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About LinkBacksLowe, did you ever try the Vulture? What are your thoughts on the FDL compared to the Vulture, if so?
Lowe, did you ever try the Vulture? What are your thoughts on the FDL compared to the Vulture, if so?
Yes, I ran a Vulture for some time. Good ship, fairly speedy when maxed out, but does have the blatant issue of power starvation. This makes you choose between speed, shielding or weapons. I typically went for a double gimballed pulse laser with A rated shields and thrusters, then used the gimbals to pick off power plants.Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk
I'll skip through the FDL basics, I assume you already know the specs, but essentially it's combat ship with 4x medium hard points in a tight grouping, 1x huge hard point under the ship, and 6x utility mounts. It's about 50mil to buy, and will probably set you back another 25mil to outfit. When A rated you're looking at just over 400m/s on boost (300m/s without), with sufficient capacitor power to provide infinite boost on 4 pips. It's incredibly quick even without pips in engine, meaning you can afford to bias power towards weapons and shields. A rated shields give you about 450 MJ, and this can be boosted up to over 1000 MJ with 6x A rated boosters. That's near Anaconda level shielding. It's a manoeuvrable ship, but not in the typical pitch/roll sense, more along the lines of it has the ability to change direction incredibly quickly by using the lateral thrusters. If you overcook pitch inputs you can end up in a 'slide' which significantly reduces your speed, but of course once you understand this you can use it to your advantage. Think of it as a big Viper MK3 in terms of 'feel'.
You can't talk about the FDL without talking about the huge hard point - it's pretty much the ships selling point. You have two choices at the moment for class 4 weapon. Cannon or PA. I like the PA, but many find it difficult to aim since it's fixed, and you need to pull significant lead in order to land the shot. Practice makes perfect, and there's nothing more satisfying than landing a ranged shot on a small ship, especially when it can drop shields in a single hit. The cannon is less power hungry and can be gimballed, but the projectile is very, very slow. It's pretty much a point blank weapon else you'll never hit a thing. The other option of course is to just use a class 3 weapon in its slot. Be careful though, because the hard point is under the ship, gimballed weapons have a very limited fire arc.
The FDL has undergone a few changes recently which have drastically changed it. The old model had issues with power much like the Vulture, and it also had huge issues with heat. You could literally cook yourself if using lasers, and fuel scooping had to be done with extreme care. The power plant was upped to a class 6, which means it now has enough power to be able to run nearly any weapon configuration you can dream up, whilst still having A grade thrusters and shielding. Less power hungry builds can even run 4+ shield boosters and still have a SCB ready. A bonus of the bigger power plant is that heat is also no longer an issue; scooping is easy, and you can fire multiple rail guns simultaneously without getting close to the boil. To put this into perspective, I currently run 4x class 2 rail guns on my primary fire group, and a class 3 gimballed beam on my secondary!
The downside of having a bigger power plant is the extra weight. 20t worth to be precise, which does have an impact on speed and agility. So, the Devs also boosted pitch and roll rates - it's not quite a Vulture or FAS, but it's an improvement over how it used to fly. The FDL does have one major achilles heel; jump range, and a tiny fuel tank. The bigger power plant didn't help that, and many felt that the increases in agility and power should have instead gone towards its range. 13LY is about the best you can hope for in a combat fit out, and with limited internals if you need to relocate it means giving up a SCB for a fuel scoop or extra tank. If you plan to go outside of the bubble (like me), you'll probably have to sacrifice both in order to have an extra tank and scoop.
In summary there's really not that much that can touch it. It's a potent ship that can dictate the range of an engagement with most ships, can out fly nearly everything in a fur ball and it has enough firepower available to take anything out. If you see a human flying one, you really need to keep an eye on it because as far as PVP is concerned it's the 'alpha' ship in my eyes.
cptwhite_uk (01-02-2016)
Serious question. How easy would it be for a total Elite novice to actually get into the game? Are there any particular requirements (besides a standard PC)? Could a new player actually get anywhere, or are they just going to become cannon fodder?
I only started just before Christmas, though I had played the original many many years ago.
Some control scheme is the only extra requirement. If you have a joystick from any flying games it's enough, otherwise X360 controller suits a lot of people fine.
As for getting anywhere.. yes, you can play in your own private instance so no griefers to worry about. After a short while you'll be able to go most places fine, it's not like Eve where large parts are no-go areas for new players. But you do have to apply a bit of a filter as some content is designed for people who've been playing a year already and we have to resign ourselves to the fact we'll never catch up.
big_hairy_rob (27-01-2016)
Take the time out to browse the manuals, watch a few Newbies guide videos and spend a bit of time learning how things work. It's a space-sim at heart, but with the more realistically laborious tasks omitted so time spent learning is pretty minimal.
You won't be immediately awesome, but there isn't anywhere near as much to learn as, say, the likes of Rogue System or DCS. The focus is all on gameplay here.
An older friend of mine, who isn't massively into gaming, started up about a month before Horizons was announced. I've been playing since Beta, but he's now easily my equal and in many cases my superior. The only area I really exceed him is in flying big, hard-hitting ships (Python, FdL, etc) designed to wipe out targets quickly, which isn't anything to be proud of. He's far better at tactical flying!
big_hairy_rob (27-01-2016)
Its not like Eve where if you didnt start 5+ years ago you have no chance. Its quite quick to get up to speed in Elite. Theres no silly skill tree etc, its all about player skill, credits and how much risk you want to take.
It will take a while to afford some of the big ships, but you don't really need them unless your in to trading and need cargo space (as well as defenses). The best combat ships are not the most expensive ones. Same for exploration.
Last edited by Mister; 01-02-2016 at 12:30 PM.
big_hairy_rob (01-02-2016)
As stated in above posts, no real issue on getting into it.
If you just not confident in getting into player confrontation join a PvE group like mobius (ie lots of players but PvP is banned so no players in FDL's/clippers killing noobs), much better than solo play, which can feel a little empty. Although open (once you get the hang of the controls/play style etc can be great fun.)
Just got my FDL, upgrade from my Vulture.
Good luck CMDR o7
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big_hairy_rob (01-02-2016)
Being cannon fodder isn't a big deal. I have been blown to bits lots of times, a few times on purpose because it is a cheapish way to clear your name and get back to a clean legal status
At the start of the game you get a cheap Sidewinder to fly around in and a few starting credits, and if the worst happens and you don't have the credits to get your old blown up ship back then you end up back in that start ship with the starting number of credits.
Personally if I was starting again I would go straight for combat and fight my way into profits, but with no idea how to fly the ship like most people I started with trading. That is pretty low conflict, and you can choose to run away if an NPC does pick a fight.
I started with the training sessions, they kind of worried me a bit but when I started actually playing the game it wasn't that hard. You do need to know the basics on how to fly though, I just wouldn't worry on whether your skills are good enough yet as at worst you just get another sidewinder.
The little snippets of advice are bewildering until you start playing and then it all makes sense.
big_hairy_rob (01-02-2016)
I'm at 98 Mil and will soon have my anaconda
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Nice, but don't forget you need a 16Mcr A6 frameshift drive to make it usable, and D rated everything else ideally to get a basic trading conda. Then you need 10M in hand for insurance just in case the worst happens and enough credits to fill the hold. It took me a while to learn how to get it out the space station slot and the shields have ended up very low so I wouldn't skimp there (I run A4 shields, that size 6 area is needed for cargo).I'm at 98 Mil and will soon have my anaconda
Just saying because I bought one without that kind of money, did a couple of trade runs, parked it up and swapped back to a fighter to make enough money to equip it properly
Currently says insurance cost is about 7.7M, so must be worth 155M for something that still runs and hides from combat! A heck of a way to go trading though, I'm sure you will enjoy it.
There are places like itza that have a 15% discount off everything which is why you should always https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLMky5IKwAANice, but don't forget you need a 16Mcr A6 frameshift drive to make it usable, and D rated everything else ideally to get a basic trading conda. Then you need 10M in hand for insurance just in case the worst happens and enough credits to fill the hold. It took me a while to learn how to get it out the space station slot and the shields have ended up very low so I wouldn't skimp there (I run A4 shields, that size 6 area is needed for cargo).
Just saying because I bought one without that kind of money, did a couple of trade runs, parked it up and swapped back to a fighter to make enough money to equip it properly
Currently says insurance cost is about 7.7M, so must be worth 155M for something that still runs and hides from combat! A heck of a way to go trading though, I'm sure you will enjoy it.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=706,7R...I,7WC0AA5H_0AA Looks like I need 165M for my entry build
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Can I recommend you use www.coriolis.io for ship building, much nicer interface
Not actually going to try and fight stuff with it are you??? It's like trying to steer a glacier. Might be better with class A thrusters and generator, couldn't say as I have never had the money to fit them (and they weight too much for trading).
If you are into combat, I run a Federal Assault Ship which is pretty awsome. Others swear by the FDL.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Lol apparently everyone's a skin head/ Jean-Luc Picard with the next update. Has anyone heard anything about hair/facial hair options in the update?
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
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