IMHO the Corvette is the only dedicated Large Combat Ship in the entire Game.
It doesn't just rock or excel at what it does. It just dominates.
Very potent Shields? You got it.
Very high maneuverability? You got it, 4 Pips ENG make it pretty much turn like a medium Combat Ship.
Lots of firepower? You got it.
All combined, it takes the established BattleConda concept one step further - IF you accept that almost the entire Ship is basically built around those 2 C4 Hardpoints. Make 'em count.
Cutter? Sure, it's fast and packs firepower, plus it has tremendous Shield strength.
But it can't turn for [expletive] and will literally drift out of conventional engagement range with a single boost turn. Which still takes forever, not even Palin can help that. Can't fight well if you can't turn to point your Weapons.
It's no surprise the Cutter found its role... primarily as a well-defended Trader or Large-Scale Miner.
If anything, I might be about time Gutamaya builds a Large dedicated Combat Ship. A counterpart to the Federal Corvette. Like... a Ship that can actually turn.
(with the recent T9 buff, I don't really see a reason for a Federal Military Trader to create a counterpart to the Imperial Cutter though)
I have all 3 and flown them for quite a bit.
Cutter is the apotheosis of Reverski (for big ships at least). It have no problems shoothing from range it ends up in. That's why LR is for. You can keep yourself out of range of of Conda/Vette likes forever. Not that it is too easy.
Even more, toggling FA on/off works a bit strange for Cutter. As long as you dont tilt your ship more than 90 degrees in some direction, pressing forward/backward thrusters will continue to move your ship same way it were when you toggled FA back on at full speed for huge amounts of time. Like 5 minutes or so.
And all what Vette could do is use double LR beams. Now, you wont have enough heatsinks to push through Cutter's shields. I am talking 3x3 of them, which I use on all big ships. You can do 3 LR burst lasers in huge and big slots to achieve about same DPS at long range. But that build would be too gimped against everything else.
And there is really nothing here to put inside those C4 hardpoints beside a pair of focused plasmas. Like what else, really? Next thing would be a pair of C3 frags.
Multicannons are just not made for long range. Cannons?
And even if you manage to stay close to Cutter, you wont be at 600m for any meaningful time for sure. You will be in 600m for 3 seconds when Cutter boosts past you when you get too close to him. So efficient beams are a bad option
At some point, Cutter will boost twice in the same direction to chug on his 8A SCB in 8km range from you.
With LR beams in huge slots, Vette was worth it. Now, it does not. As long as you don't have grandfathered beams with reduced distro draws.
I do not want to say that Vette is completely useless. But for me, if feels as the worst of big 3.
Oh, and Conda is just a not a good PvP ship really. Its big and it's speed is locked to 405 m/s no matter how low your mass would go. But when you get to 945 tonnes, it flies like an unmodded Clipper. It have no problem turn-fighting NPC ships and it flips 180 deg on a dime. Inertia goes down from levels, so you can skip LR and use efficient. It is just becomes perfect all-type combat PvE ship. I fly one with 4 med plasmaslug rails, 2 huge and big EFF beams and 2 small cascade rails, and I recommed everyone to do so.
And you can build it to fit into 630 tonnes even. I feel like turning acceleration goes up, despite what I had heard. Turning rates might be the same, but turning acceleration is not. It really goes into unmodded FDL territory. But you are pretty much locked to LW everything. And that max speed thing is really stupid, but I can't just go and ask for a Conda buff without looking .
But you won't be doing so good in PvP. Again, it is a big and slow target, no matter how well it turns, and it's shields do suck.
Surprisingly, Vette is the only ship it would objectively beat in PvP, at least if I imagine a fight vs myself.
Again, I do not consider myself a good PvP pilot.
But when it comes to solo wing assasination spam, Conda does not have enough SCBs and Cutter does not have enough DPS.
This is where is only niche for Vette lies. But for everything else, other two are better. And it remains forever in the system you do such spam in, it have no legs.
And it is good for Vette vs Vette PvP only. Maybe occasional Python. Which can just go away as he is faster.
So, in my opinion, those 2 small hardpoins really should get an upgrade. At very least. I myself think that Vette should just get an 9A distributor.
On the side note, I feel like LR Imp hammers is the only answer which remains. For both Cutter and Vette. Cutter cannot even use 3 pulses for any meaningful time on 2 weapon pips anymore, which is his usual state.
And those grandfathering heat and distributor reductions, not to mention shields which are G4 thermal G3 reinforced at the same time...
It is like Fdev wants to kill off their PvP audience to stop thinking about balance anymore.
I cannot play this game with same drive as before, knowing such imbalance does exist, and I would never reach some of the
most effective builds which are still in use.
