Your preferred ships and why

[BrigandPhantos77]

Obviously - only the look counts. Therefore I always have some M8 Paranid Hades stored away (although I am still not into 'missiles').

And that defines the selling point (the look) of the Valhalla.

Odin and Woden look pretty cool too though.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

All bombers are insta dead when in Laser Range no matter the shields, so the defining values are:
Cargo + Speed.
With a carrier only Cargo pays off, get a Marlin.

[iXenon]

By the way, if missiles were launched OOS, they will hit the target immediately, even the missile range doesn't matter. So, from that point the ship speed isn't really important. Despite the fact that some of the missiles could miss the target, it works well for me.

[Sovereign01]

All bombers are insta dead when in Laser Range no matter the shields, so the defining values are:
Cargo + Speed.
With a carrier only Cargo pays off, get a Marlin.

Marlin it is If I get 4 Owls I can have a pair for each missile- one docked in the Kyoto to supply the bombers, the other docked in the factory to fill up on missiles. I'm sure I can use the CLS to tell the TS to simply load up on missiles whenever the factory gets full, it will take a while to fill up an owl after all

[Jimmy C]

For max profit, you can arrange to have the surplus sold off to an ED using TD. Otherwise, it's just doing nothing when it fills up completely. With an open ended game like this, that's a regular occurrence.

[Tharrg]

The M3 Kha'ak fighter is perfect for all those station defence or defend convoy missions. Slow and only three weapons but they never miss, so smaller M3, M4 and M5 ships aren't dodging.

Always hitting a Xenon K is not so impressive, so switch ships when fighting anything bigger than itself.

[BrigandPhantos77]

The M3 Kha'ak fighter is perfect for all those station defence or defend convoy missions. Slow and only three weapons but they never miss, so smaller M3, M4 and M5 ships aren't dodging.

Always hitting a Xenon K is not so impressive, so switch ships when fighting anything bigger than itself.

Preference to me is always an M6 on defense missions. Likely that is probably due to combat rank. My combat missions always spawn at least 1 to 2 M7 class ships, sometimes an M2 or M1 (or pair of both). I keep 3 Titan's on standby for this. They get called in right after the enemy capitals enter. Or I start a defense mission to determine what gate they will enter, and get them in position first. Then let the PPCs fly. (Anyone find themselves saying/thinking Particle Projection Cannon? )

The problem I personally have with beam weapons, is my targets always seem to instantly regenerate there shields to full strength when I get them almost to there hull. That is quite annoying. (And unfair).

When your at higher combat ranks, enemies seem to do more damage than your ships do. At least in my experience. (I am at Overlord rank). And missiles seem to be thrown off there targeting a lot more. (Probably intentional). I've had an Akuma out shoot a Pteranadon in a straight up shooting match. I was piloting at the time. Pteranadon has tougher shields and more guns to bare in front firing. But the Akuma had me in hull pretty quickly. Almost before I had him. I also got first strike with fully charged PPCs. We shot nose to nose. Oh, Left and Right arcs can fully bare on a front target from the Pteranadon.

Taking on groups> I always use speed. The Springblossom is my primary choice for all things speed related. The Maru might be a gun beast, but can't outrun most ships. I can retreat quick enough to regen my shields (turbo boost is great). The auto-aiming might suck badly, but the speed takes the win for me. The guns attempt to miss capital ships, but there is a second firing option next to the control button that aims directly at the cursor (windows key). Helps with capital ships. My front consists of a mix of M/AM Launchers and Exp EMPCs. The EMPCs usually target in front of the ships where it is not located, but the launchers aim almost completely at the ship. (Even at Capital Ships - Like seriously??)

Note: To anyone that reads this, there is an exploit using the turbo boost that you can exploit, and it is not game breaking. If you bind it to a shift + key combination... and release the shift before the bound key, it will lock the turbo boost in the on position. You don't need the fix in Cycrows unofficial patch to do this. I bound mine to shift + w (strafe up key). It's the easiest to reach, just be careful you don't hit eject instead like I've done a few times. Or vice versa when you intend to claim a bailed ship. I've rammed a few on accident.

[Jimmy C]

Destroying the largest enemies in a defense mission is a waste. Capture and sell them for several times the mission completion reward. That's my my ship of choice for defense or kill missions is the Cobra. Flails lay waste to the lighter craft, then I can capture the big targets in peace.

[letwolf]

Best of all trades and favourite personal ship - Teladi Geochen!
1) Fast, I've tuned it for 292 m/s with pandoras and it goes 592 at turbo mode
2) 1200 XL cargo bay for moast of delivrance missions or cargobay hacking
3) TP class - all taxi missions OK
4) TP class - boarding OK (Load a few dozens of Drone MK2, and board even M2 - but without pods you'll need very high mechanical skill to board anything bigger than m6)
5) Dock every station
Minuses:
1) Ugly, ugliest look from FPV.