What's the difference in ships in Wipeout HD?

Question

By default, you have two ships available for every team. One seems to 'outperform' the other on the stats screen. Why would you ever choose the one with lower stats?

When unlocking my first ship, I noticed it isn't any better stats-wise.

Do you simply unlock new skins?

Answer

Each of the ships in Wipeout HD is balanced differently. There are some that are clearly inferior (ie, the overall total of their stats is lower than other ships) but they balance that by having best-in-class performance in a certain area. Depending on the track, they might outperform a ship with overall better stats, simply because they focus on an area important to the track.

Your play style (and strengths/weaknesses) factor into this as well. If you're good in a straight shot, but terrible in turns, you may want to pick a ship with better handling, for instance.

This guide lists all of the ships and their respective stats (including the unlockable ships) so that you can determine which one you like best.

The Fury expansion pack unlocked a new set of ships with better stats - these ships are categorically better than their 'standard' variants. There's no reason to use the 'standard' ships if you have the Fury expansion.

Skins are unlocked for completing certain challenges, and they factor into achievements, but there's not much else that they do besides that and showing off your Wipeout HD skills to other players online..

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How to get the “Stats Life” trophy

Question

In Wipeout HD Fury, how to get the "Stats Life" trophy?
The trophy says: "Attain and view every stat in the game". Quite cryptic for me. I then checked on trophy guide. They say:

After you load up Wipeout with the Fury pack, go to Options, then Extras, and then Statistics. Where ever you see a 0, you need to add something there. You’ll probably have to do a tournament with the new tracks (Talon’s Junction Forward/Reverse, The Amphiseum Forward/Reverse, Modesto Heights Forward/Reverse, and Tech De Ra Forward/Reverse ) and do a round of Zone Battle, Eliminator, and Detonator (you might have to do a round on each of the tracks dedicated to these modes as well, Pro Tozo, Mallavol, Corridon 12, and Syncopia).
If after doing all of that the trophy doesn’t unlock, go back to the Stats page and look through every page. Either you missed one or the trophy will unlock when you’re looking at the Stats page.

Now, when I'm checking the stats page, I don't have any number at 0. Should I also have each of the bar charts above 0?

Answer

I'm copying the below quote from this link

Under Options on the main menu there is a new area called Extras. Under Extras you will find Statistics which is what you need to view to get this trophy. To obtain all of the stats you must race on every track, yes all 24 tracks, and fire and absorb every weapon. You will notice that is shows your progress on Arcade Perfect on the first page, don't worry you don't have to earn Arcade Perfect to get Stats Life. UPDATE: You must do a split screen race on any track as well. If you don't have two controllers you can use either a Guitar Hero guitar or your PS3 DVD remote, just set the remote to controller 2.

If you follow a link, the author makes a special note about the split screen race being necessary. See if that helps.

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