Building my first ship: MISC Freelancer - Solo Powerhouse

Bambooza · Jun 3, 2021

JamesTiberius said:
So I've just started my Star Citizen career and I want to build out my Freelancer to the most capable machine it can be. I pledged the game package with the normal / base Freelancer.

Primary Goal: Hauling both cargo and ass while playing solo
Secondary Goal: Mining, trading.

I recently found out you can't just mount mining stuff on any ship, so I don't know if this is possible with the Freelancer, but maybe I can throw one of those buggy's in the back?

The first ECN mission I did I noticed my shields are gone quite quick (I'm not the best HOSAS pilot out there, yet ), so I was thinking about upgrading my shields to the FR-76's for both HP and recovery time.
To power this I will need to upgrade the power plant to a Maelstrom.

If I'm looking at the primary weapons, the Dominance-3 have similar power usage and heat generation, but a massive increase in DPS. Is there a catch?

Quantum drive, Military XL-1?

What are the downsides here? Only thing I can see is a massive EM rating, so stealth is not really an option, haha.

DPS Calculator loadout: https://www.erkul.games/loadout/cgoLnkVy

Unfortunately the current mining buggies do not fix in the freelancer. But do not despair it's still a great ship for doing courier missions, combat and trading. You could also use it for hand mining if you are so tempted.

It has been rumored that the back turret might get modified to not drop into the cargo area which would possible allow the ROC to fit even if its not secured.

FZD · Jun 3, 2021

Change powerplant to JS-400, you're already over 100k EM so I don't think QuadraCell gives you any benefits. Meanwhile JS-400 has better everything else.
Also don't forget to overclock the shields, scatterguns and the powerplant. (At least for now there is no disadvantage for doing so)

Are you sure you need S2 missiles? Personally I'd just swap to S3s, S2s have such a short range.

The catch with Dominance-3s is they're scatterguns. Great for fighting large targets, you'll take forever fighting small targets.

XL-1 is good for cruising around the same planet doing bounty missions, traveling longer distances means you'll just run out of fuel.

Lorddarthvik · Jun 3, 2021

JamesTiberius said:
So I've just started my Star Citizen career and I want to build out my Freelancer to the most capable machine it can be. I pledged the game package with the normal / base Freelancer.

Primary Goal: Hauling both cargo and ass while playing solo
Secondary Goal: Mining, trading.

I recently found out you can't just mount mining stuff on any ship, so I don't know if this is possible with the Freelancer, but maybe I can throw one of those buggy's in the back?

The first ECN mission I did I noticed my shields are gone quite quick (I'm not the best HOSAS pilot out there, yet ), so I was thinking about upgrading my shields to the FR-76's for both HP and recovery time.
To power this I will need to upgrade the power plant to a Maelstrom.

If I'm looking at the primary weapons, the Dominance-3 have similar power usage and heat generation, but a massive increase in DPS. Is there a catch?

Quantum drive, Military XL-1?

What are the downsides here? Only thing I can see is a massive EM rating, so stealth is not really an option, haha.

DPS Calculator loadout: https://www.erkul.games/loadout/cgoLnkVy

Edit:
~~You can and definitely should throw one of thsoe ROCs in the back! It's gonna be a tight fir but it should work.~~
Apperently they don't fit? I remember I could get on into my loaner freelancer when that was sitll a thing. It was a tight fit though, and bugged out a lot.

For shields and weapons, as I only have smaller ships (300i, aurora mr) I always go for all out energy weapons so I can stay out much longer cos no ammo to refill. For guns, NBD 30-s offer a good consistent DPS, and have no dmg drop off till 600m. The Attritions are great on paper, with 2km range, but their damage drops off a cliff after 300m, so they are more of a close range weapon. But if you gonna melee it up, Dominance-3 seems like a good choice, probably really satisfying to shoot as well.
Shields I go with dual Palisades for the 300i for it's very high shield HP. For you the Rampart (industrial) could be a good choice cos it's more HP than the FR-76 and no regen delay as long as they are up. They do cost a lot more though.
For Power the Maelstrom looks okay, I'd go with that as well I guess.

For Qdrive it's up to you. How far you plan to travel, how many times you wanna fill up. While it could be important later, I've yet to be in any situation where the few seconds of difference in spool time would have saved my life or doomed me. Currently I'd say it's basically a question of do you wanna go fast, or do you wanna go far. If you plan on grinding/mining around a single planet, the faster the better (military). If you gonna traverse the whole width of the system multiple times in a play session, I'd go with a long range one (industrials).

Also, the refueling Still doesn't work properly, so you might be stuck at a station trying to refill, and having to reclaim the ship instead. This is the real potential downside I think.

Cugino83 · Jun 3, 2021

Well you just joined SC comunity, TEST squadron and you are already on the run.... nice!

Well first onf foremost: mining.
Ship mining is out the way, you need a dedicaed mining ship for that, so either a MOLE or a Prospector. I'll point you to the Rockrider section of the form for more detail and suggestion on those.
Option are the FPS ming and the ROC mining.
For the first one you just need a Graycat multitool with the proper minig head atachment and a proper suite with a backpack, like the Rucksack core or, even better, some of the caldera armor like the Pembroke or the Novitoc (remember to also buy the relative helmet for having the full enviromental protection). All of this can be buyed at the refining deck of L1 RestStop station at 50% discount.
For the ROC you'll need ot buy one, but if I'n not wrong it doens't fir nice in the stadard Freelancer, it does have issue with the rear ramp pistons getting in the way of the wheels.

Again for any detail on mining location and tips refer to the RockRider section of the forum.

Now the ship equipment.
Shield upgrade is a good think I'll suggest even two FR-76 or one FR-76 and a Rampant (industrial grade A): the rampant has a lower recharge rate but a highter shield value, so you can combine the benefit of both with a mixed configuration.

Now for the weapon the Dominance are scatterguns, so basically spacehip shotgun, you'll need to be close... very close to be able to use them at full potential... not really sure if the 'lancer will be a ble to do that.
The stock tarantula are already good weapons, if you'll like to go for something different I'll suggest:
- 4x GT-220 Gatling: they maybe not the best weapons but four of the, overpowered can spit out a rain of lead in a very satifactory way.. and the are BRRRRRRT so that is a plus.
- 4x FL-33: I use them on my Cutlass black and I love them they are very precise, powerfull alpha damage shot and they allow me to take out the target before coming into his range most of the time.
- Atrition-3: short range laser repeater that really perform if you overpoered them (the more they get hot the more damage deal), but you'll need to stay relatively close to the target and with a 'lancer mobility is not racomanded.

Another armament options is a mix configuration with 2x energy weapon and 2x distortion repeater (one of each on each side): this willa llow you to quickly take down shields and then deal some damage. Never tryed to mix weapon on the same gimbal mount, so that's for you to try.

Power and cooler just pick the one that offer the lowest signature and the right amout of power for the ship setup: there is no reason to have too much extra power. If you can run witth a Stealth component use them as muuch as you can: a lower signature is better in any case... after all you can shoot what you can't detect.
Same for the cooler, just pick the one with the lowest signature and the suffient amount of cooling to prevent your ship to became a baking hoven.

Quantum drive is a different thing.
Military drive are fast but also consume a lot of fuel
the XL-1 is a nice drive but prvide you with little advantage over the far more cheeper Crossfield that also is less fuel hungry and provide you with two full trip Curader-Microtech without a stop to refuel.

That sayed before sart investing in your ship spend some time on a ship loadout manager like Erkul one:

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

This will allow you not only to plan the component but also to plan where to purchase them since different location culd have different prices and help you to save some founds.

vahadar · Jun 3, 2021

JamesTiberius said:
So I've just started my Star Citizen career and I want to build out my Freelancer to the most capable machine it can be. I pledged the game package with the normal / base Freelancer.

Primary Goal: Hauling both cargo and ass while playing solo
Secondary Goal: Mining, trading.

I recently found out you can't just mount mining stuff on any ship, so I don't know if this is possible with the Freelancer, but maybe I can throw one of those buggy's in the back?

The first ECN mission I did I noticed my shields are gone quite quick (I'm not the best HOSAS pilot out there, yet ), so I was thinking about upgrading my shields to the FR-76's for both HP and recovery time.
To power this I will need to upgrade the power plant to a Maelstrom.

If I'm looking at the primary weapons, the Dominance-3 have similar power usage and heat generation, but a massive increase in DPS. Is there a catch?

Quantum drive, Military XL-1?

What are the downsides here? Only thing I can see is a massive EM rating, so stealth is not really an option, haha.

DPS Calculator loadout: https://www.erkul.games/loadout/cgoLnkVy

The freelancer is probably the BEST jack of all trades ship around. For a low budget.

Not to contradict others loadout, but the choice of weapon they suggest will poorly work and does not reflect the actual "meta" of the game, and if you intend to get some cash fast by farming missions (like ECN or bounties)

Forget a full ballistic/laser loadout for PVE, it will be insanely much SLOWER to kill NPC than with using a mix of Distortion and Ballistic or Laser. But if you want to maximize credit earn per time spent, forget ballistic at all since you will need to resupply often with those, so go with a mix of distortions and lasers.
If you are not good at HOSAS as you mentionned, forget canons at all (ballistic or lasers) since you will need to score hit all the time to be efficient. Using repeaters is better if you are less skilled, you just spray and pray

Try full ballistics or full laser canons as Cugino suggested, but you will soon see than it is very slow to kill compared to a mix or distortion, and ideally lasers :)

You have 4 front S3 guns, so you need to use them at their best ! My suggestion for the front turrets loadout :
2 DR Model-XJ3 (distortion repeater S3), will melt any shield up to Hammerhead with ease.
2 Attrition-3 (laser repeater) IF you can fight in range under 300m of your target, since the DPS drops with distance, if not (depending on your skills) prefer the CF-337 Panther (laser repeater), which will allow you to shoot from safer distance and strafe to avoid defensive fire.

Get 2 FR-76 shields as you did already. They have less HP than a Palissade, but regen is much quicker, also the power back much faster if shields drop completly, which is vital for survival.

Get a good power plant to be able to overclock BOTH all front guns and your shields (a JS-400 will be enough), and some pretty good Coolers because lasers (Snowpack/Avalanche).

Having a low EM/signature does not matter much against NPC as they aim like drunken punks, so you can forget the Stealth components for cooler and power. It is only important against players.

With such loadout, you will kill a Hammerhead solo in about 10 seconds if you focus fire all the time at the same spot on target.

Farming bounties (ERT missions) with that ship will earn you between 500-700k credit an hour.

As others suggested, use : https://erkul.games/
You can find where to buy the component you want to use thanks to that website.

Bambooza · Jun 3, 2021

I really should swap out my Ballistics in the MIS for the Distortion/Laser Repeaters but there is so much joy in throwing out so much lead.

The rest that @vahadar mentioned is spot on but honestly even the base Freelancer is capable with out any upgrades so I wouldn't stress about it from the start. If you have the aUEC to burn then by all means.

Lorddarthvik said:
Edit:
~~You can and definitely should throw one of thsoe ROCs in the back! It's gonna be a tight fir but it should work.~~
Apperently they don't fit? I remember I could get on into my loaner freelancer when that was sitll a thing. It was a tight fit though, and bugged out a lot.

It sort of still does but it often bugs out and leads to a fiery death so it's not recommended.

vahadar · Jun 3, 2021

Mmm i dont think EM affects QT jamming by NPC.
To my knowledge, it only affects the range/lock people can see you on radar.

Going with a mix of FR-76 and Rampart is a good idea also to learn how to fight, you get a bit more HP, but still has decent regen.

When you will evade better incoming fire, you wont worry much about having more shield HP than shield regen. Also remember you can relocate you shield power strength on the 4 sides (using numpad keys by default). If you fight a Hammerhead head on, and keep strafing to present always the shield face you want, you can allocate more shield power to that shield face.

Shadow Reaper · Jun 3, 2021

First, are you sure you want the straight Lancer and not the Lancer Max? You should check since I believe the Max will fit a buggy with mining gear, and it certainly fits a LOT more cargo.

Second, if you plan to haul and haul ass, there is little reason to change your weapons nor shields. For maximum stealth you'll have them all turned off anyway. If you leave them off and equip all the rest as stealth class A, your EM is suddenly very different. The Lancer has a reputation as a quiet ship for good reason.

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

An EM of just 320 with Q Drive on is very good compared to most ships. What does it really mean though?

The formula to be spotted by another ship is the higher signature, EM or IR; times 0.25 for small radars, 0.5 for medium, 0.75 for large and 1.0 for cap. Rumors are large and cap are not yet functioning according to spec.

So here's the point. You leave your weapons and shields off, you flip the stealth switch on, which reduces IR and enhances EM, but your IR is going to be your higher signature. With engines burning you're below 8k IR, which means small ships can't see you past 2 km. That's a better way to fly than ready to fight. Medium ships will see you at 4 km, and it remains to be seen what large and cap arrays can actually see, but think about the kinds of ships that might want to run you down. Catepillers and Carracks have medium radar, so they are not going to see you before you see them. The only thing likely to see you first is another medium sized stealth ship if it has a lower signature, like a Sentinel. Off the top of my head, not much else appears in this category.

Fact is, if you plan for flight and not to fight, you can do this well by buying just the Eclipse reactor, two Nightfall coolers and the Spicule Q drive. Leave them on so you're always ready to jump, but definitely turn your weapons and shields off. If you want, you can fly with stealth shields and some weapons on, but why pay for them and raise your signature if you always plan to flee a battle? Just FYI, flying a pair of Umbra stealth shields you still have an EM well below your IR. So any careful selection of true stealth components will give you a hard to spot signature.

vahadar · Jun 3, 2021

Shadow Reaper said:
So here's the point. You leave your weapons and shields off, you flip the stealth switch on, which reduces IR and enhances EM, but your IR is going to be your higher signature. With engines burning you're below 8k IR, which means small ships can't see you past 2 km. That's a better way to fly than ready to fight. Medium ships will see you at 4 km, and it remains to be seen what large and cap arrays can actually see, but think about the kinds of ships that might want to run you down. Catepillers and Carracks have medium radar, so they are not going to see you before you see them. The only thing likely to see you first is another medium sized stealth ship if it has a lower signature, like a Sentinel. Off the top of my head, not much else appears in this category.

Fact is if you plan for flight and not to fight, you can do this well by buying just the Eclipse reactor, two Nightfall coolers and the Spicule Q drive. Leave them on so you're always ready to jump, but definitely turn your weapons and shields off.

Great tips here @JamesTiberius you should follow indeed if you want to have a hauling loadout.
With an EM at 320, and not going above SCM speed to keep your IR low (to prevent spikes), you will need to come well under a few kilometer to be spotted by anything.

To specify the formula mentionned by @Shadow Reaper, the calculation takes into account the HIGHEST between EM or IR for the formula. Depending on how you fly, your IR will be generally superior to your EM on a stealth ship, you just need to watch about IR suppression and your actual speed.
Also standing still lowers IR over time.

Detection Range = Max ( IR , EM ) x 0.25 for S0 radars, 0.50 for S1 radars, 0.75 for S2...

Shadow Reaper · Jun 4, 2021

Ah, yes, my mistake; vadahar has it correct. 0.25 for vehicle size radar, 0.5 for small, 0.75 for medium, all observed accurate at this time, and 1.0 for large, 1.5 for cap size expected in the future but not observed. So an 8,000 IR is observable by a small ship at 4 km, not 2. And actually, under most circumstances with engines burning, this is stealthier than a Sentinel by several hundred meters. The Lancers are quiet ships if equipped to be quiet and flown that way.

Here's a full stealth loadout that runs shields and weapons and still stays under 8k heat and EM:

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

Lorddarthvik · Jun 4, 2021

While the above stealth setup is rather awesome on paper, if you just want to go space truckin , it doesn't make much sense for now, because of two things.

PVP is 98% campers/griefers. They will wait for you just above the station or outpost and easily spot you, regardless of you having a signature or not. Ppl still have eyeballs, and they tend to work. They will crash into your landed ship if they have no other option, not having a signature won't change that. Besides, no matter what, you will be in range to be spotted. Having strong shields instead might give you some chance to survive, though not much if they crash a cuttlass or larger into you...

Second, the Ai's detection is more dependent on luck then anything else. Yes on a fresh server when everything comes together and nothing is totally bugged out yet, the above stealth rules might actually work. I've yet to experience it.
In my experience, when and at what distance the Ai decides that they detected you is up to RNG, and absolutely nothing else. Easiest proof is if you keep doing bounty mission, where you get the same type of ship as the target. In an hour of gameplay, I had the same type of ship ( sabers) spotting and gunning for me from anywhere as far as 9+Km away, down to less then 1.5km away. I was pingin the hell out of my scanner flying my same 300i that is supposed to be lit up like a Christmas tree anyways, and it was absolutely random at what distance they decided to turn and attack me.

Tldr.: stealth is just not very practical for now, and is not worth the trade-off of absolutely inferior equipment if you are casually running about doing mining and trading and the mood takes you to shoot some stuff as well. It would be fun though, if it worked consistently as it is supposed to...

There is no correlation between your signature and whether NPC pirates pull you out of quantum or not, at least not yet I think.
I don't even think it's currently in the game tbh. It hasn't happened to me for like 2 patches now, even though it used to be a (very annoying) thing. And I've been playing a lot more for the last few patch cycles.
If it happens, you can just boost away, they will stop following you after a while, or at least they used to. They will bug out eventually, just keep going...

Tldr for the tldr: I'd rather go bright and strong instead of limp and useless hoping the stealth mechanic works... but that's just my experience, yours will vary.

Shadow Reaper · Jun 4, 2021

Lorddarthvik said:
I was pingin the hell out of my scanner flying my same 300i that is supposed to be lit up like a Christmas tree anyways, and it was absolutely random at what distance they decided to turn and attack me.

You understand, the moment you ping you're on everyone's radar. There's no such thing as stealth when you use active radar.

As to camping and pad crashing, there are no fixes for that, stealth or not.

Lorddarthvik · Jun 4, 2021

Shadow Reaper said:
You understand, the moment you ping you're on everyone's radar. There's no such thing as stealth when you use active radar.

As to camping and pad crashing, there are no fixes for that, stealth or not.

Exactly. Yet the Ai refused to act on it on most occasions, other times even without pings it spotted me (probably correctly) from farther away than I could get a lock on it. The detection and stealth is very inconsistent when it comes to Ai at least.

Yes there is currently no solution against the most commonly used "tactics" of PvP.

Thats why I would say that a stealth build especially as a first build is not that practical as the supposed benefits of stealth don't manifest in practice.

@JamesTiberius keep in mind when you upgrade a ship, that the upgrade parts are usually lost when a new patch is deployed, regardless of whether they want to reset things or not. You can try to demount them before a patch and hope that they stay in your inventory for use after, but don't bet on it. Things are still very chaotic when it comes to patches carrying over your stuff. I always lose all.my upgrades, others keep everything if demounted. Ymmv

FZD · Jun 4, 2021

I've been trying out a "stealth" Cuttlas Black. (Basically I want to be hidden until 9000-10000m so I can start by sending off a few missiles).
With something like 11k left on IR, I've been paying attention to when I get radar locked, and I get radar locked at pretty much exactly at the distance I got left on the IR (which is the higher value, EM I got at like 5k).
The only problem is, the target usually is a Vanguard or other smaller ship, that's supposed to have S2 radars, which SHOULD have a factor of 0.75

Could be the NPCs have a bugged radar factor of exactly 1.
Alternatively, "suppress" doesn't actually work and I have an actual IR of 15kish, resulting in detection range of 11km with S2 radars.

It's one or the other.

(Does anyone know of a way to get rid of IR faster? Can I fly through a waterfall or something?)

Deroth · Jun 4, 2021

This is the loadout I recommend for a base Freelancer:

#DPSCalculator

Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database

www.erkul.games

Pairing Attritions with Distortion Repeaters (DR-Model-XJ3) tears things apart, even Hammerheads, so if you run Bounty Hunting missions you can feasibly, with practice, be able to solo ERTs.

I also like to pair military with industrial shields to get the best of both worlds (though if you can get your hands on a Sukoran I'd recommend that over an industrial shield.) Unfortunately, the S2 industrial shields don't seem to have the improved physical damage absorption of their S1 counterparts, but they still have some nice benefits that pair well with a military shield.

As for missiles, I don't use them often so I'd likely stick with stock, but play with that to suit your play style.

Be sure to overclock everything, that loadout has plenty of power (provided it is OCed) and cooling to handle it.

One significant benefit of the Freelancer ship design is that with the shield rework most ships can no longer shunt shield power forward or they get their wings blown off, but in some circumstances the Freelancer can still get away with shunting shield power forward (nice for when doing FPS missions that require taking out ground turrets.)

Cugino83 · Jun 4, 2021

Deroth said:
...

Be sure to overclock everything, that loadout has plenty of power (provided it is OCed) and cooling to handle it.
....

Whait, this is a misconception...
Cooler doen't prevent or even improve your time-to-overheat: hight colling capacity only provide you some benefitin the recovery time AFTER weapons shut down... and to be fair I'm not even shure about that in the current state of the game.

Be aware also that with some weapons Overclocking seignifically reduce the time a weapon can constantly fire: this maybe not a problem for a dogfighter when you'll have a limited time-on-target, but when dealing with larger and more resialint ships tath could be a withrow instead of an advantage: remember S3 shield and above constantly regenerate.
Allso it rquire a good trigger practice to master, so for the beginning I'll suggest to stay on "default" power or eventually overpower them by opening the component tab of the power MFD and slide the power limiter all on the right.

Oh and finally, check Erkul: some weapons and component actually perform better when overpowered instead of overclocked (very very few... tbh)

Deroth · Jun 4, 2021

Cugino83 said:
Whait, this is a misconception...
Cooler doen't prevent or even improve your time-to-overheat: hight colling capacity only provide you some benefitin the recovery time AFTER weapons shut down... and to be fair I'm not even shure about that in the current state of the game.

Be aware also that with some weapons Overclocking seignifically reduce the time a weapon can constantly fire: this maybe not a problem for a dogfighter when you'll have a limited time-on-target, but when dealing with larger and more resialint ships tath could be a withrow instead of an advantage: remember S3 shield and above constantly regenerate.
Allso it rquire a good trigger practice to master, so for the beginning I'll suggest to stay on "default" power or eventually overpower them by opening the component tab of the power MFD and slide the power limiter all on the right.

Oh and finally, check Erkul: some weapons and component actually perform better when overpowered instead of overclocked (very very few... tbh)

My recommendation for overlocking was for the loadout that I linked, having them overclocked works out very well for them tearing through shields very rapidly then taking the ship down. Not OCing them can present issues against the HH as the shield regen on them can very easily overcome the damage being done.
Yes, OCing makes them over heat quicker, but that is easily managed with trigger discipline.

Also have to keep in mind for larger ships, particularly the HH, you have to be even more mobile than against fighters thanks to the turret coverage.

Building my first ship: MISC Freelancer - Solo Powerhouse

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