Disclaimer: This is based on my opinion alone about the process I have used to narrow down my ship I will be using for the long haul. This also might be a long read.
TL;DR: Pick ship that You like. Do not Settle for anything else based purely on numbers. If you did not find 'The Ship' yet, keep searching. Pick handful 2-3 ships you love, focus on them to reduce cash drain.
Now that the disclaimer out of the way, this is recounting of my memory how I have finally selected my ships that I will be sticking with possibly for a long time.
I may have mentioned it in my other posting at some point, although this is a 'game', I try to mimic the real (future) world space living as much as possible. I loved the show FireFly. So ED is where I can somewhat remotely get to live that life style.
I do not want to nor I have the desire to own every single ships in the game, even if money is not an issue. I will however 'rent' a particular ship time to time when the need arises. I also do test drives over 2-3 days whether the ship will be a good fit for me. The loss of 10% sell price is just an expense in my accounting book. A service fee charged by the dealer.
My first ship after Sidewinder was Cobra III I bought it within 2 weeks of my ED career without knowing what the ship was really about. I bought it because it was within my budget and I needed something with little more firepower and cargo space. I used it for several weeks and went on my first 1,000 ly mini exploration to unlock an engineer. I was so green then that I did not even know how to use FSS.
But I knew Cobra was not 'The Ship'. In between flying around for work what ever time I had, I went through catalogue to find 'The Ship'. I spent more time with the DBX page than any other ships in the catalogue and knew this was it. I remember the day I brought my DBX home. It was awesome. Sure it could use some polished paint on the dash, but the look of the ship and what I could do in it, far outweighed the expose wires and lack of paint.
DBX far exceeded my expectation and served me very well. It helped me get enough cash together to find an upgrade. I did realize the hard fact that the DBX lack few things. Hauling cargo was not very easy. After hearing lot about AspX and going over ship builder app trying every module combination I could find or think of, decided it was time. Went to dealer to pick up my AspX only to return it after 10 minutes of flight time.
See, the sound, aesthetic, character of a machine matters to me equally if not more than the stats. I could not stand the engine sound of AspX and no way I was going to be in it for long haul. I did not like the look of AspX anyway.
Obviously I struggled with combat in DBX and saw the need to have something with more kick if I was to build some combat skills. At the same time I became a trucker for short time and really needed something else. I rented a Type-6 for few days then Keelback. And that's when fell in love with SLF. My time in keelback was well spent. Although somewhat miniscule engineered at that time, I was able to do decent one on one bounty hunting in the keel back. That's when I made the decision to only pick an SLF capable ship.
While having lunch at a station I got to see a Krait and had a feeling this maybe it. I went to work head down with my Keelback and finally gathered enough cash for the Krait MK2. By that time I cannot even remember how much time I was spending on edsy.org going over ship builds with countless variations of loadouts. I did not even want to test drive it nor wanted to see pictures of the interior. I wanted the ship badly knowing this just might be 'The Ship' along with my DBX of course. I poured over of any info I could find on Krait loadout, feedback of other commanders. It got check mark basically everything I want to do. Although not as good as DBX, the load out should more than good enough jump range and above all it was SLF capable.
Then the day came, the day I stepped into the bridge of Krait Mk2, fresh out of drydock. I had to call the dealer in that instance to confront him why he sold me a used ship! I could not believe my eyes when I saw those exposed ducttaped wires, loose wires on floor and just overall poor quality. View from the chair was ok and engine sound was good too. So out of necessity had to go on with life in my krait.
Took it on countless bounty hunting, mining, passenger running even hauling cargo for a while. Finally, a ship that can Do everything. But I could not ignore the DeLacy flaws. It did help me to get all my engineering done though and build a sizeable cash reserve which suffice to say most of it went into fitting the krait. I also started to increase my Fed rank to try one of Fed ship. I had a thing for Federal so becoming a Fed pilot was one of the goal. The drop ship or the Gun ship is what I wanted to go for.
As I was planning my very first exploration trip in Krait, I came across few articles bashing the Alliance Crusader. Doing some reading I realized Crusader is SLF capable. Reading many threads I fell bad for the poor thing. Out of all the exterior ships looks in ED galaxy, Alliance ships are the ones I truly like after DBX. But never really gave a thought to try them.
I had a some free time and decided to give Crusader a try. Loved the interior! Very clean, polished. The open canopy just begging to go on an exploration. The engine sound was awesome, overall handling of the ships were good. Once again I found myself pouring over 100s of ship builds and trying all possible combination of load outs on edsy.org. Obviously they were not as impressive as krait. But I could somewhat see myself staying with Crusader.
Seeing how neglected Crusader was, I decided one day to take it to Ishum's Reach. Tried to find any info on if any other Crusader ever made it there but did not find any. I planned my route through Colonia to Ishum's Reach then back to Colonia via Sag A* and stay in Colonia for a while.
To my surprise, Crusader made it to Ishum and back again safely in one piece. My prized Crusader now have a permanent place with me.
While settling in Colonia, I found out right in my home station in Carcosa all 3 Alliance ships are being sold. So decided to give Challenger and Chieftain a try and see if I can replace that Krait. Not surprisingly Chieftain did bounty hunting quite well. While Challenger did well enough as well, the load out is just too similar to Crusader. Once again I poured over countless hours of ship builds, weighing pros and cons and actually putting all these 4 ships through rigorous flight testing finally made a decision.
My station dock now only have 2 ships.....
DBX and Crusader.
DBX is here to stay for its own given qualities. My ultimate goal is exploration. All other activities are just to ensure I have some cash reserve and gather everything for the extended living in deep space. As for Crusader, it turns out I can really do little bit of everything in it. Love the design, Love the sound, Love the View. After destroying approximately same number and type of ships in both Krait and Crusader, although little slower I can accomplish them in Crusader just as well. If I ever need to haul large cargo I can always rent something.
Having only 2 ships to focus now, I have also eliminated the need to have lots of money thus weeks of extreme hard work to make the needed money. I will still engineer them, and I will engineer them well.
Finally, after months of spending countless hours my ship selection has come to an end. I am happy with my selection. Crusader has shown me the far reaches of the galaxy. It is DBX's turn now. I am currently working out a plan to engineer DBX thruster to the max to achieve SLF like speed, so I can skim the surface or run through the canyons. Really, why take a bulky SLF capable ship when you have a DBX.
I actually did not plan to make it this long. Hugely appreciate if you made it this far!
TL;DR: Pick ship that You like. Do not Settle for anything else based purely on numbers. If you did not find 'The Ship' yet, keep searching. Pick handful 2-3 ships you love, focus on them to reduce cash drain.
Now that the disclaimer out of the way, this is recounting of my memory how I have finally selected my ships that I will be sticking with possibly for a long time.I may have mentioned it in my other posting at some point, although this is a 'game', I try to mimic the real (future) world space living as much as possible. I loved the show FireFly. So ED is where I can somewhat remotely get to live that life style.
I do not want to nor I have the desire to own every single ships in the game, even if money is not an issue. I will however 'rent' a particular ship time to time when the need arises. I also do test drives over 2-3 days whether the ship will be a good fit for me. The loss of 10% sell price is just an expense in my accounting book. A service fee charged by the dealer.
My first ship after Sidewinder was Cobra III I bought it within 2 weeks of my ED career without knowing what the ship was really about. I bought it because it was within my budget and I needed something with little more firepower and cargo space. I used it for several weeks and went on my first 1,000 ly mini exploration to unlock an engineer. I was so green then that I did not even know how to use FSS.
But I knew Cobra was not 'The Ship'. In between flying around for work what ever time I had, I went through catalogue to find 'The Ship'. I spent more time with the DBX page than any other ships in the catalogue and knew this was it. I remember the day I brought my DBX home. It was awesome. Sure it could use some polished paint on the dash, but the look of the ship and what I could do in it, far outweighed the expose wires and lack of paint.
DBX far exceeded my expectation and served me very well. It helped me get enough cash together to find an upgrade. I did realize the hard fact that the DBX lack few things. Hauling cargo was not very easy. After hearing lot about AspX and going over ship builder app trying every module combination I could find or think of, decided it was time. Went to dealer to pick up my AspX only to return it after 10 minutes of flight time.
See, the sound, aesthetic, character of a machine matters to me equally if not more than the stats. I could not stand the engine sound of AspX and no way I was going to be in it for long haul. I did not like the look of AspX anyway.
Obviously I struggled with combat in DBX and saw the need to have something with more kick if I was to build some combat skills. At the same time I became a trucker for short time and really needed something else. I rented a Type-6 for few days then Keelback. And that's when fell in love with SLF. My time in keelback was well spent. Although somewhat miniscule engineered at that time, I was able to do decent one on one bounty hunting in the keel back. That's when I made the decision to only pick an SLF capable ship.
While having lunch at a station I got to see a Krait and had a feeling this maybe it. I went to work head down with my Keelback and finally gathered enough cash for the Krait MK2. By that time I cannot even remember how much time I was spending on edsy.org going over ship builds with countless variations of loadouts. I did not even want to test drive it nor wanted to see pictures of the interior. I wanted the ship badly knowing this just might be 'The Ship' along with my DBX of course. I poured over of any info I could find on Krait loadout, feedback of other commanders. It got check mark basically everything I want to do. Although not as good as DBX, the load out should more than good enough jump range and above all it was SLF capable.
Then the day came, the day I stepped into the bridge of Krait Mk2, fresh out of drydock. I had to call the dealer in that instance to confront him why he sold me a used ship! I could not believe my eyes when I saw those exposed ducttaped wires, loose wires on floor and just overall poor quality. View from the chair was ok and engine sound was good too. So out of necessity had to go on with life in my krait.
Took it on countless bounty hunting, mining, passenger running even hauling cargo for a while. Finally, a ship that can Do everything. But I could not ignore the DeLacy flaws. It did help me to get all my engineering done though and build a sizeable cash reserve which suffice to say most of it went into fitting the krait. I also started to increase my Fed rank to try one of Fed ship. I had a thing for Federal so becoming a Fed pilot was one of the goal. The drop ship or the Gun ship is what I wanted to go for.
As I was planning my very first exploration trip in Krait, I came across few articles bashing the Alliance Crusader. Doing some reading I realized Crusader is SLF capable. Reading many threads I fell bad for the poor thing. Out of all the exterior ships looks in ED galaxy, Alliance ships are the ones I truly like after DBX. But never really gave a thought to try them.
I had a some free time and decided to give Crusader a try. Loved the interior! Very clean, polished. The open canopy just begging to go on an exploration. The engine sound was awesome, overall handling of the ships were good. Once again I found myself pouring over 100s of ship builds and trying all possible combination of load outs on edsy.org. Obviously they were not as impressive as krait. But I could somewhat see myself staying with Crusader.
Seeing how neglected Crusader was, I decided one day to take it to Ishum's Reach. Tried to find any info on if any other Crusader ever made it there but did not find any. I planned my route through Colonia to Ishum's Reach then back to Colonia via Sag A* and stay in Colonia for a while.
To my surprise, Crusader made it to Ishum and back again safely in one piece. My prized Crusader now have a permanent place with me.
While settling in Colonia, I found out right in my home station in Carcosa all 3 Alliance ships are being sold. So decided to give Challenger and Chieftain a try and see if I can replace that Krait. Not surprisingly Chieftain did bounty hunting quite well. While Challenger did well enough as well, the load out is just too similar to Crusader. Once again I poured over countless hours of ship builds, weighing pros and cons and actually putting all these 4 ships through rigorous flight testing finally made a decision.
My station dock now only have 2 ships.....
DBX and Crusader.
DBX is here to stay for its own given qualities. My ultimate goal is exploration. All other activities are just to ensure I have some cash reserve and gather everything for the extended living in deep space. As for Crusader, it turns out I can really do little bit of everything in it. Love the design, Love the sound, Love the View. After destroying approximately same number and type of ships in both Krait and Crusader, although little slower I can accomplish them in Crusader just as well. If I ever need to haul large cargo I can always rent something.
Having only 2 ships to focus now, I have also eliminated the need to have lots of money thus weeks of extreme hard work to make the needed money. I will still engineer them, and I will engineer them well.
Finally, after months of spending countless hours my ship selection has come to an end. I am happy with my selection. Crusader has shown me the far reaches of the galaxy. It is DBX's turn now. I am currently working out a plan to engineer DBX thruster to the max to achieve SLF like speed, so I can skim the surface or run through the canyons. Really, why take a bulky SLF capable ship when you have a DBX.
I actually did not plan to make it this long. Hugely appreciate if you made it this far!
