I've recently gotten my hands on the absolutely sexy Imperial Clipper. At the moment I've set it up as a freighter, trading my way to the credits needed to upgrade this sexy beast. I have a few observations I'd like to point out.
1. After flying so long in a Vulture, flying a Clipper has been a pretty interesting transition. This thing is fast - even stock, this monster seems to require a lot of fine tuning of the throttle inside a station. With my Vulture at four pips to engines, I could control its speed fairly regularly and keep it around 80m/s, whereas if I'm not careful, my Clipper will hit 120-150 inside a station with landing gear deployed. I've worked my rear off getting this clipper, I don't want to lose it to an unfortunate collision, so I tend to clear pips from the engine inside a station.
2. Docking at a station is annoying in this thing. I don't trust docking computers so I dock manually. I'm never entirely sure where the landing gear is, so I've had to take a different approach to docking. Whereas with all my other ships, I simply fly up to the landing pad and slide into the target, I have to fly much higher in the Clipper to control where I come down using my vertical thrusters.
3. The momentum on this thing is ridiculous. I'm not taking this thing at RES areas any time soon. Not until I've gotten the hand of maneuvering this thing. I've yet to do any combat tests. Hell, I've yet to be pulled over by anything, not even pirates.
Oh well. I'll fly it long enough that I'll get used to its quirks. This is the ship I plan on making a name for myself in Powerplay with. Now on to the meat and potatoes.
The first thing I've set as my priority for upgrading is the FSD, but that's for trading concerns right this moment. Fully laden this thing's jump range really craters so I plan on getting that A5 FSD ASAP. But beyond that, I need advice. Where should I sink my trading profits first? Does the ship absolutely NEED everything A rated as fast as possible?
For basic defense I've just slapped on some gimballed pulse lasers in every slot relative to the hardpoint side. This is a ship I know that has lousy hardpoint placement, so the gimbals almost seem a must. What sort of weapons should I be fitting in these slots? I couldn't reliably put beams in my Vulture because of the Vulture's low power capacity, but looking at the Clipper's available power capacity with an A ranked power plant, it's not going to have many issues.
And what about shields? Eventually I will get those expensive A7 shields, but will it suffice to use the class 6 shields or does it need the class 7s?
This is my first big ship, and the one with my first major expense sink. I need to know how to get this thing kicking tail, or at least get everything available for it to do any job it needs to do. It's going to be a long time before I go for anything bigger, and in the end, I doubt I will.
1. After flying so long in a Vulture, flying a Clipper has been a pretty interesting transition. This thing is fast - even stock, this monster seems to require a lot of fine tuning of the throttle inside a station. With my Vulture at four pips to engines, I could control its speed fairly regularly and keep it around 80m/s, whereas if I'm not careful, my Clipper will hit 120-150 inside a station with landing gear deployed. I've worked my rear off getting this clipper, I don't want to lose it to an unfortunate collision, so I tend to clear pips from the engine inside a station.
2. Docking at a station is annoying in this thing. I don't trust docking computers so I dock manually. I'm never entirely sure where the landing gear is, so I've had to take a different approach to docking. Whereas with all my other ships, I simply fly up to the landing pad and slide into the target, I have to fly much higher in the Clipper to control where I come down using my vertical thrusters.
3. The momentum on this thing is ridiculous. I'm not taking this thing at RES areas any time soon. Not until I've gotten the hand of maneuvering this thing. I've yet to do any combat tests. Hell, I've yet to be pulled over by anything, not even pirates.
Oh well. I'll fly it long enough that I'll get used to its quirks. This is the ship I plan on making a name for myself in Powerplay with. Now on to the meat and potatoes.
The first thing I've set as my priority for upgrading is the FSD, but that's for trading concerns right this moment. Fully laden this thing's jump range really craters so I plan on getting that A5 FSD ASAP. But beyond that, I need advice. Where should I sink my trading profits first? Does the ship absolutely NEED everything A rated as fast as possible?
For basic defense I've just slapped on some gimballed pulse lasers in every slot relative to the hardpoint side. This is a ship I know that has lousy hardpoint placement, so the gimbals almost seem a must. What sort of weapons should I be fitting in these slots? I couldn't reliably put beams in my Vulture because of the Vulture's low power capacity, but looking at the Clipper's available power capacity with an A ranked power plant, it's not going to have many issues.
And what about shields? Eventually I will get those expensive A7 shields, but will it suffice to use the class 6 shields or does it need the class 7s?
This is my first big ship, and the one with my first major expense sink. I need to know how to get this thing kicking tail, or at least get everything available for it to do any job it needs to do. It's going to be a long time before I go for anything bigger, and in the end, I doubt I will.
