Buyers Remorse, Thy Name Is Beluga

[clivewil]

Oh, and both trips I took a single, decent paying passenger in a single luxury cabin.

for that reason alone i use an Orca - i offer an exclusive service for a single party only, or very rarely two (if their destinations coincide a bit)

i never thought about arming a Beluga. your description makes me wonder if i should buy another and give it a try.

 

[Mrat13]

Too many people think of these as Norwegian Cruise Lines sardine-cans for cramming as many people into every available space and charging a premium for enough room to change your mind.

They're not.

The Dolphin - This is a Maybach. Just a couple passengers and a whole lot of performance.

The Orca - This is a Limousine - bigger than it needs to be, look at me. You can cram a few more people in it and they'll still enjoy the ride.

The Beluga - This is a Yacht. It's massive, expensive, stylish, screams to be noticed. Sure, it has room inside, but it's not about quantity, it's about Quality.

You want a cram-packed Japanese subway style mass transit, complete with pushers to cram one more person on board, then fly an Anaconda, or a Type-7.
If you want a penthouse suite of 1500 square feet, with marble floors, down pillows, satin sheets and private cinema, then fly a Beluga.

So, does that make the type 6 a bus, and the python a ferry?

 

[GJ51]

Beluga is a luxury liner, not a slave ship, troop transport, or anything else suited to ferrying steerage passengers around.

Yeah

Great

Too bad Luxury Cabin Missions are so much like hen's teeth

Really well thought out

 

[akaliel]

Lol, some of you guys crack me up. Frontier could give u guys poop on a stick and you'd call it painite.

 

[Captain Willard]

The annie is the odd man out in every class of ships. As for luxury missions I see them all the time, sometimes two at once from the same faction. The beluga rules, out flies the annie any time any day. DEAL

 

[Schmack]

Who wants to say "I arrived here in one of the top 95% of luxury liners out there"?

No, it's "top 1%". Membership has its privileges.

The Beluga is a highly capable ship, and I've taken mine on both of my lengthy sojourns outside the bubble - the first 5200 Ly out to unlock Professor Palin. The second, 6500 Ly out to celebrate the new and improved Route Plotting with Cone Boost.

If long range travel wasn't so tedious, I'd take it to the galactic rim - that 128 ton fuel tank is impressive.

Oh, and both trips I took a single, decent paying passenger in a single luxury cabin.

Plus all the amenities for exploration, and a fighter bay.

I also use one for bounty hunting, as 5 medium hard points are no joke (I run 3 PA's and 2 beams).

Even as a mining ship it's quite capable, being incredibly nimble for such a large ship.

I think where the real issue lies is in expectations.

Too many people think of these as Norwegian Cruise Lines sardine-cans for cramming as many people into every available space and charging a premium for enough room to change your mind.

They're not.

The Dolphin - This is a Maybach. Just a couple passengers and a whole lot of performance.

The Orca - This is a Limousine - bigger than it needs to be, look at me. You can cram a few more people in it and they'll still enjoy the ride.

The Beluga - This is a Yacht. It's massive, expensive, stylish, screams to be noticed. Sure, it has room inside, but it's not about quantity, it's about Quality.

You want a cram-packed Japanese subway style mass transit, complete with pushers to cram one more person on board, then fly an Anaconda, or a Type-7.
If you want a penthouse suite of 1500 square feet, with marble floors, down pillows, satin sheets and private cinema, then fly a Beluga.

So that's what's floating around after I destroy one. Are those mats any good?

 

[Vasious]

Why pick a Beluga over an Orca when outfitting with luxury cabins, especially if for sightseeing missions?

You dont, let the Orca do the sightseeing

With the new increased number of missions, put a Class 6 Luxury Cabin for Transport missions in the Beluga and fill the rest with the Politicians and Business people with similar transport needs and you are just doing short hops about.
The Luxury cabin passenger provide the bulk of the fare and drive your destinations then the rest pad out your profit.

You don't need A rated anything so see a quicker return on investmemt

 

[Araviel]

I decided to do something different and i have no regrets, my Beluga is hunting THARGOIDS!

with 5 medium hardpoints, good agility, fighter bay and a decent chunk of armor i have to say that it performs this task very well.

 

[bubbabenali]

Beluga is a luxury liner, not a slave ship, troop transport, or anything else suited to ferrying steerage passengers around.

And yet you fit it with the same business class cabins as you'd do with the Conda...

 

[jonesskill]

I decided to do something different and i have no regrets, my Beluga is hunting THARGOIDS!

with 5 medium hardpoints, good agility, fighter bay and a decent chunk of armor i have to say that it performs this task very well.

I think you are a NPC!

Agility in conda, beluga and cutter i only see when i'ts a NPC flying, they turn that ships like if they are flying in a Courrier.

 

[Teh Smoo]

Lol, some of you guys crack me up. Frontier could give u guys poop on a stick and you'd call it painite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

People get on a hype train, and put hundreds (or even thousands of dollars, see: SC) into a game before it even launches.

Then the game launches. These players are never getting that money back, obviously. Some of them really love it, others find it not quite worth the money. Some, find it not worth the money, but cannot accept the fact, so they convince themselves the game is good.

You see it with a lot of crowdfunds, and I'm predicting this in a MASSIVE way with Star Citizen, as nothing can possibly live up to hype that pushed people into dropping thousands on ships. We'll see people who would rather die than admit the game isn't solid gold, and will shout down any differing opinion.

ED... I think it happens here too. People have lots of hours and/or lots of money in, and they have to convince themselves that watching distance tick down in supercruise is gripping gameplay, lest that money/time be wasted.

 

[Globusdiablo]

Spoiler

 

[CMDR Brock Samson]

...now if only the Dolphin/Orca/Beluga Luxury Cabins made any sense and gave that exclusive Premium to separate these Ships from the other Multirole Ships outclassing them in almost every single aspect

Oh wait, that was suggested a long time ago. Never mind.

PS.
To me, it never made any sense that rich VIPs or important Politicians would trust their trips even to a rusty and poorly maintained Type-6.
That's like paying Millions for an exclusive Cruise trip - and then boarding a 30 year old bulk Container vessel.

This guy gets it.FD doesn't.

 

[Tesla3E]

Do luxury cabin missions pay out much better than first class missions?
I did lots of passenger missions in an Anaconda and didn't notice at the time.

 

[Phil JMac]

You do realize you're comparing an non-pressurized aquatic vessel to a pressurized space vessel, right?! Those are two COMPLETELY different vehicles.

The Disney Dream can use most of the floor space to devote to passengers, crews, shops, restaurants, etc. since it doesn't have to have pressurized cabins or hull. Whereas the "spaceship" passenger liners needs a pressurized cabin(s)/hull so you lose A LOT of floor space to properly pressurize the cabin(s) so your passengers don't suffocate in the void. Also might I mention all of the high tech sensors/scanners, engines, thrusters, weapons, shields, life support, docking computer, cargo racks, etc. your spaceship and/or you need to function.

Has anybody tried outfitting the Disney Dream for combat?

 

[Old Duck]

You do realize you're comparing an non-pressurized aquatic vessel to a pressurized space vessel, right?! Those are two COMPLETELY different vehicles.

The Disney Dream can use most of the floor space to devote to passengers, crews, shops, restaurants, etc. since it doesn't have to have pressurized cabins or hull. Whereas the "spaceship" passenger liners needs a pressurized cabin(s)/hull so you lose A LOT of floor space to properly pressurize the cabin(s) so your passengers don't suffocate in the void. Also might I mention all of the high tech sensors/scanners, engines, thrusters, weapons, shields, life support, docking computer, cargo racks, etc. your spaceship and/or you need to function.

Pressurized cabins don't take up over 3000 passengers worth of space. Have you ever flown on a commercial jet before? Or how about live on a modern submarine? The crew complement of a Navy attack submarine, which is substantially smaller than a Beluga, is not much less than the 148 passengers that akaliel says the Beluga is limited to. And this is using 2017 technology, not advanced 3303 tech.

Granted, we're all packed in like sardines on a Navy submarine, but Akaliel makes a very good point - the numbers for the Beluga don't make sense, unless everyone gets a small house for a cabin.

 

[Kuroshio]

Ignoring the never-ending annoyance the Anaconda's hull mass provides, yeah, the Annie wins on pure cabin space. If you intelligently run bubble tourism missions, however, that advantage shrinks to the point where the Beluga's massively more comfortable flight characteristics come into play. Compare these two (very rough, I tried to keep them as close to each other as possible):

Beluga: https://eddp.co/u/gcVxdrEL
Anaconda: https://eddp.co/u/d1RJYgme

The internals are chosen to take the highest paying bubble tourism mission you can find, add more with relatively close (or better, the same) destination until the board dries up, and fill the rest with one-way VIP transports. Makes 50-75 MCr/h. The Annie still wins on range - though not by much - but to get the same kind of endurance out of it, you need to put an extra fuel tank in it. That is a slot lost, and the funny thing is, an engineered Beluga doesn't even need a scoop for most bubble tourism missions. Even if you go further, the undersized scoop is enough to occasionally fill the tank up a little while skimming towards the next jump.

Add to that that you can fit luxury cabins, higher speeds, lower costs and, most importantly a whole lot more maneuverability both in realspace and in supercruise (which makes quite a difference turning towards the next destination, getting out of gravity wells and the likes), and I'll take the Beluga over the anorectic Annie any day.

 

[mbar]

Yes, the Anaconda is better for economy, business, and first class passengers. However, it cannot be equipped with luxury cabins.

The luxury cabin niche is small, but that's the niche the passenger liner type vessels have.

^This and really the Beluga is not so bad. It maneuvers better and has better speed than an anaconda. The Beluga will never be a tank but it can stack and move passengers without equal.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

First class is for working peons. The upper crust demand luxury cabins which the Beluga can use. That the Beluga majestically hogs the entire mailslot is a feature, not a bug. It's bout swag projection.

Yes, and because of this feature, and stupid NPC captains getting in the way of my Cutter/Anaconda/Corvette - coming in as I'm going out (they have twice as much time!), I often go to tourist sites in Anarchy systems in my Anaconda and blow multiple Belugas (still NPCs) out of the sky! Have a majestic rebuy!

 

[akaliel]

Pressurized cabins don't take up over 3000 passengers worth of space. Have you ever flown on a commercial jet before? Or how about live on a modern submarine? The crew complement of a Navy attack submarine, which is substantially smaller than a Beluga, is not much less than the 148 passengers that akaliel says the Beluga is limited to. And this is using 2017 technology, not advanced 3303 tech.

Granted, we're all packed in like sardines on a Navy submarine, but Akaliel makes a very good point - the numbers for the Beluga don't make sense, unless everyone gets a small house for a cabin.

Exactly, not to mention that the engineering required to keep a vessel intact and the crew safe at 1500 feet beneath sea level is far more difficult than a space vessel from the vacuum of space. The pressure in space is about equal to 34 feet of water. And we already have the materials and lubricants that can operate in the temperatures of deep space in today's time. You guys can't just admit that as far as "realistic simulations" go, it doesn't add up?

The only reason someone should spend the money on a Beluga is because they're rich and wanna role play the cruise ship. But you'll probably never take enough Luxury specific missions to make up the cost. Because Luxury missions don't pay that much better than the others, if they pay better at all. I'm not convinced they do. I've seen plenty of sightseeing missions in the 5-10m range that need only business or economy. And the 20+ aid worker to long ls missions still pay decent post nerf and they've only required the crappy cabin.