Review (4.86)
Oh dear.
The first two words that come into my head when I look at this ship perfectly sum up it's performance against anything Snubcraft sized that is in a group of three, maybe even two people.
When you first take a glance at this ship, you read it's awfully inaccurate description. When compared to the Bottlenose's description, this ship sounds absolutely godlike. You'll probably fall head over heels for the Orca, regardless of how it looks out of place it the AP manufacturing shipline.
Sadly, when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is, the Orca fails. Hard. With six turrets and a forward gun, you wonder what could go wrong. Well firstly, the Forward gun is probably the worst forward gun in the whole mod, being dangerously close to being a bad-arc'd Battle Razor. Five of it's turrets fire forwards, which is decent but only three fire to the sides, which can be a serious problem if you're up against bombers(thankfully, the Bottlenose fills that niche). Six turrets fire from behind, which would be great, if you could fire from behind all the time that is.
It's shape and agility don't do too much favors for it. You can fully dodge novas but if your opponent knows what he's doing, you're dead meat. Nicely aimed SNACs can easiliy penetrate your hull (Yet again, the Bottlenose fills this Niche, as SNACs will have a hard time hitting it).
The only real attractive thing about this gunboat, is it's powercore. Otherwise, it's not so hot.
If you want to dismiss everything I've said and go for this ship anyway, you might aswell go and ask for some Liberty Gunboat Turrets/Liberty Gunboat Defense Turret or Bretonia Gunboat Primary Turrets, since they can work a charm with this. Aswell as a Cerb + Missile loadout.
I warn you though, if your opponents know what they're doing, the battle won't be pretty for you.
In conclusion, the Orca is an ambitious ship, which fails to fill those ambitions. You'd be far better off sticking to a Bottlenose, as the Orca can die to most crimminal threats out there. If you can RP permission though, I highly advise you try and get a Liberty Gunboat or Bretonia Gunboat, which can be used at 90% core.
It's ironic, because the descriptions says that the Outcasts and Corsairs fear this ship. In reality, it's just another gnat on the glass of their GBs and GSs. If ever met by either of them, they will toast you very easiliy.
In the next update, I hope this sad ship will be corrected.
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Review by
Lythrilux
