Which "Marauder" ships to keep?

[pepoluan]

I've been taking bounty hunting missions in the Free Worlds, and capped a lot of ships. Some of them are Marauders. I'm keeping the M.Falcons and M.Leviathans, but other than those two, what other Marauder ships are worth keeping?

[Zarinthal]

Frankly it depends on your pacing, but if you are already capping Mar Falcons and Leviathans then I would just say focus more on making them uniform. I usually go for totally homogeneous fleets, all 1 ship type, all the same equip aside from transitioning between builds etc. but with MarFal and MarLev they are similar enough that you can do some nice 2 group formations that help when outnumbered, making the Falcons heavy damage going in, and the slightly slower Leviathans more shield focused for taking hits on the way out, even stacking AM turrets if necessary. So to get down to it, my advice is to test different setups and pick one or the other, unless you really like playing fleet commander role, and sell the other type to upgrade. There really aren't any other Marauder class ships better than those 2 iirc so I would then focus on scaling and exploration, different regions of the galaxy hold different ships and equipment, just don't forget to account for crew costs, and you'll do fine.

[DroopingPuppy]

If you are stick with tier 1 ships(=Human ships) then I suggest to keep only Falcons and Marauders. The rest of them are not so useful and you better sell them all. Then, if you want to pick, then pick the highest outfit space. For example Marauder Leviathan may has up to 300 outfit space. Usually Leviathan is far better, for AI does not utilize maneuver of the ships and is durable than Falcon.

All of them are not so meaningful when you are starting to make the fleet of Shield Beetles, though. But before you are aware of this, Marauder Leviathan is surely one of the best battleship you can get.

[smileyill]

Also check their stats. All MarLevs and MarFalcs are not the same. You can also park ships that you don't want to use at the moment. Once the FW war begins, I start capturing and using Republic Carriers and Cruisers, which are both better than the MarLevs and MarFalcs. At least I used too, now I tend to skip human ships even before the war begins - except for a few baccys I capture from pirates.

[HuskyDynamics]

I'm at the point where anything in Human space is basically target practice, but I like to hang on to Marauder Firebirds when I can get them (sometimes even reloading a save if one I want gets destroyed). They're nice looking ships and somewhat uncommon, so they feel kind of "collectible".

I tried this with just regular Firebirds for a while too but they're a lot easier to find.

[Timerlane]

Originally posted by smileyill:

Also check their stats. All MarLevs and MarFalcs are not the same.

Specifically, there are 3 different variants of each Marauder ship.
Marauder 'standard'(a general 'enhanced' version, but always(if not, almost always) at the price of lower cargo capacity than the 'normal' version of the ship)
Marauder 'Weapon'(based on the 'standard', but with even higher max weapon capacity, and occasionally extra gunports)
Marauder 'Engine'(based on the 'standard', but with even higher max engine capacity)

To the best of my knowledge, the Engine and Weapon variants are literally better, in every way, than the 'standard' variant.

There are a few unique ships that are called 'Marauder' ships, that don't follow this convention, but you will never find them in Bounty missions, nor find yourself 'hunted' by them.

Also, FWIW, the Marauder Leviathan and Falcon Engine variants, specifically, give you potentially pre-FW-campaign access to Electron Beams.

[pepoluan]

Originally posted by smileyill:

Also check their stats. All MarLevs and MarFalcs are not the same. You can also park ships that you don't want to use at the moment. Once the FW war begins, I start capturing and using Republic Carriers and Cruisers, which are both better than the MarLevs and MarFalcs. At least I used too, now I tend to skip human ships even before the war begins - except for a few baccys I capture from pirates.

Yup. I know about the "Engines" and "Weapons" variants. They're so rare, tho'. Had to farm lots of "heavy marauder" missions to get one MLevW.

Outfitted with great shield generators & hull repair & sunbeams+inhibitor cannons, I found MarLev's and MarFalc's are quite great even in endgame. Although after acquiring Pelicans & Albatrosses I found I more often park the Marauders than taking them with me for 'usual' jaunting (their crew salary is ... too much). The Nightly versions of Pelicans & Albatrosses are nearly OP anyways.

[Zhchng]

When talking about MLev ships, don't forget the enhanced Shield version. Personally, I like the MLevE for guard ships re-equiped with heavy laser beam weapons instead of cannons because the MLevE turns and accelerates quickly and the beam weapons are better for capturing ships.