My beloved Federal Dropship - Good niche uses?

I started a thread in the Ships of Elite sub-forum about ships that are good for salvage missions. More than one person has mentioned the FDS as being a great choice.

I use mine for space salvage missions. It soaks up damage from multiple hostiles whilst the collector limpets do their thing. It's a tough cookie, heavy as a brick. Awesome drift. I love it.
 
Hello CMDR’s,

One ship that I really enjoy (and miss) flying is the Federal Dropship. I love the look of the ship and the feel of it also. Oh the coffee maker! I built my FDS, the Blue Bison to do the Palin missions before they were nerfed and had great fun with it. It was perfect for that role. It was easy to land near the Thargoid bases, had slots for everything I needed, and could easily handle the Imperial Clippers that would interdict me on the way back to Maia. But since those misions are no longer a thing my FDS doesn’t have a job to do anymore :-(

I have most of the big ships (yes I have a Python too), but I am looking for a good use for the FDS.

Would it be possible to turn an FDS into an all-in-one Ram Tah mission ship though? I’d put up with the short jump range if I could use it to do all aspects of the mission from collecting the tissue samples to getting the rest done. Could I rig it for silent running instead of purchasing a DBX to get the tissue samples? It does seem to run hot which is why I am skeptical for this role, but I am willing to re-engineer it if I can make that work. Good-bye G5 DD’s?

Still, I’d love to hear some interesting ideas of what CMDR’s are doing with the FDS? Does it shine in some role that I haven’t thought of?

Troopship for planetary landings of course.

Trade it for a FAS - TWO coffee makers!

I've been trying to work out what I want to use my Gunship for. I wish the damn coffee machine would work, though. :D

You have to engineer it first.
 
I kit my FDS out for attacking settlements. That was great fun, but I haven't done it in a while. I also like bounty hunting in it. It has 4 dumbfire missile launchers and a fixed beam, so it's a fun challenge.
 
I'm really not a fan of the Federal ships, but the FDS makes a really good anti-Thargoid ship with Guardian weaponry. I'm currently running two Gauss Cannons and two Plasma Chargers, but I reckon it'd be even more effective with four Gauss Cannons.
 
I have a couple of them at the moment, not sure what happened to the third one, anyways...I use mine for anything and everything when there is a high risk element. It has become one of my favorite ships without a doubt.

I have one down in the Pleiades for, well doing Pleiades stuff, be it mats gathering, killing Goids, rescue missions, CG's etc.

The other is in my one of my home bases and is becoming one of my most used ships.
It is set up for mining and is good at it but on the way to a mining spot I'll stop in at any USS be it degraded threat 0 or a weapons fire threat 4 and come away with the mats. I'll bounty hunt in a Haz res with it then stop and mine whilst waiting for pirates to respawn. It is a true multipurpose.

My Python just kind of sits there, I know it is capable but I just prefer flying the FDS. It's a great ship and very underrated.
 
I used mine for mining, open up the early engineer (the armour one!). I then converted it to a passenger ship and went to war zones to pick up refugees - the space ambulance. Turns out there was not much money in being charitable so sold it.

Admiration for the Fed Dropship is best kept secret, those shields are very thin.

Simon
 
Rumour has it that Butterbean used to use an FDS to iron his shorts. True story.

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I kit my FDS out for attacking settlements. That was great fun, but I haven't done it in a while. I also like bounty hunting in it. It has 4 dumbfire missile launchers and a fixed beam, so it's a fun challenge.

I did this with my FGS, one large beam and all the rest dumbfires... I giggled when I fired a full salvo at the generator and it vaporized.

On the way back I got interdicted, so I used the large beam to drop his shields, the fighter to distract him and two salvos of dumbfires to waste him... I laughed all the way to the staroort!
 
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p.s.: icing on the cake is the 'singing sound' on deceleration. I always considered these 3 ships (FDS, FAS, FGS) as soulless and pure military vessels. * So wrong I was, at least with the FDS...

I too love the audio of this ship. The coffee makers are a nice touch as well.

Refitted the Blue Bison for mats collection and had a lot of fun with it last night. Threat level 4 USS’s and also cleaned up on Cadmium on Europa. Now it’s time to get my beams on this ship upgraded to G5 efficient. She has 1xL and 2xM G3 efficient beams right now along with a 2xM Seeker Missles which I also to engineer. I am also thinking I might go G5 clean drives just to try to keep the heat down.
 
I too love the audio of this ship. The coffee makers are a nice touch as well.

Refitted the Blue Bison for mats collection and had a lot of fun with it last night. Threat level 4 USS’s and also cleaned up on Cadmium on Europa. Now it’s time to get my beams on this ship upgraded to G5 efficient. She has 1xL and 2xM G3 efficient beams right now along with a 2xM Seeker Missles which I also to engineer. I am also thinking I might go G5 clean drives just to try to keep the heat down.


Good choice on the G5 clean drives, I had dirty drives before but even scooping became a bit of a problem.
Clean drives for the win this time.
 
Salvager and Prospector. Enough slots for all scanners, limpets, SRV, cargo.
But I don't fly Fedships.
 
It was stated in lore to be a fav of assault forces and seems built for that. Indeed I see the FAS as CAP fighter and FGS as defence supression with additional close in air defence via SLF. The FDS would be the carrier of assault teams in armed vehicles that then adds in additional fire support like a LCT. Tankiness,weak shields and slow speed would be the fit of such a team - with FAS the fastest as higher level CAP. To me they make less sense as space fighters.

But this type of game mechanic is far off.
 
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