Panther Clipper with Magical Cargo Racks?

[gbjbaanb]

If the same attitude existed today in the real world we'd still be driving Ford Model T's and cargo ships might max out at 1,000 tons and aircraft 2 seater biplanes...
Of course, the real world will manufacture bigger & better as it makes business sense... Apparently a games world has to ignore such logic.

the real world starts off with new stuff that is patehtic, it stays like that for a while and then innovation takes off and things improve - but only to a certain point where improvements roughly stop. Airplanes were balsa wood and string, then they became balsa wood and turboprops than they became a 747 or Concorde. Then they stopped. Progress only goes as far as the pofits outweight the cost of innovation, and physical reality steps in at some point to say "no more".

They could make a Panther mk3 with even more cargo, but it wouldn't fit in the mailslot and that would mean nobody buys it and that would mean ZP goes bankrupt. I would have thought the Type 9 was the ultimate, but gameplay requires more and more to keep you kids keen.

 

[Rat Catcher]

They could make a Panther mk3 with even more cargo

Or just use the 97.2% of empty space on the Mk II?

to keep you kids keen.

I'm flattered... I played the original elite, on release, at 30

 

[Doctor Dread]

.

The C class SCO drives were released in all sizes,

You sure on that?
Because I remember thinking "oh crap, it's for Asp and Python only, too bad I can't use it on Anaconda".

I could bet it was C5 only for at least a month or something.
Not arguing you mate, all is cool, just puzzled as hell.

Anyone, do you remember how SCO started: was it C5 only (for some time) or the whole range in C?

 

[SlickPBW]

Yeah. I think that when you have to resort to magic, you lose credibility and there’s no going back. But we also have selective magic, which is worse. Our new magic only applies to 1 of 2 otherwise identical cargo racks, and this was done for only 2 sizes. Our new magic also only applies to one ship, for no apparent in-game technical reason (of course it’s to prevent magic creep to other ships). The first thing I thought was that D&D’s “bag of holding” has found its way into ED. Now, the genie is out of the bottle; let’s see what’s next. There’s still time for FD to achieve a similar capability for the Panther mk 2 by removing the magic and revising the ship’s internal layout before release.

 

[Mr Lindsay]

Yeah. I think that when you have to resort to magic, you lose credibility and there’s no going back. But we also have selective magic, which is worse. Our new magic only applies to 1 of 2 otherwise identical cargo racks, and this was done for only 2 sizes. Our new magic also only applies to one ship, for no apparent in-game technical reason (of course it’s to prevent magic creep to other ships). The first thing I thought was that D&D’s “bag of holding” has found its way into ED. Now, the genie is out of the bottle; let’s see what’s next. There’s still time for FD to achieve a similar capability for the Panther mk 2 by removing the magic and revising the ship’s internal layout before release.

The technical reason is that this ship was built to support this new technology, and the older ships weren't.

You can fit an air-bag to your Ford Model T steering wheel, but if you don't put all the relevant sensors and electronics in place to set the thing off at the right time, it isn't going to do anything to help you in a crash.

 

[aRJay]

.


You sure on that?
Because I remember thinking "oh crap, it's for Asp and Python only, too bad I can't use it on Anaconda".

I could bet it was C5 only for at least a month or something.
Not arguing you mate, all is cool, just puzzled as hell.

Anyone, do you remember how SCO started: was it C5 only (for some time) or the whole range in C?

I think there were just size 5 for a week(ish) then the full range of sizes but in C class as I said I bought all sizes then not long after that they came in all grades as well followed by the pre-engineered ones later.

It was puzzling especially how fast development went/FDev caved.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I think that when you have to resort to magic, you lose credibility and there’s no going back

Sure, so since Elite Dangerous already has (and has had for slightly over a decade):
- breaches of conservation of mass and energy all over the place
- a complete recklessness for the physical scale of anything smaller than a planet but larger than a person
- mag(net)ic boots which grant total immunity to inertial forces
- engineering blueprints which double the amount of ammunition a missile launcher carries without increasing its size
...we're well over that line and don't need to worry about it further or trying futilely to go the other way.

I understand people who look at the above list and many more and decide to play something more realistic like KSP instead.
I understand people (like me) who don't really care about the space magic so long as the game is fun.

I don't understand why people who've managed to ignore all of the above - in some cases for a decade - are suddenly latching on to "slightly more efficient cargo storage" as the problem, especially since the underlying implied size of the optional internal bays [1] means that there is an immense amount of room for efficiencies here.


[1] A size 7 optional internal can hold a 7D fighter bay. That can hold 32 Taipans - two in a state where they can be instantly launched, and 30 in some flat-packed format but still ready for ultra-rapid assembly. A Taipan [2] has a bounding box of ~14x17x2.5m and there's two of them, so even ignoring the 30 flat-packed ones (and a Taipan is pretty flat to begin with!) that's about 1200 cubic metres. A cargo pod has a volume of 2 cubic metres, so if absolutely full of cargo a size 7 internal should be able to hold at least 600 pods just in the ready-to-launch space of the fighter hangar.

The internal can also hold at least 320t of externally-perceived mass safely [3], as that's the mass of a 7A Collector Limpet controller engineered with Reinforced G5.

Holding 192t rather than 128t of cargo in that space should not be stretching anyone's requirement to believe.
(Holding only 192t in that space? Sure, I can understand some questions being asked there)

[2] The various XG fighters are quite a bit larger, but also quite obviously powered by space magic. So let's stick to the Taipan.

[3] It is probably not a good idea at this point to ask about the Taipan's mass. According to https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/do-slfs-have-official-hull-mass.473843/#post-7475116 Frontier said a Taipan has a mass of 22t. How 32 of them fit into a fighter bay which only has a total externally-perceived mass of 60t is obviously back to space magic again.

 

[aRJay]

Further information.

Panther Clipper MK II | Highlights

Greetings Commanders   On this week's Frontier Unlocked we shared an in depth look at the Panther Clipper MK II, which launches into ARX Early Access on 22nd July. If you missed the show, you can catch up below to see the Panther take flight for the first time!     Below we have added three...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Doctor Dread]

Yeah. I think that when you have to resort to magic, you lose credibility and there’s no going back.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Rat Catcher]

there is an immense amount of room

As the ship is mostly vacant space.
So stretching out a 2 racks 'bonus' has likely used less than 1% of the available empty space.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

This discussion is silly to me. Magical cargo racks?
1) They aren't just a shelf to put boxes on. They contain equipment (auto balancing, environmental stablization, etc.) for cargo.
2) we used to have a thing called a telephone that took up a fair bit of space on a desk. Computers took whole rooms. Yet, now we have both in a device small enough to put in your pocket. Its called miniaturization. It isn't magical at all.

This all seems to me to just be people looking for a reason to complain.

Replicators and pocket universes. Traveller TL 35.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Ah, the good old days! I remember working on servers that had their own dedicated rooms, with tak-mats on the way in, excellent air-conditioning (wonderful on a hot day) and a very scary tank of Halon gas hanging from the ceiling! Today's mobile phones are magnitudes more powerful, in both operation and storage, and fit in a pocket - still, I miss that air-con...

I got to know one of these- as a storage facility:

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area.[5] SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a possible Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of Cold War lore, and after decommissioning were common props in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Colossus, and on science fiction TV series such as The Time Tunnel.

 

[BDelacroix]

I got to know one of these- as a storage facility:

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area.[5] SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a possible Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of Cold War lore, and after decommissioning were common props in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Colossus, and on science fiction TV series such as The Time Tunnel.

I remember Sage buildings. Big concrete thing. Was also the base bomb shelter back in the cold war days.

 

[Elyssaen]

Whereas if only as-yet- unreleased ships will have these restricted slots... why do we need more freighters anyhow, after the Panther?

The feature would actually be much more interesting on a non-freighter. Imagine a medium combat ship which could carry 48t of cargo in one Mk 2 rack, without compromising its combat loadout. It'd be a unique little selling point that'd lean it to piracy.

 

[metatheurgist]

As the ship is mostly vacant space.

Empty space, potential interiors.

 

[Muzz UK]

Why create new magical cargo racks that are 50% better that only go into that one ship and into specific slots?

That makes no sense at all and takes a giant dump on the whole concept of modularity.

It also makes the designers of the normal cargo racks look like fools if they waste that much space in standardized modules.

Have you seen the ship from the outside? It has 4 containers of the same size. It looks great!

Now you want to put 4 wildly different amounts of cargo into those identical looking compartments?

Whyyyy?!

Just give it 4 class 8 slots and shelve the magical cargo rack idea - it's only a measly 64t difference!

The Panther probably has a very niche role to fulfil as the biggest hauler/cargo ship which is probably going to mean a weakness in its combat or jump range ability. Allowing these special racks to be fitted onto other ships might downgrade the Panther's purpose and role. Maybe there is new special commodities coming that can only be carried in the Panther or perhaps this is a colonization focused vessel!

 

[lysan]

I'll quote my own post from the other thread:

I think it can be explained in-universe:

Cargo holds are not just empty dumb boxes, like seaship shipping containers. Instead, they have to be hi-tech storage units with internal compartments and both passive and active technology to protect the cargo from sudden acceleration, which the ship can do, when accelerating, turning, or colliding with something. After all, the cargo needs to remain intact even at very high g's.

These new enhanced cargo racks use newer technology and newer materials to significantly reduce the internal space taken by these protective structures and mechanisms, thus allowing for more cargo to be fitted inside the container. However, the drawback is that the ship needs to be specifically fitted for these special cargo containers. They won't fit nor work in existing ships.

We have to believe we're magic, nothing can stand in our way!!!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I do wonder why FD chose to do it this way instead of giving the ship an extra size 8 cargo rack and adding a size 9 cargo rack to the game with a module slot in the ship for it.

Maybe they have plans to roll out these optimized cargo racks to other ships in the future, and its simpler to tick a box to say the ships can fit them rather than changing the size of slots on existing ships.

 

[DjVortex]

I do wonder why FD chose to do it this way instead of giving the ship an extra size 8 cargo rack and adding a size 9 cargo rack to the game with a module slot in the ship for it.

My guess: To avoid power creep when it comes to the amount and size of optional slots.

It also allows designing ships that are dedicated cargo ships, the same way that military slots allows designing ships that are dedicated combat ships.

 

[Stealthie]

Or just use the 97.2% of empty space on the Mk II?

I get slightly irked when dev's talk about how "boxy" the PC2 is, and how "efficient" it's design is.

Seriously?
I mean, it's a cool looking ship but those honking great pontoons housing the thrusters and landing-gear account for almost 50% of it's volume!
The PC, as depicted in previous games, is actually a way more "efficient" design.

In reality, Lakon could take a pair of T7s, smush them together and create a cargo ship that's far more "efficient" than the PC2.