A list of (mainly) ship balance changes

clinton · Nov 20, 2017

Below I've just got a list of ship balance changes that might make some ships more useful in certain situations:

Hauler: Increase both size 3 compartments to size 4. Note that upgrading both these compartments to size 4 would cost over 60k, more than the ship itself. Also fully laden you'll need at least a B-rated FSD even to get above 10 light years, so this isn't an overpowered upgrade. But at least the Hauler will not be made obsolete by the Adder available so soon after it for new players.
Add two class one slots to the Asp Explorer and Diamondback Explorer, and one class one slot to the Asp Scout and Diamondback Scout. The intent of these slots is to be used by discovery scanners, but as they're only class 1 there's no real need to restrict them. This balances against the military slots that these ships missed out on.
Keelback: Add a second seat Have to mention #freekeely.
Type 7: Add a fighter bay and a second seat. Without navy rank, it's a long wait for fighter enabled ships from a Keelback to a Type 9. The Type 7 requires a large landing pad, it would make sense for the reason for this would be due to the inclusion of a fighter bay, not just that it was badly designed.
Type 9: Upgrade the class 2 slot to class 9, and create a class 9 cargo rack. Currently the Type 9 compares unfavorably to the Anaconda for trading, and with navy rank, both the Corvette and Cutter make better traders. This is despite it being in a similar price range, as once you've made your first 100mil the second 100mil doesn't take as long. This upgrade seems drastic, giving the Type 9 a total cargo space of 1040T. But not it's only around 250T more than the Cutter. Also, the FSD and Thrusters have not been upgraded. Fully loaded the Type 9 will take forever to get anywhere. A fully laden Type 9 even A rated won't even achieve a jump range of 10LY. Given these difficulties I think this upgrade is reasonable.

Also, simply add class 2, 4, and 6 limpet controllers, and make is so that limpet controllers have as many limpets as their class. (i.e. class 3 has 3 limpets not 2). This is a slight buff for both mining and piracy, which could use the help anyway. It also makes small ship mining builds more viable.

Wcscgw · Nov 21, 2017

These are all really great ideas! I think the size four compartments on the hauler should be reserved for cargo racks, passenger cabins, plus hull and module reinforcements though. Mainly because i don't want the hauler to have a very big shield generator.

clinton · Nov 23, 2017

tbgilje said:
These are all really great ideas!

Thanks!

tbgilje said:
I think the size four compartments on the hauler should be reserved for cargo racks, passenger cabins, plus hull and module reinforcements though. Mainly because i don't want the hauler to have a very big shield generator.

Class 2, 3 and 4 shield generators on the Hauler all have the same shield strength on the Hauler as they all have minimum mass is greater than the Hauler's hull mass. So if someone wants to put a stupidly big generator in the slot who cares it wont help their shields anyway.

I guess you could shove hull reinforcements in them but if someone is wants to spend 400k shoving hull reinforcements into a Hauler then best of luck to them.

MK Regular · Nov 23, 2017

clinton said:
I guess you could shove hull reinforcements in them but if someone is wants to spend 400k shoving hull reinforcements into a Hauler then best of luck to them.

What, no Hauler death racing?

varonica · Nov 23, 2017

Umm, cargo slots and racks are a given size, they actually take up space in the body of a ship, they aren't some sort of virtual reality construct where you can just replace a size 2 with a size 9 and not expect the size of the ship to suddenly double, because that's what would need to happen to fit a size 9 in place of a size 2.

There may be some argument possible over the layout of of the slots, but the total amount of cargo space is limited by the size and shape of the ship, not the size of the cargo racks. You could indeed combine 2 "existing" size eights into a size 9 but not magically create one where there isn't room in the ship.

Wcscgw · Nov 23, 2017

It seems that o have no idea how shields work.

Anyway, I also think sidewinder should be buffed. One of the of class 2 compartments should be upgraded to a size 3, while eagle should lose a size 1 compartment. The fact that eagle can carry more than sidewinder is weird.

varonica · Nov 23, 2017

tbgilje said:
It seems that o have no idea how shields work. Anyway, I also think sidewinder should be buffed. One of the of class 2 compartments should be upgraded to a size 3, while eagle should lose a size 1 compartment. The fact that eagle can carry more than sidewinder is weird.

So you think it's weird that a larger ship can carrying more cargo than a smaller ship? I see where you problem is now, I suggest looking up some size comparisons of ships to get a better idea of why some ships are equipped differently.

Here is one of the eagle compared to the sidewinder;

https://imgur.com/a/dkrN2#0

Note how much more depth the eagle has compared to the sidewinder, plenty of room for extra cargo, it would be silly if the sidewinder could carry more. As I said earlier, cargo space and the number of available slots are determined by the size of the ships.

Maymo · Nov 23, 2017

I’d just like to quickly throw my vote in for option 2 here!

There’s really not enough class 1 module slots among the ships , it suggests that the game doesn’t consider class 1 modules useful once you upgrade past an Eagle!

2x1 in the AspX/DBX should be mandatory to fit the roles of the ship, but I’d also like to see the class 1 slot in other ships like the Dolphin/Orca. Hell, even the Cobra3 would be much more attractive with 3x4,2x2,2x1.

It would make the ships much neater over in outfitting.

clinton · Nov 23, 2017

varonica said:
Umm, cargo slots and racks are a given size, they actually take up space in the body of a ship, they aren't some sort of virtual reality construct where you can just replace a size 2 with a size 9 and not expect the size of the ship to suddenly double, because that's what would need to happen to fit a size 9 in place of a size 2.

There may be some argument possible over the layout of of the slots, but the total amount of cargo space is limited by the size and shape of the ship, not the size of the cargo racks. You could indeed combine 2 "existing" size eights into a size 9 but not magically create one where there isn't room in the ship.

The Type 9 model has a significantly larger volume than even the Cutter, which is very narrow along much of it's length. There's plenty of room in the Type 9, particularly considering the Type 9 would have a smaller distributor, thrusters etc that leaves lots of room for cargo.

Wcscgw · Nov 23, 2017

varonica said:
So you think it's weird that a larger ship can carrying more cargo than a smaller ship? I see where you problem is now, I suggest looking up some size comparisons of ships to get a better idea of why some ships are equipped differently.

Here is one of the eagle compared to the sidewinder;

https://imgur.com/a/dkrN2#0

Note how much more depth the eagle has compared to the sidewinder, plenty of room for extra cargo, it would be silly if the sidewinder could carry more. As I said earlier, cargo space and the number of available slots are determined by the size of the ships.

I always thought eagle was much smaller. Turns out I was wrong. Thanks for clearing that up for me!