Thank you for the suggestions! My main issue is that the Chieftan is a tad expensive right now, so I’m mainly looking for a stepping stone ship. I can make a good amount by doing passenger missions in my dolphin, but I feel like it would take too long to grind for the chieftan or krait. What do you think?
Edit: maybe a DBX or DBS could be a good upgrade?
Actually FDL or Mamba (once it's launched) would be a good upgrade. Very fast and nimble, and as long your shields are up, even able to take a few hits.
And although they're quite expensive in purchase, they're much cheaper to outfit than the most other medium ships, since their modules are smaller, but not less powerfull than those of the other ones.
Maybe you could even reuse some of the modules of your Cobra.
That's not giving them an price advantage over the chief (basicly because it is insanely cheap to purchase) but you pay about a half of the Krait.
The real problem is the tremendous gap between the small and the medium fighters. Whilst a top-tier Cobra3 costs about 10million cr, a Chief would already need sixfold the price, a FDL about eightfold. The only ships which are about being a small step upgrade from the Cobra3 are basicly more tanky or more usefull ones. like the ASPs or the Keelback.
So eitherway you begin to save some money for a medium fighter, or you'd need to adept your way.
And about the DBs... They can be a little fun on their own way, but compared to a Cobra, the seem to me more of a downgrade if you look on the speed of those. Even after nearly 4 years of Elite Dangerous, the Cobra just stayed the best compromise between survivability and speed on a small pad, the other real compeditors are the more nimble Vulture (look at that damage and defense, but the top speed is quite low) and iCourier (less damage and either more speed OR better defense, but not both), and the (for you less interesting) more sturdy Viper 4 and the Keelback.
