The Imperial Cutter: A whisper in the night.

This is a pretty unorthodox Cutter build. Rather than strapping enough shields and armour on her to make an Orbital station blush, thus making her as agile as a Mammoth in a tar pit, this build is instead focused on minimising the amount you get hit in the first place.
It's a cold running stealth type build as you'll see, with your standard Thermal Vent Efficient Beams, and an Efficient Corrosive Multicannon, tied with two Short Range Dispersal Field Cannons up top, to further minimise damage taken by scrambling your target's Gimballed and Turreted weapons (and blow large holes in your target's Power Plant).
The most important part of the build is the SLF. You absolutely NEED a high ranked AI pilot so they don't get splattered while keeping your targets busy (and lined up in front of your weapons). Dangerous should work, but ideally Deadly or Elite are your best bets. They are going to be taking most of the aggro so they need to be able to survive. I have found the Imperial SLF, the GU-97 Gelid F, to be the best for this job.
The shields and armour aren't heavy in terms of absolute health, but they're more resistant than a kid asked to clean their room on a Saturday morning. Giving them very high Effective health, for a low power and weight cost. The result of this is twofold:
1) The Class 8 Bi-Weave, being the fastest recharging shield in the game, will recharge the shields from 50% to full in just over two minutes provided you keep charge in the Distributor. The Lo-Draw experimental helps with that, reducing the amount of strain this ferocious recharge rate puts on it.
2) The low power use to make the shields as resistant as they are, allows for the fitting of a monstrous Class 8 Shield Cell Bank, while still being able to utilise a Grade 5 Low Emissions Power Plant. Due to the relatively low absolute health of the shields, each use of this will restore roughly 80% of your entire shield health. And with the cold nature of the build, Heatsinks aren't necessary.
This gives you two options in combat. Allow the shields to recharge extremely quickly during any downtime. Or give yourself a shot in the arm with a Shield Cell if things get hairy and, if your shields are any higher than 20% at time of use, recover all of them over 17 seconds.
Overall the ship is relatively light (and cheap) for a combat fitted Cutter, allowing you a certain freedom of movement. And works well when you don't want to sit there twiddling your thumbs while Turrets shoot stuff you can't see, very slowly. She also makes rather good iced tea. :D
Ship build: s.orbis.zone/csey

[@AlexandreDuarteDM]

If this was a whisper, imagine a shout! Great fight and video 👍🏻🙂

[@rickmidkiff9990]

Oh!!! Yes My favorite ship. Good miner too. The Cutter doesn't fly. It dances through space...

[@Kaethena]

Dances like an elephant in a tutu. :D She does kinda need to be flown a certain way. And if you boost, make sure you made a date in your diary for two weeks ahead, which is when you'll stop. :D

[@Jdebrusk987]

Very nice build. I brought myself the Imperial Cutter today. I might one day begin trying to get the same build. If only the engineering wasn't so infuriating.

[@Kaethena]

Yeah I'm not going to argue with that. It's a bit... involved. But I kind of always felt that engineering was the second state of progression for your fleet once you'd amassed enough money that it didn't matter anymore. Something else to work towards that makes you feel like you're bettering yourself. Rather than just buying the best thing right out of the box. For me it's satisfying. :)

[@ookamihoshi]

That's one huge ass whisper :P

[@Kaethena]

LOL! Yeah, well space is a very big place. :D

[@_over_9193]

As a user of big mammoth cutter myself i find your approach very interesting and i love how you explain your build in the description. Keep it up Cmdr o7

[@Kaethena]

Sorry for the late reply but thank you very much. Yeah this was kind of the Anti-Cutter, but she works very well.

[@wilfredjurassicyes]

This is so sick it's crazy!

[@Greenalex89]

Cool, funny and informative description! As a space noob with my 600 hours playtime I found the Cutters size 7 distributor kinda too small for the build I had in mind. For now I fly the Anaconda with the Bi weave and the 4 biggest hardpoint slots being pulse lasers with phasing sequence and the 4 smallest being beam lasers with flow control and thermal vent. Its a kinda similar build but way less demanding and chill for lazy space newbies like me. And I can sip my coffee in peace while the Haz Res AI has to feel how much sugar Ive put in my cup..☕ I can imagine that using the prismatic shields makes the cutters boost speed unnecessary..So I can see myself trying this build once I get bored of the prismatics!

[@Kaethena]

Thank you!

[@Greenalex89]

@@Kaethena Woah, thanks for the extensive reply+insight! I actually forgot to mention that all bigger lasers have Ph.S. combined with rapid fire, so more pew pew goes through the shields. I think that makes at least a feelable difference compared to any non rapid fire option with phasing sequence. Buuuut u are probably right that there are waaay more efficient options. And yes, the build was pretty much designed for RE sites. I shoot ANY wanted ship and since anacondas seem to be the biggest ones, I never had any problems whatsoever with any hostile ships or wings+ I can stay there infinitely since the bi weaves never go down and recover pretty fast; thats the builds purpose. And if anything goes wrong, the ship is essentially a hull tank with 6700 armor, so I survive long enough to enjoy the now cold coffee 😝 One thing interests me the most considering the prismatic shields tho! I heard that their strength is basically on the same level as an A rated shield of the next higher level. So a "level" 5 prismatic shield is as stong as a 6A shield. That means that u can outfit your light exploration ships with even lower prismatic shields, thus making them even lighter without losing shield strength. So once I licked Aislings boots long enough I make sure to buy all sorts of prismatic shields for most of my ships, especially the 3-4 exploration ones. AAAAAAND since I have a cutter I just HAVE TO try some super duper over the top engineered prismatic builds. Its probably boring, but I just have to^^ +I crashed my cutter right into the garden of that one engineer once, along with the 200 tons of gold or whatever 🤣 So yeah, lets say its for my own safety.. Im always open for new builds and inspirations and I think your channel is a great source+ you take your time responding, which is awesome! So far my cutter only serves as a trading vessel, making your build quite tempting..And believe it or not, my Fer-de-lance is non engineered, so be ready that I dead ass copy your FDL build in the next couple of weeks! o7

[@Kaethena]

@@Greenalex89 Well, the thing about Prismatic shields is that they're basically like having a regular shield generator plus one A rated shield booster. They have more shield health up front, but they're the heaviest of all the generators which.... for an exploration ship is literally the thing you want LEAST of all. And they are extremely power hungry. Think of it this way, it's like putting the weight and power draw of a heavy duty booster on top of a regular generator. At least for smaller ships. For larger ships, you're talking in excess of an extra hundred tons of mass. Which makes their agility far, far less. And that's not even talking about the regen. They have THE worst regen in the game. The price you pay for that health boost is that... once those shields are down, you're waiting an eternity for them to come back up. If you can't get somewhere safe to reboot them. They make even a standard generator seem speedy. They're designed for one purpose, IMO. To give you a damage sponge for one off fights. Fights where you take a lot of damage with very little downtime. Such as being interdicted by an enemy target. Or fighting a single Thargoid target. Beyond that, you have to invest in shield cells to keep the shields up because the regen is so atrocious. Making your ship hotter and heavier. Not ideal for PvE combat in Elite, in my opinion. Even though a lot of people do it. The heavier you make your ship, the more you need your shields because you literally cannot get out of the way of fire, so it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. You need shields because you can't avoid fire so you fit the heaviest shields you can making you less agile and more reliant on them. At least that's how I look at it. Especially on the smaller ships which rely on their agility as part of their design. I've seen people shield tank a Mamba to oblivion with prismatics and 6 shield boosters. They cannot manoeuvre the thing worth a damn, but they also don't really have to. Unless they have to make a turn. Then it's like watching a glacier advance lol. It really all depends what you want your ship to be. If you want it to be an immobile fortress of "I laugh at your lasers for 10 minutes, then I need to get out of here!" then by all means go with prismatics. :) They have a use. But they have no endurance if you want to stay out somewhere for any length of time. Recharge beats up front shield health every single time in PvE combat simply because you get so much downtime. We've all crashed a Cutter at least once, lol. You always think the retro thrusters are way more powerful than they actually are, because on a ship that size they SHOULD BE! :D In terms of exploration ships, though... go look at my Ishimura Anaconda build. I crash that ship at full boost into 10g planets deliberately and she doesn't get a scratch. She doesn't have a prismatic shield and she has a 70+ light year jump range. :)

[@Greenalex89]

@@Kaethena Oooohh ok, so even though Id take a lower prismatic s-generator, I wouldnt lose weight? Thats kinda disappointing. That would leave them only the single purpose u mentioned, namely one off fights. And yeah I heard about horror stories of the generator having to reload for almost an hour..I wouldnt use that in long term fights at all, unless I know its just 20 unengineered eagles with railguns firing, like children trying to stop a pissed elefant by throwing grapes at it. I even dislike A-rated shield generators for RES fights, bi weave all the way. Im still surprised how complex this game gets when it comes to technical stuff. I think for new players its tempting to boost up your shields , but the other side of the coin is that u dont get a genuine feeling of the agility of the used ship, thus being prevented from grasping the ships actual potential. So prismatics are like the spice melange in the Dune novels: It prolongs your life, but without it you will die 🤨 Doesnt seem like a good deal to me. Thanks again senpai, much to learn I still have 👣

[@Kaethena]

@@Greenalex89 Lol. You'll get it. I think the issue is that people get it drummed into them that having the most of something is the best. But that's often not the case. You have to throw everything you know about MMO games out the window when it comes to Elite. It just doesn't work that way. It's utterly dependent on what you want your ship to do. The builds are very synergistic. Different parts affect other parts to make it into a whole thing. You can entirely use prismatic shields if your build is designed that way. FDev designed Prismatics to not be as overpowered as people seem to think they are, on purpose. Doesn't stop everyone wanting them, though. :D

[@MojaveRed85]

Man this build is genius awesome 👍

[@nelaencmdr4785]

There you go girl! Destroy the enemies of the glorious Empire! o7

[@Kaethena]

Haha, you know it! Especially when it's in my second home system. :D

[@rodionkhabibulin8326]

ty for build

[@Kaethena]

You're welcome. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you.

[@ddavidel]

Hey love your colors scheme, could you tell me what colors are you using for you hud?

[@Kaethena]

Sure. :) It's an XML edit. The code is: 0.3, 0.05, 1.2 -0.15, 2, -0.5 1, -1.3, 0.7

[@ddavidel]

@@Kaethena tysm

[@jcreedy20]

I like thermal vent, its better if you have one of your beams overcharged to compliment the other beams that are thermal venting, they will do more thermal damage as there's more heat to pump out. Looks like your Distro can handle it.

[@Kaethena]

Yeah that's definitely an option. Although the increased distributor draw on that modification can be an issue. I would rather go with short range instead of Overcharged. But for that build it wasn't so much about distributor, but more about power draw. A cold running plant gives you a lot less power to play with. And if you have a monstrous class 8 SCB, you really kinda need to save where you can.

[@jcreedy20]

@@Kaethena Indeed, of course I am only talking about one of the Beam lasers being overcharged like on my vette, the rest are still efficient and have thermal vent. It just balances it out nicely as by the time the enemy goes out of firing arc the distributor is almost flat and when back in sights the distributor has recharged 9 times out of 10 and you get the extra heat off the overcharged to chuck at the enemy. Of course with having one of your beam lasers overcharged, i doubt it will flatten the distro on yours anyway as its so powerful. I am just now starting to work my way up the imperial ranks to get a cutter. Know any good spots to grind the ranks?? I assume i do similar to what I had to do for federal ranks for the vette? I'm still relatively new to the game in a sense.

[@thomashutchinson7508]

Capital ship jumps in and you have to defend it🙄

[@Kaethena]

Well, I mean you don't technically have to. It isn't an objective you can fail, since it doesn't appear on your objective list. And to be honest, it seems kind of random as to whether it will jump out or not. I've seen wings of spec op ships wail on it and it doesn't go anywhere, while a few vipers and cobras make it jump out in short order. So if one shows up on my own side, I tend to just ignore it.

[@Toka267]

Why overcharged instead of long range on canons? I know the damage boost is significant but it dosen't matter that much when half the shots end missing the target or the module you are targeting, at least it is the experience I had mostly of the times I tried using canons... Btw love you piloting and hud colors...

[@Kaethena]

Firstly, thank you!