Why must combat ships have terrible range?

[KayAitch]

TL;DR: Combat ships have rubbish range by design, why?

High end combat ships have terrible range, not just a little low, but almost unworkable. For instance the maximum total range of an A-spec Fer de Lance is 33LY (3x 11LY jumps), about the same as what an exploration ship (Asp, Diamondback or Anaconda) can do in a single jump (with plenty of fuel left for more). The Federal Corvette has a similar problem. These combat ships already have very few internals relative to similar ships of their size and cost.

In addition most routes across occupied space have at least 12-13LY gap in there, resulting in these 11LY ships having to travel much longer circuitous routes.

Why? This is clearly by design - Frontier want egregiously poor range to be a defining characteristic of fighting ships, but what's the thinking behind that?

I think I understand with the Viper. It was an in-system police ship in the original game and it's designed for local law enforcement, not ranging travel. However, the Federal Corvette is the pride of the Federal fleet, piloted by a Rear Admiral, and it's stuck at home. Why?

I'm not saying these ships should have amazing range (though there is a big hole in the ship line up for any kind of long range combat ship) - just not so awful. If the FDL had a 14-15LY jump range and fuel for 6 jumps it would still be no kind of explorer or trader, but at least you could travel to a CG or go on a basic 15LY mission without stopping to refuel. Same again with the FC.

In Elite: Frontier these ships could be fitted with Military Drives, significantly increasing their range, but requiring permits to buy, being significantly more expensive and producing toxic waste on each jump. Is something like that planned?

Jump boost synthesis does not work for these ships - nobody is going to go exploring planet-side for hours in a Federal Corvette to get materials to make a few jumps.

So, why do the devs deliberately make combat ships have such poor range?

 

[two quiet suns]

balancing. you cant have a one ship beats them all otherwise the game would be unfairly weighted.

 

[Cynaqq]

One simple reason is to give other ships a chance to escape if they don't want to be killed by a dedicated combat ship. While this could be achieved by a short jump range without the total range limitation but it kind of goes hand in hand.

 

[KayAitch]

balancing. you cant have a one ship beats them all otherwise the game would be unfairly weighted.

Ok. Take any combat ship and try trading in it. Try smuggling. Try mining. These are dedicated combat only ships with little flexibility. They'd be balanced even with slightly more range. Compare what you can do in the Cutter vs the Corvette - even with a little more range the Cutter wins for everything except combat.

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One simple reason is to give other ships a chance to escape if they don't want to be killed by a dedicated combat ship. While this could be achieved by a short jump range without the total range limitation but it kind of goes hand in hand.

Surely that would be an argument for a bounty hunter to have great range? In any case combat very rarely crosses systems, though I love the idea of pursuing someone across the galaxy.

 

[Drunk Si]

I think the FDL could have done with a bit more jump range. How can you have a "luxury" bounty hunting ship that has such poor range that you have to laboriously limp your way across the galaxy any time you want to go somewhere? Where's the luxury in that?

Especially if proper bounty hunting is ever introduced to the game as opposed to res farming; if you needed to chase a target across the galaxy jump range could be quite important and while I can understand cheaper combat ships lacking jump range (potentially making multi role vessels a better choice to run a target down over long distance) you'd think a luxury ship for bounty hunters would do the job.

 

[Laste]

It goes with what it seems to be in real life.Most combat planes are short range with in air fuel ups, or being stationed near their operations or on carriers.

 

[stridecolossus]

Not this again.

Why do trading ships have such poor agility?

Why can't I have a mining ship with the best guns, maximum jump range, largest cargo capacity, the most utility mounts...?

Balance.

 

[AJW]

Ok. Take any combat ship and try trading in it. Try smuggling. Try mining. These are dedicated combat only ships with little flexibility. They'd be balanced even with slightly more range. Compare what you can do in the Cutter vs the Corvette - even with a little more range the Cutter wins for everything except combat.

Yup. You get what you pay for - a dedicated combat ship. If you want to trade, buy something more suitable. Adding range and cargo capability to 'balance' combat ships would remove the need for other ships entirely, and everyone would end up flying the same thing. Boring.

 

[Macy]

Probably so players buy and own multiple ships. If my Vulture had a huge jump range I wouldn't bother with any other ship.

 

[Shanaeri]

Balance has nothing to do with it, neither does people wanting to escape. Jump range has nothing to do with how good a ship is in combat, and escaping someone is so easy (jump, drop out of SC, jump) the range is irrelevant.

It's easy to understand why FD don't want a god ship that will do everything, but as stated above combat ships make poor traders, smugglers etc so the reason for combat ships needing short jump ranges I don't buy either.

Maybe short range is designed to direct us to buy more ships because it's such a PITA to move them about? That seems a churlish game design decision to me. it's like making a motorway 1 lane just to 'persuade' drivers to take the bus... oh wait...

Also FD have said they don't want people to just own one ship, that's great and all but would it really stop us buying traders, smugglers, dedicated explorers and the like if say the FDL had a 20ly jump range or the corvette 25? I don't think so.

Another reason could be, that often increasing travel time is a useful tool for making the game environment seem larger than it is. well ED doesn't have that problem, so I don't buy that either

The real answer is, Frontier have decided that's the way it is and that's the way it will always be. It joins gender specific ranks as one of the inexplicably fixed 'we wont change' things

 

[KayAitch]

It goes with what it seems to be in real life.Most combat planes are short range with in air fuel ups, or being stationed near their operations or on carriers.

In real life there are many combat planes designed for very long range. The ones with very short range are designed for defence rather than attack, like the Viper.

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Yup. You get what you pay for - a dedicated combat ship. If you want to trade, buy something more suitable. Adding range and cargo capability to 'balance' combat ships would remove the need for other ships entirely, and everyone would end up flying the same thing. Boring.

Who said anything about adding cargo? Combat ships have rubbish internals, that makes total sense. You can't trade in them. In fact they should probably have limits on the largest bays (like the Orca, only the other way) so they can't put cargo in those slots.

One not arguing that they should have great range, although even one long range combat ship would be a really valuable addition to the roster. I'm saying that the range should be reasonable, a little poor. 11LY sticks a ship to the system where it's bought.

 

[Certacito]

I see some of the reasoning here and I understand the original point of the post, I am under no illusion that buying a Corvette is going to be a great idea for an all rounder as it has been clearly stated to be a combat ship. However, the corvette does absolutely need a slightly higher jump range, not a massive boost but a slight one for the following reason. When we get to dock smaller fighters in there, why would you need a combat ship that can carry a fighter that has a higher jump range than the mother ship? To use the reasoning above, a modern fighter stays near its intended theatre or floats on an aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier has a great range hence it is the mobile airfield, but it can still defend itself from attack and whilst not a dedicated combat ship, it does what the large ships are hopefully going to be capable off at some point this season. So in short, a small to modest increase in jump range I think is needed and warranted for the Corvette.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

I definitly would love to see a long-range figther and I stated so in several threads already. A range of about 33-35 lys would be adequate, I think.

I would happily sacrifice boost/top speed as well as hull-tankieness and (to a smaller extend) firepower and maneuverability to this goal. And I would be willing to pay twice the usual price for its class.

--

In regards to the already available combat ships, I always hoped that FD would revive the classic 'military spec equipment' (power plants, jump drives, maybe thrusters) at some point (see my sig).

However, after the most recent SCB rebalance, the advantages of multi-role ships over dedicated figthers are evened out a bit and I am not sure, if something like this is still pending.

 

[Troubletcat]

I think fully outfitted combat ships except for the smallest (eagle, viper) should be capable of ~20LY jump range. It's incredibly painful going across the bubble to get to the next CG or meet up with friends or... well, there are lots of reasons to travel far... unless you have 19-20LY jump range.

This would still mean that multi-roles and (unladen) traders would out-jump them considerably. They still wouldn't be viable as traders or miners due to the lack of internals for the cost or as explorers because of the lack of internals combined with the still fairly small jump range for the cost. The Vulture for example would still be useless for anything but combat compared to other ships in its price range even if it could jump 20LY when fully equipped rather than 15ish.

The ONLY problem I can see is that it makes it easier to chase laden traders that high-wake away.

I'm not sure that's actually a big deal. It's not like PvP piracy is a super-profitable profession...

 

[SpitTheDog]

I definitly would love to see a long-range figther and I stated so in several threads already. A range of about 33-35 lys would be adequate, I think.

I would happily sacrifice boost/top speed as well as hull-tankieness and (to a smaller extend) firepower and maneuverability to this goal.

Longer range
Slightly less firepower
Lower agility

Sounds like you want the Asp. Massive range. Lots of hardpoints (but smaller), weaker hull but lots of module slots for boosting and strengthening.

Do you really mean you want longer range variants of the same ships? In that case the only balance would be the power plant so that if you wanted the range you would have to sacrifice the power for shields/weapons. While that migth do it we'd just have people complaining about poor ship designs again.

 

[KayAitch]

Longer range
Slightly less firepower
Lower agility

Sounds like you want the Asp. Massive range. Lots of hardpoints (but smaller), weaker hull but lots of module slots for boosting and strengthening.

Do you really mean you want longer range variants of the same ships? In that case the only balance would be the power plant so that if you wanted the range you would have to sacrifice the power for shields/weapons. While that migth do it we'd just have people complaining about poor ship designs again.

The Asp is not remotely a combat ship. It's a long ranger explorer/smuggler. Despite that it's the most used ship in the game.

The equivalent combat ship would be awesome, but nothing like that exists in any tier.

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Also FD have said they don't want people to just own one ship, that's great and all but would it really stop us buying traders, smugglers, dedicated explorers and the like if say the FDL had a 20ly jump range or the corvette 25? I don't think so.

Did you read my post? A 25LY long range combat ship would be awesome, but that's not what I'm talking about. 11LY is painfully low. Combat ships should have 15LY or so.

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Probably so players buy and own multiple ships. If my Vulture had a huge jump range I wouldn't bother with any other ship.

I own 12 ships or so, that's not my point. I'm happy jumping into my Asp for a smuggling run, but I don't want to take my Asp undermining or to a bounty hunting CG - for that I want to pick up my Fer de Lance. Only it will take me hours to take that thing anywhere - with 3x 11LY jumps it's pretty much trapped where I bought it.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Sounds like you want the Asp. Massive range. Lots of hardpoints (but smaller), weaker hull but lots of module slots for boosting and strengthening.

Nope, I definitely don't mean the Asp!

With "less firepower", I mean a Python-class ship with 2L/3M instead of 3L/2M (or something alike, this is really just an example ** ), not a pitiable 2M/4S.
The Asp is a multi-role ship with all its adavantages (abundant internals, ...) and disadvantages (including shape, ...).
I would love to fly a dedicated long-rang fighter!

Edit:
** ... and a bad one, I guess, as the Phyton is a multi-role ship itself. i should have taken a dedicated fighter.

 

[Troa Barton]

Not this again.

Why do trading ships have such poor agility?

Why can't I have a mining ship with the best guns, maximum jump range, largest cargo capacity, the most utility mounts...?

Balance.

Cough* Anaconda Cough*

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

As an FDL owner, I have become accustomed to never leaving home without a fuel scoop. Lol
While I'm totally fine with my ships 12ly jump range, its lack of fuel capacity is kind of annoying.
With fastest route enabled I can only get 2-4 jumps out of it Max.

A larger fuel tank wouldn't unbalance the ship, but rather just make it less annoying to fly about. Lol
All multirole ships would still outrun it by miles(LYs).

I do like the idea of different versions of modules, each with their own ups and downs. Such as Standard, Light, Military, Prototype.
As far as FSDs go, Standard Class would be what we all currently use. All-rounder.
Light Class would be geared to explorers and traders. Longest jump range, but best fuel economy, but the weakest when under attack. Similar price to Standard. Easily mass locked.
Military would be heavy, very resistant to damage, still a good jump range, but not as good as light, but much more expensive. Also less effected by mass lock. But only available if you have a military rank.
Prototype would be like standard, but all round better. But very expensive and rare.

The same system could be applied to all modules, thrusters, hull, sensors, PPs and power distributors etc.

 

[KayAitch]

Cough* Anaconda Cough*

Yes, the Anaconda is rather overpowered - clearly the best ship in the game at everything. The Corvette just beats it in combat but sacrifices everything and gets terrible range to do so and the Cutter just beats it at trade, but still gets ok range.

Why does the Corvette have to give up more than the Cutter?