I will be updating this list yes. However it is not inferior in any way. In fact it is superior to every other single or double seat ship in the game when it comes to finding things.
"Surplus U4A-3 hulls are routinely available on the open market, making it a favored explorer ship among military veterans who opt to continue flying after their service, many of them having already come to know it’s reliability, ease of repair and never-say-die attitude. The Terrapin has an all-around reputation as a ship that can get travel beyond the most distant jump point… and bring you back safely to civilization."
"From a game design perspective, we view the new Terrapin as the first bespoke explorer ship. Much like the Prospector is the initial dedicated mining ship, the Terrapin will be a starting point for anyone pursuing a purely exploratory career."
"What will the travel range be like on a Terrapin?
Very long. The Terrapin packs much bigger Hydrogen and Quantum Fuel tanks to increase its operational range. It’s designed to stay out in the verse for as long as possible."
"Exploration involves a number of different possible activities, not all of which involve taking material things home. True to its original design as an intel and recon ship, the Terrapin is more concerned with finding, cataloging, and reporting critical information and discovering points of interest than it is about taking home incidental salvage, trinkets, or loose resources. The Terrapin’s great emphasis on scanning and detection – including the dedicated utility hardpoints for doubling down on extra scanning capacity – make it ideal for exploring and data processing larger volumes of space more efficiently than even many of its small-explorer contemporaries."
"It may not be able to bring back many souvenirs, but the real point behind the Terrapin is to locate valuable things for friends."
"Finding samples on trips, recovering some salvage, that’s all something that can be placed inside the Terrapin and brought back for the eggheads to study or someone to make a buck on the black-markets of GrimHex, but the Terrapin’s focus is on data collection, worth its SCU weight in gold. Selling the mining spot on a virgin world or finding the location of the most wanted pirate lord in 3 systems is what the Terrapin pilots are all about, and those are the paydays they are chasing."
This is not a ship like the 315P or the DUR. its sole purpose is exploration. Not its not a Aquila or Carrack where it can self sustain for months at a time and has all kinds of rovers and snubs to do so much more than find it to begin with. It is a ship designed to find things and make it back in one piece and not much ells. it is as they say above the first bespoke explorer ship. Yes other ships have been modified to explore as a secondary task. This ship is made for "exploring" i.e. going out there alone and finding things. No you can't do much else besides find things with it. But what more do you need when you are the only one who knows of it and have time to go get a ship better suited for exploiting what you found?