Why Do Players WANT to Keep Old Ships
- Thread starter CMDR Voron
- Start date
Thank you for the considerate and well thought out response, I enjoyed reading your take. I, too, still drive a 2008 Volkswagen and can’t bring myself to upgrade.
That being said, I am not using my VW to conduct commercial trade or save my life in a combat scenario.
I always wanted that generation of Land Rover but it never worked out.
As for your last assertion that no one is concerned about older ships being superseded, I hope you won’t take offense, but I feel that can be proven untrue by about 1/3 of the comments on this thread.
Again, thank you for the honest and candid discussion
Citation needed.
Also, I just love the way my Asp creaks and groans when I'm out in the middle of the Black. Have all the new ships you want, I don't care, I'll enjoy my comfy old jumper
Please see 1/3 of comments posted on this thread (?)
Right, so you don’t want new ships. New ships = failure of game design. To me, new ships that are reskinned old ships would be a failure of game design.
Maybe there are some extra steps, please expand on this idea.
Same - I would really like to see the NPC nations have proper military vessels aside from just the capital ships. To me, it just doesn’t make sense to have a bunch of randoms duking it out in their repurposed fishing trollers when there’s an interstellar conflict.
Thank you for your contribution to the conversation
I kind of agree? I mean I do want new ships, but I want things to fill a role. The purpose of continuing to use the old equipment is 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. There is a tumblr thread or something about how archaeologists keep finding weird things until modern crafts people snap-point and identify exactly what it is, because we still use the same non-broke tech today. Modern tools being weirdly inferior, sometimes, like how leather workers use bone tools because it just works better than plastic or steel or whatever modern variation people try to make.
I'm not sure where the point is... oh, new things.
I think new ships should fill a niche, as long as that niche isn't just 'X, but better' which is a problem with the basic game design. Ships should always have their niche, unless they are generalist. If something comes along to fill that niche better, then it should also have a drawback somewhere else.
I guess it's a question of perspective.
Back in the days when engineers first arrived, there absolutely was moaning about escalation, power creep and needlessly overpowered ships.
People were, literally, moaning that they'd been out to the edges of the galaxy in ships with a 20ly jump-range and anything more than 40ly was just silly.
In those days most people had ships with ~300mj shields and if you could build a ship with 1000mj of shield it was considered indestructable and when people started engineering SBs to create ships with >3000mj of shield it was considered game-breakingly OP.
Etc.
Compared to that, any current moaning is pretty mild.
I guess there's also a distinction between two slightly different issues.
Firstly, that the older ships don't become redundant.
Secondly, that the new ships aren't stupidly overpowered.
Both of those issues have merit and I guess different people approach this topic from either of those two positions and, although it's all part of the same discussion, there are differing motivations.
Its actually very simple. Once you realise that people in the know sometimes argument with things being good or bad in design, you can simply use that argumemt to justify everything you want and dismiss anything you dislike.
I want this, this is good design. But we got this, this is bad design.
See?
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
None of those comments say they "really wants everything to stay the same and doesn’t want new ships."
So again, where are these "very opinionated and vocal group" saying that there should be no ships and the game should stay the same.
People liking old ships ≠ people don't want new ships
Here is an example of you completely ignoring the first part of someone's reply and taking their comments out of context so you can complain about what you personally perceive as being a problem.
Comes down to this really. Old ships still work and don't degrade or start getting wear and tear issues. Coming back to the car comparison, if my car suddenly stopped deteriorating so wear and tear would never be an issue beyond what a new car would be, I wouldn't sell it, ever.
The new ones have downsides to them which makes them not always be the best choice, for me anyway.
The T-8 and Mandalay are very role focused. If you're the sort of player like me who gets distracted by power and pirate activity signal sources, they're not going to be ideal. Not as much as other ships anyway.
The Cobra mkV is great for a small ship, but for some things you need something bigger.
The Python mk2 has limitations around the number of hardpoints and the distributor that adds a few challenges to the build. There's a whole separate debate you could have over whether it is actually better than the FdL anyway (personally, it isn't).
The Corsair is brilliant, but is also a marmite ship. If you don't like how it handles, you're going to have a very different opinion. The looks are challenging for some as well.
Sorry mate. I'm not about to put up a full game redesign of ED to fulfill your lack of understanding or vision here. Because rest assured if I don't do that and give you a "new" ship, you'll just find something to complain about.
But I'll bite. Penetrators. Jump range is a big limiting factor for a lot of things, but having infinite exploitation range due to fuel scoops or large amounts of fuel tanks on a very long range ship is a problem. Heard the latest news? SCO has given us new insights into stellar aerodynamics/micrometeorite considerations etc... bringing about a next-gen ship design which:
- Out the box has, i dunno, a 150Ly jump range, maybe up to 300 with engineering, 600 engineering + synth, 1200 once neutron boosted; but
- Cannot fit fuel scoops or tanks, due to impacts of aerodynamics and fuel volatility issues
- Biggest fuel tank can only squeeze in two max range jumps plus some supercruise mobility
- Minimal fittings/no SRV bays (negotiable)
- Bonus points: Minimum jump range is 50% of the max jump range, guaranteeing you can't just do 20Ly jumps at exorbinant efficiency.
Allows strategic use of things like the colonia bridge to cover long distances in short time, or to hit a single but distant strategic point for some reason and come back, or take a tourist or two a considerable distance and return, or risk the biscuit and do a double jump to get somewhere really fast, on the hopes of refuelling when you get there. Regardless, very limited longrange exploitation, tethered to a refuel station.
All the superpowers and indies love it, and release their own subtly different variants... maybe one favours VIP transport, one actually does have an SRV bay, one has additional utility slots for scans, one has larger optional internals, one has, i dunno, a jacuzzi, or is a vanilla in-betweener.
There. You wanted a new ship? Have four, and none of them take away from existing explo ships.
Don't like something? Don't care. I personally hate this, but I'm making the most of design issues with the game, of which they are notable and substantial. But there would be many many more options if the game design had any bigger vision.
How on Earth did you read that from what I wrote? I don't even know where to begin with this nonsensical reply...
Totally agree with your analogy.
Regarding the new ships, it's funny how opinions vary.
As I've said elsewhere, my daily-driver ship was a Phantom which I replaced with a Mandalay.
At first I wasn't convinced that the Mandy' was an improvement on the Phantom but after a few tweaks I've found it to be a very solid, flexible, ship.
I had an FdL as a combat ship but it went missing so, rather than rebuilding it, I went for a P2 and I've found that to be much easier to fly, and make things explode, than my FdL.
Conversely, I find the Corsair kind of meh.
It's a decent enough ship but I don't find it that much better than my Python to make it worth going through the faff of engineering it.
Once I find a use for it I'll start flying it but right now it's just parked at Jameson Memorial.
I think a lot of it comes down to what you want to do with the ship and that combined with the fact that we're even having this discussion means that FDev have probably got it about right as far as balance is concerned. Or as right as it can be.
I know people are kind of crazy about cars, and I am probably part of a tiny minority, but I never replace my car because it LOOKS dated. I replace my car when it stops working or becomes too expensive to maintain or repair.
I also subscribe to the 'change my car for the same reason as I buy a new hammer because both are just tools' club.
Sometimes I like to fly the Imperial Clipper because it has my favourite flight characteristics. I wanted the Corsair to fly like the iClipper.
Really? How else are we supposed to interpret:
Not depreciating old ships == not better than old ships. I.e. worse than older ships.
Always thought that at the very least they should have given it four medium weapon hardpoints instead of two small and two medium, to give it a little distinctiveness. It's really just an oversized Cobra MkIII without much more benefit.