Transports

[El Nino]

Well I'd lower the Adv. Train down to about 100k hull thats the minimal correction... Nerf the ships that are being spammed... that's what i think...

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My primary char: Jose El Nino - Corsair Elder captain of the SS Greenhawk

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[Stormblast]

I voted no for nerfing the armor and the shields- they're fine. But it would be nice to reduce armor of the Adv. Train to about 110k or 120k.

I voted no because transports are large ships and they have to have a lot of armor, and their purpose is to carry goods from point A to point B safely. This means no loss of precious cargo.

But if the specs stay like they're are it'd be hard for a pirate to rob traders especially with escort (if they don't have SN), but in a group of three or four VHF or two VHF and a bomber theres no sweat - trader will give money in fear of death.
And I think that all that pirating thing is to make friends, meet other pirates and pirate the open seas. :D

[sinned-40]

the system used now works good I see no real Need to change it, Mod tweeks will be better spent on other parts of Disco...


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[Frechfuchs]

I think, transports armor and shields should be stayed untouched. Its true that the armor is hard to break, but remember that the larger transport doesnt have a countermeasure dropper and couldnt escape a cruise disrupter. To make matters worse the mobillity of those ships can not compede with the mobillity of a bomber or a gunboat. Due to the firepower of the trains or heavy tanker they are no match for a well equipted bomber or gunboat. A little example: I was shot down by a XA-pilot in a bomber in less than 15 seconds in front of manhattan. Last amend; most of the large transports pay the tax request, in order to maintain RP and to stay alive.

[Chico]

I don't think they're too powerful. If you struggle against big traders in a VHF, get a mate to help or you "need a bigger boat".

I'm not even sure the armour everyone is talking about is the right definition. I thought it was just basic hull integrity. Normally (not always), the bigger the ship, the stronger the hull. Stands to reason that the longer the bridge, the thicker it's supports. The taller the tower, the larger it's foundations.
Armour just increases the integrity by strengthening and supporting the overall hull itself.
If you don't want to go up against these trade leviathans, go for something smaller. Pick your targets. Piracy was never meant to be easy because the chances are someone will get killed....

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[chovynz]

I'm biased towards piratism.
I think the trade ships hull should get slightly buffed, they'r too easy to pirate.
Shields are fine.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[Dantrithor]

Right.. i'm biased towards both sides. As traders, i have used from camara ship to luxury liner, and adv train. It just feels wrong that, when military gunboats can regen only once fully shields and hull, an adv train can do it, how many times, 3? 3 and a half?

I chased a few days ago the "Rapidez" family transport with Khat's light fighter (a liberator). It was flying with 3 VHF/Bomber escorts. I ignored the scorts and chased the transport while khat distracted them for like 10 minutes shooting non-stop it's shields + hull, switching 2xadv2ximp debbies to 4x hammers every time shields ran out. After that time, i managed to kill it, while dodging it's fire (Well, someone crashed into him at tradelane speed as the adv train was trying to flee to the lane and killed it but.. oh well).

Right, right, now the important thing:

Transport batteries/nanobotts count is too high. Beeing able to recover once seems enough for them. If we follow what we see, small ships up to bombers receive enough b/b to fully repair a few times, but bigger military ships have hulls/shields bubbles too massive to be repaired so many times, so they can recover less times.

Why are >gunboat sized transports an exception? After all, the massive weapons generators they do not have (*cough* aren't supposed to, but actually have*cough*) make up the space for cargo, not for 20x more regen capacity.

Shield is fine, big enough to offer protection against NPC/Players, and slow regen so you dont fight, but think about running ASAP. Hull, fine also. Consider that something designed to carry cargo, even without the constrains of gravity, must have heavily reinforced hulls, and can easily have compartimental systems to avoid loss of all cargo in case of hull breach, which can justify the high hull value.

Just my 2 ?cent

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[tk9780]

Whats this rubbish about Traders should be helpless Codswallop
If transports where helpless than there be no trading, no trading then no interstellar commerce.
The balance between pirates and traders are about right. However I think large organised trading groups should have access to military grade weaponry and defensive shield.

[DaBoss]

Alright, I brought this up before, but I will bring it up again. I would like to apologize in advance to anyone that I might offend with this, or if it is being discussed elsewhere. I also apologize if this is ends up being a rant, as it's rather late.

What is there that can really scare a trader these days? Pirates can do little to actually make a trader stop and RP. Pirating isn't done for money, but to RP with people. This is extremely hard when traders have little to fear from pirates. I say they have little to fear because Transports have extremely high Armor by default, and, fi purchased, extremely high shield.

Please, look here. Is it just me, or are these comparable to the gunboat section of this?

After doing some very basic calculations, I have found the average gunboat armor, Nomad and Scorpion Gunboats excluded, to be 102,300. The average transport armor, Luxury, Prison, and Royal Liners excluded, is 92,500. Is it me, or is this kind of contradictory to the fact that these are civilian ships, not designed to endure sustained combat, yet they have an average armor comparable to military ships used to endure sustained combat.

Now, apply an armor upgrade MK VIII or a capital ship armor upgrade, and the numbers become unbearable. I am not a balance expert, and I have no clue what the average damage output of a pirating vessel, but I am fairly confident that they cannot match up to the armor and shields of a Transport in my experience as a pirate.

I understand the fact that if a pirate is in a bomber, and it comes upon an average transport, a single Supernova may destroy it. I understand how this may be a problem when pirating occurs, where, even if a trader has an escort, a pirate may simply SN it and ignore the escort.

However, is this not realistic? If I do remember correctly, a pair of Corsair fighters pirated a Gateway Convoy, composed of two large transports, and destroyed it without breaking a sweat. NPC transports are easy as heck to destroy, even a Starflier can do it, and I don't call for a nerf of such proportions, but Traders need to be afraid of pirates in some way.

Rules can always be imposes protecting pirates from things like escort-ignoring, such as a requisite time that must pass before a pirate may focus on a Transport, but, right now, it takes two Supernovas to kill some transports without armor upgrades, and even more with an armor upgrade. Even small, maneuverable transports are capable of taking a beating, even from bombers, with armor upgrades. It's nearing ridiculous, and transports don't even have a reason to hire escorts.

Gunboats, Bombers, and Fighters are designed to be combat vessels for usage by Military Purposes. Why is it that Civilian Transports designed to move goods have comparable armor to a Capital Ship Classes vessel, and can sustain damage from a Military Vessel specifically designed to destroy Capital Ships? It just doesn't seem, right to me.

Now, I might have been repeating myself a little bit, but I do think that Transports require a nerf of some sort. Thusly, I call for a reduction in their armor and shields, as that is where they are most unbalanced, in my opinion.

Now, then, please excuse me while I don a flame retardant suit, and prepare something self-esteem lifting for when this is shot down.

Sorry to be so blunt but u probably a pirate arent you. Done much trading lately?