#evnposting

Next up, my favorite: the Polaris Raven.

At 1,200 meters and 1,200 tons, it's lightweight for it's size but also one of two biggest ships in the game, the other being the Aurora Carrier, which is heavier.

This thing is my favorite ship in the game, it comes default with capacitor pulse lasers. My favorite weapon. A pinkish purple beam that reaches pretty far and sounds cool. It hits really hard. It's one of a few ships considered "the best" depending on your play style. I really like the snakey turning system, personally. But it is hard for many to use. These tend to store Manta fighters. Many of them can also stealth. It's a semi fast ship, faster than other large ships.

In honor of my conversation with @brightlotusmoon about shapes.

especially the rhomboid/parallelogram

Anyway fellas meet the beloved eraser ships!

This is the ship you start in. It is 8 meters long and 15 tons.

So honestly I have actually gone into duels with that exact ship at the bottom, called a manticore. Just one hit from that beam and your toast btw. If you go behind the manticore you can shoot it and not get hit because it's a turret blind spot for the manticore. It takes a very long time to take that down because all you have is a maximum of 2 guns and barely any space for much else.

"Sigma Shipyards first produced this simple in-system shuttle over two hundred years ago, and the basic keel design hasn't been changed since. The shuttle has only enough power for three jumps, a single light blaster and a tiny shield generator; enough to protect against micrometeoroids but a few direct hits by even a light blaster will cause real problems for this craft."

And for the next entry, the heavy shuttle!

This one is longer and bigger. 12 meters and 25 tons

Honestly it's a really good first upgrade to your shuttle because it's generally the cheapest and fastest to get into. It's slower though and that can be a drawback. It has better space for cargo missions tho. I spent a lot of time in these.

Whew so the Polaris faction fighter class ship, Manta. A 10 meter, 8 ton ship.

My first time I managed to get one of these, I ran out of fuel in a system with no available refuel areas 😭 I spent time flying around shooting rocks in depresso of my failure. So I restarted the game on a new pilot and got one the right way.

These are pretty puny armor wise but have pretty good shielding for a fighter. Next to no space tho so not very good for missions. Easily the fastest ship in the game at fully upgraded. Uses a biorelay laser that packs a punch and sounds like a cricket.

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Today we're covering a rather peculiar ship, the Polaris Zephyr.

50 meters long, 90 tons.

I used this a few times, it is similar to a starbridge or abomination in size by definitely more powerful (because Polaris) these are fun because they come with a cloak (stealth) and can jump systems easier.

"The Zephyr was originally designed specifically for use with the cloaking organ. Naturally, such a design meshed well with the requirements of the Mu'hari to interact and fly amongst the peoples of other nations, so they added design specifications until the final version of the Zephyr was born. It is a versatile little craft, falling somewhere between the categories of fighter, freighter and gunboat without falling short in any way."

Also, there is a special NPC that flies around.

This is ShadeOfBlue.

'Ben "ShadeOfBlue" Garrett was a beta tester for EV Nova who won a contest to name the Zephyr and consequently appears as an unusual blue-tinted Zephyr person in EV Nova.'

Quotes:

"I'm bluuue, oh so bluuue. Yes it's truuue, I'm so bluuuuue..."

"ShadeOfBlue sincerely hopes you do not mind him speaking in the third person as he greets you."

This is for you @brightlotusmoon because you'll see it has ship mechanics a little similar to Voyager (the sides expand outward before entering hyperspace)

Starting with the Auroran Argosy

Both this one and the next one are 30 meters long, weighing 150 tons.

I don't really have a large amount of experience using these, as they're pretty fragile and kinda slow. Turning is pretty bad but that's an average Auroran vessel experience lol. You can deck it out with 4 guns but the turret cap is 2 and these really could use more because of turning struggles. All around an okay ship if you're just doing cargo and passenger missions. Definitely upgrade when you can tho.

"The Heraan house have always held scientists and scholars in much higher regard than the rest of the Empire. The fertile environment in which Heraan technicians work has produced this surprisingly trim vessel. Built more along the lines of early Federation efforts, the Argosy packs many improvements on even the latest Federation efforts, and is a spritely performer. It sports twin hyperdrive 'nacelles' that allow for more accurate FTL travel, and those selfsame nacelles can fold outward for excellent maneuverability in atmospheric flight."

The pirate version makes great fodder for training up your combat rating and of course its handful of credits. Otherwise using this ship as your own has some of the same issues as the Auroran but with an extra gun slot setting it to 5 total.

Ah the Pirate faction Manticore. These are 100 meters long, weighing 1750 tons.

The first time I found one of these I was in the starter ship you get when you first enter the game. After a few failures to this thing I decided to make it my mission to try taking it down skillfully. And after like an hour, I did. I ended up getting one of these later, and with some upgrades these are very handy for disabling other ships. The ion particle cannon is very fun. The only downside is the federation will attack you because everything on it is #illegal pirate stuff.

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