Advice on a run of bad Type-7 interdictions?

[Walter]

I'd suggest A rating your thrusters and power distributor. Then submit and run - a lot faster.
Add a point defense to handle any missiles they shoot at you.
Drop mines if you want to punish them.
Lasers to harass them.
If you get mass locked, jump to another system,
Maybe avoid missions as they generate interdictions.
There is nothing wrong with disabling modules when hard points are deployed.

This is how I might tweak your build - link

What Jr said.

And then go for a Python with similar loadout as soon as you can afford it (although you could probably forget the lasers and shield boosters in favour of a fraction greater jump range and speed).

[GlobusDiablo]

I'd suggest A rating your thrusters and power distributor. Then submit and run - a lot faster.
Add a point defense to handle any missiles they shoot at you.
Drop mines if you want to punish them.
Lasers to harass them.
If you get mass locked, jump to another system,
Maybe avoid missions as they generate interdictions.
There is nothing wrong with disabling modules when hard points are deployed.

This is how I might tweak your build - link

What Jr said.

And then go for a Python with similar loadout as soon as you can afford it (although you could probably forget the lasers and shield boosters in favour of a fraction greater jump range and speed).

What Walter said.

[Walter]

But expect to pay about 80m for the privilege.

[Ethan Harris]

Update:

Well, that didn't go very well. :-( But I'll put all the blame on myself—my confession of some really winning stupidity to come in a moment—rather than the good advice here.

I refitted with the build RJW posted above ( Coriolis link) and gave it a shot. Repurchased the 15 tonnes of aluminium required for one of the missions—I don't know if carrying cargo for multiple missions increases your chances of hostile contact compared to simply having the mission transacted (do any of you know for sure?) but didn't want to take chances—and launched. 4 jumps required to the turn-in system. Made the first and second without incident, but moments after arrival after the third, was interdicted by the mission bonus hostile.

I submitted, fumbled a bit with my controls—I'm not used to carrying mines or turrets, and while I had adjusted my firing groups I hadn't set my turret firing preferences—and managed to drop mines and get the turrets gunning just as I began taking fire. I've got a VoiceAttack macro for "boost continuously", so was doing that, using thrusters and roll and pitch, keeping the throttle in the blue, while I waited for cooldown. But in what seemed like seconds (I use a Vive and I don't know if SteamVR can be configured to capture a constant replay buffer, but I don't have a video record)—in any case, I was still in FSD cooldown—my shields were down. Full pips to engines, got out of fire range, FSD cooldown completed, I retracted hardpoints, restarted the jump sequence—and jumped out. With 2% hull integrity remaining and the canopy making ominous cracking noises.

Just one jump to go, but I was pretty sure the NPC would interdict me again on approach and I knew what would happen then, so instead of continuing my route, I targeted a different nearby system in my nav panel I knew had a starport (being in a T7, jumping even to an outpost-only system would have been suicide, I needed a large landing pad). Hit the jump button... and found I didn't have the fuel for that jump. So I targeted the actual destination system again, just so that I'd have somewhere to jump if necessary, while—hands literally shaking—I opened the galaxy map to find a nearer system with repair facilities I could use. I found one quickly, plotted the course, exited the map, hit the jump, and started to hope—maybe, just maybe, I can still recover—when, right as the ship computer's voice countdown got to "two", I was interdicted again.

Stupidity #1: I tried to evade the interdiction. If I'd submitted there was the slimmest of hope that I could have just run run run and jumped before my shields went down. But that 2% hull number had clouded my judgment. Even though I immediately realized my mistake, it was too late—I throttled to zero and though the HUD said "submitting", I exited spinning and with my canopy cracking up. (I thought you could submit at any point before losing the escape vector minigame just like submitting straight away, but I guess that's not the case, and if you first try evading, you take some damage when you submit?) Moments after entry into normal space I heard the dreaded, "eject, eject".

And here's stupidity #2: before my retrofit I'd had about 6.2 MCr in the bank, or enough to pay my insurance four times. The refit costs were 4.7 MCr, leaving me a little over 1.5 MCr—which had been enough to cover my old insurance (build here) of ~1.5 MCr once. But not enough to cover my new insurance the refit had brought me to, of 1.7 MCr. I learned, to my unending relief, that the game will loan you the difference—I'd lost my ship a couple times in early days, but had never been caught out like this before. (From some Googling, looks like you can get loaned up to 1 MCr?) So at least I wasn't back in my Sidewinder.

But when I resurrected in that same old station, I had no money left to purchase anything. Luckily the station had a shipyard.

So... I'm now back in my good ol' Asp Explorer fitted for 108 T of cargo and a nearly 25 Ly fully-laden jump range. A ship I know I can fight in—in fact, I went to the nearest RES and collected a few bounties to prove to myself I could. And I abandoned that damned aluminium mission that killed easily a couple months' profits in three nights' play.

This is a really good game. Especially if you're a masochist.

[TorTorden]

Every single mission you have has the chance to spawn an interdictor every time you enter a supercruise instance.

So more missions = greater chance of interdictions.
The type x ships really are way to fragile to handle missions unless you hull tank them to the point of them not really being able to carry cargo anymore.

[Ethan Harris]

Every single mission you have has the chance to spawn an interdictor every time you enter a supercruise instance.

So more missions = greater chance of interdictions.
The type x ships really are way to fragile to handle missions unless you hull tank them to the point of them not really being able to carry cargo anymore.

I don't disbelieve you--my recent experience seems to prove you're right--but I have trouble seeing how the Type-7 isn't therefore a strictly worse ship than other (cheaper) options. Unless you find one of those fabled secret milk runs that seem to work for exactly one player and no more, or perfect a rare trading loop such that the profits aren't eaten up by the legs you have to deadhead, it seems like a Type-7 is always going to lose out to the Asp Explorer, even at half the cargo capacity. It doesn't even seem like a better risk-averse option than straight haulage in a less fragile and less expensive ship, unless you're really just okay with endlessly going back and forth between two nearby systems with two endless-supply commodities that will net maybe ~1.2 KCr/T profits.

(I see people on Reddit saying that the Sothis/Ceos run doesn't work anymore, but even that one involved missions, not straight trading, so the interdiction threat would have been there, too, right?)

If the answer is just, yes, the T7 is a strictly worse ship, welp, that's too bad. (If so, did this change from, say, a year ago, when the consensus advice on most trading-oriented forums seemed to be that the T7 was the obvious next step in trading ship progression after the Asp? Due to economic re-balancing or the NPC AI improvements, perhaps? Or did people just not have enough experience yet to realize that the Type-7 was an attractive nuisance? Googling still turns up lots of advice along those lines--from 2015.)

[Roger Wilco Jr]

This is a really good game. Especially if you're a masochist.

Good attitude. Once you start rolling in the dough you won't worry about this loss. I'll admit though, I thought you had 30 million in cash, not just net worth. I never thought you were so near flying w/o insurance.

Anyway, a few points in my defense:

I was just tweaking your build, mostly for faster boosting. You'll notice that the first point of both my suggestions involved submitting and boosting. Also, your build already had turrets, so I assumed you were already familiar with them. I added mines as others suggested, although I've never used them myself (not traded in many months).

You didn't say what interdicted you. A Python? An FLD? A Clipper? A Conda? I doubt it was an Eagle or an Adder. If you're in a T7, even if you have some little pulse lasers and mines, you can't take on a killing machine. Weapons are just for little squirts.

Did you put 4 pips in systems when you were taking hits? Your shields will last a lot longer, even if you can't boost as often. I didn't hear anything about dropping chaff either. You need to manage those pips, and you need to jump ASAP.

It's been over a year since I was in a T7, and things have changed, but I never had much of a problem. I probably had class 6 shields (class 5 at a minimum). I also probably had 4 gimballed pulse lasers for handling the smaller ships that interdicted me, but with those you turn to fight. The turrets and mines are more for running.

It doesn't even seem like a better risk-averse option than straight haulage in a less fragile and less expensive ship, unless you're really just okay with endlessly going back and forth between two nearby systems with two endless-supply commodities that will net maybe ~1.2 KCr/T profits.

Well, that's the point of a T7 and a T9. I might spend two evenings just finding a good 1-jump trade route, normally between a high tech & refinery, high security system, and an extraction (I think) system, normally trading performance enhancers, progenitor cells, and consumer technology one way, and gold, palladium the other. I think I was usually getting about 2 kCr/T profit round trip. I went from T7 to Python to T9 to Conda, only doing trading. If I wanted to do some fighting, well that's what Vultures are for.

It looks like I'm going to need a mining ship for the rngineer upgrades. I think I may try a T7 just for fun and see how bad it really is out there these days for traders. Anyway, a T7 is a faster path to a Python, but you do need to stay alive. The first ship I lost was an unarmed and unshielded T9 - was getting a little greedy, but that was before I learned about jumping to another system.

Good luck.

[TorTorden]

The t7 like all the type ships has only one thing and one thing only going for it.
Cargo capacity. In any other aspect the aspx is heads and tails above.

With how the new AI work and if you are doing anything that as you are hinting at straight
non-mission oriented cargo trading between two safe waters then the type7-9 ships are pure death traps. There is no money to be made in one cause any time an NPC just look at you funny the power plant blows up.

Npc's ranks are better after the last two patches but still quite fubar.
For instance master level npc's are actually harder to fight now than deadly and Elite.

Anyone who states the type 7 really is a viable ship now is honestly full of it.
It was OK back last year when you actually could fight an interdiction and I did so routinely in a type9 even. But now. Not even in a vulture stands a chance against an NPC interdiction it will just crap you out regardless 19 times out of 20, the last one just fail and let's you escape randomly.

[GlobusDiablo]

I like to remind myself that Elite: Dangerous isn't an "end game" game. You can't win the game. In this light I don't get too heated about which builds/craft are the best, and just enjoy flying the ships I like, for whatever roleplaying reason.

I see myself as a gritty trucker when flying my T7. I love my brick in this light. Upgrading core components definitely helps running away, and that's about it. I would never consider fighting in my T7. Just trucking.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I like to remind myself that Elite: Dangerous isn't an "end game" game. You can't win the game. In this light I don't get too heated about which builds/craft are the best, and just enjoy flying the ships I like, for whatever roleplaying reason.

I see myself as a gritty trucker when flying my T7. I love my brick in this light. Upgrading core components definitely helps running away, and that's about it. I would never consider fighting in my T7. Just trucking.

Yup - wearing overalls with your name patch over your heart.