I was wondering what happened to my old thread. For some reason, it got locked after only two pages back in July.
So yeah ... about the Beluga. Buffs when? You introduced this gargantuan ship back in 2.2 with the release of passenger missions, but as it turns out, she's just a really bad ship for her price. Mine is gathering dust in the shipyard, and I don't think anyone really enjoys playing her anymore. Although I do see a lot of NPC Belugas for some reason, lol.
Shall we list all the problems?
- Despite having as many optional internal slots as the Anaconda, Anaconda has far more class 5 and 6 slots and can equip many more high passenger count cabins, and hence is MUCH better than Beluga at bulk transport missions like all those that are really popular these days for credit grinding. So now you might say that Beluga can carry luxury cabins ... but ...
- Orca and Dolphin are both MUCH better luxury liners than Beluga. Luxury cabins are pretty much VIP only. There are no bulk luxury cabin missions, meaning you'll typically only be running one or two passenger missions at a time when running with luxury VIPs due to the large number of them that are demanding, secretive, wanted by the mafia, etc. And both Orca and Dolphin are faster, have better jump range, run much cooler for fuel scooping. Beluga cannot run from a fight without high waking. Orca, that also can equip class 6 luxury cabins can outrun every single ship in the game other than the smallest of ships with enhanced performance thrusters. Dolphin is also fairly fast while also being tiny and hard to hit.
- Unlike all the other big three seater ships, Beluga cannot equip both a fuel scoop and a fighter bay at the same time due to having four reserved slots. Why advertise having a fighter bay for self defense when it's unusable most of the time?
- Beluga runs HOT. Like really hot. I'm pretty sure it's the hottest running ship in the game. On top of that, she can only carry a class 6 fuel scoop, but given her great bulk and fuel tank, it means she's forced to sit in the corona for far too long. Combined with the heat issue, this means her temperature hits dangerous levels pretty much every time you fuel scoop. And passengers don't generally appreciate it when your ship takes damage, so I'm sure you can see where this might be a problem. Unless you want to cook bacon on her hull. I'm sure she'd excel as an accessory in a fast food kitchen.
- I didn't previously bring it up, but it's REALLY bugging me: why the hell does her dashboard sit so high? Every other ship has it's radar sitting just slightly above the bottom of the screen and has it's HUD reticle sitting about halfway up the hardpoint bars. Beluga's radar sits way high and her reticle sits way low on the HUD, which makes the ship incredibly awkward to fly until you get used to it. On top of that, because of the height, the dashboard alone takes over a third of screen space. There's no reason for this. Please raise the seat platform so that the ship has it's radar and HUD sitting at the same place as every other ship.
So maybe other people have different opinions, and I'd love to hear them. But I cannot for the life of me find a use for this ship at all currently. Despite being the biggest and shiniest of all the passenger focused ships, I cannot find ANYTHING that she does better than another ship in that very role. She needs a buff. She needs several buffs in fact.
So yeah ... about the Beluga. Buffs when? You introduced this gargantuan ship back in 2.2 with the release of passenger missions, but as it turns out, she's just a really bad ship for her price. Mine is gathering dust in the shipyard, and I don't think anyone really enjoys playing her anymore. Although I do see a lot of NPC Belugas for some reason, lol.
Shall we list all the problems?
- Despite having as many optional internal slots as the Anaconda, Anaconda has far more class 5 and 6 slots and can equip many more high passenger count cabins, and hence is MUCH better than Beluga at bulk transport missions like all those that are really popular these days for credit grinding. So now you might say that Beluga can carry luxury cabins ... but ...
- Orca and Dolphin are both MUCH better luxury liners than Beluga. Luxury cabins are pretty much VIP only. There are no bulk luxury cabin missions, meaning you'll typically only be running one or two passenger missions at a time when running with luxury VIPs due to the large number of them that are demanding, secretive, wanted by the mafia, etc. And both Orca and Dolphin are faster, have better jump range, run much cooler for fuel scooping. Beluga cannot run from a fight without high waking. Orca, that also can equip class 6 luxury cabins can outrun every single ship in the game other than the smallest of ships with enhanced performance thrusters. Dolphin is also fairly fast while also being tiny and hard to hit.
- Unlike all the other big three seater ships, Beluga cannot equip both a fuel scoop and a fighter bay at the same time due to having four reserved slots. Why advertise having a fighter bay for self defense when it's unusable most of the time?
- Beluga runs HOT. Like really hot. I'm pretty sure it's the hottest running ship in the game. On top of that, she can only carry a class 6 fuel scoop, but given her great bulk and fuel tank, it means she's forced to sit in the corona for far too long. Combined with the heat issue, this means her temperature hits dangerous levels pretty much every time you fuel scoop. And passengers don't generally appreciate it when your ship takes damage, so I'm sure you can see where this might be a problem. Unless you want to cook bacon on her hull. I'm sure she'd excel as an accessory in a fast food kitchen.
- I didn't previously bring it up, but it's REALLY bugging me: why the hell does her dashboard sit so high? Every other ship has it's radar sitting just slightly above the bottom of the screen and has it's HUD reticle sitting about halfway up the hardpoint bars. Beluga's radar sits way high and her reticle sits way low on the HUD, which makes the ship incredibly awkward to fly until you get used to it. On top of that, because of the height, the dashboard alone takes over a third of screen space. There's no reason for this. Please raise the seat platform so that the ship has it's radar and HUD sitting at the same place as every other ship.
So maybe other people have different opinions, and I'd love to hear them. But I cannot for the life of me find a use for this ship at all currently. Despite being the biggest and shiniest of all the passenger focused ships, I cannot find ANYTHING that she does better than another ship in that very role. She needs a buff. She needs several buffs in fact.
