Good combat ship in released version - Cobra vs Viper?

[noname159]

I have recently moved from moving cargo to exterminating "criminals". Until now I flew Adder and with three C1 laser beams I could nail any fighter ship I met. I bought Cobra III thinking I will continue to do the same, but it seems to me Cobra is *worse* combatant then Adder, less maneuverable, harder to hit my enemies. I mean, Adder vs Cobra, I never met Cobra that had a chance. Cobra vs Cobra and I am hard pressed to get her, after long fight. I have been thinking about switching to Viper, but I don't know how good it is now. From what I read, it was a monster ship, capable to outfly anything, but it got nerfed. What is the reality now?
What ship you recommend for fighting (concidering sometimes you have to jump after escaped target to another star, I have heard Viper has really low range), what equip do you recommend and why?
I have tried combo of fixed mounts / gimballed and I pretty much hate it, it is very hard to see where exactly are the weapons firing. Is there a way to fix it? All gimballed weapons maybe? I usually fly all fixed weapons on Adder, but it is quite maneuverable.
I use lasers mostly, which may not be the best move. I have seen people using laser/ cannons combo. As I am new to Elite Dangerous, can you give me few pro tips on this?
Well, I guess that was more then enough questions. I hope the answers will help me and other combat pilots.

[Akulla]

I'm flying a Viper atm, when I first got it I though it was kinda a dog, but now with some decent upgrades I find that I really enjoy it, but I'm already to the point where I want to upgrade and have the Cobra in mind, I've read a number of posts compairing the two and it seems to be a hotly debated topic on what ship is better, but I imagine like any ship it comes down to the pilot and how well the ship is equipped.

[noname159]

OK I did more fighting in Cobra and I can give you few pointers:
C1 mounts on Cobra are really far apart. Don't use fixed on them, use gimballs. Ideally the ones good enough to actually lock and HIT your enemies. If you want lasers, avoid placing beams here, they miss too much and I am not fan of gimballed beams - they miss all the time. Pulse or burst lasers should be OK and they will strip enemy shields and land hits even when chasing target two kilometers away. Or use multi cannons. I flew with gimballed cannons for a few hours and I can only say - don't. Projectiles are too slow, no matter if they are gimballed, unless you are really close and enemy is not maneuvering much, they miss.
C2 mounts make much bigger sense to put fixed beams in, the only problem is, I haven't seen C2 fixed beams yet in outfitting. And I fear they will draw energy too fast. C1 fixed beams work, but I have nasty suspicion pulse / burst lasers on gimballs would be better. Need testing.
Ideally, I hoped to install C2 multicannons and C1 fixed beam lasers, but that's clearly impossible thanks to C1 placements. I will keep you updated.