KDT. BrauHaus Profil > Logbuch
(Type-9 Heavy)
Since this is an explorer I did the best I could to configure the ship for maximum jump range and exploration, currently at 23.75ly. This build is very close to the Diamondback Scout except I was able to fit a Detailed Surface Scanner and a Fuel Scoop turning it into a legitimate exploration ship. Turns out I was correct, the Hauler has the best jump range by far at 27.61ly. I might experiment by removing everything I can to save weight and see if I can match the Haulers abilities. I equipped bi-weave shields because that was the only size class 4 shield that was an upgrade. The FSD drive is now a size 5 slot but being reduced to a maximum of 5C kills the jump range. The 3D Power Plant was too small so I had to upgrade to a 3C. I can use this for exploration but the best use for this ship money wise is probably scanner missions. After attempting my first scanner mission I noticed that the bi-weave shields are paper to planetary bases. They were able to hit my ship at 15km away. It is very possible that I had a Python or some other security ship on my tail. I got away at 47% hull with 4 pips into shields. I’ll swap the shields to a standard 4C shield next and see if it makes a difference. After swapping to 4C shields I noticed that nobody could scratch me. Must have been a security ship tearing me up as once I launched the base and skimmers couldn’t touch me at 2km. One thing that I really, really like is the super-cruise handling characteristics. It flies like a combat fighter in normal space. While the view is kind of blocked by the cockpit struts it definitely earns it keep as an exploration ship. A properly outfitted DB-X in my opinion is the best size Small ship in the game and an excellent alternative if you cannot afford an Asp Explorer or Anaconda. Next ship will be the Keelback and then the Asp Scout. Two very expensive ships that are not worth the time. Since I have already committed to trying all the non-combat ships I hope I am surprised like I was with the Hauler. Still not holding my breath.
Update: I found a 5B Frame Shift Drive and after the upgrade I am looking at 28.62ly jump range, beating the Hauler.
This will be my first passenger ship. I intend to use it solely for passenger missions. Based on my design I have left the shields off on purpose. The reason is twofold, one for some reason everyone who want to go on a sightseeing trip is a criminal so I have to use silent running and two it frees up a larger sized slot for more passengers. After outfitting the Dolphin it turns out that I was wrong and the Type-6 is probably a better Dolphin than the Dolphin itself. The restricted cabin/cargo slot on the Dolphin is a Size 5 slot, I expected it to be larger. The Type-6 has two size 5 slots and two size 4 slots compared to the Dolphins single restricted size 5 slot and two size 4 slots. This not only gives the Type-6 more passenger space but all the slots are unrestricted making it a much more versatile ship for less money. The Dolphin would normally have a higher jump range but being limited to C rated FSD’s in Colonia the bonus jump range is lost. There is one sole saving grace, Colonia is a tourist destination. Since I now have a smaller, faster, more maneuverable ship I will make use of silent running. Since silent running turns off the shields they won’t be used for docking and undocking, thus they have no real use. Removing them further reduces the signature of the ship and allows for a much smaller power plant, again reducing the signature that much more. While an A rated power plant has the smallest heat signature I might upgrade the D rated plant to a C rated plant making the signature average instead of slightly below average. I was able to make about 2 million per round trip for visitor missions. The 2nd best payout compared to scanner missions. Since the passenger trips are much faster it might be too close to call.
Not much to say about this one. Remove everything and put in cargo racks. Do cargo missions. Flies just fine. Having 112 cargo capacity means I have to now board flip to fill the cargo bay if I want to go to a single location. I was really looking forward to this but the income and rank move at a slow pace. This is because I can only do 5 missions or so at a time before the cargo hold is full and the money is about a quarter the reward of scanner missions. I was going to try some passenger missions but I’ve been spot checking the board and the profitable missions require business and first class cabins so the Dolphin is more suitable for these types of missions because of the restricted slots being very large cabins. For reference on the Type-6 the largest cargo slot holds 32 tons of cargo or can hold 6 1st class passengers so I have to compare 12 passengers vs. 64 tons of cargo. While it is possible I think the freight ships are better at cargo and the passenger ships are better at passengers by design, go figure! On that note, it is time to upgrade to a Dolphin.
I swapped back to the Type-6 after outfitting my Keelback for mining. This week was a community goal to mine materials to build a security station to protect us from the Thargoids. The build used was as follows: https://coriolis.io/outfit/type_6_transporter?code=A0p8tdFcl8dcs8f42l2l---040403C8C81lP2.Iw1%2FkA%3D%3D.Aw1%2FkA%3D%3D..EweloBhBGA2EDMAWEBTAhgcwDapDCQoA&bn=Colonia%20Miner
At this price point the Type-6 may be the best ship in Colonia. The Asp Explorer should give it a run for its money but I am not there yet.
I am still working on the desired build but I was shocked to see a 3A Shield available. I decided “Why Not!” and equipped it. Since I got the good shield as the D-Rated shield was not available where I bought the DB-Scout I decided to actually give it a little bit of combat juice. I intended to have a multi-cannon in the medium slot but it was not available so I went 2x medium pulse laser and 2x small multi-cannons. I figured the lasers would take the shields down faster and maybe the opponent would bug out. With 4 slots available and using 3 for the ADS, Shield and SRV I filled the last slot with cargo. I used it to run scanner missions but lack of internal space makes this ship pretty much worthless. Looks like the Type-6 is next on the list. This will be my first medium pad ship. Overall this ship worked very well for scanner missions and I was able to gather 3.1 million in credits fairly quick. I never did have a chance to play combat pilot as I never hauled any cargo so I didn’t get interdicted. I may come back to this ship to try its combat capabilities but for now I’m looking to get into my first freighter ship. I’ve noticed that in Colonia once you hit a size 4 FSD there is no A or B rated options in this area. The Hauler may have the highest jump range in the region, this might include the Anaconda. Once I get a Diamondback Explorer I’ll know for sure.
Now that I can afford a Cobra Mk3 and knowing that basic cargo delivery missions are the key to quick money I outfitted this for pure cargo hauling. Every optional slot is filled with a cargo rack netting 60 tons of cargo capacity. I D-Rated all the internals and went with a 2D Power Plant to save weight. I removed the guns and unfortunately the best FSD I could find was a 4C FSD. This kills my jump range so I am sitting at 13.94 loaded up and 17.75 empty. This would make a terrible exploration ship. So far the best explorer would be the Hauler. The 60 ton cargo capacity should net some decent cash but I will equip it for mining at some point just to test it out. Mining configurations can get very expensive quickly in Colonia, the Refinery cost is the biggest issue. Overall it took about 650k to purchase and outfit the Cobra Mk3 for hauling cargo. The base cost of the ship in this area is 420k compared to the sticker price of 380k. It looks like everything is 10-15% more expensive here. I was right and found several cargo missions that ran in the 200-300k range but I needed 35-45 cargo slots. After a few runs I had more than enough money for a Diamondback Scout but then I noticed that scanner missions were in the 800k range so I picked up four missions. I had about 2.5 million saved for the next ship but getting greedy I spent 1.6 million on an Advanced Discovery Scanner and replaced a 2 slot cargo rack and replaced the other 2 slot cargo rack with a SRV bay. Big mistake, without shields the base almost took out my ship at 1km away. I made it out with 16% hull and limped back to base without even attempting the remaining three missions. I figured maybe it is time to try a “Combat Explorer” so I found the nearest station and stored the ADS and SRV bay and replaced the slots with cargo again. Then I bought the DB-Scout and equipped the ADS and SRV bay to start the new build.
I decided to check out the Hauler and give it a fair shake. This configuration is setup for mining. The only advantage that the Adder has is one extra collector limpet. I’m still feeling that the Hauler and Adder don’t have much on the Sidewinder. I did like flying the Hauler much more than the Adder and the cockpit view is top notch. I went with a 2B FSD as it offers the best jump range and a 1C power distributer that I may drop to a 1D if it has more than enough juice to power the single mining laser (it does and I did). I also went with a 2C refinery for 4 slots due to cost and a 1C collector limpet because it was average at everything. Without a prospect limpet controller you are mining blind. Perhaps you can split the limpets on the Adder and have 1 prospect and 1 collector and that ship would be a decent miner but you would be mining physically blind. It is super important to not be blindsided by an asteroid with zero shields, also you would go through limpets fast. The Hauler would make a better explorer than the Sidewinder or Adder due to field of vision and better jump range. Overall I don’t feel the Adder or Hauler are worth the upgrade but I did enjoy the Hauler much more that I expected. You can move 20 tons of cargo without a shield, the jump range is nice and the fuel tank is huge for this ship allowing you to skip a fuel scoop early on if you keep things close. I did take this out mining and it worked much better than expected, the only issue is that I hit the jettison cargo button instead of the close cargo scoop. After spending 10 minutes scooping my cargo I made about 150k in 40 minutes. I found out just running cargo did twice that but either way I had 1.5 million to get a Cobra Mk3. I’m glad I went backwards and tried this ship. I guess you can move into it for hauling cargo then strip and sell the ship to help finance the Cobra Mk3. Although I feel the Hauler is an upgrade to the Sidewinder and is potentially worth moving into, I would definitely skip the Adder.
All the ships I am reviewing are purchased and equipped in Colonia area. Prices are higher than average and we have limited availability with modules. So far I don’t think there is any A-rated modules available thus the preference for B-Rated things where weight doesn’t matter like Fuel Scoops and Frame Shift Drives. I D-Rated everything, dropped the Power Plant to a 2D to save weight. This ship has plenty of power without shields or weapons. I chose to add a Detailed Surface Scanner and cargo racks to fill out the build. With this configuration I was able to obtain a jump range of 23.67. A little bit better than the Sidewinder with the A-Rated FSD plus I have an extra module slot and larger size class. This allowed a 3B Fuel Scoop to be fitted doubling the rate at which I can scoop fuel compared to the 2A scoop I used in the Sidewinder. An option is to replace a cargo rack with a SRV bay. This will lower the jump range but will still probably be worth it. You can also drop the Surface scanner and fit passenger modules in place of the cargo racks and run passenger missions. I remember the first time I played the game the Adder was an awesome upgrade from the Sidewinder for cargo missions and allowed me more cargo space to get to the Cobra faster. Now that I am viewing this with a fresh pair of eyes and some experience in the game I have to say my 2nd impression is that this ship is perfect for Pirates. Not because it is good at combat but because it feels like you have an eye patch on your right eye. While the ship looks good on paper if situational awareness is important to you (and it should be) I would recommend skipping this ship. Just during the outfitting stage I feel like I have had way too many near misses and Dervish Platform scares the crap out of me with the spinning antenna. I was hit by a station antenna in my original Adder and it almost destroyed the ship. My goal was to give each ship a fair shake down and review so at this point I am committed to completing the review but I am already looking forward to the Hauler. After purchase and outfitting I am left with 650,000 credits. I really want to collect enough for an Advanced Discovery Scanner before I move on to the next ship. I’m going to try exploration, cargo and passenger missions in the Colonia region next. Probably starting with cargo runs till I get the scanner then swap to passenger missions until I can afford a Hauler.
Well I totally screwed up, just found out that the Hauler is smaller than the Adder. I ended up doing cargo runs and it is very difficult to make money with a ship this small. I tried exploration but without an Advanced Discovery Scanner I was losing most of the value in exploration. Passenger missions are mostly criminals and having the high risk of re-buy this early in the game encourages me to play safe. My final solution that actually worked was to run planetary scanner missions. Sadly I could do the same missions in a Sidewinder. I’ll eventually get a Hauler just to try it out but I am finding out that starting with small ships in Colonia is counterproductive so I look forward to moving into the Cobra Mk3.
The Sidewinder built for 21,000ly trip to Colonia
I spent close to 30 hours in the seat of this ship. I started out doing missions to collect about 500,000 credits to fit a 2A FSD and 2A Fuel Scoop for a trip to Colonia. I D-rated all the internals while I was at it as the cost was laughable and it really helps the jump range. Next, I stripped the guns and stored the shields, SRV bay and SRV. If anyone is interested it will cost me 200 credits in total to have them shipped to Colonia but it will take 54 hours. The trip to Colonia took 1333 jumps and about 27 hours with just a touch over 22ly jump range. It was a challenge but it was also meant to be that way.
Flying to Colonia without shields was a risk, especially since I was landing on planets with some of them being just under 4g’s. Also during my trip I got blindsided by an NPC and it took my hull down about 1/3rd. I was very impressed with the handling and durability of this ship. While I never did take it in combat (this will be a theme) as a merchant ship it works for small cargo but I recommend stacking data missions if you want to make money quickly. You can also use the Sidewinder for planetary missions and make quite a bit of money. It was also a surprisingly decent exploration ship. Even with the Basic Discovery Scanner and no Planetary Scanner. I feel if you add the Advanced Discovery Scanner, Planetary scanner and run shieldless to reduce weight it would make a decent Exploration ship. I did miss the SRV bay but the added weight would have made my trip much longer and it was already a very long trip as it was. With the Sidewinder you have to choose between either shields or an SRV bay and choosing either one will reduce your jump range by a couple of light years. I would recommend fitting a size 2 AFMS as it has no weight and allows you to use the Neutron Highway and repair modules as you would also be running shieldless. If you don’t have the Horizons expansion this would make a great Exploration ship. As a multirole ship it is probably lacking due to the small amount of internal slots but as a first combat ship or explorer this hunk of junk can really excel.
Last stop is Colonia, my final destination. 121 jumps from Vihara Gate and 22,000LY from Sol.
Mission complete, landed at Dove Enigma the megaship! The total trip took about 27 hours of seat time and 1333 jumps. I finished with 1,419,294 credits in mostly cartographic data with no “honking” unless absolutely needed. I did scan navigation beacons in populated systems as some stops were beyond my basic discovery scanner range. The trip was more than exhausting but I actually feel like I am getting a fresh start in a new part of the game without benefits from engineers or A-rated materials. This should be a great time to get some honest seat time in each of the basic ships to get an honest evaluation of them. Something that is normally skipped when playing the game. I was always on the lookout for the next “best” ship. After flying most of the popular ships and acquiring the Imperial Cutter I can honestly say that my favorite ships are the Asp Explorer for exploring, Python for freaking everything and Imperial Cutter for merchant work. Being just shy of 1.5 million credits is probably a good thing because my next step would have been to purchase an advanced discovery scanner and planetary scanner for exploration. Since I can’t do that I will purchase an Adder and evaluate that as a multi-role ship then move into the Hauler next. I will keep each and every ship but will probably re-purpose expensive and unavailable items like the Advanced Discovery Scanner and my 2A FSD and 2A Fuel Scoop. Next stop is a ship yard where I can purchase an Adder and begin my reviews of the basic ships starting with the Sidewinder after spending almost 30 hours with it.
Twelfth stop is Vihara Gate in the Kashyapa system. 119 jumps from Polo Harbour and 19,470LY from Sol.
Yet another uneventful trip. You can really feel the grind now. My mind is numb but the finish line is almost here so I am pushing on. It took about 2 hours to get here but after hitting the Navigation Beacon and landing I noticed that Livery was available again. I’m going to call it 2.25 hours to include updates, landing, selling data and reading my mail. Speaking of, I got another promotion to Surveyor so I quickly added that decal to my ship. The paint is getting worn and it looks real nice. I am at 67% paint after 1212 jumps and just shy of 25 hours of travel time. Next stop, Colonia!
