Diamondback Explorer

I am generally happy with my D-back explorer so far, it's rugged and non-aerodynamic mining look from both the inside and outside does make it a surprisingly unique spacecraft. With it's two medium hardpoint slots on the sides and one large hardpoint slot on the bottom with more increased armour than it's less-expensive brother, the Scout, does indeed allow it to withstand the harsh conditions out in space.


But, here's the thing; The fact that it is a small-sized ship that is not only meant for exploring, but also for combat, doesn't have very good maneuverability and speed, even when you throw the credits into it's thrusters (which is usually normal on most ships for upgraded thrusters to not affect cruising speed), seems to confuse me a bit.


Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

-Aluminum
 


Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Buy an other ship.

The Diamondback Explorer is an OK exploration ship if you don't want to go somewhere fast. It's a flying coffin in combat. OK, it's not a flying coffin, it's an immobile coffin. For fast small scale trading any other ship is better. For combat any other ship is better (ok, the T-6, T-9 and T-7 probably are equally bad).

It's really sad what FD did with the DBX, it could have been such a nice ship.
 
If they were setting out to make and all purpose ship then they kind of failed on this one. They needed to give people a reason to buy it. Extra Cargo space for instance......this would have gone at least some way towards making up for is tank like agility. They desperately need to tweak something though as atm its not really viable for anything bar exploring.
 
If they were setting out to make and all purpose ship then they kind of failed on this one. They needed to give people a reason to buy it. Extra Cargo space for instance......this would have gone at least some way towards making up for is tank like agility. They desperately need to tweak something though as atm its not really viable for anything bar exploring.

Yeh, it should really be a combat capable ship with the name Diamondback Explorer...

It does what it says on the tin and quite well from the little testing I've done, no issues with it at all.
 
If you like the explorer's looks but want a real fighter, try the diamondback scout. It's extremely agile and has the same hardpoints (but better placement) as a viper. It also has a better powerplant and runs a lot cooler so you can fit much better weapons. I'd say that it's second only to the vulture for ships its size. If you want to play with loadouts offline before buying, use edshipyard rather than coriolis - the former's shield strength values match what the game reports while coriolis doesn't yet.
 
Yeh, it should really be a combat capable ship with the name Diamondback Explorer...

It does what it says on the tin and quite well from the little testing I've done, no issues with it at all.

Never said it should be. All I said was it could do with another reason for people to buy it. Making its cargo hold slightly larger would be a decent trade off I reckon.
 
You can't have everything, personally I see no issue with the DBX, but then again, I don't want an easy mode ship that can do everything well as it's not realistic :p


The DBX shouldn't be perfect for everything - and it isn't close to be perfect at everything, but for a ship that costs almost as much as a nice Vulture the DBX could be faster and a bit more maneuverable. At minimum it should match the Asp and maybe be a bit more maneuverable and faster - it's smaller, has less cargo capacity and can't fit that nice A6 fuel scoop.
For some reasons the DBX is heavier than the Asp (and has lower armor). FD tried to balance the DBX and did a bit to much "balancing".
 
Well, if it were more maneuverable, it would be a Vulture with more cargo space, but with less shielding. Its a small ship with a large hard point, enough energy for everything, a beautiful jump range, enough cargo space and it looks good (like a heli without the prop). Any more goodies and it would be OP.

Awesome ship. First thing I did after I bought it was selling my Asp.
 
The DBX shouldn't be perfect for everything - and it isn't close to be perfect at everything, but for a ship that costs almost as much as a nice Vulture the DBX could be faster and a bit more maneuverable. At minimum it should match the Asp and maybe be a bit more maneuverable and faster - it's smaller, has less cargo capacity and can't fit that nice A6 fuel scoop.
For some reasons the DBX is heavier than the Asp (and has lower armor). FD tried to balance the DBX and did a bit to much "balancing".

Nah it's so cheap in comparison to the asp there has to be some downside, for the price it's an excellent option for exploration as far as I can see.
 
The DBX shouldn't be perfect for everything - and it isn't close to be perfect at everything, but for a ship that costs almost as much as a nice Vulture the DBX could be faster and a bit more maneuverable. At minimum it should match the Asp and maybe be a bit more maneuverable and faster - it's smaller, has less cargo capacity and can't fit that nice A6 fuel scoop.
For some reasons the DBX is heavier than the Asp (and has lower armor). FD tried to balance the DBX and did a bit to much "balancing".

+1. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As you say it is heavier than the ASP but has half the cargo space and less armour.....surely if its heavier it should have more armour or a bit more cargo space. No one wants it to be OP, just a bit more balanced.
 
I guess we shall have to wait until we get to walk around inside our ships to see how it's been constructed and then we can revisit this with more information :)
 
The Diamondback Explorer is great at what its meant for....exploring. Pretty much the same jump range as the Asp for a 3rd of the cost. It also not bad at combat. I use two med pulse and large beam. Can't really do gimbled on that large hardpoint.
 
Except it's really slow for exploration. It scoops slow, and it turns slow. DBE is a novelty ship, it has no real use. You buy it if you like the look.
 
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Deleted member 38366

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I mostly Bh and occasionally explore. I never trade. The DBX is meant to be a bridge between smaller exploring ships and the Asp, and as this implies, it's better at combat then some cheaper exploring vessels (like the Adder, for example) and worse than some more combat oriented ones (e.g., the Viper). The DBS is supposed to fill a explorey-BH role, as in a BH capable ship with better jump and travel capabilities. While the DBX is very effective at its proposed role, the DBS is a little less so.

I've bought both. The DBS has decent maneuverability, being like a slower Viper. It's weapon setup is superior, mostly because of placement, but very similar, again, to a Viper. It's more resilient to damage then the latter, however. Personally, I favor more maneuverable ships for BH: the Vulture remains the best BH small ship by far, IMHO. The DBS is mostly meant for occasional BHunters.

The DBX, on the other hand, is an amazing exploring ship. Nothing comes even close at its price range and if you stock it with a Class A FSD, you get more jump range than with an Asp with a Class A FSD (32.5 unladden against 29.97 unladden), with the same fuel tank and for a much smaller price (you'd spend almost the double ammount of credits to outfit an Asp with a similar FSD). It is, in almost every way, the best small exploration vessel in the game. But, as a drawback, it's inferior to a fully outfitted Asp for exploration - the lack of a larger port for a 6A Fuel Scoop is a major one, as well as much worser capabilities for combat. While packing a little more firepower than some small ships - a large hardpoint makes a HUGE difference in combat - it's amazingly sluggish and lacks maneuverability against virtually every ship. I took several minutes to kill even SWs because I couldn't get them on my sight for more than a couple of seconds. Against groups, then, it's really a pain. All in all, it's a great exploring vessel - nothing more. The Asp can BH really well, on the other hand, and even with sub-optimal maneuverability, its weapon placements and sheer firepower make up for it. A Vulture is still better at BH, however.

TL;DR: The DBX is great at exploring, better than the Asp if you take the price into consideration. But don't expect it to fight well. The DBS does a better job at that, specially at it price range, but it's not the best combat ship you can get. You may buy one or the other eventually, but in the end we all end up in Asps, Pythons and Anacondas.
 
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