Another new toy!!

[Arvel Yael]

I got a fifth ship this week with the proceeds of half a dozen short/medium range passenger missions, and by digging into my savings...

An Orca! Yay!

(Not my picture)

It's my first Saud Kruger ship, and flying it is like flying a space ferrari. A big fat space ferrari admittedly, but a space ferrari all the same. After SMcA's comment:

You stop to refuel?
If you have a big enough Fuel Scoop you can top up your fuel tank as you skim around the star to the next jump point.

...I decided to put a bigger fuel scoop on it than I was going to - a class four. And this one's a beast, sucking in stellar hydrogen at the rate of 343.00/sec. By the time the heat is approaching 80 the tank's full again!

The ship's wonderfully maneuverable in supercruise and avoids interdictions with ease. It's not too ungainly at sublight, and it's got really strong lateral, ventral and dorsal maneuvering thrusters, so slipping side-side and up-down is pretty effective.

Since I'm flying passengers, and I can evade interdictions without any great effort, the ship is unarmed (but not unshielded, cos I'm not silly), though since I've never come close to filling the cabins on the ship (6C first class, 5C first class - I've looked for (and failed to find) Luxury cabins (even when looking on eddb), they're the reason I bought the ship! - so I put an SRV bay and a discovery scanner on there in case I need to find materials to upgrade my ship, or if I need to take passengers to a hard to find destination.

Pretty much the only criticism I have of the ship is the same criticism everyone else has of it. For a long range passenger liner, it's not very good at the long range thing. With a max jump range of 17Ly (engineered level 3 FSD), getting from place to place takes longer than it should, though thanks to the huge fuel scoop, nowhere near as long as it could.

So I'm looking forward to spending some time with the Orca. I especially like the little touches, like the fact that when you press the boost button, you hear the little ding, advising customers to put their seatbelts on .

Comments? Is there anything the Orca's especially good at? Anything I should do to get the best out of it?

Let's see how it goes!

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

The Orca is a very good ship for smuggling. It's fast and can outrun anything capable of masslocking it, especially with engineered drives. Also it can slide into the mailslot even when there are a couple of other ships using it, which is handy when you notice an exiting Beluga too late.

The Orca is getting a nice buff with 2.3. It's mass is being halved, so its jump range will go up considerably, as will its speed.

 

[Spacecat]

I learned to always put the biggest fuels scoop possible on ships. Now, if I can just remember to use it....

 

[Arvel Yael]

The Orca is a very good ship for smuggling. It's fast and can outrun anything capable of masslocking it, especially with engineered drives. Also it can slide into the mailslot even when there are a couple of other ships using it, which is handy when you notice an exiting Beluga too late.

The Orca is getting a nice buff with 2.3. It's mass is being halved, so its jump range will go up considerably, as will its speed.

Excellent!

I'm really getting into passenger missions. I spose it's the Euro Truck Simulator 2 player in me. It's nice to get back into the routine of "here is X, take it to Y, then back to Z, and we'll give you some money".
Unlike playing the markets you know what you're going to earn up front, and I don't mind spending an hour, or two (or several days in the case of my first long-range passenger mission) just running from A to B and enjoying the view.
It's been a long time since I felt like my efforts were being rewarded, and now I'm pleased to say that I think they are being. I fly from a system where I'm allied with the two main factions there, so the passenger missions they give me are good, and occasionally excellent.

So yeah, I've found my new "go to" activity .

EDIT: I giggle that you get a brief fraction of a second between the Seatbelts On/Putana Da Seatbeltz light coming on, and the boost kicking in.

Kinda reminds me of this:

[video=youtube_share;AW2xyXl2tTI]https://youtu.be/AW2xyXl2tTI?t=12s[/video]

 

[Rilzi]

The Orca's a damn fine looking ship. Passenger missions are fun - I may have to look into getting one. I've been doing passenger missions in my Python, and I imagine the first time a rich kid passenger sees it instead of an Orca exclaiming - 'what a piece of junk!'
to which I of course reply: 'She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid.'

 

[Arvel Yael]

I'm not sure what my plan is now. I think my priorities are:

1. Do enough passengering to see if I can make a decent "living" doing it. If I can, I think my plan is:

1. Buy a Beluga
2. A spec the Python
3. Buy either an FGS or an FDL
4. ????????
5. PROFIT!

EDIT: Here's a nice picture of my ship: