This is my Keelback! There are many like it, but this one is mine!
I'm a fairly new player, tried for a bit a few years back on the XBox and could not really get into it with a game-pad controller and the GFX were 'meh'. I built up a rig to play my other favorite, X4 and thought I should also give this another try. Well, I'm good and hooked now. It's my own tour-bus of the Milky Way and I love it. Dropping onto planets and tear-ing around in the SRV is way more fun than I predicted and sometimes the vistas are just jaw dropping. Really pretty well put together flight-sim game I think overall.
So after a lot of work in an Adder scoop mining and a little step into the Cobra MkIII with a 1A Collector I was able to put together enough credits to comfortably slide into the Keelback with mostly A rated gear. Overall, I like it. It's not fast... at all... but it yaws better than the Cobra it feels like to me and with a few touches from the pimp-a-ship kit and decent paint it's really not too ugly. Looks a bit like the Aliens drop ship and I like 'non-wedge' ship designs. The Sidewinder is an abomination to me, and the Cobra needs generous pimp-a-ship help to look nice too. This one just seems at home in the dust of a ring chewing off bits of asteroids. It looks like a miner's ship.
It's a compromise design:
- 64T Cargo
- Collection(2A) and prospecting(1A) limpets
- 2A Refinery
- Single SRV bay
- 4A Shields
- S Mount mining tools / M Mount Multicannons for a chance to fight back if I have to.
- She can jump about ~20LY with some cargo, ~17 packed up to the ceiling.
Having 64T of cargo and two collectors is about perfect with the amount that the mining laser can chip off the 'roids. I can toggle the laser on and let it run until the 'roid is dry and move on. I like this kind of mining right now. Kind of peaceful and beautiful hanging out inside the rings. My wife HATES it. Says this is the most boring game she's ever seen played.
I'm really just learning the ropes though but so far I enjoy the resource gathering and exploration sides the best. Combat is fun, but ultimately not my favorite side of space games.
My only gripe is that it appears the medium ships didn't get the two freebie slots the S ships did, so I pay to get into a medium and I lose functionality because I can't bring the 1A soda straw fuel scoop that I could squeeze into the Cobra. I pretty much have to give up 1/2 my cargo capacity or shields for anything else... scoop, fighter, any other scanners, etc. Seems kind of off-putting that moving up to this brick on a rocket means giving up a slot. I like heading out and searching for new 'Pristine' rings and a scoop was good insurance that I could still get back home. Now I'll have to swap in a scoop instead of a cargo rack to go out exploring a bit, that stinks.
My Cobra is now letting me get my feet wet with bounties and combat, and the Adder is traded in (My GOD that engine was annoying to listen to!).