Slithereen
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Posted - 2004.02.01 11:56:00 -
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You actually see more of these ships within empire, since it has become more hazardous for such ships to be outside of it.
I've seen more Celestis these days, probably helped by posts in this forum that raises some recognizability. It's fairly fast, decent cargo space, got Gallente hybrid bonus mixed with missiles, a healthy drone complement, fair number of low slots and strong CPU. One can say it's a drone-missile cruiser without the weaknesses of Minmatar cruisers and the eccentricities of Caldari cruisers.
I've seen more Arbitrators these days than it was early in the game when I had one. The reason for this is more people now have the skills to fully use one, and if you have the skills to match it, it kicks arse over the Omen. 2 Heavy Beams, one Heavy Launcher with cruises and six heavy drones, and you can kick arse over most missions as well. This is a good mission ship, and is the main reason why people buy these. The Celestis is also helped by mission players.
The Bellicose is still even rarer than the Arbit and the Celestis, but I've seen more marketplace listings of this ship lately. Whereas the Celestis and the Arbitrator has to compete against a four turret mining-utility cruiser (Vexor and Omen respectively), the Bellicose has to compete against a more full fledged combat ship in the Stabber. It's a lot nicer than it looks---you can fit 3 Heavy Launchers on it.
I see a lot of Exequerors and Ospreys these days, more so lately because L2 cruisers are so expensive now, many noobs are getting L1 cruisers nowadays instead of skipping to L2 cruisers directly (where the Omen often serves as a noob's first cruiser---it was with me and countless others). It's harder to see an Augoror, which is the game's worst cruiser, but the marketplaces always lists Augorors for sale, complete with sales histories.
Which leaves you with the Scythe, because its really hard to find a Scythe anywhere, even in Minmatar space.
Celestis, Arbitrator and Bellicose are also quite common as NPC navy ships for the Gallentean, Amarr/Sarum/Ammatar/Khanid, and Minmatar naviees respectively.
Caracals have turned around since the game started. They used to be very rare since they were utterly useless early with all the missiles too crappy and expensive before. But now I see them quite often as missiles gradually improved.
Ruptures have turned around quite nice too, although its been at the expense of the Stabber, which was once quite popular. I hardly see a Stabber these days but I still often fly one for hunting and picking up abandoned cans on belts (many battleships just blow NPCs up in the belts and leave the cans).
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"Is it me or the bad guys just getting totally pathetic?"---Clover, Totally Spies,
"Hope is wasted on the Hopeless."---Mandy, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
"Stars are holes in the sky from which the light of the Infinite shine through."---Confucius.
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