Indeed.
As I understood it the racks only work in combination with the optional slots, so they could refit T7s without touching the difference between T9 and PC.
Thought they said that those extra slots were special slots. 50% bigger. Which means 2x type 7 slots. This means you get 2 x 192 cargo space, or fuel space.
That would then just mean that the cargo capacity of all ships would be increased by 50%, making the Panther Clipper not that special after all.
Personally I think they might be smart and make this a thing that only applies to purpose built cargo ships. So that would be the Lakon T series (exc. the T-10) possibly the Anaconda (arguably it should if the T-8 gets a buff) and of course the Hauler (maybe a couple of others too including the Saud Kruger ships).
Good question.
That depends what they meant by "comparable", of course, since jump range - unlike shield generation or engine performance - doesn't have a "magic ship constant" number involved.
Assuming that they have more plans in this direction, I expect it's to encourage ship specialisation. If they're to keep bringing out 4 new ships a year they need those ships to be different enough from each other that people want to buy them rather than sticking with what they have (and different from the pre-SCO ships, too). Making it so that two ships can have the same optional internals, but aren't interchangeable, gives them a bit more design space to work with and an easier job of coming up with new concepts.
Think I'd be happy to stick with my Cutter if that was the case, but alas.
If K-9 took steroids
If the hull is made from Hardened, Lightweighted, Anacondium, those 400t could be offset by a lesser hull mass, despite the ship being massive.
Someone once said to the effect, "what cannot be explained by current science is effectively magic".
I don't expect that the hull mass will be less than that of the Type-9, i.e. 850t. It may not be less than that of the Cutter, i.e. 1,100t.
Arthur C. Clarke’s third law:
I’m going to say it won’t. A very good chance exists it’s not even going to match the Corvette’s top end (boost) speed, though that’s a guess based on them saying it’s going to be more like a T9. Even if it has those size 8 thrusters… look at the speed indicated on the footage of it exiting the mail slot. If that (as I presume) is its E rated, unengineered speed… it’s not going to be fast in any category. Normal space flight, anyway.
Although there is the complication of the landing gear being down adding to that. 50m/s at half throttle with the landing gear down should mean it won't be too shabby whatever grade of thrusters are on there, assuming they're not engineered. Which of course they could be, (and A rated) and actually the thing really is actually horribly slow (which, I know, brings us back to what you're saying in the first place).
I thought it was up at that point. I don’t recall seeing the gear down icon being lit up/filled in - and the thrusters were in the regular flight position.
