Elite Dangerous Outfitters - Green Stinger Viper

Hey Space Cadets! What is going on?
I'm Cmdr TwingTwang and welcome to the outfitters!

In this article we'll be looking back at some viper builds and trying to improve upon them.  In previous articles I've presented the quad-beam wingman viper, designed to aggro and harass targets, and the Red Venom Viper with big A2 Frag Cannons that was a great space superiority starfighter but its limited ammo meant it lacked staying power in a conflict zone.

The Red Venom
The Red Venom Viper was a good contender for an escort fighter role. The hard hitting A2 Frag Cannons really tore into hulls once the shields were down and their peak-power-to-damage makes them a top pick for a power-limited Viper loadout. They are backed up by a pair of E1 Gimbal beam lasers in the small hardpoints - in combination with the Vipers tight turns you should be able to keep any ship in your sights while you empty the banks and then unleash the fraggers.
The Red Venom is taking a little gamble as an escort vessel - usually it sees 0-1 starfights between chance to dock and reload, but in the case of a second - or third - interdiction you have to start a fight with no ammunition.

The Wingman
The Wingman Viper build relies on quad beam lasers to light up the skies, and is a warzone build designed for sustained sorties by avoiding the ammo limited weapons. It it great in a swarm when you can tag team against a large ship, or you can perform a sustained lance with the beams in conjunction with an opportunist hard hitter like a Missile Gunboat Asp to score quick kills.
Quad beams are also a great way to aggro and draw attention as a convoy escort vehicle, with your freighters packing seeker missiles to compensate for the lack of punch in the wingman build.  A Sixer with dual B1 Seeker missiles can add a lot of muscle as soon as the quad beams have worked away the enemies shields.

Of course, the Solid Gold Viper isn't a serious combat vessel - its a premium ship for a prestige audience and it's a choice to dress-to-impress instead of getting stuck in.  I'm not going to talk about the loadout as a serious ship - I guess you could fly a wing of these with competent pilots and fare well enough though.

Adding staying power to the Quad Beam Wingman viper is pretty tough.  It suffers from Thermal Overload on the weapons, causing them to cut out and the overall temperature raises into the 100-130 range often enough in a dogfight.  Having flown it in anger for a while I can only recommend adding heatsinks to help out. The large power draw of those beams puts it in the 12.22 MW range and it really can't afford the power for the bigger shields and thrusters that it wants.

The Red Venom is a better starting build. At only 11.41 MW, it already has Class-A thrusters and can afford to put the extra power into Shields or shield banks.  Running out of ammo on your primary damage dealers is quite a hassle so the first thing we are going to do is swap out those big A2 Fraggers for D2 Beams on a Gimbal mount.

This leaves the small hardpoints up for grabs, as beams on there are going to draw too much power.

Cannons or Missiles?

The lure of Frag Cannons is very strong for their amazing power-to-damage ratio and high damage-per-second value and it's possible that Fraggers on the small hardpoints is acceptable, since the Size-2 beams on the medium hardpoints will see most of the action, but the Frag Cannons chew through their ammunition quickly and as we are trying to add more staying power I'm going to discard them.

This leaves us with the two real choices for low-power high yield weapons pictured here.  The B1 Dumbfire missiles take the crown for highest impact damage, and can be a crippling one-two punch with the larger gibmal beams.
And lastly I'm going to highlight the E1 Cannons on a Gimbal mount.  They don't pack as much power as the B1 Dumbfires by a long stretch, but the 16 shot missile rack isn't up to our criteria for a long fight. In the end the 100-round Cannons win out as the biggest-damage high-ammo small hardpoint weapons.

To finish the build, I'm going to spend the extra 0.4MW on either a pair of Point Defence turrets, or on upgrading the main shield generator from 3B to 3A. Actually the difference between the 3B and 3A shields isn't that great, so I'm going to try out the point defence turrets this time around. It's possible that I'll revisit this if I think I'm taking too much heat.

And that completes our build.  The Red Venom Viper has been reconfigured to use D2 Beams as its primary and E1 Cannons the hammer on hulls once the shields are down.  The old Red Vipers A2 Fraggers were real can-openers when you bought them to bear, and the replacement cannons aren't going to be as deadly but the faster shield takedown combined with increased ammo makes this a much better ship in larger fights.

Green Stinger Viper
So following my experiences with the Red Venom and Wingman builds, its time to introduce the Green Stinger Viper.  Its not got the poison of the Red Venom, but still has quite a sting from those dual cannons.

The Green Stinger

Thanks for reading, I hope my flight time helps you in your outfits and builds. If you've got experience flying the Viper, or there is another ship outfit you'd like to see then let me know.

I'm Cmdr TwingTwang, and this has been the outfitters.
As always, Fly Casual.

Elite Dangerous Outfitters - Red Venom Viper

Hey Space Cadets! What is going on?
I'm Cmdr TwingTwang of the Alliance, and welcome to the Outfitters!

In this article I'll be putting some venom in my viper some hardpoint choices. In previous articles I've outfitted a thematic Solid Gold Viper that relied on prestiges and looking good and recently a Wingman Viper that was based on Quad-Beam lasers to keep a ships shields down while a bounty hunter sweeps in for the coup-de-gras

This viper has got a lot of venom in its bite.  I've based if off of the wingman viper build, which was a combat ship balanced for its power consumption. The entire thing can be had for a couple of million credits, so this ship won't break the bank and you can afford to lose a couple while you get used to the heat.

Off the bat, I found the wingman viper was fine for tag team combat but I was concerned that the ship was loosing manuverability with its Class-B Thrusters, so I've chosen to upgrade those to Class-A and get the most out of this ship.  I also added military composite alloys, because the price isn't too steep and I wanted that extra snug feeling of safety.

Otherwise its a reasonable Viper build, and well within budget on all fronts.  I took this ship for a spin at a RES and started racking up the kills to get a handle on its performance.

Safety Features
Like the Wingman Viper, the Red Venom has Class-B shields and a Class-C Shield Bank fitted. These weren't really up to standard in a fight, and while I've been spoiled by the Double-A shield standard in an Asp I did expect the Viper to be a bit more hardy.
I found that while I was outside the fire arc, I was fine but each time I squared off head to head with an Anaconda it cost me a shield bank, or more. With the extra 0.6MW of power going to waste, I think better shields are really wanted here.

The small hardpoints have my default option of E1 Beam lasers on Gibmal mounts. I've done so much damage with these in the past they are a good starting point - but more on this later.

For medium hardpoints I carefully considered the Big Four options.
The C2 Plasma Accelerator and B2 Rail gun have the same listed damage and damage penetration, but at 1.43 and 1.63 Megawatts respectively they are out of my power budget.
The B2 Missiles do tremendous damage, but I'm not sold on using missiles as my primary weapons - this isn't a missile gunboat build its a space superiority starfighter.

That leaves the wildcard option, the A2 Frag Cannon. Huge damage per second on the frag cannon for very low power consumption makes it an ideal choice for a power-limited Viper build.  You just have to stay cool in the battle and take those shots when they come.

Flight Feel
I'm not sure I really felt the difference between the Class-B and Class-A thrusters straight away, and circling an Anaconda at point blank is a difficult time to reflect upon the efficiency of your ship however we managed to corkscrew around each other for some time with me emptying my little gimbal lasers into the shields a couple of times before being able to line up the big guns.

While the E1 Beams do empty quickly and suffer from overheating, The A2 Frag Cannons are the star of the show for the damage/power ratio and once those shields were down I was able to tear up the hull pretty quickly. Aiming fixed projectile weapons takes more patience than I'm used to and I only landed half my shots, which really exaggerates both the low ammo supply and the thickness of an Anacondas hull.  I let loose some stray shots, and landed some direct hits on shields that hindsight tells me I should have waited on.

The Second Anaconda ran me out of ammo, and I had to continue the fight with small Beams only - its possible but I wouldn't recommend it. Local security services took some of the heat out of that which meant I felt safer even without such a bite. After that every ship was small enough for beams, including a rather aggressive cobra.




Final Verdict
Those big old A2 Fraggers really put some venom in a viper. With low power consumption and huge damage when you get a good attack vector I'm suddenly more scared about squaring against a viper than I was before.
I can see why Viper Jocks always swear by fixed weapons - those big guns hit very hard and a little pilot skill and patience really pays off.

I can see myself re-outfitting with Size-2 Beams and smaller fraggers, and see how that feels. When your primary damage dealer runs out of ammo, you shouldn't stay for too long in a fight. The larger beams will take down shields faster, be better at targeting modules, and maybe buy me enough time to land those frag cannon shots without wasting half my ammo to the void.

As always, Fly Casual.

Elite Dangerous Outfitters - Wingman Viper

Hey Space Cadets!
I'm Cmdr TwingTwang and welcome to the outfitters.

In previous outfitter articles, I've talked about freighters and rare-runners because that's where my experience led me. My recently themed Solid Gold Viper was a fun ship - great to roleplay as a wealthy do-nothing but not so practical as a combat vessel.  In this article I'll be back in the Viper cockpit trying to smoke some fools in a more efficient killer.

First Impressions
The first thing you'll spot is that the Viper is - and remains - power limited.  While the currency of a freighter is its capacity, the currency of a fighter is clearly MegaWatts and even with the big old A3 Power plant in its reactor bay you can't afford all the toys you want.

In this build I went a little over on the power side, but only enough to shut down my FSD - which I didn't need while dogfighting so this build was able to stay in a fight for long periods of time.

General Outfitting
Unlike my regular builds, the Viper has a lot of intentional downgrades to lower the power consumption.  Although I still had a fraction more overspend I could have used, this was about the peak power that I wanted and I found every compromise difficult. Balancing power in a viper is no simple task.

As power is the biggest problem, I went for the Class-A power plant and distributor.  The power couplings do draw some power themselves but I think its 0.6MW compared to 0.55MW for the Class-B and for that price I want to squeeze everything I can out of the ship so Class-A was the only option.

Everything else is prioritised in the order I think I use it. Class-B for the Thrusters and Shields, Class-C for the Frame Shift Drive just to give me the minimum range I wanted and then Class-Es for the lowest power draw.

Safety Features
Reserving power for the Class-B Shields and Class-C Shield Bank has been a priority, and along with the other components should be enough to keep me safe.  The next step is to fill those hardpoints.

As I'm sure you know by now, I'm a huge fan of those Gimbals so the viper pictured has a pair of 2D Gimbal Beam lasers on the medium hardpoints and a matched pair of 1E Beam lasers on the small hardpoints, also on gimbals.
This finishes me off at 12.22MW, so slightly up on power but not above my overspend.  The quad-beam setup overheats quickly but they are my starting loadout because...

...So why Quads?
Quad beam lasers are pretty sharp at taking down shields, and by linking pairs to primary and secondary fire you can control the heat manually.  I chose quad beams on this build because I wanted to fly wingman to a bounty hunter.  I don't need to score the kill, just aggro the quarry, and quad beams will really light up the skies while I take down the shields and chip away at the internal modules.

The quad beams loadout eats power, so when I switch out to cannons I'll have a little extra juice available, and I'll talk about weapon loadouts in the next article.

Conclusions
As you can see, there are a lot of sacrifices made, and I'm not done with the ship yet.  I want to try a build with only one or no lasers. I think the Viper has got enough punch to make it happen with just cannons, or multis - I just need to put in more flight time to get the hang of that flying.

Elite Dangerous Outfitters - Solid Gold Viper

Greetings space Cadets!
I'm Cmdr TwingTwang and welcome to the outfitters.

In this build, we'll be discussing the Solid Gold Viper.  Because sometimes, you just want the best of the best. And then you put gold on it.

The solid gold viper is a thematic ship and my outfitting has tried to represent this. Obviously every component is Class-A, and I've not downsized anything to a smaller model. Lastly, the icing on the cake is the Mirrored Surface Composite hull, which I thought went very well with the Solid Gold Theme.




This Viper can be yours for around Four Million Credits, and represents peak spend on a Viper. It's 12.85Ly Range isn't going to carry you much further than the combat zone, but once there the Gold Viper is the pride of the fleet.

A Premium feel
The flight feel is top-notch, and from the second you leave your landing bay this ship just oozes quality and style.  Its zero-to-max acceleration is much higher than any of the bulk cruisers I've been flying recently and even higher than my Combat Asp.  The lightwieght hull means that even A3 thrusters are able to throw this ship around space.

With every component at Class-A, the ship performs well. Its the luxury space superiority star fighter for a new generation

Safety Features
In addition to its premium Double-A shields, I chose to equip this cold gold killer with a pair of 2D Cannons on gimbal mounts.  These hull crushing bad boys don't cost too many credits and its their low power consumption that has chosen them as my main damage dealer, compared to the big rail guns and plasma accelerators that you will really struggle to fit on a Viper with a little A3 Reactor.

Backing up the Cannon are a pair of 1E Beam lasers, also on gimbals.  If you keep your target front and centre, the gimbals don't drift much and I generally like their performance.  They can struggle when you are up-close, and I've had overheating problems with them but overall I still find them a good pick.

Action Report
After taking the Solid Gold Viper for a spin, I decided that the power draw on the weapons is just too much. I'd expected the FSD and Life Support to cut out when the hardpoints are deployed - This gives you a countdown of twenty-five minutes to cook your fools and holster those guns. But I think I miscounted the power and I also lost my Shield Bank, which meant I had to retract the hardpoints to boost my shields. Its no big deal, but takes a second or two and overall isn't enough of a combat edge.

Bringing the gibmal cannons to bare didn't have a strong satisfying feel, either, and it was difficult to line up my shots so I re-equipped with 2E Turreted Cannons and downgraded one of the beams to a burst laser.  The lower power draw was a lot safer for the ship, and I got into the spirit of Alliance gun-slinger in no time. One word of warning though, those Turret Cannons cost an extra four million each, and Tripple the cost of your ship.

The ship turns on a dime and I found it remarkably easy to keep my quarry in the cross-hairs, and to give those big turrets a clear line of fire. In fact I turned so sharp the whole screen faded to red and I nearly blacked out from the G Force. The I can see why fighter pilots are comfortable with fixed-forward beams, they give you a lot of control over your damage output in such an agile ship, and the overspend on the Turret cannons probably wasn't worth it.

The Solid Gold Viper is lacking in power though and the best on the list for low-power-high-damage is the 1B dumb fire missiles, partnered with cannons on the Medium hard-points. This load-out does give you an insanely strong lance, but I'd recommend this as a coup de gras attack after your wingman with lasers has gone to work on the enemy shields.

And Finally
Flying the Solid Gold Viper into combat zones and resource extraction sites looking for trouble has been tremendous fun, and I'm looking forward to getting back in the cockpit and really seeing what I can do with some iteration. Next time I build a Viper, I'll probably drop the sensors, life support and maybe even the shield bank down to a lower category to divert more power to weapons so that I can really hit hard - however such tweaks are against the theme of a Class-A only Gold Viper.

Have you flown a Viper? Consider yourself an Ace starfighter or a Rookie learning the ropes - tell me what you like, and don't like about the ship!
If you've got an outfit you want to see featured, a Pilot Academy article another point for discussion then let me know.

I'm Cmdr TwingTwang and until next time, Fly Casual.