Ships The Fabulous ORCA

GJ51

GJ51
Since the last update, I've been trying to find my niche.

I have my ED bucket list done, having achieved all the goals I had previously set for myself. Thus the dilemma, what next? I really didn't like the idea of becoming a seal pup clubber, although that was an option, it never was the type of thing I wanted to do.

And then - Passenger Missions. Different and somewhat entertaining, plus an opportunity to see some new and interesting sights. Plus smuggling illegals and some pretty nice payouts as well.

So I first figured the new Beluga was worth a try. I outfitted one, but other than decent max jump range, I didn't find it much fun to fly. I prefer the fast and nimble ships, and no doubt, Beluga wasn't it.
I then figured it was time to see what the Orca could do. Oh. boy! Can it do!

It looks incredibly stunning in its Black Friday full dress paint job. Best looking ship in the game, with the massive blacked out glass. From the back of the ship view it has Chrome finished Engine cowlings that really add that touch of class that sets it apart. Truly beautiful.

But that's just the start of what separates the Orca from the pack. Performance is what completes the package.

Here are the specs on my Orca:

Top Speed - 439M/S
Boost Speed - 556M/S
Pitch/Roll/Yaw - 36.56/80.42/26.32 Degrees/S
Jump Range - 20.60 Min / 21.17 Max

Hard Points:

3D Cannon Turret with G2 Long Range mod - Max Range 5369M
2F Pulse Laser Gimballed G4 Efficient mod with Scramble Spectrum
2F Pulse Laser Gimballed G4 Efficient mod

Shield Strength 638.8 MJ

5A G1 Overcharged Power Plant - 23.14MW

6C First Class Cabin
5D Business Cabin
5A Fuel Scoop
5A Shield Gen w/4 OA HD Boosters
4E Cargo Rack
3E Cargo Rack
2G Planetary Vehicle Hangar w/SRV
Advanced Discovery Scanner
Planetary Approach Suite

It's perfect for mid-range Sight Seeing and Transport Missions. Some can pay in the 7-8 Mil CR range.

It's fast and can choose when and where it wants to fight back. It handles like a Cobra, and works great smuggling in illegal passengers. Easy to land on planets.

The only downside is the max jump range, but then again, I'm not in any hurry anymore.

It's all good.

My wife does the cooking, my son is my co-pilot, and my daughter serves as flight attendant. And we all take exorbitant vacations looking for premium wines to keep the ship well-stocked.

All because we just can... ;)
 

goemon

goemon
no luxury cabin?

i went class 6 luxury, class 5 first class and class 4 bussiness.... which left me with a class 3 fuelscoop.

probably you are right.

you are very right how great it looks.

the only thing i dislike is the boost BING ! (!) (((!))))
 

GJ51

GJ51
goemon said:
no luxury cabin?

i went class 6 luxury, class 5 first class and class 4 bussiness.... which left me with a class 3 fuelscoop.

probably you are right.

you are very right how great it looks.
Click to expand...

I haven't been finding many Luxury Class Missions, and the ones I found didn't seem to pay significantly high enough to compensate for the smaller capacity.

The heat profile with the mods makes the 5A Fuel scoop almost a necessity if I want to move at a reasonable speed without overheating.

- - - Updated - - -

Hell Razor5543 said:
Nice sounding ship (and not just because of the engine noise)! Please can we have some pictures?
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I'll give that a try and see if I can get them into the OP when I have more time. I took some, but they didn't look as good in the pics as they do in the in-game cam.

It really is stunning. Looks highly polished and custom with the paint and windows. And the chrome engine trim just tops it off. I'll work on the pics tonight if I can.
 

BanzaiZAP

BanzaiZAP
I actually have two. One fit for passengers and Doing Stuff, and the other is a pure battle orca. Both have been heavily engineered.

Jules Verne: 6:Luxury Cabin, 5:Cargo, 5:Fuel Scoop, 5: Shield(A), 4:AMFU, 3:Collector Controller, 2:Vehicle Hangar, 2:Av Disco Scanner, with two Dumbfires for blowing up skimmers, one each for Chaff, Heat Sink, Shield Boost(A), Wake Scanner.

Battersmash: 5:5:5:5:Hull Reinforcements, 4:Fuel Scoop, 3:Interdictor, 2:AMFU, 2:Adv Disco Scanner, with lots of Heat Sinks (Silent Running) and a pair of Mine Launchers that are engineered to disable engines.

goemon said:
the only thing i dislike is the boost BING ! (!) (((!))))
Click to expand...

Are you kidding? That's my favorite part! "Passengers are advised to take their seats, as we are about to engage the Corvette..."
 
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Jazzy

Jazzy
BanzaiZAP said:
<snipped>


Are you kidding? That's my favorite part! "Passengers are advised to take their seats, as we are about to engage the Corvette..."
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Pure gold Cmdr... Passengers be like "what did the Captain just say!...... Omg!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
Just got mine thanks to the Tutumu CG, I'm still fitting it out with some stock and engineered equipment but so far it's looking good :)

Picture taken in Irkutsk, Alioth (20% discount :)) it's also my only large pad ship the Python being my next largest

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Flimley

Flimley
I sold my beluga for an Orca, im muchly pleased with my decision. Its simply a better ship. I keep in store full range of passenger cabins so can swap for best lucrative missions. Oh yes, the orca can fit shield boosters quite comfortably without going on fire....unlike the beluga.

Flimley
 

CMDR-AD

CMDR-AD
The Orca is indeed a pleasure. Mine has a jump range of 20LY, and boosts to just short of 500m/s. And it's so maneuverable that I can't recall the last time I failed to evade and interdiction. With a 4A fuel scoop, travel is comfortable, in spite of the short jump range (even with Engineering).

Between the Orca and Beluga, I'm not sure which is my favorite. The Beluga with 30LY range and Class 6 fuel scoop really makes for more comfortable travel, great sounds, too. But it's a slow, big, weakly protected target. And it does like to emit spark and flames. I crossed 105% heat while charging the FSD to leave a Visitor's Beacon in my last session, but suffered no damage.

With either ship, the real and only way I can enjoy them is with Passenger missions. Lately I've been taking VIP sightseeing missions with in-bubble destinations. Some really fantastic sights out there that have been worth visiting.
 

GJ51

GJ51
CMDR-AD said:
The Orca is indeed a pleasure. Mine has a jump range of 20LY, and boosts to just short of 500m/s. And it's so maneuverable that I can't recall the last time I failed to evade and interdiction. With a 4A fuel scoop, travel is comfortable, in spite of the short jump range (even with Engineering).

Between the Orca and Beluga, I'm not sure which is my favorite. The Beluga with 30LY range and Class 6 fuel scoop really makes for more comfortable travel, great sounds, too. But it's a slow, big, weakly protected target. And it does like to emit spark and flames. I crossed 105% heat while charging the FSD to leave a Visitor's Beacon in my last session, but suffered no damage.

With either ship, the real and only way I can enjoy them is with Passenger missions. Lately I've been taking VIP sightseeing missions with in-bubble destinations. Some really fantastic sights out there that have been worth visiting.
Click to expand...

Don't boost and charge FTL at the same time in a Beluga. It will overheat every time.

I also found that I didn't see much practicality in Passenger mission stacking. That was another factor in moving to the Orca.

Speed and handling, better heat management combined with the fact that it was able to do most of the missions available that I like to do were clear advantages over losing jump range. Mine does 21 LY Laden, but with the 5A scoop and better heat management it really doesn't add that much time to the average mid-range mission and gives a decisive advantage to the sometimes lucrative illegal passenger missions.

I'm also getting on average 2 missions per day that reward Cracked Industrial Firmware. Nice bonus.

I can't see any role for the Beluga unless they offer some Luxury Cabin required missions that are long range and outrageously lucrative. Everything else can be done far better by other ships. They seem to have painted the Beluga into a small corner with no mission opportunities that are worthwhile.

Until they offer some missions that really make it worthwhile, my Beluga will remain parked.
 

jezzer1189

J
I just kitted out a jump efficient orca and God I love it. Using the engineers heavily top speed of 399 boost of 500 so slower than some of yours but I can do 35.2ly thanks to my grade 6d thrusters grade 4 powerplant and lightweight weapons. Felicity farseer is my favorite engineer given the demands for professor Palin to unlock him she does all I need instead
 

Knightshark

Knightshark
I am just planing to buy one and make it my dedicated passenger liner, replacing the python.
Any advice on the currently available paintjobs? I was thinking tactical...
 

GJ51

GJ51
Cdr Voorheez said:
Exploring in one at moment. Bright yellow with a 51ly range name of Tsunami Surfer. Excellent ship.
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I've been thinking about building another Orca just to experiment with different configurations with an eye toward getting more range and speed out of it. My current build only has a jump range of 31.2LY Laden. It works great for transport missions, but I'd like to get up into the 40's for the sightseeing missions. Lately I've switched to an Anaconda for those, as it has a 47LY jump range.

Still not seeing enough Luxury missions to warrant using anything but 1st Class Cabins.

I just don't understand FD sometimes...
 

wrmiller

W
Just bought one a couple of days ago to try my hand at hauling people around. Man, this is a really nice ship to fly! Good speed, great handling both in and out of SC, decent jump range, and even decent armor.

I'm currently doing my best imitation of a Uber taxi driver in her, after stripping out the luxury cabins, but man if this thing had some decent hardpoints I'd even be tempted to take this thing into a res site. The turn rate and speed could make things quite interesting. But alas, she is not a combat ship. :)

As is, this could 'almost' be my daily driver around the bubble (currently that job is owned by my Python). I love the little 'ding' just before I boost. Pretty sure my passengers are getting bounced around though as there is little time between the announce and getting slammed around the cabin. :D

Never been big on owning a bunch of ships, but this one is a keeper.
 

DedByDwn

D
Love the Orca!

Jut picked one of these up yesterday returning back to Colonia from SagA. Needed a break from Deep Space Exploring, so I thought I would give Mining ago, but the constant interuption by Pirates and the small return in profits got old really fast. So then I thouht I would try my hand at becoming a Cruise Ship Pilot so I jumped in the deep and bought a Beluga, but the thing was just too big for me and even though I liked the idea of having a couple of Fighters on board I once again was not sold on my new carreer choice.
I was about to just start planning for my next big expedition and jump back into my AspX and head out into the Black, when I thought, you know what I'll try out the Orca just to see what it's like. What a difference! I absolutely love this ship, it is a dream to handle, it move quickly and effortlessy, boosts beautifully and that bridge is gorgeous! I don't think the exterior could have been designed any better except that I would have liked the bridges canopy to be a little less opaque so that I could see inside from outside, but this is such a small criticism. The default paintjob is the only one I feel suit the Orca, nothing else works for me, but I do wish that we could have a black or silver version of our rank decals so they were visible on the white paint, but again minor criticism.
I am now making lost of credit's taking tourist around Colonia and they are all very happy, I have also equipped her with some heat seeking missiles and torpedoes just in case I fail to escape interdiction, plus they just seem to fit the look and feel of the luxury space submarine.

And just finally, Please FD allow us to hire crew members to sit in the Co-Pilots seat.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
I always wanted the Orca to be a good ship. I used to fly one for exploration and combat back in the 1.X era.

Then it got its buff, and now i'm like yeah. I now have 3 of them. One for mining, one for exploration, and one for piracy. Great ship.
 

wrmiller

W
Agony_Aunt said:
I always wanted the Orca to be a good ship. I used to fly one for exploration and combat back in the 1.X era.

Then it got its buff, and now i'm like yeah. I now have 3 of them. One for mining, one for exploration, and one for piracy. Great ship.
Click to expand...

Nice! [up]
 
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