I see the advantages of both, and I’ve had decent returns on crane with CM, but the idea of using Stims especially on same round as CM seems great.

Take an evade, pop CM, pop Stims you’ve got a round where you’re practically bullet proof and get your mods on attack. But, it’s just for one round. (But what a round it could be!!)

So the question is: if you are taking CM on your freighter, what are you packing in your snuggling compartment: Stims or Crane?

With Scavenger Crane, you have to assess whether the ability is likely to trigger at a useful time and whether the extra use(s) will have a meaningful impact on the match outcome at the time you are able to use them.

By this I mean what are you expecting to trigger crane off of - your own ships dying or enemy ships dying? If your own ships are dying, that means the ship with Countermeasures isn't the primary target and so it's unlikely that it has needed to trigger Countermeasures yet, so Crane is wasted. If you are triggering off of enemy ships dying, that means you need to reasonably expect to kill an enemy ship at a time in the match that you've already needed to use Countermeasures but not so late in the match that the outcome has already been decided. This generally means you are expecting to face 3-4 ship builds rather than 2 ship builds, and you have enough firepower to remove one of those enemy ships by turn 2-3 of combat.

In general, Scavenger Crane ends up being a "win more" card (i.e. it triggers when the match is already in your favor and just helps you run up the score, rather than saving you from bad match-ups), but in our new Gunboat meta, you might be able to get good value from it depending on your list.

@Transmogrifier you make an interesting point. 2 ship builds are pretty common, but the rise of Kylo Poon boats and others seems three ships will still be prevalent.

Stimms + CM can be a real strong combo, that makes each component stronger, but it’s a one and done deal. Crane can keep on giving.

I guess I need to do some play testing to see how it goes.

... What ship is this?

22 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

... What ship is this?

Probably the yt2400 with smuggling compartment.

28 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

... What ship is this?

Either YT really, or a large based Scum. Not overly concerned with ship specific, but more the utility of the interaction between the two upgrade combos.

It definitely depends on the build. Scavenger crane, for instance is less good on Dash because he can only trigger it for himself at range 2 (assuming HLC). He's not as likely to get his counter measures back.

Rey likes the combo a lot more because 3 agility with re-rolls is great in a joust. Enemies are also much now likely to be at range 1-2 if she's jousting them.

I think it depends on your meta. If you think you’re up against munitions crane and cm is GOOD! Otherwise stims is great for that opening engagement going your way.

12 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Either YT really, or a large based Scum. Not overly concerned with ship specific, but more the utility of the interaction between the two upgrade combos.

It makes a big diff which ship and what you expect to do with it.

The combo isn't particularly needed or required. Though, CM and Glit is obv pretty good. But I usually don't use Glit at all anymore.