Who should read it: Those who got the cash and are considering the Heavy Hydra as a personal ship.
This is the next part in the series. Previous one: "M6 Heavy Osprey: Review & Tactics: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=
Introduction
The Boron - a peace loving race that used to wonder why their Argon allies are so overly aggressive are now becoming more like the Argon themselves. Perhaps the Split have finaly taught them that pacifism in X-universe is a no-no idea.
Improved capitol ships with improved anti-fighter defences. Nasty M7 and M7M fleet additions that wipe the smile out of your face quickly with powerfull weapon loadouts. (and annoying antennae for Melee fun)But then there are also ships that also look very beautiful and display the bio-engineering capabilities where the Boron are second to none. Boron Angel is the most good-looking TP out there, but real price winner for the best looks goes to the Heavy Hydra. Good looks comes with a hefty price tag too: 25million credits.
When / who should get it
This ship can only be bought at the super shipyard at Queens Retribution. It's price is such that it doesnt fall into the common 'best bang for the buck' -ship classes that have been discussed a lot on this forum. Instead it is a true 'special' ship and before getting one you need to be properly loaded up with cash and preferably in a stage in the game where you can use its potential to the max. Just buying this and parking it away is a terrible waste of money.
This ship is not recomened to players at the beginning stages of the game. It simply costs too much to be affordable for players who still ferry around energy cells and maybe got a fab or two. There are other ships that give you a better return for you credits at this stage. Equiping it takes also a lot more money than just the initial price tag. It is also quite true when people say 'it's almost worth an M7 in price'. Pay attention to the price + outfitting costs, if you are strapped for credits then use them for something more important. You have been warned.
This ship is probably not worth much to players who have reached the later stages as by then you are probably so in love with the more popular ships as jumping into this green beast can be like trading a Kraken for Mako.
. However as personal ship or 'trophy ship' it can maybe fit your needs. maybe. Weapons setup
After buying the ship and having it quickly pick up the jumpdrive + energy cells at the Atreus HQ i outfitted it with the basic software one needs for a personal ship. Then comes the tricky part again as always with corvette class ships: weapons loadout. A quick glance at the info sheet shows the ship doesnt have much special slots except the old Ion Disruptor. Hmpf, this doesnt bode well so i make a default setting of 4xConcussion Impulse Generators up front and 2xIon Disruptors to begin with. Did i mention the ship only got 6 weapon slots up front? Well now i have so use them well!
This ship has got a maximum speed of 138ms which clearly surpasses the slow Heavy Osprey's 92ms. This ship is fast enough to outrun the slower M3 class ships but not nearly enough to run away from M4 and M5. This needs to be taken into account when desiging the turret loadout which is next on the list. The turrets are not capable of carrying any special weapons other than Ion Disruptors which i promptly dismiss as unwieldy. I install 2xChain Guns to the two turrets that according to info page is facing front and rear. After some turret testing i concluded that the turrets are actualy underneath the bow and stern of the ship, however they are capable of firing in an arch of approx. 40 degrees above leaving only your top area open. This basicaly means that in combat it quickly become standard to keep enemies at just about anywhere except above as that was the only place turrets couldnt reach. Turrets work well on this ship, generaly the turrets on this ship are pretty good although there is one less of them than in the Heavy Osprey. Greatest flaw of the turrets was that they were prone to miss when the ship was turning which is a considerable annoyance since the ship turns at 1/3 slower than the Argon Centaur does so you are constantly turning your front guns towards something.
Field Testing
Field testing was extensive consisting of Xenon Invasion, Patrol, Assasination, boarding and general messing around with people in the pirate sectors.
Weapons loadout proved to be a spoonful on this ship. I quickly concluded that the 4xCIG front were good, no need to change those as those weapons are the ones that deliver the punch and in the abscence of Ion Shard Railguns they would just have to do. But what to use in the remaining 2 slots? Well i started out with Ion Disruptors. They work as charm when charging into a cloud of pirates leaving most without shields. Otherwise the Ion Disruptors dont seem to be up to par with ANY kind of larger target so i quickly traded theese for something else. Tested Pulsed Beam Emitters, theese guns rock the boat on smaller ships right? not so on the M6. it requires more aiming and range is now a problem. I quickly concluded that i better leave this weapon out. Replaced it with Phased Repeater Guns and started trashing M4/M5 ships with it. For this use it worked like a charm and made the Ion Disruptor even more obsolete. Why zap em, if you can kill em? I also tried other guns such as HEPT, IPG and PAC but none was superior for any special use so as a compromise i now got PRG stashed away for fast targets that need to die quickly and otherwise i use IPG here for medium range shield sniping / Annoying enemies. I still havent figured out what would be the uber combo here but i guess its because of the lack of weapon slots that theese 2 slots just dont 'fit' any real scenario so i just use left-over weapons here. If there would be full 8 slots as in other ships then maybe one could create something more creative here.
Turret tweaking on the field was somewhat troublesome too: Chain guns chew a ton of ammo. i started up with 10 boxes of ammo. that's 10x200=2000 divided up between 4 guns. 500 shots each. This doesnt last long and the relatively small cargo bay makes it so that you have lots of ammo crates with you or then you need plenty of resupplying. The cargo hold of the ship is not small, but its not overly large either so once you cram the energy cells+an assortment of missiles, a few satellites etc you have it pretty full. I fitted on average 450 energy cells into the hold after equiping all i wanted with me.
To make matter worse the Chain guns are prone to miss targets up close if you keep turning the ship around. I sometimes just flew straight for awhile just to help the turrets regain the bead on targets. Not very smart so i started testing guns for turrets too. Next up was PRG, now this is a winner right? No, they shoot fast but they miss way too much. Maybe it's the ship turning around that bother them again and PRG uses a lot of energy which i wanted for the front weapons. Next up was Plasma Burst Generators that i had avoided this far as i assumed theese are not good because of speed: i.e., the ship will enter firing range and exit promptly out of firing range unless the target is flying next to you -> inefficiency. But no, the PBG guns are able to pick up targets quickly and fire away with good accuracy. The amount of damage is less than the Heavy Osprey does due to speed (assuming you fly 138 all the time).
Against capital ships the M6 Heavy Hydra falls short just as the Heavy Osprey but not as spectaculary at all. The speed is very important factor here and it gives you more maneuverability. You dont get the 'omg a capital ship is trying to box me in' -feeling here even when taking on a Q. This ship is fast enough for you to make constant attack runs, dumping your CIG batteries against the target that will eventualy take it down. But watch out for fighters and PPC fire. Shields on this ship is mediocre. PBG and PPC take them out quickly if you dont watch out.
Ship profile doesnt add any advantage either. Front and Rear attacks can be strafed away easier by going up/down (ship profile is flat) but from any other incoming angle the ship just seems to suck all the shots fired away at it. Strafing aggressively and maybe with a little bit of thought put into it is important.
OOS / Fleet usage
Not tested. Somehow the price tag on this ship just doesnt invite you to use it much for OOS / Fleet operations. Though it has been seen by some players that the Heavy Hydra in the hands of the NPC pilots is more than capable of taking care of itself.
Verdict
I think i see a reasoning to the price: This ship is one of the few ships that gets close to those certain M6+/prototype ships that can only be captured, not bought from races. Also one must see this ship almost handles like a heavy fighter / bomber of sorts so if the price would be lets say 6-9mil a pop then it could perhaps outperform other ships in their classes. One good fleet deployment area i can think of is to use theese ships as rapid deployment ships. Which pretty much is a stupid idea with the current pricing...
This is the closest you can get to those special ships with just cold cash. And it falls short when compared on paper, but until you get one of those prototype ships this M6 will make for a very good personal ship somewhere in mid-game when you are 'paid, laid and made' enough to afford one. And it doesnt hurt showing everyone that you like to roll with style.
Nevertheless you get a very unobstructed view.