Future loadout for Corvette, non engineered for solo play against NPC?

[caaront]

The size 4 weapons are awesome, and although it hauls passengers right now I sometimes just love to shoot the 4 A laser beam, cannon, and thermal/kinetic weapon, it is awesome.

I am thinking all the weapon points should be full, a kill scanner, a fighter hangar with 2 fighters, one for NPC fighter, one for a friend in multi-crew, with me at the helm.

Military grade skins, or the exotic expesive stuff, stack shield boosters?

I ahve no idea. Thank you.

[n.]

Why non-engineered? If it's because of the grind, it's worth doing sooner rather than later, as it'll soon change in a way that makes the grind worse.

[Myst?c]

Originally posted by n.:

Why non-engineered? If it's because of the grind, it's worth doing sooner rather than later, as it'll soon change in a way that makes the grind worse.

some of us cant commit the money to get horizons (as much im sure we would like to) real life comes before life we wish we were living sadly

[caaront]

I mean for right now, messing around in solo. Will grind for engineer at some point, but relaxing for a bit right now. The engineer grind sounds like a dull time to me, from what I have seen, collect this, kill these guys, sell slaves, scan this, go here, go there, etc...

[caaront]

I may never just play in the open play, unless I have an experienced crew and that is what they do. I am happy in solo

[n.]

Originally posted by caaront:

I mean for right now, messing around in solo. Will grind for engineer at some point, but relaxing for a bit right now. The engineer grind sounds like a dull time to me, from what I have seen, collect this, kill these guys, sell slaves, scan this, go here, go there, etc...

Some of them are far easier than others.
The dweller for instance, can be unlocked pretty quickly, and can upgrade your distributor and lasers. A charge-enhanced distributor and efficient lasers will mean you only need 2 pips in weapons leaving you more power in engines.
For these larger ships, turn rate is important, unless you want to be left using only turrets.

[caaront]

Thanks, that is why I cannot handle everything in the Vulture, the pips, I need to move them around a bit.

You have given me an epip[hiny.

[meucha]

Originally posted by caaront:

I mean for right now, messing around in solo. Will grind for engineer at some point, but relaxing for a bit right now. The engineer grind sounds like a dull time to me, from what I have seen, collect this, kill these guys, sell slaves, scan this, go here, go there, etc...

As i told you in the other thread, you should really unlock Felicity Farseer.
It's a simple trip to Darnielles Progress in the Maia system (Pleiades) to buy one unit of Meta-Alloys and unlock her right away. Doesn't take longer than a Smeaton run.
You'll then have access to :
- Rank 5 long range FSD. No one should game without that
- Lightweight Scanners. Saves quite a few tons on large ships
- And of course Rank 3 Dirty Drive Thrusters, so your Corvette doesn't handle like a brick but more like a non-engineered medium ship.
Believe me it's worth it.

[caaront]

So I just buy at the market and take it to her?

Almost time to land, be back sghortoly, gootta rush.

[meucha]

Yes exactly. And your trip will give you the Scout exploration rank which is her other prerequisite (if you don't have it already). Just bring the best Discovery scanner you can afford and scan every system on your trip.

[Mr Eko]

The only problem with engineers is gathering the materials to perform the upgrades. Some are easier than others, but it can be some busy work. I went for the FSD upgrade only to help me get around the galaxy faster. That one is definitely worth it as meucha said.

I now have one ship which is my dedicated long trip ship and then I just pay to transfer any other ship I may need to that station/system. I also use a dolphin as my main engineer material gather. Has a good jump range and has all the insides necessary to gather any materials where ever they may be. And it's actually very nice to fly.

I love just trying out different ships in this game.

[caaront]

Just got in from Smeaton, averaging 150 mil a run.

[caaront]

I loved the Dolphin.

[meucha]

Originally posted by Lucifer:

The only problem with engineers is gathering the materials to perform the upgrades. Some are easier than others, but it can be some busy work. I went for the FSD upgrade only to help me get around the galaxy faster. That one is definitely worth it as meucha said.

I now have one ship which is my dedicated long trip ship and then I just pay to transfer any other ship I may need to that station/system. I also use a dolphin as my main engineer material gather. Has a good jump range and has all the insides necessary to gather any materials where ever they may be. And it's actually very nice to fly.

I love just trying out different ships in this game.

FSD upgrade materials are pretty easy to get. Wait until you need the ones that only pop in High Grade signal sources, in specific systems... Then you'll start losing hairs.

[Rragar]

Originally posted by caaront:

Thanks, that is why I cannot handle everything in the Vulture, the pips, I need to move them around a bit.

You have given me an epiphiny.

As a combat-oriented pilot, I move the pips around quite a bit even with grade 5 (max grade) engineered distributors, on fully engineered ships. I would say that power distribution management is a skill in its own right, and it is coupled with situational awareness and an intimate understanding of your ship.

Now, as for your loadout... modules on big ships can be easier to hit, so it is generally advisable to focus on shields (but this doesn't mean it is a good idea to have a hull with zero upgrades) when setting up a big ship for combat. As far as PvE/Solo goes, you do not have to worry about thermal shock attacks, or reverberating cascade, or packhound missiles fired at your from multiple launchers simultaneously, or getting jumped by a wing of FDL pilots with a quad railguns fetish or anything the likes of that.

Bi-weave shields are quite good at PvE due to the fact that spike damage attacks are less common and less powerful, so in most cases this boils down to attrition combat, which is where bi-weaves shine. So I would advise a bi-weave shield generator (which is also gonna save you some power), and then use boosters to increase the shield capacity from there. You could go for a full boosters setup if your power plant allows it, since you won't be needing the special tools for ensuring hostile commanders won't get easy advantages over you (such as heat sinks and chaff).

On a decent engineered Corvette, you'd be looking at 2000+ shields with 40-50% damage resistance across the board. You won't get that close without engineers, but try to aim for that. I also advise A-grade engines for their performance, as well as the biggest A-grade power plant that serves your needs, because A-grade power plants are the most heat-efficient. You could do without shield cell banks in PvE and go for a fully reinforced hull, with one or two module reinforcement packages. Not advisable for PvP, but it can be quite good for PvE if your shields drop.

Now, as for the weapons... in PvP, everyone has high resistances to everything, so you can use whatever you like. In PvE, though, NPCs have shields that are weak to thermic damage. Their hulls can be of any type, including mirrored and reactive, so I would advise this for PvE: invest the vast majority of your firepower potential in thermic weapons (such as lasers), and the rest in kinetic weapons because kinetic can be quite useful in PvE for taking down big targets that happen to have mirrored hulls.

If you delve into engineers later on, you could convert one of your kinetic weapons to apply a corrosive effect that reduces the target's damage resistances, and this is quite handy regardless of what damage type they resist best.

You also can compensate in the damage department with your ship-launched fighters. There's several fighters that have dual repeater plasma cannons, and the Rogue variant of the Condor has multicannons (this is my personal favorite). All ship-launched fighters have unlimited ammo pools.

[caaront]

I recall seeing that three of them are unlocked, but was grinding for rank.
I guess I accewss then through my right panel and correspond with them to see what they need?