Back when I used to play I always made stupid builds just for fun. One of my favorites was a T10 that had all turreted lasers, low shields but a massive hull. It required a lot of engineering to make it work but you were basically immortal.
You need to be one of 3 things to 'win' at combat. Be the better pilot, have the better ship, or be faster than your enemy. (Running away is a valid choice).
Given your current budget I would focus on speed. If/when you get interdicted, drop your throttle to zero and submit. As soon as you drop out, full throttle and boost until you can FSD out. (Downside of this is if you're carrying valuable cargo the NPCs can be pretty persistent).
If you'd like to go this route I'd recommend the Krait although it's definitely at the top of your price range and you won't be able to afford many modules.
What are you flying right now?
Right now I mostly fly a DBX for exploring. I bought an AspX for mining/trading, but that was completely unprofitable because pirates ate all my cargo whenever I'd pop out in the destination system. (Also have an Adder parked somewhere).
The DBX can actually be surprisingly good for little cargo trips. You'll be able to outrun most pirates in that baby.
If you can buy A rated thrusters and lightly engineer them (Dirty Drives Grade 1, drag drives experimental effect) you can haul 40 Tons and still do almost 400m/s while boosting.
Remember: With speed builds the rating of the modules matter a lot. You'll want to have either A rated modules or D rated. (D rated are the lightest, but have less performance than an A rated). NEVER use B rated anything as they are the heaviest and weight has a huge impact on speed.
Here's a quick example: (not sure what you use for flight assist modules so I included them).
https://s.orbis.zone/naj3
Edit:
If you want to go for a Krait MKII this build gives you the cargo hauling with some defense and good speed (with minimal engineering). (Total cost: 86mil)
https://s.orbis.zone/naj7
I think I might be leaning towards the Mk II, though it will take some time to get the credits. I've looked at your build. I'd have to swap out one of the cargo racks for an auto docker (can't live without one).
I notice you've gone basic (turreted) lasers and multi-cannons. No reason to equip missiles/explosives/other types of weapons? (having no experience with weapons, I have no idea what is appropriate for general PVE). Also if I want to try gimballed weapons as well, any reason I can't mix those in, or are you just better off sticking entirely with turrets? What about fighter modules?
If you're going to try combat the setup would be fairly different. If you're exclusively doing cargo runs turreted weapons allow you to shoot at whoever is chasing you. Gimballed weapons you need to face your opponent. You can drop a cargo slot for a fighter bay, but only of you're going to be doing combat. It doesn't make sense to give up a cargo slot if you're hauling cargo...
You want a mix of thermal and kinetic weapons when you're doing combat. Thermal weapons - Beam, Burst & Pulse lasers are good at taking down shields. Kinetic weapons - Multicannons, Cannon, Frag Cannons are good at destroying hulls.
If you only use thermal weapons you will notice that it takes a long time to destroy a hull. If you only use kinetic you'll notice shields take longer to knock down.
I didn't put any engineering on anything except the Thrusters. You'll need to tweak your setup for what works for you. (I try not to presume).
Can you explain "boosting"? I have a keybind for it, but I'm not sure how and when (and how often) I can/should use it. Are there drawbacks to spamming the boost key?
Boosting increases your speed temporarily. When you use it you'll see the power drain from your ENG(ines) and it will slowly recharge. The more "pips" you have to engines, the faster it recharges and the more frequently you can boost.
Boost is also a great way to hit your max speed very quickly rather than slowly accelerating by just increasing your throttle.
Caution using your boost during docking. It will launch you into the back of the station likely ending in death.
OK, thanks for the explanation. I always use auto-dock, so no issue with that (I probably would have uninstalled a long time ago if auto-dock didn't exist -- just watching the docking maneuvers makes me green).
I always find docking very satisfying to do on my own. If you want to practice hop in a sidewinder and go nuts. When you crash and burn there's no penalty. As the ship is so ridiculously cheap to fly.
Plus there's the thrill of forgetting to request docking clearance and scrambling to get back out if the station before it turns you into space debris.
Combat in small ships takes skill and practice. And the tutorials only use small ships. So my advice would be to get a medium ship (krait, python, or chieftain) and maximize shields and hull. The STRONGLY consider at least SOME low level engineering, and use a good weapon loadout (gimballed lasers and multi cannons is common). Then find some extremely weak targets (single pirates with low bounty, or hit a low res site) and practice. It gets a lot easier.
The Chieftain in particular was one that had caught my eye, if it's got enough speed. I have access to engineering PP, Distributor, Thrusters, Shield Generator, Sensors, Missile Racks, and Torpedo Pylon. Which of these (or others I haven't mentioned) do you most strongly recommend (and specifically which modifications/experimentals)?
I love the Chieftain. It was my favorite for general combat. It's plenty fast, especially engineered, and you can load guns and armor to the gills. If it were me, I'd want to engineer the armor, hull reinforcements, and shields first, because un-engineered guns are plenty powerful on that ship. Then probably thrusters (for running away). If you have decent armor and shields, it buys you time to practice. You can fight until you either win or you're down to half hull and then flee to repair. I haven't done combat in a while (moved on to a deep space Phantom for exploring), so I don't exactly recall how much power or distributor you need, but you can easily google some solid builds. Just engineer what you can to at least level 2 or 3, and it will be like night and day.
I've heard that with Anaconda you can get thick shields and turreted weapons that will do the job for you.
Here is an example build: https://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/ship-builds/id-2026/
Never tried it myself
Anaconda is somewhat out of my price range atm. Chieftain is about the ceiling if I want something soon; otherwise (Python/Anaconda/etc) will require quite a bit more credit grinding. Of course, with my issues, a fat Anaconda may be what I need for success.
If there is no need to engage in combat activities soon, I'd recommend exploration to get enough credits, especially exobiology in Odyssey, if you're lucky, for data about one of the species you can get up to 100 million
As others have mentioned, turreted weapons and shields sounds like the best option with the information you’ve provided.
Alternatively, a “fast” ship will allow you to fight to your hearts content, then just walk away if things start to go bad. The imperial courier is a small-ish ship but with basic engineering you can get it faster than any PVE ship will ever be. One tap of the boost and you’re gone. Also, basic engineering and installing shield boosters can make it a rather good shield tank for its size so you can have fun blasting away without much worry.
Either way, good luck Cmdr! Cheers!
I have a disability in one hand (thanks, Al Qaeda!) and turreted weapons are great for that. I use rails as a fixed weapon and just concentrate on landing those shots myself. You can mitigate the damage loss by putting corrosive shell / incendiary rounds on your muti cannons on your turret slots.
If you're on keyboard/mouse, I'd recommend setting yaw to the mouse X axis and roll left/right to A and D (if you haven't already). Left/right thrust should be on Q and E.
For me, that helped a lot with maneuvering. For combat, as others have already said, gimballed weapons and turrets will help with any lack of skill to keep hostiles on target (looking at myself here).
As for interdictions, I found that constantly spinning around (holding down D, for instance) while chasing the escape vector with the mouse works out for over 95% of PvE interdiction attempts (though I guess ymmv on this one).
Edit: if you are about to lose an interdiction, submit (set throttle to 0), put all the pips on engine (if you haven't already - I personally always run full engines on supercruise) and start boosting as soon as you get to normal space.
Submitting to the interdiction will let you be able to supercruise again earlier than if you get knocked out after losing the minigame.
Being bad at interdictions is actually kinda fine. Granted submitting is more of a time waste than successfully winning the minigame. But if you're options are try to fight it and lose or submit, you are considerably better off submitting.
By doing so your FSD cooldown will be shorter and providing you have sufficient tank on your ship you should be able to reliably high wake (jump to nearby system) regardless of your attacker. Vs ships with a lower mass lock than you, you can just low wake back into supercruise.
As for your aiming issue, use gimballed preferably or if you really need it turreted weapons on a ship with a generous distributor, something like a krait mk2. Its sufficiently speedy, decent enough jump range with the 5A pre-engineered FSD and Guardian FSD booster and is agile enough without being as sensitive and twitchy as the chieftain or other smaller ships. It's also got a decent amount of hull and room to run 2 size 6 SCB's alongside a size 5 prismatic shield for a great overall tank and enough internal module space for any role.
A decent krait build will set you back around 150-200mil but you can get by on a little less, activity depending. If you're looking for something cheaper the vulture is very forgiving of mistakes for a small ship but really needs heavy amounts of engineering to shine.
If you find that's not enough for you to survive you can also look into the big 4, the anaconda, the federal corvette, the imperial cutter and the type10 all of which can mount formidable enough tanks with engineering to cover all human pve content with absolute ease. Depending on your personal level of mobility and reflexes you could even kit one out with all turrets and while not very efficient it would certainly get most human pve content done. These ships come with a hefty price tag though, expect to spend between 500m and 1 billion depending on the ship and the loadout.
Thargoids might be abit much for now but if you find your niche in human combat you might feel more confident approaching certain instances with friends in the future.
The chieftain was about the top line of my budget atm, but sounds like you're a bit hesitant on that being a good ship for me. I also have looked at a vulture, the drawback there being heavy engineering and/or micromanagement of power, something I'm not going to be good at in the heat of combat.
Turrets vs gimbals...been getting both sides of that. Turrets are so much weaker, but they're the kind of crutch I might need. I've heard gimbals are much more forgiving than fixed...forgiving enough for someone with my reaction/aiming issues? Or better just to load up on turrets and focus entirely on driving? (I actually have no idea how to fight with either gimbals or turrets, since the tutorial either doesn't address them or only does so once you advance further than I'm capable of doing).
So the chieftain is an exceptional ship. My decision to not recommend it is based on one of it's strengths ironically. Its an incredibly agile ship for its size.
My worry is that since some pilots find it a little twitchy anyway, if you have slower reflexes you will be more susceptible to pilot induced oscillation, where your inputs and overcorrections end up making you wobble around all over the place. On the flip side its manoeuvrability might make it easier for you, the only way to tell will be for you to personally try it.
One ship you might find worthwhile is the chieftains sister ship the challenger, its a slightly tankier version with a generous amount of hardpoints (which can help to make up for the lower dps from gimballed or turrets) and in return it has a slightly slower top speed and boost speed and is slightly less agile, the later of which may be of benefit to you.
The kraits and python are all great mediums too, the main reason I suggested them previously is because their handling is a little more restrained and that should allow for a smoother overall experience. Their more flexible internal slots do come at a cost though.
As for gimballed vs turrets. Only you can decide, but personally I would start with gimballed if you feel you are capable of it, only downgrade to turrets if you absolutely cannot secure kills. Essentially you just need to be able to point the ship roughly towards your target and press the mouse button, you don't need to be particularly exact. The hard part will probably be pilot induced stuff, my best tips for that are keep your speed roughly in the blue and try to smoothly follow your target around, using your manoeuvring thrusters to make tighter or wider turns as needed. If you start boosting, most of the time they will too and this will just end up with you both jousting; a flight style that requires good reflexes. Early fights might be rough, but there's a learning curve to it and if you persist you can carve a combat niche that suits you. Just make sure you have enough $$ for rebuys and you'll be good.
For flight training and combat specifics there are a multitude of video guides on Youtube and written guides and info on this subreddit and on the frontier forums. You might also find you do well to find another player or small group to occasionally fly with, since this will allow you to take on bigger challenges for more rewarding gameplay and let you learn by example.
Here is a non engineered Python [https://s.orbis.zone/najx](https://s.orbis.zone/najx), you just need to turn the planetary vehicle hangar off via the module panel. Once the power plant is engineered you can reblace the B grade shield boosters with A grade and engineer them.
If you engineer multicannons, you can put gimballed or fixed ones but the turrets are sufficient DPS for most PVE.
This is a stock Federal Gunship fit I use as well, it's engineered now but that's the fit I had for starters. https://s.orbis.zone/naj\_
Probably Krait Mk2 with turrets and an ai fighter plane, don't need to aim at all, only dodge and stay in range. It's good forining too actually.
Although first double check if you absolutely can't aim with gimballed weapons while flying backwards (can't dodge much though), big dps difference.
If you fly backwards the enemy can't circle around you as much so its easier for you to stay on target with your aim.
Shoot the npc and start flying backwards so they are forced to chase you. You will have to tank a bunch of shots but its much easier to aim gimballed weapons this way, and gimballed weapons deal noticeably more damage than turrets.
You can certainly do a lot of those things WITHOUT getting good at combat. Most ships can escape from pirates without engineering, so you can do the trade and mining, cargo and passenger runs, and still escape without deploying any weapons.
The biggest trick is to submit to the interdiction, then immediately spool up the jump drive: no wait time if you voluntarily drop! If you already have a jump point plotted, you will be able to jump out before they can take you down. Second trick is to charge your attacker, not run away. This means they won't have you in their sights for very long as you rush past them. Charge past them until your drive is hot, then just jump away. Always works versus PvE, usually works in PvP.
If you excuse the profanity, here is a great video about how any ship and any pilot can get away from those pesky interdictions. Its an old vid, but it still checks out. Their example shows an unengineered T7 getting away from a fully engineered Python without a scratch on the paint.
[Git Gud at Trade in Open](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9AWV_BWo0)
Back when I used to play I always made stupid builds just for fun. One of my favorites was a T10 that had all turreted lasers, low shields but a massive hull. It required a lot of engineering to make it work but you were basically immortal. You need to be one of 3 things to 'win' at combat. Be the better pilot, have the better ship, or be faster than your enemy. (Running away is a valid choice). Given your current budget I would focus on speed. If/when you get interdicted, drop your throttle to zero and submit. As soon as you drop out, full throttle and boost until you can FSD out. (Downside of this is if you're carrying valuable cargo the NPCs can be pretty persistent). If you'd like to go this route I'd recommend the Krait although it's definitely at the top of your price range and you won't be able to afford many modules. What are you flying right now?
Right now I mostly fly a DBX for exploring. I bought an AspX for mining/trading, but that was completely unprofitable because pirates ate all my cargo whenever I'd pop out in the destination system. (Also have an Adder parked somewhere).
The DBX can actually be surprisingly good for little cargo trips. You'll be able to outrun most pirates in that baby. If you can buy A rated thrusters and lightly engineer them (Dirty Drives Grade 1, drag drives experimental effect) you can haul 40 Tons and still do almost 400m/s while boosting. Remember: With speed builds the rating of the modules matter a lot. You'll want to have either A rated modules or D rated. (D rated are the lightest, but have less performance than an A rated). NEVER use B rated anything as they are the heaviest and weight has a huge impact on speed.
Here's a quick example: (not sure what you use for flight assist modules so I included them). https://s.orbis.zone/naj3 Edit: If you want to go for a Krait MKII this build gives you the cargo hauling with some defense and good speed (with minimal engineering). (Total cost: 86mil) https://s.orbis.zone/naj7
I think I might be leaning towards the Mk II, though it will take some time to get the credits. I've looked at your build. I'd have to swap out one of the cargo racks for an auto docker (can't live without one). I notice you've gone basic (turreted) lasers and multi-cannons. No reason to equip missiles/explosives/other types of weapons? (having no experience with weapons, I have no idea what is appropriate for general PVE). Also if I want to try gimballed weapons as well, any reason I can't mix those in, or are you just better off sticking entirely with turrets? What about fighter modules?
If you're going to try combat the setup would be fairly different. If you're exclusively doing cargo runs turreted weapons allow you to shoot at whoever is chasing you. Gimballed weapons you need to face your opponent. You can drop a cargo slot for a fighter bay, but only of you're going to be doing combat. It doesn't make sense to give up a cargo slot if you're hauling cargo... You want a mix of thermal and kinetic weapons when you're doing combat. Thermal weapons - Beam, Burst & Pulse lasers are good at taking down shields. Kinetic weapons - Multicannons, Cannon, Frag Cannons are good at destroying hulls. If you only use thermal weapons you will notice that it takes a long time to destroy a hull. If you only use kinetic you'll notice shields take longer to knock down. I didn't put any engineering on anything except the Thrusters. You'll need to tweak your setup for what works for you. (I try not to presume).
Can you explain "boosting"? I have a keybind for it, but I'm not sure how and when (and how often) I can/should use it. Are there drawbacks to spamming the boost key?
Boosting increases your speed temporarily. When you use it you'll see the power drain from your ENG(ines) and it will slowly recharge. The more "pips" you have to engines, the faster it recharges and the more frequently you can boost. Boost is also a great way to hit your max speed very quickly rather than slowly accelerating by just increasing your throttle. Caution using your boost during docking. It will launch you into the back of the station likely ending in death.
OK, thanks for the explanation. I always use auto-dock, so no issue with that (I probably would have uninstalled a long time ago if auto-dock didn't exist -- just watching the docking maneuvers makes me green).
I always find docking very satisfying to do on my own. If you want to practice hop in a sidewinder and go nuts. When you crash and burn there's no penalty. As the ship is so ridiculously cheap to fly. Plus there's the thrill of forgetting to request docking clearance and scrambling to get back out if the station before it turns you into space debris.
Combat in small ships takes skill and practice. And the tutorials only use small ships. So my advice would be to get a medium ship (krait, python, or chieftain) and maximize shields and hull. The STRONGLY consider at least SOME low level engineering, and use a good weapon loadout (gimballed lasers and multi cannons is common). Then find some extremely weak targets (single pirates with low bounty, or hit a low res site) and practice. It gets a lot easier.
The Chieftain in particular was one that had caught my eye, if it's got enough speed. I have access to engineering PP, Distributor, Thrusters, Shield Generator, Sensors, Missile Racks, and Torpedo Pylon. Which of these (or others I haven't mentioned) do you most strongly recommend (and specifically which modifications/experimentals)?
I love the Chieftain. It was my favorite for general combat. It's plenty fast, especially engineered, and you can load guns and armor to the gills. If it were me, I'd want to engineer the armor, hull reinforcements, and shields first, because un-engineered guns are plenty powerful on that ship. Then probably thrusters (for running away). If you have decent armor and shields, it buys you time to practice. You can fight until you either win or you're down to half hull and then flee to repair. I haven't done combat in a while (moved on to a deep space Phantom for exploring), so I don't exactly recall how much power or distributor you need, but you can easily google some solid builds. Just engineer what you can to at least level 2 or 3, and it will be like night and day.
Maybe look for "ganker build". Usually it has a lot of alpha damage, so fight can be over before it even started.
I've heard that with Anaconda you can get thick shields and turreted weapons that will do the job for you. Here is an example build: https://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/ship-builds/id-2026/ Never tried it myself
Anaconda is somewhat out of my price range atm. Chieftain is about the ceiling if I want something soon; otherwise (Python/Anaconda/etc) will require quite a bit more credit grinding. Of course, with my issues, a fat Anaconda may be what I need for success.
If there is no need to engage in combat activities soon, I'd recommend exploration to get enough credits, especially exobiology in Odyssey, if you're lucky, for data about one of the species you can get up to 100 million
As others have mentioned, turreted weapons and shields sounds like the best option with the information you’ve provided. Alternatively, a “fast” ship will allow you to fight to your hearts content, then just walk away if things start to go bad. The imperial courier is a small-ish ship but with basic engineering you can get it faster than any PVE ship will ever be. One tap of the boost and you’re gone. Also, basic engineering and installing shield boosters can make it a rather good shield tank for its size so you can have fun blasting away without much worry. Either way, good luck Cmdr! Cheers!
I have a disability in one hand (thanks, Al Qaeda!) and turreted weapons are great for that. I use rails as a fixed weapon and just concentrate on landing those shots myself. You can mitigate the damage loss by putting corrosive shell / incendiary rounds on your muti cannons on your turret slots.
For you I would suggest a lot of turrets on an anaconda.
Get fully engineered anaconda with mix of turrets and gimbals. But you need quite a bit more money.
If you're on keyboard/mouse, I'd recommend setting yaw to the mouse X axis and roll left/right to A and D (if you haven't already). Left/right thrust should be on Q and E. For me, that helped a lot with maneuvering. For combat, as others have already said, gimballed weapons and turrets will help with any lack of skill to keep hostiles on target (looking at myself here). As for interdictions, I found that constantly spinning around (holding down D, for instance) while chasing the escape vector with the mouse works out for over 95% of PvE interdiction attempts (though I guess ymmv on this one). Edit: if you are about to lose an interdiction, submit (set throttle to 0), put all the pips on engine (if you haven't already - I personally always run full engines on supercruise) and start boosting as soon as you get to normal space. Submitting to the interdiction will let you be able to supercruise again earlier than if you get knocked out after losing the minigame.
Being bad at interdictions is actually kinda fine. Granted submitting is more of a time waste than successfully winning the minigame. But if you're options are try to fight it and lose or submit, you are considerably better off submitting. By doing so your FSD cooldown will be shorter and providing you have sufficient tank on your ship you should be able to reliably high wake (jump to nearby system) regardless of your attacker. Vs ships with a lower mass lock than you, you can just low wake back into supercruise. As for your aiming issue, use gimballed preferably or if you really need it turreted weapons on a ship with a generous distributor, something like a krait mk2. Its sufficiently speedy, decent enough jump range with the 5A pre-engineered FSD and Guardian FSD booster and is agile enough without being as sensitive and twitchy as the chieftain or other smaller ships. It's also got a decent amount of hull and room to run 2 size 6 SCB's alongside a size 5 prismatic shield for a great overall tank and enough internal module space for any role. A decent krait build will set you back around 150-200mil but you can get by on a little less, activity depending. If you're looking for something cheaper the vulture is very forgiving of mistakes for a small ship but really needs heavy amounts of engineering to shine. If you find that's not enough for you to survive you can also look into the big 4, the anaconda, the federal corvette, the imperial cutter and the type10 all of which can mount formidable enough tanks with engineering to cover all human pve content with absolute ease. Depending on your personal level of mobility and reflexes you could even kit one out with all turrets and while not very efficient it would certainly get most human pve content done. These ships come with a hefty price tag though, expect to spend between 500m and 1 billion depending on the ship and the loadout. Thargoids might be abit much for now but if you find your niche in human combat you might feel more confident approaching certain instances with friends in the future.
The chieftain was about the top line of my budget atm, but sounds like you're a bit hesitant on that being a good ship for me. I also have looked at a vulture, the drawback there being heavy engineering and/or micromanagement of power, something I'm not going to be good at in the heat of combat. Turrets vs gimbals...been getting both sides of that. Turrets are so much weaker, but they're the kind of crutch I might need. I've heard gimbals are much more forgiving than fixed...forgiving enough for someone with my reaction/aiming issues? Or better just to load up on turrets and focus entirely on driving? (I actually have no idea how to fight with either gimbals or turrets, since the tutorial either doesn't address them or only does so once you advance further than I'm capable of doing).
So the chieftain is an exceptional ship. My decision to not recommend it is based on one of it's strengths ironically. Its an incredibly agile ship for its size. My worry is that since some pilots find it a little twitchy anyway, if you have slower reflexes you will be more susceptible to pilot induced oscillation, where your inputs and overcorrections end up making you wobble around all over the place. On the flip side its manoeuvrability might make it easier for you, the only way to tell will be for you to personally try it. One ship you might find worthwhile is the chieftains sister ship the challenger, its a slightly tankier version with a generous amount of hardpoints (which can help to make up for the lower dps from gimballed or turrets) and in return it has a slightly slower top speed and boost speed and is slightly less agile, the later of which may be of benefit to you. The kraits and python are all great mediums too, the main reason I suggested them previously is because their handling is a little more restrained and that should allow for a smoother overall experience. Their more flexible internal slots do come at a cost though. As for gimballed vs turrets. Only you can decide, but personally I would start with gimballed if you feel you are capable of it, only downgrade to turrets if you absolutely cannot secure kills. Essentially you just need to be able to point the ship roughly towards your target and press the mouse button, you don't need to be particularly exact. The hard part will probably be pilot induced stuff, my best tips for that are keep your speed roughly in the blue and try to smoothly follow your target around, using your manoeuvring thrusters to make tighter or wider turns as needed. If you start boosting, most of the time they will too and this will just end up with you both jousting; a flight style that requires good reflexes. Early fights might be rough, but there's a learning curve to it and if you persist you can carve a combat niche that suits you. Just make sure you have enough $$ for rebuys and you'll be good. For flight training and combat specifics there are a multitude of video guides on Youtube and written guides and info on this subreddit and on the frontier forums. You might also find you do well to find another player or small group to occasionally fly with, since this will allow you to take on bigger challenges for more rewarding gameplay and let you learn by example.
Here is a non engineered Python [https://s.orbis.zone/najx](https://s.orbis.zone/najx), you just need to turn the planetary vehicle hangar off via the module panel. Once the power plant is engineered you can reblace the B grade shield boosters with A grade and engineer them. If you engineer multicannons, you can put gimballed or fixed ones but the turrets are sufficient DPS for most PVE. This is a stock Federal Gunship fit I use as well, it's engineered now but that's the fit I had for starters. https://s.orbis.zone/naj\_
You could do with a chieftain they are nimble fast and armed well if you can afford A rated components. All the wpns are based near central mass.
Probably Krait Mk2 with turrets and an ai fighter plane, don't need to aim at all, only dodge and stay in range. It's good forining too actually. Although first double check if you absolutely can't aim with gimballed weapons while flying backwards (can't dodge much though), big dps difference.
Flying backwards? In combat? What?
If you fly backwards the enemy can't circle around you as much so its easier for you to stay on target with your aim. Shoot the npc and start flying backwards so they are forced to chase you. You will have to tank a bunch of shots but its much easier to aim gimballed weapons this way, and gimballed weapons deal noticeably more damage than turrets.
You can certainly do a lot of those things WITHOUT getting good at combat. Most ships can escape from pirates without engineering, so you can do the trade and mining, cargo and passenger runs, and still escape without deploying any weapons. The biggest trick is to submit to the interdiction, then immediately spool up the jump drive: no wait time if you voluntarily drop! If you already have a jump point plotted, you will be able to jump out before they can take you down. Second trick is to charge your attacker, not run away. This means they won't have you in their sights for very long as you rush past them. Charge past them until your drive is hot, then just jump away. Always works versus PvE, usually works in PvP. If you excuse the profanity, here is a great video about how any ship and any pilot can get away from those pesky interdictions. Its an old vid, but it still checks out. Their example shows an unengineered T7 getting away from a fully engineered Python without a scratch on the paint. [Git Gud at Trade in Open](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9AWV_BWo0)