Viper Mk IVCombat

The Viper Mk IV is Faulcon DeLacy's heavyweight take on the Viper formula. Where the Mk III is a knife — fast, fragile, all-offence — the Mk IV is a hammer: slower off the line but markedly tougher, with a higher base armour, more internal room and the headroom to fit real defences alongside its guns.

For a small-pad combat hull it punches a respectable weight. Two medium plus two small hardpoints give a flexible four-gun bite, and the extra optionals over the Mk III let you carry a shield cell bank or hull reinforcement that the lighter Vipers simply can't. The trade is pace: it boosts well but won't out-run the genuinely fast interceptors. As a low-cost RES and bounty-hunting platform that survives mistakes, it's one of the best value combat ships in the game.

Three things make the Mk IV a fighter rather than just a tougher taxi:

• It tanks. Higher base armour than any other Viper, a military slot for a hull reinforcement, and enough optionals for a shield cell bank — you trade blows instead of dancing away from them.
• Four flexible guns. Two mediums carry the damage (multi-cannons or pulse lasers), the two smalls add utility — a corrosive multi-cannon, a beam for shield-stripping, or seekers.
• It forgives. The combination of armour and module room means a botched approach costs hull, not a rebuy — the single biggest reason it out-earns the Mk III for newer combat pilots.

A durable, dirt-cheap small-pad brawler whose balanced tank and flexibility earn 66, capped by a four-gun 2M-2S battery and modest agility that trail the Vulture and Mk III.

The 66/100 headline is a verdict against the combat role's priority-ordered factors. Each factor carries a weight (its share of 100); this hull earns part of each based on how it performs against the whole field. The points sum to the rating.

Both tables rate ships for the combat role specifically. The role column is the hardpoint loadout — the raw weapon mounts that decide your damage ceiling.

Same class — small-pad combat ships

Among small fighters the Viper Mk IV is the durable middle option: tougher than the Mk III and Courier, cheaper and roomier than the Kestrel, but out-gunned by the Vulture and Kestrel. Buy it to survive while you learn; graduate to a Vulture or medium when you want kills-per-minute.

Other classes — what you graduate to

The Viper Mk IV is a stepping stone. When its damage ceiling starts to frustrate you, the small-pad answer is the Vulture; the real leap is a medium — a Python Mk II or Krait Mk II — that carries several times the firepower and tank.

The hull is trivially cheap at ~313,000 Cr and there are no rank or permit gates — any commander can buy one the moment they reach a shipyard that stocks it. The cost that matters is outfitting and engineering, not the chassis.

Budget a few million credits to A-rate the cores and weapons, and the usual engineering grind (materials, not credits) to bring it to its ceiling. Even fully kitted it is one of the cheapest competent combat ships you can field.

A three-state combat fit. Initial is buy-only on a budget; A-rated is the all-A combat-ready baseline; Engineered is the end-state with the house combat pattern — Overcharged plant, Dirty drives, a Corrosive multi-cannon, Thermal-Vent pulse lasers, and Heavy-Duty defences. The two mediums are the main guns; the two smalls do shield-stripping.

Buy the hull (~313k Cr) and fly it off the pad with whatever cores you can afford — even E-rated, it flies. Leave the stock Lightweight Alloy bulkheads on for now; real armour comes with A-rating.

Fit two gimballed pulse lasers on the mediums and cheap multi-cannons on the smalls; gimballed weapons are forgiving while you learn target leading.

Add the largest shield generator that fits the class-4 optional, then a single hull reinforcement. That alone makes it RES-ready.

A-rating priority for a small combat ship, cheapest meaningful gains first:

• 1Power Distributor → 3A — Weapon and boost endurance — the single most felt upgrade for a fighter. ~250k Cr
• 2Thrusters → 4A — Speed and agility to hold or break engagements. ~500k Cr
• 3Power Plant → 4A — Headroom to run all four guns plus shields and boosters. ~400k Cr
• 4Shield Generator → 4C bi-weave — Fast-regenerating shields suit a brawler that keeps taking hits. ~300k Cr
• 5FSD → 4A — Get between RES sites and turn in bounties faster. ~600k Cr
• 6Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — A combat hull lives or dies on its armour, and the upgraded bulkhead is the base every hull reinforcement multiplies. ~250k Cr

Fill the optionals with a 4A shield cell bank and a stack of D-rated hull and module reinforcements — light, cheap, and the difference between a RES toy and a hull-tank that shrugs off a wing. Round out the utility mounts with a shield booster and a chaff launcher.

The house combat pattern applied to a small hull. All blueprints progress G1→G5 in sequence; pin them at the engineer for remote application, then visit in person for the experimental effects.

Recommended order

• 1Unlock and pin Felicity Farseer first — her FSD blueprint is the universal starting point and her unlock is trivial.
• 2Engineer the power distributor and thrusters to G5 before weapons — sustain and mobility beat raw damage.
• 3Add Corrosive Shell to one multi-cannon and Thermal Vent to the lasers in person; these experimentals define the brawler's bite.
• 4Finish with defences: Reinforced bi-weave, Heavy-Duty boosters and HRP.

Approximate progression across the three states (figures are representative, not exact rolls):

Military Grade bulkheads and a full stack of heavy-duty hull reinforcements — six of them once the old surface scanner becomes a 1D HRP — lift effective armour from ~270 to past 1,000 by the time it's engineered. Engineering then roughly doubles effective shields and adds ~90 m/s of boost speed, turning a forgiving starter into a small ship that genuinely holds its own in a RES.

• Gimballed weapons early, fixed later — the Mk IV's modest agility makes fixed guns harder to keep on target than on a Mk III.
• Watch the class-4 power plant ceiling: four guns plus shields plus boosters is tight until the plant is Overcharged.
• The military slot is precious — a Heavy-Duty HRP there is the best survivability-per-credit on the ship.
• It is cheap enough to keep a spare fully-fitted hull in storage as a no-think respawn brawler.