The Imperial Courier Review - Balancing Power & Style [Elite Dangerous]

[@JG27Korny]

As FD does not come with new ships, those ship designs start to feel for real like 100 years old.

[@perilousrange]

For painful perspective... a child born on the release date of the newest ships (December 11, 2018)... would now likely be in kindergarten.

[@JG27Korny]

lol what about the start of the game@@perilousrange

[@perilousrange]

@@JG27Korny December 16, 2014. So, they made 38 ships in the first four years... and no ships since.

[@tiberiusdave252]

I love my Imperial courier: I use it for bgs and as my on foot ship. It gets in and out of bases really really quickly and gets you to those on foot missions really easily.

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

One of the things I didn't mention is that I've taken mine out a few times for ground-based Thargoid bashing - it's small enough to subtly park a few hundred meters from the target settlement without being spotted and without worrying about terrain blocking a landing plus it's fast enough that it can usually be dispatched and resummoned without taking as much as a scrape - especially if the shields are beefed up

[@OldManPaxusYT]

I love ship review videos! They NEVER get old!

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

Thanks bud - not seen you around here in a little while (Chieftain was the last one IIRC?) - hope you've been keeping well

[@Cohen.the.Worrier]

It IS a beautiful ship and not too hard to unlock either.

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

It really is - didn't even have to grind for this one, just unlocked it naturally by doing jobs for the imps for a while. The Cutter on the other hand...that was a couple of evenings of Netflix and the Ngalinn run

[@FreeFragUK]

I quite like the Imperial designs but I wish they had more ships, in particular something that leaned more heavily into a combat role.

[@cmdrbobert9862]

It seems like it's perfect for a multipurpose mission runner. Either for doing planetary landings, during courier work, or taking out the odd enemy along a mission. I'm gonna have to try it out now.

[@cwolfxuk-other]

I love the ship, I do agree it's natural coliur is nice. With the blue running lones and the Midnight Black and it is proper gorgeous. Love the cockpit. Love the claws hiding weapons (something I wish the other two had). I loved the Courier in the previous Elite games and seeing the spinning drives could have been fun, I do like this redesign - it fits!

[@Crested-jh3mb]

I have my Courier engineered to get 851m/s with boost. And that’s fully loaded with optional modules for exploration and planetary stuff. I also get a jump range of 45.30LY unladen which allows me to easily do short to mid range exploration in this baby. Love the Courier it’s one of my favorite small ships in the game. I thought about setting it up to do combat, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it and lose all that speed. That would be a waste of it's potential.

[@perilousrange]

Don't underestimate lightweight engineering. I have an anti-gank courier. Just above minimum mass for the thrusters, packing 4 reverb torps and packhounds. I could be at minimum mass, but I wanted the long range sensors more.

[@JG27Korny]

It can be used as shield tank effectively in PVE, but there are much more suited ships for that role.

[@cmdrTremyss]

"dump in his corn flakes" damn, I didn't see that coming, lmao. I also appreciate the LotR references. Anyway. I named mine Razorback, and use it with a red+white paint job. It's so fast, I struggle to survive the high G manoeuvres I pull in it... I use it every opportunity I get. My main ship for Ody content. I also think about switching to it for exobiology, since it's easier to land than my Asp X. And having an FC means jump range isn't that important any more.

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

For the first Imperial only review, I had to make a dig at Mr. Federation - seemed wrong not too. Usually a Viper III is my go-to, but there's a lot of similarities between the two - similar speeds, heat profiles and handling characteristics, so the Courier is right up there for me - plus it can take bigger guns (albeit trading the two C1 hardpoints for a single C2) I can see it working well for exobiology - the nose is a little bit long and might obstruct some of the scannable biologicals if you're skimming a surface for them, but there's an easy solution to that - fly upsidedown (the visibility above is excellent).

[@cmdrTremyss]

@@gamingsnipsandbits Great suggestion. I've also figured out upside down flying can help a lot. I do it in my Asp too. It's kind of trippy though. I've never really flown the Viper III. When I started out I jumped from Sidewinder to Viper IV, mainly for the bigger optional internal selection. At that time a was looking for a capable+affordable fighter with some multi-role capabilities. I wasn't really happy with it (I didn't have any engineers unlocked at that time), and I sold it to buy the T6 when I had enough money. That ship was pure love for me. Not a fighter ofc, but it helped me gather tons of credits. It's my favourite space-brick.

[@DarthWall275]

"lmao"? Is that more Zoomer talk appropriated from black culture?

[@TsvetanVR]

Very fast, very sleek ship. It's a bit chonky to be an Exige equivalent, it's more like an Evora in my mind. Good for courier missions, good for canyon carving, BGS, PvP Recon operations and PvP support in a wing zooming by and scrambling and messing with enemy ship systems using fun experimentals. And apparently, kill a Deadly Conda and its SLF that deeemed it wise to interdict and try and steal elections data from a Federal agent flying an Imperial ship. o7 Commander, thank you for the great content

[@dutchesselysium7356]

It makes for great Carrier Based exploration. Plus, it looks fabulous in chrome

[@williamvorkosigan5151]

The courier is my main ship. Paint Jobs are shocking bad. I currently use Azure because I couldn't afford that Midnight Black (only available once a year or every two years). Next time. I took D2E@s build for an explorer Courier & made it my own. Advanced Thrusters are great. For Stratum I can just slam it onto the deck pretty much anywhere. The Phantom was my go to travel & landing on planets with an SRV. Now it is this but only in the bubble, as it's 40Ly jump range & Class 4 Fuel Scoop make it less manageable for going to Guardian sites. Even so, when I am in my Phantom (a great ship) I am thinking, "Now I'm here, the Courier might have been more fun". For showing newer pilots, Jameson Crash site, Dav's Hope & Orrere Crashed Anaconda, it's perfect.

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

Advanced Thrusters make any small ship suited to them fun - especially when engineered to the max - plus if you take the Courier exploring with them and feel like making a little diversion through some canyons, the Courier is more than capable of winding through a few twisties. (It's very easy though to get carried away, hit the boost button and send it into a rock wall - I've been there a couple of times recently 😁)

[@williamvorkosigan5151]

@@gamingsnipsandbits Erm, yes. While taking a newer pilot to get some Stratum and waiting for him, I showed off a little too much. Flashing over him at low altitude mid boost. I demonstrated the limits of a small shield to brush of scraps a tadge beyond the limit.

[@prisonerofthehighway1059]

The Courier excels at being a courier lol. Once you unlock her, she’s my weapon of choice for finishing the imperial rank grind. I might use her to do the Federal grind just for my personal amusement lol.

[@bumkinboi509]

I love this ship, it is a work of art within itself and makes you feel rich. However, it is made out of paper.

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

Soggy paper - but that's what a decent shield setup is for 🙂

[@Pflanzenturio]

It is the entry for sleek and beautiful imperial design and your personal reason to ignore... human resources

[@gamingsnipsandbits]

100% - There's an argument to say the Imperial Eagle is the entry Imperial ship, but they didn't design it from the ground up - instead they took the regular Eagle and handed it to Gutamaya to make it to look Imperial, so it's more an imposter than anything 😁

[@Tamburello_1994]

Small quibble: @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="270">4:30</a> "Like all Gutamaya ships.... You'll need to prove yourself worthy" All -- except for the Imperial Eagle -- made by Gutamaya. Yes, I know it's a Core Dynamics knock off, but still.

[@TogglePr0]

core dynamics actually got the design from faulcon delacy

[@TogglePr0]

thats why its called eagle mk II

[@streyafromspace]

The Courier is among my favorite ships and probably the one I have the most stick time with. It is an excellent choice for on-foot Mercenary CMDRs who need a fast and tanky shuttle, but is also formidable in space if you use its speed and maneuverability to tear through powerplants with PAs/rails.

[@sweeney_bot1104]

Too big for a small combat dedicated ship. Too small for a cargo hauler or miner. Too heavy, and too small fuel tank for an explorer. The only thing it is good for, it's for traveling within the bouble with style. And it's god damn awsome to fly this ship in Open. You have enough shields and speed to give you a choice on how to deal with almost any dangerous situation. You can outrun most of the medium ships. And even if they are faster like mamba, you have enough speed and shields to survive and escape. When it comes to the large ships, you can just hide under their bellly and keep shooting them untill they leave. You can easily land on the planets to do on-foot missions. So, it's one of the best everyday allarounders )

[@chjeremy6538]

this thing is stupid tanky(for the size) due to having 4 utility slot

[@TogglePr0]

with engineering it can get pretty good, even some heavy duty hrps

[@perilousrange]

Also uniquely qualified for maelstrom work.