First look: THE SCYTHE!!! (New Thargoid ship)

[Rubbernuke]

I think Fdev quiet rightly are trying to achieve a balance of a credible Thargoid war which folks can get involved in, whilst not destroying the bubble too much for those still just wanting to trade and do the normal missions.

O7

Which is achievable in about 100 systems or so. The problem with Goids is that they are soaking up huge amounts of dev time, and that for those "for those still just wanting to trade and do the normal missions" are left with nothing new.

Right now the Goid war is still peripheral, even after three, nearly four updates spent on it- if its cost that amount of time and investment it has to be vital to the game otherwise its a questionable addition.

Personally, if the pre jump reticule warning is accurate enough, plus a star map that tells you ahead of time where is dangerous then Goids need to break out more, otherwise whats the point? A visually static BGS that has no real visible changes bar text is not exciting or really 'alive'. The Goids were a chance to inject chaos into the system and so far.....they've splashed the water a bit.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

@Ian Doncaster
Maybe their intention was not to take over the bubble, entirely.
Maybe your species is more interesting to them than that?

On their original balance, two decades (or even a century) wouldn't have been that unreasonable for them. They've been a spacefaring species for millions of years, their resource extraction plans involve longer waits than a century for the barnacles to mature, taking it slowly and cautiously would be fine. And there'd be plenty of scope for the slow horror to set in as it becomes clear to people on the other side of the bubble that:
- it's doomed
- there's no chance to evacuate anyone
- but it's not doomed quickly enough for "have wild parties before the end" to be viable either - indeed, if you're on the coreward side, it'll probably outlive you anyway.
The reactions to that would probably do more to crush human resistance than the Thargoids themselves would be, in the short term.

On the need to have that play out before all the players are also dead ("this was your grandfather's Thargoid war, and you must now finish it") I agree that purely taking territory was probably never their aim and that the aim Seo Jin-Ae mentioned they had probably wasn't territorial at all. Pulling back having achieved it, slowly enough not to make it obvious that they have, but quickly enough to conserve ships for the next phase, would also be a reasonable tactic.

 

[Cosmo]

We need more player ships, not Thargoid ships.

 

[Shadowsnog]

We need more player ships, not Thargoid ships.

we need better pilots, not more ships.

 

[Cosmo]

we need better pilots, not more ships.

Well also NPC co-pilots. Lots of people want new ships such as the Panther Clipper.

 

[Shadowsnog]

Well also NPC co-pilots. Lots of people want new ships such as the Panther Clipper.

but how many of those people will keep panicshielding a cyclops for half an hour with 6shard/6plasma conda? how many of them want to get panther clipper just to have bigger compensation for lack of skill? should this be accomodated? is it really needed?
as i said: i think that new, large alliance ship with that nice star trek design, good capability for things like cold orbit and good hardpoint convergence? im down. but are there not ships that can already do that? there are... new ships for what? for the sake of having something new? do we need iphones in elite?
same with ship interiors. walkable cockpit so i can sit into the chair? awesome. decorations for my office at the carrier? heck yea. but even though i love my space legs im already tired of having to run to my ship from the concourse every time. whats there to gain really...
a broken record playing the same false tones over and over and over. im not even fdev and im so tired of hearing these. once ive heard that every time someone mentions panther clipper its release gets delayed for another year. and at this point i fully support that approach.
no offense to anyone. except gibbers who think themselves aces

 

[Jmanis]

Well also NPC co-pilots. Lots of people want new ships such as the Panther Clipper.

Which would do... what new thing?

Getting the Panther Clipper is all well and good, but unless you're attaching a bunch of unstated riders to it[1], it would maybe allow transporting ~1000t? Maybe 2000t? ... of cargo, instead of just 700t?

Not exactly a revolutionary new thing.

Meanwhile the Scythe at least carries the (opportunity for) new interactions based on the functions it seems to carry (is the need to stop Thargoids harvesting humans going to come to the fore more?), using any ship you like.

Maybe not revolutionary, but still more difference than simply hauling N-tonnes of cargo more than last time.

[1] like when people say "i just want ship interiors" when they actually mean "i want to be able to board other players ships and fight them on foot, and wander around my ship to manually conduct repairs" which are two very different value propositions.

 

[Cosmo]

Which would do... what new thing?

Getting the Panther Clipper is all well and good, but unless you're attaching a bunch of unstated riders to it, it would maybe allow transporting ~1000t? Maybe 2000t? ... of cargo, instead of just 700t?

Not exactly a revolutionary new thing.

Meanwhile the Scythe at least carries the (opportunity for) new interactions based on the functions it seems to carry (is the need to stop Thargoids harvesting humans going to come to the fore more?), using any ship you like.

Maybe not revolutionary, but still more difference than simply hauling N-tonnes of cargo more than last time.

Well they can continue to develop the Thargoid stuff, but we haven't had new flyable ships in a long time. Ships are fun, because nearly everyone can use them. The Panther Clipper could be multipurpose.

 

[rootsrat]

We need more player ships, not Thargoid ships.

I disagree.

IMO what we need is more things to do in old ships, rather than new ships to do same old things in.

 

[Darrack]

Now hang on a minute, sonny

Sorry i just thought i would cher it with you

O7

 

[Cosmo]

IMO what we need is more things to do in old ships, rather than new ships to do same old things in.

Yes also more on-foot stuff. I could make a long list of features, but ED has limited resources and a skeleton crew afaik.

 

[Jmanis]

Well they can continue to develop the Thargoid stuff, but we haven't had new flyable ships in a long time. Ships are fun, because nearly everyone can use them. The Panther Clipper could be multipurpose.

...But you pitched it as an either/or? Developing thargoid content (in this instance, releasing the Scythe) and releasing the Panther would be good.

But in a war of "only so much time and resources" the Panther Clipper isn't going to change much... and if you made it multipurpose.. geeze... i can hear the other ships going out of business fast. New ships can't just supplant the old ships.

It would need to fulfil some sort of different function that nothing else does (see "unstated riders") or it's just dogpiling an already saturated selection.

 

[avow555]

Basically shoot it.

How many new ships will the Thargoids get before we get anything?
Is it 4 or 5 years since the Mamba!

 

[jojon]

Don't know how many of these we need..:

Spoiler: Oops! -That was one large image...

 

[Cosmo]

Basically shoot it.

How many new ships will the Thargoids get before we get anything?
Is it 4 or 5 years since the Mamba!

We need 10 more variants of the Thargoid ships, before Frontier considers another ship for us lol.

 

[avow555]

TBH I'd prefer new things to do in the old ships, than same old things to do in the new ships

I disagree.

IMO what we need is more things to do in old ships, rather than new ships to do same old things in.

Most of the old ships are extremely limited and in the context of Thargoid activity are completely useless.

What ship do you fly anti xeno with?

War always ramps up technology and so for humanity to not have crafted any new hulls specifically to counter the bugs is totally ludicrous, LUDICROUS!

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Most of the old ships are extremely limited and in the context of Thargoid activity are completely useless.

What ship do you fly anti xeno with?

You're joking, right?

Off the top of my head what I've seen in AXCZs: Krait II, Chieftain, Challenger, Anaconda, Cutter, Corvettes, Type-10, Even Vultures, also Pythons, Anacondas and Belugas for EVAC, Mambas and Clippers for well in the Maelstrom... extremely limited for sure.

 

[rootsrat]

Most of the old ships are extremely limited and in the context of Thargoid activity are completely useless.

What ship do you fly anti xeno with?

War always ramps up technology and so for humanity to not have crafted any new hulls specifically to counter the bugs is totally ludicrous, LUDICROUS!

Krait Mk2, T10 and plan to do a Chieftain, which I don't even own yet.

 

[Shadowsnog]

Most of the old ships are extremely limited and in the context of Thargoid activity are completely useless.

dbs, adder, eagle and even sidewinder are great fun in hands of a great ax pilot.
what ship do you fly ax with?

e: added eagle to that list. thx @Factabulous

 

[Factabulous]