My Vulture vs My Clipper (early comparison)

[scorpyon]

So I've now had my Clipper for a few days and I'm tempted to compare it to how my Vulture feels.

I realise this may be slightly skewed for two main reasons here:
- I have a full spec vulture and my clipper is perhaps only about half spec at the moment.
- I died very fast, suddenly and withuch aggravation recently in my Clipper.

Ok so with those two slightly biased points noted, here is what I have found so far with comparing the two.

Combat. The Vulture wins this hands down. It can bully wings of Npcs without so much as blinking. With a full payload of shield boosters its rare my shields drop below the second ring. However, combat does start to get boring in the vulture because its so good at it. On my Clipper however, any ship larger than an Asp means combat could go either way. Staying on a Condas thrusters is a mission in and of itself. And the shields are pithy at best even with 4 boosters an pips! At least its not dull though! Every conda fight is brown trousers time!

Flying. Hmm. Ok, so the clipper is fast. Yes. Its very fast. Yes. But can it turn or brake? Not so much. Nothing can outrun you in a straight line. Unless they turn around. Then you arent going to stop any time soon. Misjudged that envelope slightly? You're done for. Thts how I died recently. My first death in 3 months. Pfft!

Trading. Clipper is awesome for this and the vulture is never going to have much cargo space if any. Assuming you can get in and out of stations in one piece in your clipper it will be a good trade ship.

Exploration. Neither are much good for this due to the crappy jump range for both. At leat the Clipper has a reasonable fuel tank size though. Helps with longer trade routes.

Sounds. The sound is nice on the clipper but nowhere as good as the Asp was. It sounds a bit too much like a toy ship at times. The Asp was much more beefy like a real man's ship! Vulture is a little dull too though.

Covkpit view on the Clipper is great. Big open canopy and lots of view space. Vulture cockpit is obscured bythe two hideous and random blocks on both sides.

So as I say, my feelings are a bit skewed but I'm just a bit disappointed with the Clippers performance so far. I'm going to finish upgrading it to see if it gets better. But this is probably compounded by the time it took grinding missions to get it and then for it to turn (or not turn tbh) out to be a disappointing ride.

Your Experiences May Differ

 

[Intents]

Pretty good assessment even upgraded the thrusters are awful, the ship power slides at the slightest turn but when you get used to the handling its by far my favourite ship. A class 6 shield allows for 186t of cargo and with boosters provides good survivability I regularly take mine into conflict zones. If anything the extra 2 C2 hardpoints (compared to the Vulture) allows you to melt Asps and smaller far more quickly. Yes I too have lost several to accidents and at about 3 mil rebuy (plus a potential 2.5 mill cargo loss) can get expensive but certainly at the moment I dont fly anything else

 

[Pyke]

For now I just use the clipper as trade ship. It is great. I buy a second clipper after the CG at Nu. I don't know if I can use it as a pirate ship.

 

[Troa Barton]

The clipper costs more to deck out than the FDL so keep that in mind.
the shields are weak and expensive but it's more to do with the clipper being a huge target.
to counter this stay a little further away from your targets than you're used to. All npc condas use turrets that become for the most part useless at 1km away. Fly past the target on your first attack run at full speed with full pips to weapons. Unload a full barrage as you fly past the recharge is pretty fast so once it gets close turn it around and stick on the thrusters but just a little further out.
the clipper can handle pretty well after class A thrusters use the boost to flip it around even closer than you would think would be safe. There's a lot of little tricks to get a clipper to do what you want.
once you get used to the flying style and dump a lot of money into her the clipper is a fine ship. I prefer flying a clipper in a conflict zone now. There's no argument that the vulture is better but it's just so... Lifeless. You can face roll the keyboard in a vulture and kill stuff the clipper forces you to be more creative in your attack patterns adds risk to the game while being safe against most enemies due to its speed. The only thing that will catch you is another clipper or a cobra.

 

[waimser]

Thrusters are the first thing to upgrade on the clipper. A's are stupidly expensive, so just upgrade to B or C thrusters, it will change the way you look at combat with the clipper. Suddenly you dont need strong shields against NPC ships, you just position yourself where needed.
Im not dissing your review, the Vulture is better, but the clipper needs a good thruster upgrade before its even worth the time to write it up.

PVP, is another story, I wouldnt take a Clipper to a PVP fight without backup.

 

[Dommarraa]

Clipper is OK for pirating noobs as they can't just run. Anyone who knows to fsd out system or can fight back is not a good target. Fdl and vulture does the job better.

When missions get sorted, the clipper will be shown to be even less desirable, yet another task that it is poor at due to the pad size. It will be relegated to the sexy looking improved t7 that it really is.

 

[Cmdr Bernard]

I'm flying the Clipper since about 2 weeks now and so far I love it, even for combat. I came from Vulture & Asp, so yes, for a pure combat ship the Vulture is hands-down the better choice, but in my experience the clipper is also an awesome combat vessel. It packs a big punch, there is plenty of power available so you don't need to make compromises as in the Vulture, and the shields are not that bad (running 7D + 2 boosters). Properly equipped I find the Clipper makes a most awesome fighting ship, and I even cannot afford all A equipment so far (wonder if ever). And yes, it's insanely expensive to outfit, but IMO worth it.

I agree with the statement the Vulture being somewhat boring. I do like the Vulture and will be buying one again in the future, but it felt indeed somewhat boring after a while. I recently bought a Viper again for the fun of it, with which you actually have to work for your cash and not just press the trigger.

The lack of outposts landing is indeed a setback (but every ship needs some disadvantages, else everyone would be flying the same ship), but so far I havn't felt this to be a big issue with the possibility to have a hangar full of different ships. Choices are always good.

tl;dr: Love the Clipper and currently feel I will always keep one available. Got to try out the Lance some day, though.

 

[Super_Duty]

I just purchased another Clipper, just as many have during the sale. I had almost forgotten how fast she is, having been piloting a Conda for the past couple of months. She's parked for the moment, though my past Clipper was decked out for combat and held up very well. Mind you this was pre-Wing's, so I need to have another look before commenting on current state.

As for the Asp, am I the only one that thought the engine sounds were awful? To me, it sounded like perpetual flatulence. I couldn't sell mine fast enough, just for that very reason.