what ship next Eagle to what.....

[ringus]

Hi, I suspect this has been asked a 1000 times before but still....

I have spent long enjoyable time with the eagle spent near to a million on it and I feel its time to move on to bigger better things.

I am not really into to trade more interested in an out and out fighter.. if I want to trade I will buy a trade ship.

So I want to retire my eagle manly because its weapons, it feels underpowered and I want experiment with high damage rails guns etc to take out some of the bigger ships (have had pythons down to 1-0% and they have jumped on me ).

So I guess its the Viper or Cobra?... Viper is a bit faster better shields but apart from that seems to worse than the Cobra everywhere else

Is the Cobra the only option?

 

[AJ_Impy]

Out and out fighter, the Viper, no questions. Best fighter in the game. The Cobra is an all-rounder, and does everything well, but the Viper is better at combat, and is cheaper.

 

[PepsiDragon]

Viper and Cobra are about matched from what I hear. I've only flown the viper however, and I love it. The viper is cheaper though. Although if you have the money why not both? You can have more than one ship.

 

[Whiterose]

Trader / fighter / explorer: Cobra
Fighter only: Viper

 

[ringus]

Viper and Cobra are about matched from what I hear. I've only flown the viper however, and I love it. The viper is cheaper though. Although if you have the money why not both? You can have more than one ship.

I might have multiple ships but one per role..probably end up with a trader and a fighter.. but to much of a pain to swop ships for more than that..until (fingers crossed) you can automatically move ships around from storage
.

 

[Veljex]

I used to love the Viper and thought it was the best ship.. However after playing round with both a fully outfitted Viper and fully outfitted Cobra. They are about matched. If you miss your shots often then the Cobra is the way. Best to get 2 hard hitting guns with 2 backup guns. But really I'd outfit your Eagle to a point where it is worth the same as a Cobra (the more you spend the easier it is to make money) and then you'll get to the point where you can just trade it for a Cobra without spending a penny. But yes a viper is great but it restricts you a lot when you fancy a little break from fighting so I would say Cobra.

 

[PepsiDragon]

It isn't so bad. It doesn't take too long to go a hundred or so light years if you have a fuel scoop. Right now I have an exploring adder in storage. It would only be a pain if you switched often. When i do switch i'm going to stay with the ship for a while anyways.

 

[Red Fox Four]

TL;dr - If your goal is combat, e.g. Conflict Zones and Bounty Hunting then the Viper is the only logical choice.

Viper and Cobra are NOT comparable in combat. They might be with low skilled players, but the Viper has much better maneuverability and it is a smaller target. Cobra has more cargo and longer jump range, and that is all. Due to the heavy weight of the Cobra it has issues with changing it's flight vector, meaning it has a tendency to 'drift' before it actually starts moving in a new direction.

Try flying at full throttle in a straight line, then do a 180 to fly in opposite direction. Do this with both Viper and Cobra. You will notice that the Cobra doesn't do a real turn. The engines will spin up and start working hard and then you slow down to 0 before it actually starts to pick up speed again. Viper will do a smooth turn.

Then factor in proper use of lateral and vertical thrusts and the Viper gains an edge in combat immediately.

Simply put, Viper can get its guns on target easier than the Cobra, and it can move out of enemy crosshairs with more ease than a Cobra.

Viper is fairly cheap to buy since it only costs 147k'ish credits. Fully upgraded it will sit at a value of around 2 million credits, with roughly 150k'ish insurance cost.

My suggestion is to get Viper and then spend some cash on upgrades.
My preferred weapon loadout:
2 x Class 2 Gimbal Multi Cannons
2 x Class 1 Gimbal Burst Lasers

Use bursts to strip shields and use MC's to take out Subsystems.

Do NOT equip 4 x Lasers of any kind. Having 4 lasers will kill your power distributor, even with A-rated and 4 pips to Weapons. You'll be drained of power every fight after only a few bursts.

You may want to experiment with Cannons and Railguns, but from my own experience those weapons, despite being awesome against subsystems, are not worth it since you do end up fighting a lot of smaller targets such as Sidewinders, Eagles, Vipers and Cobras and the accuracy as well as amount of ammunition you carry with those weapons is too low to be worth it.

Only time I had any good success with the Cannons and Railguns was against Asps, Clippers and Dropships when targeting the subsystems. However, the Multicannons do plenty damage on subsystems as well as being much better weapons against smaller ships (and they have more ammunition which allows you to continue hunting without resupplying all the time).

 

[GJ51]

Cobra - forget guns - 4 beam Lasers will melt more than your heart...
Buy A4 Power Plant and FSD ASAP

 

[Alice Margatroid]

the viper is the only proper combat ship thats bigger then the eagle. its lighter and has the best acceleration over all. however its pitch rate is not amazing, as such you need to take advantage of both pitch and yaw, as well as your side thrusters to set up the right attack approch. its also got the best sheilds at the fighter size and the smallest hull at its price range. as far as the cobra is conserned, it has more armor then the viper, but its so much larger and despite having a bit more pitch, has far worse acceleration and yaw. also the hard points of the cobra are pretty annoying as well. both have the same firepower though. the only way the cobra might be better then the viper in combat is being able to carry more stuff, especaly sheild cells, but it also worsens its acceleration problem. it also has slightly faster boost speed, but its not as capable at holding it as the viper.

 

[Pyrion]

I really like manouverability. Eagle is top there, but: A-grade thrusters use too much energy, it's reactor is simply undersized. You know what ship is second in manouverability after the eagle? It's not the cobra, not the viper... it's the ADDER! And unlike the eagle it has no energy problems. You can easily fit A-grade thrusters together with 2 beam lasers. What you need to know when fighting with an adder is that the 2 lower weapons can only fire on the lower half of your screen, even if gimballed. So, position your crosshair a bit higher than the enemy... which should be easy with that manouverability. Granted, the top speed is not so great, but coming from an eagle you will be pleasently surprised how powerfull an FSD you can fit. There is a lot of room inside, making it possible to either fit several shield cells and for example an FSD-interdictor... if you don't care for cargo space. Give it a try, i think the adder is much more capable than most people think.

 

[Adept]

You probably want the Viper. The Cobra has the same firepower, but the hard point placement isn't as good. Additionally the Viper is faster, and the Cobra takes a _lot_ more money to upgrade.