Krait MkII builds

[Forrest Gimp]

Finally got my hands on this beauty, flew a bit, blew my mind away, and now I need another 200 mil CR to make it actually useful. In the meantime, I'm thinking about how to build it and have a few questions. They build I have in mind looks like this:
https://s.orbis.zone/1g1-
1. No idea how effective it would be in practice, because 3 large MCs look scary, but I'm not sure how am I suppsoed to take down enemy shields to chew up hull with them. Do railguns actually do decent damage against shields? Gotta point out I haven't even started engineers yet, so no incendiary ammo for MC. What would be decent as alternatives? What would be some fun combos actually?
2. Many builds suggest picking Bi-Weave shield over standard one. Why?
3. I was sure I could launch 2 fighters at the same time and finding out I can't was like a kick in the nuts. And main idea behind it is that 2 fighters would be overpowered. What's more silly is that you can actaully have 2 fighters with one being comtrolled by other player. Now, can anyone explain to me how having 2 fighters where one has live player with brain inside isn't OP in comparison to 2 dummy AIs?... FDev seriously thinks AI is better than human pilot?...
4. As a fighter I picked Plasma Taipan. Not sure if it complements my build well tho.

Main idea behind this ship is to have it as true multipurpose, and be able to defend myself against more powerful enemies, while I mostly have to run with my current ship.

[darkflemish]

Maybe this build is better and with engineering
https://s.orbis.zone/1g2d

[Arya]

Multicannons are really versatile. Overcharging them and fitting one or two with Incendiary rounds should give you all the anti-shield firepower you need. Just don't overdo it, you'll also need some kinetic damage. With that in mind, I would also run one with Corrosive Rounds, which increases your damage against hull.

Railguns do a solid job against shields, but they're not sustained DPS. They generate a lot of heat and draw a lot of cap, and for your experience level I'd swap them for something else. Ideally a pair of lasers.

Bi-Weaves recharge really quickly, and with a Krait you're still looking at over 1000 total hitpoints. for Bounty Hunting I prefer have a quick turnaround between fights to raw staying power, anything that can overwhelm my shields I'll simply run away from.

Taipans are good, Plasma is... less good. I always carry a Fixed Beam Taipan with a Fixed Autocannon F63 Condor. Beam Taipans

[Arya]

Looking at your build, my biggest critique is the lack of defensive focus. Offensively you're all set, and your Core Modules are fine. But you're caught somewhere between a Shield and Armour tank, and not really doing well at either.

Mirror-Surface armour is a deathtrap IMO. Hulls are naturally strong against Thermal Damage and naturally weak against Kinetic and Explosive. So adding an extremely expensive armour that adds a token improvement to your best resistance while making your weaknesses even worse is arguably a downgrade. Reactive Armour resists Kinetic and Explosive, and that keeps you alive better. Going Lightweight takes that slightly further, while taking away the weight penalty.

Hull reinforcements seem like a great idea, but you're better off keeping your shields up and not taking armour damage. All an HRP does is increase your Hull Strength, slightly, which buys you a couple of seconds in combat. And only if you're losing. It's just a bad idea, it's a waste of a very valuable slot.

I run a 5A Shield Cell Bank instead. Each Shield Cell fully recharges my Shields, which resets the playing field and gives me a chance to fight back. And experience has taught me, fighting back saves you more times than running away.

MRPs go the same way as HRPs. It's a great idea on paper, but for PVE it makes little different to survivability. Better to run something useful here, I run a Guardian Shield Booster. Which pushes my total beyond 1200.

[Forrest Gimp]

Firstly I wanna point out that getting engineered stuff will take me months or even more at this point, so currently I'm looking for viable build without any modifications required. Plus I'm not really in any shape to go for faction specific weapons, and probably won't even tackle it for a veeeery long time.

Originally posted by Wolfey:

Looking at your build, my biggest critique is the lack of defensive focus. Offensively you're all set, and your Core Modules are fine. But you're caught somewhere between a Shield and Armour tank, and not really doing well at either.

Mirror-Surface armour is a deathtrap IMO. Hulls are naturally strong against Thermal Damage and naturally weak against Kinetic and Explosive. So adding an extremely expensive armour that adds a token improvement to your best resistance while making your weaknesses even worse is arguably a downgrade. Reactive Armour resists Kinetic and Explosive, and that keeps you alive better. Going Lightweight takes that slightly further, while taking away the weight penalty.

Hull reinforcements seem like a great idea, but you're better off keeping your shields up and not taking armour damage. All an HRP does is increase your Hull Strength, slightly, which buys you a couple of seconds in combat. And only if you're losing. It's just a bad idea, it's a waste of a very valuable slot.

I run a 5A Shield Cell Bank instead. Each Shield Cell fully recharges my Shields, which resets the playing field and gives me a chance to fight back. And experience has taught me, fighting back saves you more times than running away.

MRPs go the same way as HRPs. It's a great idea on paper, but for PVE it makes little different to survivability. Better to run something useful here, I run a Guardian Shield Booster. Which pushes my total beyond 1200.

Thanks for the tips. Gives me a lot of perspective here, however, still curious about few things:
- I really wanna learn to use Rail Guns, so I'm keeping them, but if we forget about engineering and look at vanilla weapons, so far I can say that standard MCs do chip damage to shields. Would it be enough to have success in combat? Should I mix them with beams or pulses maybe? If yes, at what ratio?
- I know how situational and, well... poor choice missles are, but I still would love to fit them, is there any way I can make use of them with current hardpoint allocation?
- This is strange, pretty much everyone everywhere suggests Taipan with plasma. I personally thought Beams would be much more useful. I guess I'll heed to your advice.
- I picked Mirror Surface, because so far I've experienced vast majority of enemies running mostly thermal weapons. If Reactive one would be better for PvE, I'll pick that instead.
- That's another reason why I pick Hull Reinforecenments. Sometimes, especially with 2-3 enemies jumping on me, they can overpower my shields rather quickly with all the thermal output on their side, so having sturdier hull lets me either run, or take a risk and finish off enemy if I think it is possible.
- On shields, taking Cell is great advice, it's definitely worth it, but then why Bi-Weave? Bigger MJ pool would make more sense than quicker recharge with smaller pool if I do have a cell, no?
- From my personal experience, enemies tend to wreck my modules at most inappropriate times, so picking MRP lets me compensate it a bit, especially since I run most stuff A rated which has lower structure. I'd prefer running B to be honest, but I really-really need jump to be as long as possible.

[Forrest Gimp]

One more thing:
While I'm still in long process of making moneys, would it be a good idea to temporarly swap 6E Cargo Rack for 6C First Class Passenger Cabins? I don't know specifics of being a space taxi. Would it help me to make more cash faster? How risky it is in not fully combat fitted ship? How often do you get jumped and by who? Maybe cabins other than 6C would be better choice? Do passengers smoke during flight and can I jettison them if they do?

P.S. Trying to do as many different activities as I can, not all for the money, more to keep things fresh and in vain hope of devs fixing other activities I can start enjoying one day...