2025 - The Largest Ship is NOT the Panther Clipper MK II
- Thread starter ruifo
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WOW thats a great comparision,what made you take time out to do that,realy.
curiosity
I think this misses the fact that these are 3d objects. Does the pc look thinner from the other axis as well? If so, that would be a let down since that means it's as magical as the anaconda. But i suspect it's going to edge out on volume.
Beluga is still the pretty boy of the gang.
no one has said its the biggest ship in the game,just a big hauler,but lengh isnt every thing why all the comparisions,nice to see,time taken to compare,but it is what its .shifts a lot of stuff,i like the pc for that reason that what it was desiegned for, hump a a load lol.
Nah, my money would still be on the Beluga being the "biggest" ship by volume.
Considering all the (apocryphal) hype about the Panther Clipper, the PC2 is far from an efficient cargo-hauling design, with those outboard thrusters taking up a lot of space and preventing the hull from being larger, and thus capable of hauling more stuff.
It should, basically, be a box the size of a large pad, with thrusters integrated into the hull as efficiently as possible.
Course, there's no denying it's a cool looking ship.
Yeah, Chris Gregory (art director of ED) said on Frontier Unlocked (30 July 2025) that "nothing is bigger than the Panther Clipper." Maybe in terms of the cargo capacity and width that's true. However, the Beluga and Cutter are both much longer!
Many people want a Panther Clipper that is the whole length of a large landing pad.
Many people want a Panther Clipper that is the whole length of a large landing pad.
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You kinda have that back-to-front.Nah, my money would still be on the Beluga being the "biggest" ship by volume.
Considering all the (apocryphal) hype about the Panther Clipper, the PC2 is far from an efficient cargo-hauling design, with those outboard thrusters taking up a lot of space and preventing the hull from being larger, and thus capable of hauling more stuff.
It should, basically, be a box the size of a large pad, with thrusters integrated into the hull as efficiently as possible.
Course, there's no denying it's a cool looking ship.
The integrated engines on the other ships is what makes some of them look bigger, because the engines are theoretically taking up central space in the ship. From the images the central hull of the Panther has roughly the same footprint as the T10 (minus the wings), and only loses a bit of that space to the little engines it has. The outboard thrusters on the Panther are visually working as intended. It's a big box with thrusters strapped to the sides.
The Beluga is probably all swimming pools and restaurants, that just sit empty if you don't have passenger compartments fitted.
And many more want an even bigger ship that cannot dock inside a station, and many people want something many times the size of a carrier. People always want what they don't have. And when they do finally have it, it's right back to asking for something even bigger because it's not actually about what is achievable.
There is no way for the developer to support that expectation.
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Yes, people always want more unless they get something better. Counter argument: 1. we already have large landing pads. 2. we already have longer ships (Beluga, Cutter etc). So a PC Mk II XL would fit in the current limitations.
Fdev did not fully deliver on the expectations. For example, the original PC in Frontier: Elite II has a payload of 2100 tons. The Mk II has only 1238 t (max). In Elite II: "Being the biggest ship currently available on the open market means it is also the slowest." The PC Mk II is much shorter than the Beluga, Cutter.
So the PC Mk II is unfortunately a short statured version which many people did not want in ED.
TLDR: people expected the biggest ship and we received a downsized version.
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2100 tons without core modules
Let that dead horse die already.
If the PC Mk II XL is the same length as a Beluga then it could be around 2000 tons.
But it isn't, so why arguing with misleading numbers from a game from 1993? The PC never had 2000 tons of usable cargo space.
No, the expectations of many were based on the legend of the original Panther Clipper that it would be the biggest ship. However, it's too short and lacks in cargo capacity. So the PC Mk II or a variant should live up to its legacy.
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