Trials of the Rheinland Ships

[Badger]

After starting with a Starflier armed with lavablades and killing some Liberty Navy ships to please the Unioners I made my way to Hamburg eagerly anticipating the Howler.

Howler: It flies quite well but I have to say it was outclassed by the Hessies, Unioners and Bundschuh I encountered on 10k missions out of Vierlande. "A player has died" appeared so often I felt like a Junker attempting to exit Rochester with Waylander hanging around outside. Not dreadfully impressed.

Wailer: A bit better in terms of hull strength and armament. I was able to handle some reasonable missions.

Valkyrie: The uprating of the weapons mounts make this under-rated ship fun to fly and fight in.

Freki: Didn't bother with this one as it seemed a bit dear compared to the Valkyrie.

Fury: This is a superb ship. Agile with twin thrusters and enough firepower to kick the kack out of all the Rheinland criminals. It's not my beloved Tank but it is choice and I heartily recommend this sucker.

Stalhai: A bit more armour than the Fury but IMHO the Fury is the pick of the Rheinland ships.

Just my personal impressions of the new/ugraded ships what do you think?

[Thaddeus]

Well, The Howler was designed to be used in the Strasbourg system with the lower level jobs and encounters that you can find there. Sort of like a Rheinland Texas, ship loadouts have been lowered there with lower classes of guns similar to those you find in Liberty, a Bunshuch Menta A is virtually the same as a Dragoon 1, a good pilot should be able to survive there until they are ready to go out to Stuttgart to get their Wailer. I have to agree with you though, I bought one on Frankfurt, went outside and was promptly vaporised by the Unioners... for my sins...

I Liked the Wailer, lighter than the Banshee. I was able to keep in front of most of the opposition in that one

The Valkyrie is set at "Imperial Navy" spec, with a good power plant you can just about get through Omicron Beta with it. Its heavy but its fun.

I Liked the Freki, with a gun on each corner (as it were) its quite easy to aim a set of fast Class 9 Hornvipers on you prospective prey and make him into several sorts of Bratwurst.

Due to problems with the Fury (trying not to sound like Schumacher "there were problems with the car") I didn't get to enjoy it that much. Certainly has very good firepower and lighter than the Valk.

The Stalhai is a current problem child for me, design wise, with its floating hardpoints and invisible cockpit, its a nice model but needs work. If it wasn't for the class 10 shield mount the Fury would win in my mind.

[Thaddeus]

"cockpit" looks like i'm the first to be owned by the word filters, lol

[Badger]

Wasn't decrying the work on the Howler- Once I got a class 5 shield fitted I was able to make enough money to buy the Wailer. You're right a half decent pilot should be able to survive (). All those thousands of hours flying VHF and UHF ships give you a feeling of invincibility and your fighting skills get a bit stale. It is actually fun to try other ships in different situations which I suspect was one of your aims when embarking on the mod.