The Vulture is here! The heavy fighter we've been promised and it's very different.
For a start it has "only" two weapon hard points.
It's the size of a Lakon 6 but as nippy as a Cobra and kicks like a horse.
The first thing you notice about the Vulture is the engine sound. If a cement mixer lorry barrel ran on an electric motor and span at 100mph, it would sound like a Vulture’s engine.
The cockpit is small and the pilot sits at the front alone. Very much like the Federal Dropship, there are steps back into the ship to your right and the co-pilot sits on a second level behind and above the pilot’s left.
On the Oculus rift, you can see down through the glass to ground below the ship’s nose.
When I first took off, I expected it to be heavy, a brawler like the Python. Not so. It leapt off the pad and thundered out into space.
From Dalton Gateway, I jumped to the next system, as this was faster than the 100,000 Ls trip to the Nav Point. The ship is very responsive and manoeuvres like a Cobra. With the two Class 3 hard points set up with C3 Beams I was burning through small ships like Eagles and Sidewinders in seconds - shields or not!
Larger ships like Pythons and Anacondas were taken down easily without resorting to shield cells. NPC's are easier than human opponents, but even so, this is one tough cookie!
COST
Nothing official yet, but generally the base ship costs the same as military grade bulkheads, which in this case cost 19.7M credits.
The good news is that the Class 4 FSD tops out at the 1.6M A rated and the shields and thrusters are Class 5, which tops out at 5M, so the total upgrades are far cheaper than something like a Python or Clipper.
I had a go with an alternative layout using 1 3C Beam and a smart missile rack. Fish in a barrel! Melt their shields, hit 'em with a missile or two and collect the bounty!