I miss my barge. But the reason it was removed was for good reason, I was able to single-handed build and support a player made base with it, constantly building a module with no slow-downs. Make BILLIONS and billions of credits by jumping it to France and selling silver ore OORP. (Yes, it was 10 years ago, so I'll admit it)
But my god they were fun, I flew it for months, it wasn't that bad to pilot as long as you kept it to deep space where the closet object was 50k away haha (No, i'm serious, 50k) I just used the neutral battleship to move it to a different system via IV Jump drive, even if it was 1 system over, no way I'm docking that thing at a jump gate, much less the trade lanes.... and getting close enough to the 'middle' of the barge to jump it while not bumping it should qualify me to parallel park the death star.
The Barge itself was WAY OP, but there needed to be something, difficult to use , that had more than 5k storage (I havent played in 10 years, so there may be now). Something like 10-20k that would be equally as difficult to use...Anyway, I miss this game, thinkin' about coming back
I did not play at that time, but I know those who created whole teams that were engaged in the mining of some ore for this barge, and then all together made a hyper jump into the given system.
I think that if such a ship were returned, it would be great: large trading companies would have made sense to use such a whopper for their own purposes, pirates have an incredible FATTY opportunity to get loans. And this is not to mention that players with barges can request police/military escort.
Imagine a battle for a barge! Yes, it is possible that the number of loans received was very high. But I think that it was and incredibly fun. The current ship that replaced the barge is also not bad, but personally I do not consider it useful.
in OSI lore the barge OSI Cornicopia became its HQ but then was moored up and used as a ship yard, i really wanted to have that put into O49 as a dockable station but alas it didnt come to be. I remember piloting the old girl spending litterally hours trying to move the damn thing around so we could supply nichols to get the modules stocked up. I do have a fond memory of listening to this in the background https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhZdVeBe_m8
To be fair, I think Barges were widely complained about since they could be jump-traded in. With jump trading in transports no longer being possible (sans the Base Construction Platform), I don't see the harm in bringing the Barge back.
While I was never up for owning one myself (I tried it in SP and OOOF that turn speed), it was always a real treat to run across a Barge. It was an odd combination for a ship - something so large and majestic, yet mostly self-defenseless. About the only turrets that would work on such a monstrosity are missile turrets and flaks, since even Charons couldn't shoot half of the ship's length.
I recall also, the tales of lone pirates running into one and hitting it up for 100,000,000 in a single piracy encounter. Which, if it was hauling ore - sure! I can see that, for 40,000 cargo space.
It was sort of a meme, though. Still, with the original model being incorporated into a mobile shipyard controlled by Gallia (Did they steal that idea from THP?), the Barge remains a technological possibility.
Well since server economy stable, dead, boring and dont attract peoples, wy not make something 10k alike. I dont think we need barge without jumps, but 10k defenseless hauler will be ok. Maybe also make it no-dock with most of moors, for needs in lighter ships. Upd - also make it hooked only for shipping corps IDs(not for mining corps)
(09-07-2018, 02:52 PM)Anton Okunev Wrote: Well since server economy stable, dead, boring and dont attract peoples, wy not make something 10k alike. I dont think we need barge without jumps, but 10k defenseless hauler will be ok. Maybe also make it no-dock with most of moors, for needs in lighter ships. Upd - also make it hooked only for shipping corps IDs(not for mining corps)
I am A-OK with a 10k Trade-Corp-Only transport. At least then, standard commodities could compete with ore haulers. We already have defenseless transports at/near 5k (Zoner Whale, Kujira, Mastodon), why not give trade-focused factions defenseless 10kers? Then just add an ID line stating "Cannot haul or trade ores and mined commodities when flying transports with more than 5,000 cargo."
Yes, there's the whole argument of "But powertraders during server dead times!" and the other matter concerning Profit-per-second. Perhaps these special 10k cargo ships could lack thrusters and/or possess worse maneuverability? Maybe they could also lack regens? I'm not sure.
I'm tempted to open up a new thread about this topic, so as not to de-rail the Barge discussion. It's certainly an idea, and I'd like to hear the opposition's standpoint, since there very well may be a downside I'm missing, here.
treat them like a battleship only shields batteries and no thrusters and then also the lack of weapons and reduced cruise speed. seeing they would want to make it easy pickings for pirates. which seems to be the case for anything related to hauling /transporting .... we have to make it easy for the pirates. actually, I would rather like to see powerful shields, heavy armor, and weapons that make a cruiser envious. face it a corporation is not going to build a 10k hauler to make it easy for unlawful to take it down seeing the major investment of the cargo. For once give the haulers a win. make them have to bring more than one ship with torpedos to knock it out and that would kind of also stop the 5 sec pirate interactions.
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