For a heavy gunboat, i suggest ether full faction turrets, with one missile, or cerberus turrets for rapid anti gunboat.
for a light gunboat, you've got endless loadout's, that really depend on how you fly your gunboat.
if you like flying your gunboat like a bomber/VHF, then you should get razors and try to snipe fighters and bombers.
If you are rather skilled, then a full solaris/full faction loadout becomes super deadly against pilots with less skill.
Personally, i've flown quite a few gunboats, and still dont know if i prefer sniping or normal loadouts. certainly for light gunboats, sniping loadouts are better then on large gunboats.
' Wrote:<span style="font-family:Century Gothic">Violence is Golden</span>
Gunboats are seperated in two classes: A heavy gunboat (Order gunboat, Corsair Gunboat, Bretonian Gunboat, Rheinland) And light gunboats, aka Gunships (Claymore, Tridente, Rogue, Bottlenose)
Each of those ships have pluses and minuses, like, for example some of them have a larger powerplent, thus, they can mount more power hungry equipment, for example the Order Gunboat, which can fire four razors or three missiles. These ships often lack agility, so they are rather easy to bomb.
These heavy gunboats are often better to use against small, unarmored caps to keep the shield down while bombers chip away on their hide, to pirate with (however the latest changes in transport weapons have made them a serious threat to gunboats, like a Shire or a Pirate Transport).
Light gunboats/gunships are meant to hunt bombers with and often sacrifice power or turret number for extra agility or form. (Example the Bounty Hunter Gunship, aka the Bottlenose, which has only five fwd firing turrets, but, because of it's thin sides is excellent to hunt bombers in.)
Now, you must understand you may not set up a gunboat to be equally good in any situation, unlike a bomber. If you want to tear up fighters and you do not have too much of a skill at aiming, I would suggest using regular faction turrets and one missile. Use the missile as a shieldbuster, tho, as the 4.85 update removed the vanilla model explosive weakness. Then simply chip away at their health by chain-firing the turrets (works well on a corsair gunship, even if it's rather big)
If you are good at aiming and fly all your ships like a bomber, setting up a GB with two pulses, three razors and a missile is the best solution for you. This will also allow you to be a good threat against other gunships. This is recommended for heavy gunboats.
From my own experience, using SOLARIS turrets or Cerebs is rather useless, as you need that energy for a missile if it is needed. Stick to basic turrets or your faction ones.
So, to recap, if you use light gunboats, use the all basic loadout and maybe one missile. If you are good in aiming, use razors, but leave them for heavier gunboats.
I have seen many people use fighter turrets on their larger ships, Rogue gunboats with Betal turrets, Outcast tridentes with Krakens, but it seems they work well only with 700-750 range ones, like the Purple godesses, so watch out. I haven't tried that yet, so I cannot give my opinion.
All depends on what you're trying to do with it like everyone said and which ship you're choosing.
For a Tridente I suggest sticking with two missles and six guns. Switch the missles from the front to the rear depending if you're going for fighter/bombers or Transports. If you just want to pirate though save your money and get a Pirate Transport.
Other than that Sindroms was right on the money. Cerbs and Solaris eat too much energy to be effective with missles.
All solaris might be ok, but for anti fighter/bomber go really need those missles.
My rule is unless the ship comes with a forward gun then its an anti fighter/bomber loadout. Just my take.
Also grab a Cap VI armor and try not to get into fights with other GB's... I find most of these to be rather boring and a waste of time when you can drop half a dozen fighter/bombers in that time.
Lets see.... Five VHF can rape you easily (I'll take this time to give kudos to CR cause every fight like this has been an absolute blast... no pun intended). Same with two decent bombers and some lag.
Missles often miss when fighting experienced pilots since they can turn great but are super slow. Also missles in astreoid fields are almost useless at ranges greater than 500m.
At the least have a partner in VHF flying with you. You'll be amazed at how two or three bombers suddenly don't seem that difficult.
One last thing... Don't sit still. Even flying in a straight line your sure to have a couple SNAC's miss you.
Off topic mostly but helpful tips for piloting a light GB such as the Tridente... and GB's in general.
I prefer avoiding missiles, just because i've had such bad times getting missile spammed, and that they dont really do all that much against a good pilots.
However, if you intend to do alot of group combat, get a missile. it'll help keep bombers distracted a little longer.
' Wrote:<span style="font-family:Century Gothic">Violence is Golden</span>