2.3 A Guide To Building A PVP Capable Ship

Adle’s Armada – A Guide to Building a PvP
Capable Ship
CMDR Mini_Watto
Published 20/08/2017, do not modify this document. Please provide correct

accreditation if shared.
Created by Mini_Watto for Adle’s Armada
Public release version
Adle’s Armada - A Guide to Building a PvP Capable Ship
PUBLIC RELEASE ISSUE

MODIFIED FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENT
This guide is designed to be a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial on how to build a PvP

capable ship from nothing. Please note, this guide assumes you already have the money to
buy and outfit your desired ship. To make money, simply use whatever money grinding
method is currently available.
Section 1 - Unlocking Engineers
I recommend you unlock all the essential engineers before you actually start engineering
stuff, otherwise you’re just gonna get confused. For how to level up these engineers, see
section 4.
1A - Felicity Farseer
To start with, you’ll have a couple of engineers already unlocked. The first of these you’re
going to want to head to is Felicity Farseer, in Deciat. Whilst not necessary, you’ll probably
want to outfit an anaconda or asp explorer with as high a jump range as possible (G5 long
range FSD). This will make it far less of a pain in the ass to jump around to new engineers,
engineering whatever modules you need. On this ship you’ll also want a fuel scoop and an
advanced discovery scanner.
1B - Essential Engineers
Whilst ships differ in builds, there are some engineers that you will need regardless of ship.
They are:
● Professor Palin - This bastard will engineer your dirty drives for you. You also hate
him. Like, not yet, but you may as well start hating him now. Trust me. To get to
Palin, you’ll need to go through other engineers:
○ Elvira Martuuk - You’ll have her in your list from the start. To work with her,
you’ll need have flown 300 LY from your start location, and give her 3
Soontill Relics. She can engineer your thrusters (G2), FSD (G5), SCBs
(G1), and shield generators (G3). Get her to grade 3, then synthesise 1 G3
blueprint, and you’ll discover a new engineer;
○ Marco Cunt Qwent - Once discovered, you’ll need to gain invitation from
sirius corporation (be allied) and provide him with 25 Modular Terminals.
You obtain these from missions. He can engineer your power plants (G4),
and power distributors (G3). Once you start engineering proper, this guy will
probably be your go to power plant engineer, as G5 is rarely necessary.
Again, get him to grade 3, synthesise 1 G3 blueprint, and you’ll finally
discover Palin;
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○ Professor Palin - You’ll need to have flown 5,000 LY from your start
location and give him 25 Unknown Fragments. Smash unknown artefacts
to get these, you can find lots at the alien crash sites. He will engineer your
FSD (G3), and more importantly your thrusters (G5). Get him to grade 5 as
he is an essential engineer for PvP.
● Lei Cheung - This guy will end up engineering your shield generators. You hate this
guy less than Palin, but he’s still a dick. Look at him staring at you. Smug bastard
knows he’s gonna take away all your ruthenium. Fucking cunt. Once again, you need
to go through someone else, except luckily, this guy is also essential:
○ The Dweller - The Dweller is common knowledge so you’ll know about him
from the start. To be allowed to work with him, you’ll need to have dealt in 5
black markets and then pay him half a million credits. Bastard. He’ll
engineer your beam lasers (G3), burst lasers (G3), pulse lasers (G4), and
most importantly your power distributors (G5). You’ll need to synthesise a
G3 blueprint with him to unlock Lei Cheung, but you’ll want him at G5 for
later. Moving on;
○ Lei Cheung - Once unlocked, you can start engineering with him after
trading in over 50 markets, and giving the fucker 200 units of gold. He’ll
engineer your shield boosters (G3), sensors (G5), detailed surface
scanners (G5), and shield generators (G5). Also get him to G5 for later.
● Didi Vatermann - She’ll engineer all of your shield boosters for you. Unless you’re
running a hull tank you need G5 boosters for PvP or you’ll be completely outclassed.
She is also a bit of a pain to unlock. Here’s the tree:
○ Todd “The Blaster” McQuinn - He’s common knowledge, and you’ll need to
have earnt 15 bounty vouchers and give him 100,000 credits in bounty
vouchers for him to want to deal with you. He’ll engineer your cannons (G2),
fragment cannons (G3), multi-cannons (G5), and railguns (G5).
Synthesising a G3 blueprint will unlock the next engineer, but you’ll likely want
him at G5, unless you don’t want to use multis or rails ever, in which case
you’re wrong and will need to come back later;
○ Selene Jean - This bint not only wants you to mine 500 tons of ore, but she
wants you to give her 10 units of painite. Whilst this is horrible, she’s
definitely worth it, as she’ll engineer your hull reinforcement packages and
armour to G5. Synthesising a G3 blueprint with her will continue the tree, but
you’ll want to get her to G5 for your hulltanks and big ships;
○ Didi Vatermann - You’ll need to be merchant trade rank and then give this
drunkard 50 units of Lavian Brandy. She’ll engineer your shield boosters
(G5), and shield generators (G3). Get her to G5.
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1C - Other Engineers
There aren’t many of these that you’ll actually want, as you unlocked a load of them getting
the essential engineers. I won’t list them all as there are some you won’t need, and I
wouldn’t start with these guys until you’ve decided what build you want, since they’re mostly
weapons. The most commonly used ones are as follows, and again, this is not all of them,
merely the more useful ones:
● Broo Tarquin - This guy will engineer all of your lasers to grade 5. Lasers are less
common in PvP nowadays, but still pack a punch on the right builds. To get to him,
you need to go through:
○ Liz Ryder - She’s public knowledge, and to work with her you’ll need to be
cordial with Eurybia Blue Mafia, and then give her 200 units of landmines.
She’ll engineer your mine launchers (G3), missile racks (G5), torpedo
pylons (G5), hull reinforcements packages (G1), and armour (G1). Get
her to G5 if you want to use missiles in PvP. After synthesising a G3
blueprint, you’ll progress to the next engineer;
○ Hera Tani - To work with her, you’ll need to have an imperial navy rank of
outsider, and give her and her failing lungs 50 units of Kamitra Cigars. She
can modify your power plants (G5), power distributors (G3), sensors (G3),
and detailed surface scanners (G5). If you really need a G5 plant, use her,
but you’ll probably not need that until later. Synthesise a G3 blueprint with
her, and you’ll progress;
○ Broo Tarquin - Once discovered, you’ll need to be competent combat rank

and then give the cultured fucker 50 units of Fujin Tea. Once you’ve done
your delivery job for him, he can engineer beam, burst, and pulse lasers all
to G5.
● Ram Tah - This guy is discovered from Lei Cheung, who you should’ve already
unlocked and got to G5. To work with him, you’ll need to have an exploration rank
of surveyor and then give him 50 classified scan databanks. Once done, he’ll
engineer your chaff launchers (G5), ECM (G5), heatsink launchers (G5), point
defence (G5), and also prospector, fuel transfer, hatch breaker, and collector
limpet controllers (G4, except hatch breaker to G3). Very useful to have unlocked
to mod your heatsinks and chaff to the highest ammo level.
● Bill Turner - Discovered from Selene Jean, he’ll work with you once you’re friendly
with the alliance, and provided 50 units of bromellite. He’ll modify your manifest,
frame shift wake, and kill warrant scanners (G3), AFMUs, fuel scoops,
refineries, and life support (G3), and your detailed surface scanners, sensors,
and plasma accelerators (G5). If you choose to run a plasma build, you’re gonna
get to know this guy very well.
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Section 2 - Deciding on your Ship
Now that you’ve unlocked all the essential engineers, it’s time to pick a ship and get to work.
This is obviously less easy to put into a guide as there are hundreds of different ship and
weapon combinations. For this you’re probably better off asking experienced PvPers directly,
but I’ll do what I can. Here is a list of the most popular PvP ships. I will only discuss medium
and large ships for now, as I’m inexperienced with small ships and they’re extremely
variable niche ships.
2A - Medium Ships
Medium ships are probably my favourite class. Resilient and capable of spitting out damage,
but they retain the maneuverability of smaller ships. Generally they make excellent fighters.
Fer-de-Lance
You’ve seen these. They’re the most common PvP ships and have been for a while, and for
good reason. They’re fast, maneuverable, versatile in what roles they can fill, and let’s be
real. Fucking gorgeous. This will probably be your first PvP ship, but take a look at what it’s
capable of first before diving in. Let’s go over its strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:
● 6 utility mounts, allowing for excellent shields and lots of utilities;
● With G5 dirty drives, very high speed (500m/s+) and extreme turning rate;
● 4 C2 hardpoints and 1 C4 hardpoint, with excellent convergence. These allow you to
pour horrifying amounts of damage on whatever poor sap you’re shooting at.
Combined with your class 6 distributor, you can keep the fire up;
● Excellent in both FA on and FA off, generally an easy ship to fly.
Weaknesses:
● Limited internal space. Your top 3 internals will almost definitely be filled with a shield
generator and SCBs. As a result, your hull is not going to be very thick, so you’ll
either need to be super evasive waiting for shields to reform, or run away;
● Mass lock factor. Its mass lock factor is lower than all the federal ships, and the
python, so if you need to run, you’re gonna have to high wake.
Python
Less common than they used to be, pythons are tanks. As a result, they’re not very quick
and they don’t turn very fast, but they can take a lot of damage and they can spit out a
shitload of it as well. If you choose this, you’re pretty brave, but it’s not a bad ship. Let’s take
a look:
Strengths:
● Hardpoints. Oh my god, the hardpoints. 3 C3 hardpoints, and 2 C2 hardpoints. A
popular build is to stick 3 PAs or 3 Pacifier Frags on this thing, along with a couple of
railguns or missiles;
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● A class 7 power distributor allows those massive weapons to fire for a very long time,
so definitely no bottleneck there;
● Large amounts of shield strength and hull strength mean you can survive for a long
time, and it’ll be pretty easy to escape;
● You will be mass-locking FDLs and federal ships, so they’ll be forced to high wake;
● Lots of internal space to play around with.
Weaknesses:
● You’re gonna find you want another utility slot or two. You’ve only got 4, so you’ll
often find you’re sacrificing chaff to keep up your resistances on your shield;
● You’re slow;
● You can’t turn fast;
● You’ll rely fairly heavily on SCBs, so you’re vulnerable to feedback cascade.
Federal Assault Ship
Probably your second most likely starting ship, the FAS is an overgrown vulture. It’s fast,
turns on a dime and has decent firepower. Here are the stats:
Strengths:
● Extremely maneuverable, you’ll be able to out turn all other medium ships;
● Fast, able to keep up with FDLs in fast paced combat;
● Strong hardpoint loadout, 2 C3 hardpoints and 2 C2 hardpoints;
● High hull strength and good internals, very capable of being a hulltank;
● Mass locks FDLs.
Weaknesses:
● Mass locked by pythons;
● 4 utility mounts, you may find yourself short on shield boosters if you choose to bring
chaff;
● Slightly less firepower than other medium ships.
Federal Dropship
More of a meme than a ship, you’ll only want this if you want to piss off your opponent. High
hull strength allows you to hulltank for days. Here are its stats:
Strengths:
● Extremely good internal compartments, gonna want to fill these with every HRP in
the Galaxy;
● Hardpoints are a slight downgrade from the FDL, replacing the C4 with a C3, but still
strong;
● Will probably make your enemy angry enough that their skill will degrade;
● Can upload videos using it to youtube for Initial D memes.
Weaknesses:
● It’s fat;
● It turns slow;
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● It’s fat;
● Its canopy breaks super easily;
● It’s fat;
● Only 4 utility mounts, same problems as FAS;
● It’s fat.
Federal Gunship
“If Arnold Schwarzenegger ever flew a ship, he would definitely fly a Federal Gunship” -
CMDR Rinzler o7o7o7.
Seriously. This thing is insane, but don’t just jump in and buy one. Here’s what it looks like:
Strengths:
● 7 fucking hardpoints. 2 C1 hardpoints, 4 C2 hardpoints, and a C3 hardpoint. This is
the only ship where I will advise you specifically on weapons. Buy 7 multicannons.
Seriously. It’s ridiculous;
● A class 7 distributor will keep your endless hail of bullets endless;
● It’s unbelievably sexy. Like seriously, look at all of those control surfaces;
● It can deploy a fighter (seriously, that’s a big deal).
Weaknesses:
● It’s fat; It’s beautiful;
● Again, your canopy might break easily;
● It is slow, and it cannot turn fast. You will want to use FA off a lot in this beast;
● Its shields are piss poor. Either go extreme regen bi-weave or extreme capacity
prismatic, but you’ll still hate it;
● Once again, only 4 utility mounts;
● Okay seriously, it’s fat.
2B - Large Ships
Before I get into these, I would recommend you start PvP with a medium ship. The one thing
you’ll learn in PvP is that you will die. If you die in one of these, it’s going to cost you a
shitload of money, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyway…
Imperial Clipper
The clipper is not designed to be a combat ship. Combine that with it’s piss poor hardpoint
placement I would personally not recommend one of these. However, it is certainly capable
in the right hands. It’s pretty much a medium ship, but it’s fat so it needs a large pad.
Strengths:
● Very fast, great for running away;
● 2 C3 and 2 C2 hardpoints allows for good firepower, equivalent to a FAS, also shares
the same distributor;
● Good choice for a bi-weave build, given the lack of utility mounts;
● Internals are decent. Nothing special but they hold up;
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● (Just) mass locks FDLs.
Weaknesses:
● Hideous;
● Awful hardpoint placement, you’re forced to use gimbals;
● Imperial;
● Only 4 utility slots. This forces you into a bi-weave build, which admittedly isn’t that
bad;
● Needs a large landing pad despite basically being a medium ship;
● Mass locked by every other ship listed on this guide;
● Did I mention it’s hideous?
Anaconda
Finally, a real big ship. This thing may not be top dog like it used to be, but do not
underestimate it. There’s a reason it was and is so popular.
Strengths:
● 8 utility mounts. Your shield is going to be crazy with this thing;
● Excellent internals, enough space for fighters, SCBs and a lot of HRPs;
● Only ship in the game with 8 hardpoints. 2 C1, 2 C2, 3 C3, and 1 C4. has the highest
potential DPS in the game;
● People often ignore them in wingfights for some reason;
● A class 8 distributor to power your unfair number of hardpoints;
● Capable of deploying a fighter;
● Mass locks everything except cutters and corvettes.
Weaknesses:
● Slow, and doesn’t turn well;
● Hardpoint placement is weird, especially the 2 C1 hardpoints;
● Wires hanging out in the bridge are really annoying;
● Often struggles in 1v1s vs cutters and vettes.
Federal Corvette
The largest federal ship available, we’re talking endgame stuff here. Only buy and outfit one
of these If you have the money, because the rebuy is gonna be very very expensive.
Strengths:
● Excellent hardpoints, 2 C1, 2 C2, 1 C3, and 2 C4. Only ship with multiple huge
hardpoints;
● Very maneuverable for a large ship. Turns far quicker than a cutter, and will out turn
anacondas and even pythons;
● Hardpoint convergence on the whole is ok, except for one (we’ll get to that);
● Very good internals, with 3 C7 slots for a shield generator and 2 SCBs;
● Can deploy a fighter;
● 8 utility mounts;
● Mass locks everything except cutters;
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● Fucking sexy;
Weaknesses:
● Slow, incapable of keeping up with a cutter, and cannot control range;
● The C3 hardpoint is fucking atrociously placed;
● Often has less health overall than a cutter;
● Mass locked by cutters;
● Requires Federal Navy rank of Rear Admiral or higher.
Imperial Cutter
A giant space dildo, this is the heaviest ship in the game with a mass lock factor of 27.
Personally I’m not a fan, but here’s why you might (or might not) be interested:
Strengths:
● Fastest of the big 3 ships, combined with having the highest mass lock factor means
no other big ships will be able to low wake on you unless you’re shit;
● Very good internals, with 2 class 8 slots for your big shields and SCBs;
● 8 utility mounts;
● Excellent hardpoints, 4 C2, 3 C3 and 1 C4;
● Can deploy a fighter;
● Capable of truly ridiculous shield strengths and hull strengths.
Weaknesses:
● About as maneuverable as a starport;
● About as fat as a starport;
● Like the clipper, atrocious hardpoint placement. Gimbals please;
● Imperial;
● It looks like a dick;
● A class 7 distributor. Seriously lacks capability to keep all those weapons firing, so
you’re gonna want to boom and zoom in this thing;
● Requires Imperial Navy rank of Duke or higher.
Section 3 - Choose a Build
This is even harder for me to help with. Once you’ve chosen your ship, you need to choose
what to put on it. There are many different builds that work on each ship and I simply cannot
be arsed to go through each one in detail. Instead, I am going to outline the details of how
different parts of builds work, for example weapon types and shield builds. I will also
describe what mods are best for each module type and why. As for actually engineering
these, section 4 will help you with fastest way to do this. Once again, your best option is
probably to directly ask people for help, but I’ll try my best.
3A - Weaponry
Okay, there is a literal shitload of weapons that you have to choose from. I’m gonna break
this section down further into lasers, kinetics, and explosives. Let’s start with lasers:
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3A(i) - Lasers
Lasers come in 3 different types, and all sizes, but they all share a few common attributes.
Lasers are all hitscan weapons. This means that they have no travel time, they will instantly
reach whatever they’re pointing at as soon as you pull the trigger, up to their maximum
range. They have no ammunition but on the whole do less damage than kinetic weaponry.
Of course this depends on your enemy’s shield resistances. All lasers do pure thermal
damage, assuming you haven’t got an effect that changes this.
Pulse Lasers
Pulse lasers fire periodically, switching on briefly then off again, over and over. Of all 3 laser
types they have the lowest distributor draw, the lowest DPS, and moderate DPE. They’re
also the coldest to run, so if heat is a problem and your heart is set on lasers, these are
always a solid bet.
When engineering a pulse laser, you have a few options. It’s generally best to pick from
these 3 blueprints:
● Long Range Weapon - An excellent choice for pulse lasers, as this increases your
range from 3.5km (G1) to 6km (G5). Additionally, it removes all damage drop off
from the weapon. This is very important for lasers as their damage dropoff can
prove crippling. At 3km with a standard laser you’re going to be doing sod all
damage, so this mod is ideal. Try to roll for a secondary effect that reduces your
distributor draw and thermal load (potentially better than -50%!), as this will let you sit
miles away from your enemies and continuously damage them. If you’re good at
controlling range and keeping distances high, this eventually beats kinetic builds, but
you’ll need some intense endurance and some evasive flying, which isn’t always a
good fall back plan. If you come across some of the better PvPers out there, they’re
going to use the window of opportunity when you eventually make a mistake;
● Efficient Weapon - Arguably one of the most overpowered engineer modifications,

this blueprint has no drawbacks at all, except that its positive attributes are usually
outshone by another blueprint. However, if you find your distributor is draining fast,
this may be the best option for you. You’ll be able to maintain your fire for much
longer than other blueprints, and it’s nice and cold. Perhaps not first choice for
primary weapons, but as utility weapons that use experimental effects, these are
often a great choice. The ability to apply emissive munitions or scramble spectrum to
an opponent without sacrificing your weapons capacitor is very nice on big ships,
especially if you’re using a turret;
● Rapid Fire - Less common than it used to be, rapid fire is ideal for when you have
less time on target than you’d like. You can lay down more damage in less time, at
the cost of increased weapon jitter. Make no mistake, if you choose this mod, your
fights are going to be up close and personal, which often leaves you vulnerable to
plasma accelerators, frag cannons, and other weapons that excel up close. Often
pairs nicely with phasing, but we’ll get onto that later. If you choose to run rapid fire
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weaponry, you’re going to need a good distributor, because things are gonna get
warm if you haven’t got one.
For the experimental effect on pulse lasers, you have a few options. They’re great utility
weapons for this reason and often do well as a fire-at-will turret on your smaller hardpoints
on big ships, applying emissive munitions and scramble spectrum to targets above or below
you. However, all of these effects have drawbacks. This is why, my top recommendation is
first in this list, which is:
● No Experimental Effect - May sound crazy, but unlike other weapon types this often
is your best choice here. All the other effects either reduce damage, increase heat, or
mess with your rate of fire. If pulse lasers are your primary weapon, it’s often a good
idea to simply have no effect on most of them, having just 1 laser with each effect
you want, typically emissive and scramble. If you insist on having an effect on a pulse
laser, read on;
● Emissive Munitions - The bane of silent running ships everywhere, emissive

munitions will light up your enemies like a christmas tree. It massively increases
their thermal signature and means they are guaranteed to show up on your
radar. This is great for dealing with silent FAS builds and ships that have gone silent
trying to escape. Beware, this effect doubles your laser’s thermal load. You should
only run a single one of these otherwise shit’s gonna get hot very quickly. Try to put
this on a roll that has a low thermal load already;
● Scramble Spectrum - This effect is great for fucking with bi-weave hybrids and
hulltanks. Upon landing a successful hull hit, a random one of your enemy’s
modules will malfunction. Sadly, this is usually something lame like their FSD
interdictor, or cargo hatch, but occasionally you get a powerplant malfunction. Worth
having this on one laser for that slight chance of total RNG fuckery for the enemy.
This effect’s drawback is that it will reduce your rate of fire, and therefore your
DPS, by 7.5%. It is also worth noting this effect has a cooldown, indicated by the
flashing symbol beneath your enemy's hologram. Whilst not a huge hit to DPS, in
extended fights it adds up. Great as a turreted weapon on a big ship;
● Phasing Sequence - This one is a gamble. Your overall DPS is reduced by 10%, in
exchange for shield bleedthrough damage. If your opponent has stupidly thick
shields and paper thin hull, this option is good at screwing with them, and is
especially hilarious with rapid fire. This is probably not the best option but can be piss
annoying for specific enemies;
● Pulse lasers can also take concordant sequence and thermal shock, however
both of these effects are meh as fuck. Change them or remove them if you get them
by chance.
Burst Lasers
Burst lasers are similar to pulse lasers, but they fire multiple times in quick succession,
before switching off for a second. Compared to pulse lasers, bursts have higher DPS, higher
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DPE, higher distributor draw and higher thermal load. Often a better option for your primary
damage than pulses, due to the higher DPS and DPE, but less useful if just being used as a
utility weapon.
Your options for engineering a burst laser are very similar to a pulse laser, so for blueprints I
will simply refer you to the blueprints section of the pulse laser.
As for experimental effects, they remain similar to pulse lasers. The only exceptions are that
burst lasers cannot take emissive munitions, and also have another effect available called
inertial impact. Once again, no effect is a great choice:
● Inertial Impact - This effect will convert half of your burst laser’s damage to
kinetic, which can introduce a nice balance. It will also increase your DPS by 50%.
This may seem too good to be true, and that’s because there’s a catch. You’ll gain a
significant amount of jitter. However, this effect suits an up close and personal
build, so jitter doesn’t matter hugely. This effect pairs well with overcharged, or if
you’re extremely ballsy, rapid fire, but have fun with the heat when your capacitor is
low.
Beam Lasers
Unlike pulses and bursts, beam lasers are always on when you pull the trigger. Of the
lasers, they have the highest DPS, the highest heat production, the highest distributor draw,
and the lowest DPE. For this reason, I recommend you use beams only if your distributor
can handle it nearly permanently. If it can’t, you’re wasting your energy and getting way
too hot for no reason.
For engineering these, you basically only have 2 options:
● Efficient Weapon - I highly recommend this mod for beams. It’ll stop your distributor
and your face from melting, whilst still giving it a decent damage buff. However,
you’re still going to experience problems with damage drop off, so keep your fights
extremely short range otherwise you’re fighting a losing battle;
● Long Range Weapon - If you roll long range for a beam laser it is essential to get a
distributor draw secondary effect. I would highly highly recommend grinding for a -
30% or better here, otherwise the weapon will be basically useless. If you can pull
this off, you have a monstrous weapon. The result is a high DPS hitscan weapon with
no ammo reliance and no damage dropoff. Good luck.
Beam lasers have different experimental effects to pulses and bursts, and unlike them, it’s
generally better to always have one. The available effects are as follows:
● Thermal Vent - Thermal vent immediately reduces one of the biggest drawbacks of a
beam lasers, the heat. This effect dumps heat out of your ship when the laser is
hitting an opponent (note it does NOT increase their heat), at the cost of 25%
increased thermal load when missing. But let's be real, you’re gitting gud now.
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You won’t be missing with a beam laser. If you have no other effect you want on a
beam, put this on;
● Concordant Sequence - The non-broken healing special effect. This boosts a

wingman’s shield regen rate. If they are taking enemy fire, this won’t do anything
as their regen will be on cooldown. This effect increases the beam’s thermal load
by 25%, so be careful not to drain your distributor. Healing is not used in general, so
this is better for PvE;
● The other available effects are regeneration sequence, thermal shock, and
thermal conduit. I do not recommend any of these, as regen sequence is broken as
fuck and generally frowned upon by the PvP community, and thermal shock and
conduit both reduce DPS significantly, whilst being heat weapons which are also
frowned upon. If you get these for free, swap them out for one of the other two.
3A(ii) - Kinetics
Kinetic weapons generally do higher damage than laser weaponry, but at a cost. The
majority of these weapons have travel time, thus lose the benefits of being hitscan (except
for railguns). However, if you can learn to land them, then you’re going to be doing a lot of
damage, and generally have a lot more fun. All of these weapons do a component of kinetic
damage, though some have other damage types mixed in. Once again, some experimental
effects can change this. Additionally, these are all ammunition based.
Multi-Cannons
Famously fun, coating your ship with machine guns remains an effective way to murder
people, even in the 34th century. These are excellent choices for primary damage weapons
and both fixed and gimballed variants are very powerful. Compared to the lasers, they do
more DPS, have a lower distributor draw, a much lower heat generation, and a higher DPE.
Whilst these are all positives, the two obvious drawbacks are the lack of hitscan, and the
ammo requirement. Additionally, you also need to reload occasionally. They come in all
sizes, with fixed, gimballed, and turreted variants.
For multi-cannons, you really only have two choices, but the first of these is definitely the
most popular:
● Overcharged Weapon - Pretty much what it says on the tin. Does more damage, but
needs more energy. Also reduces your ammo clip size but that’s of little relevance.
Always a solid choice and if in doubt, go OC on multi-cannons;
● Rapid Fire - Again pretty self-explanatory. Fires faster to increase your damage,
Reduces flat damage slightly but DPS goes up due to the rate of fire increase. It also
improves your reload time and distributor draw, at the cost of introducing some jitter.
A lot of fun to use and very effective, but you’ll find you run out of ammo fast.
As for your experimental effect, you have several choices.
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● Autoloader - The autoloader is the mod you should throw on if you don’t have any
effect you want on the weapon. This effect reloads your current clip continuously,
at the cost of a slightly reduced clip size. Other than that, this effect has no other
drawbacks, and is objectively always worth it over a no effect multi-cannon;
● Corrosive Shell - The corrosive shell mod should always be on one of your multi-
cannons. It reduces your overall ammo capacity by 20%, but strikes to the
enemy’s hull will reduce their damage resistance to all damage types. This
means you can rip their hull apart much faster and often makes the difference. Due
to the reduced ammo, it’s often better to have this one on your largest multi-cannon,
as they are the slowest firing and will last longest;
● Incendiary Rounds - Less common since resistance became king, but still an
effective thermal weapon if your enemy has a bad shield build. This converts a large
portion of your weapon to thermal damage at the cost of a 5% hit to your DPS.
Additionally, this will triple the weapon’s thermal load, but multis have low thermal
load anyway so this isn’t too bad. Just be careful at low capacitor levels. I would
generally recommend autoloader over this, but it can prove useful if your enemy has
neglected thermal resistance;
● Multi-cannons can also take Emissive Munitions. To see what this effect does,
please see the pulse laser section;
● Multi-cannons can also take thermal shock and smart rounds. I wouldn’t
recommend thermal shock, and smart rounds are entirely fucking pointless. Swap
these effects out for the others I’ve listed.
Cannons
Cannons are single shot weapons with high damage. Unlike multi-cannons, cannons need
very little time on target to be used effectively. These weapons are good for jousting but in
general are less popular than plasma accelerators. Unlike plasma accelerators, they come in
gimballed and turreted variants, and in all sizes. Their DPS, thermal load, rate of fire, and
distributor draw are lower than multi-cannons. They have a higher DPE than multi-cannons.
Cannons have two good options for your choice of mod. Given the damage reduction, rapid
fire is not the best option:
● Overcharged - See the multi-cannon section for a description of this mod;
● Long Range - On a kinetic weapon, the long range mod will also increase your
weapon’s velocity. This makes them easier to land as the reticule will be closer to the
target and travel time will be lower. For more information on the long range mod, see
the pulse laser section. Obviously hitscan arguments do not apply, but damage drop
off removal remains.
As for experimental effects, the cannon has a few options available:
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● Autoloader - Still available for cannons, and optional for cannons where no mod is
planned, but the next option is probably better for that. For more information on
autoloaders, see the multi-cannon section;
● Dispersal Field - This mod fucks with your enemy’s gimballed and turreted
weapons, acting like chaff. It has no drawbacks, so go nuts applying this one. It’s
piss annoying for gimbal scrubs;
● High Yield Shell - Want to fuck up your opponent’s internals? When striking the hull,
high yield shells will completely ruin the inside of your enemy’s ship, at the cost
of a 10% DPS hit. Also a good option if you don’t know what effect to put on;
● Force Shell - This is more to take the piss than anything else. This will knock your
enemy around and annoy them. You will lose 16.7% shot speed and gain jitter,
but to be honest if you’ve chosen this mod you don’t give a fuck. It’s hilarious against
light build FDLs. Ask MackTheHunter, he’ll explain;
● Cannons can also take smart rounds and thermal cascade. Smart rounds still suck
and I cannot stress this point enough: Thermal cascade is considered broken by
the PvP community. Obviously, I can’t stop you using this, however be warned that
they are highly frowned upon in PvP use, and I’m not entirely sure that the effect
even does anything to NPCs. Either way, swap it out if I were you.
Plasma Accelerators
DISCLAIMER: I have a huge* raging erection for plasma accelerators. If you choose to use
these and they don’t live up to what you expect given what I say, then boo hoo. Deal with it.
*Subject to experience. Please file complaints to (+44) 0800-GO-FUCK-YOURSELF.
Plasma accelerators are objectively the best weapons in the game. Plasma accelerators are
similar to cannons, shooting horrifying amounts of damage in large globs. These weapons
are special because of their damage split. 60% of the damage they inflict is absolute. What
does that mean? That means that your enemy’s shield (and armour!) resistances don’t
matter for shit. Only their capacity does. Cool huh? The other 40% is split between kinetic
and thermal. The catch? These things are hard to use. No gimbals, definitely no turrets, and
no small variant. Statistically, they have slightly higher DPS, higher heat, much lower DPE,
lower rate of fire, and higher distributor draw than cannons. These almost all sound like
drawbacks, but when you take into consideration that absolute damage effect, their effective
DPS skyrockets. Also, flat damage is more important than DPS here, significantly so.
Plasma accelerators can take different mods situationally. Here are your options:
● Efficient Weapon - If plasmas are your primary damage type, this is your best
option. These things make a lot of heat, so you want to roll for those thermal load and
distributor draw secondaries. For more information on the efficient weapon mod, see
the pulse laser section;
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● Overcharged Weapon - For the love of god, only put this mod on if you’re running a
single PA. Often works well underslung on the FDL, but this will be very hot. Use at
your own risk. For more information on the overcharged weapon mod, see the multi-
cannon section;
● Focused Weapon or Long Range - This will also run hot, but will allow you to shoot
your enemies up to 7km away. Roll for thermal secondaries if you can. Often good
for learning with plasmas, or if you’re just feeling lazy. For more information on long
range weapons, see the pulse laser section.
Plasma accelerators have access to some awesome special effects. Take a look:
● Target Lock Breaker - This will irritate your opponent by making them lose lock on
you. Okay sure, they can re-target you, but they’ll have to scroll through your
modules if they want to plant you again. Oh, and on APAs? Fucking monstrous, your
enemy will never have target lock on you again. Have at least one of these if you run
multiple PAs, as they have no drawbacks;
● Dispersal Field - See the cannon section for a description of this effect. Again, have
at least one of these if you run multiple PAs, as it also has no drawbacks;
● Dazzle Shell - Reduces your target’s sensor acuity. They’ll have trouble tracking
cold targets. Again, worth having one as it also has no drawbacks;
● Phasing Sequence - See the pulse laser section for an explanation of phasing
sequence. Probably not ideal for plasmas, but it sometimes works against heavy
shield low hull targets. If you want to use phasing, make sure all of your main
weapons are phasing;
● Thermal Conduit - Not a great idea. This will increase damage based on your
heat levels, but reduces base DPS by 20%. It’s not a great effect by any stretch;
● Plasma Slug - No.
Railguns
Railguns are an essential weapon for modern PvP. I wouldn’t recommend making these your
primaries, due to limited ammo and the fact you’re probably a shit shot. Railguns are hitscan
kinetic weapons that have a small charge up time before they fire. When used correctly,
these can end a fight, but that’s mostly down to the experimental effects available. Railguns
have massive DPS, massive thermal loads, massive DPE, and massive distributor draw.
They just have big stats in general. Because of this, they only come in class 1 and class 2,
and only as fixed variants. Let’s talk mods…
Or rather, let’s talk mod, singular. There’s only one mod you’ll ever want for a serious PvP
ship:
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● Long Range - The reason you want long range is two-fold. One, it removes all your
damage drop off to an increased range. This allows you to apply your experimental
effect to its maximum value, as modern rails rely on effects. Additionally, long range
has the potential for huge thermal decrease, which you will need. Do not use a
railgun without a 30% thermal load decrease or better. It will get very, very hot if
you don’t bother with this.
Railguns have 3 potential experimental effects:
● Feedback Cascade - This mod will allow the railguns to reduce the effectiveness
of enemy shield cell banks, however you must land it in the early stages of the
bank otherwise it won’t do much. A couple of good hits during the spin-up phase of
the bank, and it’ll be working at 10% capacity. Good for catching enemies with their
pants down. It also reduces your damage by 20%, but who gives a fuck. You’ve just
killed several hundred MJ of enemy shield in 2 shots;
● Super Penetrator ( °͡ ʖ͜ °͡ ) - This mod, if you’re on target, will tear through enemy
modules. If they don’t have an MRP, you can simply remove their power plant in one
or two shots. Whilst this sounds nice, let me remind you you’re probably a dreadful
shot, so save this one for when you’re more experienced. Or not, throwing yourself in
the deep end sometimes pays off. Up to you. This effect will increase your reload
time by 50%, but again, who cares? You’re a sniper now, not a machine gunner.
● Plasma Slug - No. Okay fine, this shit effect uses fuel instead of ammo. You lose
20% damage, and you’re not gonna gain one of the other amazing effects. Seriously,
unless it’s a Type-9 meme ship, don’t use this mod, swap it for the other two.
Fragment Cannons
Fragment cannons are high damage low range shotgun-like weapons. They have a high
damage drop off due to their spread, so you’ll need to keep close. They come in fixed,
gimballed, and turreted variants up to class 3, but due to their spread chaff isn’t going to do
much against you. Quite often you’ll find yourself short on ammo, so synthesis isn’t a bad
idea. These can end fights very quickly due to massive DPS, especially on the correct ship.
For example, they suit the imperial clipper very well.
A few mods suit the frag cannons nicely:
● Double Shot - Reload less, shoot more. You’ll lose a tiny bit of range, but your clip
size is gonna double, and you’ll gain buffs to your burst rate of fire. A solid mod
overall with few drawbacks, with high DPS capabilities;
● Overcharged - Self-explanatory. See the multi-cannon section for more information

on the overcharged mod;
● Rapid Fire - See the multi-cannon section for more info on the rapid fire mod. If
paired with the screening shell experimental effect, this mod probably has the
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highest DPS capability of frag cannon mods. However, you may well run out of
ammo. Useful to run a couple of ships with these if you’re attempting a gank.
Frag cannons are definitely most effective with experimental effects:
● Screening Shell - This effect increases your effectiveness against munitions,

and decreases reload time by 50%. It has no drawbacks, and if you’re unsure
what mod to put on this is always a good choice. Paired with rapid fire, it’s possible to
achieve horrific levels of DPS for ganks;
● Drag Munitions - This effect fucks with your enemies thrusters, meaning their
engines will effectively be functioning at 0 pips. This is great for stopping people
from running away, and reducing their ability to pull round to shoot you back. Drag
munitions also have no drawbacks;
● Frag cannons can also take Corrosive Shell, Incendiary Rounds, and Dazzle
Shell. For descriptions of these effects, please see the multi-cannon and plasma
accelerator sections.
3A(iii) - Explosives
Much rarer, explosive weaponry is on the whole more utility based than other weapon types.
I use explosives a decent amount, they can round out a build very nicely, and irritate your
opponents. Most likely you’ll end up using seekers on this route. Let’s take a look.
Missiles
Missiles come in two types, seeker and dumbfire. Dumbfire missiles travel fast, but in a
straight line, and will not track opponents. Dumbfires are rare, and even the most skilled
pilots will have trouble using them. Seekers will track your opponent and follow until they
explode from flying too long, are countered by utility mounts, or impact their target.
Dumbfires have significantly higher damage than seekers, but you likely won’t use them at
all. Missiles are also capable of effectively removing your opponent’s weaponry once their
shields are down, but this can be countered with MRPs and point defence, so don’t rely on it.
There’s pretty much only one mod you’ll want for missiles:
● High Capacity Magazine - This potentially doubles your overall ammo capacity and
clip size. Missiles are most often used for special effects, rather than for outright
damage. Even with this mod, you’ll probably want synthesis. The drawbacks are
pretty much irrelevant, and you have no choice anyway.
Missiles have a few effects available, here are the ones I’d recommend going for:
● Drag Munitions (Seeker Missiles Only) - Due to the lack of difficulty firing these
repeatedly, it’s easy to keep your enemy’s thrusters suppressed. Consistently
harassing your opponent’s ability to turn will often help you keep the damage on
them and off you. See the fragment cannon section for more details on this effect;
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● Emissive Munitions - If a target has already been lit up once, seeker emissives are
able to keep him lit up, but it’s generally better to use an emissive laser or multi. For
more information on emissive munitions, see the pulse laser section;
● FSD Interrupt (Dumbfire Missiles Only) - Poor man’s Grom bomb, this effect will
reset your enemy’s FSD, buying you more time to gank. It also reduces damage,
but this is a utility weapon, who gives a fuck? Also likely the only time you’ll ever use
dumbfires;
● Missiles can also take overload munitions, penetrator munitions, and thermal
cascade. Swap these out for the above effects, they’re not useful/scumbaggy to use.
Torpedoes
Ugh…
Okay. Don’t use these, please. If you do, then I hate you, or rather I hate you more than I
already do. Torpedoes are nowadays used to attempt to gank people by insta-nuking their
shields. It’s cheap, it’s slow, it’s shit, and it’s boring. Only 2 mods are available for these and
I don’t even think it matters which one you use so I can’t be fucked to explain them, just pick
one. The important thing is the experimental effect:
● Reverberating Cascade - If you land 4 torpedoes with this effect, then you’ve
probably destroyed the enemy’s shield generator through their shield. Go ahead,
gank them. It’s not like you earned it, you’re a cheap cunt for using these;
● Don’t even know the other effects. Just swap them to reverberating cascade, it’s the
best one.
Mine Launchers
Ugh…
Okay so these aren’t as bad as torpedoes. As you’d expect, you drop explosive mines into
space in the hope the idiot you’re fighting will fly into them. These are used almost
exclusively on speed couriers, so you’re probably not going to be using them. But, I did say
comprehensive, so let’s get into this…
Only one mod you want here:
● High Capacity Magazine - See the missile section for more information on this mod.
Mines can serve several utility purposes depending on what special effect you choose:
● Reverberating Cascade - Fuck you;
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● Shift-Lock Canister - This works similarly to the FSD reboot, and is capable of
hitting multiple ships. You’re gonna have trouble landing this though, so get
practicing if for some reason you want mines;
● Ion Disruptor - Fucking hilarious. Reset your enemy’s thrusters, they’ll be dead in
the water for several seconds. Just don’t hit yourself, I’ve done it and it’s right
embarrassing;
● Mine launchers can also take emissive munitions, radiant canister, and overload
munitions. Swap these out for the other effects if you get them for free.
3B - Internals
This section is a little easier. Most of these apply to every ship build so you don’t need to
choose. These are the modules that will bottleneck your build, they’re the ones you’re going
to spend a long time rolling. Unlike weapons, there are no experimental effects to worry
about, so once you have the engineer to grade 5, that’s it! You don’t need to level them up
again. Let’s get started…
3B(i) - Armour
Your armour is one of the times you have multiple choices. This usually depends on how
much money you have available to you, so I’ll start with the cheapest and work upwards.
● Lightweight Alloys - Lightweight alloys have two huge advantages. Firstly, you get
them for free with every ship, they’re included in the price. Think of this as the
standard hull armour. Secondly, their mass is zero. This means you can mod them
to your heart's content without increasing their mass. Your two reasons for running
this are therefore twofold; you either want a low mass, fast build, or you’re poor.
Don’t worry about it;
● Reinforced Alloys - Much like regular shield generators, these are pretty much
never the right choice. They have mass but the defence they provide isn’t worth it.
Skip over these;
● Military Grade Composite - Often a good choice for big ships. Expensive, but not
quite as much of a bank breaker as your last two options. Pairs well with the heavy
duty mod for sheer hull hitpoints. These are also heavy, so if you want a light, fast
build, avoid these;
● Mirrored Surface Composite - Too many compromises for the price really. Boosts
thermal resistance in exchange for kinetic and explosive resistances. A very
specialist type of armour that I would not recommend myself. If you have this sort of
cash available, it’s better to go for the final option;
● Reactive Surface Composite - Reactive surface composite is going to give you a

large increase to your kinetic and explosive resistances, at the cost of leaving a
hole in your thermal resistance. However, this can be rectified with modifications. If
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you have a lot of money available, this option works well with both lighter builds and
heavy hulltanks, depending on which mod you choose.
● Additionally to your armour, you can also fit your ship with optional internals called
hull reinforcement packages. These modules simply act as armour reinforcement,
so for hulltanks you’re gonna want to pack a few of these. They also make a nice
filler when you don’t know what to do with spare internal slots.
● Lastly (and VERY importantly) we have module reinforcement packages. If you’re

running a hulltank, you’ll want at least 2 of these (e.g a dropship has a 3D and a
4D). These protect your modules specifically from things like super penetrator
railguns, as you can still have your plant shot out at full hull health. In extended
fights, sometimes it’s a good idea to have an auto field-maintenance unit to repair
these during the fight.
The mod you choose for your armour and HRPs is often dependent on build. Here are the
options that realistically you can use:
● Lightweight - The lightweight mod will increase your resistances across the
board (only on armour though, not HRPs!), and potentially halve your armour’s
mass. The cost is a slight hit to your hull boost, but that doesn’t matter really. This
is the option you’ll want to pick for a fast build, saving weight where you can. Often
goes well on reactive armour, with a thermal HRP to make up for that hole in
resistances;
● Heavy Duty - Heavy duty armour is going to give you a large increase to your hull
boost, and also a nice resistance increase, but less than lightweight. It’s also very
heavy. Generally, spam HRPs with this mod for your hulltanks, and even on the FDL
a class 2 heavy HRP doesn’t hurt. Also, if you’re running lightweight alloys, use this
mod, as the mass increase does not apply;
● Thermal Resistant - This mod is what makes reactive armour so good. Either apply
it to the reactive armour directly, or put it on one of your HRPs with heavy duty
reactive armour. The result is a high-ish mass hulltank with a huge pool of hitpoints
and very high resistances across the board. As you’d expect, it does this by
increasing your thermal resistance at the cost of decreasing kinetic and
explosive resistances. On reactive armour, this basically equalises the three, which
is a great balance, and is often the first choice for PvPers. Of course, you’ll need
some cash.
3B(ii) - Shields
Unless you’re running a hulltank, you have a shield. It’s important to get this right as this will
be your primary defence through the majority of the fight. There are many components to a
good shield, so let’s go over them.
● Shield Generator - Every ship comes with one of these, and is often the first mistake
you’ll make. Regular shield generators are rarely your best choice, as they don’t
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have great regen, and they don’t have great capacity. You may be forced to use
one if you haven’t done powerplay yet, but try to replace it as soon as possible;
● Bi-weave Shield Generator - My personal favourite, the bi-weave shield gives you
enhanced shield regeneration as well as enhanced broken shield regeneration.
Sadly, you’re going to suffer from a reduced overall capacity. Because of this, this
shield should be first choice for your shield-hulltank hybrid builds. During an
extended fight, your shield will reform many many times, and seriously piss off your
enemy. If you’re fighting an enemy who does not do consistent damage (i.e plasma
accelerators or frag cannons), the bi-weave allows you to pull range and regen a nice
chunk of shield before you come in for another pass. They also give you a second
chance if you fuck up and lose your shield entirely, as other types of generator
typically force you to run. Also, it’s purple. That’s cool;
● Prismatic Shield Generator - The prismatic shield is the opposite of a bi-weave.

You’re going to have a thicc af shield, at the cost of a reduced regeneration and
broken regeneration. If you’re constantly under fire, this shield is better as regen will
never kick in anyway. That capacity is going to keep you alive for longer, and make it
easier to run away. Since a big ship is often the enemy’s focus in a wing fight, this
type of shield is ideal for your corvettes, cutters, and anacondas, though bi-weave
builds can work on those. Unfortunately, to get these shields, you’re going to have to
do powerplay crap with Aisling Duval, which will take you 4 weeks. It is definitely
worth it though. Also it’s green. That’s also cool.
Shield generators have multiple mods available, however you’re only really going to use two
of these for any serious ship:
● Thermal Resistant - The thermal resistant mod is going to increase thermal

resistance at the cost of decreasing kinetic resistance. The right roll will balance
your resistances nicely, allowing you to build a stronger shield using your shield
boosters later;
● Reinforced - The reinforced shield is going to increase resistances across the

board, and also increase the shield’s optimal multiplier. The cost here is you’ll
lose regen rate and broken regen rate, and it will also take more distributor draw
to regenerate. Often a good option for pure shield tanks, you’ll still find a hole in your
thermal resistance which you might want to patch with a thermal shield booster. Suits
prismatic shields well, does not suit bi-weaves at all.
The next thing to do to improve your shield is to stick a few of these on your utility mounts:
● Shield Boosters - Technically not internal modules, but definitely essential, shield
boosters simply make your shield stronger. A stock booster has no other benefits
than this, but we’re going to be modifying them to get more out of them.
Shield boosters have 3 mods that you’ll want to apply situationally:
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● Resistance Augmented - The most important mod for shield boosters, the
resistance augmented mod is going to give you a very nice boost to each type of
resistance. Typically you’ll want at least two, preferably three of these. If you’re
lucky, you can also roll secondaries that give you extra shield reinforcement as well.
Be warned, these things are power hungry, so keep an eye on your usage;
● Heavy Duty - Once you’ve rounded off your resistances, all your other shield
boosters should be heavy duty. Well rolled boosters will be equivalent to three
stock boosters, so it’s worth spending time on these. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a few
resistance points for free as well;
● Thermal Resistant - You should only use a thermal resistant booster if you’ve got a
big hole in your thermal resistance. The problem with these is they’ll reduce kinetic
and explosive resistances. These are entirely unnecessary on a thermal resistant
shield, which is why I prefer them.
Lastly, you’re gonna be able to utilise your optional and military internals to help with your
shield:
● Shield Cell Banks - A shield cell bank is effectively a reservoir of power that you can
very quickly divert to your shield. If you can avoid being hit by feedback cascade, a
shield cell bank will massively increase your overall health. Be warned, these things
are extremely hot. For this reason, do not use these without using heatsinks as
well. While you’re at it, a heatsink will purge much more heat than a SCB actually
produces, so make sure to double bank. It’s more efficient on your heatsinks,
though this problem will be lessened with heatsink synthesis.
Shield cell banks have two mods available. You can almost always get away with using an
unmodified bank, which is lucky, because the best engineer for these is in Shinrarta Dehzra.
Here are your choices of mod:
● Rapid Charge - Rapid charge means the bank kicks in faster, and doesn’t last as
long. You’ll get slightly more MJ per second, but overall this will probably
decrease the amount of recharge from a bank. These are good if you always
seem to get cascaded, as the enemy has less time to hit you;
● Specialised - A specialised bank will also kick in faster, but lasts the same amount
of time. Additionally, you’ll have less of a heat problem. The catch is a big increase
to power draw. These things weren’t exactly efficient to being with, so you’ll need a
big power plant to run these.
3B(iii) - Power Distributor
The power distributor is the bottleneck for your flat DPS value. When you mess around with
pips, what you’re really doing is telling your power distributor where to send your ship’s
energy. A bad distributor not only means your guns will run out of juice, but your shield won’t
regen at its fastest and you’re gonna find it hard to boost often. Luckily, you don’t have to
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choose here, just make sure you have the highest size distributor your ship can fit, and make
sure it’s A-Class.
Also luckily, there’s only one mod you’ll ever want to apply to your distributor:
● Charge Enhanced - The charge enhanced distributor reduces all 3 of your

capacitor’s capacities, in exchange for an increased recharge rate, filling them up
quicker. Your ship’s abilities are throttled not by the capacity, but by the recharge
rates. Annoyingly, this blueprint requires two extremely hard to find micro-materials,
but we’ll get onto those in section 4. It is possible to get insane secondaries on this
module, so try to grind for +40% or better across the board on those recharge
rates. Distributors reaching nearly +50% have been reported.
3B(iv) - Thrusters
Thrusters, like power distributors, you’ll find to be a bottleneck. Turn quicker and boosting
faster often makes the difference in otherwise even fights. You’ve only got one module
choice, except for extremely small ships where you can use enhanced performance
thrusters. These are niche thrusters for specific builds so I’m not going to cover them.
Thrusters also only have one mod that you can realistically use:
● Dirty Drive Tuning - This mod focuses purely on boosting your thrusters’ optimal
multiplier value. It’s hard to explain what this value does, but all you need to know is
the higher it is, the faster you’ll be going. It’s worth noting that an average PvP
thruster module has a +35% multiplier. It is possible to get up to +42%, but this is
insanely rare. Unless you have a lot of time, settle with a mid 30’s roll. The price you
pay for the crazy performance you’ll get from these is a reduced optimised mass,
reduced integrity, increased power draw, and a doubled thermal load. If you’re
lucky, you can also get only a small reduction to optimised mass. If you get a true
god roll, with a high multiplier (+40 or better) and a small optimised mass reduction (-
5%), you’re going to be amongst the luckiest players in the game. This mod is the
reason you hate Professor Palin. If you insist on trying to get a god roll, bring
hundreds of rolls at a time. It’s not worth showing up with just 20 rolls, you’ll probably
only get +35% at best.
3B(v) - Power Plant
The power plant is one of your most important modules. It keeps everything on, and if it’s not
good enough you won’t be able to use your weaponry without shutting down other modules.
Depending on your ship, you actually have a couple of choices as to what mod you use:
● Overcharged - Overcharged power plants produce more power, run hotter, and
are weaker to attack. For this reason, if you need more power than a stock power
plant provides, use the lowest grade overcharged you can get away with. Most
medium ships can use a grade 1 or 2 overcharged plant. With secondaries, it’s
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possible to get +19% power on a grade 1, so it’s worth going for, especially given
how cheap it is and how common super penetrator rails are;
● Armoured - Lucky you, you have enough power. Put this mod on. You can over
double the integrity, and potentially improve your heat efficiency. It’ll be
heavier, but believe me, usually worth it. Always best option for pure hulltanks,
especially if you can get away with using a B-rated power plant, it will have a lot more
hitpoints;
● Low Emissions - If you need to run cold, a low emissions plant is the way to go.
You’ll gain a large improvement to heat efficiency. Sadly, it’s a little bit heavier,
and it produces less power. If you like silent running, this may be an option, but you
probably won’t have the power, so go armoured.
3B(vi) - Sensors
Sensors are your ship’s eyes. They allow you to see things on your radar and contacts
panel. Engineering these is not essential for PvP, however often proves useful.
You’ve got a couple of choices for sensor mods:
● Lightweight - You’ll learn that sensors are absurdly heavy. A-rated sensors on a
corvette weigh 160 tonnes. That’s more than military grade composite. Lightweight
sensors are gonna reduce that mass by up to 80%. Unfortunately, they’ll lose a
lot of integrity and a bit of scan angle, but believe me, on a corvette or cutter, it’s
worth it. This mod is definitely most effective on D-rated sensors, which are usually
perfectly adequate for PvP;
● Long Range - If you don’t care about sensors’ mass, or you want a heavy build for
ramming people to death, these work nicely. You’ll see much further away, being
able to target enemies up to 14km away, and you’ll triple the mass. It’s worth noting
that long range B-rated sensors on the corvette weigh over 750 tonnes. I just
thought that was interesting. Oh yeah, you’ll also lose some scan angle, but I doubt
you care.
3B(vii) - Frame Shift Drive
The frame shift drive is how you jump around. No matter what class/size/mod FSD you have,
you will always be able to enter supercruise. However, these things will affect how far you
can jump in one go.
Again, not essential to engineer for PvP, but you have 3 choices, 2 of which are PvP
oriented:
● Shielded - Improved integrity and thermal load, at the cost of mass and
optimised mass. You’ll lose jump range, but believe me. If you’re a hulltank, this is a
good idea. It’ll help prevent it from getting sniped out, cause if that happens, you’re
screwed;
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● Faster Boot Sequence - Paranoid of Grom bombs or FSD resets? Use this. It will
drastically improve your boot time, at the cost of running hotter, needing more
power, and being weaker to attack. Only really useful if Groms pose a genuine
threat to you;
● Increased Range - Not useful at all for PvP, but I wouldn’t blame you for using this,
so go ahead. You’ll be jumping further, but it’ll be easier to shoot out, use more
power, and weigh a bit more. But we all know the corvette’s jump range is horrific,
so again, go ahead if you like, we won’t judge you.
3B(viii) - Life Support
You must be really bored for engineering this. This keeps you breathing, and is basically
never a problem in PvP. Even if you lose your canopy, you’re probably running anyway.
Still, if you insist on modding this one, you can choose from the shielded, reinforced, and
lightweight mods. I’ve explained these previously, so refer back to check them out. Also
worth noting that reinforced is literally an objectively worse version of shielded. Same
benefits, worse drawbacks. Of these two, use shielded.
Section 4 - Engineering your Modules
Now that you’ve chosen a ship, and hopefully a build, it’s time to get to work engineering.
This is, by far, the biggest time sink of getting into PvP nowadays. To make a fully functional
PvP ship, it’s going to take tens of hours once you’ve unlocked the engineers. From start to
finish, you’re looking at a time investment of probably around 100 hours.
4A - Core/Important Module Engineering
N.B: Before you get started, you’re going to be checking mission boards for lots of
materials. So that you don’t get annoyed in hindsight by missing some, here are the
materials that, if you see a mission you can take that rewards them, you should always
take:
● Exquisite Focus Crystals;

● Biotech Conductors;
● Cracked Industrial Firmware.
Additionally, this section will not do your power plant yet. No, I have not forgotten to do it,
but this is the last module you will engineer. Your options with it depend on how much power
your ship uses overall, which will be unknown until you’ve finished your weapons.
If you haven’t yet chosen your exact build, don’t worry. It’s often a good idea to begin by
engineering your core modules, and any other modules that you’re set on. Leaving the
weapons until last is often a good idea, as if you change your mind you haven’t wasted all of
your time. I’m going to present modules in an order that is easy to engineer. You don’t have
to do things in this order, but given distances to engineers and availability of materials, the
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order presented is nice and easy (easy is a stretch, but this is engineers, if you haven’t
realised by page 26 that this is a pain in the arse, maybe pick a different game).
Oh, and it’s worth pointing out at this point, there’s a high likelihood that you’ve chosen a
ship with the jump range of a tiddlywink. For this reason, I recommend doing all of the
engineering I present in this section with an anaconda and simply transfer the modules later.
If money is a problem and you haven’t used the current money exploit, then feel free to use
an asp explorer, although it’s less versatile in what it can engineer. Below I have linked you
to a light-build anaconda that will be capable of all your jumping needs. This thing isn’t good
on the defence, so at this stage there’s no shame engineering in private group/solo
mode. Factions like The Code often camp engineer systems, and it’s not the safest
endeavour in the world.
https://eddp.co/u/5woaR4Wz
You’ll notice that the conda has a 5A power distributor. This is because you’re going to be
doing a lot of planetary landings, and sometimes on fairly high-G worlds. A boost can save
your ship if you mess up your glide entry. Feel free to skimp on this (and the shield generator
as well if you’re insane), but don’t blame me if you make an anaconda pancake on a planet.
In this section, I’m also going to give you an option of how to level up these engineers to
grade 5. Some engineers you want for optional stuff may not be listed, but don’t worry. Every
engineer has a grade 5 level up guide in an appendix at the end of this guide.
Last thing before we get into this, and I cannot stress this enough, so let’s use big bold
colourful letters:
Each time you pick up a material or data (but not from missions),
you get 3 of it. Do not waste your time doing triple the work by
forgetting this. That being said, some materials are needed a lot.
Read on...
4A(i) - Frame Shift Drive
Slightly misleading, but this first engineering job isn’t actually for your combat ship. This is to
boost the jump range of your anaconda, or whatever engineering ship you’ve chosen. This is
definitely worth it as it makes it far easier to engineer the rest of your stuff later. Here’s what
you’ll need:
● Grade 5 access to Felicity Farseer (Deciat) or Elvira Martuuk (Khun);

● Some arsenic, some chemical manipulators, and some datamined wake
exceptions (1 of each per roll);
● Patience.
These materials are to roll the grade 5 increased range FSD. The biggest choke here is the
datamined wake exceptions. These data are very rare, and they are obtained by scanning
high energy FSD wakes. You need an effective way to farm these, and luckily, there is one.
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Head to a system which is in a famine state. You can set filters on your Galaxy map to make
this easier. Once found, honk (advanced discovery scan) the system if you need to, and find
a distribution centre. These are locations that have lots of ships constantly jumping in and
out, and will therefore provide you with lots of high wakes. Simply bring a frame shift wake
scanner, and get going. Sadly, the drop chance is atrocious, so depending on your luck
you may have to spend an hour or two here. Also, you may want a quicker ship (Cobra MkIII
for example) as flying around to scan wakes gets tedious fast.
As for the other materials, you can obtain arsenic by surface prospecting (check planet
info on system map for percentages), and you can obtain chemical manipulators in encoded
emission signal sources or by destroying transport/mining ships. If you take the second
of those options, do it in an anarchy system. You won’t be attacked by cops.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level Felicity Farseer
to grade 5. You’ll need to synthesise 3 of each blueprint up to and including grade 4. You do
not need to apply a blueprint to gain reputation, so if it’s something crap you don’t want,
just toss it when you’re done with that grade. You do not have to use this specific list, but
these blueprints typically require easier to find materials.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Increased Range (FSD);
● Grade 3 - Shielded (FSD);
● Grade 4 - Shielded (FSD).
Required Materials:
● Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes x6 (High Energy FSD Wake Scanning);
● Chemical Processors x3 (Transport Ship Salvage, USS);
● Carbon x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Shielding Sensors x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
● Zinc x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Compound Shielding x3 (High Security/Boom/Retreat Combat Ship Salvage,
Encoded Emissions USS);
● High Density Composites x3 (Military/Authority Ship Salvage, USS);
● Vanadium x3 (Surface Prospecting).
Ensure to synthesise each blueprint 3 times only. If you do it more, you may use materials
required for a later blueprint.
Once you hit grade 5, an extreme roll on the anaconda provided can reach well over 50LY
jump range. When rolling the blueprint, the important statistic to try and max out is the
optimised mass. Standard increase for this is 25-50%, however with secondaries this can
be exceeded. Roll this until you have near or over 50%, then move on. If your luck isn’t
great, you can always come back later after you’re done being burnt out. You can also come
back later to engineer your actual combat ship’s FSD as well, but again this is optional.
You’re already investing a lot of time elsewhere so if you do choose to do this, maybe best to
save it for last.
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4A(ii) - Power Distributor
One of the next core modules you’ll need to engineer is the power distributor. As mentioned
earlier, there’s only one blueprint that interests you here. You’ll need:
● Grade 5 access to The Dweller (Wyrd);

● Some chemical manipulators, some cracked industrial firmware, and some
exquisite focus crystals (1 of each per roll);
● A lot of patience.
These materials are required to roll the grade 5 charge enhanced distributor. You can
obtain chemical manipulators in encoded emission signal sources or by destroying
transport/mining ships. If you take the second of those options, do it in an anarchy
system. You won’t be attacked by cops. Cracked industrial firmware is famously one of
the hardest types of data to obtain. Currently you can obtain these through missions or by
surface data point scanning. Our very own CMDR DeZpe has put together an excellent
spreadsheet to help you get this stuff. Lastly exquisite focus crystals come only from
missions. Check every single mission board you visit for missions that reward these. I
recommend you don’t look at missions you can’t take, cause if you see them it will irritate
you.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level The Dweller to
grade 5. You’ll need to synthesise 3 of each blueprint up to and including grade 4. You do
just toss it when you’re done with that grade. I wonder if any of you will notice this sentence
here? This one too, they’re both a bit out of place. If you noticed these 3 sentences,
message me. You do not have to use this specific list, but these blueprints typically require
easier to find materials.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Any kind of laser, make sure you bring one, preferably a
pulse laser for later grades);
● Grade 2 - Lightweight (Any kind of laser);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Pulse laser).
Required Materials:
● Phosphorous x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Manganese x6 (Surface Prospecting);
● Salvaged Alloys x6 (Combat Ship Salvage, Combat Aftermath USS);
● Conductive Ceramics x3 (Transport Ship Salvage, Anarchy System Degraded USS);
● Conductive Components x3 (Transport Ship Salvage, Anarchy System Degraded
USS);
● Phase Alloys x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
● Proto Light Alloys x3 (Boom State Combat Ship Salvage, Boom State High Grade
USS).
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Once you hit grade 5, roll grade 5 charge enhanced power distributors. The stats you
want to focus on are the 3 recharge rates. Standard maximum is 36%, but in this case it is
definitely worth rolling secondaries to try to get more than 40%. The highest I’ve seen is
48%, but that’s a god roll. Try to go for low to mid 40’s. Oh, and another big red bit of text
(there’s gonna be a few of these in this section):
Ensure you are rolling this on the biggest power distributor that fits
your combat ship. For the FDL, this is a 6A.
If you roll this on the wrong distributor, I have no sympathy for you now. The text is red, you
cannot miss it.
4A(iii) - Thrusters
Hooooooh boy…
Thrusters seriously suck to engineer. Only one blueprint interests you here, so let’s get into
it. Here’s what you’re gonna need:
● Grade 5 access to Professor Palin (Maia);

● Some cadmium, some cracked industrial firmware, and some pharmaceutical
isolators (1 of each per roll);
● Even more patience, and any personal items you superstitiously believe to be lucky.
These materials are required to roll grade 5 dirty drive tuning thrusters. To get the
cadmium, you’ll need to go surface prospecting. Again, check the planet’s percentages to
find a decent place. This is another module that requires cracked industrial firmware.
Once again, I recommend CMDR DeZpe’s cracked industrial firmware spreadsheet.
Lastly, you’ll need some pharmaceutical isolators. These are found in high grade
emissions USSs in outbreak systems. To maximise your chances, you’ll want to find an
independent system, with as few federal and imperial factions as possible. You’ll also
want there to be as few other states as possible in system. So an ideal system would
have no federal or imperial factions, with most or all of them in outbreak. This reduces your
chances of finding USSs with other types of material. To further increase chances of finding
these, make sure your location information in the bottom left says deep space. You get to
deep space simply by flying a long way away from any planets or stars. It is also anecdotally
reported that high population systems help, but this is unconfirmed.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level Professor Palin
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Blueprints:
Required Materials:
● Nickel x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Shield Emitters x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
Once you hit grade 5, roll grade 5 dirty drive tuning. You want to focus on maximising the
optimal multiplier stat. The standard maximum is 30%, however this can be greatly
exceeded. The maximum I’ve heard of is 42.9%, which is an extreme god roll. Realistically,
you’ll want to be aiming for 35% or more. If possible, also attempt to maximise your optimal
mass stat. If you get a very slight decrease to optimal multiplier, but a large improvement to
optimal mass, it’s usually good to take it. If you are unsure, ask in the shipyard channel.
This is not a module you cannot afford to skimp on. Oh, more red text:
Ensure you are rolling the blueprint for the appropriate sized
thrusters for your combat ship. For the FDL, this is a 5A thruster.
Once again, if you fuck up and roll this on the wrong thruster, I have no sympathy. In fact, I
will laugh at you.
4A(iv) - Shields
A bit of a longer section, this will cover all the essentials when engineering your shields.
Since SCBs function perfectly fine unmodified, they won’t be included in this section. I will
cover your shield generator and shield boosters here.
Shield Generator
As explained earlier, you’re only interested in two blueprints for your shield generator. For
advice on which generator to choose for your build, please refer to section 3B(ii).
Reinforced Shield:
● Grade 5 access to Lei Cheung (Laksak);
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● Some arsenic, some conductive polymers, and some improvised components (1

of each per roll).
As usual, arsenic can be found by surface prospecting. You’ll be able to find conductive
polymers from transport ship salvage, surface POIs, or mission rewards. Lastly,
improvised components are found from missions, and also by searching high grade
USSs in civil unrest systems. As before, you want an independent system with as few
federal and imperial factions as possible. Additionally you want as few other system
states as possible. Make sure you’re in deep space, then just farm USSs.
Thermal Resistant Shield:

● Grade 5 access to Lei Cheung (Laksak);
● Some refined focus crystals, some ruthenium, and some untypical shield scans
(1 of each per roll).
A little easier to make than reinforced shields, you’ll be finding ruthenium by surface
prospecting. This is a little rarer than other materials, so I’d recommend finding a high
percentage planet to farm this. Refined focus crystals are going to be dropping from
combat ships. Or if you like, you can head to weapons fire detected USSs. Lastly, you’ll get
untypical shield scans by scanning combat ships. From my experience, you’ll get the
highest chance of finding these by scanning smaller combat ships. Things like eagles,
vipers, and even asp scouts will drop these fairly often, whereas medium and large ships
seem to almost never drop them. Keep this in mind. A good method is to head to a
compromised nav beacon, (e.g in Ngaliba). Simply scan all the small combat ships, and
keep relogging. You’ll be finding these pretty often.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level Lei Cheung to
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Thermal Resistant (Shield Generator);
● Grade 4 - Reinforced Shield (Shield Generator);
Required Materials:
● Distorted Shield Cycle Recordings x9 (Transport Ship Scanning);
● Germanium x6 (Surface Prospecting);
● Selenium x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Configurable Components x3 (Low Security System Transport Ship Salvage, Low
Security System Combat Aftermath USS, Low Security System Encoded Emissions
USS);
● Manganese x3 (Surface Prospecting).
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Once you reach grade 5, roll either grade 5 reinforced shields, or grade 5 thermal
resistant shields, whichever you’ve picked for your build. For more information on
choosing, please refer to section 3B(ii). For reinforced shields, try to max your resistances
and optimal strength. Also try out for optimal strength and hull mass secondaries.
Regen rate isn’t your primary concern most likely, so don’t worry too much about it. For a
thermal resistant shield generator, try to max your thermal resistance, and also try and get
lucky with your kinetic resistance. If you’re putting this on a bi-weave, roll for regen or
broken regen rate secondaries, build dependent. If on a prismatic, go for optimal hull
mass and strength secondaries. If you get both on one, then you’re lucky. Red text
incoming:
Again ensure you’re rolling for the correct module. Almost always
this is the largest A-class prismatic or regular shield generator for
your ship, or the largest C-class bi-weave shield generator for your
ship. Specialist builds sometimes use the second largest slot. For
now, stick with the largest. Any questions, ask in shipyard.
Shield Boosters
Shield boosters aren’t so bad to engineer given their necessity. They’re one of the few
modules that do not require the fabled cracked industrial firmware. You’re interested in 3
different types of booster here if you’re running a reinforced shield. Only 2 if you’re running a
thermal resistant. Here’s what you’re gonna need for each type, and how to get the stuff:
Resistance Augmented Booster:

● Grade 5 access to Didi Vatermann (Leesti);
● Some conductive ceramics, some imperial shielding, and some refined focus
crystals.
Conductive ceramics are gonna be coming from from transport ship salvage, or
alternatively you could head to an anarchy system degraded USS. Imperial shielding is
the toughest one to find here, but not too bad. Like many previously discussed components,
you’re gonna be needing to search high grade emissions USSs. This time you’ll need to be
in an imperial (as in the Empire, NOT imperial government type) system, preferably with
no current state, or a state that does not affect high grade USS drops. Again, high
population is rumoured to help, but this is unconfirmed. As usual, you’ll find most high
grades in deep space. Lastly, refined focus crystals drop from combat ships. Or, you can
search for weapons fire detected USSs.
Heavy Duty Booster:

● Some antimony, some polymer capacitors, and some untypical shield scans.
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Antimony is a rare material found while surface prospecting. Make sure to find a planet that
has a high percentage of antimony before you search, you can do this in the system map
menu. Polymer capacitors are dropped fairly frequently by military and authority ships.
You can kill lots of these by hopping into an active conflict zone. They can also show up in
convoy dispersal pattern USSs. Lastly, you’ll get untypical shield scans by scanning
combat ships. From my experience, you’ll get the highest chance of finding these by
scanning smaller combat ships. Things like eagles, vipers, and even asp scouts will drop
these fairly often, whereas medium and large ships seem to almost never drop them. Keep
this in mind. A good method is to head to the compromised nav beacon, in Ngaliba.
Simply scan all the small combat ships, and keep relogging. You’ll be finding these pretty
often.
Thermal Resistant Booster:

● Some aberrant shield pattern analysis, some exquisite focus crystals, and some
heat exchangers.
Aberrant shield pattern analysis is a data type that drops from scanning combat ships.
In my experience I’ve found that it also drops from trade ships a lot as well, so keep this in
mind. I haven’t found a particular type of ship drops these more either, so experiment by
yourself to see what drops them most for you. Again I recommend relogging at Ngaliba’s
compromised nav beacon. Exquisite focus crystals come only from missions. Check
every single mission board you visit for missions that reward these. I recommend you
don’t look at missions you can’t take, cause if you see them it will irritate you. Heat
exchangers often come from transport ship salvage. Alternatively, you can check
degraded USSs in anarchy systems.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level Didi Vatermann
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Blast Resistant Booster (Shield Booster);
● Grade 4 - Resistance Augmented Booster (Shield Booster).
Materials:
● Iron x9 (Surface Prospecting);
USS);
● Focus Crystals x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, High Security System USS);
● Refined Focus Crystals x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, Weapons Fire USS).
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Once you’ve reached grade 5, you’ll need to be rolling a combination of grade 5 resistance
augmented boosters, grade 5 heavy duty boosters, and possibly grade 5 thermal
resistant boosters. Choosing a booster combination can seem intimidating, but obeying a
couple of rules makes it simple. Firstly, if you have a reinforced shield, you’ll be wanting a
single thermal resistant booster, unless you’re short on utility mounts. This is why I
generally recommend a thermal resistant shield generator. After this, you’ll want to stack up
your resistances with resistance augmented boosters, try and bring all 3 resistances up
or close to 50%. This will typically require 2 or 3 resistance boosters. Lastly, all your
remaining boosters should be heavy duty. The result is a well rounded resistance shield
with decent capacity. My personal FDL runs 3 resistance boosters and 2 heavy duty
boosters on a thermal resistant bi-weave shield generator, and all 3 resistances are over
50%. Oh hey, red text:
Ensure you’re only rolling A-class shield boosters. Some extremely

specialist builds use E-class boosters, but this won’t concern you
currently. If you’re struggling with designing a booster
combination, ask for advice in shipyard.
4A(v) - Armour
Armour, luckily, is an easy thing to sort out. Blueprints are in general simple and god rolls
aren’t much of a problem to worry about. Not only that, but blueprints apply to both the
armour and the hull reinforcement packages, so you’ll be doubling up on your resource
gathering without having to run all over the place. Here’s the important stuff you’ll need:
Lightweight:
● Grade 5 access to Selene Jean (Kuk);
● Some conductive ceramics, some military grade alloys, and some tin.
As usual, conductive ceramics are salvaged from transport ships, or found in degraded
USSs in anarchy systems. Military grade alloys are another material found in high grade
emissions USSs. This time, you’ll want an independent system with as few federal and
imperial factions as possible, and the system will need to be in a state of either civil war or
war. Again, try to pick a system with as few other states as possible, and once you’re
there, fly to deep space to farm USSs. Finally, your tin is going to come from surface
prospecting.
Heavy Duty:
● Some compound shielding, some core dynamics composites, and some
tungsten.
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Your compound shielding is found in combat ship salvage and encoded emissions
USSs, but you’ll want to be in a high security system, with an even better drop chance in
boom and retreat states. Next up, core dynamics composites are much like the federal
equivalent of imperial shielding. You’ll need to be in a federal system, with as few states
as possible. Again, check deep space for high grade emissions USSs. Tungsten comes
from surface prospecting.
Thermal Resistant:
● Some molybdenum, some phase alloys, and some proto heat radiators.
Molybdenum is found while surface prospecting. Phase alloys are found in combat ship
salvage, with a higher chance in boom state systems. You can also find them in USSs.
Lastly, proto heat radiators, come from high grade emissions in boom systems. Try to
find a high population independent system as well, so you don’t end up with other high
grade USS drops. Again, make sure you’re in deep space.
Here is an example list of blueprints and materials that you can use to level Selene Jean to
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Blast Resistant (Armour/HRP);
Materials:
● Vanadium x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Galvanising Alloys x3 (Election State Combat Ship Salvage, Election State USS);
● Mercury x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Tungsten x3 (Surface Prospecting).
Once you’ve reached grade 5, you’ll want to synthesise a combination of grade 5

lightweight, grade 5 heavy duty, and grade 5 thermal resistant. Armour options are a
little more complicated than your shield options, so for a more in-depth description of what to
choose and how to choose it, please refer to section 3B(i). But in general, a reactive
surface composite build requires a thermal resistant armour mod, with heavy HRPs to buff
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strength. Alternatively, on a ship that needs to be lighter, lightweight reactive with a thermal
HRP or heavy duty lightweight alloys work well.
4B - Weapon Engineering
N.B: Before you get started, you’re going to be checking mission boards for lots of
materials. So that you don’t get annoyed in hindsight by missing some, here are the
materials that, if you see a mission you can take that rewards them, you should always
take:
● Exquisite Focus Crystals;

● Biotech Conductors;
● Cracked Industrial Firmware.
At this point, you should have already followed section 4A of the guide to get your ship
ready. By now you should’ve chosen your build, as we’re going to be engineering the
weapons you’ve decided to go with. This section won’t be quite as in depth as the previous
section. What I’m going to do is go over each common PvP blueprint as these do not
change between weapon types. An efficient weapon plasma accelerator is the same
blueprint as an efficient weapon beam laser, which is convenient. After that, I’ll also outline
which engineers do grade 5 weaponry. But first, we’re gonna go over the process of
obtaining experimental effects.
Experimental effects are very important to modern PvP and are often the whole point of the
weapon. Sometimes you will get lucky enough that you will get one of these randomly. The
chance of this in my experience is usually about 10%, but even then it’s highly unlikely that it
will give you the effect you want. Luckily, there is a solution to this. Whenever engineering
weapons, you can spend favours with the engineer. What this means is that you will be
able to choose an experimental effect for your weapon, at the cost of some reputation. You’ll
lose either 1 or 2 grades with the engineer. This may sound a pain in the backside, but I
cannot stress enough how important spending favours is. If you get a good roll on a
weapon you need, it is always worth spending favours to get the effect you need. Good
rolls are few and far between, and there’s no point rejecting them because you didn’t get the
effect you want to begin with. Think of it this way, you can either spend many more grade 5
materials to get what you want, or a few extra grade 3 and 4 materials. So that you don’t get
caught out halfway through engineering your shit, I’ve taken the liberty of outlining how to
easily get back those favours you’ll be spending (don’t thank me too quickly). You’ll be
needing to spend up to 2 favours at once from grade 5, this means you’ll drop to grade 3.
You won’t be going lower than this, so you can stock up on grade 3 and 4 blueprint materials
and be safe. As fortune would have it, the grade 3 and 4 lightweight mount blueprint can
be rolled for every weapon type, by every grade 5 weapon engineer. Here are the
materials you’ll need:
Grade 3 Lightweight Mount:

● Conductive Ceramics (Transport Ship Salvage, Anarchy System Degraded USS);
● Manganese (Surface Prospecting);
● Salvaged Alloys (Combat Ships, Combat Aftermath USS).
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Grade 4 Lightweight Mount:

● Conductive Components (Transport Ship Salvage, Anarchy System Degraded USS);
● Phase Alloys (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
● Proto Light Alloys (Boom State Combat Ship Salvage, Boom State High Grade USS).
Manganese is obtained through surface prospecting. You can obtain phase, salvaged, and
proto light alloys all in boom state system resource extraction sites. Just go bounty
hunting for the small money bonus and pick up the materials whenever you spot them.
Conductive components and conductive ceramics are both obtained from transport
ship salvage. Personally, I recommend heading to an anarchy system and blowing up
Type-X ships, keelbacks, and any other similar ships. Alternatively you can head to a
resource extraction site in an anarchy system and kill the miners.
Generally, it is recommended that you have 3 times the number of weapons you are going to
engineer worth of rolls for each of these 2 blueprints. So, if you want to engineer 3 weapons,
bring 9 of each blueprint. This means you can complete the engineering session by buying
all of your experimental effects and get your reputation back up to grade 5 again before you
leave. As a personal rule, I always carry lots of these anyway, and pick them up whenever I
see them if I have less than about 20.
4B(i) - Common Weapon Blueprints
As I said earlier, weapons share blueprint types so you won’t need to look up new recipes
each time. These are the important blueprints you’ll likely need for most of your weapons.
For more information on choosing weapon mods, please refer back to section 3A.
Grade 5 Overcharged:
● Conductive Polymers (Transport Ship Salvage, Surface POI, USS);
● Modified Embedded Firmware (Surface Data Point);
● Zirconium (Surface Prospecting).
Grade 5 Efficient:
● Cadmium (Surface Prospecting);
● Proto Heat Radiators (Boom State High Grade USS);
● Unexpected Emission Data (Small Combat Ship Scanning).
Grade 1 Long Range:

● Sulphur (Surface Prospecting).
Grade 5 Long Range:

● Biotech Conductors (Mission Reward);
● Cracked Industrial Firmware (Surface Data Point, Mission Reward);
● Thermic Alloys (Military/Authority Ship Salvage, Mission Reward).
Grade 5 Rapid Fire:

● Configurable Components (Low Security System Transport Ship Salvage, Low
USS);
37
● Precipitated Alloys (Military/Authority Ship Salvage);

● Technetium (Surface Prospecting).
Grade 5 Focused:
● Military Supercapacitors (War/Civil War State High Grade USS);
● Niobium (Surface Prospecting);
● Refined Focus Crystals (Combat Ship Salvage, Weapons Fire USS).
Grade 5 High Capacity:

● Mechanical Components (Transport Ship Salvage, Combat Aftermath USS);
● Military Supercapacitors (War/Civil War State High Grade USS);
● Proprietary Composites (Election State Encoded Emissions USS, Federal System
High Grade USS).
Grade 5 Double Shot:

● Configurable Components (Low Security System Transport Ship Salvage, Low
USS);
● High Density Composites (Military/Authority Ship Salvage, USS);
● Modified Embedded Firmware (Surface Data Point).
4B(ii) Weapon Engineers
Obviously different engineers will mod different weapons, so make sure you know where
you’re going for your weapons. Here is a list of engineers and what weapons they can
engineer for you. Some of these engineers can engineer other weapons, but only up to a
lower grade. Since you can’t really get away with this for PvP, I won’t list these. The only
exception to this is railguns, where long range grade 1 can be useful. As stated earlier, there
is a grade 5 level up guide for each engineer in an appendix at the end of the guide.
Liz Ryder (Eurybia) - Missile Rack, Torpedo Pylon;

Tod “The Blaster” McQuinn (Wolf 397) - Multi-cannon, Railgun;
Zacariah Nemo (Yoru) - Fragment Cannon;
Juri Ishmaak (Giryak) - Mine Launcher;
Broo Tarquin (Muang) - Pulse Laser, Burst Laser, Beam Laser;
The Sarge (Beta-3 Tucani) - Cannon, Railgun (G3);
Bill Turner (Alioth) - Plasma Accelerator.
4C Power Plant
Congratulations! At this point, you should have a nearly fully functional PvP ship. The only
thing left to do is engineer your power plant based on your ship’s needs. Here, you have 2
options as stated earlier. Choosing correctly is important. So here’s how you do it:
Is your power plant capable of running your entire ship, including weapons, with the cargo
hatch switched off (0.6MJ)?
38
If yes, then you’ll want to either give it an armoured power plant or no power plant mod.
The balance here is mass increase, and how much you want to deal with. If no, then
continue.
Multiply your power plant’s stock maximum capacity by 1.18. Would that be enough power?
If yes, then roll a grade 1 overcharged power plant. This blueprint can reach just over
+18% with a god roll, and it is an easy blueprint to roll, so go nuts. If not, continue.
Multiply your power plant’s stock maximum capacity by 1.24. Would that be enough power?
If yes, roll a grade 2 overcharged power plant. This blueprint can reach over +24% with a
god roll, and is also a fairly easy blueprint to roll. If not, or if you repeatedly get unlucky with
this blueprint, continue.
At this point, the blueprints get harder to spam due to requiring more materials. If a grade 2
overcharged isn’t enough, then you’re going to want to start rolling grade 4 or grade 5 plants.
A lucky grade 3 may cover you but you’re starting to lose the advantages of low grade
overcharged plants. Because of this, it’s probably quicker for you to go grade 4 or 5. The
highest power plant generation you could conceivably achieve is +42%, but you’re going to
really struggle to get this. If you need this much power or more, you probably ought to
rethink your build, or check over your power hungry modules and reroll them if they use a lot
and could be reduced. But this is exceedingly rare, so don’t worry too much about this.
Congratulations!
You have successfully fully engineered a ship capable of PvP combat. The next step is to
fucking enjoy it while it lasts until the meta changes or they introduce some new broken shit,
at which point you’ll have to invest dozens more hours into making your ship usable again.
In the meantime, please be sure to use your newly acquired killing power to create some
emergent content™ for the community to enjoy. Remember to keep your shadowplay on to
record all your victories and the inevitable combat loggers you will encounter, and extract
every last grain of salt you possibly can. Thanks for reading this guide, and fly safe.
39
Appendix A - Engineer Unlock Requirements
This table outlines how to meet and unlock each engineer.
Engineer Discovery Method Meeting Unlock

Requirement Requirements
Elvira Martuuk Public Knowledge Travel 300LY from Provide 3 Soontill

starting point Relics
Zacariah Nemo From Elvira Martuuk Invitation from Party Provide 25 Xihe
(G3-4) of Yoru Companions
Marco Qwent From Elvira Martuuk Invitation from Sirius Provide 25 Modular
(G3-4) Corporation Terminals
Professor Palin From Marco Qwent Travel 5000LY from Provide 25 Unknown
(G3-4) starting point Fragments
Lori Jameson From Marco Qwent Dangerous combat Provide 25 Kongga

(G3-4) rank Ale
The Dweller Common Knowledge Deal in 5 black Pay 500,000 Cr

markets
Lei Cheung From The Dweller Trade in 50 markets Provide 200 gold
(G3-4)
Ram Tah From Lei Cheung Surveyor exploration Provide 50 classified

(G3-4) rank scan databanks
Liz Ryder Public Sources Cordial with Eurybia Provide 200

Blue Mafia landmines
Hera Tani From Liz Ryder (G3- Empire rank Provide 50 Kamitra
4) Outsider Cigars
Broo Tarquin From Hera Tani (G3- Competent combat Provide 50 Fujin Tea
4) rank
Tiana Fortune From Hera Tani (G3- Friendly with Empire Provide 50 decoded
4) emission data
Felicity Farseer Public Data Sources Scout exploration Provide 1 meta alloy
rank
Juri Ishmaak From Felicity Earn 50 combat Provide

Farseer (G3-4) bonds 100,000/1,000,000
Cr combat bonds
(Unknown Condition)
Colonel Bris Dekker From Juri Ishmaak Friendly with Provide 1,000,000/
(G3-4) Federation 10,000,000 Cr
combat bonds
(Unknown Condition)
40
The Sarge From Juri Ishmaak Federation rank Provide 50 aberrant

(G3-4) Midshipman shield pattern
analysis
Tod “The Blaster” Common Knowledge Earn 15 bounty Provide 100,000 Cr

McQuinn vouchers bounty vouchers
Selene Jean From Tod “The Mine 500 tonnes of Provide 10 painite
Blaster” McQuinn ore
(G3-4)
Didi Vatermann From Selene Jean Merchant trade rank Provide 50 Lavian
(G3-4) Brandy
Bill Turner From Selene Jean Friendly with Provide 50

(G3-4) Alliance bromellite
41
Appendix B - Grade 5 Levelling
This appendix will be divided up by the “chains” of engineers. Currently, there are 5 engineer
chains in the game starting with the 5 public knowledge engineers. This is by no means a
recommendation of order. You can do the chains in any order you like, to any extent you
like. The only order you have to follow is that of the chains themselves if you want one of the
engineers at the end for example. If a chain splits, the engineer required to continue the
chain is indicated in brackets at the next engineer(s).
The level up sections provide a list of possible blueprints and associated materials to
level them to grade 5. By no means do you have to use these blueprints, but in my
experience they’re the easiest to synthesise. If you choose to use these blueprints, then
make sure you have the applicable module. No use going to engineer a weapon if you
haven’t got one on your ship!
N.B: You’re going to notice a lot of the blueprints are the lightweight (weapon/sensors/utlility.
Note the armour/HRP lightweight blueprint is not the same!) blueprint. It’s worth learning the
required materials and stocking up. Don’t worry too much about this, you’ll learn where to
find these materials very quickly. Also good for buying weapon effects and regaining grade 5
fast. If you’re going on a weapon modding spree and you want to get some effects, which
you usually will, then it’s essential to bring a load of grade 3 and grade 4 blueprint materials,
so I recommend defaulting to lightweight for this. This is not necessary for non-weapon
engineers as you won’t be needing to spend favours, and fortunately every weapon is
capable of taking the lightweight mod.
To level up any engineer, you must synthesise 3 blueprints of the

highest available grade. For example, to level up to grade 4, you
must synthesise 3 grade 3 blueprints. This section outlines the
minimum required materials for 3 of the specified blueprints, so
please ensure you do not synthesise any extra blueprints at any
grade, you may use materials required for a later level up and thus
run out. You have been warned.
Chain 1 - Elvira Martuuk Chain
Elvira Martuuk | Zacariah Nemo and Marco Qwent | Professor Palin (Marco Qwent) and Lori
Jameson (Marco Qwent).
1A - Elvira Martuuk
Alternative FSD engineer. Basic SCB mods if you don’t have founders’ access.
G1 Shield Cell Bank, G2 Thrusters, G3 Shield Generator, G5 FSD
Blueprints:
42

Required Materials:
1B(i) - Zacariah Nemo
Fragment cannon engineer. Otherwise not useful.
G2 Plasma Accelerator, G3 Multi-Cannon, G5 Fragment Cannon.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Fragment Cannon);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Fragment Cannon).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
1B(ii) - Marco Qwent
Not the best for anything, but usually the closest power plant engineer.
G3 Power Distributor, G4 Power Plant.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Armoured (Power Plant);
43
● Grade 4 - N/A, no G5 blueprints available.
Required Materials:
● Worn Shield Emitters x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
● Shield Emitters x6 (Combat Ship Salvage, USS);
● High Density Composites x3 (Military/Authority Ship Salvage, USS).
1C(i) - Professor Palin
Essential engineer for thrusters.
G3 FSD, G5 Thrusters.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Reinforced (Thrusters);
● Grade 5 - Reinforced (Thrusters).
Required Materials:
● Heat Conduction Wiring x6 (Transport Ship Salvage, USS);
● Heat Dispersion Plate x3 (Boom State Transport Ship Salvage, Boom State USS);
● High Density Composites x3 (Military/Authority Ship Salvage, USS).
1C(ii) - Lori Jameson
Currently the best SCB engineer. Also does a fucktonne (metric) of other things.
G3 Manifest Scanner, G3 Frame Shift Wake Scanner, G3 Kill Warrant Scanner, G3 Shield
Cell Bank, G4 Life Support, G4 Auto Field-Maintenance Unit, G4 Fuel Scoop, G4 Refinery,
G5 Sensors, G5 Detailed Surface Scanner.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Sensors);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Sensors).
Required Materials:
44

USS);
USS).
Chain 2 - The Dweller Chain
The Dweller | Lei Cheung | Ram Tah
2A - The Dweller
Essential for power distributors.
G3 Beam Laser, G3 Burst Laser, G4 Pulse Laser, G5 Power Distributor.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Any kind of laser, make sure you bring one, preferably a
pulse laser for later grades);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Pulse laser).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
2B - Lei Cheung
Go to shield generator engineer, can also do sensors and detailed surface scanners.
G3 Shield Booster, G5 Sensors, G5 Detailed Surface Scanner, G5 Shield Generator.
Blueprints:
● Grade 4 - Reinforced Shield (Shield Generator);
Required Materials:
45
● Distorted Shield Cycle Recordings x9 (Transport Ship Scanning);

● Germanium x6 (Surface Prospecting);
● Configurable Components x3 (Low Security System Transport Ship Salvage, Low
USS);
● Manganese x3 (Surface Prospecting).
2C - Ram Tah
Specialises in utilities. Too much to list qualitatively, so see below.
G3 Hatch Breaker Limpet Controller, G4 Collector Limpet Controller, G4 Fuel Transfer

Limpet Controller, G4 Prospector Limpet Controller, G5 Chaff Launcher, G5 Heatsink
Launcher, G5 Electronic Countermeasure, G5 Point Defence.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Chaff Launcher);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Chaff Launcher).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
Chain 3 - Liz Ryder Chain
Liz Ryder | Hera Tani | Broo Tarquin and Tiana Fortune
3A - Liz Ryder
Best missile rack engineer, also does torpedo pylons.
G1 Hull Reinforcement Package, G1 Armour, G3 Mine Launcher, G5 Missile Rack, G5 Torpedo

Pylon.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Missile Rack);
46

● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Missile Rack).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
3B - Hera Tani
Best power plant engineer. Usually unnecessary, but sometimes useful for the big ships.
G3 Power Distributor, G3 Sensors, G5 Power Plant, G5 Detailed Surface Scanner.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Overcharged (Power Plant);
● Grade 4 - Overcharged (Power Plant).
Required Materials:
● Sulphur x3 (Surface Prospecting);
USS);
● Heat Conduction Wiring x6 (Transport Ship Salvage, USS);
● Cadmium x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Heat Dispersion Plate x3 (Boom State Transport Ship Salvage, Boom State USS).
3C(i) - Broo Tarquin
Go to laser engineer. All 3 types to G5.
G5 Pulse Laser, G5 Burst Laser, G5 Beam Laser.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Laser);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Laser).
47
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
3C(ii) - Tiana Fortune
Engineers a shittonne of utility crap.
G3 FSD Interdictor, G3 Detailed Surface Scanner, G5 Frame Shift Wake Scanner, G5 Kill
Warrant Scanner, G5 Manifest Scanner, G5 Collector Limpet Controller, G5 Fuel Transfer
Limpet Controller, G5 Hatch Breaker Limpet Controller, G5 Prospector Limpet Controller, G5
Sensors.
Blueprints:
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Sensors).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
Chain 4 - Felicity Farseer Chain
Felicity Farseer | Juri Ishmaak | Colonel Bris Dekker and The Sarge
4A - Felicity Farseer
Only used for FSDs in general.
G1 Shield Booster, G1 Power Plant, G1 FSD Interdictor, G3 Thusters, G3 Sensors, G3

Detailed Surface Scanner, G5 FSD.
48
Blueprints:
Required Materials:
4B - Juri Ishmaak
Used for mine launchers, detailed surface scanners and sensors.
G3 Torpedo Pylon, G3 Missile Rack, G5 Mine Launcher, G5 Sensors, G5 Detailed Surface

Scanner.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Mine Launcher);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Mine Launcher).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
4C(i) - Colonel Bris Dekker
Not entirely useful, FSD interdictors if you’re wanting that for some reason.
G3 FSD, G4 FSD Interdictor
Blueprints:
49

● Grade 4 - N/A, no G5 blueprints available.
Required Materials:
● Zinc x3 (Surface Prospecting).
4C(ii) - The Sarge
The Sarge is good for your cannons and a load of limpet stuff. Can also do low grade long
range rails.
G3 Railgun, G5 Cannon, G5 Collector Limpet Controller, G5 Fuel Transfer Limpet Controller,

G5 Hatch Breaker Limpet Controller, G5 Prospector Limpet Controller.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Cannon);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Cannon).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
Chain 5 - Tod “The Blaster” McQuinn Chain
Tod “The Blaster” McQuinn | Selene Jean | Didi Vatermann and Bill Turner
5A - Tod “The Blaster” McQuinn
This guy is for your multi-cannons and railguns.
G2 Cannon, G3 Fragment Cannon, G5 Multi-Cannon, G5 Railgun.
Blueprints:
50
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Multi-Cannon);

● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Multi-Cannon).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
5B - Selene Jean
Engineer for HRPs and armour.
G5 Hull Reinforcement Package, G5 Armour.
Blueprints:
● Grade 4 - Blast Resistant (Armour/HRP).
Materials:
● Galvanising Alloys x3 (Election State Combat Ship Salvage, Election State USS);
● Mercury x3 (Surface Prospecting);
● Tungsten x3 (Surface Prospecting).
5C(i) - Didi Vatermann
Best engineer for shield boosters.
G3 Shield Generator, G5 Shield Booster.
Blueprints:
51
● Grade 4 - Resistance Augmented Booster (Shield Booster).
Materials:
● Iron x9 (Surface Prospecting);
USS);
● Focus Crystals x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, High Security System USS);
● Refined Focus Crystals x3 (Combat Ship Salvage, Weapons Fire USS).
5C(ii) - Bill Turner
Best plasma accelerator engineer, also does some random utility crap.
G3 Manifest Scanner, G3 Frame Shift Wake Scanner, G3 Kill Warrant Scanner, G3 Life
Support, G3 Auto Field-Maintenance Unit, G3 Fuel Scoop, G3 Refinery, G5 Plasma
Accelerator, G5 Sensors, G5 Detailed Surface Scanner.
Blueprints:
● Grade 1 - Lightweight (Plasma Accelerator);
● Grade 4 - Lightweight (Plasma Accelerator).
Required Materials:
USS);
USS).
52
Acknowledgements and Thanks
This document would not have been possible to create without the use of publicly available
online resources. I would like to thank the owners and contributors of and to these websites:
https://inara.cz – Inara is a fantastic website providing assistance with wing organisation,

engineering, and personal account tracking. Inara greatly assisted the blueprints section of
this guide and I cannot thank them enough.
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com – The Elite wiki is a fantastic source of basic knowledge for

Commanders of all skill levels. Please take time to check it out and see what you can learn.
https://coriolis.edcd.io/ - The Coriolis ship builder is a fantastic tool to help you theory craft
your builds and plan your engineer modifications. It will save you countless hours planning
your ship.
In addition, I would like to thank CMDR dja and CMDR deZpe for their fantastic contributions
to the endless search for cracked industrial firmware.
Lastly, I’d like to thank all the members of AA for initially convincing me to make this, and
assisting me over the course of a month in finishing it.
53

2.3 A Guide To Building A PVP Capable Ship

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Adle’s Armada – A Guide to Building a PvP

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Adle’s Armada - A Guide to Building a PvP Capable Ship

PUBLIC RELEASE ISSUE

This guide is designed to be a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial on how to build a PvP

Section 1 - Unlocking Engineers

○ Broo Tarquin - Once discovered, you’ll need to be competent combat rank

Section 2 - Deciding on your Ship

Federal Assault Ship

● (Just) mass locks FDLs.

Section 3 - Choose a Build

● Efficient Weapon - Arguably one of the most overpowered engineer modifications,

● Emissive Munitions - The bane of silent running ships everywhere, emissive

For engineering these, you basically only have 2 options:

● Concordant Sequence - The non-broken healing special effect. This boosts a

As for your experimental effect, you have several choices.

● Overcharged - See the multi-cannon section for a description of this mod;

As for experimental effects, the cannon has a few options available:

*Subject to experience. Please file complaints to (+44) 0800-GO-FUCK-YOURSELF.

● Plasma Slug - No.

Railguns have 3 potential experimental effects:

A few mods suit the frag cannons nicely:

● Overcharged - Self-explanatory. See the multi-cannon section for more information

Frag cannons are definitely most effective with experimental effects:

● Screening Shell - This effect increases your effectiveness against munitions,

Only one mod you want here:

● Reverberating Cascade - Fuck you;

● Reactive Surface Composite - Reactive surface composite is going to give you a

● Lastly (and VERY importantly) we have module reinforcement packages. If you’re

● Prismatic Shield Generator - The prismatic shield is the opposite of a bi-weave.

● Thermal Resistant - The thermal resistant mod is going to increase thermal

● Reinforced - The reinforced shield is going to increase resistances across the

Shield boosters have 3 mods that you’ll want to apply situationally:

3B(iii) - Power Distributor

● Charge Enhanced - The charge enhanced distributor reduces all 3 of your

3B(v) - Power Plant

You’ve got a couple of choices for sensor mods:

3B(vii) - Frame Shift Drive

3B(viii) - Life Support

Section 4 - Engineering your Modules

4A - Core/Important Module Engineering

● Exquisite Focus Crystals;

4A(i) - Frame Shift Drive

● Grade 5 access to Felicity Farseer (Deciat) or Elvira Martuuk (Khun);

4A(ii) - Power Distributor

● Grade 5 access to The Dweller (Wyrd);

● Grade 5 access to Professor Palin (Maia);

● Some arsenic, some conductive polymers, and some improvised components (1

Thermal Resistant Shield:

Resistance Augmented Booster:

Heavy Duty Booster:

Thermal Resistant Booster:

Ensure you’re only rolling A-class shield boosters. Some extremely

Once you’ve reached grade 5, you’ll want to synthesise a combination of grade 5

● Exquisite Focus Crystals;

Grade 3 Lightweight Mount:

Grade 4 Lightweight Mount:

4B(i) - Common Weapon Blueprints

Grade 1 Long Range:

Grade 5 Long Range:

Grade 5 Rapid Fire:

● Precipitated Alloys (Military/Authority Ship Salvage);

Grade 5 High Capacity: