iCourier vs. FAS

[Iori]

Sorry, wat? [weird]

All three imperial ships are primarilly combat ships. In comparison to their federal counterparts they have slightly worse weaponry, but are faster and have better shields.
Or do You mean they are not the "hold fire to win" ships like FAS? No, they are not and that, in my eyes, is their biggest plus.

Yeah, the Federation having superior combat ships is a plus for the Empire... right.

Do you know what happens with this horrible game design? That imperials are forced to rank up in the Federation to be able to fight against the Federation, which is pure .

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

As far as shields go, the Courier has good shields for its size, but a ship like the FAS will strip them easily due to its agility and firepower. They're only good for the size of the ship against other small ships.

The Cutter has good shields and cargo. Horrible combat ship. It's the hardest ship in game to obtain and it's a one trick pony.

The shields of the Clipper? Lol. Yeah, no.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yeah, the Federation having superior combat ships is a plus for the Empire... right.

Do you know what happens with this horrible game design? That imperials are forced to rank up in the Federation to be able to fight against the Federation, which is pure .

I didn't say Imperial ships are inferrior. I said they have less firepower, balanced out by other advantages.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

Sorry, wat? [weird]

All three imperial ships are primarilly combat ships. In comparison to their federal counterparts they have slightly worse weaponry, but are faster and have better shields.
Or do You mean they are not the "hold fire to win" ships like FAS? No, they are not and that, in my eyes, is their biggest plus.

Faster and better shields (mostly). So, they're really only good at running away from Federation ships and surviving long enough to jump out.

 

[Chris Simon]

Faster and better shields (mostly). So, they're really only good at running away from Federation ships and surviving long enough to jump out.

Heheh, no.
But I won't explain that to You. Ultimately everyone flies what they are comfortable in.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

Heheh, no.
But I won't explain that to You. Ultimately everyone flies what they are comfortable in.

They are flat out inferior to fed ships in head to head combat. I like my fed ships. I have a Cutter. I use my FAS for combat purposes though, due to the fact that it is flat out superior to all of them in a dog fight. By far.

The Imperial ships can't stand up to the FAS in combat. It just takes longer for them to die. The Gunship and Dropship have horrible maneuverability, so it isn't as bad. The Vette vs cutter is just silly though. The Cutter isn't good in combat at all.

The Courier is crippled by its distributor in combat. It can't sustain fire, and even if it could, it has very weak firepower anyway.

The Clipper has horrible hard point placement, glass shields, and it can be mass locked by the FAS (which is ridiculous).

 

[Iori]

I didn't say Imperial ships are inferrior. I said they have less firepower, balanced out by other advantages.

Being faster in a straight line doesn't balance the low firepower, specially when the federation have even more advantages, like the turn rate, larger capacitors, better armor and better HP placements.

There is a reason why the imperials are flying federation ships, and that doesn't say much in favor of the supposed "advantages" of imperial ships.

 

[StiTch]

I've got a lot of experience with the Courier in combat and some experience in the FAS too. I love both ships.

I'm not shocked if this is the result you get without much iCourier experience. It's a different kind of agile to most ships.

A lot of people see agility as pitch speed, and with some good vertical/lateral thrusting thrown in. The courier certainly doesn't have the strongest pitching, but it's got some decent lateral/vertical thrusting. The main advantage I get from the Courier however is how much less momentum it seems to carry than other ships. When you ask it to change direction, it changes direction. It also gets some respectable speed. What it makes is a very good FA OFF ship-movements are precise and it adjusts well to quick changes. I've had excellent success using this to sit on the inside of ships that are trying to turn in to it, and then strafe past them while hitting their power plant.

What this ship needs to avoid is jousting matches, where it gets vapourised 100% of the time. It lacks serious firepower and yes the shields are great for its size-but they're by no means invulnerable, and recharge very poorly (hence my use of bi-weaves, which suit the iCourier perfectly).


For all the talk of the iCourier's shield strength, its real forte - for me - has been FA OFF flying and crawling around enemies. It dispatches an anaconda far more easily than it dispatches a vulture, and with a good loadout is a total subsystem wrecker. It also notably requires a clever loadout to save weight while adding bulk, because if kept light it's much more agile than people think and neatly hits the higher register of speeds (and man...that boost sound...)


The FAS, like its earlier brother the Vulture (come on, we know that's what it is here ), fits the more typical description of agile, and without learning its ins and outs is a more "natural" dogfighter - not to mention completely drowning the iCourier's firepower.

 

[Iskariot]

So I just took my icourier out for a spin in a haz res and the first ship i ran into was a deadly fas with frags. I put 2 pips into engines and, playing around with various throttle positions, was unable to get on his tail...he was turning inside my circle and burning my shields down. I could even boost past him and try and get around him but he was instantly facing me and firing away no matter where I went. I did some damage to him mainly by jousting as i went past to try and get around him, but eventually I BSR'd and went back to base to re-evaluate my setup.

My question is, is the FAS really more agile than a tiny supposedly-nimble ship like the courier? Do I need to go back out and throw 3-4 pips to engines? I feel that the distrib is so poor on the courier that with that much power to engines i'd be limited to running pure kinetics in the hardpoints.

Any thoughts/suggestions from courier veterans? I'm just a bit surprised as I have flown an assortment of craft including the vulture and fas and expected the courier to run circles around the fas.

The FAS AI is one of the most difficult to take on in the game. I love to take them on but I am always careful and try to dictate the moment of engagement.
Be very, very careful if FAS are in wings. They can strip you of your shields and hull very quickly.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

Actually, the biggest problem with the Courier is that it really has no purpose. It doesn't really do anything well, but it is also horrible as a multirole. It is worse than a Cobra MK III in almost every way, but far more expensive and locked behind a rank requirement. It also has very limited internals and horrible heat management.

The ship needs a buff.

 

[StiTch]

Actually, the biggest problem with the Courier is that it really has no purpose. It doesn't really do anything well, but it is also horrible as a multirole. It is worse than a Cobra MK III in almost every way, but far more expensive and locked behind a rank requirement. It also has very limited internals and horrible heat management.

The ship needs a buff.

It could do with a firepower buff - that'd be tasty. But as I've mentioned above, it's a ship you need to learn to fly properly. It has some perks that I find make it a great bounty hunting ship for areas like compromised nav beacon, and its only real downside is it punches straight through power plants of big ships in seconds and then spends a minute removing the rest of the hull hp

Ah well...chance to exercise cruelty and destroy the life support/canopy and beat on them in the knowledge they're suffocating...

 

[Chris Simon]

Actually, the biggest problem with the Courier is that it really has no purpose. It doesn't really do anything well, but it is also horrible as a multirole. It is worse than a Cobra MK III in almost every way, but far more expensive and locked behind a rank requirement. It also has very limited internals and horrible heat management.

The ship needs a buff.

That's an awesome idea! Let's take a reference ship in a category and put it in the middle, buff all ships that are worse and nerf all the ships that are better. That way we will have ships that are all the same and balanced and everyone will have a freedom of choice in shape. No fun required.
Yah. [hehe]

EDIT: Also I would like to remind everyone who started this "Courier isn't a good ship" OT that OP's point is that they have problem defeating ten times heavier and ten times more expensive ship. I personally don't have problem with that and I am kind of wishing that it would be an actual thing in Elite.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

That's an awesome idea! Let's take a reference ship in a category and put it in the middle, buff all ships that are worse and nerf all the ships that are better. That way we will have ships that are all the same and balanced and everyone will have a freedom of choice in shape. No fun required.
Yah. [hehe]

That's a nice straw man. I'm saying that 's 2.5 million credit, rank-locked ship is worse in every way than a 400k multirole ship. The Courier either needs to be better at multirole, or become more focused. A distributor and heat management buff would do that. It would be a more combat focused ship without stepping on the toes of the more expensive dedicated heavy fighter (Vulture)

 

[Chris Simon]

That's a nice straw man. I'm saying that 's 2.5 million credit, rank-locked ship is worse in every way than a 400k multirole ship. The Courier either needs to be better at multirole, or become more focused. A distributor and heat management buff would do that.

If you put heavier PD on Courier, it would do more harm than good, imho.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

If you put heavier PD on Courier, it would do more harm than good, imho.

Weight management is another design flaw. Every extra ton effects it more than any other ship, even the other light ships.

None of this is even mentioning the fact that the ship isn't good at its own namesake.

The SCB changes hurt this ship badly, too. The heat management is atrocious, and now you need heat sinks. Works OK on ships with extra utility slots and weight management.

 

[StiTch]

If you put heavier PD on Courier, it would do more harm than good, imho.

Hm...methinks a better PD would perfectly compliment the iCourier. And yes as he also mentioned better heat management. These, asides from the lack of any C3 hardpoints, are the real flaw in the ship; it just doesn't have an overwhelming amount of firepower, and heatsinks to support any SCBs are a must (though SCBs are lovely on this thing's shields).

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Weight management is another design flaw. Every extra ton effects it more than any other ship, even the other light ships.

None of this is even mentioning the fact that the ship isn't good at its own namesake.

Maybe when we get the passenger update, we'll see it shine for small but high priority/paying passenger missions.

I've seen weight management be a lot of issue in other people's builds but I don't get why. Half intelligent building and you can conserve weight nicely. It does get hit early by extra weight, but doesn't need to add much weight to be effective.

 

[Chris Simon]

Weight management is another design flaw. Every extra ton effects it more than any other ship, even the other light ships.

None of this is even mentioning the fact that the ship isn't good at its own namesake.

The SCB changes hurt this ship badly, too. The heat management is atrocious, and now you need heat sinks. Works OK on ships with extra utility slots and weight management.

As far as the namesakes go, I beg to differ once more. This is my "couriering" setup and I am pretty happy about it. Nothing can catch it.
http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_courier/02A3A3A1D3D2D3C---0004--02025601002f.Iw18UA==.Aw18UA==

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

If you put heavier PD on Courier, it would do more harm than good, imho.

Hm...methinks a better PD would perfectly compliment the iCourier. And yes as he also mentioned better heat management. These, asides from the lack of any C3 hardpoints, are the real flaw in the ship; it just doesn't have an overwhelming amount of firepower, and heatsinks to support any SCBs are a must (though SCBs are lovely on this thing's shields).

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Maybe when we get the passenger update, we'll see it shine for small but high priority/paying passenger missions.

I've seen weight management be a lot of issue in other people's builds but I don't get why. Half intelligent building and you can conserve weight nicely. It does get hit early by extra weight, but doesn't need to add much weight to be effective.

A combat fit, by default, adds a lot of weight. It somewhat nullifies the advantages of having a lightweight fighter. The weight kills the speed and maneuverability.

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If you put heavier PD on Courier, it would do more harm than good, imho.

As far as the namesakes go, I beg to differ once more. This is my "couriering" setup and I am pretty happy about it. Nothing can catch it.
http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_courier/02A3A3A1D3D2D3C---0004--02025601002f.Iw18UA==.Aw18UA==

No shields, but an SCB and booster. You're dead on the first interdiction. A Cobra would make short work of you. It could mass lock and outrun you.

I don't even see how you could carry passengers on it. It's a tiny ship. The SRV makes no sense, either. How you would get from the cockpit to thr SRV? It's a fighter cockpit.

 

[StiTch]

A combat fit, by default, adds a lot of weight. It somewhat nullifies the advantages of having a lightweight fighter. The weight kills the speed and maneuverability.

I haven't added much weight and my iCourier is a perfectly good bounty hunter. It's more effective at bounty hunting bigger ships such as annies/pythons than it is against ships like the FAS/Vulture, but earns me enough money, especially given a 300k rebuy cost. You really don't need to slather on things like military bulkheads to be a good bounty hunting ship, which I avoid like the plague most of the time thanks to a very poor weight to hull hp ratio; I leave that to HRPs.

 

[mistohise]

EDIT: Also I would like to remind everyone who started this "Courier isn't a good ship" OT that OP's point is that they have problem defeating ten times heavier and ten times more expensive ship. I personally don't have problem with that and I am kind of wishing that it would be an actual thing in Elite.

Exactly. If a small ship can't take out a larger ship, then wing up, or use a more appropriate tool. "buff this ship" and "nerf that ship" just leaves us with things like the Python being cobbled for no good reason, other than people moaning. Taking out a federal assault ship with a courier vessel should be a challenge.