Thank you so much for the kind words and the additional points! I've been seeing the differnet hps on spviewer.eu for a couple patches and I've been meaning to test it out myself to validate that. How did you know Erkul is showing the warden stats, and that's not actually what's in the game? I've been hearing about the harb buff as well, and I can't wait to try it. Is the handling exactly the same as the other vanguards now? Or is it still a bit more sluggish. Given its higher armor and armnament on the turret i'd expect it to have SOME downside lol I've always kind of liked the hoplite, to be honest. No idea why people were saying it's not as good. I love the skin too, so that might be influencing my decision lol.

I love this! I love carriers and I'd love to be a light or medium fighter on something like a kraken :D

The Hoplite is my favourite Vanguard. If only I had an Idris to fly out of. haha

Idk if the Vanguard fits in the Idris. I don't belive it does. However ot does fit in the Javelin

can it even fit on an Idris? Seems too large overall, even the glad and hornets seem big enough for that hanger in what little clips we have

@@ScarryHarry93 I don't belive it can. It might but it might be cert tight squeeze

I'm actually ok with the variety that we have in the game right now. I like that different ships have different feels from the cockpit as you're shooting, but it's undeniable that the vanguard's weapon alignment is super effective!

Ye, but also it shoots like a fracking x wing

@@mryellow6918 which is a good thing :D

also less effective the closer you are as some may miss

Completely agree! Beacons are so fun that it's become a source of frustration for me that I so rarely get them, because I like to use light and medium fighters in them since they shine so well there with the variety of ships you have to kill

there is no rep to be gained. you always have full rep

@@McBierbauch i believe the way it's supposed to work is that you have complete missions and get rated well for them to increase your overall contract rating.

Thank you! And yes, I'm looking forward to it. I waited so long to create this video bc I thought we were going to have weapon rebalancing for 3.18 but then they said that it wouldn't come until later next year. And then they drop the ballistic weapon penetration change on us lol

Thank you for checking it out! I also love vanguards and have been using them as my workhorses for a while. I wanted to go for a Hoplite first next patch instead of a Sentinel but with the distortion rework.... might have to go Sentinel first again :D

Obviously waiting on ILW, but based on this video and your tier list, the Sentinel seems like the right move and if future balance pass changes things b/c of the EMP, can always upgrade to the Harbinger, being my other pick.

@@KatayinGaming yep! Using the same reasoning I'm considering getting a hoplite with real money since it'll let me upgrade to any of the others down the line lol. For now I'm happy to buy them in-game since I start with some decent combat ships already :)

Thank you so much! I appreciate you taking the time to watch and I'm glad you liked learning a bit more about the ships :)

Thanks so much for your kind words! And yeah the sentinel is definitely easy mode when it comes to VHRTs :D

Thank you so much! And yeah, the vanguard is fantastic in-game :D. It's often my first or second purchase. I'll probably get a tana first and then get a vanguard second :D

You're very welcome! Check out some of the more recent videos if you're new as those will be more updated for the current state of the game. And thank you :)

Thanks so much for checking it out and for the kind words!

ah yeah, i usually point downwards a bit as i fly in the vertical hangers but most s5 weapons are the same size, right? so the laser cannons would do roughly the same thing i think. I've gotten more or less used to it by now, and i make sure to fly relatively slow while i cross the entrance threshold until i know i'm safe lol

Thanks man! I wanna get a hoplite for some variety and the green color but with distortion potentially being good again, might have to go back to big blue lol

@@WingZeroType Thing that's great is that they are good with just the pilot, and add in a turret gunner it's even better.

@@RedStang_Sr yeah I am really hoping they can create a heavy pilot focused for a pilot-only, but maybe that's not the mark they're aiming for, and a medium fighter is the most firepower for a single pilot.

Awesome thank you so much! And congrats and enjoy them, 3.18 should be a blast with the vanguard!

Thank you so much! It really means a lot to me, especially coming from someone who is a famous reliant pilot

Thank you so much for the feedback! I really appreciate it and it makes this feel much more worth it :)

hahaha thank you so much! and yeah I know sometimes it's easy to just be watching and realize that you're not absorbing lol

Cheers man! thanks for checking it out. And yeah I was pretty surprised too :)

I think it would be less than that probably, right? Isn't the cutlass 46 scu? And the back of the vanguard would need to keep a path to get in and out and a lot of the space there is taken up by engines I think? But maybe I'm wrong. Now I'm curious lol. Edit: also thank you for the kind words! A lot of effort went into the video and it's always great to see people enjoying them!

@@WingZeroType I was thinking with all the Seats, Racks, bathroom and anything else out of the way they should be able get at lest 1 row of 1 SCU boxes down each side stacked 2 high. I think there is room for 8 to 10 boxes per row. they might be able to put in a 3ed row down one side I am not sure.

OOO I was off no way you get 8 in the row. 5 max 2 high so 20 SCU. Perhaps there is room for a 3ed row for 30 total SCU but I dont know.

@@nathanforrester5140 ok yeah that sounds much more likely to me. I've just spent like 30 hours looking at vanguard footage so my brain is currently intimately familiar with the interior and exterior shape and size of the vanguards lol

@@WingZeroType it had been a little bit for me and I was thinking of it as bigger than it was. Still 20 to 30 SCU in ship as capable of defending itself as the vanguard would be really nice.

I'm so glad that you got something useful out of this video! I think in 3.19 it's better to just go all laser cannons for the pilot with a s5 under the nose since ballistic damage is nerfed so hard against hull

@@WingZeroType Yea I really want to like ballistics, but it's undergone so many changes the past few months I'd rather play it safe than sorry. The only exception for me is the AD5B, cause of it's almost 3k ammo, I mostly use it when I see a several second window to spray, like when I get under a hammerhead while it's turning. I don't know how I feel about putting an S4 or S5 laser on the nose though, it just eats so much capacitor. I also just noticed the CSVA ballistic cannons only do 6 more damage than the laser cannons.... why even bother with ballistics. Meanwhile I just exchanged my Ares Ion for a Ares Inferno.... sigh..

@@Xeonzs yeah with the ballistics doing only 40-50% damage against ship hulls I still prefer the laser cannon even though it takes a lot of cap, but I understand that not everyone likes that lol. Hopefully ballistics get their rebalance soon... but who knows

@@WingZeroType well your vids were enlightening, I always liked the vanguard, so I'll follow your lead and give it a try again, have a good one :)

@@Xeonzs cheers! thanks again for the kind words :)

One of us! One of us! the very first ship i bought in-game in star citizen was a prospector lol. I like industrial gameplay loops as well so I hear you, but pve bounty hunting is just so satisfying and efficient at making money, and the vanguard is just a beast at it that I'm the same. I like to use that to supply money to buy other ships to play whatever gameplay loops i feel like doing.

I can't bear having the dual pips when you use repeaters along with cannon-speed projectiles (which the AD5B has) so I personally like to match my weapons together. And in 3.18 I personally think a fully ballistic loadout or a fully laser loadout will perform better than a hybrid loadout due to the ballistic changes, but I need more time to test. And unfortunately I can't find a server where New Deal works for me so I can't buy any vanguards in-game right now :(

@@WingZeroType Fair enough. The AD4/5B are my only exception to that rule. Of course, I haven't been able to log into 3.18 to see if the gattlings are still worth it. I'm assuming they haven't changed much. I do the combo on my Vanguard and Titan. Really helps free up the weapons capacitor.

@@Banzai51 the gatlings end up doing half the damage they used to do to enemy hulls because of the higher hull physical resistance in 3.18 but that applies to all ballistic weapons and missile. Other than that, I think it should be roughly the same as it was in 3.17 (more ballistic damage passes through shields now but that's countered by the hull resistance I think).

That's great to hear! Thanks for checking out the video :)

Thanks so much for the kind words! I really appreciate it and it makes all the effort that goes into making this worth it :)

I read this twice, and both times I read "for hot dogs". And i was very confused. But yes I agree, I think we sort of have that in the prowler perhaps, but it's not as armored but can easily hot drop basically all of its infantry at once.

Hey sorry I didn't see your comment until now, for some reason youtube held it for review so it wasn't showing up automatically. I'm also a predominantly pve-combat player and the vanguards are fantastic for that. I also prefer bounties as the most consistent way to make money but I like flying all the different types of combat ships b/c they add so much variety in the gameplay since after a while the bounties get pretttyyy repetitive lol. I might do some salvaging next patch too just to break up the monotony but it looks like it's not even half as profitable as bounty hunting while solo

Thanks a bunch! And welcome :) I appreciate you leaving me such awesome feedback

That's awesome, I love that! What's your strategy for taking on hammerheads in the vanguard? Do you rotate around them or do you outrange them with your size 5?

@@WingZeroType I always try to keep on the the flat surface of an HH, and rely on maneuverability to keep ahead of its guns. I would use range, but with MVSA's having a much shorter range, and the M7A having only eight shots with capacitor at max, I bring all my guns to bear for max DPS. With the Corsair, however, range becomes much more viable in dealing with larger targets.

@@georgea5991 ok cool, good to know. I was trying this for ERTs and was struggling to consistently stay ahead of its guns, even keeping around 1k range from the hammerhead and upstrafing to use my best mobility. Maybe it's just server-specific in that case and I had a fast server.

@@WingZeroType You won't always be ahead of the guns, but Vanguards can take a lot of damage. I usually combine different movement angles (like forward/left), then only one, etc., to throw off their aim. Don't get me wrong, Hammerheads are still a pain to deal with, and I try to avoid low-paying high threats, because they are often present.

@@georgea5991 ah ok got it, yeah makes sense. Thanks for sharing!

I'm not sure what he's suggesting but I'd double-check stats on erkul to make sure that you're matching velocities of your weapon systems. S5 repeaters (e.g. the attrition) shoot at the slower 700m/s cannon projectile velocity so it'd be best to match them up with cannons, but better still you should just put a s5 laser cannon on the nose since you get way more dps out of it as long as you can hit your shots.

Yup. Warden was my first choice and I never looked back.

Yep I think it makes perfect sense! I don't have a vanguard pledged yet and I enjoy grinding my way to one, always fun to get the big power spike when that happens :)

thanks a bunch! Glad you liked it!

Well the stock little guns changes based on which vanguard you have, but yeah for pvp you probably want to spend the extra money for mil spec components since they have the extra component hp

It's always important to know how many dead bodies your ship can hold :D. And yeah I didn't know about the EMP mines - i don't have any idea what future EWAR gameplay is going to be like, but I'm curious to see what's going to happen :D

Thank you so much! I'm glad you found it useful and hopefully entertaining too!

Nice, yeah I wanna try the hoplite because I don't bed log for the same reasons you don't, and you know how I feel about insurance fraud ;) Too bad the hoplite is a million more and distortion is getting reworked... We'll have to see. Maybe a sentinel with laser repeaters is the move then since you can put them all on the same weapon group so the emp has it's own?

Thank you so much for the great feedback! Thanks for checking it out :)

Oh that could work, since your pip let's you aim your cannons and you let the gimbal track the repeater for you!

@@WingZeroType yep it work pretty great but harb fly like a whale

@@thomasbouvier3203 I agree! I'm glad to finally find someone who admits that lol. Everyone I'm coming across is saying they don't notice a movement difference with the harb and I"m just like "omg these people are bananas" lol

@@WingZeroType well.. Coming from Hornet, flew the sentinel of a buddy bought harb... Felt like flying my connie XD But i feel like hard dont give a shit about damage XD Its so tanky shield down... Love it. In space its not that noticeable but in atmo it feel like a tank. I bet on later in game "blade IA" so i can have harb 2S3 turret to the pilot so i will gimbal laser and hold ballistic canon in nose to smash! Also, Harb, warden, sentinel all have mid module used as an ejection module where hoplite cannot. And all modules are swapable except for the hoplite. :) And BUK also included at old time, the turret so might be able to swap it :)

@@thomasbouvier3203 oh yeah i forgot that beds are often ejection, good point. It'll be interesting once that becomes commonplace but I think we're a long away from that still :)

I know i'm late to this reply but you can get a different ship for the crewed experience! there's plenty of solid options like the connie, redeemer, corsair, etc

Thank you! I'm going to try to get more videos about those ships once that gameplay is implemented. Right now stealth and detection range is determined by your highest emission signature, but there's very little you can do in terms of loadout to impact those signatures since they nerfed stealth in 3.15. Hopefully we'll see that reimplemented soon though :)

Thanks for checking it out! And yeah I love all the vanguards. I was harping a bit on the harbinger's slowness but its still really powerful since it's got the same rotational agility and pilot-controlled firepower, and the torpedos can be really useful in getting 3 quick kills.

Thanks! And thanks for checking the video out. I know you're pretty knowledgeable about the game so I appreciate you watching the videos anyway :)

Michael!!!!

No! You said id be conducting the interview when i walked in here, now exactly how many vanguards have you bought!?

@@Astral_-_King lol man i love that show

Prefer warden for extra hp armor survives longer sentinel just slightly turns faster but slower top speed emp is temporary

@@AntonioCT-7997 there are 2 schools of thought.... I've had both with the same build. Sentinel just moves and turns better, easier to stay on target. For some reason, I always lose wings on the warden against the Hurricane, if I dog fight it. Might just be desync, but the sentinel has always performed slightly better, imo. Once i got the sentinel i couldn't go back to the Warden.

Thank you so much! I appreciate you checking it out :)

@@WingZeroType Vanguard is one of those ships I keep coming back too. This patch I have the Harb. The patch before I had the Sent, before that the Warden. I really can't make up my mind. I believe there is no wrong choice with the variants, but I feel there is a better choice, and I'm still trying all the flavours to see which flavour I like the most. Videos like yours really help (me) as it provided a different view to my own. E.g. I assumed (incorrectly) all the turrets were the same size.

@@madgiecool Yeah I agree, I keep coming back as well. Next patch I was going to get a hoplite first but now that they're reworking distortion i might have to get a sentinel again lol. And thank you for the kind words, and for approaching the game with an open mind! I'm like that too and I love when I learn new things (and I still do, all the time)!

thank you so much for checking it out!

I agree with you, the platform as a whole is just so strong it's amazing for VHRTs

yeah I think hitting the smaller fighters with a vanguard is tricky if you're using a cannon fit, but in those situations you've got plenty of missiles to help you with the task. But i agree, there are other ships I'd rather use for low and moderate threats, mostly because I use the vanguard SO MUCH for VHRTs that I'm glad to have a good reason to use some of the more agile ships like the talon and others!

You're very welcome! And yeah i think part of the pricing for the sentinel has to do with EWAR gameplay not being totally in the game yet, so it's cheaper. Not sure why the harbinger is as cheap as it is in-game though, since torpedos are already in-game.

They realised which ones are better in the game current state. Credits pricing is based on capabilities they may have in future.

@@manbok2035 interesting... but that makes me wonder why the harbinger would be cheaper? Shouldn't it be potentially the most pricey due to having torpedos and heavier armor / turrets? Compared to something like the hoplite which just literally has a few extra seats in the back.

Wooo vanguards!!! Had a lot of fun with this one, so much combat where I was just feeling so OP lol

@@WingZeroType yeah ! That S5 is tearing anything that happens to be in range, im just waiting for the introduction of ships armor, the vanguard will probably get 10x better (already the best for pve imo XD)

@@nexalcorp2323 yeah agreed it's the best for pve combat, if you don't count the cheesy torpedo strats with the eclipse/retaliator lol.

I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for checking it out :)

I know, isn't that bonkers? It needs some downside! Now it's got the best turret, the best armor, the best missile loadout, equivalent acceleration.... and the warden just gets a slightly higher top speed to compensate? lol

Thank you! I think it is 48m long. Where do you see 38.5?

yeah it comes down to what you prefer. For me, I upgraded my scorpius to a corsair because I am hoping the scorpius is buyable in-game in 3.18 whereas the corsair isn't going to be buyable for half a year and I want access to as many ships as possible for fun+content :D

yeah the stupid shield bug is the most frustrating thing IMO. On the other hand, mining is really fun now lol

Well the thing that I mentioned about distortion damage was that it's getting reworked, so I think that point isn't going to become moot lol. But yeah I know what the leaks have said but curious to see where it lands as we get closer to a live release

yeah the dual engines next to the pilot do evoke that feeling. I think a lot of the aegis ships seem to have styling similar to warplanes from our time

Hey sorry for the late response - thank you for the kind words! And yeah I've been kind of waiting for 3.18 for a few months. Now that it's finally out I'm working on grinding back up my ship stock to keep testing things out, but the spreadsheet is up-to-date based on the patch tabs at the bottom. I don't have a lot of builds out for the 3.18 tab yet b/c I want to try things out myself before recommending things, but for now I think fully laser builds or fully ballistic builds (with lots of guns) are the best options. I don't think hybrid builds are too strong anymore, unfortunately.

Nice catch! So the weights of those two ships are so close that the in-game reading shows the same value but technically the sentinel is a bit lighter so it's going to have fractionally faster acceleration. You can see the weights on erkul.games Incase you didn't know :)

That's true! It was heresay at the time I made the video but it's been confirmed since then. ALSO the harbinger's agility was brought up to be in-line with all other vanguards. That makes basically no sense to me, since it's supposedly a heavily armored bomber variant, but we can enjoy it while it lasts! lol I have no idea what the future of EWAR is going to be. I don't even think CIG fully knows, given that they're nerfing distortion into oblivion in 3.23 again lol

Hey thank you for the kind words! The aiming mode that I'm using is called "Lag PIP" which is something you can manually set. "Lead PIP" is the aiming mode that's on by default. You can change them in game by changing the default targeting reticule option in the gameplay settings (first options menu when you go to settings) or by setting a key to toggle between the two modes under "Flight - Targeting/Switch Flight Lead / Lag Reticle (Toggle)" in your advanced keybinds. some notes about the two: - Lead PIP's reticule shows you where you should fire your shot so that it will hit the targeted enemy based on how you and the target are currently moving. In this situation, your eyes are likely looking at the targeting reticle which is in front of the enemy. - Lag PIP makes the reticule show you where your shot will land based on how you and the target are currently moving (it can still miss if the target changes speed/direction after you've fired the shot, same as with lead PIP). In this situation, your goal is to place the reticule on top of the enemy's ship since that's where you want the shot to land. Because of this, your eyes are likely looking at the enemy ship since thats where you're trying to place the reticule, which makes it so that you can better predict and respond to the enemy's actions like turning or changing direction. - I also prefer lag PIP because with the lead PIP, the targeting indicator only goes green when you're lined up to perfectly hit the target in their center of mass. But with lag PIP, you can see when you're not hitting exactly in the center but you're still going to catch the edge of the target and do damage so you can better decide when it's worth it to shoot or not.

Yep you're right about the Harbinger's agility buff, so now it's my preferred vanguard to purchase in-game! The good news is any vanguard weapon will fit on any other vanguard, you'll just need to go to Cousin Crow's at Orison to buy the MVSA cannons since that's the only place they're sold. For an actual real-money upgrade, I'd consider the fact that the Harbinger might regain the weight penalty when armor is implemented since it is a tanky combat torpedo bomber and those ships tend not to be agile. And since the harbinger is the most expensive you won't be able to upgrade it to any other vanguard without melting the whole chain, which would forfeit any savings that you might have built up via warbonds.

Unfortunately I already did that upgrade from my Warden, and only considered a possible renewed weight penalty afterwards. Well, sh*t happens. If this is the case, I either melt the chain or will live with it. As it seems, a lot of armor seems to be amazing if implemented as shown on Citizencon. @@WingZeroType

Great question, those aren't different fire modes. Burst dps is simply the dps of any weapon while it's firing. Sustained dps accounts for ammo recharge time, and is going to be lower than burst dps because it acknowledges the fact that a laser weapon's dps will also depend on the capacitor that's available to it. So if we just use some made-up numbers and say a laser weapon does 100 burst dps and can fire for 10 seconds before needing to recharge ammo, that means it's going to do 1000 damage before needing to recharge. Lets say that it needs to recharge for 2 seconds to get all of its ammo back. So now it's actually doing 1000 damage over 12 total seconds, or 83 sustained dps. This is a simplified explanation, there's actually more to it (e.g. guns have a short cooldown after they stop firing and before they start recharging, and that depends on the size of the weapon) but you get the idea. What it comes down to is if you ever need to recharge your ammo to kill an enemy, sustained dps is the accurate measure of your ship's dps. If you can kill your enemy without recharging your ammo, then burst dps is more accurate (e.g. in the case of full ballistic loadouts, or ships with massive capacitors like constellations, corsairs, etc)

@@WingZeroType awesome explanation, thanks for the answer

İt's not anonunced but probly in 3.18 they always do after 1 patch of release

Thank you! And it's usually two patches after release, following the quarterly patch cycle, so about 6 months. We should be hopefully seeing the Scorpius in game in 3.18 since it was released two quarters ago!

Yeah once the modularity comes it'll be great to see what actually can be swapped around. E.g. Could I run a lighter hoplite with torps? Because that would be my happy place lol

@WingZeroType that would be crazy!!! Also I meant multicrew my phone auto corrected to multicellular. My org has also noticed that the harbinger can slug it out in atmo with a lot of ships! Excited to see it in 3.18! You should do another one! Great content!

@WingZeroType oh also right now for some reason the Sentinel has 0 hp on some components >_>. Check it out only has like 50 percent what it should

@@Edsel1134 Yeah I'm excited to get my hands on 3.18 so I can make more content! It's been hard to test in 3.18's PTU because every couple days when they drop a patch everything gets wiped lol

@@Edsel1134 Well..... at least it'll be faster? :D lol. If it ends up actually being weaker then the hoplite is a good replacement, but I checked on the erkul PTU and all the component values seem correct

Thanks for checking it out! I appreciate it :)

Yeah the loadout I'd go with is to put a size 5 laser cannon under the nose and 4x MVSA cannons in the nose. I think that's best for doing bounties right now. If you wanted to pvp, I think it's better to go with a full repeater loadout, so you'd use 4x GVSRs in the nose and keep the s4 attrition under the nose (b/c a size 5 repeater shoots at the same slower 700m/s projectile velocity, not the faster 1400m/s repeater velocity).

you forgot to mention that the harbinger is slower!

i don't mind it being on the nose. I know a lot of people don't like the obscenely large weapon sticking out from the front but I'd rather that than having one random weapon stuck in the side like they did with the Ares (even though I love how the ares look). It makes it feel more like a "vanguard" force to have a spear at the tip ;D

That's valid, my idea would pretty much eliminate the possibility of a gimbal for the weapon anyway so it would be less effective. Thanks for the reply!

Great question! It depends on what's there. I classify enemies into a few tiers of danger. From highest to lowest: Hammerheads Hurricanes/Valkyries Wardens Reclaimers The problem with reclaimers and hammerheads is they take a long time to kill, so you wouldn't be able to boom and zoom before you started taking damage.... or would you?? With the hammerhead I still always clear all the wingmen, but with the reclaimers I've been able to boom and zoom sometimes and get out with my shields low. But it sort of depends, if the reclaimer is with 3 other hurricanes/valkyries then I might kill one or two wingmen before then just focusing the reclaimer. The heart of the strategy still remains - kill the target as quickly as possible while not taking critical damage. Depending on your skill and the level of atmosphere you may need to kill all the wingmen with reclaimers or you may do even better than me.

then you'd have two different pips, one for repeaters and one for cannons. There's an option in the settings that lets you set whether you want separate pips or a combined averaged pip. Personally, I don't like that idea b/c you can only really hit your target with one of the weapon systems at a time unless it's staying stationary, or flying directly at you.

Welcome to the game! The aiming mode that I'm using is called "Lag PIP" which is something you can manually set. "Lead PIP" is the aiming mode that's on by default. You can change them in game by changing the default targeting reticule option in the gameplay settings (first options menu when you go to settings) or by setting a key to toggle between the two modes under "Flight - Targeting/Switch Flight Lead / Lag Reticle (Toggle)" in your advanced keybinds. some notes about the two: - Lead PIP's reticule shows you where you should fire your shot so that it will hit the targeted enemy based on how you and the target are currently moving. In this situation, your eyes are likely looking at the targeting reticle which is in front of the enemy. - Lag PIP makes the reticule show you where your shot will land based on how you and the target are currently moving (it can still miss if the target changes speed/direction after you've fired the shot, same as with lead PIP). In this situation, your goal is to place the reticule on top of the enemy's ship since that's where you want the shot to land. Because of this, your eyes are likely looking at the enemy ship since thats where you're trying to place the reticule, which makes it so that you can better predict and respond to the enemy's actions like turning or changing direction. - I also prefer lag PIP because with the lead PIP, the targeting indicator only goes green when you're lined up to perfectly hit the target in their center of mass. But with lag PIP, you can see when you're not hitting exactly in the center but you're still going to catch the edge of the target and do damage so you can better decide when it's worth it to shoot or not.

@@WingZeroType Wow thanks so much for that help! Lag pip sounds like the way to go, thanks again dude

@@largodeeprose you're very welcome! I hope you enjoy it! There's a few other settings that I think are really useful to change, if you want to consider them, check out this video - I've linked it so that it starts at the point where it shows the settings I'm talking about :) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/f9pyopWenZfWfmg.html Thanks for the comment and the kind response!

@@WingZeroType Thanks, im really enjoying it and being part of the living verse. Unfortunately I think I'm affected by the rep bug where i got a game crash while under taking the initial bounty missions and now they have disappeared and i have no bounties, hopefully 3.18 will fix it. I thought id mention it in case anyone passing by knows a fix XD

@@largodeeprose ahhh dang sorry that sucks. Yeah that bug is a bummer and I don't think 3.18 fixes the bug, but it will reset your account (including your rep) so you will get out of the hole that you're currently stuck in. One workaround you could do is get someone to share a bounty with you in a party and then complete that with them. Money and reputation payouts are shared when contracts are shared so that could help you get out of the hole if you do a couple of those. Goodluck!

I think EVSDs are useful in 3.19, but I personally prefer just using a full MVSA loadout with a s5 laser cannon. the EVSDs can sometimes help with disabling enemy shields and removing the infinite front shield but i prefer trying to get above or behind the enemy and hitting them with max damage

In 3.18 and 3.19 we've had a bunch of changes where I don't think ballistics are worthwhile anymore. Hybrid loadouts don't really make sense since the main advantage of ballistics is the shield passthrough, but lasers and distortion need to go through the shield before they can take effect. And enemy hulls take less than 50% of the total ballistic damage. So because of that, I go with a full MVSA and s5 laser cannon loadout now. You can use 2 EVSDs but I just use missiles to help with the hurricanes and then everything else I prefer brute force for max dps

I go full energy weapons. Either cannons with a s5 laser cannon under the nose and 2 EVSDs and 2 MVSAs or full MVSA depending on if you want distortion. If you're going to hunt hammerheads, I'd use 2 EVSDs since you can shut down their shields. If you're doing VHRTs, Id just go full MVSAs. You can also use a s4 gimballed laser repeater under the nose and use distortion repeaters and laser repeaters if you prefer a repeater setup. The kill times are not much different for VHRTs. I don't like the hybrid loadouts as much anymore since the main benefit of Ballistics changed from being capacitor-independent high damage, to it being capacitor independent shield passthrough. The damage is no longer higher than laser weapons due to the ballistic damage resistance of hulls, so if you are using a hybrid loadout you're just getting less dps out of the ballistics while still having to take down the shields with your energy weapons anyway.

So in the latest patch the Harbinger got a big buff to its mobility. It's weight was decreased to be more in line with the other vanguards, so it's primary downside was basically eliminated. Now I'd definitely suggest going Harbinger.

I was saying get the Warden if you get with real money since it's most likely to keep it's combat capabilities. But currently in the game, the Sentinel is excellent. I personally wouldn't pay $15 to upgrade to a harbinger. If you paid full price for the sentinel, you could melt it and get the cheaper warden if you wanted. But if it was part of a CCU chain, you will lose any savings that you had in the chain by melting.

Thank you! Keep at it! when I look back at some of my earlier vids I feel pretty proud at how far i've come. Just keep working at it! You've got some good topics in your videos and are getting pretty decent view counts for being new, goodluck!

@@WingZeroType will do!

Comes stock size 2’s can upgrade to size 3 Cf-337 repeaters

seems like you've got your answer - s3s for the harbinger :D

for pirate swarm the cannons will be a bit harder to use against the smaller ships, you might want to just go with GVSRs and a gimballed s4 laser repeater so that all of your firepower is traveling at repeater-speeds. But if you are really good at hitting targets with cannon shots then yeah MVSAs are king for dps. In 3.18 I don't like hybrid loadouts as much due to the ballistic damage reduction against hulls, so I'd go full laser cannons with a s5 laser cannon along with the MVSAs.

@@WingZeroType I had quite good success with the GVSRs in Arena Commander, thank you! As for the PU, I'm in quite a weird spot. When I have a good day, MVSAs + Omni will result in a good time. But when I get into a turning battle, things get much more frustrating. This is especially hard because I have difficulties getting away even with boost and no speed limiter. The enemies land a few lucky shots here and there while keeping up with me, and so my shield does not regenerate. So with the current wipe, I might use GVSRs again while I'm growing accustomed to VHRTs. The damage loss seems brutal however, and I'm concerned about taking down a Valkyre (or even two or three) with such a loadout.

@@skalibran you can do it with GVSRs but the damage loss will be felt, it'll take longer which means you'll be taking fire for longer as well. With the cannons, I've gotten into the habit of not holding down the fire button and pressing it once the shot is lined up. I focus primarily on getting into a good position against the enemy and then secondarily focus on lining up a shot, and that seems to have worked decently for me

Yeah unfortunately the vanguards are only availble for real money during 2 main events - the Invictus event in late May and the IAE event in late November. So the next time you can get them for real money is going to be May.

I think the AI is just much more responsive in 3.17 than they used to be and they're also very ram-happy. The good thing is those bits don't really hurt you too much! Long live the vanguard!!!

i'd say the spreadsheet, i don't particularly like hybrid builds anymore since the 3.18 changes. Full laser is my go-to, followed by full ballistic

lol just for ammo reasons. The 4x ballistic cannons in the nose don't do much more dps than the MVSAs so if you're going ballistic on the s5 anyway, you will rarely need to recharge the MVSAs in a normal fight as long as you're not shooting into the void so the ballistic cannons don't give you anything extra. But next patch.... it's probably going to be OP unless they walk back their changes on the ballistic damage penetration through shields

Yes, you're right. I'm sorry that it wasn't clear, but this is how it looks when it's bound: imgur.com/a/bA4XkD2 I honestly only use the Up hat to target whoever is closest to my target reticule. The cycle lock I think just targets certain attackers and I would assume "cycles" through the different ones when there are multiple. I think attackers are people that are engaged with you in combat and hostiles are just reds.

@@WingZeroType alright thanks a lot for clearing that up, honestly I was excepting that you wouldn't see this comment or take a week to respond but you didn't which is awesome lol

Also I would just like to say you're the only person with a Standard left and Premium right that has their control setup public you cannot belive the amount of time you have saved me haha

@@Hachiman001 haha absolutely, i try my best to respond to everyone who comments, usually within a day or two :) Thanks for checking out my controls!

@@Hachiman001 that's awesome to hear!! Yeah when I was looking up which sticks to buy everyone basically said to get premium for both but I didn't think I needed a premium left, so I actually went through other people's keybinds to make sure i wouldn't miss the extra keys and so far, I haven't had any issues :D. Glad that this helped you!

It's got two! Only the hoplite is bedless

I've heard that too, I want to test it. spviewer.eu says that the Sentinel is a lot weaker than the Warden, but erkul.games says they're the same. I need to buy both ships in game and take turns blowing them up slowly to see for myself :)

sorry I should've mentioned in the video! Some ships in the game are limited-availability, meaning they're only available at certain points during the year. These are all combat ships, so they'll be available during the Invictus launch week during the end of May, and during the IAE at the end of November when almost every ship in the game is available for purchase.

so if you're going to do that I personally would rather just use the size 5 laser cannon instead - it has more alpha and more damage which IMO is the best of all worlds. The downside is that if you use the s5 laser cannon instead of the s5 laser repeater the MVSAs will get fewer shots since the s5 laser cannon takes up more of the capacitor than the s5 laser repeater (24 shots per MVSA vs 30 while at max weapons power). Ultimately, I think their kill speeds will be pretty comparable and if one of them feels better to you than the other, I think you should just go for it. In 3.18 though, with ballistics mostly penetrating through shields (only 0-30% of the damage is stopped by the shield, the rest goes straight to the hull) I really think the deadbolt, or even the AD5B, is going to shine :)

@@WingZeroType yeah, deadbolt really seems to be the best choice on the Vanguards for 3.18, to the point of making the nose guns kinda redundant unless you‘re hunting chonky prey. Really hope they‘ll take a look at missiles though, kinda stupid that you can only ever shoot 4 missiles at the same time. I understand different kinds of missiles, but unless you‘re hunting small prey, it simply makes no sense at all to take size 1 or even size 2 missiles until they increase the number of missiles one can fire of at the same time.

@@NotDumbassable I think size 2 missiles are the best right now though, if you take size 3 and 4 missiles you'll use so many missiles at once that you'll run out after one or two targets. In a real-life scenario sure you wouldn't be trying to "save" missiles b/c it's life or death but in a game where you don't wanna have to restock after every fight it's nice to have more efficient missiles. I like size 2's b/c they hold the most damage per rack while also doing decent enough damage to soften targets. I'm not sure how i feel about 4 at a time being the limit... more than that, i think it would be nice to be able to lock missiles on multiple targets for team-based play to apply pressure across the board. Probably not a high priority though. But about your comment about the nose guns on the vanguard, I think the nose guns might potentially be able to be swapped out for ballistic cannons as well for really efficient and quick kills, depending on how much incoming ballistic damage is a defensive issue for the vanguard. I haven't had a chance to test this stuff on the PTU yet since I don't own a vanguard and they wipe progress every couple days, but hopefully once it stablizies a bit I can grind on there a bit and try some stuff out :)

@@WingZeroType the problem with only being able to use 4 missiles at once is that using them also breaks lock on your enemy, which can only be reacquired once the cooldown has passed. I.e. in the Constellation, the 48 Size 1 Missiles are basically useless because it takes too long to use more than 4 of them.

@@NotDumbassable It doesn't break the lock on your enemy, you can just go back to the normal mode after firing missiles and you'll still have the target locked. And I typically use my connie for doing a bunch of VHRTs so I often use most of my missiles before swapping to a different ship. Or you can stay at range and just missile spam as a support ship

I would say always use laser repeaters for turrets since they have the best projectile velocity and roughly the same dps while firing as laser cannons. The advantage of cannons comes in being more capacitor efficient, but turrets generally have really strong capacitors so it's less important to be super efficient and more important to land your shots

@@WingZeroType thank you! And sorry, which ones would that be.

@@teh12man Oh yeah sure np, you can use badger or panther repeaters, depending on if you are using a harbinger (which uses panthers) or one of the different vanguards (which uses badgers). Those are the cheapest laser repeaters, but you could also use the Attrition series or NDB series size 2 and size 3 laser repeaters because their dps stats are all the same

that's awesome! Are you using a s5 laser cannon under the nose or something else?

@WingZeroType currently it is a lightningstrike V with the gvsr repeaters was thinking of swapping to a ballistics cannon

@@fuqua626 I'd go the size 5 laser cannon with MVSA laser cannons, they work together really well. Ballistics sadly aren't very good in 3.19 but you can try it out and see for yourself

@WingZeroType i was only gonna do it to have more capacitor for the repeaters lol ill get the other repeaters back on it and leave the lightningstrike on there

@WingZeroType swapped back to the MSVA and it made a huge difference it was taking out light and mid size ships with ease

A lot of people don't like it, lol. I don't mind the look of it, honestly. I mostly don't like the fact that it's the first thing to impact anything in front of you, putting it at much higher risk of getting it knocked or shot off

I don't think that's correct - where did you hear that?

@@WingZeroType KZfaqr - BuzzCutPsycho Video - The Vanguard review

​@@RelentlessBRah ok, Thanks for letting me know. I generally avoid that guy b/c I've heard from multiple unrelated people that he affiliates with some questionable stuff, so I haven't seen that video

@@RelentlessBR So I double checked and I see where the confusion is coming from. On Erkul, they show as having the same HP, but on spviewer it shows what you're talking about, the sentinel having less body hp. I guess I'll have to test it in game and see if the sentinel can take as many shots to the body as the warden or hoplite

Yeah sorry, so by default you're looking at the 3.18 tab and I havent updated all the loadouts yet, if you go to the next tab you'll see the 3.17 loadouts which are *mostly* still accurate. Main changes you'll want are you can use different missiles besides EM missiles, you want to use grade A civilian shields, and you'll most likely not use hybrid loadouts anymore (mixing ballistics and energy weapons makes a lot less sense due to the ballistic shield penetration changes). So For vanguards, I'd personally go with the MVSA + S5 laser cannon loadout, but a fully laser repeater loadout with GVSRs and a s4 gimballed laser repeater works too. For the missiles you can still use s2 dominators (they're still good) or you can use the vanduul IR equivalent which does a bit more damage (I think it's called the bullet). I want to do a bit more testing in the PU before updating all the links for 3.18 but I need the servers to cooperate with me a bit more :) I'll be updating it soon!

When you say it’s unlikely I’ll want to use a hybrid loadout, what do you mean? In my mind a hybrid load out would mean I would mix ballistics and lasers, which I believe is what you’re recommending. Thank you so much for all this work. You’ve for sure got my sub

@@ohsnaptacular Thank you for the sub! And yes, in 3.17 I definitely liked a hybrid loadout thanks to ballistic's doing significantly more damage than lasers while also freeing up more capacitors for the remaining laser weapons so they can shoot longer before needing to recharge. It was a way to increase the overall dps and kill speeds for the tradeoff of needing to restock every so often. In 3.18 though, they've nerfed the damage of ballistics by 50-60% against the hulls of ships, so they end up doing *less* dps than lasers. This can work for some fully-ballistic loadouts thanks to the increased shield penetration. Instead of 10-30% of ballistics penetrating shields (like they did in 3.17) they're not penetrating shields by 70-100%. So if you go fully-ballistic you can regain some of that "lost" dps against hulls by not having to completely take down the enemy shields to kill the enemy. But if you are going with a joint laser + ballistic loadout, your lasers will be taking down the enemy shields anyway before they can help in killing the target, so the benefit of ballistics going through the shields is pretty much lost, while the -50% to -60% damage reduction of ballistics against hulls is still there. I have another video that goes into this in more detail if this doesn't quite make sense (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pdxmiKWmldrJhps.html) but I'm also happy to try to clarify further if you have any more questions :) I hope that made sense!

Hey, so the aiming mode that I'm using is called "Lag PIP" which is something you can manually set. "Lead PIP" is the aiming mode that's on by default. You can change them in game by changing the default targeting reticule option in the gameplay settings (first options menu when you go to settings) or by setting a key to toggle between the two modes under "Flight - Targeting/Switch Flight Lead / Lag Reticle (Toggle)" in your advanced keybinds. some notes about the two: - Lead PIP's reticule shows you where you should fire your shot so that it will hit the targeted enemy based on how you and the target are currently moving. In this situation, your eyes are likely looking at the targeting reticle which is in front of the enemy. - Lag PIP makes the reticule show you where your shot will land based on how you and the target are currently moving (it can still miss if the target changes speed/direction after you've fired the shot, same as with lead PIP). In this situation, your goal is to place the reticule on top of the enemy's ship since that's where you want the shot to land. Because of this, your eyes are likely looking at the enemy ship since thats where you're trying to place the reticule, which makes it so that you can better predict and respond to the enemy's actions like turning or changing direction. - I also prefer lag PIP because with the lead PIP, the targeting indicator only goes green when you're lined up to perfectly hit the target in their center of mass. But with lag PIP, you can see when you're not hitting exactly in the center but you're still going to catch the edge of the target and do damage so you can better decide when it's worth it to shoot or not.

@@WingZeroType Thanks for the lengthy and detailed explanation. You did explain in another one of the videos I watched, either the Sabre or Cutlass ones. I should give the lag pip a try and see. I bought a Vanguard recently because I wanted to try a heavy fighter and I liked the look of it. Your guide really helped. I chose a Harbinger though, because torpedoes! Missile reload bug? Self destruct helps! LOL

@@flygja hahaha yeah that's basically the decision people make. If you want the torps you go harbinger, if you want to be more agile you go with sentinel/warden/hoplite. I looove vanguards, they're just so dang good.

I have no idea. Bombers, drop ships, and alien ships all seem to carry a tax for some reason. Perhaps because they're more specialized?

This video shows you how to use a lag pip (the red square) by default and set a key bind to switch between lead and lag pip. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oMVjdaufq5nbhIk.html

@@sillothian4618 thanks, your video was very helpful

Sounds like you got your answer, it's called the lag pip and you can toggle it in the game options. It's about halfway down the main options menu and it'll say "lead" by default.

yep that's been confirmed now. It wasn't clear at the time the video was made though, since different sites listed different amounts (erkul vs spviewer had conflicting information) and I hadn't had a chance to get both ships out and test yet.

Yea even I wasn't aware of that , someone is chat told me that.

@@axzaust Yeah it wasn't always like that, it was a somewhat recent change so its good that ppl are getting the updated info out! We'll have to see how that translates to 3.23 and master modes, where EVERYTHING is getting rebalanced again lol

what? why is everyone going to Port Olisar if they nerf the sentinel? ;) yes, I know I'm terrible lol

you can only lock one type of missile onto a target at a time. By default, the key to change missiles is right click I believe, and you can press G to increase the number of missiles fired at once (up to 4).

@@WingZeroType na when i got stalker équiped i cant swrixh to thé other missile But if i get thé stalker out i Can use thé 3 other size 3 2 and 1 but have no accès to thé stalker . Size 5 . M'y ship IS thé vanguard

@@chris_mk5supra You should be able to switch even with the stalker equipped. You might be running into a bug, it's possible that the other missiles aren't loaded or they got blown off? I'd check the loadout in the vehicle loadout manager and unequip the missiles, save the ship, and then reequip the missiles to see if that makes it work.

@@WingZeroType Yep i tried to do it but rverytime its only stalker or only thé other missile .the only Time i did got all of them at thé same Time it was just After buying the ship

@@chris_mk5supra hmm i'm not sure what's happening then, that sounds like a really weird bug that I haven't seen. do you see all the missiles in the vehicle loadout manager?

If you want to do actual combat, I'd go with a Vanguard Sentinel b/c it's got good speed, firepower, and tankiness. It also has a pretty solid missile loadout. If you don't want to do actual combat and you just wanna one-shot enemies with torpedos you should get an Eclipse, but that could change in the future so I wouldn't buy an eclipse with real money for the purpose of bounty hunting.

@@WingZeroType Amazing! Ty so much for the response. May I ask what is your opinion on the hurricane or Scorpius ? if you have 2 players can they outdps the vanguard or no?

@@HitmanQC95 Yeah if you have the Hurricane or scorpius they are really solid picks for 2 players. If you have two players, you might even consider an A2, since you as the pilot get 2xs5 hardpoints and the gunner can also get a turret with 2xs5 hardpoints and it is just an absolute beast. You'll pay a bit in hydrogen fees, but if you just claim your ship at the end of combat instead of storing it you'll get it back refueled for free :D If you don't have infinite money to afford an A2 in-game then the hurricane is an absolute blast for 2 players and it's extremely effective. We don't know for sure whether or not the scorpius will be buyable in-game in 3.18 but the scorpius has better dps than the hurricane for the pilot so that's probably what I'd go with, but for pvp the hurricane is generally considered better thanks to its better acceleration. In 3.18 shields have been changed to allow almost all ballistic damage through them straight to the hull, which might shake things up a bunch. The hurricane is a small target but it's hull isn't super beefy, and its unclear how easily components will take damage in these ships next patch. This is a long way of saying that a lot of things might shake up in 3.18, but for now I'm a fan of all the ships - hurricane, scorpius, and vanguard. If you want to also use this ship solo, I'd go scorpius or vanguard (with a preference for the vanguard). If this ship is an extra ship that's only going to be used with two people, i'd go scorpius most likely, but if you're buying in-game then the hurricane is a decent option too (but you won't have as much dps if you're the pilot). Hope this helped!

@@WingZeroType Amazing help ! Ty so much

@@WingZeroType it’s me again hehe so sorry but I have to ask. For 2-3 people wouldn’t the redeemer be better than the a2 ? Although the redeemer driver guns kind of suck. Not gonna lie tho I am pretty new and wow the A2 just looks so amazing ! It’s so big tho I wonder how hard it is to fly. I flew an Argo mole the other day and wanted to die lol and the A2 is even bigger, wonder if it flies better than the mole tho. I will try to get enough currency in game and try the A2 maybe.

I think at this point it's just balance reasons. If that was the case then anyone can just solo man a hammerhead and destroy everything.