I have owned and sold the FDL several times, but I never really got to a point where I liked it. I hated that window frame, and I'm still in love with the Mamba. Recently I've gotten tired of blowing up rocks, so I've been spending time exploring in an ASP Exploder and scavenging remains of pirates at a CNB close to Jameson. Even killing pirates can become somewhat boring in a Corvette, so I built a Vulture with frags, which makes dogfighting much more fun, but no limpets. The other problem being that it runs out of ammo after a couple of fights. It does pack a punch though and it is agile.
I have ~1200 hours in game, and I do know how to fly FAoff, but it doesn't ring my bell. On the other hand, in the Vulture, I can pretty much maneuver like I want, and I do use my thrusters a lot, because that's what core mining is all about. I know how to orbit with FAon. Reverskys isn't a problem either. I've always used gimballed hardpoints, and I never tried neither rails nor plasmas.
I found an old dusty FDL in my hangar, and startet building what I wanted. I wanted a ship for NPC combat at the CNB. I also wanted to find out what all the fuss was about with those rails, while getting into fixed weapons. The FDL seemed pretty good for that, so I mounted four class 2B rail guns and went outside the station to quickly test them
They DO get hot!
Mkay... So I knew that I could lower the temperature of the PP by engineering it, but then I started looking into the engineering of the rails. To make a build that at least on paper was as agile and fast as the Vulture, it seemed that a lightweight engineering of the rails was just what I was looking for. I don't mind range, since the frags has taught me to get very close to the target, before squeezing the trigger. I also added a plasma slug experimental on all four rails. Now that the hardpoints were so much lighter, I decided to go in that direction with the rest of the build.
The PP was engineered with low emissions G2 and monstered. The PD was one I had on the shelf, charge enhanced with super conduits. Thrusters were dirty drags. This left me little power remaining for the shield. I normally fly shield tanks, but here I went for a class 5A shield gen and two semi engineered boosters I had.
Went to the CNB and found an Elite Clipper that parked right in front of me looking at my empty cargo. That didn't end as expected, but I got a fresh new paint "for free". Back to the engineers to get those boosters fixed. With a little help from my old trusty 4A beam laser, I'm now able to survive and get my combat rank, but it does take some practice to use fixed weapons.
The FDL handles like a racecar once you figure out those turns. It takes time to get a good understanding of the mass vs the thrusters, but I guess that goes for any ship. On the FDL it seems more important though. Boost turning makes this ship go like a curved cannonball. And I don't have time to get annoyed about the window frame anymore. The handling in SC is close to perfect. Approaching Jameson in a large curve avoiding the gravity well is almost exhilarating in the FDL in VR (great view), and it's not that I haven't approached Jameson from any possible angle before.
It's definitely not an easy ship to fly, but wow, do I understand the fuss now
This is the current build and it's very much still work in progress, but it's a fun package:
Coriolis link
Suggestions are more than welcome!
I have ~1200 hours in game, and I do know how to fly FAoff, but it doesn't ring my bell. On the other hand, in the Vulture, I can pretty much maneuver like I want, and I do use my thrusters a lot, because that's what core mining is all about. I know how to orbit with FAon. Reverskys isn't a problem either. I've always used gimballed hardpoints, and I never tried neither rails nor plasmas.
I found an old dusty FDL in my hangar, and startet building what I wanted. I wanted a ship for NPC combat at the CNB. I also wanted to find out what all the fuss was about with those rails, while getting into fixed weapons. The FDL seemed pretty good for that, so I mounted four class 2B rail guns and went outside the station to quickly test them
They DO get hot!Mkay... So I knew that I could lower the temperature of the PP by engineering it, but then I started looking into the engineering of the rails. To make a build that at least on paper was as agile and fast as the Vulture, it seemed that a lightweight engineering of the rails was just what I was looking for. I don't mind range, since the frags has taught me to get very close to the target, before squeezing the trigger. I also added a plasma slug experimental on all four rails. Now that the hardpoints were so much lighter, I decided to go in that direction with the rest of the build.
The PP was engineered with low emissions G2 and monstered. The PD was one I had on the shelf, charge enhanced with super conduits. Thrusters were dirty drags. This left me little power remaining for the shield. I normally fly shield tanks, but here I went for a class 5A shield gen and two semi engineered boosters I had.
Went to the CNB and found an Elite Clipper that parked right in front of me looking at my empty cargo. That didn't end as expected, but I got a fresh new paint "for free". Back to the engineers to get those boosters fixed. With a little help from my old trusty 4A beam laser, I'm now able to survive and get my combat rank, but it does take some practice to use fixed weapons.
The FDL handles like a racecar once you figure out those turns. It takes time to get a good understanding of the mass vs the thrusters, but I guess that goes for any ship. On the FDL it seems more important though. Boost turning makes this ship go like a curved cannonball. And I don't have time to get annoyed about the window frame anymore. The handling in SC is close to perfect. Approaching Jameson in a large curve avoiding the gravity well is almost exhilarating in the FDL in VR (great view), and it's not that I haven't approached Jameson from any possible angle before.
It's definitely not an easy ship to fly, but wow, do I understand the fuss now
This is the current build and it's very much still work in progress, but it's a fun package:
Coriolis link
Suggestions are more than welcome!
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