Chaps & Chapesses,
Since my last, enforced, clear save I have been mostly trucking & trading and doing quite well out of it (with the current iteration of the game it is all too easy to make money and combat is still an optional activity) & enjoying myself. Then I read an article about how much fun and how profitable passenger missions can be. So, fancying a change of pace & being near to two systems where I am allied with at least some of the factions (and so ought to be in the way of some lucrative jobs), I thought I'd give bus driving a crack.
This is not the first time I have tried my hand at bus driving. In my last play through I gave it a try using a Dolphin as the bus of choice. This time I read a review of the Dolphin and thought that it could not have been as bad as I remembered it, and what weak spots it has were my fault for not equipping/flying it correctly. So I bought myself a Dolphin, A rated it where it mattered & D ratted it as much as possible where it didn't. I then popped into the Passenger board in my home system, where I had some allied factions and should have been a very good place for picking up contracts.
The first thing I noticed was that I most certainly not going bus driving, taxi driving maybe, but not bus. The passenger capacity of the Dolphin is so poor that even with the friendliest planetary factions I registered far more "requirements not met" than I did jobs open to me. Of those that I could take I was looking at taking a lady and her friend on a sight-seeing mission, maybe a couple of hundred light years. The rest were out of my league (a wanted criminal 35,000 light years). Jobs like taking the lady and friend round a couple of beacons in a Dolphin take me a couple of real time hours and pay < CR2M.
Then you don't have too go far in a Dolphin to understand its second big flaw; not only is it very limited in the number pf passengers it can carry but drinks petrol. Yesterday I had to do a 280Ly trip home from a sightseeing beacon. I needed 3 refueling stops. No big deal, just aggravation finding systems with petrol stations (because the route calculator built in assumes you want to faff about sucking fuel).
So I can drive a taxi with poor returns and one eye always on the fuel gauge, or I can look for a ship with a better fit to the task I have in hand. A T6 might do very well, except for the role playing aspect (it is a flying brick, no tourist would set foot inside it). Aside from the T6 how do you feel about using the Krait Phantom?
The Phantom seems to tick all the boxes, it has a big enough capacity, 3 class 5 spaces, and a reasonable jump range without engineers.
Do you think the Krait Phantom will do as a bus?
Since my last, enforced, clear save I have been mostly trucking & trading and doing quite well out of it (with the current iteration of the game it is all too easy to make money and combat is still an optional activity) & enjoying myself. Then I read an article about how much fun and how profitable passenger missions can be. So, fancying a change of pace & being near to two systems where I am allied with at least some of the factions (and so ought to be in the way of some lucrative jobs), I thought I'd give bus driving a crack.
This is not the first time I have tried my hand at bus driving. In my last play through I gave it a try using a Dolphin as the bus of choice. This time I read a review of the Dolphin and thought that it could not have been as bad as I remembered it, and what weak spots it has were my fault for not equipping/flying it correctly. So I bought myself a Dolphin, A rated it where it mattered & D ratted it as much as possible where it didn't. I then popped into the Passenger board in my home system, where I had some allied factions and should have been a very good place for picking up contracts.
The first thing I noticed was that I most certainly not going bus driving, taxi driving maybe, but not bus. The passenger capacity of the Dolphin is so poor that even with the friendliest planetary factions I registered far more "requirements not met" than I did jobs open to me. Of those that I could take I was looking at taking a lady and her friend on a sight-seeing mission, maybe a couple of hundred light years. The rest were out of my league (a wanted criminal 35,000 light years). Jobs like taking the lady and friend round a couple of beacons in a Dolphin take me a couple of real time hours and pay < CR2M.
Then you don't have too go far in a Dolphin to understand its second big flaw; not only is it very limited in the number pf passengers it can carry but drinks petrol. Yesterday I had to do a 280Ly trip home from a sightseeing beacon. I needed 3 refueling stops. No big deal, just aggravation finding systems with petrol stations (because the route calculator built in assumes you want to faff about sucking fuel).
So I can drive a taxi with poor returns and one eye always on the fuel gauge, or I can look for a ship with a better fit to the task I have in hand. A T6 might do very well, except for the role playing aspect (it is a flying brick, no tourist would set foot inside it). Aside from the T6 how do you feel about using the Krait Phantom?
The Phantom seems to tick all the boxes, it has a big enough capacity, 3 class 5 spaces, and a reasonable jump range without engineers.
Do you think the Krait Phantom will do as a bus?
. 57 ly per jump, 400 ly on a tank. Still can't scoop while charging, though - but probably won't need to for any in-bubble travel.
