I rather resent the whole 'space cow' nonsense... I feel its flight model should be more common across the ships, as so many of them just handle the same, or are overly, distractingly twitchy with no sense of mass or any grace. The T9's actually incredibly graceful (especially during landing), which cannot be said about cows... The nickname simply doesn't match up.
I'm not playing Elite at the moment, other than firing up the Holo-Me or considering the Xmas lights on the storefront (decided against it given my character's 800Ly out from the bubble, and headed another 1000Ly someplace else), but I'm out in the Eskimo nebula staring at its [iffily rendered?] black hole in a T9 built for--- well, exploration and mining... Not a build I'd overly recommend, but I just wanted to mine a certain freakish system (two ring worlds within scoop range of an O type) for the hell of it, and for the inevitable screenshots.
I left a fighter behind, which is a shame as hunting for surface POI's in a fighter with the T9 loitering above/behind was a lot of fun when I tried it out. But given I wanted to pack some mining equipment as well as take an SRV, I just couldn't find the space.
As for the thread? Surely no one should ever be mulling over what they want to do with a ship after buying it... That's kindof the question you answer long before handing over your creds. 'The T9's a trader. Trade in it', is a pretty sturdy answer, but as others have mentioned it can be a prodigiously capable miner so long as you're comfortable extracting not just ore, but your own from a site if you get targeted. I prefer to head to the best spots just outside the bubble to minimise any hassle whilst mining - usually some NPC's spawn in the instance, scan you, then are goners, leaving you in total peace until you're done.
My future plans for the T9 have always been a full exploration build, and to head out around 10-12K, as it can take all the necessary gear, plus a fighter (for POI's and a great change of pace), and it gives you one of the very best cockpit views of the galaxy in the entire game. Engineered, and its jump range is tolerable.
% engineered. I got interdicted by some poor guy in a cute little Corvette today. He opened fire on me. I danced around him for some time. When my shields were close dying I popped a shield cell. I even wrote “plz don’t hurt me moo moo” he kept blasting while I slowly danced around him. I launched my baby fighter cow at him and then he began to shoot at it. I wrote “stop shooting my baby. You don’t wanna see me angry MOOOOOOO” I armed my horns and turned around. I fired 6 engineered torpedoes at him from a distance of 2.5 km. Then I wrote “those white dots are not M&Ms I would move if I were you” Well as you all can imagine he did not. His shield generator blew up after 4 hits. The other two tolk his hull down down to 65% I fired a salvo of heat seeker missiles at him while blasting him with enforcer cannons. When he got down to only 15-20% health only then did he realize the trouble he was in. He tried to escape but my baby fighter finished him... His only reply on Xbox live was. “what?” . So the morale of the story. Mess with the cow and you get the horns.
