Loadout suggestions: Cobra/Dragon Raider

[vvvvvvvv]

Hi.

I'm looking for loadout suggestion for Cobra and Dragon Raider. Purpose is horsing around, occasional xenon skirmish and occasional ship capture. It'll have at least Nanotubes + Slingshot + Mk4 split combat engines.

Prior to 7.5 I was mostly using split Cobra with all bolt loadout. "More dakka" and showering everything with bullets. After the upgrade I spent plenty of time in Xperimental Shuttle, and as far as I can tell with high projectile speed it kinda beats what I could do with Cobra despite being an S ship, and using bolts is now harder. At the same time some of Shuttle interior quirks became incredibly irritating. So I'm looking for something more interesting to switch back to split ships.

This is not urgent at all. Thanks for your time.

[alt3rn1ty]

On the Dragon I remember trying Tau Accelerators which were pretty good. A bit short on range but if you are agile enough to safely get in range the Taus' rip the target to bits quite fast.
I haven't tried a Dragon since the new Flight model though.

[LameFox]

A dragon raider with a full set of M beams is functionally kind of like a better Xenon B. Similar hull, similar DPS—at least according to the in game measurements of DPS—and same 1 shield slot, plus two turrets and the main weapons have more range. Won't kill anything big, though.

[vvvvvvvv]

On the Dragon I remember trying Tau Accelerators which were pretty good.

Split space shotgun, IIRC. I'll give it a whirl.

A dragon raider with a full set of M beams is functionally kind of like a better Xenon B. Similar hull, similar DPS—at least according to the in game measurements of DPS—and same 1 shield slot, plus two turrets and the main weapons have more range. Won't kill anything big, though.

Interesting that you brought it up. I absolutely love aesthetic of Xen B, but end up not flying it because even with mods speed is too low compared to other ships. So full beam loadout might be something to try.

[LameFox]

That was basically how I found out tbh. The B is a ship I wanted to like because of how it looks but it's not really very good. But the Dragon looks decent too so I turned it into a B.

[GCU Grey Area]

Had a lot of fun with a shotgun Cobra in one of my Split games, armed with a pair of Tau Accelerators on the front & 4 Shard turrets. Also had a Torpedo launcher to give it the punch to take on destroyers.

Weapon mods were Benguelas on the Taus, Cowboy on the Torpedo launcher & Slashers on the Shard turrets. Shield mod was Traction, so when they inevitably failed they'd be back up & could fail again ASAP. Chassis mod was Lubricator for drag reduction, max hull & drone capacity, along with a Slingshot engine for ludicrous speed. Most importantly it was painted RED & it's stats looked like this.

Did briefly load the final save for that game to try it out with the new 7.5 flight model. It's handling was 'interesting'. Could still fly it effectively in battle, but it did spend a lot of time flying sideways. Reckon if I was to kit one out in the current game I'd avoid drag reduction & try Composite chassis mod instead (with the same secondary functions), along with Whirlygig on the engine to improve handling.

[jlehtone]

I have 2 Tau, 2 Thermal Dis, and 2 Argon Ions on my Dragon Raider. And pulse turrets, IIRC.

[vvvvvvvv]

That was basically how I found out tbh. The B is a ship I wanted to like because of how it looks but it's not really very good. But the Dragon looks decent too so I turned it into a B.

Alright, that is seriously fun, thanks for the suggestion. Though now I wonder what to do about turrets. Pulse turret pew-pew does not fit with lasers and M turrets are very underpowered. Beam turrets with slasher on top and set them to missile defense? Hmm.

[Baconnaise]

Split runs or any sort of S/M with forward mounts I tend to run missile mods to negate the constant restocking issues these days to make it more arcadey. I'll probably go back to unmodded at some point as I grow tired of not microing that but eh.