Core Dynamics pushed its expertise to the limit when creating the Vulture, employing sophisticated techniques to integrate two large hardpoints into the ship's compact frame. The manufacturer also graced the Vulture with powerful lateral thrusters, allowing it to evade incoming fire while dealing significant damage, and making it particularly deadly in combat.
— In-Game Description
The Vulture is a heavy space-superiority fighter manufactured by Core Dynamics. Featuring two large hardpoints, the Vulture packs serious firepower into a relatively small frame, but as a consequence it has difficulty adapting to roles other than combat. Although its top speed is mediocre compared to other fighters, it is very maneuverable thanks to its powerful lateral thrusters.
Overview
In combat, the Vulture is a powerful small-sized ship. It is capable of easily staying out of the firing range of tougher ships like Anacondas or Pythons and its two large hardpoints are capable of dishing out fairly heavy damage. Moreover, since class 3 weapons don't suffer damage reduction against large sized ships, unlike classes 1 and 2, the Vulture can be seen as an anti-large-ship specialist. However, the low number of hardpoints means weapons such as Missiles, Mines, Torpedoes or Railguns are not viable as they have limited ammo capacities and are not all available in Class 3. This limits the Vulture to only conventional weaponry. As for weapon mount types, both fixed and gimballed mounts are viable, but turreted mounts are inadvisable due to their higher power consumption, lower damage and that they don't take advantage of the Vulture's agility.
Defensively, the Vulture has impressive statistics on paper. It possesses the highest base shield and armour strengths out of all small sized ships, it has very good internal compartments, and it has four utility mounts, the same as larger ships such as Python and Federal Gunship. The Vulture's biggest defensive drawback is its limited power capacity, however, and this greatly limits viable loadout choices and requires smart module priority control.
Another disadvantage of the Vulture is its speed, which is lower than most other small sized ships and even some medium sized ships. This makes it a struggle to catch up to targets and keep under fire. The Vulture's deficient speed is mitigated by formidable manoeuvrability, which is second only to the Eagle MkII.
The Vulture suffers from overspecialization and is very poor in any job besides combat. Unlike the Fer-de-Lance it does very poorly as an anti-Thargoid ship, as its low number of hardpoints limits its use of AX weaponry, leaving it without many options to deal with Interceptors. Against Scouts it also suffers as it will struggle to keep a sightline on the quick moving ships; since it cannot make much use of turreted mounts and they will quickly tear the ship to pieces. Its cargo capacity is much lower than other ships near its price range, so it will do very poorly in any form of trading, mining or pirating. However, its agility makes collecting cargo easier, meaning collector limpets are not needed. It has awful jump range at a woeful maximum of 22.36 ly without engineering, the second lowest of any small sized ship making it not only useless as an explorer, it cannot easily get to Interstellar Factors to clear any bounties.
Overall the Vulture functions as a small Fer-de-Lance; unbeaten in sheer power for its size but is one of the worst ships in any other role. Because it is so limited to Bounty Hunting it has very few options and makes a poor single vessel for a commander to fly and the Asp Explorer or Keelback may be more appealing due to their multi-purpose ability.
The Vulture's two large hardpoints are located above and behind the cockpit, about halfway down the hull of the ship. Due to the spacing between the hardpoints, a loadout of two fixed weapons may have slight issues with converging on smaller targets.
The Vulture has two manned stations. The pilot's station is on the centerline of the ship. The auxiliary station is offset to the port side above and behind the pilot's station. Since turreted mounts are a very bad idea on a Vulture and it has no fighter bay, it is one of the least useful ships for Multicrew.
Purchase Locations
| System | Station | Date Seen | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shinrarta Dezhra | Jameson Memorial | Always available | 10% discount, Founders Permit needed |
| Brestla | i Sola Prospect | Always available | 20% surcharge |
| TZ Arietis | Snyder Enterprise | Jan. 2, 2018 | |
| Wolf 25 | Bonkers | Jan. 2, 2018 | |
| Chi Orionis | Carey Terminal | Jan. 2, 2018 | |
| Picoria | Kohoutek Ring | Jan. 8, 2018 | |
| Kakas | Kube-McDowell Enterprise | Jan.19, 2018 | |
| LP 926-40 | Lee City | March 7, 2018 | |
| Patani | Smith Ring | March 11, 2018 | |
| Frey | Garratt Station | April 30, 2018 | |
| Deciat | Garay Terminal | May 31, 2018 | |
| 109 Piscium | Ising Dock | Jun 18, 2018 | 15% discount |
| Chona | Smoot Station | 2018-07-03 | |
| Ye'kuape | Bobko Hub | Feb 4, 2018 | None |
Outfitting
- Main article: Outfitting
All ships are customisable through the Outfitting menu of Station Services. Listed below is the default load-out for the Vulture.
| Category | Default System | Default Rating | Default Class | Max Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large Hardpoint | Pulse Laser | F | 1 | 3 |
| Pulse Laser | F | 1 | 3 | |
| Utility Mount | Empty | -- | -- | 0 |
| Empty | -- | -- | 0 | |
| Empty | -- | -- | 0 | |
| Empty | -- | -- | 0 | |
| Bulkheads | Lightweight Alloys | I | 1 | 8 |
| Reactor Bay | Power Plant | E | 4 | 4 |
| Thrusters Mounting | Thrusters | E | 5 | 5 |
| Frame Shift Drive Housing | Frame Shift Drive | E | 4 | 4 |
| Environment Control | Life Support | E | 3 | 3 |
| Power Coupling | Power Distributor | E | 5 | 5 |
| Sensor Suite | Sensors | E | 4 | 4 |
| Fuel Store | Fuel Tank [x8] | C | 3 | 3 |
| Internal Compartments | Shield Generator | E | 5 | 5 |
| Empty (M) | -- | -- | 5 | |
| Cargo Rack [x8] | E | 3 | 4 | |
| Empty | -- | -- | 2 | |
| Empty | -- | -- | 1 | |
| Empty | -- | -- | 1 | |
| Advanced Docking Computer | E | 1 | 1 | |
| Supercruise Assist | E | 1 | 1 | |
| Planetary Approach Suite (H) | I | 1 | 1 |
- (L) = Loaned Module
- [x#] = Capacity
- (H) = Requires Elite Dangerous: Horizons, reserved solely for Planetary Approach Suite
- (M) = Military Compartment reserved for Hull Reinforcement Package, Module Reinforcement Package, or Shield Cell Bank
Notes
- The Vulture was added to Elite Dangerous in the 1.2 Wings update released on March 10, 2015.
- The Vulture has an available 16 piece cosmetic ship kit that can be purchased from the Frontier store which allows you to "remodel your ship in your personal style". The ship kit does not affect gameplay.
Trivia
- The Vulture was originally priced at 21,925,615 CR. After an outcry from the community that it was overpriced, Frontier lowered the cost of the Vulture to 4,925,615 CR.
Videos
Gallery
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