Beluga Liner

The Beluga Class Liner is one of the most prestigious vessels to travel the space lanes. Only the Imperial Gutamaya liners rival these glorious vessels. If you want to travel in style, this is the vessel to do it in. A fighter hangar can be equipped to these ships.

— In-game Description

The Beluga Liner is a passenger ship manufactured by Saud Kruger.^[1] Comparable to an Imperial Cutter in mass and even bulkier in volume, the Beluga is designed to carry passengers to their destination in comfort. Only the Beluga and its smaller cousins the Orca and the Dolphin can be equipped with Luxury Passenger Cabin modules, allowing it to transport VIPs.

Overview

The third in the Saud Kruger line after the Dolphin and Orca, the Beluga Liner is the Passenger equivalent of the Type-9; sacrificing the huge cargo hold to carry luxury VIPs.

The Beluga Liner is designed to accommodate even more passengers in luxury and comfort than an Orca, but this specialization comes at the cost of speed and maneuverability. The result is a slow, cumbersome ship that is difficult to fit through a station's Access Corridor, deploying the landing gear folds the ship's bulky rear fins down, making it easier to transverse. To compensate, the Beluga features a Class 7 Frame Shift Drive and a 128-tonne Fuel Tank that gives it an impressive travel range for long-distance cruises. The Beluga can also fit a Fighter Hangar to bolster its modest offensive capability, though it is in no way optimized or recommended for extensive combat.

In Combat the Beluga is not very good. While the ship does boast better hardpoints and maneuverability than the Type-9, the hardpoints are positioned in a way that does not allow them good coverage areas or firing arcs, making it difficult to keep even turreted mounts on targets. The biggest downside is the shield generator and hull mass; which make the Beluga very easy to take down with even moderate fire. Combined with its colossal size making it a ridiculously large target the Beluga is often easy pickings for many ships and even a Fighter Hanger only helps so much; especially as the Beluga only has 2 compartments above size 5 that aren't reserved.

As a cargo ship, the Beluga has 368t of potential space. This is fairly poor for a large ship, only beating the Type-7 by 60 tonnes. The Beluga is capable of doing cargo runs but the price puts it in range of the Type-9; which completely overshadows it all together.

As a dedicated, high-capacity passenger liner or simple Explorer, the Beluga suffers from a number of shortcomings that restrict its ability to adequately serve other roles. The number of Reserved Compartments reduce the available outfitting space for optional modules. Furthermore, due to its already high hull mass and lack of Class 7 or above unreserved Internal Compartments, the Beluga cannot hold a Shield Generator larger than Class 6, making it the only ship unable to fit a shield generator that is optimized for its mass. The Beluga also has issues with heat management, which can exceed safe levels during and immediately after a Hyperspace jump due the heat build-up from the charging FSD; this can be partially mitigated by installing a higher-rated Power Plant, but the added mass will hinder the ship's jump range.

The Beluga is debatably worse than the Orca predecessor. It has a worse jump range, only marginally better combat potential and a frustratingly large size making docking difficult. The Beluga is able to carry a large amount of passengers however, it is unbeaten in the profit one can make for bulk VIP passenger missions. However for long range missions, the Dolphin is a better option and for bulk lower class, the Type-9 can carry more. This makes the Beluga a very specialised ship that excels in bulk VIP passenger delivery, but little else.

The Beluga Liner is available only to the owners of Elite Dangerous: Horizons.^{^[2]}

Purchase Locations

System	Station	Last date seen	Notes
Shinrarta Dezhra	Jameson Memorial	Always available	10% discount, Founders Permit needed
Brestla	i Sola Prospect	Always available	20% surcharge
Diaguandri	Ray Gateway	Mar 18, 2018	15% discount
44 Rho-1 Sagittarii	Crippen Reach	Aug 12, 2017
Alioth	Irkutsk	January 2, 2018
Arjung	Hiyya	Sep 9, 2017	15% discount
Baedule	Coye Horizons	Oct 29, 2016
Waq	Fischer Orbital	Nov 14, 2016
Jitabos	Finney Ring	Dec 1, 2016
Qama	Thurston Ring	Apr 8, 2017	15% discount
Exioce	Macmillan Depot	Oct 29, 2016
Anlave	Kobayashi City	Oct 25, 2016
LHS 3447	Dalton Gateway	Sep 25, 2016
Gende	Bellunas Hub	Jan 29, 2017
CD-61 1439	Huygens Gateway	Feb 7, 2017
NLTT 21088	Weber Terminal	Mar 02, 2017
Nahua	Fuller Vision	June 18, 2017
LTT 377	Zoline Port	Apr 14, 2017
LTT 4961	Conway City	July 17, 2017
Eleu	Farmer Silo	May 01, 2017
Harm	Gentil Hub	July 12, 2017	15% discount
Toolfa	Crook Hub	July 17, 2017
Alrai	Bounds Hub	Sep 30, 2017
Zaragas	Jenner Hub	August 6, 2017
Rhea	Carter Port	August 7, 2017
Hill Pa Hsi	Curie Gateway	May 5, 2018
Lembava	Goldstein Port	May 19, 2018	15% discount
LHS 20	Ohm City	July 10, 2018	15% discount

Outfitting

Main article: Outfitting

All ships are highly customisable through the Outfitting menu of Station Services. Listed below is the default load-out for the Beluga Liner.

Category	Default System	Default Rating	Default Class	Max Class
Medium Hardpoint	Pulse Laser	F	1	2
	Pulse Laser	F	1	2
	Empty	--	--	--
	Empty	--	--	--
	Empty	--	--	--
Utility Mount	Empty	--	--	0
	Empty	--	--	0
	Empty	--	--	0
	Empty	--	--	0
	Empty	--	--	0
	Empty	--	--	0
Bulkheads	Lightweight Alloys	I	1	8
Reactor Bay	Power Plant	E	6	6
Thruster Mounting	Thrusters	E	7	7
Frame Shift Drive Housing	Frame Shift Drive	E	7	7
Environment Control	Life Support	E	8	8
Power Coupling	Power Distributor	E	6	6
Sensor Suite	Sensors	E	5	5
Fuel Store	Fuel Tank [x128]	C	7	7
Internal Compartments	Shield Generator	E	6	6
	Cargo Rack [x32]	E	5	6
	Passenger Cabin ^[r]	D	6	6
	Passenger Cabin ^[r]	D	6	6
	Passenger Cabin ^[r]	D	4	5
	Passenger Cabin ^[r]	D	4	5
	Cargo Rack [x8]	E	3	4
	Cargo Rack [x4]	E	2	3
	Empty	--	--	3
	Empty	--	--	3
	BDS	E	1	3

[x#] = Capacity
BDS = Basic Discovery Scanner
^[r] = Reserved Compartment for Cargo Rack, Passenger Cabin, Hull Reinforcement Package, or Module Reinforcement Package.

Notes

Whale by name, whale by nature, the Beluga is one of the largest ships in the game. As a specialised Passenger Liner the Beluga has multiple module slots that can accommodate all types of passenger cabins. Well armoured, and decently quick for such a large civilian ship, the Beluga has a similar speed to the Hauler. When escorting passengers across the galaxy you’ll need defence, so the Beluga has 6 utility mounts and 5 medium hardpoints. The Beluga has plenty of mid-range sized internal slots (4 threes, 1 four, 2 fives and 4 sixes). The Beluga can fit a size 7 FSD, but it’s a very heavy ship so it’s more suited for multiple jumps rather than giant leaps.

— From Gamescon 2016 Day One Complete Thread dev post