Why the Argon Nova's the Best M3

[Pirate Hunter]

I dont care what anybody says Novas have to be the best M3 in the game.


since I got my Nova I can now hunt down the Khaak and kick there purple ass. I have made a furtune in bountys sice I got it.

Alough a Baraccuda probrably is a better dogfighter you have to run from misiles which is very bad for your health when your attacking the Khaak, the Nova has a rear turret to take care of the misiles for you. It also has 75MW shielding which helps.

The only time Ive had a problem with the Nova was on an assasination mission. I had to use my jump drive to cut the target off and it then took about an hour to finish the mission because the Hydra was faster than me and he kept flying out of range of my guns when his shields went down . And dogfighting baracudas is a bit of a challange.

But over all the Nova is the best M3 for my requirments, defending my sectors from the Khaak. I can now charge head first in to a Khaak cluster . Still avoid the realy big ones though.

[Greyhawk1]

When you fly the others you'll realise its the best general M3 but its not the best overall M3 - none are.

The only M3 which sucks big style and is practically worthless is the Teladi Falcon because its undergunned, deperately slow and has no redeeming features at all. Maybe the Xenon L can beat it for sheer crapness - never really flown one.

The Perseus is like Thor's battlehammer against capships and Khaak Clusters. You can wipe a cluster out before it even fires a shot with dual Beta PSG's in the front. Those babies will eat K's for breakfast.

The Mamba is too fast to really need to worry about missiles. Makes up for its very very poor shielding.

The Barracuda is very manoueverable and fast but has many drawbacks. Enough to stop me from ever flying one by choice.

The Khaak M3 is OK but suffers from a crap cockpit, paper thin hull, lack of cargo space and very restrictive weapons.

Given the choice I would fly a Pirate Orinoco. Why? Well its got 100 more cargo space than most M3's. Can mount HEPTS, PSG's and Ion D's and is much faster than a Falcon. It can only mount Silkworms but Hornets are too slow to be worth it anyway.

I used to fly a Nova but swear by my Orinoco now.

[GCU Grey Area]

When you fly the others you'll realise its the best general M3 but its not the best overall M3 - none are.

Precisely why I prefer an Iguana...

[p_keller]

If you fit your Nova with an engine tuning kit from the Pirate Bases your speed problems go away for a little while. I normally use a Barracuda in assasination missions but on occasion I use a Nova.

I switched from using Barracuda's to Nova's on one of my carriers since for some reason I think they seem to get rid of the Khaak cluster scouts quicker. Anyone else noticed this?

[Pirate Hunter]

The only M3 which sucks big style and is practically worthless is the Teladi Falcon because its undergunned, deperately slow and has no redeeming features at all. Maybe the Xenon L can beat it for sheer crapness - never really flown one.

I captured one of these once and your right its rubbish.

The Perseus is like Thor's battlehammer against capships and Khaak Clusters. You can wipe a cluster out before it even fires a shot with dual Beta PSG's in the front. Those babies will eat K's for breakfast.

The only problem with the perseus is it cant carry HEPT's a bit of a drawback when theres alot of friendly nearby.

The Mamba is too fast to really need to worry about missiles. Makes up for its very very poor shielding.

This wont help you against the Khaak.

Given the choice I would fly a Pirate Orinoco. Why? Well its got 100 more cargo space than most M3's. Can mount HEPTS, PSG's and Ion D's and is much faster than a Falcon. It can only mount Silkworms but Hornets are too slow to be worth it anyway

I used to use one of these and they are absolutaly useless against the Kahak

[Dunners]

Each to his own. All the fighters have some aspect that makes them worth having. The best fleet in the world would consist of a number of ships of different types, not just one.

If we all thought the same things the world would be a dull place.

Personally I prefer the Split mamba.

Dunners

[Pirate Hunter]

Each to his own. All the fighters have some aspect that makes them worth having. The best fleet in the world would consist of a number of ships of different types, not just one.

If we all thought the same things the world would be a dull place.

Personally I prefer the Split mamba.

Dunners

I agree but as far I know the Nova is the best at OOS defence and it is perfect for taking on the Khaak.

There is alot of posts that say the Nova is rubbish I thought it was about time someone stuck up for it.

[The Jakal]

I agree with Pirate hunter the Nova is the best (though this is probaly very biased as I 've not flown all of them). This said it is not the fastest but missile dont worry me and about what greyHawk said about the mamba being able to out run missiles, if your attacking Khaak the cahnces are you'll be dead already. My opininon not meant to be offensive.

The Jakal

[The Great Stonk]

having trouble keeping up ?

mk1 engine booster, bonus material, buyable from all pirate bases. it gets your nova up to a nice 300+ ms for a short period, at the cost of energy cells, and draining most of your shields when it disengages. not for the inexperienced pilot

[Pirate Hunter]

I just use my jumpdrive if im in a hurry to get somewere or to get away from something.

[Greyhawk1]

I have no problems at all taking on Khaak with my Orinoco. Simply switch to dual APSG's and they're toast. I use 1xAHEPT and 1xIon D for Khaak M3's. Again they dont last two seconds with that.

The perseus cant mount HEPTS?! Thats news to the Perseus in my hold that carries 3xAHEPTS.

The only drawback to the Perseus is its cargo. It can only take M cargo and very little of it. Makes it very short range.

I agree with the Iguana though. Knocks spots off a lot of the M3's in the game considering its waaaaay cheaper. Somebody messed up with the ship balancing methinks.

I only flew a Mamba for a bit - couldnt get used to the frailness of it. However in the right hands it could be deadly. I still dont understand why it wasnt given 2xGHEPTS as a loadout though. That would have put it in line with most other Split ships' penchant for weaponry over shielding.

The Falcon. Dear me, a really sweet looking ship and a total waste of space. I wonder what the rationale was for making it so slow that its practically useless? I think someone messed up when they put the stats in and it really should have the same cargo bay as an Orinoco since they are very similar ships. After all, the gimmick with Teladi ships (supposedly) is that they have decent cargo bays at the expense of speed. The Falcon has lost massive amounts of speed and gained almost nothing else to show for it. I'm sure there's an error in there somewhere.

[Pirate Hunter]

Yeh your wright. I miss read this post by pjknibbs

Pirate Hunter wrote:
Ive had a look on Argonopedia and the Nova cant carry PSG's!

The Paranid M3 can carry Beta PSG's and can go 210mps. It also has 75MW shielding like the Nova so that one is the best, no doupt about it.


pjknibbs Wrote:
Yeah, but the Perseus also has a couple of problems:

a) If you can't use PSGs (friendly fire problems) then you're forced back onto 3xAHEPT, which are slightly less effective against shields than the dual BHEPTs on a Nova. They're more effective against the hull, true, but since most ships have much more powerful shielding than they have hull that's a moot point.

b) The cargo space is appalling. Unless you have some other ship (TL, M1 or M2) to jump your Perseus from place to place, you WILL find the lack of room for jump energy extremely frustrating.

My own choices? Perseus as a carrier-borne ship, Barracuda if it's the only ship you have.

but as you can see it does have problems when you cant use PSG's

[jaguarskx]

For serious combat, like assassination missions, or destroying Khaak I like to use the Nova. But for less intense combat and more importantly M3 trading missions I fly the Orinoco.

According to my stats, the ship I fly the most is the most is the Boron Dolphin. That’s not very surprising because I trade more than I fight. That’s why I fly the Orinoco more than I would fly the Nova.

[JTressy]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that the Nova is the best M3, I have several and use the right one for the job. ie, for assasination missions where the marks shielding is 250MW or less I use the KM3, because it's fast enough and can engage from 3km out, very useful.

I use the Nova for capturing sprees at pirate bases, the turret saves me from the deluge of missiles and the wide range of weapons make it great for capping. The only time I use it on an assasination mission is when I'm killing Teldai, 'cos I need the Ion Ds to take down the large shields and they're barely faster than me anyway.

I also have a Perseus, which as someone said above is used for mass khaak killing and cap ship decimation, mine sits in scale plate reen as a stress reliever at the moment

[xalien]

Nova is one of the most powerfull M3's, that's true, but also it's one of the most BORING M3's. It's the best M3 for new players, I used to fly it a lot and never regreted it, but now I just can't stomach it anymore.
Now I'm having a lot of fun with Barracuda. It's quite a bit harder to take out a cluster with it, but I really never had a need to do that, except some odd plot mission, but I usually have an Elephant at that point which is the best cluster buster. Barracuda+Ass.mission=lots of fun .

[Sascha Tausend]

The Barracuda was my first M3 i bought. I never looked back. It's very balanced. I never had the money to test others since i spend all my money to build new factories and setup some universe traders. Since i recently cap'd a KM3 and 2 Orinocos i have quite a nice hunting pack. They do really well as wingmen.

I like the Iguana, that was a great tipp. Looks like you can really have fun with it. Somehow i overlooked it totally since it's a TP class and never thought it could be used as a fighter.

[dzhedzho]

Different ships are good for different occations and jobs. It also depends on what kind of pilot you are you are. Sadly i never found what falcon is good for. I have noticed that even L worths having. Very useful for taking down xenon N's and M's (especially wike a wingman).

[Greyhawk1]

I think the M3's in the game really need a few tweaks to bring them up to scratch. Here's a few suggestions:

Argon Nova : Slightly more speed (174 or so). Other than that its great.

Boron Barracuda : Upgrade cargo class to L.

Paranid Perseus : Cargo needs upgrading to a point where its useful. 50 more units should do. Lose a bit off the speed to compensate.

Pirate Orinoco : Get rid of the truly godawful cockpit . Drop the PSG or Ion D ability to compensate for the majorly unbalancing cargo capacity.

Split Mamba : 2xGHEPTS front guns.

Teladi Falcon : Increase speed to 150 m/s, add 100 cargo units (brings it in line with the very similar Orinoco). Alternatively, leave speed as is but add a fourth 25mw shield bay as well as the extra cargo.

Xenon L : 2xBHEPTS front guns. Slight speed increase.

Just IMO of course.

[dzhedzho]

I think the M3's in the game really need a few tweaks to bring them up to scratch. Here's a few suggestions:

Argon Nova : Slightly more speed (174 or so). Other than that its great.

Boron Barracuda : Upgrade cargo class to L.

Paranid Perseus : Cargo needs upgrading to a point where its useful. 50 more units should do. Lose a bit off the speed to compensate.

Pirate Orinoco : Get rid of the truly godawful cockpit . Drop the PSG or Ion D ability to compensate for the majorly unbalancing cargo capacity.

Split Mamba : 2xGHEPTS front guns.

Teladi Falcon : Increase speed to 150 m/s, add 100 cargo units (brings it in line with the very similar Orinoco). Alternatively, leave speed as is but add a fourth 25mw shield bay as well as the extra cargo.

Xenon L : 2xBHEPTS front guns. Slight speed increase.

Just IMO of course.

And here is my opinion
I believe the Nova and the Orinoco are quite well made maybe too well
I like the idea of 4th 25 MW shield in the falcon, or a rear turret
I think the Mamba weill be better with GHPT or at least hornets.
Thhe other's like the way they are

[Casper20]

The Falcon. Dear me, a really sweet looking ship and a total waste of space. I wonder what the rationale was for making it so slow that its practically useless? I think someone messed up when they put the stats in and it really should have the same cargo bay as an Orinoco since they are very similar ships. After all, the gimmick with Teladi ships (supposedly) is that they have decent cargo bays at the expense of speed. The Falcon has lost massive amounts of speed and gained almost nothing else to show for it. I'm sure there's an error in there somewhere.

And it's even weirder that the description of the ship actually says: "This ship is fast (right ), well armed (hehehe, right )..."