Pardus/Ships

Everyone in Pardus has a ship, but often for new players the process of understanding how ships are laid out is confusing. If you don't understand the different parts of a ship, read this before you proceed to read.

Neutral Ships
All neutral ships are available to every player, regardless of faction. These ships are limited by how much exp you have. These ships are quite common since everyone can get them and they can be used to fill the holes in one faction's ship tree if players can't find a good ship to proceed in.

Sabre
New pilots The Sabre is the ship you'll start out with unless you are a ska'ri, in which case you will start out with a Rustclaw. It's a starter ship with just a gun mount to allow you to fight space maggots to rank/exp up to a better ship and get out of it. It's not recommended that you spend much money on this ship, since you'll easily outrank it. You should just trade and do some basic fighting in this ship to get money for a new ship, and jump out of it. Pirates will target these ships because they symbolize that the player is new and doesn't know how to fight back or alert people of a pirate's presence. However, with it's small size, being the third smallest in the game, it's often used as a way to train cloaking by more experienced players looking to jump into a large ship like the liberator and retain the ability to cloak. It's a small tradition of to-be scorpion pilots to jump into a sabre with a union cloaking device and train their cloaking in it.
 * General all purpose

Rustclaw
New pilots The Rustclaw is another starter ship like the Sabre but has the sole purpose of being a trader. The Ska'ri will start out with this ship. It's comparably large cargo hull is made for new players to trade in and make money to get into a new ship. It is also the ship that new players will get to build their first building in, since it will have the cargo space. It is not recommended for fighting, even though the ship's image may say otherwise, it has low armor and won't last long.
 * Small trader

Interceptor
New/learning fighters The Interceptor is a low-end fighter solely for the purpose of gaining rank and exp. It is the first neutral ship that fighting is recommended in, and with it's low cargo, the first neutral ship that you won't be able to trade in well. It has three gun slots, and one missile slot, making that a first as well. It is a fairly capable fighter but will not stand up when fighting other players. When fully equipped, very little space will remain in it making it hard to transport commodities. For that purpose, a mag-scoop is advised.
 * Light fighter

Harrier
Semi-experienced players The Harrier is the first neutral hybrid, having large cargo as well as sufficient missile and gun mounts. It, like the interceptor, is not suited for PvP combat but can be used to fight. As it is a hybrid, it's not particularly geared to doing the extremes of what it does. It's a good trader with no equipment, and a good fighter with equipment. It's trading ability goes down with putting more equipment for fighting on and vice versa. The harrier is often made fun of since it's funny shaped, and people who fly it are the brunt of many jokes. It is, however a very capable ship and a good ship for trading when neutral since no good trading ships exist at this point and the next one that comes close is about 67500 exp away.
 * Medium trade/fighter hybrid

Mercury
Middle class fighters The Mercury is the first PvP fighter that you'll come across in the neutral line of ships. It has high armor, a fairly small size, and a good number of gun and missile mounts. It has sufficient cargo to fit on enough guns and missiles, and can take a beating with the right armor. This ship is a very popular ship for ranking and skilling because of it's good statistics.
 * Medium fighter

Hercules
Experienced traders The Hercules is a trade class ship with two guns mounts and ten missile mounts. It's pretty useless in fighting since it has low armor and is incredibly big. However, the two gun mounts can be used to fight off NPC's like space maggots. It's a good trader that members from all factions jump into since it has a nice cargo hull of 255. It's exp requirement makes getting this for a neutral pilot quite hard since you'll have to do it in a mercury from 25000 to 79000.
 * Medium trader

Hawk
Experienced fighters The Hawk is a high-end fighter designed for skilling and fighting. It's held in hig regard in the community being the only ship aside from the doomstar with 5 gun mounts. There are variations, PASC, nighthawk, and NHD. It however, has no missile mounts, making ambushing less attractive in this ship. It is well suited to survive ambushes however, being small and having high armor. It's cargo is quite cramped, which puts off some people from getting the better weapons put on it.
 * Heavy fighter

Gargantua
Experienced fighters The gargantua is regarded as a fairly poor ship as a fighter, and an OK hybrid. It has about the same number of missile and gun mounts as the scorpion, dominator, and gauntlet from all of the three factions, but it's other stats are inferior compared to these ships in the same class. Very few people are in this ship due to how poor it is statistically and prefer to use a faction warship.
 * Medium battle-ship

Behemoth
Experienced traders The Behemoth (BBB) is one of the game's best traders having the third best cargo space and a hull of 720 for explosives missions. This ship is a very popular choice for neutral, federal, and union pilots since it has the highest cargo that they can get. It is jokingly called a "big brown box" (BBB) because frankly, that's what it looks like. Despite what it looks like, it's a very capable ship for traders and package rankers alike.
 * Large trader

Liberator
Very experienced fighters The liberator was designed as a battleship/trader hybrid, but it's fallen short of that excelling only at killing. It has the highest exp requirement of all the neutral ships making it only for the veteran players. It's a universal fighter used by all 3 factions but it's set up radically changes depending on what faction the pilot is in, due to special equipment. This is particularly true with the union, where it's set up with heavy shields, cloakers, counter measure equipment, and inferometers to make a heavy weapon laden tactical fighter.
 * Large battle-ship

Union ships
The Union is technologically impaired with ships, only having 8 exclusive ships. Their ships are fairly poor in general, but they do have a few that stand out. However, their ships can prove to be very powerful when properly equipped with the unique Union equipment. Don't underestimate their power even if their ships are poorly made.

Rustfire
Learning pilots The Rustfire (rusty) is the Union's equalivant of the Federation's and Empire's wasp and ficon. It's available at one further rank however, but it's worth it. It's a hybrid between a trader and a ranker with two gun mounts and a missile mount, although it seemingly serves no purpose. Pilots who fly it typically trade in it to make money for particle lasers, then rank up to a marauder or a junker. It's a well made hybrid that almost everyone who joins the Union gets into at one point or another.
 * Fighter/trader hybrid

Marauder
Learning fighters The marauder is a NPC combat ship designed for skilling and ranking/exping. It falls in the same class as the interceptor and mercury although it's usefulness is argued. It's better than the interceptor, with superior stats in the lines of cargo and armour, but lacks a missile mount making it difficult to pirate or ambush in and being slightly larger. It's severely behind the mercury in stats however, lacking three missile mounts, much armor and hull, and cargo. It's recommended by many people to just exp up to a mercury rather than to use this ship for fighting.
 * Light fighter

Junker IV
New traders The junker IV (junker) is a mid-level trade ship for the union. It offers a large cargo of 210, making FWE at this point better money than stocking. It has a strong hull, making explosive missions quite feasible at this point and the cargo allows it to package rank easily. Because it is the only trade ship available at this point short of exping to a hercules, many pilots get in this ship after a rustfire then make money and rank for a better ship such as an el padre.
 * Small/Medium trader

Slider
Semi-experienced fighters The slider is a mid-level hybrid available at rank accountant. Many pilots looking for a combination of trading and fighting in the union choose this ship, although it'll become outdated in fighting once they get to a rank requiring you to kill NPC's that require serious firepower and armor. Many people choose to use this ship as a hybrid package/assassination ranker, as it has high cargo space, strong hull, and good firepower. However, that is generally what people use it as, people looking to trade should look a rank lower at the junker or a rank higher at the el padre.
 * Fighter/trader hybrid

El padre
Fairly experienced pilots The El padre (padre) is a mid-level trader for the Union. Sadly, as many people complain, it's the highest level trader in the Union making the hercules and behemoth a popular choice over this having more cargo space. However, it still holds as a good midgame trader for a player who doesn't want to exp up to the hercules. It's preformance is quite well for it's class.
 * Medium trader

Chitin
Experienced fighters The Chitin is one of the Union's best ships being regarded as the ultimate ambush craft. It's been held true to it's word by often serving in ambushes and combat. It's the Union equalivant of the Federation's and Empire's nighthawk series and PASC. It's combination of 4 missile and gun mounts are reflected by the Union's ECCM making the NN-550's almost as effective as the Empire's MKII missile considering the opponent has an ECM.
 * Fighter (Ambusher)

Horpor
Experienced fighters The Horpor is an effective fighter/transporter ship having the gun mounts it needs to fight NPC's and the capacity to transport materials. It's not an incredibly popular choice, but people who use it are satisfied with it's performance. Many people use it to do package missions and assassination missions at the same time. It doesn't hold up well in PVP combat however, it's armor is somewhat low, it's a large ship, and it has no missile mounts.
 * Fighter/trader hybrid (Ranker)

Scorpion
Very experienced fighters The Scorpion is the pride and glory of the Union. It's considered as being one of the best battleship class ships in the game with all things considered such as price, rank, and equipment set ups. Like the liberator, it's normally set up to be a tactical fighter with the ability to cloak, destroy buildings, fight, and ambush break. It's comparably better to the domminator and the liberator in stats, and is powerful enough to hold up to a mooncrusher. Many pilots going into this ship choose to jump in a sabre to practise their cloaking.
 * Large battle-ship