Ships Cobra Mk V or iCourier with new pre-e SCO FSD for Exobiology?

[Thorned Rose]

CMDRs who use iCourier for Exo, have you tried it with the new pre-engineered SCO FSDs? How does it handle? And has anyone compared it with a Cobra Mk V fitted out for Exo?
I have an iCourier that I've always used and loved for Exo. It's G5'd so fast and can fit on all but the roughest terrain. The downside compared to the new Cobra however is that it isn't set up with SCO which gives the Cobra an advantage over it for getting to planets faster (aside from the longer jump range and some other improvements like handling that I'm not too fussed about). I don't use Guardian Tech so the extra slot that the Cobra has that would allow me to use a jump range booster is negligible for my purposes.

But if slapping the new SCO FSD in my Courier is going to cause it to buck around and use excessive amounts of fuel (especially when it already has such a small fuel tank), then I may have to mothball my beloved iCourier and use the new Cobra.

Would love to know if anyone's compared the two because I'm really hoping I can just keep using my Courier!

 

[Punchdrunk1973]

icourier was my favourite ship for a long time, until last night when I bought an engineered Cobra V.
Cobra V is in my opinion better in almost every way. More stable in SCO boost, yes. Much better for combat, more agile, more hardpoints, better distributor etc.
Better cockpit view by quite a bit.
Only place the iCourier is better, is absolute speed, I noticed yours has no weapons and is fitted for max speed. You cannot get a Cobra V to go as fast as the courier, by a big margin. So if you don't care about combat, this is a big difference, like almost 180ms difference.

Cobra V gets more jump range too. so it wins in every category except boost speed.

disclaimer - I've not done any exo yet, recently came back to the game after a long break, other than the odyssey intro training, I'm yet to get my feet on a planet. I've done a lot of bubble hopping, combat and material gathering though.

 

[anShpan]

Exactly my situation. CmkV is replacing iCourier. Courier will stay in hangar for rare occasions when I need just pure (well, Dirty actually) speed while not caring any weight, because everything else (for me) Cobra V does better.

 

[marx]

I'm doing this just now. For exobiology, once you get down to the surface, I still prefer the Courier. It's faster, handles better, and is markedly easier to land - the Cobra Mk V is still somewhat wide. (Bear in mind that it barely fits on a small pad.)
But the overpowered SCO stabilization of the Cobra is a big bonus in its favour. I don't mind the tumbling on the regular SCO on the Courier, the heat is more of an issue, but the biggest one is the fuel consumption. Meanwhile, on the Cobra, SCO is just pressing a button and boosting forever.

I would put it this way: once you're at your destination and down on the surface for exobio, the Courier is better and feels better. When you're up in space and flying a lot, the Cobra is better, to the point that it almost feels like cheating. Which would you rather choose? Me, I haven't made up my mind yet. (I do prefer the Courier's cockpit though, because I'm not a fan of "glass balcony" cockpits - but this is subjective.)

 

[Thorned Rose]

once you're at your destination and down on the surface for exobio, the Courier is better and feels better. When you're up in space and flying a lot, the Cobra is better, to the point that it almost feels like cheating. Which would you rather choose? Me, I haven't made up my mind yet. (I do prefer the Courier's cockpit though, because I'm not a fan of "glass balcony" cockpits - but this is subjective.)

This is the conundrum I face. I figured, being smaller, the Courier would be easier to land in difficult terrain or get me closer to some samples than the Cobra would. And I love the Courier's cockpit. I'm not averse to flying it upside down above planet surfaces to see better so not having a "glass balcony", as you put it, has never bothered me.
I'm just struggling to decide on which given the pros and cons and how attached I am to my Courier. I feel the resignation creeping in that I may just have to put in some extra work for materials and engineering and outfit both then try both. Just hard when I am limited in time.

 

[AlSki]

Somewhat glad to see I am not alone in my conundrum. My Couriers are great, but so far the Cm5 is better except boost. Annoyingly, its the way all of the small improvements add up. So far, I've only really tried out a Titan bomber config, but the thermal management actually meant I could get a 100m/s slower Cm5 around the thermal vents more easily, than an overheating faster Courier. I can' t see how more cargo space will detract from mission running, or the extra hardpoints and agiility from it's combat capabilities.

I do have to admit that there needs to be a decent white paint job in the shop...where's tactical ice?!?

The lore tells us that the Empire should have already been prioritising Imperial design to fight the Thargoid war (sorry can't find the GalNet article), so I was always expecting one of the 2024 ships to be the missing Gutamaya Medium. I was very suprised when the Mandalay was announced, as that felt about where you would have expected classic Gutamaya traits to have either been highly desired or acceptable comprises.

 

[Doctor Dread]

I feel the resignation creeping in that I may just have to put in some extra work for materials and engineering and outfit both then try both.

Don't.

Don't do it if you want to enjoy your Courier. Because you will find Cobra Mk V superior to everything you might need, except for the very extreme cases of heavy firepower or extreme cargo capacity or extreme range, etc.

For 95% of the stuff we do, she simply blew all the ships out of water.

 

[Thorned Rose]

I do have to admit that there needs to be a decent white paint job in the shop...where's tactical ice?!?

I've loved white paint jobs right from the get go (apart from on my combat ships where I use black). I was sorely tempted by the Chrome and Chromed but after looking Chromed on my Phantom, as cool as they are, I just love the white more. One thing I'm sad about the Mandalay is that there's no Tactical Ice (or similar like the Apollo White I have on my Phantom).
The lack of some basic colours that are consistent across all models of ship is rather frustrating when you have a colour theme for your fleet.

The lore tells us that the Empire should have already been prioritising Imperial design to fight the Thargoid war (sorry can't find the GalNet article), so I was always expecting one of the 2024 ships to be the missing Gutamaya Medium. I was very suprised when the Mandalay was announced, as that felt about where you would have expected classic Gutamaya traits to have either been highly desired or acceptable comprises.

I honestly thought the Mandalay was going to be a Gutamaya. Felt perfectly matched with the iCourier Exo. I would still like to see a new Gutamaya ship and a Saud Kruger medium (I mean, come on!!! It's weird doing Robigo in a windowless Python lol).

 

[AlSki]

Oh and also, the ability to charge your FSD while fuel scooping is a game changer on the Cm5. It makes each jump a consistent 45 secs, instead of the 45s-1min when you have to time the FSD charge while reaching 99% as you exit the Sun's corona.