Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

The Mk4 reminds me of this :



It's small, tough and scrappy. The number of ships I've taken down by ramming them in the week I've owned this beauty is 7 and none with a major repair bill after. Handling is sweet and stable. I'm a fighter-bomber guy at heart and the Viper4's thick shields & armor plus great weapon convergence and decent cargo capacity gives makes it viable for Powerplay missions and the BGS. Cheap to run too , by upgrading it to D class modules and equipment you already get a very capable multi-role spacecraft.

There are a couple of things to watch out for as far as handling is concerned. The Viper 4 loses momentum slowly which is great for acceleration but not for tight turns. You really have to throw your thrusters in extreme reverse to slow down or rapidly shift to the blue zone. If I'm fighting in an asteroid field though this will be the ship I'd take , nimble enough & easy to control plus a thick hide to absorb accidental collisions.

Running now with a modest amount of upgrades and have a 15-17ly jump range, 345+ boost speed 500+ armor , 20+ tons cargo capacity and a weapon array consisting of a missile launcher, a burst laser Turret and 2 gimballed pulse.

The laser Turret is useful for me since it keeps tracking and firing while I'm maneuvering for the target. It has 2 kills on it's score card - both when the hostile was out of sight. My next project is to finally try out the rover and some planetary missions. I'm targeting the land bases in Exioce where the Order is currently fighting for control. I suspect that both Turret and point defenses will be useful against hostile sentries there.

My only regret is that I can't carry my Sidey with this ship. I normally avoid large vessels , too much overhead & trouble to run. But the first future ED ship that can carry a Sidewinder will head straight to my hangar.

It certainly is quite the capable ship, for being in the lower-end of the fighter range. During the short time I owned one, it was surprising just how much punishment the little beast could both take, and deal out. Outfitted well, I found it to be a great multipurpose/fighter which had great looks, sounds, and general feeling. Admittedly, you clearly know your Viper much better than I, so, thanks for sharing your insight

I liked it allot and only stopped using it when I upgraded to a Vulture. Here is my Viper Mk IV armor tank build

http://coriolis.io/outfit/viper_mk_iv/24B4C4C2B3B3C4C7e7e0p0p000l452b29272725.Iw1-kA==.IwBhrSukg===?bn=Viper%20Mark%204%20Armor%20Tank

I'm currently flying one because I hated the MkIII so much.....BUT I'm gonna persevere with the MKIV a little longer and see how it goes....

Running a 4 multi cannon set up at the moment....Which is mainly for flying in a wing.....They take the shields down....I fly in close and let rip......

As you say the acceleration and boost are great for getting out of trouble...But not so good for tight turns....I normally try to stay in the blue and use thrusters a lot....

Ohh and the boost got me out of trouble the first time I landed on a high G planet..(Last night)....Sheesh.....That's an experience and a half..

Black Rose wrote:I liked it allot and only stopped using it when I upgraded to a Vulture. Here is my Viper Mk IV armor tank build

http://coriolis.io/outfit/viper_mk_iv/24B4C4C2B3B3C4C7e7e0p0p000l452b29272725.Iw1-kA==.IwBhrSukg===?bn=Viper%20Mark%204%20Armor%20Tank

That's not a hardened Viper4 , it's an Imperial Star Destroyer Thank you so much for the link , I see that my ship still needs a whole lot of improvement.

Cmdr Kharma wrote:I'm currently flying one because I hated the MkIII so much.....BUT I'm gonna persevere with the MKIV a little longer and see how it goes....

Running a 4 multi cannon set up at the moment....Which is mainly for flying in a wing.....They take the shields down....I fly in close and let rip......

As you say the acceleration and boost are great for getting out of trouble...But not so good for tight turns....I normally try to stay in the blue and use thrusters a lot....

Ohh and the boost got me out of trouble the first time I landed on a high G planet..(Last night)....Sheesh.....That's an experience and a half..

I switched away from a railgun/laser configuration to dual laser turret ( Size 1 above, Size 2 below), upper missile launcher and a hard hitting class 2 gimballed beam gun below after hitting a brick wall in the Exioce CZ. I also learned that ramming an Imperial Cutter is not a good idea for a ship this size

Mister Facepalm wrote:It certainly is quite the capable ship, for being in the lower-end of the fighter range. During the short time I owned one, it was surprising just how much punishment the little beast could both take, and deal out. Outfitted well, I found it to be a great multipurpose/fighter which had great looks, sounds, and general feeling. Admittedly, you clearly know your Viper much better than I, so, thanks for sharing your insight

Happy to share And I have a long way to go before mastering this ship. The Imperial courier is proving to be the bane of my combat life in the CZ so I"m eyeing that one as my third vessel for pure bounty hunter/raiding roles.

Tifu wrote:Happy to share And I have a long way to go before mastering this ship. The Imperial courier is proving to be the bane of my combat life in the CZ so I"m eyeing that one as my third vessel for pure bounty hunter/raiding roles.

I would definitely say the Courier is a great step up from the Viper MkIV though it is a little lacking in the internals, so it's less of a multipurpose ship but as you say it's a CZ winner, especially in that price range.

Those Cobra IV and Viper IV take forever to kill (at least it seems to me it does), the Courier not so much. In fact I've started to target the power plant on those two smaller ships as well, where I only used to do that with Clippers and up. Perhaps I've been spending too much time in CZ and it's messing with my ideas of tough ships.

Kiltrathi wrote:Those Cobra IV and Viper IV take forever to kill (at least it seems to me it does), the Courier not so much. In fact I've started to target the power plant on those two smaller ships as well, where I only used to do that with Clippers and up. Perhaps I've been spending too much time in CZ and it's messing with my ideas of tough ships.

I find that the biggest issue with NPCs is they run away as soon as then get into trouble. Allot like us lol So, I target their FSD and make sure they hang around for me to kill them. Its rare that any NPC can take me out unless they are in an Anaconda or a Python. Sometimes a Federal Gunship or an Assault ship will beat me up some but they will die as well.

My weapon of choice is my Armor hardened Vulture. It has the shields, armor and fire power to do the most damage and sustain the most abuse with it only real weak point that canopy. The canopy is so large and in a position that is totally unprotected that its is routinely blown out to the point that I use an A class life support system.

The Asp Explorer can handle most interdictions but I routinly run from Assualt ships, Condas and Pythons as its just too slow to handle things like that.

The Courier is nice with 2 medium pulses and the Imperial Hammer but I need way more practice using a fixed weapon. Against a BIG targret like when a Python turns to show its pancake size silhouette and it literally is standing still as if it were stalled in a climb then the triple shot of the Hammer really tears them up. But aside from the Hammer, the medium pulses just aren't strong enough and burst lasers just wear down the cap too fast. The ship IMO is weak for my combat style. If the shields go down you are dead.