M freighters are amazing

[Daleorn]

Made this as a response for a locked thread and I didnt want to waste the effort. Lets keep it classy please.

M Ships are great when used in numbers. 10 minimum spec Boas(my personal pick for M freighter for its speed) with travel drive costs 5.2 mil to haul 75000 m3 container storage. 7 would cost 3.6 mil to haul 52500 which is comparable to an Incarcatura whose minimum preset is 4.5 mil to haul 54000 m3. The Sturgeon costs about 4.8 million to haul 30000 m3

The Boa with tier 1 travel engines goes 300m/s and 2k on travel drive. When you can build your own and mix and match components you can get 300ms 3.5k travel. They maneuver so much better than L ships and can quickly dock and undock. Its also easy to stack M docks on your own stations.

The Incarcatura goes 44m/s and 1.4k on travel drive. The Sturgeon is much faster at 88m/s and 3.6k travel drive. There is also the spin up time of the drive on a large ship. How slowly it turns to line up with the docking piers, etc etc.

I use L ships for certain jobs, dangerous hauls, when I dont want to que 20 different trades, etc. But mass amounts of M traders seem to be the way when you can print them so cheaply.

Took all the numbers from my current game buying from their wharfs/shipyards

[SirProsik]

Look at 10 Vulture Sentinels paired with one Odysseus Vanguard for station building. Only issue is have to be OOS for loading and unloading but massive storage with free Destroyer :p

[Azrelus]

Originally posted by Geist:

Drop Lasertower and flee. Works 99% of the time.

Oof, micromanagement pains.

Not to mention the performance loss from turret spam.

[Azrelus]

Originally posted by Geist:

No micromanagement, set the global command and they will always do it on their own.

Except when they run out and need to be restocked. Or deleting the laser turret spam to get performance back.

[Daleorn]

The problem I have with S freigthers is their very small container space. It would take over 30 courier sentinels to have the same space as 10 Boas and cost a few more million to buy

[Donauwelle]

Well the do OK till you reached the point where you just care about maxing FPS...
Then you usally get rid of all M´s (mb keep some for Supplyship-duty) and buy all L´s to save performance.
Imho Im hoping for XL traders for each faction since a while

[Hullu Ukko]

Originally posted by Th0rn:

Made this as a response for a locked thread and I didnt want to waste the effort. Lets keep it classy please.

M Ships are great when used in numbers. 10 minimum spec Boas(my personal pick for M freighter for its speed) with travel drive costs 5.2 mil to haul 75000 m3 container storage. 7 would cost 3.6 mil to haul 52500 which is comparable to an Incarcatura whose minimum preset is 4.5 mil to haul 54000 m3. The Sturgeon costs about 4.8 million to haul 30000 m3

The Boa with tier 1 travel engines goes 300m/s and 2k on travel drive. When you can build your own and mix and match components you can get 300ms 3.5k travel. They maneuver so much better than L ships and can quickly dock and undock. Its also easy to stack M docks on your own stations.

The Incarcatura goes 44m/s and 1.4k on travel drive. The Sturgeon is much faster at 88m/s and 3.6k travel drive. There is also the spin up time of the drive on a large ship. How slowly it turns to line up with the docking piers, etc etc.

I use L ships for certain jobs, dangerous hauls, when I dont want to que 20 different trades, etc. But mass amounts of M traders seem to be the way when you can print them so cheaply.

Took all the numbers from my current game buying from their wharfs/shipyards

They are indeed. And if you calculate how much volume per credits those transfer compared to L traders you gonna be surprised.

[Azrelus]

Originally posted by Geist:

give them 20 laser towers each should be enough for a few hundred hours of playtime.
Never had to restock any of them.

I also do not see performance problems because of a few laser towers.

They'll eat 20 laser towers in less than 24 hours. M traders are just harassed too much, S, M and L pirates target them.

You end up with a the map full of random laser towers everywhere. Thank god you can self-destruct them now, wasn't a thing in 5.10. You had to manually deal with each in order to clean up.

My save is nearing 400 hours now and I did not blow $10k on my PC so I have to be mindful.

[ArcticISAF]

Best transport ship in the game I have to say is the Asgard. This baby has 9000 m3 of cargo space and has a decent base travel speed of 2300 m/s. More than that, it’s practically impervious to all sorts of harassment. Pirate behemoth comes by and says ‘Drop your cargo’? Zap in the face. Xenon K and assorted ships come raiding? Whoops, looks like you chose the wrong gate to come through. Also acts as a mobile defence force in a pinch.

Pros: All of them
Cons: Costs $7.2 trillion per ship to outfit

[Wegadin]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

Well the do OK till you reached the point where you just care about maxing FPS...
Then you usally get rid of all M´s (mb keep some for Supplyship-duty) and buy all L´s to save performance.
Imho Im hoping for XL traders for each faction since a while

One of the mods gives XL traders. Ships extended? Something like that - I could look it up if you like.

[Wegadin]

My problem with Ms is they always inevitably die. 10 or less are fine, but if you manage dozens of them, it gets tedious.

I like the L Barbarossa as a trader (though it is expensive) because pirates see it as a military ship and don't ever harass them. At least in my experience.

[Zloth]

I get some M's for trading, but I get a bunch of S ships, too, because often times I see those M ships doing trades where they've only got 40 food on board or some such silliness. I love that new Boron 4M14S dock!

L traders haven't worked out well for me when under AI control - they just don't get filled up. They are great for station building, though. They can get a lot of stuff around pretty fast (even with no highway) if you drive it yourself. Hopefully it won't have to wait in line to deliver:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496043777

Originally posted by Dreokor:

They'll eat 20 laser towers in less than 24 hours. M traders are just harassed too much, S, M and L pirates target them.

What the frak!? I've never had them be anywhere close to that bad!

[Harrison]

M traders and miners are always going to be the backbone of my trade empires, L ships serve a purpose but when I'm 200 hours into a save, and have several hundred trade ships doing things, you can bet that at least three-quarters of them will be M ships.

[Humble]

There is no m freighters, M often know transporter in this game while freighters is L at least that's what game said.

But early game M is cheaper, and faster but downside, you had to keep replaced those M due loss to Khaak or Xenon or other danger zone, so that is where L come in, some L do not get destroyed easy due group of fighter Khaak or Xenon (unless it's destroyer or lot of M) so they able to handle common threat, but some, not all L, I think, I do lost Terran L miner with even max out shield mk3 Terran, I love this ship look but still lost to Khaak time to time, so best one is teladi L miner had a 3 shield meaning they can reach 200,000, almost like destroyer, I think, not mere 60,000. I do not think I lost any Teladi L miner to common threat but do lost to Xenon large ship destroyer who happen to sneaking into friendly sectors.

I do wish Terran L miner's shield spot buff like 2 or 3, not one because I do still lost that awesome looking ship to Khaak time to time. :(. But Terran space is ok, but anywhere outside of Terran sector, I had to use Teladi L miner as it's do good job not to get replaced all the time.

Believe me, it's can get sick of losing M all the time, tracking down what is lost, who belong to, rename and replaced again and again then some more, Teladi L stop all this madness. Not even blacklist help (it's only for no red enemies sector, but Khaak and Xenon still sneaking in friendly strong sector anyway.

But M is good in early of game, but end game you would prefer L as backbone, replaced M when one got sicked doing all over again replaced so many lost, lost tracking down, where, how, when, what, so go on.

But I think M is all good in Terran Sector for most part, since most no attack in most Terran Sector so M is all good in that areas, but for rest of commonwealth, I prefer L (ship that had most number of shield with reasonable speed over M)

[Vladolf Putler]

exactly if going for M traders Boa it is, it can avoid so many unnecessary deaths because of its cruise speeds, I would not bother with other M traders at all, wasted money

[Tiberius]

Only really useful in terran or boron space, or in the main highway sectors. In other sectors, they tend to get harassed by pirates and khaaks