The new balancing changes to the centaur and prom (and those that I understand may also be applied to the ragnarok and even atlas) have made the marauder pretty useless. The prom can accelerate much faster than it, even though it weighs more, and can outmanuever it even when the maud is totally unloaded (and even a tpg maud x which only weighs 4000 kg!). Because they can accelerate so much faster, even with their larger size, the maud is now just a moving target, and even the centaur has a better chance of outrunning attackers.

I would like to at least see the acceleration upped a bit on the maud to make it more competitive (it is after all a specialty ship and should be top dog for it's uses, just like the valk and prom). A bit better on turning wouldn't hurt, especially since it's offset by how huge a target it presents other players to shoot at.

Check out the Numbers thread in General for a comparison of the new Prom and the "best" fighting Maud. With any luck, the devs will be applying some changes to the Maud tomorrow. Maybe a slightly increased mass and a thrust closer to 300N.

What is hard is to balance the maud as a heavy ship. If it is, it -very- well risks becoming an utterly -devastating- fightership.

Since its only got small ports, its very prone to being used with only one or two guns and then makes for a WONDERFUL combat ship. :-)

So, if you up the mass+thrust. It will suddenly do all too well with fex... Gauss / flares.. and a tri-flare maud-ram will be the scourge of the universe.

-note- This doesn't mean that I don't think the marauder needs a look-over. They do, but I do want to point out the issues the devs face at this, and the point that the same change that works for the Centaur and atlas( fex) wouldn't work for the marauder.

I agree entirely with what Spider says - however, I think that since it's such a large target and it's speed is maxed out at 200 m/s (although I think the Corvus one has 220 at 60 drain), it's a fair tradeoff to increase the thrust a little. It's main advantage is that it handles well with a large load, and since the centaur and prom both do better than it now at that, it needs a little better thrust. However, that will only get it to accelerate as fast as the prom so that it doesn't just become a target for the SAF :)

If we went with mining slots, we could reduce the number of small slots to two, and add a scanner and one/two mining beam slots (depending on the brand of the maud).

At this point, I think that just increasing the maud's accel would balance the ship fine. I think it's a great trader, and I had a lot of fun at ctc last night with my axia maud, but when I play at pvp with it I get slaughtered - even by a centaur (last night - not that that is any real evidence of the maud's problems, it's probably more a reflection of my skill :)).

Actually, its quite a small target, try it in a 1 vs 2 and compare the cent, vult and maud.. the maud is really small for a target area. (shockingly so actually)

And if you increase the thrust, sure.. go on. make it more powerful than a vulture, and there are already versions that are at the same weight as a vulture... Yes baby! gimme a twoflare + 1 n3 version.

Really, increasing the thrust will serve to do just that, make it a far more vicious fighter. ( TPG maud X is darn good right now )

i dont understand why a 'trade ship' ever needed 3 small weapons ports.

Neither do I, but I'm not bitching :)

I don't see the Maud as a 'trade ship' exactly. I see it as the best all-purpose ship. There are better fighters, but it's very decent. I actually wish more of our 'pirate' players flew Marauders, and actually went after cargo, rather than just credits.

one Maud needs fixing now though, the Valent one. my best suggestion is based on the assumption that the Valent Maud is the vessel with the largest storage space available, and that it's made to transport huge loads of goods, nothing else.

first, we wish to make it so it can move as a trader, with a heavy load, yet not be a fighter without a load. to achieve this, I suggest the following:

weight: 6000Kg.
cus: 75
thrust: 220N
spin torque: 6N
max speed: 50m/s.

now, this is a ship that will be completely impossible to drive when full, so:

turbo thrust: 600N
max turbo speed: 180m/s.
drain: 50

this will give an insane turbo when going straight forward, which means that an empty or lightly loaded ship can run straight forward extremly well, but you first have to point somewhere. you can probably outrun most ships when you're unloaded, but so what? this ship is ment to be used loaded. also:

weapon slots: 1s.

this ship is all about cargo. nothing more. one small slot allows you to mount a single weapon to let you fire at a bot or two, but it's not going to scare off a pirate, and neither is it going to promote it as a fighter.

this ship is a great hauler, nothing more. you can move huge amounts of goods, but it takes forever to dock, turn, align with wormholes et al. if nothing else, I think this is the path of such a vessel. you'll have to turbo to make it move anywhere, something that makes it rather unfitting for a fighter. :-)

comments are welcome!

Without that single flare reduction, oh yeah what a lovely little rocketboost... instant warp speed and the quick and dirty lobby of -very- boosted (250 m/s, I think) flares would indeed be nice