Elite Dangerous Catch-All

Weird... looked okay to me?

athros wrote:

So, apparently long range Missions and Smuggling out of Sothis is pretty lucrative right now. I'm going to get my Asp over there and give some of it a shot, and see if it's worth it.

Thanks for the tip. I pulled my Asp out of the dock and headed down there myself. Just arrived when it was time to call it a night, but prospects are good. My first glance at the board didn't have any smuggling missions I could take, but there was one that required Tycoon worth over 6 million. I figure with my current rank of Broker I'll probably be able to pick up missions in the 3 or 4 million range, and even at that rate I should be able to make something close to (or maybe a bit better?) than trading in my Anaconda if I get lucky. Or, even if not, it will be a fun change from grinding a loop for cash, and I'll be able to pick up some points towards my next exploration rank too perhaps.

zero, what's your goal as far as ships go now? I'm in a python grinding away and wondering if I should bother to try to get an anaconda, or just wait and hold out for a different ship.

Also, apologies for filthy skimming if I missed it, but is there somewhere local to Orcus to turn in Alliance bounties? I'm getting a ton from the RES but nowhere to turn in. I know I can use the map, figured I'd tap the hive mind for an easy answer first.

wheatabits wrote:

I did enjoy flying around, and I understand the "make your own story" thing. I enjoy trading and courier-ing as much as the next guy. So I can get down with that for sure. I guess, to tailor my question a bit more...I need a jumping off point. To say "start off with trading" is one thing, but if you could maybe say the literal first thing to do in each path (i.e. courier, trading, bounty) would that be possible? I guess I just don't know where to start, I can take my story from there I think. That was what got me last time and I ended up stopping, but at that time there was so little known about it that there was nothing online.

Something as simple as: For trading start by going to the 7/11 and buying a big gulp, those trade well at the corner of Jones and 5th...for Bounty.....

The first thing I always tell my friends to do when starting is go to a Nav beacon and hang around system security and wait for them to attack a wanted ship. Let them beat up on it a bit and then get a few hits in. You earn a nice bounty that you can turn in at the local station. My first upgrade would be to gimballed lasers. I absolutely hate fixed weapons (I suck with them). From there I'd concentrate on building up money for a new ship. Either an Adder if you like multi-purpose ships that let you mess with a few things or a Viper that is a great early combat ship.

I haven't been able to play the last couple of nights, but I've been taking up zeroKFE's advice on Viper outfitting and hitting low-intensity RES's for bigger bounties (I never realized the Kill Warrant Scanner increased the bounty until you mentioned it-- I just thouhgt it would label a target as "wanted" instead of "lawless"). Now the cheapest bounties I've hit are around 10K, and are regularly hitting 50-100K. Thanks again for the advice, zero!

zeroKFE wrote:
athros wrote:

So, apparently long range Missions and Smuggling out of Sothis is pretty lucrative right now. I'm going to get my Asp over there and give some of it a shot, and see if it's worth it.

Thanks for the tip. I pulled my Asp out of the dock and headed down there myself. Just arrived when it was time to call it a night, but prospects are good. My first glance at the board didn't have any smuggling missions I could take, but there was one that required Tycoon worth over 6 million. I figure with my current rank of Broker I'll probably be able to pick up missions in the 3 or 4 million range, and even at that rate I should be able to make something close to (or maybe a bit better?) than trading in my Anaconda if I get lucky. Or, even if not, it will be a fun change from grinding a loop for cash, and I'll be able to pick up some points towards my next exploration rank too perhaps.

wow 3-4 million? How far are these trips? occupied space is what maybe 250ly max distance between two spots? Figure you can pick up some rares and go to town. I'll have to check it out. I'm at entrepreneur now, so maybe a few things are opened up.

Asterith wrote:

zero, what's your goal as far as ships go now? I'm in a python grinding away and wondering if I should bother to try to get an anaconda, or just wait and hold out for a different ship.

Well, I guess my current goal is to be able to afford (and be allowed to buy) one of the new huge ships when 1.5 is released (probably an Imperial Cutter, since I'm an Earl with the Empire but only a Midshipman with the Federation). Or, if neither of those ships seems terribly fun when I play with them in the beta, then I suppose I'll have enough cash to do whatever I want outfitting myself for Horizons (i.e., buying SRVs, etc).

Of course, I still might have a ways to go before I can afford that -- I've only got about 40 million in the bank right now, since I recently spent quite a bit of my spare change going around and making sure all my ships were fully outfitted for their intended tasks, so that switching ships no longer requires shuffling around which ship has expensive parts. So, even if I sell my Anaconda to buy a bigger ship, I may not have enough to buy it, let alone outfit it.

About the Anaconda: it's hard to argue against it as a trade ship, and that's what I use it for. Incidentally, it also makes an exceptional explorer ship, but it's only marginally better than an Asp, so when you figure in the risk involved with the much larger insurance bill you it's probably smarter to just fly the smaller ship. Anyway, as far as trade ships go, it's pretty much the apex -- a Type 9 could be more profitable if you find an appropriate route, but the Anaconda can jump so much further and maneuver (relatively speaking) so much better that it's probably the better money maker most of the time.

But, well, for everything else I'm a bit lukewarm on it. When I first bought it I outfitted it for combat as best I could afford, and it certainly was awesome to be a truly invincible space fortress of death, but I still enjoy combat in my Python a lot (a LOT) more. While it's not the fastest or the most agile ship either, it does feel like it can actually move in a fight, you know? Of course, if I had a few hundred million credits more and could actually make a proper A specced Anaconda battleship, that might be a bit different, but I still think my personal preference would be for the experience of flying the slightly smaller ship.

And then there's the matter of docking at outposts, which is a necessity if you want to go wild running bulletin board missions. Of course, once we're able to dock and launch fighters in large ships (is that coming in 1.5/the first patch of season 2, or later?) that whole thing might get flipped on its head, but for now the Python remains my favorite ship in my fleet due to its unbeatable versatility. It's an amazing combat ship, a capable trader/smuggler, and the best ship for running a wide variety of missions.

(Caveat: an Asp is probably the best choice for abusing the new long distance smuggling missions. A Python is great for the short and medium range ones you'll find in the core worlds, but if you are going to try for the multimillion credit missions you'll find with high trade ranks out on the fringes of inhabited space, you're going to want the jump range of an Asp.)

So, I suppose my recommendations regarding the Anaconda right now would go like this:

- If you enjoy trading, buy one as soon as you can. Well, as soon as you can without selling your Python, maybe, unless you don't mind losing the flexibility of the Python AND are okay with losing 5 million or so on selling it and rebuying it later (because you'll probably want to rebuy one later :P). But anyway, if you do the trade game, you want an Anaconda, hands down.

- If you are looking for a combat ship, though, maybe don't bother, at least until you have in the high 200 or low 300 millions and can start to approach a genuinely good combat outfitting. Otherwise, save your money at the very least until we know a bit more about what the Federal Corvette and the Imperial Cutter are going to look like.

I visited a Hazardous RES, found tons of bounties in the 70K+ range (and one at nearly 200K), got my windshield smashed in, and died literally three seconds before I made it back to base.

Carlbear95 wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:
athros wrote:

So, apparently long range Missions and Smuggling out of Sothis is pretty lucrative right now. I'm going to get my Asp over there and give some of it a shot, and see if it's worth it.

Thanks for the tip. I pulled my Asp out of the dock and headed down there myself. Just arrived when it was time to call it a night, but prospects are good. My first glance at the board didn't have any smuggling missions I could take, but there was one that required Tycoon worth over 6 million. I figure with my current rank of Broker I'll probably be able to pick up missions in the 3 or 4 million range, and even at that rate I should be able to make something close to (or maybe a bit better?) than trading in my Anaconda if I get lucky. Or, even if not, it will be a fun change from grinding a loop for cash, and I'll be able to pick up some points towards my next exploration rank too perhaps.

wow 3-4 million? How far are these trips? occupied space is what maybe 250ly max distance between two spots? Figure you can pick up some rares and go to town. I'll have to check it out. I'm at entrepreneur now, so maybe a few things are opened up.

Well, Sothis is about 500 ly from Sol, and 400 ly or so away from wherever I was when I started my trip yesterday (somewhere in Sirius Corp space, since I was there for outfitting discounts). I was trying my hardest to turn the game off so I didn't look at anything other than the price on that 6 million+ Tycoon mission, but I imagine it was in the 300 ly to 400 ly range?

Anyway, if you use the relog trick to spam for missions (switch between game modes and you get a new batch of missions offered each time you log in), it shouldn't take too long to fill up your hold with illicit goods. We'll see when I get home tonight, but I figure with the 84 tons of cargo in my current Asp build I should be able to stack something in the range of 8 to 15 missions. Even if the broker level missions are only 2 or 3 million (I do suspect they'll be 3 to 4 million range, but we'll see about that as well), that's anywhere from like 15 to 45 million profit per trip out to the boonies and back.

The time each trip will take will be extremely variable, though -- 10 to 12 hops each direction is maybe 15 to 20 minutes each way? Then it will depend on how many stations you have to visit to drop off the goods. Worst case, each mission is a different station, so maybe 6 to 10 minutes per mission (if you were careful to not take any missions that were super far from the jump in point). So maybe a tad over two hours round trip if you are talking around 10 missions, bringing in (realistically) something between 20 and 40 million credits. At the very worst, that's still in the range of commodity trading in an Anaconda, and at the best, well, it's very good indeed.

Of course, you do need a high trade rank to start with if you want to be getting those huge numbers, but even still, I'd say that anyone with an Asp would be well served at least making one trip out to the boonies and back to see how it goes for them before smuggling missions inevitably get rebalanced a bit.

EDIT:

Gremlin wrote:

I visited a Hazardous RES, found tons of bounties in the 70K+ range (and one at nearly 200K), got my windshield smashed in, and died literally three seconds before I made it back to base.

Ouch. Deepest sympathies.

Looks like the HIP 8396, Almagest, Sothis, Ceos, and Robigo are going to get CG's in the coming days. GalNet News Link

For those behind a firewall:

GalNet News wrote:

15 OCT 3301
Earlier this year, the Sirius Corporation expanded into the systems of HIP 8396, Almagest, Sothis, Ceos, and Robigo. At the time, a number of economists predicted that these systems would witness dramatic change after being brought under Sirius Corp. control, but in fact the affected systems have remained much the same, with citizens reporting little difference to their everyday lives.

It seems, however, that the Sirius Corporation might simply have been biding its time. In a statement released today, Li Yong-Rui, the CEO of the Sirius Corp., announced ambitious plans to revitalise his company's new holdings:

"Over the coming weeks, the Sirius Corporation will subsidize a number of initiatives designed to revive the social and economic health of our new territories. These initiatives, which will rely heavily on support from independent contractors and pilots, will reinvigorate the economies of the affected systems, and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for our compatriots."

Roberta Unwin, an economist who regularly contributes to the Money Matters news feed, commented on the announcement:

"Wealthy organisations often expand into new areas without any immediate plans in mind. Sometimes it's because they think the area will become profitable – other times it's done to undercut a rival. It's called speculative expansion. It's actually rather common, although it usually takes place on a much smaller scale."

It appears the Sirius Corp. is eager to get started. The first of its initiatives is due to begin today, with the company appealing to independent pilots to deliver osmium to the HIP 8396 system, and promising to reward participants generously.

I wrote:

I'd say that anyone with an Asp would be well served at least making one trip out to the boonies and back to see how it goes for them before smuggling missions inevitably get rebalanced a bit.

And this morning's dev update mentions that a minor patch will be coming next week. It only specifically calls out fixing NPC interdiction issues, but it could easily include smuggling rebalancing too, so if you want to engage in a bit of good old fashioned profiteering, this might be the weekend to do it.

Gremlin wrote:

I visited a Hazardous RES, found tons of bounties in the 70K+ range (and one at nearly 200K), got my windshield smashed in, and died literally three seconds before I made it back to base.

Had a similar incident in a Compromised Beacon.. was after another fight, I had one ring of shields and saw a lone Wanted Federal Gunship.. Elite. Figured I could handle a lone ship.. wow he put on some pretty good manuevers and kaboom. 5MM credits down the drain along with well over 1MM of unclaimed bounties (maybe close to 3MM).

Thanks everyone for the assistance! I will check out the links in the OP as soon as I get back this weekend from work travel, and jump in my ship then. I will aslo work on setting up Voice Attack, as I just think its worth it for the "cool" factor. I use a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS system. I think I remember the game recognizes it and configures it immediately, which is cool.

I have a projector with a 120" screen in my Man Cave, might be cool to check out ED on that!

All this talk of ships makes me wonder do I even need my vulture. I am a big fan of fighting in my Python, if anything because even with shields at zero I can just turn on beamed turrets and pick off wanted Eagles or Sidewinders for easy cash in a PVE zone. Vulture jump range is just as bad as the Python so getting from point A to B is no faster, and cashing it in gets me that much closer to my tradeaconda.

If I want a pure combat ship, the new Federal ships seem really good.

Yeah, I keep my Vulture around mostly for the fun factor, but I haven't used it in a very long time. As you say, for PvE the Python outclasses it significantly enough that there's just not much reason to go back, other than to have a smaller insurance bill if you are going to try something stupid in combat.

Easy enough to rebuy it, though -- even if you bought it full price, you're only losing about 500k if you sell it and buy it again later. You can make up that loss with a one way trip in a trade fitted Anaconda carrying a commodity with a mediocre profit margin.

So this is a huge thread and I am not even sure where to start... I would like to join the GWJ Elite community in game... How can I do that?

Also: I'm finally used to my Asp, and I've got to say....it's not bad. I think I pooched fitting it (lots of B grade equipment, A Life Support, A Power Distributer) so I'm only getting 19LY max on a jump. I'm hoping to hit 5-6 million tonight to get a A rated FSD which should alleviate a bit of my problem with travel to Sothis. More than that, and I'm going to go for a solid A rated Asp. Weapon wise, I'm running 4 small pulse (gimbaled) and 2 medium Multi-Cannons (gimbaled), so it does pretty well with interdictions. One shield booster (A rated), chaff, heat sink and KWS in the utility slots. I'll post up a link to the ship tonight.

I'm also contemplating pledging to a faction again. Very likely Sirius Corp for the Packhound missiles. I'm not interested in the Empire or Federation factions and if FDev gets to enforcing the PP mechanics, the bottom 3 are going to fall off.

marmamic wrote:

So this is a huge thread and I am not even sure where to start... I would like to join the GWJ Elite community in game... How can I do that?

- Send out some friend requests to the folks who are active in the thread -- I think there's a spreadsheet somewhere with in game user names, but most are pretty much the same (I, for example, am zeroKFE in game as well).

- Join the "Veloxi" group. Veloxi will have to approve your membership, but his is the closest we have to an official private group. Many of us (myself included) also use the "Mobius" group, which is a very large PvE focused group managed by http://elitepve.com. The idea is to have as big a group as possible where there is a gentleman's agreement to not engage in PvP without prior agreement.

marmamic wrote:

So this is a huge thread and I am not even sure where to start... I would like to join the GWJ Elite community in game... How can I do that?

Join the Veloxi private group in-game, and send friend requests to the other players.

The first post has a bunch of useful resources.

Speaking about friend requests, when I logon I usually check to see who is on Veloxi group and spam friend requests. I usually play on Open so if you look me up and see I'm not on Veloxi, its not because I'm a random spammer, I just prefer playing in Open.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Speaking about friend requests, when I logon I usually check to see who is on Veloxi group and spam friend requests. I usually play on Open so if you look me up and see I'm not on Veloxi, its not because I'm a random spammer, I just prefer playing in Open.

Wait, where do you go to see who is logged into a group?

Obviously I can see what group my online friends are in, but I didn't realize there was a group membership list. Crazy!

What's the community thoughts on combat ships?
I have a well kitted Cobra, is it worth going to another ship as a stopgap before an anaconda (or anything else)?

zeroKFE wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

Speaking about friend requests, when I logon I usually check to see who is on Veloxi group and spam friend requests. I usually play on Open so if you look me up and see I'm not on Veloxi, its not because I'm a random spammer, I just prefer playing in Open.

Wait, where do you go to see who is logged into a group?

Obviously I can see what group my online friends are in, but I didn't realize there was a group membership list. Crazy!

If you go the friends/groups tab from the main menu, where it shows the list of groups you that you're a member of, you can go one level deeper to see the list of group members and who is online! Unfortunately there is no context menu to then add as friend, so you have to back into the add friend menu and add manually based on player name.

Taharka wrote:

What's the community thoughts on combat ships?
I have a well kitted Cobra, is it worth going to another ship as a stopgap before an anaconda (or anything else)?

If you are into Combat, I'd say a Vulture, and if you want pure combat, I'm not sure an Anaconda is the right answer long term. You have low agility and you'll have all this extra cargo hold space that isn't beneficial for combat purposes. You are a massive tank, but I'm not sure I'd wade into a hostile CZ solo as its hard to run if you get on the wrong side of a group of bad guys.

I really think the new federal combat ships can be kitted out pretty well. Almost like a combat focussed Python, sacrificing the all-around nature of a Python for more maneuverability.

Taharka wrote:

What's the community thoughts on combat ships?
I have a well kitted Cobra, is it worth going to another ship as a stopgap before an anaconda (or anything else)?

Yes.

That's a big question, and the answer depends on what you are really looking for.

The Cobra is a fine ship, but it's a multipurpose ship -- there is a cheaper ship that performs a bit better as a dedicated fighter (the Viper), a similarly priced ship that is much better (the DBS), and beyond it in price is, well, everything else before an Anaconda.

So, some questions, and then I'll give you my suggestions:

Other than combat, what types of gameplay do you enjoy, and what are you interested in trying out?

Are you interested in pure profit making potential, or is variety of gameplay more important?

Would you prefer to own just one ship that you can reoutfit to suit whatever you'd like to do, or would you like to have a collection of specialized ships?

EDIT:

Man, I really need to update my Coriolis ship comparisons to include the new Federal ships. I'll poke around at that in preparation, but unfortunately I never tried them out in beta so I only have their outfitting stats and second hand impressions to go by. Also, many of my old builds in there could use some tweaking too. Bah! This is what I get for taking a few months off to play other games, I guess.

zeroKFE wrote:

Other than combat, what types of gameplay do you enjoy, and what are you interested in trying out?

I'm also working up the Empire ranks, so cargo space (not on the trading level) is important.

zeroKFE wrote:

Are you interested in pure profit making potential, or is variety of gameplay more important?

Both and neither. I don't do well doing the same thing over and over (or same gameplay over and over), but I also don't care if I'm not making the absolute most money per minute I could possibly be making. As long as I have fun and can make steady money, I'm fine.

zeroKFE wrote:

Would you prefer to own just one ship that you can reoutfit to suit whatever you'd like to do, or would you like to have a collection of specialized ships?

I prefer to have multiple ships for different loadouts. The Cobra is my combat & empire ranking ship at the moment, but I also had (before the move to Orcus) a trading hauler.

Edit: I'm not interested in exploring at all.

Edit 2: Some of the ships I'm looking at: Fer-de-Lance, Imperial Clipper and Courier, Imperial Cutter (upcoming), The Hunter (speculated).
But I'm open to suggestions.

I really like my combat Vulture, but power management is a bit of a pain on it.

Okay, that's very helpful. It'll take me a bit to write things up since I'm probably going to update some of my ship builds too, but in the meantime I realized I should have asked one more question:

- When you say you have a well kitted Cobra, how does that translate into total assets? Like, is that 2 million invested in the ship, or 6 to 7 million?

zeroKFE wrote:

Okay, that's very helpful. It'll take me a bit to write things up since I'm probably going to update some of my ship builds too, but in the meantime I realized I should have asked one more question:

- When you say you have a well kitted Cobra, how does that translate into total assets? Like, is that 2 million invested in the ship, or 6 to 7 million?

I'll check tonight and get back to you, but probably in the lower millions, since I've never had 6 - 7 million credits.

Taharka wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Other than combat, what types of gameplay do you enjoy, and what are you interested in trying out?

I'm also working up the Empire ranks, so cargo space (not on the trading level) is important.

zeroKFE wrote:

Are you interested in pure profit making potential, or is variety of gameplay more important?

Both and neither. I don't do well doing the same thing over and over (or same gameplay over and over), but I also don't care if I'm not making the absolute most money per minute I could possibly be making. As long as I have fun and can make steady money, I'm fine.

zeroKFE wrote:

Would you prefer to own just one ship that you can reoutfit to suit whatever you'd like to do, or would you like to have a collection of specialized ships?

I prefer to have multiple ships for different loadouts. The Cobra is my combat & empire ranking ship at the moment, but I also had (before the move to Orcus) a trading hauler.

Edit: I'm not interested in exploring at all.

Edit 2: Some of the ships I'm looking at: Fer-de-Lance, Imperial Clipper and Courier, Imperial Cutter (upcoming), The Hunter (speculated).
But I'm open to suggestions.

Taharka wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Okay, that's very helpful. It'll take me a bit to write things up since I'm probably going to update some of my ship builds too, but in the meantime I realized I should have asked one more question:

- When you say you have a well kitted Cobra, how does that translate into total assets? Like, is that 2 million invested in the ship, or 6 to 7 million?

I'll check tonight and get back to you, but probably in the lower millions, since I've never had 6 - 7 million credits.

Okay, so let's assume you'll be keeping a trade focused ship in addition to working your way up to bigger and better fighters/mission runners then.

Incidentally, it's much easier to nail down a solid progression for pure trade ships. If you are a multi-role player (which you are) you might skip over one or two in the line for various reasons — for example, when going to a multipurpose ship like the Clipper, you might skip the Type 7 because the Clipper can be both a fighter and a trader (although not so good with missions since it can't dock at outposts). Or, you just might make enough cash from another kind of gameplay that you don't need to bother with a clunker that's not very fun to fly.

That looks something like this:

Hauler
Cobra (multipurpose)
Type 6 (candidate for skipping)
Asp (multipurpose)
Dropship (multipurpose, candidate for skipping, newly added to the list due to extreme price drop)
Type 7 (candidate for skipping)
Imperial Clipper (multipurpose)
Python (multipurpose)
Type 9 (more tonnage than an Anaconda, but many prefer an Anaconda for other reasons)
Anaconda

When talking about more combat focused ships, things get a bit more muddy, though. In most price ranges there are now at least two and often three roughly viable options, and there are a lot of factors where it's going to be very individual about what's the best choice.

——

So, first let's talk about near future options. So, if you only have in the realm of 2 to 4 million in assets, that's enough to switch to one of several options that are a bit more combat focused, but probably not enough to also keep around a decent trader. Once you approach 5 million or a bit more, though, you start to have more interesting options.

If you strip your Cobra back to a bare bones rare commodity trader build, that will only consume about 1.3 million. You'll probably want to upgrade that to a roughly 2.3 million starter Type 6 before too long, but that's beside the point.

Now that you've got your trader squared away, if you've got about 3 to 4 million left to play with, you've got some good options for your first dedicated combat ship: the Diamondback Scout and the Imperial Courier.

The funny thing about this price range is that those two ships and the Cobra all max out when fully equipped for combat in the 7 to 8 million range, but those other two ships are WAY, WAY more capable of both staying alive and putting other targets down. The Cobra is probably the best example of the multipurpose ship tax when trying to specialize in combat (a 2 to 3 million credit Viper outclasses it in most regards).

The biggest problem you'll have switching to one of those two ships is that you are going to be very light on cargo space, particularly if you want to carry around a healthy complement of shield cells. This means you might be locked out of some bulletin board missions that involve cargo that you could have handled in your Cobra. This is part 1 of the combat focused ship tax. (Part 2 is that you generally have a smaller power supply to work with, and thus have to make tougher choices regarding power usage.)

So, the DBS and the Courier.

The DBS is cheaper to buy initially (600 k vs 2.5 million), but for a decent starter outfitting the initial prices are a lot more similar — the Courier is actually a tiny ship, so it has smaller internals, and thus is cheaper to outfit.

Starter DBS for about 2.4 million
Starter Courier for about 3.7 million

The DBS is faster, more agile, and has a slightly stronger hull. Also, it jumps WAY farther than any other combat focused ship in the game, which is a very nice feature.

The Courier has FAR more shielding — roughly 2.5 times as much when comparing high end configurations. Also, it is tiny, and thus marginally harder to hit. Also, it's gorgeous inside and out, and sounds awesome.

Both are about equally light on cargo space — about 8 tons is the most you'll realistically get if you are carrying at least one shield cell bank.

As for firepower, it's a bit of a push.

The DBS has two medium and two small hard points, just like the Cobra and Viper. However, they are much better positioned than on those ships, and combined with its stellar agility, in practice it's going to easily outshoot either of those ships.

The Courier has three medium hard points. It still only has a size 3 power distributor, though, so your weapon capacitor is going to somewhat limit what you can use in terms of thermal weapons. Anyway, vs smaller ships, it probably packs a bit less punch than the DBS/Cobra/Viper hard point layout, but against larger ships (where the small hard points will have a damage penalty vs the hull) it's maybe a bit stronger.

If I was in the position of choosing between these ships, I have no idea what I'd choose. Probably the DBS, because I love the way it flies and that crazy big jump distance is amazing. However, the extra shielding on the Courier is an amazing advantage, and sitting in that cockpit and hearing those engines is just a wonderful experience. So, weigh your preference for style and durability vs your preference for speed and murderous potential, I suppose?

——

The next step beyond those two ships is an equally challenging decision, but for very different reasons.

Here, you are choosing between the Asp and the Vulture. Or maybe you'll have one of each.

The Asp is the king trader before you have 20 million or so to spend, so you'll almost certainly eventually end up replacing either your Cobra or your Type 6 trader with one. A starter trader build runs in the 9.5 million range, and a starter combat build around 12 million.

As a combat ship, it will be slower and less agile than either the DBS or the Courier, and will have shields in between them. However, it will pack a LOT more firepower, and will be far much functional for running missions and doing a little trading on the side, even when fully specced for combat, due to how much more flexibility it has in outfitting. (Also, it's the premiere exploration ship, but since you said that doesn't interest you, that's going to be less a factor than it is for many others.)

And then there's the Vulture. CarlBear mentioned it for a reason: it is the most pure pure combat ship in this game. It's the first ship discussed so far that remains a genuinely viable option in any combat scenario vs any other ship in the game. It's also probably the ship that most severely demonstrates the combat ship tax on power availability — basically, you either have to make severe tradeoffs in your outfitting (equipping underpowered thrusters or shields, or skipping shield cell banks and/or boosters) or you have to actively manage your power. I personally choose to actively manage my power in a Vulture, mostly by powering my shield cells on only when I need them (and letting my power priorities knock my boosters offline when I do so) but that's going to be down to personal preferences. Oh, and like the DBS and Courier, you've going to have very, very little cargo space.

But, the thing is, all that bullsh*t is totally worthwhile. When you switch to a Vulture from any of these other ships, you will feel like a murderous, vengeful god. I love this ship so much.

Anyway, here's a starter build for around 8.5 million credits.

So in this pricing tier, you are basically selecting between a really excellent multipurpose ship and the most purpose built combat ship in the game. Good luck choosing.

Oh, here's a comparison of higher end builds on all the ships mentioned so far:

http://goo.gl/zRVHlU

The builds aren't precisely what I'd recommend, but they are good baselines and are designed to provide the most accurate comparison between the ships, so just keep that in mind.

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The tier beyond this has changed a lot recently. It used to be that you would just say "Clipper, Python, Anaconda" and be done at this point. Now, the Dropship is a LOT cheaper, and there are two other Federation ships that make decent arguments of their own.

So, now you've got the Federal Dropship with a base price of about 14 million, the Federal Assault Ship around 19 million, the Imperial Clipper around 21 million, and the Federal Gunship at 34 million. But, that's base prices — decent starter outfitting for combat will be in the 30 to 60 million range for these ships, and A grade outfitting in the 50 to 100 million range. The Dropship will always be at the lower end of the outfitted prices, and the Clipper towards the top (although the Gunship is up there too).

The Clipper is unique in this tier in that like the Asp before it, it is also the premiere trader in the range as well, and a good trader Clipper outfitting only costs about 30 million. That alone is a really great reason to own one. Also, it's a particularly good ship for piracy and PvP, due to its large size.

However, also due to its large size, it can't dock at outposts, which all of the Federal ships (and the Python and Fer de Lance) can do. So, if one was more interested in mission running than optimizing trade, that might be an argument to look at the Federal ships. At a glance, to me it seems like the Assault Ship (the one priced in the middle, and priced closest to the Clipper, and outfitted most similarly to the Clipper) is probably the best choice and best value, but the Dropship is now a decent budget option, and the Gunship sure can pack on a lot of, well, guns… but I think I still would prefer the Assault Ship's loadout.

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Speaking of the next tier of ships in terms of base price — the Python and Fer de Lance — both start around 50 million, and both get really good in the 90 to 100 million range. That is, not much more than a fully kitted out Clipper. It depends on intended usage, of course, but for many scenarios either of these ships will significantly outclass a similarly priced Clipper.

In this tier, I do have a solid recommendation though: the Python. Like the Asp and Clipper, it's the go to ship for trading in this price range. Unlike those two ships, it barely gives up any combat efficacy in trade. (It actually used to be even better, but they nerfed its maneuverability characteristics a bit earlier in the year.)

The FDL is a beautiful ship, and fun to fly, but in practice it's hard to recommend. Where the Python has three large hard points and two mediums, the FDL has one huge and four medium. A huge hard point sounds great and powerful, right? Well, it's fun, and it has amazing burst damage potential (making it a much better choice if you are looking for a PvP ship than for PvE). But, the current options for that hard point are really limited, and you'll be hard pressed deal the consistent, overwhelming damage potential provided by the Python. This might change soon though — there have been rumors of new huge weapon options coming soon — but for now at least, I still easily give the nod to the Python in this price range almost every time.

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Finally, the Anaconda. Its base price is 142 million, but even for a trader build you'd better come to the party with over 180, and have at least 10 to 15 more for insurance and trade capital. A starter combat build will run at a bare minimum around 215 or 220 million, and A grade closer to 500 million.

It's currently the only game in town at this size, and when well outfitted it really is an impenetrable fortress of doom. However, it moves like one too, so as I mentioned earlier on the page (or last page), I still use my Python for combat, and relegate my Anaconda for trade only.

However, coming soon in patch 1.5 (December, probably?) we'll have the Federal Corvette and Imperial Cutter, which will be in roughly the same class of ship. There is lots of speculation that both will be bigger, more expensive, and more powerful than the Anaconda, but there isn't really a lot of information yet.

The Corvette has been described as the biggest flyable ship, and has two huge, one large, two medium, and two small hard points (where the Anaconda has one huge, three large, and the same amount of medium and small hard points), which sounds like a firepower side grade to me — more burst, but less sustained damage, unless there really are a lot more options for huge hard points.

The Cutter we know even less about. Chances are it will be a lot prettier than the other two, and have awesome engine sounds though.

But, no word about whether either or both will be treated as "combat focused" ships, and thus sacrifice cargo and power flexibility for combat prowess. I certainly hope that at least one will fly a bit better. But other than that, it's anyone's guess.

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(Oh, also worth noting that 1.5 will bring the Viper Mk4, the Cobra Mk4, and the Asp Scout. The new Viper and Cobra probably mix things up in the DBS/Courier price range quite a bit, and the Asp Scout will probably do the same with the Vulture and the Asp Explorer. So, yeah, come December most of what I said above will change quite a bit.)