I am proud to announce that Commander Jason Burke has taken delivery of the new flagship of his Phoenix Fleet - the Queen, an Fer-de-Lance personally configured to his exacting needs by the craftsmen at Zorgon Peterson.
Okay, here is what really happened...
Decided it was time to get a mid-sized craft capable of combat. Looked at both the FdL and Clipper, decided on the former. Spent a lot of time in Coriolis working out the best configuration for MY NEEDS, worked out the cost and set myself a timeline to get it. Decided I needed at minimum twice as much in the bank as the ship was going to cost. Realised that figure, did some research on EDDB to find out where the ship was available, and where the modules were as well, factoring in I was going to trade the Courier in (can always buy one again, they are relatively cheap but couldn't justify keeping both as I wanted some of the modules/weapons off the Courier). Got the required balance, jumped in the Courier, two quick jumps to the station - success EDDB was correct, the FdL was available for sale.
Gutted the Courier, storing selected modules, selling those I either new I didn't need or already had in storage. Hit the big purchase button for the new toy, then headed to Outfitting. Luckily nearly everything I wanted was at that station with the exception of a 6A Power Distribution and 5A Shield Generator (kept the defaults until I could get the ones I wanted). Applied all the fluff to the ship (paint job etc) and I was ready for my first flight. Very, repeated for emphasis, VERY tentatively engaged thrusters and started heading towards the slot. Just before I was about to enter it, of course an Orca decided it was a great time to suddenly drop into the station (seriously, are Orca and Beluga Commanders the 34th Century equivalent of Volvo drivers!!!!). Reverse thrust, eased back, let the moron fly in through the middle of the slot. Finally got out of the station, gave the controls a few wiggles to see how it handled and jumped back to my home system to get the bits I need. Found the 5A Shield Gen at the first station I had pegged, but the 6A Power Dist proved a little harder and took me 4 stations and three jumps to finally get it.
Everything is A Rated, main weapon is a 4A Gimballed Beam, and does that thing eat shields! Inner pair of AX MC's and the outer weapon slots have some G5 Modded 2F MCs (gimballed of course). Still, the weapons layout is open for discussion, but I do like the layout and have a total DPS of just over 100.
Okay, now comes the embarrassing bit! Of course I had to try her out, so I headed straight to the local Nav Beacon cos I wanted small steps first. No problems found, except an Eagle lasts only seconds under the big Beam - very impressed!. So pride got better of me, jumped to a neighbouring system and dropped into a HiRes that is always fun. Still hanging back, not wanting to bite off my than I can chew so to speak, which gave me time to scan all the ships around me, and KWS those that looked promising. Jumped in a couple of battles, won those and soon had a nice little pile of bounties totally around 1.5M CR. Then a big juicy wanted Anaconda dropped in, quick check showed a bounty of over 375,000 CR, and there were two Authority Ana's already attacking it. Perfect, so I, and it seems every damn ship, headed over there. Nice battle until I mistook the wrong ship for the Ana's wingmate. Yes it was wanted, and I had already done a KWS on it, but it was part of wing of 3 Elite FGSs. Well of course they took umbrage at my actions, and all three attacked me at once. Yep, sooner than I had thought, I was at the rebuy screen (insert tears here, followed by laughter). A few naughty words, a cigarette and another cup of coffee and I was back in the same HiRes, 45 minutes later had sufficient bounties to wipe out the pain of the re-buy
Impressions on the FdL: Really happy, more nimble and agile that I thought it would be, fast as well. The one thing I don't like and this is an FD fault to many ships, is the hud information seems to be displayed in front of the ship which means the nose of the ship and even the canopy frames obscure some of the info at the most inopportune times!
Okay, here is what really happened...
Decided it was time to get a mid-sized craft capable of combat. Looked at both the FdL and Clipper, decided on the former. Spent a lot of time in Coriolis working out the best configuration for MY NEEDS, worked out the cost and set myself a timeline to get it. Decided I needed at minimum twice as much in the bank as the ship was going to cost. Realised that figure, did some research on EDDB to find out where the ship was available, and where the modules were as well, factoring in I was going to trade the Courier in (can always buy one again, they are relatively cheap but couldn't justify keeping both as I wanted some of the modules/weapons off the Courier). Got the required balance, jumped in the Courier, two quick jumps to the station - success EDDB was correct, the FdL was available for sale.
Gutted the Courier, storing selected modules, selling those I either new I didn't need or already had in storage. Hit the big purchase button for the new toy, then headed to Outfitting. Luckily nearly everything I wanted was at that station with the exception of a 6A Power Distribution and 5A Shield Generator (kept the defaults until I could get the ones I wanted). Applied all the fluff to the ship (paint job etc) and I was ready for my first flight. Very, repeated for emphasis, VERY tentatively engaged thrusters and started heading towards the slot. Just before I was about to enter it, of course an Orca decided it was a great time to suddenly drop into the station (seriously, are Orca and Beluga Commanders the 34th Century equivalent of Volvo drivers!!!!). Reverse thrust, eased back, let the moron fly in through the middle of the slot. Finally got out of the station, gave the controls a few wiggles to see how it handled and jumped back to my home system to get the bits I need. Found the 5A Shield Gen at the first station I had pegged, but the 6A Power Dist proved a little harder and took me 4 stations and three jumps to finally get it.
Everything is A Rated, main weapon is a 4A Gimballed Beam, and does that thing eat shields! Inner pair of AX MC's and the outer weapon slots have some G5 Modded 2F MCs (gimballed of course). Still, the weapons layout is open for discussion, but I do like the layout and have a total DPS of just over 100.
Okay, now comes the embarrassing bit! Of course I had to try her out, so I headed straight to the local Nav Beacon cos I wanted small steps first. No problems found, except an Eagle lasts only seconds under the big Beam - very impressed!. So pride got better of me, jumped to a neighbouring system and dropped into a HiRes that is always fun. Still hanging back, not wanting to bite off my than I can chew so to speak, which gave me time to scan all the ships around me, and KWS those that looked promising. Jumped in a couple of battles, won those and soon had a nice little pile of bounties totally around 1.5M CR. Then a big juicy wanted Anaconda dropped in, quick check showed a bounty of over 375,000 CR, and there were two Authority Ana's already attacking it. Perfect, so I, and it seems every damn ship, headed over there. Nice battle until I mistook the wrong ship for the Ana's wingmate. Yes it was wanted, and I had already done a KWS on it, but it was part of wing of 3 Elite FGSs. Well of course they took umbrage at my actions, and all three attacked me at once. Yep, sooner than I had thought, I was at the rebuy screen (insert tears here, followed by laughter). A few naughty words, a cigarette and another cup of coffee and I was back in the same HiRes, 45 minutes later had sufficient bounties to wipe out the pain of the re-buy
Impressions on the FdL: Really happy, more nimble and agile that I thought it would be, fast as well. The one thing I don't like and this is an FD fault to many ships, is the hud information seems to be displayed in front of the ship which means the nose of the ship and even the canopy frames obscure some of the info at the most inopportune times!
