I've played EV a while ago, and just returned for EVO. I have 1.3M credits, and it's time to trade in the Cargo Transporter.

Should I get into a Freight Courier or an Arada? Both are 1.0M credits. F-C has better shields/armor and more cargo, but Arada is faster and has more space. I could get a mass expansion with the F-C to open up more space at the expense of cargo. Using 2 mass expansions would give 50 cargo/70 space versus the stock 40 cargo/80 space in the Arada, and the F-C still has better shields/armor.

What do you recommend?

Arada, no contest. The Arada, properly upgraded, is one of the best ships that you can have in the game. It is fast, has decent cargo room, can hold its own in a fight, and has a decent jump distance with two fuel tanks.

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"My guitar gently weeps." George Harrison, 1943-2001

Arada, definately.
Ignore the space and weapons it comes with, it's ALL about weapon slots.

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"I- I Swear Officer.. The Dwarf was on fire when I got here!"

Well, the Arada being about twice as fast as the FC, a small difference shields isn't much, and if you don't buy any mass expensions or cargo pods for an Arada, you can adequately defend yourself and at the same time have enough cargo to complete any of the shipping missions in EVO, and (seperately) make decent profit from your own cargo runs.

Just my opinion.

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All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong? —The Beatles

The arada is a great little ship. If you want to try to take on some renagades, that would do all right. I love its fast jumping and its manueverability. If you want a real good ship, you might want to hold off a touch longer - though I might be too late. The Lazira is a vast improvement over the Arada, though not a crescent warship. The problem is making money. The way I do it is to hire freighter escorts on earth and shuttle about 1000 tons of tourists to New Rome in the Talii system; it's four jumps - not too far away. Then haul back food to Earth, it almost pays your escorts alone (hauling food does). There is about a $250,000 turnaround from this and you could have yourself a Lazira, or a Crescent Warship for that matter, in one sitting. (Of course if you do this you'll never really want to earn money any other way)

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Shrout1

I have very rarely bought an Arada because it's not my type of ship. I always grab a freight-courier, because it's a decent midrange ship and very upgradable. Properly done, it can wade in and take out a few Turncoats. While you can do that using an Arada, I much more enjoy cap ship battles than flying around them in circles. Heavily upgraded freight-couriers can pass as a pseudo cap ship, and they've always been a stepping stone in my path to galactic domination.

And I'm not just playing devil's advocate here, I'm serious. This is my opinion, and I am not saying all y'all are wrong.

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-Payback37 (url="http://"http://www.clarkson.edu/~curtislg")Biggles Productions(/url)
Treat all the world as the world deserves,
With love or with hate but never with harm,
--an excerpt from The Seafarer , an Anglo-Saxon poem translation

Get the Arada. Believe me, I've tried it, it's tons better. Arada is faster and can hold 80 tons of weapon space. It's a great little ship. The FC isn't very good actually, so I would get the Arada. But if you do get the FC for some odd reason, good luck.

Just my ˘2....

-Nova6

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Freight-courier. Sell everything it has and it comes out to 170 space, while sell everything on the Arada and you get only 100. Nice defences, too. Add Dospect and a rocket launcher, phase turrets and you're good to go. I took out the dreadnought in this, and no, I did not use the Monty Python Maneuver. The lack of space is a serious drawback in the Arada.

I have always fancied a frighter-courier instead of a arada, cos I prefer ships with turret space - I never got on with fighter ships terribly well. I cant remember offhand if the arada has any turrets, but I prefer a ship with 2-3 turrets in space and then a missile system or the like plus a few nifty upgrades

My frighter-courier ship favourite combination was with phase turrets, SAD's (I spent a lot of time in the Crescent rather than UE or voinian space, and replacement ammo is hard to get hold of there for rockets) and stuff like manoeuvrability and armour upgrades. This is just my personal opinion, cos I never got on as well with the fighter type ships (mainly forward guns instead of turrets is what I call a fighter ships) I did have an arada once but prefer F-C or a lazira as the ship to get in that kinda price bracket.......

AJM

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"All things are possible". Most are highly improbable"

Well done for using the cargo transporter, Rotoha! Not an entirely easy proosition, but it's a good way to build up money quickly. Note that you lose money each time you trade in a ship, so it's advisable to minimise changes where possible. I wouldn't really recommend sticking with the transporter for much longer though, in case you become bored of the whole business.

If you want to stick with the culture that you know, the Freight-courier is the logical path. It's a somewhat combat-capable cargo hauler. The Arada, in comparison, is a micro warship, somewhat capable of hauling cargo. Would that suit you?

Some people buy an Arada and end their ship upgrade path right there. Certainly, it's a fine ship. I think it's better than the much more expensive Lazira, since it can carry more guns and is fast enough to avoid a lot of enemy fire.

My personal variant is the Voinian Arada; remove the phase cannon and fit three neutron cannon and a neutron turret. (The folks at Paaren won't sell you more than 3 neutron cannon, or I'd mount four in the nose.) With a warload like that, you don't need secondaries. It simplifies your logistics; add a fuel scoop, and you need never plan stopovers to resupply.

Why not copy your pilot file, then try it both ways. Buy an arada with one pilot, and a freight-courier with the other. Give both ships a whirl, and see which one you feel most comfortable in.

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Quote

Originally posted by rotoha:
**I've played EV a while ago, and just returned for EVO. I have 1.3M credits, and it's time to trade in the Cargo Transporter.

Should I get into a Freight Courier or an Arada? Both are 1.0M credits. F-C has better shields/armor and more cargo, but Arada is faster and has more space. I could get a mass expansion with the F-C to open up more space at the expense of cargo. Using 2 mass expansions would give 50 cargo/70 space versus the stock 40 cargo/80 space in the Arada, and the F-C still has better shields/armor.

What do you recommend?**

Save up for a lazira!!!
I have 6 UE crusier escorts and my ship is still a lazira. They are awesome!!! Its all about speed and good shields.

Definitely get the freighter courier, getting an arada isn't worth it, since you can upgrade the freighter courier so it's nice and fast and has lots of phase turrets and guns that blow anything away quickly. Why courier instead of arada? Well I disabled every renegade arada that attacked me and stole its credits, I captured them pretty easily and used them as escorts so I had around 6 aradas following me around. The arada dies easier as well.

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Go Red Sox! Down with the Yankees!

the freight courier.if you get hit by those stupid rockets the voinians will fire at you,you wont fly across the screen like you would in an arada.but dont get me wrong aradas are nice too.and i think freight couriers have a lot more space and cargo room.the FC's are an all around good ship.

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Can you open this jar of pickles?

Quote

Originally posted by rotoha:
**I've played EV a while ago, and just returned for EVO. I have 1.3M credits, and it's time to trade in the Cargo Transporter.

Should I get into a Freight Courier or an Arada?

What do you recommend?**

(nota bene - I can't spell worth a dam and have been up for the last 12+ hours with a cat sitting on my lap, which doesn't make trying to type any easier...)

Me, I went for a Freighter/Courier and had no regrets. Even with the stock load of turrets and Hunter missles, it is possible to take out a Voinan Frigate and the usual batch of Heavy Fighters. Matter of fact, I once captured a Voinan Frigate, transferred my flag to it and tried to take it back to UE space. Bad move! I jumped into UE space and promply got blown up!

FYI: the so called "Monty Python" should actually be called the "Parthian Shot", as that particular tactic was first noted (in historical times) as having being practiced by the Parthians against the Romans in the Middle East. Various Amerind tribes also used the same thing against the invading Americans in the Great Plains and the Southwestern Desert.

Properly done, a platoon can sucker a battalion into an ambush - one company at a time.

Bottom line - if it works, do it!

Jake
(who was once known - many years ago in a place far, far away - as Machete Charlie 1-6)

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Arada, definately. I love its speed. Although what i tend to do is to buy an Arada, minimally outfit it and capture an Azgdari Arada. Although these are exactly like Aradas, exept for a different colour and different weapons, these have the equivalent of thrust, engine and RCS upgrades on them. The good bit is that they actually don't have the engine, thrust, RCS upgrades, they just have manoeverability equivalent to an Arada that has them, so if you capture one of these, you can get additional engine, thrust and RCS upgrades, making an extremely fast light warship.

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Get the arada, it's faster, and more manuverable. It's a light ship, and it opens up many new possibilities. Besides, it you make any runs in Northern Miranu space, it's much better at fighting. It's a compact little ship. The arada goes all the way, and is cheap for the good quality.

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Of course Women don't work as hard as men...
They do it right the first time.

I am having the same problem, I am about to run the Voinain blockade to get the defector. Should I buy a Cargo Transporter or a Scoutship?
The you for your help.

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Originally posted by GooSe GuY:
I am having the same problem, I am about to run the Voinain blockade to get the defector. Should I buy a Cargo Transporter or a Scoutship?
The you for your help.

Scoutship. The Transporter is too slow, and the Scoutship is more useful for... other things.

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Originally posted by Jake512:
< snip>

Dude, this topic was from almost a month ago... why did you dig it up?

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(This message has been edited by Starkiller (edited 01-13-2002).)

It was at the top of the fourm Thanks for the help I am going to buy the scoutship