Forums » Suggestions
"Liberty Class" ships...
Ok, so Liberty Class merchant vessels were first mass-produced around the 1920's. They were cheap, slow as hell, and huge. Sure, the Maurader is ok for trading, but you can also kill with it. It's fairly fast and manuverable, too. I'm talking about something with 20+ cargo that's reall, really slow and unprotected. And not very well armed. Maybe a single large port. It'd have low armor and be very expensive. It would require escorts, since it would be a sitting duck for pirates. This may not seem practical now, but here:http://www.guildsoftware.com/vendetta.html under somewhere or other it mentions something about corporations. Maybe these could only be for pilots of trade corporations, who would then hire a "rent a cop" service from another corporation and split the profits. Dunno, I got the idea last night.
I recognize that the concept of a completely unarmed freighter is not one that I specifically made, but neither is the request outside the bounds of the link I made.
A couple of points:
1) If the thing is sluggish, slow, and completely unarmed - I don't think many people will use it for long because it will just be too boring not to contribute anything to the fight. No one has outlined why three traders wouldn't simply take three Marauders and travel with greater ease, flexibility and safety.
2) None of the suggestions in the link I posted are capital ships, save the Corvette. They are large normal ships of a size intermediate between what we have now and a small capital ship, and are meant to show how the size of ships we have now can scale up smoothly to blend in with small capital ships. Unlike a capital ship, these ships are intended to be within the price range of average players having invested a few weeks of play in the game. Sometime maybe I'll post actual capital ship class ideas so you can see how I think they differ.
3) Go down all the way to the bottom of the page. Viola, large normal ships that carry cargo at the expense of manueverability and weapons.
4) As I said in my post, I'm really somewhat against the notion of 'freighter' at all. A few threads back (in a thread about ammo) I talked about a mass system. Take a look at that and imagine that your ship could use all the unused mass it saved by not mounting weapons and by mounting lighter and less powerful engines and put in that space more cargo. Custumibility. Some things may make better trading vessels than others, but anything could be made into a trading vessel. Add ideas like 'external cargo pod' upgrades and you have complete configurability at a cost in manueverability.
5) While the system I'm talking about is almost certainly not identical to what the devs are planning, I have reason to believe that in some elements it closely resembles the devs goals, so I hope you will pardon me for trying to influence their thinking in other areas particularly important to me (balance between classes, diversity of ships in size not in role, configurability, consistancy across as many ship classes as possible as demonstrated by ideas like using combinations of small batteries when practical rather than have 'a size', 'b size', 'd size' and so forth). Or at the least, maybe I can goad them into telling me what they actually thinking at present.
6) slappyknappy's post is telling I think: "While I personally would arm my freighter and soup it up as much as possible..." I suspect the average 'merchant classed' player (not that I suspect we'll have actual classes) will very quickly want to graduate from an unarmed tub that's basically a glorified bus into something more dashing and well fun to play with as soon as possible. That doesn't mean that a cheap tub of a ship wouldn't be nice to have, but I wouldn't place it highly on my list of ships needed to flesh out the world. Any of the ships on that spammy list can be made into sluggish unarmed tub (with alot of cargo space?) just by not buying the weapons, using a light battery, and buying light engines.
A couple of points:
1) If the thing is sluggish, slow, and completely unarmed - I don't think many people will use it for long because it will just be too boring not to contribute anything to the fight. No one has outlined why three traders wouldn't simply take three Marauders and travel with greater ease, flexibility and safety.
2) None of the suggestions in the link I posted are capital ships, save the Corvette. They are large normal ships of a size intermediate between what we have now and a small capital ship, and are meant to show how the size of ships we have now can scale up smoothly to blend in with small capital ships. Unlike a capital ship, these ships are intended to be within the price range of average players having invested a few weeks of play in the game. Sometime maybe I'll post actual capital ship class ideas so you can see how I think they differ.
3) Go down all the way to the bottom of the page. Viola, large normal ships that carry cargo at the expense of manueverability and weapons.
4) As I said in my post, I'm really somewhat against the notion of 'freighter' at all. A few threads back (in a thread about ammo) I talked about a mass system. Take a look at that and imagine that your ship could use all the unused mass it saved by not mounting weapons and by mounting lighter and less powerful engines and put in that space more cargo. Custumibility. Some things may make better trading vessels than others, but anything could be made into a trading vessel. Add ideas like 'external cargo pod' upgrades and you have complete configurability at a cost in manueverability.
5) While the system I'm talking about is almost certainly not identical to what the devs are planning, I have reason to believe that in some elements it closely resembles the devs goals, so I hope you will pardon me for trying to influence their thinking in other areas particularly important to me (balance between classes, diversity of ships in size not in role, configurability, consistancy across as many ship classes as possible as demonstrated by ideas like using combinations of small batteries when practical rather than have 'a size', 'b size', 'd size' and so forth). Or at the least, maybe I can goad them into telling me what they actually thinking at present.
6) slappyknappy's post is telling I think: "While I personally would arm my freighter and soup it up as much as possible..." I suspect the average 'merchant classed' player (not that I suspect we'll have actual classes) will very quickly want to graduate from an unarmed tub that's basically a glorified bus into something more dashing and well fun to play with as soon as possible. That doesn't mean that a cheap tub of a ship wouldn't be nice to have, but I wouldn't place it highly on my list of ships needed to flesh out the world. Any of the ships on that spammy list can be made into sluggish unarmed tub (with alot of cargo space?) just by not buying the weapons, using a light battery, and buying light engines.
I think this is a great idea, though I think the ship should have a good hull, a huge amount of cargo, no gun port, and absolutely horrible acceleration and turning rate. That way it could, and would need to hire an escort of a few good player pilots.
Right now most good pilots can make trade runs in a Maurader with out too great a risk of death, so inorder to get them to escort instead the pay must be greater than 16 - (cargo the escort ship can carry). That's over 10 cargo's worth to hire a valk and over 6 to hire a prom. Also the pilot themselves wants to make more money than they would flying a Maurader. It would also take longer because the ship's accel is so bad (only a little bit because most of the trip would still be at max speed). So to hire two valk pilots you would need to have atleast (11+11+17)*1.10 = 43. So I would say the ship should have around 50 cargo inorder to make it work correctly for game play.
Right now most good pilots can make trade runs in a Maurader with out too great a risk of death, so inorder to get them to escort instead the pay must be greater than 16 - (cargo the escort ship can carry). That's over 10 cargo's worth to hire a valk and over 6 to hire a prom. Also the pilot themselves wants to make more money than they would flying a Maurader. It would also take longer because the ship's accel is so bad (only a little bit because most of the trip would still be at max speed). So to hire two valk pilots you would need to have atleast (11+11+17)*1.10 = 43. So I would say the ship should have around 50 cargo inorder to make it work correctly for game play.
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=1369
I think that electric is looking for something more extreme than the large freighter; a huge cargo pod with barely any engines and no weapons at all. While I personally would arm my freighter and soup it up as much as possible (ie, smuggler) I like this idea as well.
The ship would be so huge and slow it would absolutely need an escort. Even noobs could take it on alone, because ti would have no weapons at all. It would therefore:
1) need to hire one or more escorts. this promotes teamwork and therefore is good.
2) would give a *real* target to pirates so they would stop killing randomly. This also leads to good role playing, and is a further incentive for #1.
3) would validate trading for mass profit even after the trade routes become balanced. Right now, even a centurion can make easy profit, but that will ultimately change.
... i think to make such a ship work, though, it would need 30 or 40 cargo (or more) and be extremely sluggish. To orient yourself after a jump should take time, and then the max speed (even with turbo) should be under 80-90m/s.
The large cargo allows enough revenue to pay for escorts and still make a nice profit.
The ship would be so huge and slow it would absolutely need an escort. Even noobs could take it on alone, because ti would have no weapons at all. It would therefore:
1) need to hire one or more escorts. this promotes teamwork and therefore is good.
2) would give a *real* target to pirates so they would stop killing randomly. This also leads to good role playing, and is a further incentive for #1.
3) would validate trading for mass profit even after the trade routes become balanced. Right now, even a centurion can make easy profit, but that will ultimately change.
... i think to make such a ship work, though, it would need 30 or 40 cargo (or more) and be extremely sluggish. To orient yourself after a jump should take time, and then the max speed (even with turbo) should be under 80-90m/s.
The large cargo allows enough revenue to pay for escorts and still make a nice profit.
Celebrim, this suggestion is very different than what you purposed earlier. I don't think it should be a capital ship, just a large normal ship, that carries cargo at the expence of manuverablity and weapons.
The reason people would use the ship is it would be the most profitable. 3 mauraders carry 48 cargo, where as one of these ships with two valks carry 62, or with two proms 70. Yes people who really enjoy trading will probably stick to the more independent mauraders, but those of us who don't like trading and would like to make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible will use this suggested ship.
I didn't read all the way to the bottom, just your first two posts, sorry. I still think this type of ship deserves its own topic, because it would make team work neccisary/encouraged for something other than capping.
I didn't read all the way to the bottom, just your first two posts, sorry. I still think this type of ship deserves its own topic, because it would make team work neccisary/encouraged for something other than capping.
I think that it's a great idea - bigger ships with minor protection - it would be fun to have a ship, that'll be real hard to get through a traderoute, but will pay of big-time if succeeding.
The Centaur already represents such a ship (since it can't be used for anything else =) - but where's the cargo???
In those (unuseable in Centaur) 2 large weapons ports!!!
How about removing those, and add 20+ cargobay...
The Centaur already represents such a ship (since it can't be used for anything else =) - but where's the cargo???
In those (unuseable in Centaur) 2 large weapons ports!!!
How about removing those, and add 20+ cargobay...
no, don't touch the 2 large weapon ports. It is the only ship that is remotely superior in firepower to the Prom.
but you can always put in 20 more cargo :D
but you can always put in 20 more cargo :D
Uhhh... Off topic, but two things. A) The rag is FAR superior to either in firepower. 2x L + 3x S... B) Shouldn't the Maurader be getting more cargo, since gold is kinda the "trading" nation?
"B) Shouldn't the Maurader be getting more cargo, since gold is kinda the "trading" nation?"
Errr... Isn't already a 'god ship' for trading. It is agile, so it can get between stops in a hurry. It has alot of hull points, so it can survive a pirate attack. And it already carries more cargo than any other ship - much more than any ship with medium manueverability.
Errr... Isn't already a 'god ship' for trading. It is agile, so it can get between stops in a hurry. It has alot of hull points, so it can survive a pirate attack. And it already carries more cargo than any other ship - much more than any ship with medium manueverability.
rent a cop rofl
It was either that or "escort service".