It's a matter of taste. Which means, we could now ping-pong each other with "but i like it" vs "but i don't" for ages.
Why Do Players WANT to Keep Old Ships
- Thread starter CMDR Voron
- Start date
I fully agree to this. Too many people here never experienced the golden age of ED. Where all the ships you mentioned and even a few more were seen as viable options for combat. And not just PvE, but also in PvP. When, despite the FDL being around, the FAS was a very close rival. Often even flown in an unshielded configuration. When the Imperial Courier was seen as a reasonable PvP ship. When the DBS was used in PvP, often without shields.
I guess i am just too old, still remembering this. Some ship reworks and the insane power scaling of engineering eliminated so many of these old options. Which kind of even explains, why so many people here seem not to get the idea any more, that different does not necessarily mean clearly superior or inferior, as if a ship would be just one number.
And if someone hadn't invented a defense type called 'hull-tanking' that appeared to have no rational advantages it might even have been closer.
It was an oddball, but "no rational advantages" is not true. In PvP these setups had their use. After all, you had to win one fight, then returned to repair. (Unlike fighting against NPCs, where you fight one after another for as many hours as you like. ) Thus your hull had to lasts for exactly one fight. Not having a shield, replacing your internals with HRPs and MRPs meant:
- Not having shields meant that there was no drawback for tactically switching silent running on and off.
- Utility slots were usually filled with heat sink launchers, allowing the ship to stay really cold.
- Saving a pile of energy for other gear. Which people usually turned into more firepower.
- With system not eating much energy, more pips were available to other system, allowing to sustain the heavier weapons or more boosting and thus more agility.
The rest is based on my personal experience fighting them, but i was always a very casual PvP player. From the point of view of a dedicated PvP pilot, somethings might be different and very likely incomplete. That being said, i found a fight against a -competent- FAS pilot quite annoying. Staying cold and/or silent running, it was very hard to keep track of them. If somebody boosts past me, then engaged his "stealth" and turned into a random direction after passing me, it was really hard to pick them up again. Black paintjobs were used a lot for this, and we did not have the night vision yet, only headlights. And while i had to search for him, he took shots at me. (A good clue was: when the shots stopped, i was looking into his general direction. That's why he stopped shooting, so he would not reveal his position. )
In a one on one, spotting the one ship out there was annoying but possible. But in the chaos of a four vs four wing fight, i found it completely impossible to figure out the location of such a ship. An unspottable ship with huge firepower freely taking shots at your team was a massive advantage. Keep in mind: my personal experience in that time. Maybe you were more into PvP and know better, it's merely what i remember about those builds.
The advantage was that it saved power for WEP and ENG (at a time when capacitor recharge rates were no where near as high) as well as allowed silent running during combat, which was quite viable before 2.0's changes to heat (Horizons radically increased the temperature gain from weapon use) and 2.1's introduction of weapon specials that could hard counter the few hull tanks that survived 2.0's changes.
A full wing of shieldless FASes vs. a full wing of meta FDLs was a fair fight in 1.4, assuming pilots of similar competence.
Actually reading those postings, would reveal that people are not asking to not get new ships. But rather to adjust ships in a way, that old ships also remain viable content, instead of being leftover stuff from old times, more and more of then not worth ever using them again.
In the long run, it's much better for a game if new content adds to existing content, instead of replacing it. Especially if it's replacing it with a smaller number of options existing than before.
I'd definitely like to keep some of the old ships, especially the ones I'd spent a lot of time or most of my ED time in (like my cutter). At the same time, I'm all for the new ships and enjoy trying them out or even flying more with them such as the Mandalay. In my opinion, I think the game can keep the old ships just fine, there's no pressing need to phase them out as to be not available for use or in storage anymore.
Maybe someday if there's a hired npc crew feature added to the game, similar to hired npc features of the X franchise games. Some of the old ships in one's storage fleet can be consigned to be used by npc use automatically or semi-automatic. Like at a colony, or colonization build, or even winged up with the pc character for certain missions, or teams also consisting of hired npc members.
Maybe someday if there's a hired npc crew feature added to the game, similar to hired npc features of the X franchise games. Some of the old ships in one's storage fleet can be consigned to be used by npc use automatically or semi-automatic. Like at a colony, or colonization build, or even winged up with the pc character for certain missions, or teams also consisting of hired npc members.
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From a lore perspective it would make sense if the SCO eventually was retrofitted to work with all the older ships as the manufacturing companies learn more about this alien tech, outside of that, I think Frontier is playing the long game, like one big exclusivity period encompassing all the newer ships. It's pretty clear that the SCO drives are a straight upgrade if you're running a ship "designed for it", but the behavior for legacy ships is substandard with massive heat generation, instability and fuel guzzling.
Unless the game does something wacky within the menus though, I think its the same module at the end of the day, so ships probably have some kind of internal flag that marks whether to behave like a crappy SCO drive or a good one. I theorise eventually all ships will have that flag telling them to behave right, maybe at some kind of retrofitting cost to the overall ship?
I very much hope that the old ships aren't abandoned too for what it's worth. I love flying my Gutamaya ships but if the only ship worthwhile becomes the Corsair then hoo boy. I'm a Gutamaya fangirl and I'm not going to lie, the Corsair to me does not mesh well with the rest of Gutamaya's design language. Gutamaya ships are supposed to be all rounded and smooth, but the corsair has quite a few sharp angles which does not fit the rest of their lineup aesthetically.
Unless the game does something wacky within the menus though, I think its the same module at the end of the day, so ships probably have some kind of internal flag that marks whether to behave like a crappy SCO drive or a good one. I theorise eventually all ships will have that flag telling them to behave right, maybe at some kind of retrofitting cost to the overall ship?
I very much hope that the old ships aren't abandoned too for what it's worth. I love flying my Gutamaya ships but if the only ship worthwhile becomes the Corsair then hoo boy. I'm a Gutamaya fangirl and I'm not going to lie, the Corsair to me does not mesh well with the rest of Gutamaya's design language. Gutamaya ships are supposed to be all rounded and smooth, but the corsair has quite a few sharp angles which does not fit the rest of their lineup aesthetically.
But why have them merely as module storage and perhaps, maybe, although unlikely, as something some NPCs fly for you?
Why not give them some kind of upgrade. And if it is as simply as that any of the old ships, which has at least one piece of a ship kit attached to it, is considered to be upgraded for SCO use? That would not only mean that all ships would again be much better options to use, but FD would also sell a number of ship kits. Which basically is the very one and only reason why we have those specialized SCO-optimized ships, after all: FD needed more cashflow, so they looked for something to sell, and added SCO as special sales feature.
Considering how much it costs to create a new ship, compared to how much it costs to add this feature to already existing ship kits, it's a clear win for FD on the financial side. For the game as it saves already created content from obsolescence and for us players as it provides more attractive options to us, at the price of some money. (Means, it won't fix the Pay2Win aspect. But that's here to stay, that much we know. )
First I'm going to say something I've said for years: We don't need new ships, we need more in-game reasons to fly more of the ships already in the game. That doesn't mean I don't want new ships, I just think the priority is wrong.
And while I do think power creep is bad (regardless of real world analogies this is a game, and power creep has never made any game better, but quite often worse) my main problem with the new ships is that I find them bland and boring; both in form and function.
With the old ships, even when I don't like how the ship look, I do think their design is right for what they are suppose to be. The new ships lacks something there.
And why the decided to ruin SCOC on them I will never understand.
Also, more powerful really doesn't mean more fun in this game. There are after all reasons why I spend most of my time in my Keelback and not my Krait MkII. To be fair to Fdev, I don't think they will ever be able to make another ship that speak to me the way the Keelback does.
And while I do think power creep is bad (regardless of real world analogies this is a game, and power creep has never made any game better, but quite often worse) my main problem with the new ships is that I find them bland and boring; both in form and function.
With the old ships, even when I don't like how the ship look, I do think their design is right for what they are suppose to be. The new ships lacks something there.
And why the decided to ruin SCOC on them I will never understand.
Also, more powerful really doesn't mean more fun in this game. There are after all reasons why I spend most of my time in my Keelback and not my Krait MkII. To be fair to Fdev, I don't think they will ever be able to make another ship that speak to me the way the Keelback does.
Not really what he was saying?
I've got nothing against addressing previous content. But he wasn't saying that, so that's why I responded in the way I did. A lot of players want new content. I can't see why that's controversial.
As to what you're suggesting, this is similar to what I said in another thread:
One of us must be missing something here. If you refer to the OP, he actually very much supports new ships being added to the game and resulting in other ships being outdated. He expresses it as loving vintage and enjoying outdated stuff. The obvious inferiority from a technical side actually attracts him.
And the general reaction throughout many posts after that is, that while people welcome new ships to be added, many of us would prefer, if there'd be a way to also keep the older ships in a shape which makes them interesting to use. Just like the majority of people around are not driving the retro Dodge Charger he quoted (and neither the VK Käfer built from 1938 to 2003, to reference a way more often built vehicle), most players rather pick something up to date. They might have some vintage ships as fancy paperweights somewhere, but not for actual use.
Yet i fail to find any posting, where people claim that they would not want new content. Which you claimed on that posting, that people would go for.
And this part is what about everybody here agrees upon. Please point me to the one posting, which you apparently refered to, while not quoting it, where people said that they would not want any new ships?
The first time when I encountered the brand new Python Mk 2 was when a ganking commander intercepted me in supercruise. I put my old Python to the test. It was a fair fight. My Python ran hotter than usual and it took a while until the ganker put his wings under the arms and ran. Good old Python flown well.
odysee.com
Imo Python Mark I vs ganker Python Mark II
View on Odysee: Imo Python Mark I vs ganker Python Mark II
odysee.com
Wait, what?
They've changed the noises an AspX makes?
Tell me it still sounds like this:-
I always thought it was the best sound in the game!
Frontier doesn't know how to do that. Players can't even agree on what makes ships just "different" and not better or worse. The only way that new ships won't make old ships obsolete is if they are worse than the old ships.
That may not be what you are saying, but that is what you are asking for.
Nah, they can be better at some things, just not everything.
That's the problem. My solution is role-specific slots, like how combat ships can add free shield boosters or hull reinforcement. You want a Hauler or a Panther to be the premier transport ships? Give them a Cargo-only slot... maybe with the option for a refinery or limpets if they want to go mining, I dunno.
Really the source of all this games problems.
I jumped out of my Corsair back into my Clipper last night.
Like putting on a slightly worn but perfectly broken in pair of slippers.
ive got the new ships but am still using as called old ships as they are set up for a purpose,each to there own,wouldt ever change my asp or my mining conda,none are fitted with sco ,simple but does the job required,