L'ennui said:
Hmmm, didn't know I'd be supplanted by the AI. That's kinda... novel. I'll start reading the damn papers, then.
BTW I'm loving my pimped-out Cobra Mk III so far! I've gotten to "below average" combat rating... which for me is a lot.
I usually stick with an Asp, but Cobra III is an excellent craft. Might be an endgame one (not counting two special ships), in fact, if you prefer an agile, multirole vessel, to some sluggish behemoth.
Sure, cruising around in a heavily shielded Boa or Panther, and not even bothering to change the course after being attacked, just vaporizing the pirates with the turrets has it's upsides, but in itself flying those beasts simply isn't much fun.
BTW: My rule of a thumb when equipping the ship for most careers is that you should only leave enough cargo space unoccupied by equipment to be able to fit just enough fuel for two jumps. On normal runs it leaves you with half of the hold occupied by jump fuel, the other half with any cargo you may want to trade. With smaller, multirole craft, there is little point in trading anything but high value stuff and contraband anyway, so small quantities should suffice, while class 8 hyperdrive used in largest freighters consumes 81t of fuel in one jump, meaning 81t of cargo space, without sacrificing firepower or shields.
Also, if you're good enough shoot to use a pulse laser, an interesting idea is to put a 5-30MW pulse laser on forward mount, and 1MW beam on the back. Pulse laser will pack enough punch for about any target (especially 30MW mining one, although it has awful rate of fire), while the whole setup is significantly lighter than 4MW beam, but if you get swarmed by small fighters, you switch to rear gun and start accelerating away - they will have to use most of their thrust to keep up, leaving little for evasive manoeuvres, so 1MW beam should melt them with ease.
One more thing - try to play a little bit with getting from point to point without autopilot, get a hang of putting ship in an actual closed orbit, so that it circles the planet without getting thrown away or falling on it without the need for engines. The former can prove bloody useful if you get damaged or are in a hurry, the latter is really rewarding and allows you to be all
towards all the "LOL Freelancer" people.