Ships 1.5 Beta - SPOILERS

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I tried a Cutter last night and it's very nice for a Trade-Cutter with 536T of cargo and can defend itself against anything - only ~525-750 million. I guess I'll have to start doing missions for the Empire if I want to get one in-game. I hate running from pirates! It actually kind of reminds me of being in the space cow after being in fighters for a while, but it is much faster. I haven't had a chance of testing it against Pythons or Condas yet, but I'm sure it will do fine. No problems against smaller ships. I think I'd use all turrets in a trade setup, though I'm not sure what to do with the huge hard point - we really need more options for that.

I launched from two stations (after waiting 20 minutes for the shields to charge) and didn't even bump the shields in the slot, although I did use the DC for docking. You'd think you could charge your shields faster using station power.

Anybody know if it is possible to exit the station with gear up, or will you always get stuck?

[Icpmcp]

I want to ask you guys some things since you have the beta(and I don't):
Did anyone try out the Federal Corvette yet ?
And if yes what do you say about the hardpoint placement ?
Would you recommend it to someone who doesn't use plasma accelerators / cannons ?
Because from what I've seen its a pointless ship(better shield than anaconda but less than cutter{If the info on the wiki is correct} and less armor than both, less jump range) besides its looks.
The Cutter seems way more worthy to upgrade to but I like the Corvettes Design more(Cockpit interior for example)

[blazingmaniac]

To me. I was not a fan of the corvette. I was really looking forward to it and it is a good ship.... but
I don't like the single large and 2 medium hard points placements. The 2 huge hard points are a waste until such time that if / when we get more class 4 weapon variety. And the jump range it abysmal.
The cutter is a lot more viable certainly for my needs. It has better hard point options 1 x huge. 2 x large 4x medium. It's boost is 350 and it has decent FSD range so you can get about in it.
It does not handle itself so well in combat. It's slow to get on target however when it does get into firing position it's plain nasty for the enemy
And it can haul a lot of cargo. However it's going to be really expensive and we still don't know the rank requirements for either ship.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I flew the Corvette tonight. It didn't feel like a big warship. With the single large hard point on the bottom, it doesn't really group well with the other hard points. And why does this big ship have 2 medium and 2 small hard points? I guess it's because they give you 2 huge ones. It's not so fast, but it is very maneuverable. I put two 3D turrets in the huge hard points to take care of ships behind me (I still think pulses actually do more damage).

There is power to spare, but the shields are weak for such a large ship and take forever to recharge. As an armed merchant trader it can handle itself. With maximized shields, it can carry 488T vs 340T for a Conda and 536T for a Cutter. If you don't mean to stick around and fight, then you can use smaller shields and carry a lot more cargo, especially in the Cutter. And as said before, the jump range is only about 10-11LY, so that's not so good. It can certainly defend itself better than a T-9, but at a cost.

So imho, the Cutter fails both as a trader and as a warship. If they increase the jump range, and/or upgrade the medium & small hard points (and get more huge options), then it could really be something. Until then, I think the Cutter really has it beat - for an armed trader. I'd still go with cheaper ships for combat.

[pargyrak]

I am keeping the Conda for the moment...
More tank less shields maneuverability between the Cutter and the Corvette
More DPS than the both of them and jump range.

More versatile also. Can be reconfigured to be a Battle an explorer or a trader. Does not excel in any of them but still it is very good all rounder
till you have enough money and ranks to get both the Corvette and the Cutter and an Asp and a Python

Let's see what happens with the SCB nerf in the 1.5

[TorTorden]

FD is kind of moronic when it comes to public announcements,.

They only mention the nerf in the newsletter and people go a bit apeshit.
But what they could have mentioned first is the introduction of the bi-weave shield mods with something like 2/3 faster regen, and they are tweaking how much (particularly for larger ships) how much power they can draw during shield reform (this requires SYS energy) which is great, at this time, I could put one pip into SYS and the bar would hardly ever move.

Combine these and you will only need cell banks when shit really starts stinking, and quite honestly with the boost coming to hull reinforcements I might as well just tank those incidents there, and keep my slots for the new internals coming in 2.0.

As for the new ships I'm quite underwhelmed from what I hear, yes they can have slightly more shields than my conda, but I just downgraded my conda from 1400MJ shields to 1200MJ and can't tell the difference.

By the sound of it I might just ignore the corvette entirely myself I don't see it beating out my conda for anything but size.
I might try the cutter though as a replacement for my trading anaconda, looking now at a fit with 728T, and 15Ly jump for no more than 300 mil according to coriolis, with upcoming FSD juice this might actually make some moolah..

[pargyrak]

Downloaded beta 3 now and I am building an A-rated Anaconda to test the heat produced by 6A 6B 5A 5B 4A and 4B SCBs

Can not test though yet as I don't think I will be able to get out or in the mailslot with Keyboard and mouse and my poor Intel graphics card on my laptop

need to get one of these Alienware ones

[pargyrak]

7A shield with 8 A0 Shield boosters and 2 pips at SYS took 3 minutes to come online