So what kind of small thruster buff can we expect?

WR3ND

WR3ND
Word on the street is that we'll be getting a thruster buff for the small thrusters on small ships, which I think sounds awesome. Anything that gets me back into an Eagle more often is a good thing. It's my favorite ship to pilot, but otherwise it's one of the least effective ships in the game.

If the Eagle and Sidewinder now have a chance in the speed department against many of the decked out ships such as Vultures and Fer-de-Lances in terms of outrunning them and escaping, beyond making them a viable option in certain scenarios and play styles for advanced players, I think it'll go a long way toward helping out newbies too, especially with the purported enhancements to AI that'll come with 2.1 Engineers.

But more importantly... how awesome is it going to be to pilot an Eagle?! [yesnod]
 

goemon

goemon
WR3ND said:
Word on the street is that we'll be getting a thruster buff for the small thrusters on small ships, which I think sounds awesome. Anything that gets me back into an Eagle more often is a good thing. It's my favorite ship to pilot, but otherwise it's one of the least effective ships in the game.

If the Eagle and Sidewinder now have a chance in the speed department against many of the decked out ships such as Vultures and Fer-de-Lances in terms of outrunning them and escaping, beyond making them a viable option in certain scenarios and play styles for advanced players, I think it'll go a long way toward helping out newbies too, especially with the purported enhancements to AI that'll come with 2.1 Engineers.

But more importantly... how awesome is it going to be to pilot an Eagle?! [yesnod]
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what i picked up from several threads: the new thruster will change the top (boost?) speed of those small ships. there was a mentioning of the sidey getting to fast :)

concerning "efficiency" - if you check out the BGS thread, at least if you want to back a minor faction, you can do this as efficient with an eagle as with a corvette: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=193064

eagle is great! i prefer a lightweight courier, though. really happy about the thruster upgrade o7
 

Barking_Mad

Barking_Mad
Im crap at combat, but in the past Ive found a perverse pleasure in going into a combat zone in a decked out Sidewinder and taking big ships on. Im looking forward to my new Speedwinder.
 

CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
Keep in mind that it appears to be not a "buff" to existing thrusters, but a new part entirely, like bi-weave shields. Given that it's supposed to be much higher-performing, I am personally expecting it to also consume a lot more power.
 

WR3ND

WR3ND
CMDR Corlas said:
Keep in mind that it appears to be not a "buff" to existing thrusters, but a new part entirely, like bi-weave shields. Given that it's supposed to be much higher-performing, I am personally expecting it to also consume a lot more power.
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Ah, OK. Still sounds pretty good, so long as power requirements aren't too prohibitive.
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
I'm really hoping it makes the smaller ships very quick like they should be. Ships like the Eagle should be the quickest in the game, fast, hit and run ships. I also think it will make ground attacks much more exciting if you can really zip along at top speed.
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
These small ships needed a speed balance for a long time. And with the addition of GIMBALED huge weapons with a high firing rate, it's going to be open season on small ships even with the speed boost.

As for the degree of the speed boost, we'll know soon enough. They said these thrusters would cost millions of credits. Which is several hundred times more than the base ships, and more at least 10 times the cost of current small ship thrusters.

In other words, this is very likely to be a pure upgrade with little to no downsides. In the devs own words "this is the ultimate upgrade for these small ships".
 

fourty6to3

fourty6to3
I don't care about top speed as much as I do maneuverability/acceleration. If the smaller ships can finally outrun the turret/gimbal tracking speed of instant hit laser weapons then they will be a hell of a lot more useful and fun to fly.
 

Mephane

Mephane
CMDR Corlas said:
Keep in mind that it appears to be not a "buff" to existing thrusters, but a new part entirely, like bi-weave shields. Given that it's supposed to be much higher-performing, I am personally expecting it to also consume a lot more power.
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Well then it wouldn't really be a buff to these ships. They are all power-starved as is.
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
Speeding up the boost speed max and time the boost is active i guess,
that still doesn't touch the problem of increasing hitpoints on ships and
the lack of firepower on small ships.
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
Julio Montega said:
Speeding up the boost speed max and time the boost is active i guess,
that still doesn't touch the problem of increasing hitpoints on ships and
the lack of firepower on small ships.
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Small ships can stack quite enough HRPs and armor, and their weapons hit plenty hard en masse.

The two biggest issues with small ships are

1) under powered thrusters
2) low power distribution

These make the hit points seem a lot smaller than their hit box would suggest. And hit a lot softer due to long recharge times on weapons.
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
Ziljan said:
Small ships can stack quite enough HRPs and armor, and their weapons hit plenty hard en masse.

The two biggest issues with small ships are

1) under powered thrusters
2) low power distribution

These make the hit points seem a lot smaller than their hit box would suggest. And hit a lot softer due to long recharge times on weapons.
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En masse, quite the point.
So what good is pilot skill, when you cannot even tickle down a targets shields due to
added hitpoint-modules?
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
HRPs increase hull armor not shields. And even fixed pulse lasers do more MJ/s damage faster than the biggest power distributor can regen. So eveeeentttuuuuuuaaaalllyyy the shields will drop.

So whittle away my piratey friend.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
This boost will mean you can't be lazy with gimballed or turrets- you will have to lead the target more to assist tracking. Not so bad for maneuverable ships like the FAS, dangerous for the Anaconda and lethal for T-9 or Cutters.
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
Ziljan said:
HRPs increase hull armor not shields. And even fixed pulse lasers do more MJ/s damage faster than the biggest power distributor can regen. So eveeeentttuuuuuuaaaalllyyy the shields will drop.

So whittle away my piratey friend.
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I generally welcome an increase in thrust and maybe some slight maneuverability to certain lighter ships,
at last that is what they were built for, interdiction, small scale combat and harassment.

But factoring in defense increases you have to agree, that piloting a small ship,
even after speed boost is punishing.
A single error is gonna take the toll on you, larger ships previously already were way more forgiving,
but now we have the point of "facetanking" while backpeddling without the necessity to think prior to engagement.
 
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CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
Mephane said:
Well then it wouldn't really be a buff to these ships. They are all power-starved as is.
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I don't really think so. Even with a Viper III, I have plenty of excess power (sometimes even downgrade the powerplant); you just can't shield tank 'em strap power-hungry weapons everywhere, which is just fine generally if you arm them according to what the distributor can handle.

As is, you can already often dodge turret fire, railguns, and even some gimballing in a small ships, so I'm really excited to see what they can do with better engines. I have my Viper III, Eagle, and Sidewinder ready and waiting. :)
 
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