Elite Dangerous: Fer-de-Lance

The Good

Manufacturer	Zorgon Peterson
Cost	51,567,040 CR
Insurance	2,578,352 CR
Top Speed	260 m/s
Boost Speed	350 m/s
Manoeuvrability	6
Shields	300
Armour	225
Hull Mass	250 T
Cargo Capacity	24 T
Fuel Capacity	8 T
Unladen Jump Range	7.04 LY
Landing Pad Size	Medium
Utility Mounts	6x Utility Mounts
Hardpoints	4x Medium Hardpoints 1x Huge Hardpoint
Internals	1x Size 1 Compartment 1x Size 2 Compartment 2x Size 4 Compartments 1x Size 5 Compartment

Fer-de-Lance is top PvP choice for now - it is fast enough (around 300 m/s, with boost up to 397 m/s), has good firepower with one Huge hardpoint which hasn't many options for now but that definitely will change in future and Fer-de-Lance will mass lock any ship but another Fer-de-Lance and Anaconda. Fer-de-Lance is great for all fixed weapons. On top of that it is very sleek looking ship that is favored by rich bounty hunters, cockpit visibility is good, it is 2 seater. Second best shields in the game after Anaconda, Fer-de-Lances hull is made from high grade materials and small weapons have extra damage penalty against it's hull. 6 utility mounts are great addition.

The Bad

Power plant, you will not be able to fit best weapons, shield boosters and shield cell banks as well as best modules. Fer-de-Lance only has class 5 power plant and that means that you will have to sacrifice fire power, shields or modules.

While Cockpit visibility is good that bar in the middle of your field of view is very silly design decision, not that it matters too much but if you buy a ship for luxury bounty hunting you would expect something more luxury and not stupid bar obstructing your view.

Jump range is silly - Fer-de-Lance is short range fighter with 12-13 LY jump ranger fully combat fitted and on top of that it only has 8 tonnes fuel tank. Well, good news that soon we will be able to fit extra fuel tanks on our ships, bad news is that it probably will take your internal compartment slot.

6 utility slots are very good, but with severe power restrictions you will not be able to fit 6 shield boosters, unless you use very low power weapons. Medium hardpoints will receive around 33% damage penalty against all large ship hulls, but you should aim at power plant anyway so this is not an issue, but still.

There might be some problems with gimbaled weapons, because huge hardpoint is located below the ship and will fire only straight ahead and below your nose, medium hardpoints are located above your ship and side medium hardpoints are too deep inside Fer-de-Lances hull so right hardpoint will track very little on the left of your nose and vice versa, also all medium hardpoints will track only straight ahead and above your ships nose. You can use 2 front medium hardpoints for gimbaled weapons or try 2 left or right side ones.

More information

With military armor you will spend around 100 million on Fer-de-Lance, maximum jump range is around 20 LY but it is for completely stripped ship, maximum cargo bay size is 70 tonnes (without shields). Fer-de-Lance is a medium ship so it can land on outposts.

What you can do

Bounty hunting

You can visit even strong signal sources and complete almost all scenarios, the 6-8 vulture wing for solo Fer-de-Lance might be "little" too much though. You can bounty hunt at extraction sites, nav-beacons or just interdict wanted ships in super-cruise.

Missions

It can do all missions as long as your cargo space is enough - it's a combat vessel after all, but any combat related mission is easily done, you can land on outposts so no need to check destination before accepting missions, naval progression missions can be done as well, however, Python is much better choice, that is if you can afford to buy one.

Piracy

It's great for piracy because of speed, amount of hardpoints and the fact that it will mass lock anything but another Fer-de-Lance or Anaconda, so if you can fly within 3 km from enemy it will not be able to super-cruise away fast. He can hyperjump away any time though, because mass lock for now only affects super-cruise.

Weapon load out

For PvE

Anything, really. Starting from Medium lasers and huge cannon to huge plasma and medium multi-cannons. You can use large beam laser in huge hardpoint, add 1 more medium beam laser to take down shields and 3 multi-cannons to finish enemy, or even use full cannon setup, anyway it is up to you what you like to use and against what enemies you are going.

For PvP

As usually - you need to get rid of enemy shields as fast as possible, especially considering that from build 1.3 shields will not recharge instantly when you enter/exit super-cruise but instead will maintain charging speed in super-cruise, so no more shield exploit in a wing or alone. Best weapons for shields are Beam lasers and Rail Guns. If you are against large enemies then you can try Plasma Accelerator in huge hardpoint but i like gimbaled huge cannon which does insane amount of damage against enemy power plant - Anacondas can be blow away in just 3-6 shots.

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