Pete, when you read this, hats-off to you, buddy. The Galaxy is a challenging ship to keep alive!
I’ve set out to spend at least an hour in each class for the Beta, running down the list (from slowest to fastest) and right now I’m working on the Keldon. I’ve spent an hour each, in the KEV, the KBOP, and in the Galaxy.
The Galaxy’s new (slow) regen torps saved me a couple of times and the long cloak allowed me to sit and wait for a bot to leave (who could have easily killed me, had it been human) at least twice. My impatient “kill it with fire now” play-style doesn’t always mesh well with the warp 10 ships, and of the three I’ve completed the hour in so far, the Galaxy is the hardest to keep alive. It seems to be an absolute necessity to set up shop somewhere near a supply of mines and torps. Crystals are somewhat of an afterthought, but I found the Delta Vega area to be a great zone for killing bots, and as long as I’m conservative, I think I could maintain a presence there almost indefinitely. DV has the black hole nearby and sb1 isn’t too far away to be used as an escape route. As an added bonus, the asteroid field can be used to bring down the warp 14 bots, which otherwise seem nearly impossible to hit with more than a single torp volley when I decloak on them. Now I wouldn’t say it is underpowered by any means, but given the choice between the Beta Galaxy and the Beta KEV, I would probably lean slightly towards the KEV. Overall, I think the Beta Galaxy is just about right, but I’d definitely like to hear PZ’s take on it, since he’s logged more hours in the Galaxy than practically anyone else.
The Beta KEV-12 now, is a beast. The cheap cloak is a pretty even trade-off with the Galaxy’s cheap warp cost, and the fast-regen oblits serve it well. I found I could chew through opponent after opponent, (bots of course) without having to spend too much time running and healing… which is good since the KEV was, and still is- not the best ship for running away. The extra 25 seconds of cloak made a world of difference and I felt pretty fearless covering distances in open space that would have been much riskier before, such as a trip to Vulcan. I’m not entirely sure whether the ship feels “overpowered” now, or if was simply enjoying it a lot more than I did the original KEV. Perhaps it’s both. But I wouldn’t say it’s far-off, and it certainly doesn’t seem like it would be game-breaking to leave it as-is. A nice thing about powerful SLOW ships, is that if you’re flying something fast, you can normally just walk away from it if need be. The real test would be trying to kill it in a faster ship like the II-A or CDA-120, which have traditionally been able to pose a real threat to the KEV.
The KBOP is nice to fly too (for a slow boat) and I think I would possibly endure the warp 10 and low lethality of it long enough to get it on the scoreboards. It stayed alive easily enough, but with a single tube, I found it somewhat annoying not being able to kill most of my targets. I was often subjecting myself to unnecessary damage, just for an opportunity to do more damage with my phasers and to get in a few extra torps. Since I was practically always getting damage with it, I only bothered to get xtals one time with it and afterwards I just didn’t bother because it felt like a waste of time and gold. That said, this is another one that would probably do well near DV and unless I got swarmed, or a human interfered, I think I could earn damage points (and gold) from the bots with impunity.
When I finish my hour in the Keldon, I’ll post some thoughts on it. So far, it is going surprisingly well!