I'm trying to approach the game as a player who is new to Discovery.
One particular thing that I am glad to see enabled is the reduction of power cores for certain mismatched technologies. Even a 10% reduction is noticeable when you have to factor in weapons and shield recharging. A big kudos for the time it must have taken to implement this. It adds real depth without annoying a player.
I have passed one player controlled base. Shame I couldn't dock to check it out more. I'll come back to this at a later stage.
Kind of wondering what my next move is. At some stage I am going to have grind some trade, even though missions are profitable (200k station destruction ignoring the npc's take only as long as it takes to travel to the mission waypoint which can be as little as 30k away) it is taking a while.
The importance of armour is strikingly obvious if I am going to "interact" with others. It seems pretty clear that smaller armour upgrades are near useless - so why bother? Wouldn't other types of upgrade be more useful for low level ships that aren't built for specific purposes?
I'm looking at this from a noob's point of view - a freighter is small and a little faster at cruising, but the 33% increase is useless at access points between systems.
Taking a 600 cargo freighter (largest in class I think, might be 650) - on trade runs a transport of anything over 1000 is going to make a lot more money.
I guess what I'm looking at is how to make players really love their first ship purchase and to not come to regard it as a step towards something more expensive. Not to say progression isn't important in a game. Just that those first few hours playing can really shape your experience of the mod and the server.
The distinction between armour types really only seems important once you are in the much higher classes or start meeting size limitations. And I have my eye on some nice guns for doing some "interacting" of my own. But I'm wondering if I should just get a big gunship. I lack firepower, hull; I have a moderate speed advantage. If only I had something that would level the playing field.
Of course, being pirated by three people made me learn that numbers count. It's a style of gameplay which Discovery is made for; but does it have to be the only one? Don't we have examples of people who use wit rather than strength and win? Is it worth the risk of the jumpgate considering the loss of money involved in using jumpholes if you are trading? Just thinking out loud (or in print rather)
Freelancer ID is stripped down sensibly.
From what I could see Connnecticutt was the place to be last night, I would think to the detriment of the other systems. I was never fond of the concept of an arena, but then when I first started there was a dedicated PvP server as well as the roleplay one.
See folks? Discoverians don't leave, we just go afk for a while.
I agree completely about the next-to-useless lower level armour upgrades. would like to see them replaced with options like:
shield regen boost
shield total HP boost
Powercore boost
speed boost
Non-scannable cargohold
agility boost
extra weapon mounting (prolly not possible)
Wingman - an npc matching your ship spawns when you undock, and attacks whatever you attack
decoy - a ghost of your ship (spawn time 5 minutes) that flys around mimicking whatever your did one second previously - would be confusing as all hell in combat
scanner total distance range boost
scanner active scan range boost
etc
i miss the smuggler ID - it almost certainly guaranteed interaction. smuggler routes aren't what they used to be - but either they get buffed or everything else gets nerfed or some tricksy tricks get codified to give sell-price boosts if your're flying a freighter
Lower armour upgrades aren't next to useless. Well, at least 1.9-2.1 (or was it 2.2) are not. I use em often on my traders and miners, to save those from NPCs, and not lose profit from trade runs.
