View source for Talk:Imperial Clipper/@comment-184.53.0.126-20180918051553

here's what I've found on this ship after I mostly engineered it and used it for a day against players: It's an increadibly fast ship. my mostly engineered one that I put no thought whatsoever into weight on cruises at 410 meters per second, and its max boost is 609. aint no slouch on turning either, especially with FA off. Its shields can also be indirectly pushed up very high, because its plentiful internals allow for a lot of SCBs, and its powerplant(engineered of coarse) can easily handle it. not to mention the base shields are a bit higher than most other medium ships (a common mistake is people thinking it's a large ship that competes with anaconda, it's really a heavily shielded medium ship cursed with being on a large pad). It does however, enjoy one of the big ship advantages: mass lock. The clipper, with its high mass and extreme speed can easily both mass lock and even keep up with Federal ships and any of the Alliance ships, all the while shooting them. Those are its strengths.

Now here are its weaknesses: Its hull tends to suffer when you amp the shields like that, so if they do go down, you won't have much time to finish off your opponent, and it's often best to run at that point. the other weakness: hardpoints. Both the placement and number are aweful. 2 class2 and 2 class3. the class 2s are very far apart and make fixed only effective against large ships. the class 3s are even farther apart and fixed would have trouble with both making contact on a beluga liner! That said, I think its plain to see frontier simply didn't want us using fixed on this ship. Probably because top notch speed, meneuverablility, shields and firepower together would be hideousely broken game balancing. I did find a remedy though. Yes, we all know when a target pops chaff, suddenly your gamballed/turret weapons act like a guy with cerebral palsey is at the controls. but how do we defeat that on a ship forced to use chaff? use a weapon that hits them anyway, and still does tons of damage. gimballed frag cannons are the perfect answer to this. They hit VERY hard, (which helps compensate for the low number of hardpoints) and with the ranges you would engage an enemy at, coupled with the weapon's spread, the chaff has little or no effect on how many pellets actually hit them. As you can see, a properly built clipper can be a formidible fighter with the right equipment.

That's my brief evaluation of the clipper in combat. hope it helps CMDRs o7