Fun Build for Combat Zones (Challenger)

[ждун]

Greetings Commanders

As Power Play and BGS is now worth bothering, I am sharing another fun build from my engineering workshop made for the single purpose of military action serving your favorite power to defend their territory or expand it by force.

Today we are looking at a special challenger build made for dominating combat zones with fun using dirty tricks leaving the enemy no real chance to actually fight back.

First here is the build

https://edsy.org/s/vMHTW1T

Then, let me explain the key ideas and how to use it to its full advantage.

This is obviously a cool running (stealth) hull tank equipped with
3x cytoscrambler
3x pack-hounds launchers
1x imperial hammer railgun (penetrator)

Each fight goes through 3 stages.
(If you can actually call it a fight, as your enemy will be disabled early on and won't be able to fight you)

1. Strip the shields with cytos
2. Disable their drives with pack-hounds
3. Pop the powerplant with the penetrator rail.

So this build is avoiding chewing through high resistant armor in combat zones with the sheer firepower, but instead targets the weak spots. Drives and the Power Plant. You literally don't care about how many hull reinforcement packages they have inside and how strong their hulls are. The strength of their hull doesn't matter. Also their firepower doesn't matter, as they will be disabled and taken out of combat floating without control soon after they lose their shields. Then you comfortably finish them by striking their power plant with the penetrator. This is very easy when they can't maneuver.

The Cool Powerplant

One of the main features that is crucial for this build is its Low Emissions Thermal Spread Power Plant providing extremely low profile (stealth) and outstanding heat efficiency of only 0,125/MW which is up to 5x better compared to overcharged power plant of same class that would be required for a typical shield tank. With this you will never have overheating problems even when spamming pack hounds, hence heat sinks or vent beams are not required. Additionally you will almost never be targeted by random enemies around as with your low profile they have issues getting a lock on you. You can sail through the battle field picking your next victim and no ones cares.
Note that the powerplant is squeezed to maximum and it requires some power management. You must have FSD, cargo scoop and assistance systems disabled during combat to have enough power for powering the weapons.

Defense

With the limited available power it cannot be a shield tank, but must be a hull tank. It has a shield but it is not a strong shield. Even though it almost never drops anyway. You are rarely targeted due to low profile, but even when you get ganged by spec ops, you can spam chaffs, that helps to keep up the shield which also restores very quickly (full within a minute). Even when it actually gets hairy you must not panic, you can rely on outstanding strong hull and module protection. Also with your strong hull spec ops with their phasing lasers bleeding through the shield don't really bother you much.

Offense

After picking next target, make sure to target its drives now already, so that you have a lock for packhounds ready as soon you have stripped the shields.

1. Stage
You start with striking the shield with cytoscramblers. This is the best option against shields. We can utilize small hardpoints but each efficient engineered cytoscrambler delivers more dps against shields than medium size overcharged beam laser and it does it almost for free on distributor. However you must be close in order them to work. Engage from withing 1km distance. With 3 efficient cytos you have stripped the shields mostly within seconds. Sometimes it can take a bit longer if they start spamming SCBs. However you can overwhelm that as well.

2. Stage
Once the shields are stripped, spam 3 or 4 salvos with your three packhound launchers against the drives. This is the tricky part. You want to hit them from behind, this requires a little training and the right timing.
Tip: You can fire packhounds even when the target is behind you. If you have lost sight on target, the lock remains for about 5 seconds more. Use that to your advantage. If the enemy is trying to face-tank you hiding his drives behind its hull, simply boost past him and as soon you have passed fire the packhounds. They will instantly turn around and hit him in the back disabling his drives.

3. Stage
Once the drives are down, the enemy is disabled and cannot maneuver. It will be tumbling through space without controls. Now its time to finish it off. Catch up with it (if necessary boost). While catching up switch target to its powerplant and select the penetrator. Start hammering its power plant until it goes off. When they have their drives disabled they will keep going in a stright line, so aiming at the power plant becomes much easier.
Tip: I suggest using "standard" ammo, not the basic ammo. This is another +15% damage bonus, you don't need a lot of it, and synthing it is not too expensive on mats as well.

Enjoy

[Raigenkajun]

Thanks for sharing, defiantly going to try this build out, once I unlock the weapons. Also never really thought about your tactics in CZ.

[Holeypaladin]

Would never use pack hounds in a CZ. Not enough ammo, and I don't like to synth it.

[ждун]

Therefore high cap on pack hounds for double ammo. These are used only for disabling the engines, where they excel at. They are not for chewing the armor. With that build I can complete several battles before I have to restock them. I do restock the penetrator more often actually.

using packhounds in combat zones is smart. The enemies are tough, but they have weak engines. A few hits with packhounds to the engines and even elite forces are instantly disabled and are no any threat anymore.

Packhounds are awesome for disabling engines, their only real problem is not the ammo, but the heat they produce if you have more than one launcher. But having only one launcher is not enough to kill the engines in one moment, you will have to find the sweet spot for firing multiple times with only one or two racks. Optimal are three or four, than you can kill the engines with one blow. But this would set you on 200% heat or something instantly as well, unless you run a low emissions thermal spread PP.

[Sighman]

Originally posted by Holeypaladin:

Would never use pack hounds in a CZ. Not enough ammo, and I don't like to synth it.

My only problem with materials these days is they're always full and I have to discard mission rewards, rewards for completing ax systems, etc.

So I've turned to synth more often.

[ждун]

packhounds are also very cheap to synth. Only basic grade 1 raw mats. Never run out of these anyway.

[Holeypaladin]

I guess it's an option. My FDL blows things up pretty quickly, but it's a test of aim against the highly mobile spec ops ships.

Biggest problem in CZs is when all four spec ops ships decide to gang up on me. Have to withdraw from their range and hope they find other targets... but often they'll simply re-engage me as a group the moment I get close again.

[ждун]

yur FDL is a shield tank I guess?
That is a typical problem I was having with hot running shield tanks too.

Now with this build I actually hunt the spec ops for the bonus. They don't bother me much with that. Probably due to low signature they don't gang up so much. Or if they do help their buddies that I am hunting, they lose me quickly and leave me alone comfortably finish off their leader. Running with low profile is completely different story.

Also I learned to love hull tanking in CZs now. This build only has 800ish shield power with resistances counted, but it is still never going down. Because it refills so crazy fast. I can take a few hits with it, but then it restores again during maneuvers. But having 10k hull is nice, you don't have to worry much about losing the shield. If it collapses, so what, you can withstand for a whole while with just the hull. Long enough to kill all freaks on you. But the best part of it, the spec ops with their phasic lasers bleeding through shields barely do a scratch on this hull.

My next engineering project will be a cutter with the same ideas in mind. Cool hull tank with 4x packhounds to disable engines even better, but probably fixed MC's for finishing. But maybe I pick something else instead.