@Shadow Reaper any early advice on must have component upgrades?
I sent a private note, but to add to what I have already noted, with what I do not currently know:
Star Citizen tools for DPS, damage, power and cooling simulations including an up to date ships and components database
www.erkul.games
Going to Stealth A means no reason to overclock the reactors. Generally, I would not recommend overclocking the Q Drive or the EMP. I have not validated this--but you can if you like--I think overclocking the EMP primarily shortens refresh time, but it is going to wear out your EMP. Certainly this is true with the Q drive. However, so long as you remember to turn off the clock, if you enter a Q jump with overclocking on, you already received your quicker refresh and can then turn it off, so you can actually get the faster jump time when you need it, and switch the overclocking off as soon as you're safely away. I'm told this puts much less wear and tear on the drive, and the same is likely true of the EMP. Just, who can be bothered with yet something else while using an EMP? Not me. Mucking with the drive in Q space is fine. Mucking with the EMP more than you have to in combat seems looking for trouble.
And since I'm talking about what I do not know, I should note I still do not know if the Nox will fit in the Sentinel. It's really close and no one has checked so far as I'm aware.
You asked about priority of weapons--that depends entirely upon combat scenario. Many targets need nothing more than the EMP to knock them senseless, so I don't put distortion weapons on standard layout. Most times you just want to kill the target. I don't currently know what to make of the distortion weapon rewrite. The big REP-VS EMP in the Sentinel does 6,000 damage so about 3 seconds worth of the Absolution but then cycles for 20 seconds, so in theory if the Absolution always hits, it does much more damage. That doesn't mean I want to fly 1,500 meters off my target and strafe with a ship the size of the Sentinel. I'm not yet sure how to use an Absolution without getting your ass shot off. People using them to kill shields haven't noted that this takes far longer than just killing the target with ballistics. I still think ballistic gattlings are the perfect mix between speed and damage for killing most small and medium ships, and ballistic cannons for large and cap ships.
When you get out in the Sentinel with a pair of FR-76 or an FR-76 and a Sukoran, and a player comes to kill you with all lasers, I think you'll see why that is a very bad idea.
Also note EVERYTHING is going to change when capacitors are out next patch. There's no way to tell if they'll make flying energy weapons easier or harder. Could honestly go either way. They could also make flying with almost all systems off for stealth a thing any ship can do. I'm not liking that possibility. All we know right now is one stealth reactor is not enough to fly two military shields of the same size. Stealth ships therefore have two reactor slots or have to settle for smaller shields, and ships without the second slot (Cutty, Lancer, 300 series, etc.) are not really adept at stealth. That could all change with the capacitor play.
Things have changed a lot with distortion damage. When the Carrack first came out, the Sentinel was the Carrack Killer, since it could come in close enough to pulse and suddenly all the Carrack's systems would go down. People were doing this with the Absolution too, which did 15,000 dps distortion without overclocking. The Absolution now does 1/5 that damage, the EMP goes to shields first and a host of other changes. I haven't seen anyone knock out a Carrack for many months as result. I dunno what they have planned for distortion but the numbers do not show how to do what this guy is doing:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bcTtpaoSq4
same guy:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frkVXEtit5M
erkul says this is not possible, so good luck figuring it out. Maybe write Stardales. Certainly for now, the Sentinel is the HH killer, though there's essentially no incoming fire from all those S4 guns.
