Clipper vs Courier is my case in point: why are large ships as agile, or MORE, than small ships?

[Ganogati]

Edit: This post is inaccurate, and the following replies on page 1 and some of page 2 correct any misconceptions of the post. I won’t edit the original thread after the fact, but I would ask that anyone who reads this and wishes to respond to please be sure to read at least the first page of replies. Thanks!

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So I was playing around with builds, as I had been debating on trying out flying the Imperial Courier as a primary ship for a while (I know... it's tiny. But the idea of flying a tiny ship like that seems fun). Out of curiosity, I created 2 builds: a courier that is completely empty, with G3 Dirty Drives + Experimental Drag Drives vs a Clipper that is loaded from top to bottom in Hull Reinforcements AND military grade armor with G3 Dirty Drives and NO experimental

The result? The clipper is faster and more agile than the smaller courier. If I had put Drag Drives on the Clipper, it would completely smoke the courier in every way.

Courier:

G3 Dirty Drives WITH Drag Drives
408m/s
554m/s boost
49 degree/s pitch
117 degree/s roll

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Clipper:

G3 Dirty Drives WITHOUT Drag Drives
434m/s
550m/s boost
58 degree/s pitch
116 degree/s roll

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A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

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What value does flying a smaller ship have if it can be outmaneuvered by a much larger ship? That makes no sense to me at all. This is what I meant by ships having an obvious 'vertical' progression. The only downside to going clipper over courier is that you lose landing on outposts; that's it. Otherwise, you are at least as fast, if not faster; you are more agile as well.

I wish that smaller ships had more of a purpose, more of a niche to fill, than just being the cheap version of the bigger, better ships. It would add so much more diversity to ship choice through the game, other than "I feel like playing an objectively worse ship just because I like flying something other folks aren't".

 

[Rick6549]

Engineering is broken

 

[Ashnak]

Which is why we have EPTs for the small ships:

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[Krash]

So I was playing around with builds, as I had been debating on trying out flying the Imperial Courier as a primary ship for a while (I know... it's tiny. But the idea of flying a tiny ship like that seems fun). Out of curiosity, I created 2 builds: a courier that is completely empty, with G3 Dirty Drives + Experimental Drag Drives vs a Clipper that is loaded from top to bottom in Hull Reinforcements AND military grade armor with G3 Dirty Drives and NO experimental

The result? The clipper is faster and more agile than the smaller courier. If I had put Drag Drives on the Clipper, it would completely smoke the courier in every way.

Courier:

G3 Dirty Drives WITH Drag Drives
408m/s
554m/s boost
49 degree/s pitch
117 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

Clipper:

G3 Dirty Drives WITHOUT Drag Drives
434m/s
550m/s boost
58 degree/s pitch
116 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

What value does flying a smaller ship have if it can be outmaneuvered by a much larger ship? That makes no sense to me at all. This is what I meant by ships having an obvious 'vertical' progression. The only downside to going clipper over courier is that you lose landing on outposts; that's it. Otherwise, you are at least as fast, if not faster; you are more agile as well.

I wish that smaller ships had more of a purpose, more of a niche to fill, than just being the cheap version of the bigger, better ships. It would add so much more diversity to ship choice through the game, other than "I feel like playing an objectively worse ship just because I like flying something other folks aren't".

You make a good point, but the Clipper is a huge target, advantage Courier.

 

[Ganogati]

Which is why we have EPTs for the small ships:

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While those are awesome, they are mostly just good for racing. If you equip the courier similarly to how the test clipper is (hull modules + pulse lasers) it goes back to being completely dwarfed. Only a completely stripped down Courier with engineered EPTs could hope to come close to the agility and speed of a fully kitted out Clipper.

Clipper:

G3 Dirty Drives WITHOUT Drag Drives
431m/s
546m/s boost
57 degree/s pitch
115 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

Courier:

G3 EPT WITH Drag Drives
401m/s
544m/s boost
50 degree/s pitch
119 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Ashnak]

Or, slightly more verbose: The Courier is a large ship, compared to its thruster size. The Clipper is a small ship, compared to its thruster size. Size 3 Thrusters have a minimum mass of 60 tons (70 for the EPTs), and a lighweight Courier without anything already has ~45 tons. Not much to spare for guns or shields.
On the other hand, the size 6 thrusters in the Clipper have a minimum mass of 720 tons. A lightweight clipper build comes in at 530 tons - 190 tons to play around with for shields and weapons.

 

[Ganogati]

Or, slightly more verbose: The Courier is a large ship, compared to its thruster size. The Clipper is a small ship, compared to its thruster size. Size 3 Thrusters have a minimum mass of 60 tons (70 for the EPTs), and a lighweight Courier without anything already has ~45 tons. Not much to spare for guns or shields.
On the other hand, the size 6 thrusters in the Clipper have a minimum mass of 720 tons. A lightweight clipper build comes in at 530 tons - 190 tons to play around with for shields and weapons.

This is a fair explanation of the disparity. While it does bother me that a large ship is faster/has better rates, your explanation here a pretty logical and understandable one as to why it would be the case in this instance.

 

[Ashnak]

While those are awesome, they are mostly just good for racing. If you equip the courier similarly to how the test clipper is (hull modules + pulse lasers) it goes back to being completely dwarfed. Only a completely stripped down Courier with engineered EPTs could hope to come close to the agility and speed of a fully kitted out Clipper.

Which is why you don't build a ship that works best with shields as a hull tank.
Counterxample I had lying around (ignore the specific weapon types, that was a less successful experiment):

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[Ganogati]

Which is why you don't build a ship that works best with shields as a hull tank.
Counterxample I had lying around (ignore the specific weapon types, that was a less successful experiment):

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Very nice. That's an awesome build for a courier.

Hmm... perhaps I stand corrected then. There do appear to be builds to make this ship more agile/quicker than I gave the system credit for. I had been focused for so long on the viper and small hull tanks that I didn't consider the courier likely had a build like this to push it to that level.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

This is a fair explanation of the disparity. While it does bother me that a large ship is faster/has better rates, your explanation here a pretty logical and understandable one as to why it would be the case in this instance.

Once upon a time, when ideas where still fresh and bold concepts not yet shouted down by enraged players, FDev tried to counterbalance this by the introduction of significant fuel costs.
Because this does make sense, doesn’t it: Large ships with even larger thrusters (relatively to their size) would consume equally relatively more fuel. So much more, that it could be painfully fellt when refueling for credits while docked (in contrast to fuel scooping). Logic and comprehensible.

Yea, but oh noes! This reduced credits per hour! A rage storm drowned the forum and FDev learned to swim. Fuel costs were reduced into meaninglessness and since then, the “balance” described in the OP was achieved.
Quite unfortunately, in my opinion.

 

[Staarlord]

So I was playing around with builds, as I had been debating on trying out flying the Imperial Courier as a primary ship for a while (I know... it's tiny. But the idea of flying a tiny ship like that seems fun). Out of curiosity, I created 2 builds: a courier that is completely empty, with G3 Dirty Drives + Experimental Drag Drives vs a Clipper that is loaded from top to bottom in Hull Reinforcements AND military grade armor with G3 Dirty Drives and NO experimental

The result? The clipper is faster and more agile than the smaller courier. If I had put Drag Drives on the Clipper, it would completely smoke the courier in every way.

Courier:

G3 Dirty Drives WITH Drag Drives
408m/s
554m/s boost
49 degree/s pitch
117 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

Clipper:

G3 Dirty Drives WITHOUT Drag Drives
434m/s
550m/s boost
58 degree/s pitch
116 degree/s roll

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

What value does flying a smaller ship have if it can be outmaneuvered by a much larger ship? That makes no sense to me at all. This is what I meant by ships having an obvious 'vertical' progression. The only downside to going clipper over courier is that you lose landing on outposts; that's it. Otherwise, you are at least as fast, if not faster; you are more agile as well.

I wish that smaller ships had more of a purpose, more of a niche to fill, than just being the cheap version of the bigger, better ships. It would add so much more diversity to ship choice through the game, other than "I feel like playing an objectively worse ship just because I like flying something other folks aren't".

In the Clipper's defence? That is literally all it has. It's a large ship which holds less than the medium Python, has less firepower and defences than a Python, and Krait II, but has cargo capacity closer to the Krait II. The Krait II is smaller than the Python, but can facilitate an SLF, when both larger Python and even larger Clipper cannot. Moreover, the hard points the Clipper does have has pi**-poor convergence, making it, once again, useless in combat...especially in fixed point setups. The Viper MKIV is more lethargic than any of the above ships...oh, I could go on forever, in all seriousness.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

You can drive a krait mkii through the convergence of the large hardpoints of a clipper, the clipper slips and slides as despite its fantastic Yaw/Pitch/Roll degrees performance, it has a tendancy to drift. As for shields, even though the clipper is the only ship capable of fitting a class seven shield generator, even with a 51M credit 7a shield generator, every other ship in this thread makes more raw mj on just a rated shields + full a rated boosters on all utility slots, including the small pad courier, and the small landing pad vulture...

The clipper needs some love.

 

[Faded Glory]

This is a pretty viable combat build against NPC's, and on the odd occasion that I've gone into open to get attacked by players there is no danger at all that I will be destroyed due to its speed - and I've played tag with a couple of Cutters, one with an SLF, that failed to do any significant damage.

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This one is great against NPC's and can almost solo a pirate lord Corvette - helps to have system authority help out mainly due to the amount of time it takes to take down a corvette with only medium weapons.

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s.orbis.zone

Can't really say much about the Clipper. I had one years ago, wasn't really keen on it, don't like large ships at all on the whole. However, NPC clippers in RES seem to pop very, very quickly, even high ranking ones, and I'm shooting at them with a Krait Mk II.

 

[sandkid]

I think we can all agree Elite needs a ship balance pass in general.

Most games balance their basic assets, oh, every six months to a year?

Elite has been out...for awhile...and has never balanced its ships.
Heavens knows why.

 

[Drelthar]

I often wish engineering was never implemented.

 

[Morbad]

Agility is a lot more than rotationals and forward speed.

The Clipper does pitch really well, but it's not a particularly agile ship in absolute terms. It has a fair bit of inertia and poor vertical/lateral thrust.

 

[Jmanis]

The only downside to going clipper over courier is that you lose landing on outposts; that's it. Otherwise, you are at least as fast, if not faster; you are more agile as well.

Which is a dealbreaker for me.

Meanwhile, being faster than a courier is pretty well meaningless.

 

[Madrax573]

Stick EPT's on that courier with some distro dirty drives and leave everything that isn't a race fit viper in your wake!

Fit it for combat and leave everything that can kill you behind... and kill anything that can catch you easily.

 

[kaelys]

I get where the OP is coming from, but it's not a true-ism in navy terms that smaller is faster. In fact, the opposite is true. The longer a ship is, the faster and more efficient it is. That's why WW II aircraft carriers where faster than the destroyers that escorted them.

However, having said that, space doesn't have the same fluid dynamics that water does, and ED ships are more like aircraft than anything else. The fastest combat (American) aircraft in WW II (at high altitude) was the P-47, which was also the heaviest. So, ya never know. Maybe the Clipper has more room for Much bigger thrusters?

 

[Stealthie]

I use my iCourier as a stylish little runaround and it works fine.

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