New ship: Panther Clipper
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
Absolutely. I've seen some people saying 1500-2000t or it's a bust lol.
Yep, they will be disappointed that it is too small, or too big.
Aim low and be happy about it, I guess.
If I understand correctly, the original Panther Clipper was so gigantic that it was extremely slow to maneuver. I'm guessing FDev is making this second iteration a bit faster, but it's still likely to be very slow, perhaps even slower than the Type-9 (especially when turning). Cue many players complaining that it's unusable and the game is ruined because it's so slow.
That is a given anyway, considering that the ship has been teased 11 years ago, and hype and legend has been building since then. However, despite the vocal ones on this thread, it will sell very very well. Not to me, I still refuse to pay for early access out of principle for any ship, but they'll have my ARX for cosmetics if I like them 4 months later, or whenever early access ends.
I will not be disappointed if it is a combat only vessel capable of fielding 4 SLFs simultaneously. 
That sounds like a good plan for another new ship later down the lineI will not be disappointed if it is a combat only vessel capable of fielding 4 SLFs simultaneously.
I think you're massively underestimating the segment of the player base which feels that if it's not got the highest quantitative number - regardless of the actual impact on effectiveness - their build is a failure and not worth flying, and so will go to any lengths to get the biggest possible number. The Mandalay had about a 1 LY jump range advantage over the Anaconda and a few mild internal upgrades over the Asp, and was a massive hit (sure, there were people expecting it go over 100 LY, but it didn't and Inara puts it as the clear leader of the first four ships. People will spend hours collecting Titan Drive components for their FSDs when for in-bubble work a normal SCO FSD probably has the same number of jumps from A to B 95% of the time. People will G5 Lightweight a D-rated life support even though the actual impact on speed or jump range is basically nil. The Panther Clipper could be 850t cargo capacity and still get purchases.
You're also massively overestimating the financial impact of early ship purchases. Assuming that every System Architect buys the Panther for ARX, and buys the ARX needed to do that - which is highly unlikely whatever its specifications are! - that brings Frontier about £300,000 over the exclusivity period. From Frontier's latest financial update, Elite Dangerous brings in about £6.5 million a year. So the most extreme case - 30,000 purchases if it has 2000t but no-one at all buys it at a "mere" 1000t - makes a 4% difference to ED's annual revenue. Obviously not everyone is going to buy it for ARX regardless of its capabilities, and plenty of people would buy it at a smaller tonnage.
Inara's stats roughly suggest that only about a quarter of the people who'd find a ship useful buy it for ARX during the exclusivity period - ownership there doubles nearly overnight when that ends, and then continues to rise quite a bit after that. So we're probably talking well under 1% of annual revenue marginal difference based on what precise tonnage the Panther Clipper has. Completely irrelevant.
It wasn't great, certainly, but it wasn't noticeably worse than other large freighters. FE2's combination of time acceleration, autopilot and no loss of power on turret weapons meant that you could almost fly it without ever needing to turn it in real time, too.
Last edited:
Frontier should charge +1000 Arx per ton of cargo capacity over the Cutter.
No, it could.
I don't remember the Panther Clipper being unable to dock with space stations in Elite 2: Frontier.
Well then I heard wrong, or my memory of what I heard is flaky. I didn't play the original games, so what do I know .
.The Lynx Bulk Carrier, which was essentially two Panther Clippers bolted together with some extra cargo pods in between (basically the equivalent to the previews of the Squadron Carrier versus the Fleet Carrier) couldn't dock with stations [1] and may have been what you're thinking of.
[1] This isn't strictly true. It wasn't a player-purchasable ship, and the NPC ones never moved. But if you hacked your save game to give yourself one, you could dock it because they never thought to specifically make that impossible, and Stardreamer time acceleration meant that you could avoid the "wait, this won't fit through the door" problem.
[1] This isn't strictly true. It wasn't a player-purchasable ship, and the NPC ones never moved. But if you hacked your save game to give yourself one, you could dock it because they never thought to specifically make that impossible, and Stardreamer time acceleration meant that you could avoid the "wait, this won't fit through the door" problem.
Could be. Thanks!
Perhaps the PC has taken 11 years to make it into production because it needs new module sizes in its design brief and it has taken all that time for the PF to approve such radical change? After all, large organisations move at a glacial pace when faced with change...
If it wasn't for progress, the Ferrari F40 would have a Ford Model T engine in, as that was the only approved design for mass production
If it wasn't for progress, the Ferrari F40 would have a Ford Model T engine in, as that was the only approved design for mass production
I dig the lore reason. But this begs the question in my mind of, where are my black market outfitters?
dead because of parking offences.