What ships to fly ?

[Lone_Wolf]

The mil. manta ray is hard to hit and very agile. Great for dodging, not so great for attacking.

Its top/bottom turrets help, but are not as effective as the left/right turrets of the dragon-M and Fdl 3g+(t) .
The cargospace is so low (max 10) that trading on the side brings very little.

With a speed of .37 it can catch most ships or outrun them, making it a good choice for 1 on 1 combat.
Taking on groups however is much harder, especially if the opponents are tougher then standard ships (like those from random hits).

I'll keep flying it for the black baron mission, but won't do RH missions with it.

[Lone_Wolf]

Black baron mission done, and the biggest problem were assasins and pirates in the destination system.

Kills 306 , 63 parcel contracts done.
I am offered parcel contracts above 3k now occasionally, but they end on the opposite corner of the map.

Goods Contracts have decreased from 10 to 7, so they still decrease over time though much slower then a decade ago.

Its also clear now that I won't be using the manta ray again. Keeping opponents in the crosshairs with it just to hard for me.
(I won't install autocorrecting oxps like sniper lock).

Auquatics has earned a place on my list of ship oxps as opponents though and I look forward to playing the mission that comes with it in the future.

The FDL 3G+(t) is still my fav ship but its expensive .
Getting the money for it without doing goods contracts will take way to long.

I have 670k in cash, so can switch to another ship.

Looks like it will have to be a ship with 100+ TC like the python ET , boa II clipper or DTT War Lance.
https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Milit ... ray_Mk._II looks interesting also .

Alternative is to switch to a multi-role ship and use an expansion like goods container to give it the cargospace needed for goods contracts .

[Lone_Wolf]

Didn't like the stingray and the boa / python variants are not suitable for me in fights.

I decided to use the dragon M with a 60 TC cargo pod extension instead. Switching to that brought me down to about 350k cash.
Added the cargo-contract-mod which helped with gaining rep for doing cargo contracts.

After reaching 70 cargo rep I switched to a 20 TC extension (dragon M only has 20TC cargospace).
Atm I just reached dangerous, have 80k cash and 740k invested in precious metal contracts.

Not at the level of buying multi-million ships yet, but will get there. Dragon M is doing what it needs to and the turrets are very effective.

Opponents are still core ships and toughest opponents are other dragons (fortunately they're rare).

[Lone_Wolf]

I kept doing precious metal contracts and reached 2.3 million cash with the dragon M.

Switched to a Fer-de-Lance 3G+(t) , installed sb-faves, staer9 shipset and a few other ship oxps to get stronger opponents.

Will keep doing precious metal & parcel contracts (mintenance !) , but focus on feudal and RH missions.

Once I am ranking member of a feudal house (aronar because I'm dutch) I'll start looking for the constrictor.

[Lone_Wolf]

In G2 now with 1438 kills and almost 2 million in cash just after killing the constrictor.

I am getting better with the FdL 3g+(t) and felt the need for stronger opponents.
N-Shields and Skilled NPCs proved to be too much, so just N-shields now.

Added Ionics & rights for shrews, also thargoid wars. Military Fiasco will follow once I reach deadly rating.

I can take on large groups, sometimes even 10 ships but if there are some sharks and Dragon Ms in the group I have no choice but to run away.
One time I had to face 2 pirate groups and one RH revenge force at the same time. I lasted less then 20 seconds.

[Cholmondely]

Did you ever try the  Strut?


By the way, I just stumbled across this: Quantity - despite 5 years working on the wiki, I never even knew these options existed!