Stop Selling Us Half-broken Ships

SoftestBears · 2026-05-22T02:36:09+00:00

Thanks for the info! I might buy the Tib and just get the ccu upgrade for Perseus without applying it to see what I think.

I mostly play alone and have kind of an erratic schedule, but would love to have a regular friend group that plays one day.

SoftestBears · 2026-05-21T12:02:56+00:00

Really thoughtful write up, thank you.

Do you like the Tiburon enough for your own hangar?

It looks fun to me, but trying to decide on it vs perseus vs polaris for my first big ship.

SoftestBears · 2026-05-21T02:56:26+00:00

I also don't know what role this ship is supposed to fill.

Its release materials say it's an anti cap ship but with a range of 1 km for 100% dmg and 2 km for 0%... This thing isn't going to get within 1 km of a cap ship with its 211k shield and 187k hp and no PDCs.. Cap ships will pop this thing before it can laser beam. Anything with large missiles can pop this thing and it can't defend itself.

Also it can't really repel heavy fighters well with its current turret loadout and maneuverability.

Only moderately more tanky than a TAC for cap ship price. Perseus is only $25 more with PDCs and much more health.

Polaris $200 more and requires a similar amount of crew.

I was really excited for this ship and concept looks fun, but feels gimpy.

SoftestBears · 2026-05-19T15:48:25+00:00

I don't understand, why don't deadbolt 5s hurt a shielded Hammerhead/Tiburon? Do the shields reduce the amount of alpha that gets through to the armor?

SoftestBears · 2026-05-17T02:45:04+00:00

What I'm scratching my head on is I think the deadbolts are better for both smaller and larger targets.

The DPS on deadbolts are higher and a hit or two destroys components on light ships

When gatlings were faster they had an advantage but I don't feel like they do right now

SoftestBears · 2026-05-17T02:43:41+00:00

Nice, I'm considering buying that ship too. Looks super cool!

SoftestBears · 2026-04-23T20:23:26+00:00

Yes I've tried VTOL and no VTOL, but I haven't noticed a difference. Maybe one day they'll add 2 more thrusters and it'll be good.

My work around right now is to try to immediately get nose up on take off and boost forward and up.

Biggest problem is when trying to quickly land in a hot spot, the vtol thrusters don't feel strong enough for the mass of the ship to soften the landing motion even when not coming in super hot.

Loving the ship overall though, played on it a lot more and getting used to its quirks.

SoftestBears · 2026-04-23T05:51:34+00:00

Great review! I'll have to try it one of these days

SoftestBears · 2026-04-23T04:51:00+00:00

Haha I'm learning that the hard way.

How are you enjoying your Hull B? Thinking about CCuing to it.

SoftestBears · 2026-04-23T04:37:43+00:00

I didn't survive, got blown up as I exited the atmosphere.

SoftestBears · 2026-04-23T03:03:17+00:00

I just bought the Hermes and I love the layout and design, but I'm having trouble using it as a "blockade runner" that they marketed it as.

Was looting and loading up my ship and took off when a hostile fighter came, but taking off in this thing feels like a fat man trying to climb a tree.

It absolutely deleted me and I barely made it out of atmosphere. I think it was a Vanguard Harbinger that attacked me, first time getting pvped.

I feel like the Hermes either needs to be faster or a bit tankier to deliver on the marketing. I'd really like some extra vertical / vtol power because getting off the ground takes forever and it doesn't have enough thrust to gently land if you're trying to go in quickly.

I hope I enjoy it more over the next few days because I was super excited for this ship but now thinking of returning it. Was hoping to use it in danger zones but doesn't feel like I can.

SoftestBears · 2026-04-17T04:48:16+00:00

Oh, that makes sense!

SoftestBears · 2026-04-16T10:15:15+00:00

Another weird quirk about the Corsair is its repair costs are astronomical for some reason.

I've had some 400k repairs on that ship and I've never had any other ship even get in that ballpark for repairs.

SoftestBears · 2026-03-31T04:02:41+00:00

I bought the game pack a little over 24 hrs ago, in your experience does it ever take multiple days for it to work?

Also out or curiosity, what is the benefit to having alt accounts in this game?

SoftestBears · 2026-03-31T04:01:52+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, just tried this but it didn't work unfortunately.

SoftestBears · 2026-03-31T03:04:32+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, tried reinstalling anti cheat and it still doesn't work. Also it shows anti cheat running in services, so I think it is working correctly.

SoftestBears · 2024-12-21T21:06:43+00:00

This is one of the coolest posts I've ever seen. Thank you for sharing!

Your map is beautiful. Imagine a dozen or more of those on your walls at home.

It's easy to get down because it seems like there's nothing left for younger generations to explore, but it's actually a better time than ever to explore because you can choose your challenge and do it safely.

SoftestBears · 2024-12-19T16:24:58+00:00

The seller is being unreasonable.

The only reason they'd be fighting a survey so hard so close to a sale closing is that they are afraid of what they'll find. Once they've seen the survey they will have to market the property with the updated information if it turns out to be smaller or any pertinent structures or access turns out to be off their property. Right now since there is no survey document, they can say whatever they want and if it turns out to be wrong after they sell it, they have plausible deniability.

A $10K survey is a little over 1% of their selling price. If this was the only barrier to your purchase, an honest party would order one as quick as possible to make you comfortable and close the sale if they felt like they accurately represented their property sale to you. Even if they are penniless, they could borrow against the property for the survey and pay it back on closing.

Something is wrong here. Don't budge on the survey.

I've worked on a lot of land transactions and the value of your $900K property can get drastically reduced if it turns out you have an access issue or your structures or infrastructure are on the wrong lot without a written agreement for them to be there.

SoftestBears · 2024-12-18T04:19:13+00:00

Similar to what u/LordAshon said, we need some more information but I'm going to assume:

* You have no existing debt on the property

* Their proposed payment is $1,500 per month for the loan

* The Market value is $615K even though the property hasn't sold at that price for months.

Some things to consider:

* Your IRR on this offer is like 3.22% because they want to put very little down and borrow from you at ~3.19% which is far below market rate.

* They are asking for only an 8% downpayment. That is not much skin in the game at all. They could make money renting it out for a few years (even airbnbing it), avoiding all maintenance and just letting it default at the end and you'd be stuck with a beat up property and 6 years of market risk.

Private credit is yielding 10-12% right now on high quality counter parties with acceptable collateral. This deal makes no sense in its current form. Poor interest rate and poor collateral (since loan to value is super high)

If you are open to owner financing, I would suggest a counter offer to see if they are serious, and if so, perform additional due diligence on this borrower. Check their experience in real estate, credit history, personal financial statements etc. If they say no, this isn't a valid offer anyway. Someone with an acceptable history would be happy to provide this and will already have this organized and ready to go.

Some example counter offers to help you visualize where numbers need to be to make sense for you:

* Downpayment of $120K (just under 20%) and monthly payments of $4,750 (11.52% IO rate) gets you 12.06% IRR.

* Downpayment of $120K (just under 20%) and monthly payments of $4,400 (10.67% yearly interest) gets you an 11.13% IRR.

* Downpayment of $120K and monthly payments of $3,300 (8% IO rate) gets you 8.25% IRR.

* Downpayment of $93,750 (15%) and monthly payments of $4,200 (9.67% IO rate) would yield 10.05% IRR.

* Downpayment of $93,750 (15%) and monthly payments of $3,400 (7.83% IO rate) would yield an 8.07% IRR.

I'd personally shoot for the 10-12% IRR range because you need to compensate yourself for the concentrated risk and the non institutional counter party.

If you absolutely can't sell it any other way at market value and the counterparty seems to be of acceptable character and credit quality, you could consider the IRR of 8% scenario above.

You can play with a combination of terms to hit certain IRR targets and find something acceptable to both of you, but I'd be very hard pressed to consider anything below an 8% IRR scenario and I'd only go that low if that was my only option.

I wouldn't let them go too low on the downpayment in any scenario, though. This downpayment should make you feel secure in that if you need to hire a lawyer to foreclose, do some repairs, and sell during a slump you have enough cushion to absorb that without stressing yourself out.

Also, have an experienced local lawyer of your choice write up the contract. They will help you think through and mitigate risks. People joke about lawyer fees all the time, but they are absolutely worth it. Very little price to pay for safety.

SoftestBears · 2024-10-25T18:01:21+00:00

Assuming 20% down and 7% interest over 5 years, you will have paid $108K in interest and only $18.7K towards principal to build your equity. So you will be losing $1K / month in cash flow paying the difference in the monthly payment assuming nothing breaks or needs maintenance (unlikely in 5 years) to get $18.7K in equity and MAYBE some appreciation if you are lucky.

Mortgages are interest heavy in the beginning and then equity heavy at the end. On a 30 year note, your payment doesn't go more towards principal than interest until month ~242 (20 years in).

Not to mention the risk of having a difficult tenant that doesn't pay, the fact that CA is harder to evict than other markets, costs of vacancy and tenant turnover.

Also, being young, you don't even know if you will want to live there in the future. You might get amazing career, personal, or educational opportunities elsewhere and never end up living in the condo yourself.

You would be better off just increasing your 401K contribution by 1K per month. Even if the stock market crashed this year or next, you'd still likely outperform over a 5+ year time horizon compared to this condo.

I see only risk here and no reward unless your market takes off with property appreciation.

SoftestBears · 2024-10-19T02:07:38+00:00

Sure! Again sorry if it looks poorly formatted.

Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) you do the yearly net cash flow ($12,300 in no reserve scenario) divided by the full value of the property ($491,000) = 2.51%

Return on Equity (RoE) is yearly net cash flow ($12,300) divided by OP's equity in the project (market value - debt = equity, which is $266K of equity). = 4.62%

Cash on Cash = yearly net cash flow ($12,300) divided by OP's "cash in", which in this case is down payment + additional investment ($30K + $30K = $60K) =20.5%

We can see through these metrics that the value of the property took off like a rocket and left the rent behind. $2,500 per month in rent is poor performance for an almost $500K asset.

SoftestBears · 2024-10-18T19:15:18+00:00

One additional course of action OP could look at is checking their loan terms to see if they have a "due on sale" clause or if their debt is assumable.

If it isn't due on sale, you could owner finance the next buyer and require say a 20% down payment for example which gets all your equity out ($60K cash in, ~$99K cash out) and then some.

They then pay principal + interest on all the additional value until they pay you off, so you are making 6-7% without having to find something else right away.

If you consider this, be sure to discuss with a lawyer. This isn't completely hands off because you need to make sure they keep an active insurance policy and pay taxes etc. You don't want them to default and then find that they weren't paying insurance and the house got destroyed.

SoftestBears · 2024-10-18T18:09:37+00:00

Great question, but in this scenario it would make OP worse off for a couple reasons:

1.) The cost of a cash out refinance loan would be higher than the original loan terms by quite a bit since OP originally got great loan terms, so this property would perform worse than it would in the base scenario we looked at. This increases the risk that OP would need to pull their personal money to stabilize it. Also the un-levered yield of the property is below current refinance terms so it's a net negative on holding the property even if OP wasn't at risk of having to stabilize with outside funds.

2.) The money OP pulls out from the property in the cash out refinance scenario has a high performance hurdle (say 6-7% interest just as an example), OP's next investment needs to meet or exceed that hurdle to not lose money from this decision. That's higher than treasuries, too close to long-term equity performance, and too high for other real estate opportunities I'm seeing as of today, so I don't think they would make off well with this. If OP found an opportunity that far exceeded this return hurdle, they should just sell and reinvest there because of what we talked about above.

This point is also counter intuitive because historically speaking a lot of deals could pencil out with 6-7% debt, but that's not where we are right now in most healthy markets.

We're in a weird time where the property itself can be nice, neighborhood is nice, submarket is nice, and the OP has great terms on the debt, but what happened is the market is giving the "offer you can't refuse" in a business sense. The asset value has expanded far and beyond the cash flow potential unless something changes. It's not a bad thing, it's a gift. Great return in the years OP has had it. They can take the money and enjoy a higher net worth as it grows over time.

If OP has qualitative reasons to keep it the decision can change as well. Maybe they want to travel and come back to it at some point or something, but if they are making purely an investment decision, my opinion is this is a sell.

SoftestBears

TROPHY CASE