I'll be honest - there are no useless ships in Elite. There will always be a task for which this ship is best. Yes, this doesn't happen very often. But owning the entire line of ships, I experience my own pleasure from flying on each one. A five-nut sidewinder with reinforced engines can also be interesting. Of course, stabilization modules for early ships have become a good help for flyers. I hope they will come up with something for early ships as well.
New ship: Panther Clipper
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Honestly, every single one is really good! Obviously the all have their little quirks, but overall they are excellent new machines!
Yep.
A 6A shield, with a full complement of HD SBs will give you around 1,200mj of shield.
7A gives you around 1,900mj and 8A gives you around 2,500.
6A prismatic will get you around 1,750mj.
Sorry to bother , but i'm so newb-ish about understanding 'optimal hull mass' on shields that i was just wondering if my last post/paragraph on page 120 --> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/new-ship-panther-clipper.637145/page-120#post-10675316 was indeed correct ( about new Panther mk2 specifically ) or am i just totally misunderstanding stats & such?
( aka Math is hard for some humans aka ME
)
This is going to sound a bit machiavellian but in some ways, Frontier getting a financial shock, ostensibly forcing them to take another look at Elite, is probably (maybe arguably) the best thing that could have happened. People like to believe the nostalgia that Elite was fine, but it wasn't, it had plateaued and was very much in, or heading towards that long-tail slide into eventual oblivion.
Frontier has gone on to reinvigorate the game, and I doing so, it seems like the team has rediscovered their spark and joy for the game.
I am still appalled by how bad some of the paints are, so don't get me started on that (I've seen wolfenstein sprites with more detail) but a lot of the new stuff definitely has come a long way. But they're definitely getting better the ship design, the more practice they get.
I did not think I would be, once again, enjoying Elite in the year of our lord, twenty-twenty-five, but here we are.
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Sorry to bother , but i'm so newb-ish about understanding 'optimal hull mass' on shields that i was just wondering if my last post/paragraph on page 120 --> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/new-ship-panther-clipper.637145/page-120#post-10675316 was indeed correct ( about new Panther mk2 specifically ) or am i just totally misunderstanding stats & such?
( aka Math is hard for some humans aka ME
Optimal mass is effectively the point of 'diminishing returns' for module capacity/ performance. Engineering can offer increased shield capacity and resistances. This can be stacked (to an extent) between shields and shield boosters, for example.
All ships are the same in that respect, however the exact amount of base shields can differ subtly between ships, based on how Frontier want to balance (some have more hardness (armour) and hull, less shield base capacity, some are the reverse of that).
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All ships are not good nor do they all have their role they excel in. There's not all these different roles you can do in the game. Mining is mining...space trucking is space trucking. There are min-max builds that are objectively ideal for those activities...with a delineation between medium and large....and no reason to care about small versions after getting enough money to afford better.
Combat scales a bit differently and exploration isn't a real role. But those too have a few ships that are objectively better than the rest. You can easily do everything in 1 ship and sacrifice a bit of min-max stats or have maybe 4 or 5 goto ships. Everything else is you opting to pick for subjective reasons. Most of the ships are pointless. There isn't enough actual role distinction in elite for that to not be the case. Certainly not enough of any specialization within roles to demand specific features (if any exist) of any individual ship.
Trucking in total safety, shooting rocks in total safety, killing 'pirates' in total safety, honking in utter safety are your basic roles and everything in the game is basically these same activities with different labels and rng npc's added to try and slow you down.
Fdev needs to add new ship game mechanics rather than just add ships... otherwise they will just continue to cannibalize the purpose of previous ships.
Combat scales a bit differently and exploration isn't a real role. But those too have a few ships that are objectively better than the rest. You can easily do everything in 1 ship and sacrifice a bit of min-max stats or have maybe 4 or 5 goto ships. Everything else is you opting to pick for subjective reasons. Most of the ships are pointless. There isn't enough actual role distinction in elite for that to not be the case. Certainly not enough of any specialization within roles to demand specific features (if any exist) of any individual ship.
Trucking in total safety, shooting rocks in total safety, killing 'pirates' in total safety, honking in utter safety are your basic roles and everything in the game is basically these same activities with different labels and rng npc's added to try and slow you down.
Fdev needs to add new ship game mechanics rather than just add ships... otherwise they will just continue to cannibalize the purpose of previous ships.
Some obvious low-hanging fruit is canyon racing/rally.
It needs some "flag post" structures for waypoint tracking (eg. giant bridges to fly under), and other odds and ends. Race courses probably need to be hand-placed, so perhaps courses are unlocked like how engineers are, etc. It's not trivial, but the gameplay is already supported by the game and what it needs is the infrastructure to record and reward lap times, missions, etc
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Example?
An example of ships superceding eachother? Or just not having a good purpose?
All small ships are superceded in every way by their medium and large counterparts. They have no functional purpose beyond being the stepping stone to better ships.
The fdl is good at basically nothing, and the one thing it was decent for (competitive pvp) has been replaced with python mk2 if you care about sco...otherwise it's mostly a wash.
The pc has no point but to replace your current biggest hauler (be that the t9, or cutter).
Not an exhaustive list but also not a list that needs to be stated. The roles were already handled more than adequately by the original lineup. All new ships are overlapping these same roles while including objectively better stats in things like sco performance and exceeding other key stats to warrant paying for them or grinding for them.
New roles are needed that specialize particular attributes of ships in a much more constrained way. Something that can only be accomplished by small ships, to give purpose to small ships. just sub roles that are specialized to the traits of particular ships that offer enhanced rewards and aren't likely to be accomplished efficiently with ships outside of the intended. Gear them to the less used ship types.
Or create entirely new roles and setup the mechanic to have a narrow focus. Like a salvage role, planetary surface mining, gas giant atmo scooping , etc. less overlap in how practical a ship is in a role is a viable option as these will be additional to the existing broad roles.
We have been successful doing the same existing activities since horizon's ship selection. Everything since is just stat creep to keep us interested because they're not adding anything new to do with them.
It is true, the game should never have been expanded with Horizons, then Odyssey, as there was no need for anything more in the game, because all it added was more of the same so was a total waste of money and developer time.
The game should have been frozen 2 years after release then left in maintenence mode until everyone stopped playing, then laid, gracelessly, to rest among the myriad of dead games that went before.
A total waste of time and a blatant disrespect of player's time and efforts, so inconsiderate.
I'd like to see cqc rebooted to an in-game proper sub game you flip to by taking a racing mission. Once taken you drop into cqc and choose a track at various permit blocked worlds where tracks have been setup in key worlds with interesting terrain. Then you pick a ship ( different races will have different classes.. but all ships will be optional based on the class) and you can upgrade with your winnings as your progress in your racing career. Also take missions moving vip's or special cargo thru dangerous surface terrain to get from one outpost to another thru hostile forces.
I also always thought cqc would be good for handling combat zones..,you take a mission at a station in a cz, then you enter cqc picking a side and then get a ship and based on your combat cqc record (basically a merc), you get to choose from different classes of ships your team has with specific cz goals for each. Death just puts you back in the queue again, losing some points.
Those seemed like better uses for cqc than the inconsequential fake pvp side game it is. I just never liked cqc being a separate game that existed external to the events of the main game.
Indeed. Or if we're going into alternate reality land, instead of adding more of the same or just not doing anything, there's another option...add something different to do that isn't just a repackage of the existing stuff.
An example of an improvement.
On the contrary, I use medium and smalls ships quite often. Mandalay and Cobra Mk V take up quite a bit of my flight time. If I have learned anything about the community, it's that making assumptions about what the majority are doing, is very prone to error and bias.
Python Mk II replaces Python for combat, more than FDL. Which was the point; Mk II is the combat variant. Probably not the best example to pick.
The Panther Clipper was always going to be one of (if not the) biggest trade ships. It's entire purpose to exist is to cart cargo. It's been a constant request from the community literally since day one. It's been asked for, for 10+ years. To expect it to not carry any more than Cutter or Type-9, is to simply not be paying any attention at all.
The issue isn't that the new ships are a better fit for current mechanics (ships should respond to the design brief, otherwise what even is the point) it's that legacy ships aren't and don't. We cannot expect ship designs from years ago to remain relevant when the game world has not remained fixed.
On the contrary, rather than attempt to unwind game development (which has seen an uptick in player count) a better valuable proposition for Frontier, is to bring the legacy ships up to the current standard. Most of the legacy ships are based on a game design from ten years ago, which is very far from where the game is today.
Much of that can be addressed with pre-engineered modules and other such, which affords Frontier some options to fiddle with capability without fundamentally changing the original ships. We've seen an increasing number of pre-engineered modules appear. That's not a coincidence, imo, but rather perhaps an insight to where Frontier are going.
As I have said elsewhere, the new ships simply expose the legacy ships to sunlight. Much opportunity now exists for Frontier to uplift and improve those ships, and there are several ways to do so. Pre-engineered modules, perhaps a stability module for SCO, and so on. I very much would like to see that happen, so much more potential.
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They can't do that, though, there would be too many complaints about individual's wish lists not being met, and why did they introduce X when we really wanted Y?
So many calls for space legs, then when they arrived they weren't what was meant by the demand...
There are many suggestions made here by individuals that consider their ideas would improve the game for alll...
And that is a "bad thing", the game should have remained static, as far as assets were involved, the day after it was released, and only some player's "dreams.txt" fulfilled instead.
Evolution is not welcome in multiplayer games apparently. (well, by legacy players at least!)
Salvage, escort, planetary mining, racing, repairing satellites or beacons in dangerous places, real exploration (hostile, dangerous environment in deep space...spotty maps that need updating due to degraded deep space networks and slower than instant data tranfer across the galaxy. Misjumps).
Hyperspace rescue - explorer.. implement hyperspace an a navigatable environment with it's own wierd physics and dangers.
Habitable ships...ships meant for permanent living with management activities not found on any other ships.
Living ships (thargoid hybrids) ...they need to eat and grow ...you gotta feed them and train them to improve stats and grow certain features or in size. Could be a whole set of activities anound that....
Plenty of things besides what can jump the furthest, haul the most, or have the best weapon loadout while either being a tank or being fast.
Hyperspace rescue - explorer.. implement hyperspace an a navigatable environment with it's own wierd physics and dangers.
Habitable ships...ships meant for permanent living with management activities not found on any other ships.
Living ships (thargoid hybrids) ...they need to eat and grow ...you gotta feed them and train them to improve stats and grow certain features or in size. Could be a whole set of activities anound that....
Plenty of things besides what can jump the furthest, haul the most, or have the best weapon loadout while either being a tank or being fast.
As I mentioned, lots of ideas from forumites that consider they can improve the game for everyone...
There never is pleasing everyone. Neither does every feature have to please everyone. Having more features though broadens the probability that everyone finds at least some features they like, widening the player base. It's the very nature of a sandbox game to offer a plethora of toys from which every player individually can pick what they like. And the more toys there are, the more players will find one they like.