Are the ships we buy really supposed to be new?
- Thread starter GunnerBill
- Start date
All the ships are supposed to be second hand, at one point there was a thread running in the DDF that was positing unique quirks and foibles being part of all ships, due to age, repairs, modifications over the years etc.
i think that's possibly where the idea for engineers originated, while supposed to encourage individuality within the game all that happens is players use the meta game to min/max their stats, personally i would have preferred to have several ships of your chosen type available in the shipyard when making your purchase, all with slightly different stats and bonuses/weaknesses, the bigger more popular stations would have had more choice (and possibly better ships) than the smaller, more out of the way places, although you may still have been able to turn up a little gem of a ship by chance.
You could have a ship that had issues with hard point deployment for instance, maybe took twice as long to deploy weapons due to ageing circuitry but that same old and bodged circuitry somehow was improving the target lock for gimbaled weapons, or a ship that had a fault with it's thrust vectoring so it turned slower to port than normal but could turn much harder to starboard, or maybe the ship had iffy power supply cables to an optional module slot so that occasionally that module would switch off by itself but it also gave you an extra 5% power from your powerplant.
There are hundreds of small variations that wouldn't have made a huge difference from a gaming point of view but would make your ship FEEL unique to you.
The falcon is one of (if not the most) popular ships in scifi and it's mani charm is the fact that it's not perfect but to make up for its reliability issues it's FAST, carrying those kinds of ideas into this game were promised, instead they got dropped and we got CQC, Powerplay and engineers.....
i think that's possibly where the idea for engineers originated, while supposed to encourage individuality within the game all that happens is players use the meta game to min/max their stats, personally i would have preferred to have several ships of your chosen type available in the shipyard when making your purchase, all with slightly different stats and bonuses/weaknesses, the bigger more popular stations would have had more choice (and possibly better ships) than the smaller, more out of the way places, although you may still have been able to turn up a little gem of a ship by chance.
You could have a ship that had issues with hard point deployment for instance, maybe took twice as long to deploy weapons due to ageing circuitry but that same old and bodged circuitry somehow was improving the target lock for gimbaled weapons, or a ship that had a fault with it's thrust vectoring so it turned slower to port than normal but could turn much harder to starboard, or maybe the ship had iffy power supply cables to an optional module slot so that occasionally that module would switch off by itself but it also gave you an extra 5% power from your powerplant.
There are hundreds of small variations that wouldn't have made a huge difference from a gaming point of view but would make your ship FEEL unique to you.
The falcon is one of (if not the most) popular ships in scifi and it's mani charm is the fact that it's not perfect but to make up for its reliability issues it's FAST, carrying those kinds of ideas into this game were promised, instead they got dropped and we got CQC, Powerplay and engineers.....
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I think that the ships are textured with some wear so that they won’t appear to be new forever.
Lacking a way to have the interiors actually degrade over time, it makes more sense to “pre-use” them. Otherwise we’d have the even stranger situation of well-used ships appearing new and untouched.
It’s just a design choice.
Lacking a way to have the interiors actually degrade over time, it makes more sense to “pre-use” them. Otherwise we’d have the even stranger situation of well-used ships appearing new and untouched.
It’s just a design choice.
But then that feeling of wonder as you peel off the film to reveal a brand new screen!!
Sooooo shiny and smooooooth.
Depends, it might be that there has been technological stagnation for some reason, or that something /one has been holding back development.
Tankyiness has no meaning in space.
Of course aesthetics, as far as people are concerned will always be important, hence Gutamaya.
But with the rate of ship destruction in game new ships will be made but to old templates? Unless ED is set in a particulalry tempestuous time and there are plenty of unused airframes just lying around.
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You'd be surprised at how old some vehicles in current use are. Examples of lifespans even now with our current technological level:
https://www.travelpulse.com/news/impacting-travel/how-old-is-too-old-for-a-commercial-airplane.html
Excerpt:
"While the average age of a U.S. domestic commercial airliner is 11 years old, it is not uncommon for aircraft to still be in service at 24, 25, even 30 years old. 'Twenty-four is not terribly old for an aircraft,' Bill de Decker, chairman of Texas-based Conklin & de Decker Aviation"
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refueling_and_overhaul#Refueling_and_Complex_Overhaul
...where they mention that aircraft carriers are built with an aim for a 50-year lifespan.
1300 years from now I'm pretty sure our methods of construction and materials available would mean vessels that last a very, very long time.
But then that feeling of wonder as you peel off the film to reveal a brand new screen!!
Sooooo shiny and smooooooth.
Now I so desperately want to peel the protective film off the cockpit glass on my Asp.
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Space shuttle Atlantis was built in 1985 and it flew the last ever shuttle mission in 2011, much like planes and ships, large, expensive vehicles will be kept in service as long as possible, aside from any safety or efficiency considerations as long as spare parts are available it's pretty much always going to be cheaper to maintain an existing ship than build a new one.
Can you see the little tab in the corner? It's singing to you... "peel me please, peel me, peel me!"
I peeled off the protective film on my vulture...
And there was nothing underneath...
Ah yeah well the Vulture canopy is rather "chocolaty".
I've long assumed most of my ships are used ships in one form or another. In my character's backstory, her Cobra Mk III, Slave of the Empire, was previously owned by the Commander she apprenticed with, as a gift when he retired (at the ripe old age of 120) to celebrate the end of her term as an Imperial Slave. He bought it when he was 20, and it cost her quite a bit to retrofit it to equip a modern FSD.
This is a very interesting topic ... thanks OP. But though the plans for the ships are years old unless they are out of production, do we assume no new ones are made? I'm not apposed to look of the ships being a bit, er, jury rigged. But some may desire shinny and new. So? Well a well kept classic car IS shinny and may look new. It isn't, of course.
As to the purchase of ships in different states of business of or repair I am afraid we'll need a whole new design section similar to our custom pilots. Which though it may seem interesting, detracts, in my opinion, from other parts of the game.
How about ships consificated or sold in C & C? Couldthese super devils be rebought? Someone else's reengineered wonder? Probably not.
In Cliffs of Dover, only as example, we have sliders to choose a nice shiny new look or weathered look. We have similar, paint determination in ED. But the one thing that can not be replicated except via sound ambient Sis the creeks and sounds a ship makes as you work it. In CloDyou have these sounds of metal warping in a tight turn. Do we have this here in ED?
The feel is what we'll not experience in any of them. Not even with a Butt Kicker chair.
Chief
There are probably tons of ships still equipped with the older 2B hyperdrive, that have yet to be refitted with the modern FSD. It's part of my headcanon that many of these ships are still in service, which justifies some of the obscenely high mission payouts.
Hahaha, I love it when that happens! [squeeeee]