X-TRA POLLS Round #5 | What type of ship do you primarily use?

[Uwe Poppel]

I mainly use one of my several Cobras, often for special purposes with a docked Chimera.
For deep space exploration, I usually use a construction ship with one or two corvettes and a few fighters docked to it.

So I mostly use an M-class.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Small in the beginning - Medium for boarding and exploration. Large and extra large for taking down the Xenon. Finally XL as my floating home. Sometimes a station before they get too large.

[gbjbaanb]

I'm sure the poll might be misleading a little, players generally like fast ships.

Sure, some like a big slow freightrer but I'd say those are a minority (but fair play to them), everyone else will run a fast ship like a katana, nemesis, etc. And if the medium ships were slow like an osprey then nobody would fly them, the S size result in the poll would be the majority.

I use M class mostly, often a Nemesis Vanguard as it can go fast and have enough rotation and pewpew to be fun. I'm not averse to a S class though, but I almost never fly the big ships, they're for standing on the bridge while an NPC does the work making the sluggish lump go where I direct. Sometimes I wish I could use the other terminals like nav or gunnery while still commanding the ship like its NPC controlled.

[Alan Phipps]

The poll doesn't really take account of combinations - I always have an S fighter (Chimera typically) parked in or on my command post Cobra and I switch to that as the game situation or roleplaying aspect demands. Similarly, a player who uses a Carrier as a command post could have lots of choice of S and M ships available to hand as needed.

[Tomonor]

I'm sure the poll might be misleading a little, players generally like fast ships.

This is not an universal rule, actually.

The poll doesn't really take account of combinations - I always have an S fighter (Chimera typically) parked in or on my command post Cobra and I switch to that as the game situation or roleplaying aspect demands. Similarly, a player who uses a Carrier as a command post could have lots of choice of S and M ships available to hand as needed.

Have to keep the poll simple - that's why we encourage you to post the details, like you just did!

[Feloidea]

I can't exactly vote since it's pretty much an equal mix between S and M ships. If I want to do fighting missions I prefer M ships (unless it's station attacks, then the L+ ships come out for obvious reasons) but for the majority of other gameplay I prefer S ships just so I can zip around faster.

[Thomas2052]

I forsee - and the poll already seems to be going this way - that medium is the sweet spot.

Travel speed, combat speed and agility, firepower, shields, looks, ease of disembarking - those are my criteria, and M ships do well to get most.

In that sense the balance is great:

Katana is probably my favourite for travel speed, combat speed (although agility is awful to compensate), looks, and disembarking with ease.

Hydra is second for the firepower, shields, looks and combat speed and agility, although the slow travel acceleration hurts, as well as a fiddly disembark.

I want to like the Kuraokami / Nemesis more than I do - just a touch too slow in travel, and no crew on the bridge to make it feel alive. Great weapons and looks though, although I prefer the Nemesis to the Kuraokami's slightly bug-like look and DIY 'upgrades' on its chassis.

Astrid is up there too, and I don't like split ships, but I recognise their objective strength.

I wish I liked the Frigates more, as having access to a S would be a great feature, but they just fall short in many of the above. The Falx is probably my favourite bridge of the entire game.

I wonder if distinguishing between Corvettes, Frigates and Gunboats would reveal more? I know the aim is to keep it simple.

[mr.WHO]

The irony is that medium are the best player ships, but the worst AI NPC controlled ships

[BitByte]

I answered "Medium sized ships" but use really depends what I'm doing.
For normal travelling from place A to place B if I don't teleport then I fly using Dragon Raider (became my fav ship since Split DLC). If I'm hurry to get there then I can use highly modified Pegasus VA which is faster than ring highway
For fight against M-size (or disabling L-size) ships I also use Dragon Raider or in some cases Dragon. Before Split DLC I used Minotaur Raider or Peregrine.
When I tease BUC I use mostly Discoverer which were handedover by SCA (like the most of my ships) or Pulsar VA.
For boarding I prefer Rattlesnake as it's agile and have powerful weapons. Before Rattlesnake my primary boarding ships were Odysseus VA or Phoenix VA.

I still have in my hangar parked 2 modified Pulsars which I used when cleaning Xenon territories in Matrix #9 and Matrix #79B. I spent so many (happy) hours flying and taking down 1 by 1 Xenon ships by myself. Those were the days

[Maze Morgenstern]

Primarily a fast S Ship.
In Mid-Game i bring a Destroyer if i need the firepower and have my personal S-Ship in its Hangar.

I dont dislike M-Ships, but i do like S/L more.
The main reason is that M-Combatships lack the shildrecharge to sustain long engagements.

XL are kinda boring to fly myselfe, but good as leadships for a NPC controlled battlegoup.

[Stoats not Goats]

I love the Argon Nova and use it almost obsessively (even have one spinning out of control as my pfp). On its own its a great ship but it gets even better when you use some thrust and mass mods to really amp up the manoeuvrability. I do enjoy other fighters as well and I find corvettes to be okay but they can be a bit clunky and aren't as agile as I'd like.

[Franken]

I mostly fly Kuraokami, 2 of them with different Weapon layouts, fully modded. It flyes like an S but gives more safety and dosnt need so much konzentration in fights. But this Ship is ugly.
For fun and because of the design, i prefer the terran Jian. So nice and comfortable like a luxury yacht. And fully nodded its not so fast and manouverable like the Kuraokami, but its fun too .

[SirLosealot]

Exclude trading and mining, gotta be M ship for sure. Specifically, after trying several S and M ships, the Cobra wins me over. It can do anything you throw at it. Squatting S and M ships? Beams +Ion. Killing capital ships? Plasma turrets. Boarding? 25 marines at the ready. Traveling around? It is the fastest Frigate afaik. Granted, it is not Katana, Moreya, or Yasur level of fast. But guess what? You can park a Moreya or Yasur on top of it . What can't this ship do (except trading and mining)?

[GCU Grey Area]

What can't this ship do (except trading and mining)?

It can do those jobs too - Cobra has a similar cargo capacity to a Tuatara Courier (certainly enough for food & meds delivery missions, etc), while if you want to go mining just park an Tuatara Mineral in it's hanger.

[Arkanus]

I fly around in one if my raptors and kill Khaak hives. That's the only thing left to kill in my playthrough

[SpaceCadet11864]

I have a handful of S and M ships that I mostly use. I enjoy the S ships the most, but in practice I find myself using the M ships due to their survivability. I really enjoy flying an S ship in an around the station buildings, sometimes I find myself just doing that for the fun of it while waiting on some other thing that takes time to finish.

For combat, I can spend hours in an M ship, though I've spent a lot of time in L ships as well. When taking out stations or fighting other L ships, I generally am piloting an L ship myself.

Most of the time though, I have S and M ships scattered throughout the universe that I switch to. I have dedicated ships for certain tasks. Usually for guild missions I have a dedicated ship that will do all the missions for a specific guild or faction and it stays in that area. That way I teleport between the different ships and do the missions. At one point I had a few ships dedicated for the teladi trade guild since the missions get repetitive and this was a way to clear the missions faster.

[LameFox]

Surprised that L and XL are keeping pace with each other so far, considering so few of the XL are combat ships. I had expected there would be a lot more people in L ships than XL ones based purely on the added variety in them.

[Crimsonraziel]

Surprised that L and XL are keeping pace with each other so far, considering so few of the XL are combat ships. I had expected there would be a lot more people in L ships than XL ones based purely on the added variety in them.

You wonder about the appeal of Asgard & Erlking?

[GDS_dmitry]

Prefer to use large (destroyers) and extra large (Erlking is the best XL battleship for player right now) ships. I like the gameplay on them better, these ships feel better in terms of handling for me.

Unfortunately disappointed that the vast majority of story missions/quests force you to use only S ships.
Only a few (i.e. last part of Avarice story, where you need to deal with the station and large fleet of S ships in that sector) can be fully accomplished using mostly large ships. Part of terran plot - too.
Most missions require using only S/M ships because of special abilities, docking problems. Of course you could take a destroyer with you and park on it your S ship, but it will become a mess over time (and you will spend most time on repetitive task like docking/undocking) because of the fact that a lot of places require you to dock/undock very quickly, or get somewhere quickly, or just chase someone/something. So ~90% missions make me fly the class of ship I like least in this game. Pity. Want some balance, so at least ~50% missions could be completed using capships too.

[LameFox]

Surprised that L and XL are keeping pace with each other so far, considering so few of the XL are combat ships. I had expected there would be a lot more people in L ships than XL ones based purely on the added variety in them.

You wonder about the appeal of Asgard & Erlking?

No, I voted for XL myself since that tends to be "my" ship once I get established—even if I ride along on it more than fly it. It's just that there is so little variety in them I'm surprised they don't lose out by offering so few different experiences. S, M, and L have things for quite a lot of different styles, while XL has one sluggish artillery platform, one speedy anti-everything ship that feels a bit like cheating, and a carrier with the combat stats of an unusually heavy destroyer. The others in the category don't really even trend toward a direct combat role.