Ships Type-9 vs. Imperial Cutter for hauling cargo

[DjVortex]

I have both t-9 and cutter. I always use my Cutter. If you are a horrible pilot, you may have problems flying it but I notiiced no problems at all. It does not require any special training. If you are attentive and a good pilot already, there is noting special about a cutter. It has a some drift if you try to fly it like a small ship. But if you are trying to fly that way, you're a bad pilot anyway, so you get what you get. I can manually land on any planet or station. I don't understand the "difficulty." that people talk about. It's big, but pure fun to fly.

That's just my experience.

Normally when I'm flying with a medium or small ship (and, to some extent, even with the Type-9), if I'm approaching a space port from behind or from the side, I just boost towards the front to get there as fast as possible, then turn the ship to face the mail slot, and make a nice curved fly path towards it. If my speed was excessively high and I didn't slow down soon enough, I might wait a bit for the ship to slow down enough and then correct and proceed towards the mail slot.

But the Cutter doesn't behave like that! When I did what I have always done, it just keeps on going, and going, and going, and doesn't seem to stop! Moreover, if I do what I usually do, ie. turn the ship to face the mail slot and fly towards it, while there's still lateral speed going on, the Cutter will just keep that lateral speed going on, and going on, and going on... and just doesn't stop. More than once I have collided with the station front wall because the ship just wouldn't stop. It just has a huge amount of inertia, and needs to be handled with care. You really need to start slowing down soon enough, or you'll overshoot the front of the station by a country mile (literally). It seems to have significantly more inertia than even a fully loaded Type-9 (no doubt because the Type-9 is so slow, so it doesn't build up even nearly as much momentum).

I was also caught be surprise the first dozen times I had to land on a surface construction site: While approaching the surface as I have always done with all other ships, the Cutter just keeps on going and doesn't stop! It literally behaves like when landing on a 2g planet, even when the planet actually has less than 0.5g.

One trick I quickly learned is that if I am accidentally approaching the surface too fast, I turn the ship to face directly up. That helps it stop quicker.

 

[HRDiagram]

I have one T9.
It's a ferris wheel in ship form: very slow but panoramic.
I use it as a short distance workhorse to move Tritium inside the FC, or goods between the FC and a colony site, with Auto Dock on, as I can't be bothered to spend much time flying it or landing it.

I have six or seven Cutters, because I enjoy flying them in different roles, taking screenshots and general basking.
Learning to handle their stupid inertia is part of their charm.
And they can withstand lithobraking like a boss duke.

 

[Surprize960]

Hello,


Interesting build! For CG Hauling it is probably a better choice than mine.
Are you flying in Open?

It is a build from my PlayStation times. On PS, I hauled in Open and this ship was relatively gank proof. Now on PC, it is not, because you often face 2 or 3 Players.


My alternative mission/fighter/hauler is this corvette, the ship I probably spend the most time in. 150 tons less cargo capacity, but more fun to fly is a good trade off for this style of play.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

coriolis.io

 

[Ghastous]

Cutter is way better then the type 9 and thats cos of 1 thing. It can turn in supercruise where the Type 9 is just a brick that cant.

 

[Zador]

Cutter drifting is not a problem if you use the rear thrusters and hull properly ;p

Correct way to dock Cutter at ground port: fly directly at center of landing pad, slow down (don't stop!) and put out landing gear shortly before "landing". After slight bump on the nose rotate and land. Pay some credits to reset hull for next landing.

Correct way to dock Cutter at space port when behind the port: boost slightly off to the side of the port. As you are level with the port, maintain full throttle and flip 180 pitching toward the port rather than away. Once flipped reduce throttle to 50% and align with mailslot and fly straight in. Use ground port landing approach if in a hurry, else use auto dock and read some forum posts or have a sip of tea.

With decent armour and HRPs you should never lose more than 50% hull. No need for paper shields reducing cargo capacity.

I do use supercruise assist for fast drop at star ports/fleet carriers. Shaving up to 10% of the time of one trip is worth 1% cargo reduction. I'm averaging just over 8 minutes round trip for single hop delivering cargo from space port to ground building site.

 

[sinisalo]

Interesting thread, not enough ship theory discussed around here these days.

I recall contemptuously my time with a T-9, however fleeting it proved to be. It was in my formative years, when buying a new ship was an objective to pursue, to save for, and anticipate with eagerness and joy. I bought the T-9, engineered it, flew it twice and sold it no mistake. Worst tub in Elite. (in my opinion, don't get all bent out of sorts if you love the T-9). To this day I harbor ill will towards this thing.

Slow, ugly, and slow. Not very fast either, I'd have to say.

But it does have a role to play, something it is supposed to be good at -- hauling da frieght -- except that it is too ponderous whilst looking bad. Best sale I've made yet.

So I went a couple years with no real freight train option, nothing better than the old Python, or Krait. I had a plan though.

The plan however was dragged out since I needed Imp rep, and there's nothing I do to grind, so waiting for it to come naturally took some time. But eventually I crossed the line to Duke.

I bought the Cutter I had been shooting for for years. Now this, this is a proper ship. Fast, and.... well, nothing else matters all that much. And it could haul da freight. Triple the capacity of my other boats. Good shields, nice view, good jump. I don't approach the upper 700s in terms of capacity, mine hauls 640. But that is enough, and we get there fast, safe, and no one is forced to look away when we enter the station.

This is my interpretation of what the freight train should be

Preacher's Daughter

 

[DjVortex]

nice view

Actually, this is something I forgot to mention in my original post, when comparing the two ships.

The cockpit view in the Cutter is significantly more restricted than in the Type-9. The latter has pretty much exploration vessel cockpit design. With the Cutter it actually hinders landing a bit because you can't see where you are landing (of course there's the radar view, but still.)

 

[Neestar]

Interesting thread, not enough ship theory discussed around here these days.

Totally agree!
As a psuedo "casual" pilot ( with my trusty flight-stick ) i've only been playing this wonderful game for a little over a year, so i only have 10 actual fully realized outfitted/engineered ships ( so far ) but i'm finally starting to truly appreciate the designs & intricacies ( and uses ) for all the various ships & styles.
Learning-curve has been rather steep, yes, but it's also been one heckuva ride!

The cockpit view in the Cutter is significantly more restricted than in the Type-9.

That's because the Cutter "view" is better on the INSIDE! ( coughs ship interiors debate x infinity )
But seriously, having literally JUST finally unlocked my own Cutter yesterday ( took me a year lol "casual" gamer & all ) and spending practically all day tweaking parts & engineers & such, i absolutely love this majestic ship so much....

... And i decided to make it into my 3rd Imperial dedicated AX type ship, even though a few "expert" vets ingame told me not to.
Sure, i'm still sorta newb-ish so i've only been able to get jump-range to 42LYs and top speed/boost up to 463 and heat% down to only like 23% ( so far ) but i don't care because a) it's just so darn FUN to fly and b) i actually prefer using my Type-9 for cargo transport anyway.

Here's my build, if anyone's curious and wants a chuckle:

Hardpoints:
1 x 4A Plasma Accelerator, efficient weapon + phasing sequence
4 x 3C Enhanced AX MCs, pre-engineered + auto-loader (default)
2 x 2E Beam Lasers ( turreted cuz of side placement LOS ) , efficient weapon + thermal vent
Utilities:
2 x Caustic Sinks
1 Point Defense Turret
1 Chaff Launcher
2 x Heat-sinks
1 x Enhanced Xeno Scanner
1 Thargoid Pulse Neutralizer
Core Internals:
Reactive Surface Composite, lightweight armor + deep plating
8A PowerPlant, armored + thermal spread
8A Thrusters, clean-drive tuning + drive distributors
7A FSD ( SCO, pre-engineered ) , thermal spread
7D Life Support
7A Power Distributor, shielded + stripped down
6C Fuel Tank (default)
Optionals:
8A Prismatic Shield Generator, enhanced low power + Lo-draw ( *normally i never use shields in my AX ships,but this time i did cuz testing )
8C AFM
6D Fighter Bay ( for Tech Broker AX weapon'd SLFs )
6D Fuel Scoop ( for when i explore 'Pleides' and 'Witch Nebula' , etc. )
6E Cargo Rack
5H Guardian FSD Booster
5C Collector Limpets Controller
5D Module Reinforcement
5D Hull Reinforcement
4E Anti-Corrosion Cargo Rack
3B Xeno Limpets Controller
1I Detailed Surface Scanner
1l Advanced Planetary Approach Suite ( just in case )​

p.s. side note: i only just discovered ( again, i'm 1 year "newb" ) yesterday lol i never realized AX weapons can still do some damage to non-Thargoid enemies?! - i was just messing around in nav-beacon instance, just simply testing out new Cutter, and i started firing at red 'WANTED' npc pirates and i swear i was absolutely shredding them to smithereens just with my 4 enhanced AX MC's + 2 turreted beams ( and of course throwing in a 4A Plasma shot every now & then when timing was right ) . Was so great!

Honestly, discovering this fact has sorta changed the game for me, in a good & fresh way, since i had previously ( ignorantly ) thought AX weapons didn't do any damage at all to non-thargoids. Now i can take this new Imp Cutter into mainly AX situations, but also can handle any non-Thargoid NPC pirates or whatever too if need be. ( aka versatiity while exploring any sector )

 

[DjVortex]

And i decided to make it into my 3rd Imperial dedicated AX type ship, even though a few "expert" vets ingame told me not to.

At this point there's significantly less need for an AX ship because the second thargoid war is over and they were kicked out of the bubble. Might be more useful to transform this into a PvE build.

Sure, i'm still sorta newb-ish so i've only been able to get jump-range to 42LYs and top speed/boost up to 463

A heavy hull and clean-tuned thrusters will do that. Heavy hull is ok for combat (both AX and PvE) of course, but at least for PvE you might want dirty-tuned instead.

I believe there are two camps on whether a shield generator is useful in an AX ship or not, but I believe that the general majority consensus is that you'll get more bang for your buck if you replace it with a (fully engineered) hull reinforcement module. Something about most Thargoid firepower going straight through the shields, or something. (Of course if you are converting this into a PvE ship, then the shields are significantly more useful.)

There's very little reason to use a 6D fuel scoop instead of a 6A one. Fuel scoops have no weight, so they are freebies in that regard. Their only difference is power draw, but if you are running out of power, you can simply disable the fuel scoop while in combat (which can be achieved automatically by playing with module priorities). You don't need the scoop for anything during combat, so...

i only just discovered ( again, i'm 1 year "newb" ) yesterday lol i never realized AX weapons can still do some damage to non-Thargoid enemies?!

Yes, but generally they do significantly less damage to non-thargoid ships, so they tend to be very underpowered for PvE. (The reverse is also true, which is why you need AX or Guardian weapons to fight thargoids.)

 

[Neestar]

At this point there's significantly less need for an AX ship because the second thargoid war is over and they were kicked out of the bubble. Might be more useful to transform this into a PvE build.

nah , i already have plenty of regular PvE build ships.
Plus, imho, we aren't done with the Thargoids....nor they with us.
(besides which, Thargoid still spawn in certain systems and i enjoy the unique combat challenge against their ships & weapons )

A heavy hull and clean-tuned thrusters will do that. Heavy hull is ok for combat (both AX and PvE) of course, but at least for PvE you might want dirty-tuned instead.

Unfortunately, 'dirty' won't work because i'm still trying to get my heat% to "safer" 20% or lower ; for AX situations.
The reason why i'm only at 23% heat, so far, is because i need to find/free about 5.50 mw's from my power allottment, so i can change my PowerPlant to 'low emission'.
Can't have everything i want! Just need to mix & match a bit more, whenever i feel like it.

I believe there are two camps on whether a shield generator is useful in an AX ship or not,

yeah sorry i just edited my post ^ , to better reflect what i usually do with AX ships ( *none of my other AX ships use shields, ever --- But this particular ship, i wanted to test out these Prismatics , just to see for myself )

There's very little reason to use a 6D fuel scoop instead of a 6A one.

i believe i went with 6D yesterday only because it was all they had at the station i happened to be at within my home system.
i'll swap it out later yep

Yes, but generally they do significantly less damage to non-thargoid ships, so they tend to be very underpowered for PvE.

See the thing is though, i certainly didn't feel "underpowered" last nite against random pirate NPC red enemy ships.
Obviously, i'm still only halfway thru my 'Master' box ( for space combat on panel-4 ranks ) , so the game is only spawning me mostly 'Master' NPC ships and sometimes 'Dangerous' level ships.
But still, again i ignorantly thought my AX weapons wouldn't do ANY damage at all on non-thargoids , so my expectations against pirates ( PvE regular ) was very low.

 

[Born Free]

my cutter is all multi-cannons. i use it when i have to haul stuff and pirates like to interdict.
i let them interdict me, then kill them and send out my limpets and collect all the free materials lol. sometimes grade 5 materials
1 mc is corrosive / high capacity
2 mc are incendiary/overcharged
the rest of the mc are autoloader/overcharged

there is not a pirate in the game i can't kill. carries around 520T with fuel scoop and FSD booster

the T9 is better for loading/unloading the carrier. no scoop/booster carries 756T

 

[sinisalo]

Unfortunately, 'dirty' won't work because i'm still trying to get my heat% to "safer" 20% or lower

I'd say dirty is just fine, and that clean drives are a trap. I have a Dolphin that idles at 10% and it runs dirty. All my ships do and heat is one of the things I focus on. Fast and cool is how I try to shade my ships.

By all means go clean if you like it, but I think you'll find the juice ain't worth the squeeze. Clean drives use more power than dirty -- and since power draw is what generates heat -- you give back some of what you are trying to save at the same time you are kissing your smash goodbye. A tiny bit cooler, perhaps, but much slower and less agile. And as I am fond of saying, speed is life.

In my formative years I reminisced about above, I was a clean driver. But then I started to wonder if this was the right thing to do. So I ran some tests. And what I found was that clean drives are a little cooler, but the only real significant heat savings is when chain boosting. As the heat stacks, the clean drives are superior in keeping it down.

But in normal flight the difference was a just a point or two, not nearly enough to justify all the performance I had traded away.

 

[Bigmaec]

Dolphin is broken regarding heat dissipation, but the point still stands dirty is the way to go.

 

[GJ51]

my cutter is all multi-cannons. i use it when i have to haul stuff and pirates like to interdict.
i let them interdict me, then kill them and send out my limpets and collect all the free materials lol. sometimes grade 5 materials
1 mc is corrosive / high capacity
2 mc are incendiary/overcharged
the rest of the mc are autoloader/overcharged

there is not a pirate in the game i can't kill. carries around 520T with fuel scoop and FSD booster

the T9 is better for loading/unloading the carrier. no scoop/booster carries 756T

Cutter - 792T

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

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[TopShopGamer]

The Cutter is much heavier than the Type-9 (hull mass 1100 tons vs. 850 tons) and has a significantly higher thruster/boost speed, which makes it have a lot more inertia, or momentum, especially when boosted to full speed. In practice this means that it takes a lot longer for it to stop from full speed. Or even from normal (non-boosted) speed. If you are accustomed to approaching the front of a space port at boost speed and then just quickly turning towards the mail slot, stopping the ship and then heading towards said slot, you are for a surprise the first times you do that with the Cutter. That's because It Just Doesn't Stop! It just goes on and on and on, and seems to take forever to stop. It doesn't help that it seems to have much weaker manoeuvering thrusters (which is probably caused by its larger mass). If you are used to boost at full speed and then turn and fly towards the mail slot, you'll be surprised how stubborn the Cutter is, as she just refuses to obey, and just keeps on going.
... ... ...
The Cutter is faster and turns faster, but man is she temperamental and stubborn. You really need to treat her like no other ship.

I've been using the cutter for awhile and here's a few tips:

When leaving a station, boost and then lower your landing gear. It gives you a nice initial acceleration and then slows you down to maneuver.

Turning off flight assist can really let the thing dance around some tight turns.

Engineer things so that when you deploy your weapons, you kill power to the docking computer. Having an on/off switch for it is a lot better than fighting it.

When landing on a planet, approach at the lowest angle with speed in the blue and time around 7s. When you hit glide, kill your speed and let it play out. With any luck, you'll be stopped above the port in docking range at the end of the glide. I'd hate to be the people living there watching ships on collision courses all day long.

Sorry if they seem basic, but these points help me a lot flying it.

 

[Born Free]

Cutter - 792T

that's just a defenseless cutter, if you like to live dangerously
i keep mine armed and shielded. but you could just as easily outrun any pirates.

if i just want bulk hauling i lose the 40T and go with the T9/756T, then i dont care if it dies. much cheaper and still has a shield

 

[Zador]

that's just a defenseless cutter, if you like to live dangerously
i keep mine armed and shielded. but you could just as easily outrun any pirates.
if i just want bulk hauling i lose the 40T and go with the T9/756T, then i dont care if it dies. much cheaper and still has a shield

With properly engineered HRPs and armour a shieldless Cutter is far from defenseless. A paper shield on a trading Cutter provides no actual beneft and just loses cargo capacity.
When you can outrun any NPC interdiction with no more than 2% hull damage, and can hit a landing pad at some speed without losing more than 25% hull what's the point of a shield?.
For me sacrificing 8T cargo for SCA for fast drop at space destinations is way more valuable so I run with 784T cargo.

 

[Kira Goto]

Unfortunately, 'dirty' won't work because i'm still trying to get my heat% to "safer" 20% or lower ; for AX situations.

That’s really not important for most AX situations in practical applications. Once you start firing or boosting you will spike over 20% heat without the use of either a thermal vent beam (can work well with AX multicannons) or heatsinks (recommended primarily when using Guardian stuff).

The only scenario where I can imagine the passive heat remaining below 20% making a significant difference is around active Titans. Although considering how the Thargoids are so braindead near one Mechan managed to make a completely unengineered Keelback work - and apparently Titans are “blind” to even a target at 53% heat unless spotted by a patrol, because that makes sense - I’m not sure… but don’t tempt fate if they ever return with more of them

Still, the point… don’t try to min max heat levels for the sake of it in situations where it is not absolutely necessary for survival. Titans require fairly different builds in their specialization to regular AX combat, where more than a few ship builds use armored powerplants and do just fine, so it is recommended (or at least I would recommend) to keep some separate modules for each use case. Time, motivation and engineering materials permitting, of course…

 

[Neestar]

That’s really not important for most AX situations in practical applications. Once you start firing or boosting you will spike over 20% heat without the use of either a thermal vent beam (can work well with AX multicannons) or heatsinks (recommended primarily when using Guardian stuff).

uhh, did you by chance see the part in my post whereby i listed outfitting already both the 2 beam lasers w/ 'thermal vent' and the 2 heatsinks , right?
Did something i said in that post make it seem like i didn't know about such S.O.P. ? ( standard operating procedure )

Still, the point… don’t try to min max heat levels for the sake of it in situations where it is not absolutely necessary for survival.

All of my other AX ships run between 13% and 20% heat , because i was told "running cold" ( under 20% heat ) was indeed absolutely necessary for AX combat.
Why then would i not also be aiming for at least 20% or lower on this new AX Cutter ship i'm currently flying as well? Or are you saying that my 24% heat is sufficient ?

 

[DjVortex]

All of my other AX ships run between 13% and 20% heat , because i was told "running cold" ( under 20% heat ) was indeed absolutely necessary for AX combat.

It's not absolutely necessary. You can do AX combat quite well even at 200% heat. Cold-running is a more advanced technique that makes it easier, though, especially against the stronger interceptors (but I'm not an AX expert so someone else will need to provide you with the details if you are interested). Against scouts and hunters it doesn't really matter.