Your preferred ships and why

[ubuntufreakdragon]

I just wanted to ask around what ships in FL especially if changed from AP or new are your highlights?

I for example want to give the new Boreas a better review than it received by most players.
Yes it lost another shield and half its guns but it also gained quite a bit:
It is the only light destroyer with an enormous beam option, this means two cobras filled to the brim with torpedoes are as harmless as a ranger.
It is fast, easy to navigate and small.
It has an enormous energy generator combined with special weapon options meaning it keeps up firing all its guns all the time while against multiple capitals other m2 at some point drop in their dps.
It has a very good stand against fighter swarms.
its cargo hold can carry all desired switch weapons.

[Sovereign01]

In FL, the Kogarasu Maru replaced the Hyperion Vanguard and Springblossom as my favourite M6. Apart from being able to only dock one small craft instead of 2, the Maru is superior to the former in every way, and with the 40% reduction in cargo capacity of the latter and difficulty of building and arming it, its only advantage is its speed.

[BrigandPhantos77]

In FL, the Kogarasu Maru replaced the Hyperion Vanguard and Springblossom as my favourite M6. Apart from being able to only dock one small craft instead of 2, the Maru is superior to the former in every way, and with the 40% reduction in cargo capacity of the latter and difficulty of building and arming it, its only advantage is its speed.

Upside to Springblossom. You fly into swarm of Xenon, blow up swarm, fly out. Shields usually only drop to lowest 40% for me, on rare occasion lower. Only because I have to go really slow to blow up a P or PX. Downside, unless you have matter anti-matter launchers, you will miss almost every shot regardless of your speed advantage. The prototype guns miss 90% of all shots on small targets. This leads me to the conclusion, those responsible only wanted to nerf the player in every imaginable way possible. Just saying, not trying to be mean.

[Sovereign01]

In FL, the Kogarasu Maru replaced the Hyperion Vanguard and Springblossom as my favourite M6. Apart from being able to only dock one small craft instead of 2, the Maru is superior to the former in every way, and with the 40% reduction in cargo capacity of the latter and difficulty of building and arming it, its only advantage is its speed.

Upside to Springblossom. You fly into swarm of Xenon, blow up swarm, fly out. Shields usually only drop to lowest 40% for me, on rare occasion lower. Only because I have to go really slow to blow up a P or PX. Downside, unless you have matter anti-matter launchers, you will miss almost every shot regardless of your speed advantage. The prototype guns miss 90% of all shots on small targets. This leads me to the conclusion, those responsible only wanted to nerf the player in every imaginable way possible. Just saying, not trying to be mean.

And unless you can get more than the 30 Focus Crystals you cannot even arm it the best way, you have to choose between the main battery and turrets for PSSCs and PMAMLs which just cripples it further. And the Kogarasu Maru can mount matter-antimatter launchers, and for anything the launchers cannot hit there's the ever-reliable Plasma Burst Generators, the number of M6s that can mount both can be counted on one hand

[BrigandPhantos77]

And unless you can get more than the 30 Focus Crystals you cannot even arm it the best way, you have to choose between the main battery and turrets for PSSCs and PMAMLs which just cripples it further. And the Kogarasu Maru can mount matter-antimatter launchers, and for anything the launchers cannot hit there's the ever-reliable Plasma Burst Generators, the number of M6s that can mount both can be counted on one hand

If you overtune it, the Marauder aint a half bad ship either. It can mount side PBC along with basically being almost a clone of the Centaur. Has a great cargo bay to it as well. But like I said, needs to be overtuned. I've begun using them as salvage ships. Put one at each of my equipment docks for multiple purpose use.

[OrionTaltos]

I did a Goner start now that I've tried out FL. I've gotten really fond of the Ranger (tuned up really makes it spiffy). It's a really nice drive for myself with enough shields to let me do the occasional dumb things (especially with tanking shots for fleeing freighters or a rare bit of combative cargo hacking).

I'm still working out a battle flier. A discarded LX has been my fighter of choice. In previous X3s, it often was a Nova. Average all-rounds with a turret gun.

For an M6, I was really hoping the Truelight Seeker was going to work out well. It can equip a wonderful variety of lasers, but its defensiveness is rough with a lack of turret and only 400MJ in shielding. It means I have to lean hard into missiles when going against a group of fighters.

[Hwitvlf]

M6: The Maru is the most versatile player ship and generally overpowered, especially when over-tuned. I keep Pulsed Beam Emitters on the main guns- which quickly strip shields and destroy equipment. After shields are gone, Tornado missiles make short work of anything. The runner up is the Khaak Corvette but its cargo hold is too small. I wish FL had Pandora Crates to boost cargo size. I think Roguey made an Unfocused Jump Drive mod which would spawn cargo-boosting crates. They were rare finds, but it still expanded gameplay options considerably.

M5: Advanced Kestrel for exploration. It can hold a Triplex Scanner, outrun missiles, carry passengers for missions, run Turbobooster (about 1000ms) with no ecells, and even take out an M3 in a pinch.

M3: Susanova Prototype is unbeatable as a player fighter. It can outrun most missiles that could threaten it and excellent weapon generator.

Capitals: Carrack and Brigantine because the beam weapons aren't programmed to miss like other weapons.Their low shielding still keeps things challenging.

TP: Angel for its sleek look and fullscreen cockpit view. Decent all-around stats.

TS: Mule is the most versatile, but I keep several Owl Miners on the Ozias for a crazy cargo capacity on delivery missions. The Pirate ship is good for selling small illegal wares; it can outrun most ships and not much lost if one gets destroyed.

[Sovereign01]

And unless you can get more than the 30 Focus Crystals you cannot even arm it the best way, you have to choose between the main battery and turrets for PSSCs and PMAMLs which just cripples it further. And the Kogarasu Maru can mount matter-antimatter launchers, and for anything the launchers cannot hit there's the ever-reliable Plasma Burst Generators, the number of M6s that can mount both can be counted on one hand

If you overtune it, the Marauder aint a half bad ship either. It can mount side PBC along with basically being almost a clone of the Centaur. Has a great cargo bay to it as well. But like I said, needs to be overtuned. I've begun using them as salvage ships. Put one at each of my equipment docks for multiple purpose use.

You mean for scooping up dropped cargo? Far as I can tell it can't dock small craft. A couple of sectors are building up large numbers of disabled Xenon fighters, I might have to show up in an M6 with a jump beacon and call in my Valhalla to get them all.

My favourite M7M is still the Skirnir, even though the Shadow is no longer worth the 20 Hammers it was in TC (each warhead having a yield 2.5 times that of the Hammer, and as a swarm missile it had eight warheads)! The effect it had was that in TC you could use a commonwealth M7M, and you'd find yourself returning to base to reload its missiles after you clear a Xenon sector. If you had a Skirnir, you'd find yourself returning to base to reload its missiles after you clear every Xenon sector. This was partly due to the superiority of the shadow, and partly due to the superiority of the cargo capacity which compensates for the greater size of the Shadow. In FL, the Shadow is 'only' worth 1.5 Hammers, despite this the Skirnir's other advantages in terms of defensive loadout, shielding and speed remain.

And in FL, the M7M seems to know how many torpedoes to launch depending on how much health the enemy ship has left

When it comes to M8s, it's more difficult to choose between commonwealth designs as they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Of course if the M8 is carried around in a ship that can transport it, many of those factors disappear! In terms of the missiles they fire the Phantom is superior to the Tomahawk in every way, most significantly its 10 km range advantage.

[Sovereign01]

I did a Goner start now that I've tried out FL. I've gotten really fond of the Ranger (tuned up really makes it spiffy). It's a really nice drive for myself with enough shields to let me do the occasional dumb things (especially with tanking shots for fleeing freighters or a rare bit of combative cargo hacking).

I'm still working out a battle flier. A discarded LX has been my fighter of choice. In previous X3s, it often was a Nova. Average all-rounds with a turret gun.

For an M6, I was really hoping the Truelight Seeker was going to work out well. It can equip a wonderful variety of lasers, but its defensiveness is rough with a lack of turret and only 400MJ in shielding. It means I have to lean hard into missiles when going against a group of fighters.

Don't forget its abysmal shield recharge rate, which is so low as to be comparable to an M4

As a host ship for a mining operation, the Ozias is second to none- you can assign a dozen mining TS/TP to it and they'll collect and offload until full. I've got three of them, one with a dozen Geochens, a second one with Mistrals and the third with Owls. I set all three of them to work in Seizewell Alpha and they still haven't finished collecting all the rocks

[OrionTaltos]

Don't forget its abysmal shield recharge rate, which is so low as to be comparable to an M4

As a host ship for a mining operation, the Ozias is second to none- you can assign a dozen mining TS/TP to it and they'll collect and offload until full. I've got three of them, one with a dozen Geochens, a second one with Mistrals and the third with Owls. I set all three of them to work in Seizewell Alpha and they still haven't finished collecting all the rocks

Oh, I hadn't looked up the recharge rates. That's why it feels so hard to recover in the Seeker or Ranger. My Brigantine recovers faster, haha. As a note, I am sad when I realized the Ranger can't be a Trader. I was going to have a fleet of them about, even if they are rather pricy

My TL This is the first time I've been using an Ozias and it is fantastic. I setup stations in a spot before I could afford a TOA and I'd bring it across with a ramshackle fleet of transports and freight drones. I have jumped it to buy up mass materials as well. I should try the mining fleet method since I actually can afford it.

Since I ended up with plans for a Pirate Ships and they are cheap, they're probably two thirds of my transport fleet. Easy to pop a couple of them out give them what's needed to fill in for a station.

[Sovereign01]

Don't forget its abysmal shield recharge rate, which is so low as to be comparable to an M4

As a host ship for a mining operation, the Ozias is second to none- you can assign a dozen mining TS/TP to it and they'll collect and offload until full. I've got three of them, one with a dozen Geochens, a second one with Mistrals and the third with Owls. I set all three of them to work in Seizewell Alpha and they still haven't finished collecting all the rocks

Oh, I hadn't looked up the recharge rates. That's why it feels so hard to recover in the Seeker or Ranger. My Brigantine recovers faster, haha. As a note, I am sad when I realized the Ranger can't be a Trader. I was going to have a fleet of them about, even if they are rather pricy

My TL This is the first time I've been using an Ozias and it is fantastic. I setup stations in a spot before I could afford a TOA and I'd bring it across with a ramshackle fleet of transports and freight drones. I have jumped it to buy up mass materials as well. I should try the mining fleet method since I actually can afford it.

Since I ended up with plans for a Pirate Ships and they are cheap, they're probably two thirds of my transport fleet. Easy to pop a couple of them out give them what's needed to fill in for a station.

An Ozias full of drill-equipped transports is the most practical way of collecting Nividium asteroids in a reasonable timeframe, as long as it's not located in the ass-end of nowhere the HQ is the perfect place to sell the Nividium you collect and turn a profit since the NPC traders are capable of buying it in the kinds of quantities the station can store

[BrigandPhantos77]

An Ozias full of drill-equipped transports is the most practical way of collecting Nividium asteroids in a reasonable timeframe, as long as it's not located in the ass-end of nowhere the HQ is the perfect place to sell the Nividium you collect and turn a profit since the NPC traders are capable of buying it in the kinds of quantities the station can store

Funny thing I began noticing. When I add about 3 to 4k units of Nividium to my PHQ, I start seeing barter purchase orders for it from 2 to 3 sectors out. The orders pay out 24k per unit instead of the average of 16k.

The settings I have it set to at PHQ; Min of 100 units (keep at least), set as product. I don't know if those impact it or not.

PHQ is located at: Distant Clouds (Unclaimed Sector - East of Unseen Domain)
Hub is west gate, then Unseen Domain.

The buyers are almost always looking for between 3k to 7k units of it. Sometimes it's only 1 unit.

When I had my PHQ in Profit Center Alpha (Next to PTNI Headquarters), I began noticing the buy orders for the barter merchants there as well.

This is 50% more than you'd get selling it to random NPC ships from the PHQ.

So my suggestion is: Collect as much as possible to fill up the Ozias and miners, send one Nividium loaded ship to the PHQ and unload it there, with the Ozias going to neighboring sectors. Send the other ships loaded with it and fulfill the orders. Once completed, if you had any left, use the one miner at the PHQ to grab the Nividium it deposited and huff it to a barter merchant before it vanishes. They usually stick around quite a while, but the orders pop up initially fairly quickly.

[Sovereign01]

An Ozias full of drill-equipped transports is the most practical way of collecting Nividium asteroids in a reasonable timeframe, as long as it's not located in the ass-end of nowhere the HQ is the perfect place to sell the Nividium you collect and turn a profit since the NPC traders are capable of buying it in the kinds of quantities the station can store

Funny thing I began noticing. When I add about 3 to 4k units of Nividium to my PHQ, I start seeing barter purchase orders for it from 2 to 3 sectors out. The orders pay out 24k per unit instead of the average of 16k.

The settings I have it set to at PHQ; Min of 100 units (keep at least), set as product. I don't know if those impact it or not.

PHQ is located at: Distant Clouds (Unclaimed Sector - East of Unseen Domain)
Hub is west gate, then Unseen Domain.

The buyers are almost always looking for between 3k to 7k units of it. Sometimes it's only 1 unit.

When I had my PHQ in Profit Center Alpha (Next to PTNI Headquarters), I began noticing the buy orders for the barter merchants there as well.

This is 50% more than you'd get selling it to random NPC ships from the PHQ.

So my suggestion is: Collect as much as possible to fill up the Ozias and miners, send one Nividium loaded ship to the PHQ and unload it there, with the Ozias going to neighboring sectors. Send the other ships loaded with it and fulfill the orders. Once completed, if you had any left, use the one miner at the PHQ to grab the Nividium it deposited and huff it to a barter merchant before it vanishes. They usually stick around quite a while, but the orders pop up initially fairly quickly.

I would, however my HQ is located in the hub and no matter what I do I still cannot get offers to appear in adjoining sectors, I never did manage to get the Focus Crystals or Quantum Processors to show up after all. And one of my complexes includes a Nividium mine so I have a regular supply of it now

[BrigandPhantos77]

I would, however my HQ is located in the hub and no matter what I do I still cannot get offers to appear in adjoining sectors, I never did manage to get the Focus Crystals or Quantum Processors to show up after all. And one of my complexes includes a Nividium mine so I have a regular supply of it now

Try one of the saves I uploaded to google drive. It should have them showing up. If they don't, then your software is patched.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LuL79V ... drive_link
If they do show up, then the game don't like the hub as the location. It could have to do with it being a remote location.

I haven't unlocked the Terran zone yet, but I finally started my BP collection of Terran ships. I got an Osaka and Aegir via boarding. Got 2 assassin missions from Pirates and Dukes. Tried re-rolling the locations a few times to get it into Teladi space. Game wouldn't give me the missions there, only in the pirate sectors. Got a Tokyo to appear. Wiped completely on it. Couldn't breech the hull. (Pods) I couldn't get any fighters to bail either, of course I also had to pop them as quickly as possible to keep them off my acquisition. (Flails)

[ubuntufreakdragon]

My HQ is in the Hub too and I still got offers, you likely forgot to set the storage limit.

I use Chokaro's for minor cargo transport tasks.
This strongly reduces ship losses with 400mj and >200m/s.

[Sovereign01]

My HQ is in the Hub too and I still got offers, you likely forgot to set the storage limit.

I use Chokaro's for minor cargo transport tasks.
This strongly reduces ship losses with 400mj and >200m/s.

What sectors did you link yours to? My HQ has the min and max set to 30, the amount of each material I have. Because I have a long queue of ships to reverse engineer my HQ isn't going anywhere, while I do I need to boost my right rank, I think and hope my Skirnir will help me do it

[ubuntufreakdragon]

My HQ is in the Hub too and I still got offers, you likely forgot to set the storage limit.

I use Chokaro's for minor cargo transport tasks.
This strongly reduces ship losses with 400mj and >200m/s.

What sectors did you link yours to? My HQ has the min and max set to 30, the amount of each material I have. Because I have a long queue of ships to reverse engineer my HQ isn't going anywhere, while I do I need to boost my right rank, I think and hope my Skirnir will help me do it

I hope you used the right limit, there is a soft limit only used by the manager and a hard limit that also affects you and NPCs, you need the hard limit.
In the stations info screen there should be a filled bar. Or is there another station that offers the wares?
kingdoms end south, great reef west and the paranid unknown sector.

[Sovereign01]

My HQ is in the Hub too and I still got offers, you likely forgot to set the storage limit.

I use Chokaro's for minor cargo transport tasks.
This strongly reduces ship losses with 400mj and >200m/s.

What sectors did you link yours to? My HQ has the min and max set to 30, the amount of each material I have. Because I have a long queue of ships to reverse engineer my HQ isn't going anywhere, while I do I need to boost my right rank, I think and hope my Skirnir will help me do it

I hope you used the right limit, there is a soft limit only used by the manager and a hard limit that also affects you and NPCs, you need the hard limit.
In the stations info screen there should be a filled bar. Or is there another station that offers the wares?
kingdoms end south, great reef west and the paranid unknown sector.

I just removed the FC & QP as wares from the Gate Hub, we'll see what effect that has.

EDIT: That did it! Both are now showing up on the locator!

[OrionTaltos]

I've really fallen for the Acinonyx after ambushing one from the pirates. It feels more like a heavy fighter than an M6 and it doesn't require any special resources.

And it's got style with the lasers that are rotating barrels on the front. With the boarding pods, it has already captured a pirate centaur and caravel using fresh hires. And something to fire my disruptor missiles from. It's been feeling good in the light engagements. I don't think I can punch above its weight too much, but it still is a menace in the playground.

It's a Split ship, so cargo space and shielding are lacking for speed and weapon energy. The main issue is more frequent ecell resupplies needed.

[Hwitvlf]

I've really fallen for the Acinonyx after ambushing one from the pirates.

It also has a phenomenal weapon generator if I remember correctly. What weapons do you equip?