We Need Ship Classes

Staarlord

S
So, after playing ED, off and on, since preview, it seems that one thing we really need in this game is ORDER! We must have ORDER! [slams down hammer]. It would seem that there is no rhyme or reason for the cost increase of various ships. In fact, you could make an end game ship out of a ship like the Vulture. Why move up? Unless, all you want to do is ferry passengers, or haul cargo? The only significant move up are the end game ships(Conda, Cutter, Corvette)...which, will be out of the range of most players who will ever play this game. So, essentially, you have a game that has ships that range from the sub-hundred thousands, to the 20 Million(and beyond) price point, with no means to justify an "upgrade" from, say, a Vulture, to a Clipper...in fact, many would suggest against it.

Look at the the Federal Gunship/ Dropship/ Assault ships and Imperial Clipper as an example. The Clipper costs more than either and, yet, would be eaten up by a Federal Ship in a contest of battle(how does this work?). Never mind that you have three different configurations for one ship, and not the other. The only one of those ships that can maybe compare to the Imperial Clipper, is, well, the Dropship...except, not really because the armor is greater on the Dropship. The role, however, is more comparable to the Clipper, but the Gunship is probably more directly related to the hull strength/ integrity of a Clipper(or some sh- like that...I might have them mixed around). Meanwhile, we have an Imperial Courier, but nothing Federal that directly relates.

I propose having multiple class ship for each major faction(Allied included) that have directly comparable ships.
We need classes(below are examples):

Fighter/ Interceptor class - Ships like the Eagle, and various Fighter oriented builds of the Cobra, Sidewinder, Viper and Imperial Courier.

Assault class - slightly heavier role fighters that sit within the Clipper, Federal Assault Ship and Python range(again, featuring specific build options of these ships that are more "Assault oriented")

Multi-Role - Vulture, ASP(things that have more than one application e.g. may be able to fight, in addition to trade and/ or explore)

Haulers - already exists

Explorer Class - Again, some of these ships may be the same, but equipped more toward exploration --bigger FSDs, better Planetary scanners etc.

Dreadnought - Cutter, Corvette, and Conda(ships that can carry multiple of their own fighters, as well as go deep space...heavily gunned).

I've been playing this game a long time, off and on, and each time I find myself blowing money on new ships for no reason and sometimes even wanting my Imperial Courier and/ or Viper back. No ship really necessarily does one thing better than the other, which makes the significantly higher cost hard to swallow, sometimes. "Why did I buy a Clipper? The Vulture was great!" I feel like you shouldn't have to ask that when you're flying a maxed out 100 million credit ship lol.

{Edit}
I do admit, though...I love how the Clipper sounds like a cross between an Imperial Shuttle, from Star Wars, and the Enterprise, from Star Trek. LoL
 
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Lanceor

Lanceor
Ships already have informal classes - we already classify certain ships as combat ships, others as explorers or transport ships. Changing the outfitting can also drastically change a ship's function - there are people who use Vultures for trading or Type 6's for exploring for example.

There's no reason to place a ship strictly in one class, because, as in real life, vehicles seldom perform only one main function.

Added: The clipper can outrun things that the Federal X-ships can't - like most ships in the game, it has a unique advantages and disdvantages over other ships with a somewhat similar role.
 
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Devari

D
Graelock said:
So, after playing ED, off and on, since preview, it seems that one thing we really need in this game is ORDER! We must have ORDER! [slams down
hammer]. It would seem that there is no rhyme or reason for the cost increase of various ships.
Click to expand...

There is a very good reason for the cost increases of the different ships. It's not linear, it's an exponential progression as you reach the limit of performance for the different ship types. It's actually very much like what you see with luxury cars where at some point the price skyrockets because of the sheer expense of the features you're buying. Is a Bugatti Veyron actually "worth" 2 million USD? That depends on how much you want to drive a car that has 1001 hp and can actually put all of that power to use. You could buy 1000 Honda Civics at $20k each for that price. A Honda Civic has around 160 hp. The Veyron doesn't have 1000X the hp of the Civic, it has around 6X the hp for 1000X the cost, but that's just how it works if you're buying the absolute top-end performance and luxury features. Price scales in a manner that simply isn't cost-effective if you're going to the absolute top-end performance ranges.

Replace Fer-de-Lance with Bugatti Veyron and Eagle with Honda Civic and you've got the same situation in Elite.

Graelock said:
In fact, you could make an end game ship out of a ship like the Vulture.
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Not really, because the FDL exists. And the FDL isn't really the "engame" combat ship because the Corvette exists. "Endgame" presumes you have reached the top of the progression curve. You can't just stop progressing and call it "endgame" any more than you can level an MMO character to 30 when the level cap is 60 and say you've decided that you're playing "endgame" content at that point.

Graelock said:
Why move up? Unless, all you want to do is ferry passengers, or haul cargo? The only significant move up are the end game ships(Conda, Cutter, Corvette)...which, will be out of the range of most players who will ever play this game. So, essentially, you have a game that has ships that range from the sub-hundred thousands, to the 20 Million(and beyond) price point, with no means to justify an "upgrade" from, say, a Vulture, to a Clipper...in fact, many would suggest against it.

Look at the the Federal Gunship/ Dropship/ Assault ships and Imperial Clipper as an example. The Clipper costs more than either and, yet, would be eaten up by a Federal Ship in a contest of battle(how does this work?). Never mind that you have three different configurations for one ship, and not the other. The only one of those ships that can maybe compare to the Imperial Clipper, is, well, the Dropship...except, not really because the armor is greater on the Dropship. The role, however, is more comparable to the Clipper, but the Gunship is probably more directly related to the hull strength/ integrity of a Clipper(or some sh- like that...I might have them mixed around). Meanwhile, we have an Imperial Courier, but nothing Federal that directly relates.
Click to expand...

Each of those ships does different things. They aren't going to be used in the same circumstances and there are many reasons to choose one ship over another. I routinely fly around a dozen different ships (Sidewinder, Viper IV, Diamondback Explorer, Vulture, Asp Scout, Asp Explorer, Python, Fer-de-Lance, Type 7, Type 9, Anaconda and Corvette). There are cases where the "best" ship might not be the best or most efficient choice for a given mission or activity.

Take the combat ships. I have a fully Engineered FDL and Corvette, but I don't use them all the time. I actually use my Engineered Vulture most often at most CGs. The lower rebuy costs and better jump range make it a good choice for CGs, plus the Vulture is quite fun to fly. Same issue if I'm running missions, I would probably go with my Diamondback Explorer or my stealth-build Asp Scout. When doing trading CGs I usually use my Type 7. If I were just interested in pure combat efficiency I'd probably go with my FDL or Corvette every time but there are many other factors to consider. To use my example above, just because you have a Veyron doesn't mean you necessarily want use it to pick up your groceries or drive off-road.

Graelock said:
I propose having multiple class ship for each major faction(Allied included) that have directly comparable ships.
We need classes(below are examples):

Fighter/ Interceptor class - Ships like the Eagle, and various Fighter oriented builds of the Cobra, Sidewinder, Viper and Imperial Courier.

Assault class - slightly heavier role fighters that sit within the Clipper, Federal Assault Ship and Python range(again, featuring specific build options of these ships that are more "Assault oriented")

Multi-Role - Vulture, ASP(things that have more than one application e.g. may be able to fight, in addition to trade and/ or explore)

Haulers - already exists

Explorer Class - Again, some of these ships may be the same, but equipped more toward exploration --bigger FSDs, better Planetary scanners etc.

Dreadnought - Cutter, Corvette, and Conda(ships that can carry multiple of their own fighters, as well as go deep space...heavily gunned).

I've been playing this game a long time, off and on, and each time I find myself blowing money on new ships for no reason and sometimes even wanting my Imperial Courier and/ or Viper back. No ship really necessarily does one thing better than the other, which makes the significantly higher cost hard to swallow, sometimes. "Why did I buy a Clipper? The Vulture was great!" I feel like you shouldn't have to ask that when you're flying a maxed out 100 million credit ship lol.

{Edit}
I do admit, though...I love how the Clipper sounds like a cross between an Imperial Shuttle, from Star Wars, and the Enterprise, from Star Trek. LoL
Click to expand...

The game already has over 30 ships, and even though some of them are upgraded versions they have sufficiently different performance to make them distinct ship types (i.e., Viper III vs. Viper IV and Cobra III vs. Cobra IV fill very different roles). What is it exactly that the game lacks in terms of ship design? It's not a RTS game where you are supposed to have reskinned versions of otherwise identical "units" on both sides for an artificial "mirrored" gameplay balance. In fact I really like how the Federal military ships have distinct advantages over the Imperial ships, it makes the designs feel consistent across manufacturers and factions. You can still use any ship you like, there are no restrictions other than needing to grind the rank and credits so it's not like you're "limited" to a small number of those ship options either. The only areas in which we could really use new ships to expand gameplay options is getting another midsized Imperial ship (ideally capable of using medium landing pads, like the FDS/FAS/FGS family) and an Alliance-specific multirole ship of some kind (again, ideally capable of using medium pads). I would hope that those ships would be new, unique designs and not just reskinned "equivalents" to existing ships. The point of new ships is to have more options, not just different cosmetics for what is otherwise a nearly-identical ship.
 
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Staarlord

S
Willa Allason said:
How is a Vulture multi-role? It's one of the most dedicated fighters in the game.
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Okay, well, first of all, I was just giving examples of classes and ships that can fit within them, while, secondly, proposing that each ship have more than one class that they are speced for....kind of like how Frontier has already pre-speced the Federal line of ships for multiple roles; gunship, dropship, assault ship....and how they will also release MKI, MKII, MKIII, or MKIV versions of various ships, which may do such things as increase/ decrease cargo capacity, while adding more maneuverability, shield strength, and changing the hardpoints from small to medium, etc. Thirdly, the Vulture(if you read the ship description in the Ship Yard), is considered a Heavy Role fighter. That fits more with the likes of a Federal assault ship...so, an Assault Class ships.

Typically, Fighters and interceptors are going to be weak/ lighter armored, with powerful weapons, where agility and speed is key to survival. In this game, a fighter is going to have strong performing lateral/ vertical thrusters that can run rings around a heavier ship, yet, should they get nailed by a heavier ship, two or three times, they are done.

To put it in layman's terms, if this were a Battlefield/ Call of Duty title, fighters/ interceptors are going to be your Recon class, while your assault class is, well, your assault class(remains the same...a little heavier equipped), and your dreadnought class are going to be more relative to your grenadier/ support class(even more heavily equipped). To put it in MMO/ RPG terms, your figher/ interceptor class is going to be your assassin/ ranger class, while your assault and dreadnought class are going to be more or less truncated into the role of a knight/ warrior(tank class). Mages are usually the third class in an MMO/ RPG, and that doesn't directly translate into this game lol...so the latter is a bad example.
 
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CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
Graelock said:
I propose having multiple class ship for each major faction(Allied included) that have directly comparable ships.
We need classes(below are examples):

Fighter/ Interceptor class - Ships like the Eagle, and various Fighter oriented builds of the Cobra, Sidewinder, Viper and Imperial Courier.

Assault class - slightly heavier role fighters that sit within the Clipper, Federal Assault Ship and Python range(again, featuring specific build options of these ships that are more "Assault oriented")

Multi-Role - Vulture, ASP(things that have more than one application e.g. may be able to fight, in addition to trade and/ or explore)

Haulers - already exists

Explorer Class - Again, some of these ships may be the same, but equipped more toward exploration --bigger FSDs, better Planetary scanners etc.

Dreadnought - Cutter, Corvette, and Conda(ships that can carry multiple of their own fighters, as well as go deep space...heavily gunned).
Click to expand...

Sounds really boring.

Directly comparable faction options is the most simplistic and dull way to design a game.
 

Devari

D
Graelock said:
To put it in layman's terms, if this were a Battlefield/ Call of Duty title, fighters/ interceptors are going to be your Recon class, while your assault class is, well, your assault class(remains the same...a little heavier equipped), and your dreadnought class are going to be more relative to your grenadier/ support class(even more heavily equipped). To put it in MMO/ RPG terms, your figher/ interceptor class is going to be your assassin/ ranger class, while your assault and dreadnought class are going to be more or less truncated into the role of a knight/ warrior(tank class). Mages are usually the third class in an MMO/ RPG, and that doesn't directly translate into this game lol...so that latter is a bad example.
Click to expand...

Elite isn't that kind of game. You have extensive customization options for each ship and that is how you "build" the ship you want to fly. That becomes even more customizable when you factor in all of the Engineering options.

Elite views ship design as something that should be adapted by players to suit their needs, not custom-built for a single gameplay style or role. If you read actual military history you'll find that is how most aircraft designs evolve. A military will initially design a single airframe for a specific role but will often adapt it for multiple roles over time (in some cases ones it was never designed to fill). If you stop thinking of ship design in Elite as part of a "game", and instead as part of the "game universe" or "setting", it will make much more sense. That's why Federal ships are angular, well-armed and maneuverable and Imperial ships are elegant and fast. The Federal ships are straight-up superior in combat because that is their focus, but the Imperial ships are faster, with longer jump ranges and make much better multi-role ships because they weren't designed to be mirror-image "equivalents" of each other. They're trying to create a setting and theme with the ships and design, not just give you a "character class" to use.
 
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