Ships How much fun is this!

[Harker]

Ohmygod, so as a beta backer I'd originally hopped into the Freagle, took it out for a spin, appreciated the extra weapon slot over the Freewinder and then promptly sold it to pay for bigger and 'better' ships.

Now as part of the Mac/PC beta (since my main game pilot is way out in the boonies), I thought I'd break the silence with a bit of pew pew and picked up my Eagle from Dalton Gateway, tarted it up with a low cost paint job, and headed out to a RES.

Quite frankly, I'd forgotten how much fun it was. I've been pootling round in Cobra's, Asps and Type 6's for months and got used to a certain sluggishness when flying. Not so the Eagle - it twists and spits like a cat on a hotplate, stops and starts on a dime and has an incredible TIE-fighter-esque whine when you hit the boost. Add in the great visibility, tight weapon placement and let's face it, sporty looks, I think it's my new favourite runabout.

Some recent posts have called for it's speed to be buffed, but quite frankly it doesn't need it. The agility of the Eagle means it just out-circles anything. Due to a slight lapse in concentration, I'd accidentally replaced my shield generator with some shield cells (!) and was running around shieldless. On the way back to an outfitters, I was interdicted by a Python. Curious to see how it would handle, I submitted, and then proceeded to confound the beast by just staying on his tail and beating him down with just my starter fixed pulses and a top-mounted burst laser. He just couldn't get his guns to bear and was soon sucking vacuum and wondering what happened.

Anyone who says the Eagle is redundant after you hit a certain credit balance needs to go out and rediscover it. Especially that boost whine!

 

[Vasious]

Well Said

 

[Gully Foyle]

That's some good shootin' there pard.

The Eagle is sometimes underused by folks in a hurry to climb the ship ladder IMO.
I still have mine from Beta.
o7 CMDR

 

[Wizz]

A bump for the coolest ship to fly in this game!

It's one of the few ships which are challenging to fight npcs in. Dog style fighting Instead of long range tank sniping.
It being so fragile makes it so much fun to fly.
And RES areas are especially a lot of fun. It allows you to hide behind the rocks

2 thumbs up for this nimble fighter!

 

[Ziljan]

The eagle is my favorite ship in concept. Unfortunately dexterity alone is almost worthless. If a ship can out-boost you, then they can joust you into smithereens in 2 passes. Dexterity doesn't matter if you can't stay on their six with they hit the afterburner. Top this off with a weak hull, weak shields, weak power loadout, and puny armament, and you have the galaxy's most beautiful flying coffin.


Very inspirational post, but I think the Eagle clearly needs at bare minimum a speed upgrade. Given its fragile nature, it should be the fastest ship in the game. Otherwise, what is the point of being so lightweight?

 

[Mephane]

The eagle is my favorite ship in concept. Unfortunately dexterity alone is almost worthless. If a ship can out-boost you, then they can joust you into smithereens in 2 passes. Dexterity doesn't matter if you can't stay on their six with they hit the afterburner. Top this off with a weak hull, weak shields, weak power loadout, and puny armament, and you have the galaxy's most beautiful flying coffin.


Very inspirational post, but I think the Eagle clearly needs at bare minimum a speed upgrade. Given its fragile nature, it should be the fastest ship in the game. Otherwise, what is the point of being so lightweight?

Yepp, I have been saying this for a long time. Any form of agility advantage is nullified when a) fast enemies can simply get out of range quickly, turn around and joust, and b) big ships can simply fly backwards, firing at you while you lack the speed to counter it (e.g. by flying swiftly past them to get out of their firing arcs, then turning around to firing into their back).

It's the smallest, most fragile, most nimble dogfighter and yet almost as slow as a Python.

On the way back to an outfitters, I was interdicted by a Python. Curious to see how it would handle, I submitted, and then proceeded to confound the beast by just staying on his tail and beating him down with just my starter fixed pulses and a top-mounted burst laser. He just couldn't get his guns to bear and was soon sucking vacuum and wondering what happened.

Anyone who says the Eagle is redundant after you hit a certain credit balance needs to go out and rediscover it. Especially that boost whine!

Currently, the AI is severely lacking in many such combat situations. A human player in that Python would have destroyed you easily, you wouldn't even have been able to run away because you're hardly any faster than them. Here's hoping the AI upgrade in 1.3 enables NPCs to deal intelligently with such an encounter, maybe that will wake people up and show them how some ships (not just the Eagle) are currently utterly underwhelming when facing anything but the dumbest opponents.

 

[Ziljan]

b) big ships can simply fly backwards, firing at you while you lack the speed to counter it (e.g. by flying swiftly past them to get out of their firing arcs, then turning around to firing into their back).

It's the smallest, most fragile, most nimble dogfighter and yet almost as slow as a Python.
.

You speak the truth Mephane. I use the flying backwards technique all the time in my Vulture to obliterate eagles in a few seconds Though you can overcome it with boosting forward, if they get a few solid hits on you first, the battle is pretty much over. Also, I have found that clever use of F/A off also helps to stick to an enemies six, or their soft underbelly. But on the Eagle this doesn't work as well because in order to do this we have to put pips to engines, which means we can be 2 shotted, or we can hit like a flea with asthma. Either choice is a bad one. So yes, you are right, an Eagle is only decent vs low ranked AI.

 

[Arsen Cross]

I would be flying an Eagle for all of my combat if it wasn't so underwhelming. I love the eagle immensely. It's the first ship I bought a skin for (white rail baby, YEAH! Matching my RL ride!)

I really really feel the eagle needs a boost. I ditched it pretty quick once I started combating upgraded ships. I perosnally would like to see the following upgrades done to the eagle:

• Increase base speed from 240m/s to 290m/s
• Increase maximum powerplant size to 3
• Switch one of the Class 1 hardpoints to Class 2

As it stands now, not only is the Eagle inferior in terms of speed, but a grossly large margin it also can't be fully upgraded effectively. The class 2 powerplants cap out at 9.6MW power output. A fully upgraded eagle can use over 12MW with weapons deployed and all modules on and that is without even upgrading the KWS past E grade, and without using the best weapons available.

I feel that increasing the speed, powerplant size, and switching one of the hardpoints to Class 2 will improve this ship while still keeping it balanced. But most importantly, it will retain the ships competitiveness further along in the game. I love the Eagle. It's my favorite ship to fly in the game hands down. But the fact that fitting one for combat leaves absolutely no room to do anything else in the game... Makes it a very underwhelming ship considering how weak it is.

EDIT: I thought it worth mentioning that when I put on A3 (best possible) thrusters on the Eagle it goes from 240m/s top speed to 263ms... With FOUR pips in engines. Tops out at 376m/s with boost and RAPIDLY loses that speed. This is without any tonnage being used on weapons. It can outrun my Python by about 10m/s.

 

[Collider]

I also like the Eagle, specially the sounds it makes. I recognize this nimble ship as a group role fighter. It isn't supposed to stand in a fight one on one. But matched against three or four picking at your shields with beam lasers and that is another story.
Of course, one may say that it is easy to pick one by one. Easy to imagine the poor performance then, that's why I see it as support for other large vessels.

 

[Ziljan]

I also like the Eagle, specially the sounds it makes. I recognize this nimble ship as a group role fighter. It isn't supposed to stand in a fight one on one. But matched against three or four picking at your shields with beam lasers and that is another story.
Of course, one may say that it is easy to pick one by one. Easy to imagine the poor performance then, that's why I see it as support for other large vessels.

If you could dock several eagles in a larger ship, and that larger ship had superior jump capabilities to quickly bring those fighters to a distant battle (say with Thargoids in a distant quadrant) and then to redock, and repair those same ships afterwards, then I might be able to imagine Eagles as a support vehicle. But in the game as it stands, the Vulture fills the same role and is vastly superior in every way. Ergo, the Eagle is simply a low grade ship with no lasting purpose in the game other than as a stepping stone. Why waste such amazing art and fun flight experience on an a ship with no practical advantages to recommend it? Cost? The rebuy on a Vulture is a pittance for most players already.

 

[Wizz]

The eagle is my favorite ship in concept. Unfortunately dexterity alone is almost worthless. If a ship can out-boost you, then they can joust you into smithereens in 2 passes. Dexterity doesn't matter if you can't stay on their six with they hit the afterburner. Top this off with a weak hull, weak shields, weak power loadout, and puny armament, and you have the galaxy's most beautiful flying coffin.


Very inspirational post, but I think the Eagle clearly needs at bare minimum a speed upgrade. Given its fragile nature, it should be the fastest ship in the game. Otherwise, what is the point of being so lightweight?

Yes, this is very much so.
In pvp this ship is absolutely useless.
But against NPC's you don't have the speed problem.
NPC's won't boost away from you far enough to make you sweat.

Yes, I would also love a speed boost for the eagle to make it more competitive in PVP.
But the weak hull and shields arent the problem.
If you're a good enough pilot, you won't even need shields on an eagle (against NPC's), unless the target uses turreted weapons.
Just stay on their tails and you're good to go!

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Five NPC Eagles (winged/grouped/flighted) can kill a lot of single targets. Ask Sarah.

 

[CMDR Heydan Seegil]

I have 0 problem with speed in mine. However I sport the 3A thrusters. The issue I come to is power. If we could drop a slightly larger power plant in it then it would be perfect. As it stands now I gotta engineer it up to make it.