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+--- Thread: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo (/showthread.php?tid=174432)
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Venkman - 02-22-2020
(02-21-2020, 11:52 PM)Lucifer Wrote: If a ship can't use the lanes easily, it's a bad ship.
![[Image: necYqP2.png]](https://i.imgur.com/necYqP2.png)
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Cypher - 02-22-2020
(02-21-2020, 11:52 PM)Lucifer Wrote: If a ship can't use the lanes easily, it's a bad ship.*COUGH*barge*COUGH*
Wut?
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Charo - 02-22-2020
(02-21-2020, 10:31 PM)Saronsen Wrote: 80% approval rating btw
Major IRL political decisions are based on smaller approval ratios btw
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Grumblesaur - 02-26-2020
(02-21-2020, 09:25 AM)eigos Wrote: In the past, I proposed almost the same thing. Each pod to be 750 cargo space equivalent, so that takes us to:
Gull - 2 pods x 500 = 1500
Albatross - 4 pods x 500 = 3000
Heron - 4 pods x 500 + 1000 = 3000
Crane - 6 pods x 500 + 1000 = 4500
Stork - 8 pods x 500 + 1000 = 6000
The worst problem with the Gull and Albatross is how utterly useless they are as transports (especially the Gull, which basically has only 200 cargo space more than the Pelican AT, while the latter has insane defensive and offensive weaponry).
Bumping them up to 1500 and 3000 cargo space respectively (and maybe adding some more turrets) would make them a tad more useful, even for starting out).
Now, the Heron vs Albatross (each having 4 pods and equating to 3000 cargo space) is a bit of a dud, so there has to be some kind of difference to set them apart, but that could be solved by maybe tweaking the armor, bots/bats and the loadout a bit.
This is just a personal opinion. Not my department to begin with... up to you people to push for a change.
The Pelican currently runs for about $3.25 million, while the Gull is $4 million, and the Albatross $8.5 million. The Gull isn't even worth flying if you find the Pelican first. And if you get the Gull, you might as well skip the Albatross and aim for a Mammoth, which is only a million credits more.
When I look at the Gull and Albatross, I see them as stepping stones for new players after they get out of their starting freighters. You won't typically see better-established players choose these transports over larger ones, unless they have a very specific roleplay purpose for doing so. I assume that veteran players with a decent bankroll that are putting together a new transport will buy something close to the cargo limit for their ID, and stick to things suited to their faction -- you'd sooner see a Zoner flying their Whale or a luxury liner than you'd see them flying an Stork or a Pilgrim, even if neither of the latter are particularly forbidden. A Gaian might fly a Percheron or an Armicustos, which are larger and more thematically fitting than the Albatross.
So the problem with the Gull is that when a player gets into one, they'll probably be getting out of it later that day or that week, depending on how fast they're learning the trade routes and whether they find a replacement with a larger hold. Typical lawful house trade runs aren't super profitable, so cashing in a load that makes a million credits or more with a freighter is pretty uncommon, but as you step into the Pelican, Gull, and Albatross, that starts to become a normal rate, and thus, you get out of these ships faster than you got into them.
I think what would give these ships more staying power is if they had some specialty thing that only they could do, or if they offered an unusual combination of transport/freighter features that we don't see in any existing ships. I haven't given this an enormous amount of thought, but here are some spitballs:
- Introduce a new class "Heavy Freighter", and assign the Pelican and Gull (and anything else with a capacity greater than 650 cargo space up to and including 1000 cargo space that isn't already a capital ship) to this class. Permit this class of ship to use Atmospheric Entry Points and the special small ships-only jump holes. This would give the veteran players who are more knowledgeable about these concepts to fly these ships for an actual in-game function and make a few bucks. The Gull would become to freighters what the Stork is to transports, and the Pelican would become to freighters what the Shire is to transports. For doing this, we might want to find a way to prevent ships in this class from mounting the heavy transport shields, for the sake of balance.
- Use the same "Heavy Freighter" concept as before, but instead of treating them as freighters for docking purposes, give them a speed boost. Ordinary freighters have a cruise speed of 400, which makes them great for running blockades and intercepting larger ships (the only things that can catch them are light fighters). Give these Heavy Freighters a cruise speed of 375, which gives them a leg up when being chased by bombers or gunboats. If players choose to use these Heavy Freighters for this purpose, it may have the added effect of moving gunboat pirates into fighters along routes where the Gull and Pelican are profitable, along with giving total noobs a better chance at running away from gunboat or bomber pirate, whereas now they're usually utterly helpless in such a scenario.
I didn't really mention the Albatross here because it's so much larger than the other two, but I feel like making the Gull and Albatross possible endpoints in the "tech tree" of Discovery makes the leap up to Albatross a lot more significant in the career of a trader.
What the Albatross does have going for it is the same level of cargo pod customization as the Heron at less than half the price. So for the aesthetically inclined, it's already a superior ship. Though we could probably extend this ship class concept to all cargo ships:
- Light Freighters: 400 Cargo and under
- Medium Freighters: 401 - 650
- Heavy Freighters: 651 - 1000
- Light Transports: 1001 - 2500 Cargo
- Medium Transports: 2501 - 4000 Cargo
- Heavy Transports: 4001 Cargo and up
and assign different perks to classes that are underplayed, underpowered, or both,
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Skorak - 02-26-2020
Your dock idea doesn't work. The ship separations for docking points works by hangar Bay docking and berths.
These ships can't dock in the bays by size most likely. So that can't work.
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Grumblesaur - 02-26-2020
(02-26-2020, 10:00 PM)Skorak Wrote: Your dock idea doesn't work. The ship separations for docking points works by hangar Bay docking and berths.
These ships can't dock in the bays by size most likely. So that can't work.
"Most likely" means you don't know. Perhaps there's a way, either via FLHook or a configuration file, to define a third type of docking point, compatible with a set of ships based on a set of parameters like mass, capacity, and model volume?
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Skorak - 02-26-2020
Then you need a plugin which is far less reliable than the game's native way of doing it. The flhook jump holes you see do it by ship class.
And they're wonky.
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Cypher - 02-26-2020
...hang on a minute, wasn't the Stork 5k a few versions back anyway?
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Skorak - 02-26-2020
It was nerfed out of the blue after like over ten years.
Then the titanic got the 5k.
RE: Adv. Train to 5000 cargo - Grumblesaur - 02-26-2020
(02-26-2020, 10:10 PM)Skorak Wrote: Then you need a plugin which is far less reliable than the game's native way of doing it. The flhook jump holes you see do it by ship class.
And they're wonky.
Player bases, plugin events, and rephacks have proven wonky too at times, but have been iterated to the point of general reliability. Weapon balance plugins have their problems. The old 225 player limit on the server, all the weird rules that've come and gone.
"Wonky" has never stopped Discovery from implementing an idea (good or otherwise). It's generally when things caused more problems than they solved, or threatened the stability of the server, that we've seen them reverted, removed, remixed, or redone.