Wanted to make a thread about the Panther, a review of up to the launch and of the ship, also to eat some words of skepticism and a few critical words I stated pre-launch. Idk if anyone wants to post their reviews here as well, thought it would be easier than the current thread that's over a hundred pages and consists mainly of up to the launch after the Panthers announcement.
First I'd like to eat some crow. After it was all said and done Fdev's strategy of building hype through cryptic information, very little details, and video clips, was very well done. It did make me suspicious and brought out critical words about the jump range, cargo cap, and it's versatility. Ya, I was wrong. Their tactic gave me an impression of Wow after the launch and last nights shakedown cruise. They stepped up after only one week of letting the good fellas (content creators) have a go at it and remedied the weapon hard points by moving them. Well done!
A nod to the commuity goal, fun and engaging in a few different ways, also built the hype well.
Th ship itself- My first build was a general-purpose build, I don't think I made a loadout last night that wouldn't haul any less than 1000 tons cargo. I put a class 5 fighter hangar on it, a class 2 vehicle hangar, a class 5 FSD booster, a class 7A shield, a docking and super cruise assit module, and iit still was over 1000 tons. Legendary? Quite possibly.
With all of that I had a layden range of just over 32 lyrs and an unlayden of just over 45 lyrs. Something like 1200 shield cap from a standard class 7A enginnered to gr.5 reinforced. Dang! I was using a class 7 Titan FSD. (to difficult to remember and type its offical name lol)
The sound of the ship- I stayed up way to late, put maybe 500lys on it and I swear everytime I took the ship out there were new sounds coming out of it. Moans, groans, creeks, cracks, whistles, chirps, growls, something like a soda can rolling around on the floor sound, and it all seem to to change from trip to trip like it has some sort of attitude or peronality. Or likes or dislikes the way I'm handling it. Pretty cool.
The looks- Are growing on me, I do see a frog and a panther, a franther. I alos do like the seat positioning, slightly better periphial. The twist of the seat when yawing is neat, kinda feels like it is pointing to where you're gonna crash into. lol It is very different and maybe more jarring in VR. I could do with or with out it, closer or father back, either way is fine with me.
The power plant and weapons- I'm still a bit noobish on weapon load outs, I put on beam and multi-canon turrets. I really have never used turrets and wanted to give them a go. I upgraded all the beams to gr.5 efficient with the overcharged experimental, the multi's to gr.5 overcharged with the auto loader experimental. The power plant didn't even need to be overcharged, but put gr.1 on it so I could add the heat disapation experimental. At 5 pips in weapons it doesn't even drain the gr.5 charge enhanced and super capcitor upgrades on the distribuator. So with that load out more pips to engines in combat. As a note, I haven't had a chance to engage in combat yet.
Handling- Withou any upgrades to the class 8A thrusters (is my memory working right, class 8?) that thing dropped like a rock to a low gravity planet. I put on gr.3 dirty with drive dristribuators. After that when I level out it only drops slightly, instead of a five kilometer drop when leveling out and chopping the throttle. The speed, boost, turn, yaw, pitch, and roll rates all went up into the blue after the drive dristribuators were added to the dirty 3.
I have been experimenting with large and small ships with the dirty/drag combo and drity/distribuator combo. On small and medium ships lowering the optimal weight from a gr.5 dirty/drag combo is fine, handling isn't really effected that much. On large ships gr.5 dirty/drag is sloppy. It may be faster but they acccelerate and recover very poorly.
I'd like to ask the brains to try that experiment to confirm or deny my results. Of cousres top speed will be slightly less, but its made up in acceleration and recovery. The Panther is a good test ship for this. It's not easy using the in game stats because you have to go to the load out screen to see your mass and thruster optimal after the changes. Even then it's a bit tough to decipher becasue of the current weight/max thruster weight stat on the second stat screen. Have a set of gr.5 dirty/drag combo and a set of gr.3 dirty/dristribuator combo and look at the turn, yaw, pitch, and roll rates between the two. Then take each for a short test run. After that the panther handled very well and a fast enough turn rate for gimballed weapons or a combo of gimablled and turreted. Maybe even fixed.
All in all I have had a ton of fun upto and after the launch. I even like the decal for getting the early access. I also liked eating some humble crow pie. I liked the posts in the threads. I'd like to see some paint jobs with less stripes and chevrons, two tone or three is fine, and there's nothing wrong with solid colors. The Panther Clipper MkII is certainly legendary in this version of Elite. There isn't a ship like it... Until the Anaconda MkII. Look I'm already speculating! What have they done to me?
First I'd like to eat some crow. After it was all said and done Fdev's strategy of building hype through cryptic information, very little details, and video clips, was very well done. It did make me suspicious and brought out critical words about the jump range, cargo cap, and it's versatility. Ya, I was wrong. Their tactic gave me an impression of Wow after the launch and last nights shakedown cruise. They stepped up after only one week of letting the good fellas (content creators) have a go at it and remedied the weapon hard points by moving them. Well done!
A nod to the commuity goal, fun and engaging in a few different ways, also built the hype well.
Th ship itself- My first build was a general-purpose build, I don't think I made a loadout last night that wouldn't haul any less than 1000 tons cargo. I put a class 5 fighter hangar on it, a class 2 vehicle hangar, a class 5 FSD booster, a class 7A shield, a docking and super cruise assit module, and iit still was over 1000 tons. Legendary? Quite possibly.
With all of that I had a layden range of just over 32 lyrs and an unlayden of just over 45 lyrs. Something like 1200 shield cap from a standard class 7A enginnered to gr.5 reinforced. Dang! I was using a class 7 Titan FSD. (to difficult to remember and type its offical name lol)
The sound of the ship- I stayed up way to late, put maybe 500lys on it and I swear everytime I took the ship out there were new sounds coming out of it. Moans, groans, creeks, cracks, whistles, chirps, growls, something like a soda can rolling around on the floor sound, and it all seem to to change from trip to trip like it has some sort of attitude or peronality. Or likes or dislikes the way I'm handling it. Pretty cool.
The looks- Are growing on me, I do see a frog and a panther, a franther. I alos do like the seat positioning, slightly better periphial. The twist of the seat when yawing is neat, kinda feels like it is pointing to where you're gonna crash into. lol It is very different and maybe more jarring in VR. I could do with or with out it, closer or father back, either way is fine with me.
The power plant and weapons- I'm still a bit noobish on weapon load outs, I put on beam and multi-canon turrets. I really have never used turrets and wanted to give them a go. I upgraded all the beams to gr.5 efficient with the overcharged experimental, the multi's to gr.5 overcharged with the auto loader experimental. The power plant didn't even need to be overcharged, but put gr.1 on it so I could add the heat disapation experimental. At 5 pips in weapons it doesn't even drain the gr.5 charge enhanced and super capcitor upgrades on the distribuator. So with that load out more pips to engines in combat. As a note, I haven't had a chance to engage in combat yet.
Handling- Withou any upgrades to the class 8A thrusters (is my memory working right, class 8?) that thing dropped like a rock to a low gravity planet. I put on gr.3 dirty with drive dristribuators. After that when I level out it only drops slightly, instead of a five kilometer drop when leveling out and chopping the throttle. The speed, boost, turn, yaw, pitch, and roll rates all went up into the blue after the drive dristribuators were added to the dirty 3.
I have been experimenting with large and small ships with the dirty/drag combo and drity/distribuator combo. On small and medium ships lowering the optimal weight from a gr.5 dirty/drag combo is fine, handling isn't really effected that much. On large ships gr.5 dirty/drag is sloppy. It may be faster but they acccelerate and recover very poorly.
I'd like to ask the brains to try that experiment to confirm or deny my results. Of cousres top speed will be slightly less, but its made up in acceleration and recovery. The Panther is a good test ship for this. It's not easy using the in game stats because you have to go to the load out screen to see your mass and thruster optimal after the changes. Even then it's a bit tough to decipher becasue of the current weight/max thruster weight stat on the second stat screen. Have a set of gr.5 dirty/drag combo and a set of gr.3 dirty/dristribuator combo and look at the turn, yaw, pitch, and roll rates between the two. Then take each for a short test run. After that the panther handled very well and a fast enough turn rate for gimballed weapons or a combo of gimablled and turreted. Maybe even fixed.
All in all I have had a ton of fun upto and after the launch. I even like the decal for getting the early access. I also liked eating some humble crow pie. I liked the posts in the threads. I'd like to see some paint jobs with less stripes and chevrons, two tone or three is fine, and there's nothing wrong with solid colors. The Panther Clipper MkII is certainly legendary in this version of Elite. There isn't a ship like it... Until the Anaconda MkII. Look I'm already speculating! What have they done to me?