She's a beauty! (New ship revealed--Mandalay)

Alien

Alien
Rat Catcher said:
The fun, for me at least, is reading some comments on new ships from folk who obviously want any / all of them but are averse to spending Arx (no matter how obtained) for them, then complain just how unfair it is that they are disadvantaged in comparison to me, or many of the players in the groups I hang out with, as we are buying the ships and flying them, usually from release day.

I'm fine with anyone not wanting to spend money on "their favourite game" because they spent £XXX many years ago, their choice, complaining about it though?
Click to expand...
I'm not complaining it's unfair. Everyone has that option, so in a sense it is fair, but it's the attitude* Frontier now seem to have towards us players I don't like. It's changed from making a game we will enjoy playing and want to play to how much money can they get us to part with. That's what I don't like about the pay-with-arx-to-get-the-thing-early business model Frontier now work under.

At some point, you have to take a stand for what you believe to be right. I don't want to give Frontier any more money for anything now, be it Elite or Planet Coaster or anything they do. They've ruined Elite for me and I rarely log in now, I just don't want to give any money to a company that thinks it's ok to rip off their customers.

* = the attitude is 100% how I perceive it to be, and if you consider it to have no basis in fact, that's your choice, I don't care, just like how Frontier don't seem to care what you and I think any more. And no, I'm not complaining about that either, but I don't have to be happy about it.

EDIT: and yes I will keep bringing it up, because I'm not the only one not happy about the way Frontier have gone, and it would be wrong for everyone (incl Frontier) to think people are ok with it now and will just forgive and forget.
 
Last edited:

CMDR X

CMDR X
Rat Catcher said:
My Phantom jumps around 50 LY (everything on it is G5 engineered), I wonder if the Mandalay will be able to carry the same amount of weapons and armour?
As it is designed for explorers, I wouldn't be surprised if it only had a single C1 hardpoint and paper thin shield ability... After all, guns and armour are not needed out in the black, are they?
Click to expand...

Meow, one does not go jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly in space without the proper defenses and armaments!



sp
 
Last edited:

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Rat Catcher said:
Didn't think it would take long for the "True Explorers" (drinks) to come and slag it off...


Fortunately, I am only a sightseer, so will buy one on the day it releases and take a little jaunt to Colonia, or somewhere...
Click to expand...
Cockpit view has nothing to do with being a "true explorer" or a "sightseer". View out of the cockpit is, I would argue, the most important part of an exploration ship! Being able to see where objects are relative to you while in Supercruise and get the measure of your surrounding is vitally important.

This is amplified by the ridiculous advances in FSD jump range meaning all ships in the game can now jump as far as the Asp Explorer used to be able to. And it becomes even more important when it comes to trying to land on planets so you can spot your landing, and more so when doing Exobiology. Being able to see out of the bottom of your cockpit gives a huge bonus. This ship not only can you not see out of the bottom, you can't even see horizon level to the sides, which is ironic given they talked about atmospheric planets being part of the thought behind the design process.

It's honestly like they've just gone, the Mamba cockpit looks cool from the outside. Stick that on it.

Looks great, doesn't look like what I had hoped the first new Exploration ship in 9 years would look like.
 

Shurimal

Shurimal
aRJay said:
Yes but they are mounted on the top of the hull and the legs looked quite long.
Click to expand...
Long legs will certainly help in 99% of "bad terrain which Fungoida love" cases🙂
aRJay said:
It goes Gunship, Dropship, FdL, Mamba, Corvette, Crusader, Vulture, FAS.
Click to expand...
Ah, yeah, Gunship and Dropship, oft forgotten unless they're your current target at the Haz RES🤪
aRJay said:
Arf was claiming English Electric Lightning, but apart from part of the engine layout I don’t see it.
Click to expand...
IIRC, engine layout was specifically what was called out as being inspired by Lightning (awesome aircraft, BTW!)
TiberiusDuval said:
That zero rebuy for example gives you nice advantage. Unfair one.
Click to expand...
Yeah, no, once you put reactive armor, prismatic shield, SCB-s and pacis on your bought-for-ARRRRX PII, there is no more zero rebuy.

And if one does not put at least prismatics and pacis on it, there most probably will be no "win" for them in any half-serious PvP😉
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Ozric said:
This ship not only can you not see out of the bottom, you can't even see horizon level to the sides, which is ironic given they talked about atmospheric planets being part of the thought behind the design process.
Click to expand...
You have some kind of early access to trying the ship?
 

Kalizandra

Kalizandra
Missed the stream, but enjoyed Buur Pits breakdown. Really positive news regarding the Mandalay, she looks like a beaut. (A bit more of a spaceplane feel to her, which isn't a bad thing) As a player for whom at least 30% of my elite time is spent doing explo/exobio then this looks great! Its good to see Fdev trying to throw a bone to every group of players, no matter what they spend their time doing in Elite.
The big kahuna is wishing for new content added to the explo/exobio gameplay loop, but who knows, if PP2.0 is a success then maybe they could be persuaded to move onto develop the less combat centric side of the game. (hopes and dreams...)

On a personal note, this year there seems to be a dearth of new releases in the gaming world. 2023 had CP 2077 DLC, BG3 and then Starfield. 2024 feels a bit sparse tbh (ymmv of course depending on what genre of games you are into!). Its looking like this autumn I'm going to be spending more time in Elite!
 

Koma Pahu

Koma Pahu
TiberiusDuval said:
That zero rebuy for example gives you nice advantage. Unfair one.
Click to expand...

It’s it that much of an advantage? I haven’t needed to rebuy in thousands of hours of gameplay - although I have done a couple of self destructs, which I’m sure some on here would call cheating.

The reality is, it doesn’t take long to make enough to rebuy even the most expensive ship 100 times over. Plus you can save up ARX from gameplay to buy the ships and get the same “advantage”. 🤷‍♂️
 

Alaska Sædelære

Alaska Sædelære
Interesting, the new plaything! Personally I'm more than happy about the focus on exploration now. I have a few questions, if I may. Did I miss something from the presentation, was anything said about it other than its range and looks? Okay, upon first impression I'll say it has the beauty of a pregnant swan 😉 Graceful and elegant it is when viewed from above, and anyone who says that pregnancy isn't a wonderful thing is a bad person 😇

Questions from an explorer's perspective:
  • Range isn't the sole important thing for an explorer, survivability and practicality are equally if not more important. Extreme jump range is actually a fringe use case, literally. How much weight were these aspects given in its design?
  • How strong is the hull already before engineering, does it allow for some choices with shielding?
  • How generous are the optional internals for fitting all of the desirable modules: largest available Guardian range booster, big fuel scoop, decent shield (with design consideration based on choosing D-class), and a double SRV hangar. Plus enough smaller slots for 2x AFMU, repair limpets, and perfect would be 3 size 1 slots for DSS and both flight assistants, not forcing you to sacrifice bigger slots for these. I am sure some compromises must be made from the maximum wishlist, how far does this go?
  • How is weight balance, i.e. how big is the range penalty for choosing double SRV hangar over a single, or when using a little extra tonnage for prismatics, or whatever extra comes to mind?
  • It doesn't seem like you can see downward from the cockpit. This would make a big difference for searching the ground, which is usually the most time-consuming aspect of exobiology.
  • How big is the landing footprint, considering the frequent need to land in rugged terrain? Looking at the underside it seems indeed quite a bit smaller than the bird's silhouette suggests. Is it comparable to smaller ships in this regard, e.g. DBX?
  • The vectored thrusters are very cool, of course. Beside the fun to look at them, does it have an effect on the physical simulation, i.e. does it afford palpably faster take-off than we're used to?

This is about what I can think of at the moment. The benchmark of comparison for an explorer i.m.o. is not the Anaconda, but Diamondback Explorer. A funny coincidence is that, despite of this, at the time of writing I'm out in the wilderness with a Clipper. Just because 😂 So, looking forward to October!
 
Last edited:

CMDR X

CMDR X
I missed the stream (can't find a link for it either), but did they mention how many seats it has?
Being a medium I'm thinking (hoping) two.
 

Tifu

Tifu
Been out of the game for quite a while, from what I remember all ships handle the same on atmospheric planets. Since the Mandalay is supposed to handle very well in that environment, I'd like to see that reflected in actual gameplay.

Sort of like the SCO in hyperspace but in the atmosphere (specially with bad weather).
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
DjVortex said:
You have some kind of early access to trying the ship?
Click to expand...
No, but I have eyes that can see a cockpit that is set back from the front of the ship, does not extend to the underneath of the ship, and has two raised bumps to either side of it.

It's a cockpit design for keeping everything above you, which when you're trying to spot tiny biological life, or land on a planet's surface, is not what you need.

Sure these are only concept images, there's time for them to add a glass panel bottom, or cameras in the cockpit that show you the view below. But let's get real, this is Exploration, so it won't 😊
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
Rat Catcher said:
As it is designed for explorers, I wouldn't be surprised if it only had a single C1 hardpoint and paper thin shield ability... After all, guns and armour are not needed out in the black, are they?
Click to expand...
Excuse me? How very dare you! :LOL:

Koma Pahu said:
It’s it that much of an advantage? I haven’t needed to rebuy in thousands of hours of gameplay - although I have done a couple of self destructs, which I’m sure some on here would call cheating.

The reality is, it doesn’t take long to make enough to rebuy even the most expensive ship 100 times over. Plus you can save up ARX from gameplay to buy the ships and get the same “advantage”. 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Rebuy of my Python mk2: 14 million.
Rebuy of my Python mk2 minus cost of the actual ship: 10 million

Agree that if there is an issue, it's not the difference of a rebuy cost that can be made back in a single assassination mission.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Alaska Sædelære said:
The benchmark of comparison for an explorer i.m.o. is not the Anaconda, but Diamondback Explorer.
Click to expand...

I would say that if you're putting a new Medium Exploration ship into the game then the benchmark should be the other medium exploration ship the Asp Explorer. Why would we want to choose this over the Asp. Obviously we need more details on this, but the cockpit alone is concerning. A long jump range and better manoeuvrability on atmospheric planets isn't going to cut it, as manageability means nothing if you can't see where you're aiming to land 😅

I completely agree that the Anaconda is not the benchmark, and hearing that the thinking was this way saddened me quite a lot. Jump Range is probably the least important consideration if you're going to do an exploration trip.

CMDR X said:
I missed the stream (can't find a link for it either), but did they mention how many seats it has?
Being a medium I'm thinking (hoping) two.
Click to expand...
The edited video will probably be up later, but this is the timestamped stream from last night

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom