dumbfire missiles.

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  • LilleDjevelLilleDjevel Registered User regular
    So what do you gents think would be the best supliment weapon to my 3 large beams on a kraith mk2?

    Has to fit on a medium hardpoint!

    What type of combat are you intending? Long term fights in a warzone/haz rez, or short term ganks to crack ships open for their juicy material loot?

    My personal tastes on the former would either be more beams or gimballed corrosive multicannons (assuming that the big guns are fixed). For the latter I'd probably lean towards dumbfire missiles.

    Mostly short fights to deal with pirates and the odd bounty hunt.

    My current loadout is 3x3C large gimballed beam lasers (love them) and 2x seeker missile racks. But I kinda miss some pure fast kill power once the beams have shredded the shields.

    On my mining loadout I just run 2 beams, and they still do short work of smaller ships trying to attack me!

    Grass Grows,
    Birds Fly,
    'til there's Fire in the Sky...

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  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    So what do you gents think would be the best supliment weapon to my 3 large beams on a kraith mk2?

    Has to fit on a medium hardpoint!

    What type of combat are you intending? Long term fights in a warzone/haz rez, or short term ganks to crack ships open for their juicy material loot?

    My personal tastes on the former would either be more beams or gimballed corrosive multicannons (assuming that the big guns are fixed). For the latter I'd probably lean towards dumbfire missiles.

    Mostly short fights to deal with pirates and the odd bounty hunt.

    My current loadout is 3x3C large gimballed beam lasers (love them) and 2x seeker missile racks. But I kinda miss some pure fast kill power once the beams have shredded the shields.

    On my mining loadout I just run 2 beams, and they still do short work of smaller ships trying to attack me!

    If you do CZs at all, you want at least one cascade railgun to pop SCBs. All beams seems overkill, I bet you kill faster with 1 (or 2) beams and a corrosive multi cannon.

  • LilleDjevelLilleDjevel Registered User regular
    I have no experience with engineering at all and I don't think I have meet any that does multi cannons or railguns sadly.

    But would a solid loadout be something like 2x beam, 1 railgun, 2x multi cannon?

    And SCB= Shield cell battery? =p

    Grass Grows,
    Birds Fly,
    'til there's Fire in the Sky...

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  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    You need to engineer those weapons.
    -t, corvette owner who can fire his beams indefinitely

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  • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
    Without engineering, I think I'd put two medium beams and either go with 3 large multis, or maybe if you feel you need something more interesting to use, exchange the middle multi for a plasma accelerator. 3 beams def is overkill for PvE shield popping, and you will want something to deal with hulls to save time. Shield "hardness" is not affected by weapon size, but hull is which means you want to have your hull destroying weapons in the large hardpoints. The plasma acc can be used for either, and if you keep your beams and multis gimballed you can take shots with the plasma while firing the primary weapons at the same time, capacitor allowing.

    One funny thing after the latest patch is that you do not need as much endurance in combat zones as you once did (well, didn't previously either as back then it was more about the number of claims submitted than the value, assuming we are talking about BGS manipulation), as the new scenarios do not take that long to win. Also, while a feedback rail is nice to have, for PvE it's not that hard to just overwhelm the opponents shields with pure firepower. I recently took my old PvP FDL out of mothballs to fight some wars, and the all-multi setup still works great. One corrosive, one signature and the rest overcharged/fast-firing. I can probably win 2 or 3 scenarios with it without having to re-arm, as long as a cap ship doesn't show, then all bets are off. Not the most interesting setup to use, but still more effective than it should be.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    The krait mk2 has a SLF bay. Crunchy hulls can be eaten up by a multicannon equipped condor. Those little squirts practically pack the firepower of a huge hardpoint weapon when I last checked.

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  • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
    Oh right, that's true. Yeah, the fighter can really help, although I tend to go with the plasma repeater one just because it looks cool :)

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    I've started playing a little bit again and I'm dipping my toes into engineering for the first time ever.

    I currently have an Imperial Clipper that I rather like, but I still have no idea what a proper loadout should be. I pretty much only do PVE rat hunting, but I'll probably want to try some mining some time too. Anyone got some loadout pointers?

  • TimFijiTimFiji Beast Lord Halfway2AnywhereRegistered User regular
    Would there be enough interest in a biweekly squadron hangout? We can maybe have folks come up with different missions (e.g. one week we do ratting, one mining, one exploration, etc...) Opportunity to teach newer folks things, but otherwise chill and fly internet spaceshops. Pew pew.

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    • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
      @Echo No export on the Clipper, but from my understanding the widely spaced large hardpoints make fixed weapons problematic, so you are probably looking at gimballed weapons for them, Maybe beams in the mediums and multis on the nacelles, at least that sounds like a low-effort loadout. Maybe switch out a beam for a rail if you feel like it? Otherwise the usual stuff, A-rated modules and probably thermal resistant focused for Pve once you start engineering, there are resources out there for the optimal way of doing this.

      Mining (I assume you mean deep-core mining) will only take two hardpoints once they patch out the bug where you can use multiple surface abrasion blasters. You will probably want to put the seismic charge launcher and abrasion blaster on the mediums as these can be a bit tricky to aim. You'll need a refinery (don't need many bins, you'll be focusing on one thing at a time) and a collection limpet controller, two limpets should be enough, maybe three. It takes some maneuvering to get all the fragments with the blaster so it's not like ordinary mining where collection speed is critical. Thinking about it the clipper MAY be a bit to large to make an optimal miner now, but it should work.

    • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
      @TimFiji I would not mind swinging by and saying hello some time, but I think most of you guys are on a different time-zone than me :-/

    • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
      The clipper has three main problems as a combat ship:
      *the large hardpoint placement makes it nearly impossible to bring two fixed weapons to bear
      *its shields are extremely weak for a ship its size.
      *it's a huge target, so your opponents won't miss their shots much

      For mining, you can make the clipper work. I think that the krait can equip a better loadout of internals, but the kraits engines are nails on chalkboard tier while the clipper's engines are civilization. As for size, I do my deep core mining in my corvette and even fly her into the shattered core to pick off some of the deposits.

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    • Red RaevynRed Raevyn because I only take Bubble Baths Registered User regular
      I'd come out to a squadron hangout. I played a lot when I started, found mining discouraging (I had a single bin/hopper/whatever refinery so it was just a pain in the butt), did some bounty missions, then got strangely struck by the pointlessness of it all and haven't played in a little bit. On the one hand the world is vast but on the other the gameplay feels strangely shallow. Mine, kill, transport... you've done that? Cool that's the game. Enjoy! (probably not true but that's how it felt)

      Actually doing the things is pretty fun but I got kind of tired of going in and out of starports or w/e you call them. It felt like I was doing more of that than actually playing, and coming out of hypercruise into a port just began to feel a little tedious. Especially managing my speed, like on the one hand I'm supposed to be actively slowing down, but simultaneously the game is changing what a fixed throttle position represents? It's super annoying to be trying to slow down but not too much and it just ends up being either "you will never get there" or "suddenly you're accelerating rapidly." Half the time I'm adding throttle but still slowing rapidly because of this auto-braking or whatever. Either ask me to manage it and stay out of it, or do it yourself and let me just watch the stars go by, imo. There's also a strange phenomenon where sometimes seemingly randomly I just go rocketing past a point of no return and have to do the newbie U-turn... is it a gravitational slingshot near a planetary object? I don't know.

    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      edited January 2019
      Lodbrok wrote: »
      @Echo No export on the Clipper, but from my understanding the widely spaced large hardpoints make fixed weapons problematic, so you are probably looking at gimballed weapons for them, Maybe beams in the mediums and multis on the nacelles, at least that sounds like a low-effort loadout. Maybe switch out a beam for a rail if you feel like it? Otherwise the usual stuff, A-rated modules and probably thermal resistant focused for Pve once you start engineering, there are resources out there for the optimal way of doing this.

      Mining (I assume you mean deep-core mining) will only take two hardpoints once they patch out the bug where you can use multiple surface abrasion blasters. You will probably want to put the seismic charge launcher and abrasion blaster on the mediums as these can be a bit tricky to aim. You'll need a refinery (don't need many bins, you'll be focusing on one thing at a time) and a collection limpet controller, two limpets should be enough, maybe three. It takes some maneuvering to get all the fragments with the blaster so it's not like ordinary mining where collection speed is critical. Thinking about it the clipper MAY be a bit to large to make an optimal miner now, but it should work.

      Clipper PvE I would do something like a medium beam with long range (or burst if beams are too hot for ya) with thermal vent (reduces your heat if you are hitting a target), 3 large gimbal MCs short range blasters - you dont really want to be firing MCs at longer range anyway) (corrosive and autoloader). Biweaves with fast charge and a couple of boosters with resistance aug and specials to even out your resistances. The 2nd medium either another beam/burst/pulse for non-CZ work, or a feedback railgun with LR2 on it (because NPCs in CZs like to and do use SCBs).


      Something like this: https://s.orbis.zone/1vek

      Keep in mind I play in open, and expect/go after PP enemies I come across, so I build for strong hulls. The clipper rams well too. The large hardpoint placement makes it rough for fixed though, so Clipper isn't ideal for me when I want to use fixed weapons. Another option is frags instead of MCs - you run out of ammo faster but frags destroy ships. Especially NPCs that are not inside a CZ. To make the above really min/max, I would drop the A rated FSD to lose some mass and replace the fuel scoop with another HRP.

      The shield strength is mitigate a bit by the hull, and the clipper has the speed to break engagement quickly to let your bi-weaves recharge (34s from 50% to full). The chaff is of dubious value since the ship is so big, but it can help against NPCs with some distance.

      Bigity on
    • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
      The game restricts your throttle ranges depending on how close you are to the destination, which makes it possible to cross a point of no return where you're traveling too fast and the throttle limitations will never allow you to decelerate fast enough before the drop in point. Deselecting your navigation target will let you decelerate MUCH faster.

      I also find the obsession with coming in straight with no loops to be pants on head tier. It is significantly faster to come screaming in like a bat out of hell, gravity brake off the planet, and loop into alignment with the mail slot than it is to carefully zenoglide in. It's also much harder for someone to interdict that way.

      It's also slow to try to quickly get on the pad with no collisions. It's way faster to boost at the mail slot at full speed and then grind against the birdcage to arrest your momentum enough to not overshoot your pad. Once aligned with the pad, remember that the control tower doubles as a backstop.

      Soon you'll be landing like a pro.

      wjt7q2gmpktj.jpg

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    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      edited January 2019
      Just be careful of hitting small ships. If you blow one up with speed over 100, the station will shoot you.

      That being said, the only way to exit or enter a station is boosting to max speed.

      Bigity on
    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      edited January 2019
      Red Raevyn wrote: »
      I'd come out to a squadron hangout. I played a lot when I started, found mining discouraging (I had a single bin/hopper/whatever refinery so it was just a pain in the butt), did some bounty missions, then got strangely struck by the pointlessness of it all and haven't played in a little bit. On the one hand the world is vast but on the other the gameplay feels strangely shallow. Mine, kill, transport... you've done that? Cool that's the game. Enjoy! (probably not true but that's how it felt)

      Actually doing the things is pretty fun but I got kind of tired of going in and out of starports or w/e you call them. It felt like I was doing more of that than actually playing, and coming out of hypercruise into a port just began to feel a little tedious. Especially managing my speed, like on the one hand I'm supposed to be actively slowing down, but simultaneously the game is changing what a fixed throttle position represents? It's super annoying to be trying to slow down but not too much and it just ends up being either "you will never get there" or "suddenly you're accelerating rapidly." Half the time I'm adding throttle but still slowing rapidly because of this auto-braking or whatever. Either ask me to manage it and stay out of it, or do it yourself and let me just watch the stars go by, imo. There's also a strange phenomenon where sometimes seemingly randomly I just go rocketing past a point of no return and have to do the newbie U-turn... is it a gravitational slingshot near a planetary object? I don't know.

      If you like to go straight at stations, approach at full speed until you hit 6 seconds 'distance', then quickly slow to 75% throttle. You will never overshoot this way.

      You can get fancy by maxing speed again once your 'Speed' slider bar on the target turns blue, or get really fancy and slow down with the gravity well like the General mentioned, etc. But that kind of comes later once you are comfortable with the whole process.

      Bigity on
    • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
      Bigity wrote: »
      Just be careful of hitting small ships. If you blow one up with speed over 100, the station will shoot you.

      That being said, the only way to exit or enter a station is boosting to max speed.

      Things were better back in the day when the stations were constantly full of wreckage from dead ships.

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    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      Bigity wrote: »
      Just be careful of hitting small ships. If you blow one up with speed over 100, the station will shoot you.

      That being said, the only way to exit or enter a station is boosting to max speed.

      Things were better back in the day when the stations were constantly full of wreckage from dead ships.

      Indeed.

    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      Ugly example of gravity well braking. Also, notice I max throttle again at the end when the blue 'Speed' slider under my target (the station) turns blue.

      https://youtu.be/5FYeDH5OPFw

    • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
      Also, to re-empthasize the tip. If you're beyond the point of no return and have no other maneuver to slow down faster, then de-select your navigation target and your ship will slow down faster because you're suddenly granted far more authority over your speed.

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    • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
      Also, to re-empthasize the tip. If you're beyond the point of no return and have no other maneuver to slow down faster, then de-select your navigation target and your ship will slow down faster because you're suddenly granted far more authority over your speed.

      I have to be honest and say I forget about this one all the time.

    • Genji-GlovesGenji-Gloves Registered User regular
      Been away from elite for a year.....I need to do a lot of catching up.

      My PC kinda borked at the moment but when I fired it up it was finding my PS4 pad sadly though The Xbox One pad was not working on any setting. Any solutions? Tried deleting and reinstalling to no joy.

      Also Corvas voice Leo of Norman Lovett from Red Dwarf...Holy Smeg.

    • TimFijiTimFiji Beast Lord Halfway2AnywhereRegistered User regular
      I made a little survey for PC folks to play together sometime, but before answering can you think of other things to ask? I'll let people know when to take it.

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      • ZeroczZerocz Space Cowboy In SpaceRegistered User regular
        What is "ratting"?

      • TimFijiTimFiji Beast Lord Halfway2AnywhereRegistered User regular
        Zerocz wrote: »
        What is "ratting"?

        I think I took that from when I played EVE. Just going to a RES and bounty hunting. Oops!

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        • Red RaevynRed Raevyn because I only take Bubble Baths Registered User regular
          Daggone that's some cool stuff to try, thanks!

        • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
          edited January 2019
          I finally decided to stop being lazy and cleared off my desk to set up my HOTAS again. Namely I ran out of command strips and kept forgetting to grab new ones to attach the HOTAS to my desk -- it makes a huge difference when the thing isn't flying all over the place once I start playing.

          Thus the VR elite has begun again! I still have no idea what I'm doing but I'm hanging out in asteroid belts shooting stuff, and have managed not to get killed so far. My new milestone is realizing I can save and exit in space; not having to worry about the station to belt round trip every time makes it a lot easier to play in quick sessions so hooray.

          2h38kky.jpg

          I sort of want to try out the new exploration stuff, but binding new buttons is scary.

          Fiatil on
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