Osprey - good for what?

[sebashaw]

I used to like the Osprey in may previous games, even if it is slow its armour makes it a space anvil and I always thought it was enough to take out the Xenon squadrons.

Now the Xenon have increased the number of their fighters, so the slow and ill armed Osprey is became an easy prey for them. My new escort of choice now is the Cerberus.

I still want to find a use for this ship in my fleets, any suggestion? Torpedo frigate maybe? Pure Drone carrier?

[Alan Phipps]

I use a few as close local defenders for my frequent-use mining areas and hence mainly for use against small Kha'ak fighter groups. Their speed is not really an issue as the enemy come to them. They shrug off kyons.

[dtpsprt]

The Cerberus is a way better Drone Carrier as it can have the most drones. The use I find in Osprey is to get the free one from Company Regard, strip it down to the lowest specification and hand it over to any faction asking for a corvette in their war missions...

[Raptor34]

The Cerberus is a way better Drone Carrier as it can have the most drones. The use I find in Osprey is to get the free one from Company Regard, strip it down to the lowest specification and hand it over to any faction asking for a corvette in their war missions...

Osprey has more drones.

[KextV8]

The main use of the Osprey is to sell it. It's just unfortunately not a good ship. If they gave it two more turrets or an extra small landing pad on the bottom of the ship, it would be useful. If it could launch 2 sm fighters at once and repair them like a micro carrier? It would have its own niche as a police/patrol vessel.

[EGO_Aut]

It has 2x the hull of a cerberus, and with some simple mods more than usefull. The turret angels can hit the enemy.

[jlehtone]

I used to like the Osprey in may previous games,

X2 had the "Best M6" debates, but in X3's Osprey wasn't special, was it? Sorry, haven't looked at them in X4 (but might have shot a couple).

[sebashaw]

The main use of the Osprey is to sell it. It's just unfortunately not a good ship. If they gave it two more turrets or an extra small landing pad on the bottom of the ship, it would be useful. If it could launch 2 sm fighters at once and repair them like a micro carrier? It would have its own niche as a police/patrol vessel.

Another small landing pad, or a launch-catapult and the space for two fighters in the interior hangar would make the ship quite unique. There are not military transports in X4.
But I'm worried that a M is not big enough.

[Drumma]

The Osprey is slow but it has some nice pros against the cons.
I only have the free one in Company Regard but I like its bridge; one of the best imho. ... industrial, unfinished, a working ship's bridge. One of my favorite in the game. So I keep it in internal storage on one of my cap ships (with two S-class ships on board).
When I need some armored trading, its my go to ship for small quantity needs. For fresh start games, its one of the first M-class (frigates) you can get (for free). ... just a great utility ships, slow but useful. I've put one frog in its belly and one on the landing pad to up its cargo cap to over 6k; useful for me early game before I could afford large transporters. [fwiw, I play vanilla - no mods, and I don't buy Ospreys but won't sell the one I get gratis]

[Nanook]

I use a few as close local defenders for my frequent-use mining areas and hence mainly for use against small Kha'ak fighter groups. Their speed is not really an issue as the enemy come to them. They shrug off kyons.

Sadly, that's not been my recent experience. I had a Hokkaido miner in Eighteen Billion and it was being constantly harrassed by Kha'ak patrols, sometimes as many as 8 at a time. So I assigned my freebee Osprey to it as protection so the Hokkaido could get more mining done with less fighting. After a little while, I noticed the Osprey was loosing shields rapidly. It was being swarmed by another Kha'ak patrol, which were ignoring the Hokkaido. When the shields on the Osprey dropped to less than 10%, I jumped in and rescued it, by which time it was taking hull damage. So I pulled it out and sold it. Since the Hokkaido had never really been in any danger, I just left it to deal with any future Kha'ak on it's own.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Nanook: Yes, that was why I said 'a few' as then they can cope with the rarer bigger groups of Kha'ak fighters when covering M miners as well. In such large aggression situations, I also tend to go looking for a hive in that sector and blow it away with destroyers.

[KextV8]

Another small landing pad, or a launch-catapult and the space for two fighters in the interior hangar would make the ship quite unique. There are not military transports in X4.
But I'm worried that a M is not big enough.

If it were to get the second pad, I would remove internal storage for it. Force both ships to simply be landed on the pads.

[Lord Dakier]

Unfortunately the Osprey, like far too many ships suffers from simply being outclassed in pretty much every major department.

We really need a rebalance of all the ships.

[GCU Grey Area]

Ospreys are among the best M ships for use as auxiliary turret batteries on XL capitals. Full set of them can often double the number of M turrets available to defend the ship (at least for non-DLC carriers/auxiliaries).

Osprey is, in my view, one of the best in this role because it's considerably more durable, with a thicker hull & stronger shields than any of the other options. Important characteristics for a ship utterly incapable of evading incoming fire because it never leaves the dock.

Also really like Osprey's turret placement for this role - with turrets pointing in 3 different directions they provide exceptionally even coverage. Particularly so when docked to a Stork or Condor due to the radially symmetrical placement of M docks around the midsection of these ships.

[KextV8]

Ospreys are among the best M ships for use as auxiliary turret batteries on XL capitals

It was until Jian replaced it for this role.

[Raptor34]

Easy enough to compare. How many graviton shots can an Osprey and Jian eat?

[sebashaw]

Maybe a Osprey "E" could work, with two landing pads almost attached on top of it, the turrets in pair per side, it should be the military transport that the game lacks, but it wuold have a really weird desing.

[KextV8]

Easy enough to compare. How many graviton shots can an Osprey and Jian eat?

Neither can eat enough to matter. The extra 2 turrets on the Jian matter more. Especially since it is a tactically bad decision to take ships that would be using this tactic within graviton range in the first place. They should only be getting shot by s and m ships.

[GCU Grey Area]

Easy enough to compare. How many graviton shots can an Osprey and Jian eat?

Neither can eat enough to matter. The extra 2 turrets on the Jian matter more. Especially since it is a tactically bad decision to take ships that would be using this tactic within graviton range in the first place. They should only be getting shot by s and m ships.

Nah, still prefer Osprey. Tried Jian in my Terran game & it was just a bit too fragile for the role as far as I'm concerned. Couple of extra turrets just wasn't enough to offset the weaker shielding & paper thin hull (⅓ of Osprey's).

[Raptor34]

Easy enough to compare. How many graviton shots can an Osprey and Jian eat?

Neither can eat enough to matter. The extra 2 turrets on the Jian matter more. Especially since it is a tactically bad decision to take ships that would be using this tactic within graviton range in the first place. They should only be getting shot by s and m ships.

It does actually. I've lost a Falx to a glancing shot when it was docked before. Well, a few shots maybe, it might have ate some extra before I noticed.
So being able to absorb some damage is very valuable. Otherwise the number of turrets on that Osprey would be more valuable than the 0 of a dead ship.
And should only be is some famous last words. Unless you're going against VIG in which case I guess the Jian would be better since more guns is more valuable there.