Small Fleets
28 Jan 2021Sinisalo
When I began playing Elite several years ago, I marveled at all of the ship choices. When you're new, they all seem so cool and interesting. And back then, money was not so easy to come by. So I felt like a kid looking through the Sears Wish Book when I visited a shipyard (you gotta be a certain vintage to know what I am on about with that Wish Book thing). All of these cool ships, but way out of reach.My very first ship purchase was the venerable Cobra Mark III. Man, what a ship! So fast, big hold, more space for whizbangs and witchcraft. I was really moving up now. After a while I decided I needed a dedicated combat crate. The Eagle and Viper soon followed. But the Eagle, unengineered, was a death trap. And the Viper, in the same state of unengineeredness was little better really. So on to the Vulture. Now here was a proper combat ship! A ship that could turn and burn like no other and packed a good punch too.
Of course one doesn't stop at three. Now I needed a ship for trading, and a ship for exploration. The AspX and the Python followed once the funds were accrued. And then a Chieftain, a Courier, a Conda. A Keelback, an Orca. A DBX, and a Krait, which became four. Before long my fleet had grown to unmanageable size. A ship in drydock costs us nothing in Elite, but I couldn't escape the nagging sensation of angst about the unfinished states of half the fleet. Engineering now, I felt each ship tugging at me to finish it up. But engineering is a rabbit hole. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. I love what the ships become when well engineered, how much faster, harder-hitting, longer-jumping they are. But the process isn't fun. Here, the ends justify the means I suppose.
So one day, I just decided to become a small fleet commander. I decided to sell almost all of it and distill my fleet down to ten ships, and cleaned out module storage while I was at it. And I set minimum criteria. To gain (or keep) a place in my fleet the ship must both jump a minimum of 30 light years, and boost at least 500 m/s. Sorry Keelback old friend, but you gotta go. And this suits me fine. My ships are all done to my specifications. I build my ships to be light, fast and jump far. And all are shield tanks. I don't mind compromising on integrity or firepower to achieve this. I own zero Fed bricks, and only one large-pad ship, the Orca, which is really a medium at heart. The upshot is I like having a tidy fleet of fully-engineered, fast ships custom-tailored to specific roles. I get the appeal of owning every ship in Elite, but for me, there is something beautiful about the small fleet. And I'm glad I went this route.
The ten ships that make the grade
Orca
Fer-de-Lance
Four Kraits
Courier
Vulture
DBX
iEagle
Suits me fine