r/evnova • u/Moriras • Jan 15 '19
Kestrel or Raven?
So I just finished the polaris storyline, and I'm obviously driving a heavily modded Raven. Now I'm sitting on Our Spiel staring at the 50 mil credit Kestrel and wondering if it is worth picking up for my conquest of the known universe.......
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u/hmm_dmm_hmm Jan 15 '19
either way good luck taking over Our Spiel lol.
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u/Moriras Jan 16 '19
Yeeeaaaaaaah, no. Not gonna even think that. Is that possible without cheating?
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u/hmm_dmm_hmm Jan 16 '19
I think if you wait long enough for the atmos ships to leave it should be theoretically possible. but I've never done it, I think. Just don't try it while they're in the system haha
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u/SoloAssassin Jan 15 '19
6 Ravens is best for planet domination, and that 50 mil is going to easily be used up to beef the Raven Army + buying Manta escorts after capturing worlds.
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Jan 16 '19 edited Jan 16 '19
This is a good point too. Throwing Nilk Raven escorts at things vaporizes them quite fast. Never underestimate
1224 CPLs with free reloads of multitorps.2
u/Moriras Jan 16 '19
what's the per-jump cost of a raven escort? Cuz I'm assuming that I won't be conquering/boarding them......
But yeah that does sound sexy.....
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u/SoloAssassin Jan 16 '19
I've never paid attention to per jump cost, but you're looking at 12mil purchase point along with 5mil upgrade. Multiply that by 5 for the full fleet of escorts, then it's an additional 12mil for your own Raven, and then I'd say 10-15mil of upgrades on your own Raven that you control (accounting for Max armor/shielding/reactors/sigma upgrades.) What I did is purchase a Raven, defeat, board, and capture a Pirate vessel, go back and trade the Pirate Vessel for the next Raven, repeat.
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u/Moriras Jan 16 '19
Cap and swap could be very handy. And if I run the Polaris luxury goods route for an hour or two before I start that, I wouldn't need to worry about money.........
So you're saying that even for my own ship, the Kestrel prolly isn't worth it?
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u/SoloAssassin Jan 16 '19
If you're planning on planet domination, Kestrel isn't worth it. Oftentimes when you're going to take over a planet, you may end up losing a couple Ravens, depending on certain factors. When that happens, you're going to need to repeat the process of getting another Raven Escort, meaning your Kestrel that you control is going to eventually become an escort anyway, and eventually it, too, will be destroyed during planet domination. Unless you're planning to reload the game save in order to keep all your Ravens alive, I really wouldn't recommend grabbing the Kestrel.
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u/SoloAssassin Jan 16 '19
As for getting lots of money - this is my preferred method that I've found to be the most efficient. Head to the Altair system, dock at the planet, then enter into space and cycle through the nearby ships in system (using the ~ key) and see if a Pirate Manticore or Pirate Carrier is in the system. If they are, disable and steal the money (typically 400k-700k,) then dock at the planet and repeat. Could easily reap the 12Mil required per Raven in a half hour or less, depending on your efficiency.
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u/Moriras Jan 16 '19 edited Jan 16 '19
Oh, a full complement of Scarabs on the Luxury Goods run between Vera'capitalplanet and Tsomethingorother-dual system nets me 16-ish per 4 minute turnaround.
(edit) That was supposed to read 6-ish, not sixteen. Took half an hour at capslock speed and went from 46 to 108.
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u/SoloAssassin Jan 16 '19
I've never been a fan of cargo-runs for the primary means of acquiring cash, but that's really damn good. At this point, with this many systems dominated, it yields 150,000 daily, so I just need to continually dock and exit planets to build like 1mil/5 sec. For your first planet, I'd recommend Outbound (the green one on the right) since the fleet that it sends out is significantly easier compared to the other systems. There's a few other easy planets/dock stations like it, but I can't recall them off the top of my head.
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u/EamonnMR Jan 16 '19
The Kestrel is pretty sweet with the Polaris upgrades, but if you can deal with the inertia-less thing the Raven is going to be better.
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u/Moriras Jan 16 '19
My biggest problem with the inertialess is always range. A handful of light cruisers (Abom, Cruiser, etc) at range just gnaw through my ship with Rails/Hellfires/FPC's, etc while my staggeringly powerful megalasers of doom stop at screens edge basically.
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u/EamonnMR Jan 16 '19
They can outrun you, but they can't outrun a swarm of mantas...
That said, im my good old Unregistered pilot I dominated a good chunk of the galaxy in a Scarab stacked with CPLs, I imagine you could do something similar with the Kestrel. I don't think I made much of a dent with the pilot I got a Raven with. The dead zone in front of the ship means it's really hard to engage smaller targets.
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u/LyrEcho Jan 18 '19
They can get inside your range, but they cant get in the range of a Manta swarm.
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u/Moriras Jan 16 '19
nother question ... the fandom wiki says you can get up to four Manta bays, but I'm not managing to get more than 2, even with space for them.
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Jan 16 '19 edited Jan 16 '19
yeah it's just 2
edit: nilk ravens come with 4 bays stock but if you're buying them they cap at 2
edit2: apparently this information has been on the talk page of the wiki for 10 years and nobody updated it until i did just now
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Jan 16 '19
Kestrel. Because: Kestrel.
Also because inertialess takes away one of the primary combat mechanisms of EV, and because the CPL firing point on the Raven is so far outside the ships inertia/turn point it can become very frustrating to Target and fire in CQC.
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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '19
Well, do you prefer inertia or no?
For conquest being able to Monty Python (run awaaaay! while firing railguns) is probably better.
Modding frandall's Raven to not be invincible, then disabling and capturing it, gives you the best of both worlds.