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This Gladius loadout offers the best stealth possible by sacrificing the competition shields for a stealth shields.
To accomplish this we’ll run:
- Industrial shields
- Military Power Plant (stock)
- Stealth Cooler
- Stealth Quantum Drive
This combination should give the ship complete combat capabilities you’d expect out of a full combat build but drastically reduced IR and EM signatures while out of combat affording a low detection range.
The Stealth Quantum Drive can be swapped to any other drive at the cost of drastically increased EM signature while in NAV mode. The Stealth Quantum Drives offer a really worthwhile trade off of speed and cooldown time making them an ideal quantum drive for pursuit and response times in planetary systems where you may make several jumps in a matter of minutes.
Store-purchasable
You’ll be able to find all of these components for sale in a shop somewhere. No looting required.
PvP or PvE
Erkul Link: https://www.erkul.games/loadout/tvsvYM9N
Modifications to this loadout
Grade A components
Upgrading the powerplant to a Military Grade A does not provide any additional advantage over the stock Military Grade C as far as power pips are concerned as the stock powerplant provides enough power pips to power a single cooler and full power to weapons, shields, and propulsion.
Upgrading the coolers to Grade A Stealth doesn’t currently do anything.
Upgrading the quantum drive to Stealth Grade A will give you faster max speed and shorter cooldown times between uses but at the cost of reduced fuel efficiency.
Attritions
A lot of players love the Attritions because they sort by DPS and pick the first weapon in the list that isn’t ballistics.
Attritions DO offer higher DPS than the CF repeaters however they have almost 50% less projectile speed. This translates to more pip movements requiring you to maneuver more to stay on target. The more “wiggly” a target is the more you will have to move your ship to land your shots so if you are in a larger ship such as a Constellation with Attritions and trying to shoot a nimble fighter you are going to objectively struggle.
At this time we do not recommend Attritions UNLESS you know you are going to be shooting slower targets that cannot dodge shots. In PvP we even more strongly recommend against using Attritions because unlike NPC ships, players will actively try to dodge your shots which exacerbates the problem caused by the lower projectile speed.
NDBs
The NDB repeaters offer a bit of a compromise between the choice between CF repeaters and Attritions as far as damage and projectile speed is concerned. They can be considered “middle of the road” option between the two extremes. However due to their lower projectile speed range control is much more important. Generally the Gladius, in the control of a good pilot, does not struggle with range control. If you feel confident in your ability to dictate the engagement ranges of the fight then consider acquiring and equipping NDB repeaters to give you a little more damage output than the CF repeaters offer.
Flight Blades
The verdict is still out on flight blades at the Wild Knights. The bonuses seem negligible if we are being honest – a few extra or less degrees of turn rate won’t dictate the outcome on 99% of fights.
FAQ
Why a PvP or PvE loadout
- In PvE your targets do not dodge your shots. In PvP they do dodge your shots. In PvE you can take advantage of this by using weapons with lower projectile speed but higher damage, such as the Attritions. In PvP, this gives your dodging opponent almost twice the amount of time to effectively dodge your shots.
- A note: If you absolutely know you are going to be engaging ships that cannot divert their trajectory more than ~40 meters in 2-3 seconds in response to an incoming salvo of fire then consider the slower and higher damage weapons.
Why not ballistics?
- Ballistics lose 50% of their damage in the current damage model when passing through shields.
- There is no easy way to replenish ballistics ammo without returning to a station. Most ships carry 2-3 engagements worth of ballistic ammo right now.
Why Taskforce I’s for missiles?
- In PvP missiles should primarily be used to force an opponent who has entered NAV mode to make a decision to exit NAV mode so they can decoy/shield the missile or just eat the missile damage.
- The Strikeforce II’s have the fastest lock time possible (0.1 seconds) and highest locking angle possible (60 degrees) and can lock up to 10 km away which affords the best chance at forcing such a decision on an opponent.
Why two coolers?
- Redundancy. The Hornet series sometimes has an issue where the coolers are easy to damage so we apply the adage: Two is one and one is none. This increases our survivability. The single-seater hornets currently only need a single cooler running to keep their IR signature low so you can keep the second cooler off until the primary becomes inoperable.
You don’t need to cool your ship, why have a cooler at all?
- Not having a cooler (or powering it off) causes your ships IR signature to slowly rise. Given enough time your Gladius will show up on radar at 50 KM or more. This also makes it much harder to countermeasure against missiles that track IR signatures.