Pilot
Name: Katrina Le-Feir (UIT)
Rank: Lieutenant and council member of Phoenix Alliance
Stats: here
Deneb Run Racing Career
| DR # | Standing | Config | Run Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 96 | - | - | Host |
| 95 | - | - | Host |
| 94 | 2nd | A | 29:24 |
| 93 | 1st | A | 28:05 |
| 92 | 2nd | A | 27:42 |
| 90 | 3rd | A | 30:57 |
| 89 | 1st | A | 30:10 |
| 87 | 1st | A | 31:34 |
| 86 | 2nd | A | 31:50 |
| 85 | 1st | A | 30:21 |
| 84 | 2nd | A | 27:59 |
| 83 | 1st | A | 29:12 |
| 82 | - | A | DNF |
| 81 | 1st | A | 29:09 |
| 80 | 1st | A | - |
| 77 | 3rd | A | 33:46 |
| 75 | 7th | B | 35:08 |
| 74 | 5th | C | - |
| Config | Ship | Powercell | Weaponry |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Orion Hornet Convoy Guardian Elite | Fast Charge | - |
| B | Warthog Mk II Upgraded | Fast Charge | - |
| C | Warthog Mk II Upgraded | Fast Charge | Law Gun |
Why the Orion Hornet?
The table below shows the most popular ships used in the Deneb Run, along with their specs. It's ordered by ship mass, from lightest to heaviest:
| Ship | Faction | Level | Licenses | Armor | Cargo (cu) |
Ports | Mass (kg) |
Length (m) |
Thrust (N) |
Speed (m/s) |
Torque (Nm) |
Turbo (m/s) |
Drain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC-107 Bus Hunter | - | - | 
|
6800 | 12 | 2S | 3700 | 10 | 210 | 65 | 7.0 | 210 | 50/s |
| Raptor Protoype | TPG | ~290 | 4/4/-/-/- | 8300 | 8 | 2S | 3900 | 17 | 200 | 55 | 8.5 | 220 | 54/s |
| Vulture MkIII | - | - | 4/3/-/-/- | 8600 | 2 | 2S | 4000 | 12 | 220 | 65 | 7.0 | 220 | 55/s |
| Hornet Convoy Guardian Elite | Orion | 720 | 4/5/1/-/- | 13000 | 10 | 4S | 5600 | 17 | 240 | 65 | 7.0 | 220 | 50/s |
| Warthog MkII Upgraded | - | - | 2/2/-/-/- | 9400 | 8 | 1S, 1L | 5700 | 10 | 230 | 65 | 7.2 | 220 | 50/s |
Let's start saying that there's no "perfect" DR ship: as most things in Vendetta Online, your own flying style indicates what ship yields the best balance for you. I encourage you to try the various ships and see for yourself how you perform with each one, which one is most appropriate to your flight preference. Besides having a cool name, I prefer the OHCGE, whose strenghts and weaknesses are as follow:
It has an infiniboost engine
I find infiniboost (an engine that drains the battery at a rate equal to or less than the rate at which the battery recharges) extremely important in the DR: especially in troublesome sectors, I want to be able to jump while traveling at full speed. The Raptor and the Vulture must let go the turbo boost just before the wormhole (at best) to let the battery recharge fully for the jump. That last slowdown can (and often did!) spell death in the most dangerous legs of the lap, where every kind of bolt/bullet/rocket/missile is raining on your vessel.
Infiniboost lets you also set up a turbo lock bind, to be used to emerge from wormholes and just forget about battery recharge. The breakeven point to be able to sector jump with a Fast Charge battery is 67 energy points out of 250. As soon as you reach this value, usually looking for a straight and clear path out of the wormhole, you can engage the turbo lock, wait for the 3km mark, and be done with the wormhole sector.
It's fast
The Deneb Run is a timed race, and having good top speeds (both cruise and turbo) is indeed critical. Cruising at 65 m/s and boosting at 220 m/s, the Hornet has the (nominal) highest speeds among the contenders. While the acceleration leaves a lot to be desired, there are enough "long streak" race segments (think Itan or Sol) where you can catch up and outrun slower ships. As a rule of thumb, on distances greater than 3000m, a higher top speed can compensate for a slower acceleration, even more so with infiniboost. It has also a cruise speed of 65 m/s, which means it's faster than the Raptor when the turbo is not engaged - like when you're just waiting for your battery to replenish, as in the Bractus-Odia wormhole.
It's quite resilient
With an armor rating of 13000, it's the toughest racing ship. The Deneb Run is a dangerous event, where people are supposed to fire onto racers. You will cross sectors where Strike Forces, battling capital ships, unrats, and especially other players are ready to vaporize you, so having a solid hull is very, very important in my opinion. I often docked in Odia M-14 with just a few percentage points of my ship framework. With anything else than an Orion Hornet, that stray flare, or that neutron burst, could have meant the end of my run. Too many debris of ECs and Vultures float near the wormholes of Sedina, Metana and Bractus to convince me that's a good idea to give up good protection during the race.
It's heavy and clumsy
The downside of the Orion Hornet is quickly assessed: its acceleration and manevuerability are only slightly better than a concrete brick. The weight, acceleration and spin torque prevent this ship from being able to dodge, or quickly align toward the wormholes. It needs some training to steer it, and on the short distances it's left in the dust by lighter vessels with explosive accelerations, like EC and Vulture. The length and cross section are rather large, too, and smaller and thinner ships have a distinct advantage.
It's a corporate variant
A minor annoyance, but you need an high standing with Orion (720) to be able to purchase it. Gaining such standing may be non-trivial, especially since Orion is a gold/gray space faction, the missions needed to increase the standing can be boring and/or dangerous, and the risk of hopelessly ruining the reputation with a wrong move is always lurking.
Furthermore, Orion has only four stations: two in Azek, one in Dau, and one in Latos. The other ships are much more available, across the entire galaxy; even the TPG Raptor is present in nine stations, spread over five systems.