+ make it cheaper. At least 25,000 instead of 75,000 credits

Good idea. Hardly anybody uses these things.

I disagree. Instead, make it faster.

Ship cost isn't a problem for a trader: we don't plan on blowing one up every hour.

Three things that matter in a transport are size, durability, and turbo speed. Traders don't use the light moth, because it's 60% smaller than the XC, but only 9% faster. That speed difference isn't enough to keep it form being an easy target for pirates, and isn't enough to make up for the fact that you can haul more than twice the cargo in one trip with an XC.

Cut the light moth's armor to 10k like the XC, and give it a turbo speed of 190 to 200, so it can at least run fast... that will give it a specific role to fill, as the largest *fast* trade ship.

With the new corvus greyhound in play, 190 or even 200 won't be too fast, such that a transport can escape without a struggle. This isn't going to be like the moths of 45k armor and 180 turbo back in the day of mauds and CVs.

Earthshine, there were many suggestions about Aeolus moth, but devs didn't make it better, so some people will start using this.

That's because I suggested drop price to make this vessel cheaper, like in real economics, if no one buys your product (no interest), price often drops to very very low level. :}

pirren: when I look at a trade ship cost, though, I really only consider it a loss of 5% of the list price, because when I'm done with the trade ship, I sell it again, and get that money back. Sometimes I even make a profit on the ship, if I'm selling it someplace sufficiently far from where it can be purchased. Therefore, the price of the ship really doesn't carry any weight when dealing with trade ships, unlike PVP or PVE combat ships, where you will lose the investment frequently when you die.

Traders in general aren't hurting for money, because they don't have anything to spend it on that doesn't make a return later. It can be hard for a trader to accumulate wealth from trade, just because of low profit margins on routes compared to things like escort missions, but once they have it, the money just sits around and isn't an object of spending. A trader is more concerned about the cost of losing a full load of cargo, than they are about the ship, and to keep from losing that cargo, they need ships with speed and durability to run routes through grey space.

I'm on board with the make it faster idea.

Yeah, price is still meaningless in VO.

Faster would increase its usefulness far more than cheap. Or drop the requirements so new players can access it easily.

If it were up to me, I would change the following stats:

Name: Current|Suggested

Price: 75,000|50,000
Armor: 15,000|12,000
Mass: 28,000 kg|25,000 kg
Turbo_Speed: 175 m/s|190 m/s
Max_Speed: 65 m/s|60 m/s
Thrust: 500N|450N
Turbo_Thrust: 700N|750N
Spin_Torque: 19Nm|16-18Nm

The license is already only trade five, besides the Basic Trader III badge requirement (negligable for any trader).

Fair enough. What about putting a wider gap between the base moth & the XC? I'm sure this will make me more unpopular than I already am ;) but what about raising the basic moth to about trade 10 and the XC to 15?

Ach. Trade 15 doesn't seem too bad to people who have it already. It takes a loong time to get it when you don't. Perhaps 11 or 12, but not 15. 9 for the regular behemoth, 12 for the XC?

Yeah, that was mostly meant as tongue & cheek. I'm going to start a new thread suggesting a bit more spread between variants

tarenty +1 for moth idea

[EDIT]moved thoughts about XC to parallel thread[/EDIT]