Weapons for an asp explorer

[Digideath]

Hi there. I'm just about to buy an asp explorer and am wondering what would be a good weapons setup for combat/bounty hunting. I'm also concidering using it for mining but ill cross that bridge when i come to it. I just need it combat ready, quick.

[Chibbity]

I've got mine setup like this at the moment, I do a lot of pirate massacre missions/bounty hunting, some light smuggling on the side:

2 slot left: Medium burst laser. (Firegroup 1)
2 slot righ: Medium multi-cannon. (Firegroup 2)
1 slot left: Small pulse laser. (Firegroup 1)
1 slot right: Small multi-cannon. (Firegroup 2)
1 slot chin left: Small cannon. (Firegroup 2)
1 slot chin right: Small cannon. (Firegroup 2)

All gimballed.

Ofc I play with a friend typically who brings more laser weapons than solid, so you may want another laser for soloing to tear shields down. Still this setup works well even solo assuming you are jumping in on pirates along with the federals at a Resource site.

Tried missiles on the two small chin mounts at one point, as well as gauss cannons; instead of the double cannons. Missiles were lack lustre, ammo hungry, and expensive to operate. The Gausss cannons were nice but overheated the ship quickly and needed to be manually aimed.

[BarbarianIstic]

2 medium Multi cannons and 1 small Multicannon, 3 small Beam laser. All gimballed.
Just pay attention to the heat when you spam the beam lasers.
Multicannon/Beam laser build's wreck small npc ships fairly quickly provided the gimbal is locking correctly.
Fire all weapon's at the same time when you have available heat :D

[s0laris]

Do not want to sound like a party breaker but if you want to concentrate on combat, i recommend the Vulture instead. Same price range, cheaper to A rate it. Be advised, its good for nothing else than combat.

Energy will be a problem though, the Vulture has an abysmal class 4 power plant.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Asp should not be used in those roles. Especially not without engineering.

If you're dead set, the two most effective weapon setups are:

2x MED Multicannon 4x Beam lasers or

1x MED Multicnnon, 1x MED Beam Laser
2x Small Multicannon, 2x Small Beam Laser

If you are really good at fighting close range, you can use Inertial Impact Medium Burst Lasers, but this is for advanced users good with fixed guns only.

[Wildcard]

No, Dont do it. an ASP Explorer is not a Combat Ship.
Get a Krait, Python, FDL or Mamba.

Krait can double as a better Asp Explorer with better jump range, as a combat ship has better shields, speed, and weapons. Same with Python though its speed (yaw rate) is worse then the Krait. While FDL and Mamba are extremely fast but lack firepower to take on mulitple enemies for extended periods of time.

[ZombieHunter]

All MC's. Incendiary and Corrosives. No shield. Full heavy duty hull reinforcements. I know someone who has this type of build and the thing is evil. Takes out Condas and Cutters easily.

[malorob]

you might also want to look into upgrading your armor as it will not lower your jump range

[ZombieHunter]

Almost any ship can be a combat ship. A poster on here called Agony Aunt claims he has a combat Orca. The very thought of it makes me chuckle but I guess it is possible.

[Ame]

Honestly, it would probably be cheaper to outfit an ASP Explorer for mining than it would be to outfit it for combat. That's mostly because combat ships have A-rated modules and upgraded hull, the hull can cost as much or more than the ship itself. Mining on the other hand doesn't need top tier modules and your largest optional internal slots will likely be cargo racks, which are relatively cheap.

If you're set on using it for combat, I'd go with gimbaled beam lasers in the small slots and gimbaled multicannons in the medium slots. When your ship starts to complain about heat, hold off on the lasers and just fire the multicannons. I highly recommend the Auto-reloader experimental effect on the multicannons; makes them so much less cumbersome and doesn't require too much work to access the engineer that can bring multicannons all the way to grade 5 (if you so choose, you can get an experimental effect after a single roll of any grade 1 mod).

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

Almost any ship can be a combat ship. A poster on here called Agony Aunt claims he has a combat Orca. The very thought of it makes me chuckle but I guess it is possible.

I used to have 2 combat Orcas and 1 combat Beluga.

Orcas at one point were very popular with the PvP crowd as they made excellent ramming ships.

[Hawk]

You should never put weapons on a ship that is one of the worst ships for combat. Otherwise all I can say is you should wish you are never in open when I am. I will have no choice but to liberate your poor ship from your abuse by putting her out of her misery and sending you to a rebuy screen

[DiKlein]

Don't use a aspx. It's isn't a good fighter. You can buy a vulture for the same amount of credits and it's way better for fighting. The aspx is way to slow for a little combat ship and usually every vulture will outmatched you especially when she is engeneerd.

[Digideath]

I don't know why everyones complaining because it seems an able enough ship. It seems to be just marginally slower than an upgraded cobra mkiii. I had the asp upgraded to A's from word go so maybe that's whats helping. Anyway it's just for npc combat, not pvp.

The weapons im using just now are 2 medium beams and 4 small multi's. Just because that's what i stripped from my previous cobra then added to. I'm a bit disapointed i can't mount anything with more punch to it.

Anyway I got plenty of chance to test it out in combat last night. Just after i kitted it out, i took on a 1 mil federal navy delivery job and got interdicted 3 times. I willingly submited every time. I was left one on one with a vulture, a cobra and an anaconda. I handled each of them easily even with 91 ton of cargo. I killed 1 and the other 2 jumped out. I hate it when they run away lol

[Cylixx]

Originally posted by Hawk:

You should never put weapons on a ship that is one of the worst ships for combat. Otherwise all I can say is you should wish you are never in open when I am. I will have no choice but to liberate your poor ship from your abuse by putting her out of her misery and sending you to a rebuy screen

Wow, I'm sure your parents are proud of your achievment that you narcissistically belched forth for all to see. What a loser.

Asp Ex is really bad for combat though, OP. Even if you kit it out to deal with annoying pirates on your tail, an Asp can simply escape, and save time by just refusing to fight.

If you wan't to build a fighter that has an alright jump range, Clipper is nice. But you probably already knew that.