Ships any news on the Diamondback yet?

Lupis · May 21, 2015

Dread Lord said:
Good Point about the CG Discount! I will be happy if she is dropship/Clipper priced without ranking anywhere lets hope for that than...

As much as my cheap ass would gripe. I'd be okay with that.

Cosmos · May 21, 2015

Hopefully we will get to see something of it in tomorrows newsletter. Failing that Tuesday isn't far away

Varrag · May 22, 2015

himurastewie said:
The major departures would be weapon hardpoints (3M, 1L) and internals (1x C5, 4x C3, 2x C1).

I wonder how much additional jump range should I get with no weapons and empty internals. Because first thing I'm going to do is to strip it down; et voilà - there goes 'combat' from 'combat/explorer'. So at the end I'll get either something that jumps further than Asp (yay!), or not (meh).

himurastewie · May 22, 2015

Varrag said:
I wonder how much additional jump range should I get with no weapons and empty internals. Because first thing I'm going to do is to strip it down; et voilà - there goes 'combat' from 'combat/explorer'. So at the end I'll get either something that jumps further than Asp (yay!), or not (meh).

My personal idea for the ship has it basically equivalent to the Asp in all respects, except with a combat focus instead of a trade focus.

As to what FD are planning... who knows. I don't think we're going to see a ship with a longer range than the Asp or the Conda any time soon, though. There isn't much out there that needs a range beyond 40ly to reach. Having that kind of range will shorten regular journeys, of course, but I'm not sure that's high on Frontier's priority list just yet.

I would expect the dedicated explorers to be disappointed by this ship when the final details become known, if they're looking for something with a range higher than an Asp or Anaconda, but I'm willing to be wrong.

Varrag · May 22, 2015

himurastewie said:
I would expect the dedicated explorers to be disappointed by this ship when the final details become known

That's pretty much what I am expecting too.

smsKONG · May 22, 2015

Feldspar said:
Not this again... My expectations are for something equivalent to an Asp, but costing less and without the interior space, hence "cut price combat/explorer".

It wasn't 'cut price', it was 'reasonably priced'

So I'm expecting somewhere around the 15 - 20 million mark.
It all depends on what you take reasonably priced to mean.

But if you look at the range of lakon prices, cheap is 1mil and expensive is closer to 100mil.
I'd say the t7 is their reasonably priced trade ship.
So given I think the asp is a steal at 6mil I'm expecting/hoping tp be paying more than that.

As to the amount of time it takes to accrue that much money without the trade grind; it's easy to make 2mil an hour in a good RES with a vulture or asp these days - it wasn't when I was grinding for my python mind

So 15 hours for 30mil - seems reasonable to me

kafolarbear · May 22, 2015

These are my hopes for the Diamondback:
I hope that in combat that it can compete with vultures and fer de lances.
I hope that it will be able to travel heavily armed/armored in deep space.
I hope that it is good enough so that it can compete with vultures in combat as well as explore.
I hope that it has enough disadvantages so that it has character an not everyone flocks to it
I hope that it can mine but be god awful at trading to balance that out (don't know how that would work).
I hope that it won't be more than 14 mil so that after selling my 9 mil asp and profits/discounts from the wolf 409 CG I can afford it.
I hope it has at least 1 large hard point.
I hope that it is reasonably agile.
I wish (aka probably not) it would be an alliance exclusive vessel.

Anyway, this is my wishful thinking that would probably make the Diamondback seriously OP and that is specifically something I don't want to happen. What are your hopes for the Diamondback?

-CMDR Kbear

[HJ]-RedRaven · May 22, 2015

kafolarbear said:
These are my hopes for the Diamondback:
I hope that in combat that it can compete with vultures and fer de lances.
I hope that it will be able to travel heavily armed/armored in deep space.
I hope that it is good enough so that it can compete with vultures in combat as well as explore.
I hope that it has enough disadvantages so that it has character an not everyone flocks to it
I hope that it can mine but be god awful at trading to balance that out (don't know how that would work).
I hope that it won't be more than 14 mil so that after selling my 9 mil asp and profits/discounts from the wolf 409 CG I can afford it.
I hope it has at least 1 large hard point.
I hope that it is reasonably agile.
I wish (aka probably not) it would be an alliance exclusive vessel.

Anyway, this is my wishful thinking that would probably make the Diamondback seriously OP and that is specifically something I don't want to happen. What are your hopes for the Diamondback?

-CMDR Kbear

Agree, wishful thinking!

- I think the Vulture will still outgun it by a fair margin.

It will be interesting to see how it compares to an Asp, since that can mount reasonable guns and is a good explorer to boot.
I think it'll be expensive for what you actually get (especially if it does fall in the Clipper/Dropship price point at 30mil+). The Asp might have better cargo space than a Diamondback, but the DB might be more combat capable.

I'll be waiting for the Beta testers reports early next week.

kafolarbear · May 22, 2015

[HJ]-RedRaven said:
Agree, wishful thinking! - I think the Vulture will still outgun it by a fair margin.

It will be interesting to see how it compares to an Asp, since that can mount reasonable guns and is a good explorer to boot.
I think it'll be expensive for what you actually get (especially if it does fall in the Clipper/Dropship price point at 30mil+). The Asp might have better cargo space than a Diamondback, but the DB might be more combat capable.

I'll be waiting for the Beta testers reports early next week.

I just want to have a ship that I can both explore in and be viable (ugh, hate that word) in combat. I'll just be happy if I can afford it from the get go to be honest.

-CMDR Kbear

Poseidal · May 22, 2015

My prediction: Rougly Cobra/Vulture/Courier sized, but lighter (armed, payload, thrusters and armoured) than all three to get the most out of the Class 4 FSD.

kafolarbear · May 22, 2015

Poseidal said:
My prediction: Rougly Cobra/Vulture/Courier sized, but lighter (armed, payload, thrusters and armoured) than all three to get the most out of the Class 4 FSD.

To me it looks too big and mean for that price range. Though i do admit so does the vulture and courier, plus remember that a discount of about 12% is pretty small price reduction for that price range. I also think there is more of a need for a non-faction ship in the 10-20 mil price range.

-CMDR Kbear

Poseidal · May 22, 2015

kafolarbear said:
To me it looks too big and mean for that price range. Though i do admit so does the vulture and courier, plus remember that a discount of about 12% is pretty small price reduction for that price range. I also think there is more of a need for a non-faction ship in the 10-20 mil price range.

-CMDR Kbear

The canopy looked really cramped in the preview, much more than the Courier preview and other Lakons like the Asp and T6. You can also see how big the canopy is on the hull, from the concept art.

I've been wrong before, and there may be a need for non-faction ships in 10-20mil price range, but I do not think this is it.

kafolarbear · May 22, 2015

Poseidal said:
The canopy looked really cramped in the preview, much more than the Courier preview and other Lakons like the Asp and T6. You can also see how big the canopy is on the hull, from the concept art.

I've been wrong before, and there may be a need for non-faction ships in 10-20mil price range, but I do not think this is it.

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree and I still think it will be in between asp and clipper price. But I will go back and take a look at the pics again. Hopefully there will be some news of the Diamond back in today's newsletter like there was for the courier in the dev update yesterday. Also exited to see what iot looks like in game

-CMDR Kbear

Fenris Wolf · May 22, 2015

kafolarbear said:
Wow... . I never have time to play Elite for more than 6 or 7 hours a week. And have not made over 25 mil in bounties. Anyways, I apollogise for assuming that you are a trader, but certainly I can't be the only one who is stuck on the vulture/asp level and finds it frustrating that the next step requires supporting Bureaucrats or Imperialist slavers?

If you don't want to work for the Imperials or the Federation... There is a CG taking place at Wolf 406 which is in Alliance space... You could use your Asp for a 'little' bit of trading to earn some easy cash (the reward) as well as the discount on the Diamondback.

Han Brannigan · May 22, 2015

I think it will be a slightly smaller slightly cheaper Asp with better shields and better speed/maneuverability. It will not have the ASPs ample interior space though. That is a semi informed guess at best - 3 - 4 millions base price

Cosmo · May 22, 2015

We could get a sneak peek screenshot of the Diamondback today.

Leoben Capa · May 22, 2015

I think it's obvious that it won't have much cargo space. It's been called a combat-explorer. If it had the cargo space to be a decent trader that would cover all three roles and they would have just called it a multi-role ship.

xondk · May 22, 2015

From looking a the concept art, I figure it is at least a medium ship, though depending on a lot of things it could be a large?

Leoben Capa · May 22, 2015

I expect it to be roughly the size of the Vulture/Type 6 from the concept art and the cockpit mockup. Possibly slightly smaller. The cockpit does look pretty snug.

kafolarbear · May 22, 2015

Fenris Wolf said:
If you don't want to work for the Imperials or the Federation... There is a CG taking place at Wolf 406 which is in Alliance space... You could use your Asp for a 'little' bit of trading to earn some easy cash (the reward) as well as the discount on the Diamondback.

That's what I've been doing but with my type 6 as my asp is kitted for exploration. And I have my culture there for bhing the Pirates there. Atm I am top 40% in that CG.

-CMDR Kbear