(04-29-2014, 11:29 AM)Kosa Wrote: Trade vessels have superior speed. They have Battleship scanners. They have the firepower to distract bombers enough and they make any fighter look like a clown with the .87 guns.
Then how about a Cau armoured Gunboat ... It preferably can do the job quite efficiently.
And speaking of unbalance as mentioned in the first post, I didnt get a reason yet.
If you want to counter pirates, take a battletransport with you. Slightly less cargo, but is not that easy to take down. So, it is balanced now, transports that can effectively take down anything less than a gb, if flown properly, are available in game.
Coming to cruisers, they are slow, and you can easily strafe/EK/cruise/whatever to the nearest base or even, engage the cruiser, if you have a good enough armour, and maybe, come out victorius. I know of a BWT killing a cruiser(Lyth, I am watching ya).
And if you are speaking of battleships, just fly away, as they dont have Cruise Disruptors, if their demand is awkward. They cant do anything but watch.
Spot out the thing that is not balanced in here. Traders have a choice to either earn maximum(5k'ers) or effectively fight piracy on their own while earning a decent amount of cash(battletransports with 4.2k). But, at the end of the day, a trader is a trader. And your role is to trade/be afraid of pirates. Not to be a war hero, by going out all guns blazing on the pirates. Defend when you can, for you have the options to that too.
I don't use one on my Ptrans but I've noticed the power drain on it is practically non existent (unless you use all cerbs i guess), so even with a BS scanner, I'm betting you can still bust some hulls with that set up.
In the end, if you are concerned with running into caps, take a bomber and/or gunboat escort. At the very least, a scout can make the difference on whether you even have to cross paths with that capital ship or not, regardless of what it is. And any GB/Transport could use a BS scanner with minimal nerf and probably see that cap ship waiting down the lane or down near the next jump gate.
@ Kosa:
I agree that the fighters now are pretty much useless to pirate in unless you're in a group of 2 or more, and that still depends on the ship being pirated (other fighters and freighters being about all that is left, and don't let that freighter get to cruise speed!)
Its funny because the GB should be the ultimate pirating vessel. I think ironically people would pirate in capital ships less if they buffed gunboats so they could keep up with transports, and had bigger cargo holds. Battle transports only exist because GB's have had their claws filed down.