Posts: 2,764
Threads: 166
Joined: Nov 2009
Staff roles: Systems Developer
Community Input - Freighter Class
After finishing Capital ships, Freighters are next on the list. They're likely the class most in need of a major overhaul, having not received one in many years. We're looking for a community input on this one, since a very few people actually fly them and it's hard to tell what exactly they are at the moment. Please try to be as constructive as possible and don't go off topic.
In its most basic form, the idea is to balance freighters better among each other, as well as slightly improve their combat capabilities overall. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here, the basic combat role of a small, fast ship weighed more towards defense than offense will remain. The current main plan is to standardize powercores to a greater degree, and look at slight increases in speed. We're looking for ideas for specific ships, as well as potential general changes (reworks) here.
What we are not looking for:
-"Freighters are too hard/impossible to kill on individual snubs"
They will retain this characteristic as it is their defining combat trait and arguably only major strength.
-"Freighters are trade ships"
No ship class that has 650 cargo space max should be balanced as a trade ship. They will retain their advantage as ships with the most cargo being able to dock on planet satellites.
Oh, and one last thing. Keep in mind that we're looking at it from a pvp balance perspective (which is why it was posted in this subforum) because there's only so much we can do as balance developers. Stuff like better routes or increasing cargo size is not our territory, nor our focus here. Those changes would have to go through our economy dev(s), aka @Xoria.