[REVIEW] The Imperial Cutter: Cuts your wallet like a Katana

Summary:

Cutter is a combat ship that
sacrificies agility for insane defense but in the end it suffers from the same issues of all end game ships (Anaconda and Corvette) , extremely high costs. Compared to the best ship in game, Python, it does offer some solid advantages but none of them are remotely close to justifying the extreme costs that can easily reach up to a 1 billion. If money is not the problem it may not be the Python's big brother, that title is well earned by Anaconda, on the other hand its a solid purchase that will add a considerable cargo hold, firepower and defense in the expense of agility. Like Corvette is less multipurpose and more specialized towards combat but none the less it serves its multipurpose role very well.

Example build:

https://eddp.co/u/VEz4NXtt


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SCORE
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Fighter 9/10
Explorer 2/10
Trader 4/10
Mission runner 8/10
Tourism 1/10
Investment (value/cost) 1/10


OVERALL : 6/10

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REVIEW
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Trader role:
It's easy to fall into the trap of regarding it a trader because it has the max potential cargo hold in the game currently. However, it's not a trader for the same reason that Corvette is not a trader.
Jump range.
Anaconda is more trader friendly because it has considerable cargo hold and amazing jump range, plus it can be built to defend and attack any pirate that considers taking a peek to its valuable cargo.
However for short-range trading Cutter is very hard to beat with its max cargo hold. Of course, max cargo hold means that you will have to sacrifice the shield which is pretty much the biggest bonus of the ship, fortunately, its thrusters are powerful enough to outrun NPC pirates, but you will be an easy pray for player pirates if they have the speed to catch you up.

Combat role:

Cutter is a combat ship , just the polar opposite of Corvette. What it loses in maneuverability it gains in ridiculous defense. Cutter is the king turtle, this ship has been designed to fill in the tank role and take as much beating as possible. With a 8B shield cell, 8C shield generator and 6x OA Shield Booster this thing comes almost unkillable. And that is just its warm up ,for the icing on the cake add to its 2 military compartments 5B shield cells.You end up with this monster

Even with a powerful opponent, it can take up to 30 minutes to bring down that insanely powerful shield. Especially if its a 8C shield that will full recharge in just 6 minutes which become a very deadly problem for opponents without enough firepower. Cutter also has a very powerful mass lock so if you engage a fight with it make sure you can outrun it. Don't be fooled by its mass it has a considerable boost for its size and its upgraded power plant and power distributor more than enough to keep boosting forever.
If you are the one in the Cutter against NPCs bellow a Python class it will be a case of you lauching your fighter pilot, pressing left click to lauch your turrets and going for a coffee. This is the king of afk fighting.


Having a fighter bay is a must because of the terrible turn rate. You may be extremely slow to kill and is highly unlikely a player that is not in a powerful enough ship will engage you but tailing you is very easy and its just a matter of time before your shield dies. With a fighter bay it makes certain that not even an army of small manouvarable ship will challange you and those that will dare, will crash and burn with Cutter's undisputed elegance.

If you love to fly circles around your enemies , forget about it, this is a sloowwww turning ship.

Miner role:
As long as you dont plan to move long distances this is definitely an ideal if not the best miner ship. Again its the huge cargo hold together with its considerable firepower and variety of module slots.

Explorer role:
Forget about it, bad jump range

Love boat:
Forget about it, passengers will kill you out of boredom , again bad jump range.



Why should I buy it?


1) You love the way it looks
2) You have to carry the absolute maximum cargo
3) You love to afk and can afford its ludicrous insurance (although you will rarely lose it)
4) You love to fight a small army of enemies

Why I should not buy it?


1) If you cannot afford its insurance
2) if you cannot afford to pay at least as much for its module upgrades
3) You move around large distances
4) Don't like ships that make you sleep
5) Don't want to sacrifice your first born for it to hear your pleads to turn


Engineering:
Like all ships the Cutter can be engineered to compesnate for most of its flaws and enhance much of its strenghts , I ignore the potential in this review because that it takes even longer to engineer a Cutter than buy and upgrade it.
 
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With an engineered FSD, the Cutter can have an acceptable jump range in the mid 30's for exploration. Which explains why we see so many dramatic photos of exploration Cutters out there in the black.

And that is a good enough jump range for carrying passengers.

The neutron highway redresses the imbalance of jump range with the Exploraconda to a sufficient extent, unless you are really really impatient to get somewhere, in which case are you really exploring ? :)

So the Cutter makes a good enough explorer if you want to bask in photos :D
 
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sollisb

Banned
Just to show a different side;

On one of my accounts I have;

Cutter 1: Trading
Cutter 2: PewPewing
Cutter 3: Explorering (37ly I think)
Cutter 4: Material Collector/Missions

And you forgot .... -== B A S K I N G =--

o7
 
What if I told you that jump range isn't that important to a trade ship unless you're one of those weird min-maxers?

The problem is that it accumulates, so sure it may not seem important if you move short distances but unless you do it in one jump , it will add up and lost time is lost money you could have been making instead of waiting for your FSD to charge up.

Not only that but what would the T9 be if it gets judged for its jump range?

The problem here is that T9 is nowhere near the class of end ships and has its price range to prove it. it costs 1/3rd of the Cutter and it has a 140 million difference in price.

Trade wise Cutter is a better ship if we exclude the costs. But again it's an unfair comparison because T9 is hard focused on trading anyway.
 
With an engineered FSD, the Cutter can have an acceptable jump range in the mid 30's for exploration. Which explains why we see so many dramatic photos of exploration Cutters out there in the black.

And that is a good enough jump range for carrying passengers.

The neutron highway redresses the imbalance of jump range with the Exploraconda to a sufficient extent, unless you are really really impatient to get somewhere, in which case are you really exploring ? :)

So the Cutter makes a good enough explorer if you want to bask in photos :D

My review does not mention engineering for the simple reason its pointless.

The very purpose of engineering is to make a ship to something it was not designed to be and as much it may be important on enhancing the fun of owning a ship its such a long grind that its kinda pointless to include it in a fair review. A Cutter even without good upgrades will fall in the letter of the review still.

But yes you can engineer any ship to be anything you like , well almost.
 

verminstar

Banned
Bad explorer ye say? Strangely enough, Im taking mine to colonia sometime in the next couple weeks.

The last time I made this trip was in a lower range T9 which also saw me reach elite in exploration after making it the whole way to SagA and staying there fer 5 months.

So yeah...I can certainly see how no explorer in their right mind would even think of using a cutter to explore in...then again, Im not exactly known as a shining example of stable and sane.

Really its cos I cant afford to ship it out and I love it too much to get rid of it...this is my endgame ship...nothing else in the game even begins to touch it and Ive owned most everything else at one point or another...sold them all in a heartbeat and sunk everything into the cutter. I havent actually so much as changed ships and tried anything else in over a month...no need no desire to...endgame ship ^
 
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The problem is that it accumulates, so sure it may not seem important if you move short distances but unless you do it in one jump , it will add up and lost time is lost money you could have been making instead of waiting for your FSD to charge up.



The problem here is that T9 is nowhere near the class of end ships and has its price range to prove it. it costs 1/3rd of the Cutter and it has a 140 million difference in price.

Trade wise Cutter is a better ship if we exclude the costs. But again it's an unfair comparison because T9 is hard focused on trading anyway.


the T9 has shieldless 788t of cargo, making it on paper the best bulktrader in game.
 
My review does not mention engineering for the simple reason its pointless.

The very purpose of engineering is to make a ship to something it was not designed to be

We have moved on since base ships were introduced without engineering.

We need to know how the ship responds to engineering - not with every possible permutation and combination, but suggestions of directions in which the ship can be taken to extend its capabilities.

The ships we have now are designed to be engineered. Not everyone likes engineering, but a little can go a long way. So a review with pointers would be more helpful. Otherwise you fall into the trap of making false conclusions about the ship's potential.
 
Thing is you see, the Cutter was not actually supposed to be the dedicated combat vessel out of the big 3, neither was the Anaconda for that matter. Cutter was supposed to be trade orientated, Anaconda should be multi-purpose and the Corvette was supposed to be the combat beast. Sadly, due to some unfortunate maths errors, the Cutter came out with and insane shield strength and the Anaconda has that ridiculously low hull mass, both of these things means that to make the Corvette a combat specialist, they would need to add some serious stats to the Corvette and it would leather everything in game which would ruin balance. In short, the Cutter is NOT a combat vessel by design, it has just turned out that way. Also, and not to be an awkward naysayer, I would debate your statement OP, that the Python is the best ship in the game, horses for courses dear fellow :D
 
My cutter has been responsible for approx 70bn net credits since its purchase back in 2016.

and this is the first thing I did when I got it: MOON PICNIC!

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