The Cobra IV was the best small miner and freighter before that even. It used to be able to have 2 mining lasers and still defend itself. With the new mining tools occupying the rest of the hardpoints, it no can no longer defend itself. The Cobra IV never sucked, people only ever looked at it in comparison to the Cobra III and wanted it to be the same and do the same things, only better. Looking at what it is and it's strengths you see it was always a good ship. Even with it's limited availability the Cobra IV is still more widely used in the Inara statistics than 4 other ships that everyone can access.
Frontier: Please show the Imperial Clipper some love in 2019 and give it a buff !
- Thread starter SAB380
- Start date
The Cobra IV was the best small miner and freighter before that even. It used to be able to have 2 mining lasers and still defend itself. With the new mining tools occupying the rest of the hardpoints, it no can no longer defend itself. The Cobra IV never sucked, people only ever looked at it in comparison to the Cobra III and wanted it to be the same and do the same things, only better. Looking at what it is and it's strengths you see it was always a good ship. Even with it's limited availability the Cobra IV is still more widely used in the Inara statistics than 4 other ships that everyone can access.
...an' we be two now, who remided Cap'n Bortas 'bout the Clipper sound
I am not the booty ship you are looking for, move on
Arrr matey, 'ryone says dat, me can look?!?!?
***SHIP SCAN DETECTED***
'ar boy, dat is good ship fer booty hunting, not very speedy tho
I love the clipper but when fitting out for DW2 and the mining CG (before we knew equipment would be available), I just couldn't build it better than a phantom. The slot classes are all one too small (except the C7 obviously).
An extra slot wouldn't go amiss, which would at least give it a small advantage over phantom (and equal python).
A little extra jump range would always be welcome.
But I don't see any of this happening. What would be the point of spending time on it? You either accept the deficiency or move to something else. FD likely have more value designing *new* ships than going back to refit existing ones.
Now... An Imperial styled Phantom that does *not* significantly drop jump range
An extra slot wouldn't go amiss, which would at least give it a small advantage over phantom (and equal python).
A little extra jump range would always be welcome.
But I don't see any of this happening. What would be the point of spending time on it? You either accept the deficiency or move to something else. FD likely have more value designing *new* ships than going back to refit existing ones.
Now... An Imperial styled Phantom that does *not* significantly drop jump range
What would be the point of spending time on it? You either accept the deficiency or move to something else. FD likely have more value designing *new* ships than going back to refit existing ones.
Now... An Imperial styled Phantom that does *not* significantly drop jump range
Frontier have shown willingness to go back and change internal stats of ships, increasing core or internal slots to make ships more useful and hence desirable, relative to other ships. This thread (I think) makes some very simple suggestions in that regard that wouldn't turn the ship into an overpowered-I-win button.
Now the flip side you suggest of an Imperial styled Phantom type ship would be awesome as well ... which means the poor Clipper would likely drop to zero use at that point.
D2EA has been using an Imperial Clipper as a core miner as it does seem to have a great mix of internals and speed/agility to find and mine those cores. Is this ship better than the Krait Phantom in this role because it has even more speed? Until I saw those recent videos I'd never had any temptation to fly that ship before because I agree overall that there was always a better ship for the job (and the starting credits to buy the ship don't really matter in the age of Road to Riches and Void Opals). I literally skipped over the ship when I was doing Imperial rank to get my glorious Cutter. I'm kind of excited to try this ship out, I even managed to get the thrusters modded with G5 DD's. This weekend I'll be taking my newly built Clipper out to look for rocks and see how that goes.
I do agree that the Python is grossly overpowered in the game as far as trading/haulage to Outposts goes. Frontier either need to nerf the Python (drop a class 6 slot so it matches the Krait Mk II) or come up with some other alternative that can carry as much cargo to medium pads. The Clipper won't be that ship, but a reasonable buff to its shields I think many CMDR's would appreciate.
I do agree that the Python is grossly overpowered in the game as far as trading/haulage to Outposts goes. Frontier either need to nerf the Python (drop a class 6 slot so it matches the Krait Mk II) or come up with some other alternative that can carry as much cargo to medium pads. The Clipper won't be that ship, but a reasonable buff to its shields I think many CMDR's would appreciate.
Making it land on medium pads would change nothing. If you're going to improve it, fix the shields, give it more jump or add a larger slot. Most people like myself don't land on outposts and not being able to land on a medium pad is hardly a deal breaker.
Bob Lighthouse
Banned
The Cobra Mk4 was deliberately designed to suck, so people who didn't pre-order Horizons don't complain too much about not having access to it.
But again... what exactly is the Clipper's main strength then?
- Combat? No
- Trading? No
- Exploring? No
- Smuggling? No
- Piracy? No
- Mining? No
- Missions? No
- Passenger transport? No
- Cheap (including rank grind)? No
- Looking good? Yes
Ok, guess looking good has to be enough then
You forgot the most important one!
[video=youtube;N0GdQyIm7DU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0GdQyIm7DU[/video]
As pretty much one of the best Clipper pilots out there what it really needs is an acceleration buff, it takes 2 to 3 boosts to get up to its full speed... Mamba can be in reverse and a single boost will take it to its top speed.
Here is what I would change:
- Double its acceleration, inline with the mamba or FDL (Shouldn't take 3 boosts to get to top speed)
- Reduce mass by 100T (400T was always far to heavy for this ship)
- Add one class 5 military slot (This is a naval ship why does it not have one already like the FAS?)
- Increase fuel tank to 32T
I never understood why the clipper was so under powered... its a very large ship.
Here is what I would change:
- Double its acceleration, inline with the mamba or FDL (Shouldn't take 3 boosts to get to top speed)
- Reduce mass by 100T (400T was always far to heavy for this ship)
- Add one class 5 military slot (This is a naval ship why does it not have one already like the FAS?)
- Increase fuel tank to 32T
I never understood why the clipper was so under powered... its a very large ship.
The amount of times you have to boost in any ship to hit your max has always bothered me.
See this is what they did with the T7 and it didn’t work. Yes you COULD tweak the Clipper into essentially an entirely new ship with some exaggerated differential advantages and weaknesses, but it’s already 90% of the way to being a good general purpose ship it’s just if you’re using it that way, whether for mining, passengers, or trade, then outposts are a must. There are larger ships which outclass it in every way, and that’s fine really, but it shouldn’t be restricted the way large ships are. I’m not necessarily opposed to tweaking it in other ways or just making it a superior ship across the board, but: all of its other features are already “good enough” that it would make a decent “around the bubble” Swiss-army-ship for a lot of people if only it could access outposts. Otherwise, if you keep the pad restrictions in place you’d have to do something similar to what Beseiger is advocating, which would make it into a more compelling choice for combat and but little else.
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^^ what Kaocraft said.
If you don't ever go to outposts, great, good for you. Being a large ship is still a significant problem which can't be ignored. As I mentioned in my post, a comparison between the FDS and the Imperial Clipper would be pretty even... if the clipper were a medium ship. But coz it's large, the FDS is without question a superior vessel in multipurpose roles.
beseiger's suggestion is really good too, as it would tip it from being a medium ship stuck in the body of a large ship with direct competition from other comparable medium ships, to a cheap, large ship which is marginally better than almost all comparable medium ships. You'd buy it to give you an edge over all medium ships, at the sacrifice of not using medium-only ports. But right now, there's just too many ships in the medium-size class that are outright better, even for a similar or cheaper price.
It needs a buff, or it needs to be made medium.
Uh, no. The Cobra MK IV mostly sucked because there was nothing around to do, for which the mere property "small ship" was any advantage. I mean yes. Small ships can land at guardian outposts. Which is very niché, even before looking at why you'd want a small ship there: to bring point defense to shoot down the guardian missiles. But for that the utility slots needs to be on top of the ship, not on the belly. Cobra can't score there.
Until asteroid mining was implemented, there just was only one activity in the game, where merely being of small size was an advantage: Combat. Having a small target profile and thus being harder to hit helps. But the Cobra MK IV really is no combat ship. But if size itself is not the deciding criteria, you were better of investing just a tiny bit more money and getting a medium ship with much better overall capacity than the Cobra Mk IV.
Only now, with asteriod mining around, the Cobra Mk IV found at least some use again. It can move better between the fragements of a cracked rock than many alternatives. Other people still prefer other ships for the job, mostly due to higher cargo capacity. But for me, this is the first time since years, that the Cobra MK IV has any actual use.
Also, i wouldn't rely on Inara too much here. According to that site, i for example exclusively fly the Imperial Courier and never touch anything else. Others added all ships they own, no matter if they use them or not. So the Cobra Mk IV quite often is there to show that they have it, while it's actually just an oversized paperweight and/or used for weapon and module storage.
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The lack of content for the ship still doesn't make it a bad ship per se, right ?
I love my Clipper.
Compared to the Cutter its fast and maneuvers well, its just up against Fed ships it shows its age.
We Imperials are due a new ship tho' as has been pointed out already. A cross between the Clipper and Cutter would be nice - or the Clipper and the Courier...…..
Compared to the Cutter its fast and maneuvers well, its just up against Fed ships it shows its age.
We Imperials are due a new ship tho' as has been pointed out already. A cross between the Clipper and Cutter would be nice - or the Clipper and the Courier...…..
Hmm. that's getting a bit philosophical. It depends a lot on the point of view. So i rather say: The lack of content for the ship does make it a suboptimal pick.
It would be one of the best ships for new players, simply because of the prices range it sits in. Unfortunately it's those players who can't have it.
The only buff this ship needs - but this one's really needed - is a geometrical reconstruction to make it fit on medium landing pads. Everything else is fine as is.
Maybe. But only for a short while. For most roles, there's good alternatives around in the price range. For many jobs, the Viper MK IV is quite a good pick, too. Also don't forget the Diamondback Scout. Those two are cheaper than the Cobra Mk IV even. If you want cargo space, pay just a little more and get a Type 6.
Only now, with rock mining being a thing, the combination of hardpoints and internals of the Cobra Mk IV actually becomes an advantage. So yes, by now the ship finally has something it can do better than others in the same price range. Mind you, the cheaper Cobra MK III also is a good rock miner which can make good money. It's only drawback is that you always only crack one rock, then return to base to sell. So it's still not a unique "must have" ship, it just means it finally found a suitable role.
So yes, for new players with low founds, just starting out on asteroid mining, it would now be an advisable ship, would it be available. But for anything but rock mining, it would remain just one of many possible stepping stones, and a mediocre one at that. Not utterly bad, but also not really better than several alternatives.
I guess we just look at it from a different perspective. You think it'd be a great ship for a player in that financial range. I think that even if they'd have access to it, most would pick something else. There's no way for us to know for sure. It is locked, so there's no way for us to determine, how many would stick to the ship and how many would just fly it for a very short time, to then decide that something else in their budget range would be a better choice.
Sidenote: wasn't the thread about the Clipper? I guess we should rest the talk about the Cobra MK IV with "agree to disagree"?
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Why? What makes it a better vessel than the FDS or Asp, or even T7, all of which are comparable if not superior vessels, lack the disadvantage of being Large (except the T7) and have far less barriers to entry? (In this case, the substantial rank grind and price point)
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