KevinC
4541
What rank did you need to get? And did moving around help, or was that information out of date?
That’s a gorgeous ship all right. And the visibility out of the cockpit must be amazing.
You know, between the formula obviously containing a healthy wallop of RNG fuckery and the mechanics of navy ranking being completely hidden otherwise i have no fucking clue. I did move around a lot. Stomp some pirates here, smuggle some dope there, give these poor wretches a couple credits they seem to want so bad. Actually fun times. I did it in a cobra and that was good too. Cobra’s are fun.
Anyway, I got access to the ship at rank Master, which is the third I think. Outsider, serf, master. yeah.
Of course I fitted with all the best kit. All A level except for life support which is D. She can haul a little and tank a LOT with 3A shields and two A class shield boosters. At first I tried her with a beam laser on the belly and two gimballed autocannon on the pods. That sucked. Took ages to break shields on the better ships. I even fought an elite viper that just did not break. He couldnt hit me either mind you but well… That dance took too long. So I bailed out and refitted her.
When I undock her tomorrow, she’ll be rocking fixed beams on the pods and seeker missiles on the belly. Let’s see how those elite viper assholes like that!
It’s the only cockpit I’ve seen so far that features “iron sights”. ;D
They totally should have called it the Imperial Aardvark though…
This Aardvark?
Or this one?
To me she looks more like this:
conVurt
4546
Actually, I was probably thinking of the giant anteater, now that I’ve gone to the effort of googling images for it. The nose of the imperial courier totally reminds me of the giant anteater’s snout.
The nose’s curve is more obvious when you see the ship rotating as you load up your game.
With the two beams and missile rack she’s quick death to smaller craft but bigger prey need more killing than a little 35 ton anteater can dish out.
She feels about as agile as an eagle and that’s FUN! Smuggling stuff into a station is so easy, as I can will that little thing inside the station like a swift. Many leaf on the wind moments. Totally unlike the python which is like driving a bus.
In other Elite Dangerous news, the PvE group Mobius has reached 10,000 members.
So they are hinting at a “major announcement” for Gamescon in August. Any guesses? Is it too much to hope for a preview of planetary landings? I’m trying to think of what other major features are in the pipeline.
KevinC
4551
Might be FPS / walking around your ship and station.
Ah, yeah, that’d be a decent stepping stone to planetary landings. Even if there’s not any real gameplay involved. 'd love to stand in front of the windows in one of those docking platforms and just watch traffic come and go. It’d also be nice to get a better sense of the scale of ships.
KevinC
4553
I think it’d be particularly cool if using a Rift!
schurem
4554
Not at all. Rift and elite works so well because you are sat in a chair holding a hotas. And in the game! This makes for some awesome immersion. Getting up from the chair in the game while remaining seated holding your stick would make for a vomit inducing dissonance. So fuck that.
Also completely useless. Remember eve and their promises of getting out of the pod. Well that ended well! Blegh.
We do need planets tho. Planetfall used to be a good part of the previous elite games and surface space ports really should be in this one too.
Could it be the Close Quarters Combat thing that is coming to the Xbox version? But maybe that wouldn’t be that big an announcement.
Btw, I ended up double-dipping and getting the game on Xbox One as well. After doing a 1 hour free trial, I went through all the tutorials on the console, and it felt really nice. Not as good as Joystick and keyboard, but nice. Feels good to be a couch jockey.
Well, I’m back into the game, since one of my flight-simming buddies has expressed mild interest, and I need some cash to bankroll him into an Eagle.
On this thread’s advice, I fitted out a Hauler as a budget explorer, and it works pretty well. With an extra fuel tank and a good fuel scoop (I didn’t have money for a surface scanner), it has basically unlimited range just by diving past the star before I move on to the next system. I’ll probably upgrade it to an Adder once I get back to civilized space and unload my exploration data—better range, more slots, able to handle itself a little better if it gets jumped.
I still have my trusty beta Eagle, too; its maneuverability appeals to me, and I fly it well enough to want to hang onto it for good. (The classy red-and-skulls paint scheme helps, too.)
Fish: Ctrl-Alt-Space to go into ooh-aint-she-purty-mode. You control the camera like a ship, ie you thruster controls move it and pitch/yaw/roll aims it.
The surface scanner aint that expensive but makes for more satisfactory exploration. It’s so cool to find alien life in the atmosphere of a gas giant :D
Squee
4559
Speaking of anteaters, the courier can seemingly have the thickest non-anaconda non-python non-FDL non-type 9 shields while still being combat capable. Since it’s smaller than the vulture and less power hungry you can slather shield boosters on it which overtakes the vulture’s class 5 shield generator. Which having fifth most shields might not sound too exciting but it’s cool when the next three all cost 50+ million for the stock ship, and the courier is 2.5 million stock. Can even slip a 3B shield cell bank in if you power off the cargo hatch if you want even more shields.
http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_courier/04A3A3C1D3A2D3C1b1b1b040404044059----.AwRj4zKA.Aw18UA==
Those shields are insane. Have you flown that build? I’m doubtful the three medium pulse lasers are going to have much uptime, and the jump range sucks.
