At some point in the past i was using iCourier a lot, it was basically one of my favourite ships. But then SCB changes were made and engineers were added... and now i really can not find a reason to fly one.
First thing i tried is building short-range explorer out of it. SRV, scanners, fuel scoop, shield, cargo rack, chaff/HSL, a pair of E-grade shield boosters and some guns... looks nice on paper, but it turns out that courier has absolutely terrible jump range in such configuration (like slightly better than 20Ly with pretty good upgrade on FSD) and is not that fast (~600m/s boost, which is achievable on ships like clipper or cobra without any "enhanced thrusters"). I can remove guns, shield boosters and use 2D shield, but still SRV is too heavy for it to have good range/speed.
Now if i compare it to Cobra MkIII with similar loadout/modifications... suddenly i understand that it was a waste of time. Cobra has like ~10Ly more range, similar speeds and more cargo...
Then i tried to build a heavy fighter out of it, with A-grade HD boosters and all that. Does not work either. Yes, it has like 1000+Mj shields, but at this point corvette feels much more maneuverable...
Then i tried to build light fighter, basically similar to first loadout, just with empty optional internals. Did not work for me either because of "too fast" issue and somewhat weak shields.
And then finally it turned out to be slower than iEagle in "maximum speed" loadout...
So am i missing something, or it is really as bad as it seems?
First thing i tried is building short-range explorer out of it. SRV, scanners, fuel scoop, shield, cargo rack, chaff/HSL, a pair of E-grade shield boosters and some guns... looks nice on paper, but it turns out that courier has absolutely terrible jump range in such configuration (like slightly better than 20Ly with pretty good upgrade on FSD) and is not that fast (~600m/s boost, which is achievable on ships like clipper or cobra without any "enhanced thrusters"). I can remove guns, shield boosters and use 2D shield, but still SRV is too heavy for it to have good range/speed.
Now if i compare it to Cobra MkIII with similar loadout/modifications... suddenly i understand that it was a waste of time. Cobra has like ~10Ly more range, similar speeds and more cargo...
Then i tried to build a heavy fighter out of it, with A-grade HD boosters and all that. Does not work either. Yes, it has like 1000+Mj shields, but at this point corvette feels much more maneuverable...
Then i tried to build light fighter, basically similar to first loadout, just with empty optional internals. Did not work for me either because of "too fast" issue and somewhat weak shields.
And then finally it turned out to be slower than iEagle in "maximum speed" loadout...
So am i missing something, or it is really as bad as it seems?
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