I was playing around with the Starjump Fleet Viewer this morning, and since I’m waiting for someone to get back to me about Work Things(tm) I thought I’d go over the why and wherefores of the ships I own in Star Citizen.

The MDC is a ground vehicle that is specifically designed to tackle incoming ordinance. MDC stands for “mobile defense cannon” and is basically a PDC (point-defense cannon) bolted to the back of a car. If/when we get our homesteads, I can park this in the front yard to (hopefully) take out missiles or bombs that might be falling.

The Pulse is a hovering ground bike. Right now there’s not a lot of use for such craft on account of planets and moons being rife with boulders and other travel hazards, but I’m hoping that some day we can have towns, outposts, and homes with roads to make driving from place to place easier and fun.

I consider myself an industrial player, so of course I have to “own” an ATLS GEO. This is a mech suit with a mining laser! It has exchangeable boxes in the butt for long-term ground mining operations.

Once I have cargo, I need a way to move it quickly and effectively. That’s where the ATLS comes in. This is the stock version which sports a tractor beam. It’s a lot faster than working with hand-held tractors, and is often better than ship-mounted tractors as well.

The Guardian MX is a heavy fighter and is one of only two dedicated combat craft I have. I like it, but don’t necessarily love it; it occupies a niche in my fleet that would feel particularly empty if I didn’t have it, but it only comes out on rare occasions.

The Prospector is one of two industrial workhorse ships I own. It’s currently a “medium” mining vessel, although there are incoming mining ships that might push this into the “small” category. I usually swap the stock bags for the larger ARGO ship bags, swap the mining head for something stronger, and add in the FLTR-XL module to keep the crap out of the hoppers.

The Hornet Ghost is my other combat ship, and my usual go-to for small-scale solo combat missions or for support roles when I can’t/don’t want to man a turret. I have the “Heartseeker” package which allows me to swap out the stealth system for two ballistic gatlings, and add two additional Badger laser repeaters to the nose to make it a pretty good ship.

I bet everyone has an Aurora in their inventory; it’s one of the oldest ships in in the game. I got this one as a referral reward, I believe and while it’s usually showing up as a nuisance NPC in combat encounters, I use it as a taxi to get from place to place without having to park a more useful ship .

The Salvation is a small-class salvager (!). Although the max size ship it can scrape is limited, I have it as a “pocket industrial” along with the Golem so I can fit both in the Ironclad to create a mobile industrial carrier.

Now, the Golem is an in-game purchase meaning I don’t own it outright and it will eventually go away when the servers are wiped. I picked it up because I can fit it into the Ironclad along with the Salvation, and I can mine or salvage anywhere I can fit the Ironclad.

This was another referral reward ship. It’s a variant which allows me to ferry small groups of people from place to place. There’s no gameplay available that allows us to move NPCs, and there are other ships which are better suited for small groups to move from planet to orbit or beyond, but this was free, so I have it.

Not to be confused with the MDC, the MTC is a 2-person mobile gunnery platform. We’ve used it with great success by loading it into a ship like the Asgard, driving it into an NPC stronghold, and mowing down enemies with the turret.

The MSR is one of my favorite, borked ships in the game because it looks real sexy. Unfortunately it has no gameplay support — it’s a smuggling ship with nothing to smuggle — so it has yet to get it’s “Gold Pass” update. Still, it’s got a good sized cargo space that can take small vehicles, and a good amount of fuel to get from place to place. Sadly, the quantum drive sucks, but I guess that’s a trade-off for being faster in NAV mode.

The Hull B is a large cargo hauler, although it doesn’t look like it. When I need to add cargo, the ship will expand, exposing four large external cargo grids. Although the Hull series ships can carry a lot of cargo, the fact that it’s external means everyone can see what you’re hauling and can tractor-beam it away from you when you’re not looking.

The Vulture is my main salvaging ship. It can handle targets larger than the Salvation can (I think) and can spit out more RMC boxes. Sadly, it doesn’t fit well into the Ironclad.

The Aurora Mk II is a recent update to the original Aurora. It looks better and behaves better than it’s ancestor. While I often use this as a taxi as well, I also have the missile and cargo expansions, so I sometimes use it to move small batch cargo from place to place. I have yet to use it in any meaningful combat situation.

The Apollo Triage is a medical ship. I can configure it with Tier 1, 2, or 3 medical beds to treat a wide variety of injury categories.

Keeping with the theme, I also have the Hermes. It looks a lot like the Apollo, but this is a cargo ship. I use this one the most, especially during event periods when I have to move a whole lot of boxes.

Finally, there’s the Iron’chad’ Assault. I know that large ships are aimed at crew gameplay, and while I have some friends who can occasionally hop in and help use this ship move towards it’s full potential, my main purpose behind owning this is for the flight deck. I have the Salvation and the Golem parked inside right now, with two additional ore bags for the Golem. When I get around to it I’ll stock up on RMC and fuel, as I can repair and refuel both smaller ships from inside the Ironclad. Whenever I want to go out and mine or salvage, I can take the ‘Chad to various places, select the smaller ship I want/need to use, and return to the carrier to unload. Assuming I don’t get exploded, I can theoretically stay out in space for an extended period of time, doing work.